Slashdot Mirror
UK Recording Industry Wants Allofmp3 An Issue at G8
alveraan writes "According to a the BBC, 'the UK recording industry is urging the foreign secretary to raise the issue of Russian bargain music download website allofmp3.com at the G8 summit'. British Phonographic Industry (BPI) chairman Peter Jamieson wants Margaret Beckett to 'urge the Russian government to take action against the operators of the site by insisting that it is removed from the internet'. Allofmp3 has insisted in the past that it is operating in compliance with Russian copyright laws."
Seriously. Even wanting to bitch about piracy there and now is disgraceful when there are more important things at hand.
I can see the RIAA drooling over this event.
With the UKRI pushing their agenda in allofmp3.com's backyard, at a conference of international powers, this becomes an international issue.
Whatever happens there is likely to serve as some sort of moral precedence and influence legislators in the US as well.
Falun Dafa is good!
Somehow I think this is a little too low-level to come up at a summit like this.
But I'm sure it makes great press for the British recording association to push at their membership to show why they're paying them dues...
Yes, this is why our leaders have summit meetings these days. To protect the interests of the rich bastards that finance their campaigns. Somebody hurry up and get a Pirate Party up and running. Oh right, there's no such thing as proportional representation in most places. Wonderful.
Come on, if they had some shame, they'd couldn't live with themselves. Their whole business model is basically to leech as much cash as they can off the works of people who are more creative than they could dream of being, and if this involves exploiting those same people and removing their rights to their own creations, they have no problems with that. They'd screw their grandmothers for an extra nickle.
As far as they're concerned this is one of the most important things in the world...someone is impinging on their leeching! Their blind, rapacious greed is the overriding impulse in their miserable lives.
Nothing would suprise me, coming from them. I literally can't imagine a depth that they wouldn't sink to, given the opportunity.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
When eastern Europe, India and China provide replaceable bodies for cheap labor, big business is first in line to hail globalization and boost their profits.
But when the same countries come up with innovative ideas and start beating the same business giants at their own game, they suddenly scream bloody murder and plea to their governments for protection from "unfair" competition.
The purpose of this meeting seems to be to give the gangster Putin a victory lap. He liked Yukos so much he made it a country and got it into the G8. To think Putin and his cronies will be making champaign toasts while Khordokhovski rots in jail makes me sick. Russia leading the G8 democracies. What irony!
an ill wind that blows no good
We've potentially got World War III brewing in the Middle East but let's go ahead and spend some time discussing allofmp3.com. Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle the world has it's priorities screwed up.
Yeah. This should definately be a priority at the summit.
Because, you know, there aren't third world countries with rampant militants who will shoot anything, and children going hungry, and human rights violations, and the middle east isn't breaking out in all hell.
I mean, since we have all those big problems taken care of, now we can get down to the little petty issues. Right?
Right?
Not like we haven't done it before.
As I recall there was a Russian programmer arrested in the united states from violating the DMCA when he was in RUSSIA under the direction of his employer for the actual purpose of COMPLYING with RUSSIAN law.
( although I suppose arguably he was arrested for telling people about it on U.S. soil)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov
If I'm not mistaken we also went into a small country called Panama and arrested it's dictator( read the guy who made the laws in that country and couldn't be accused of breaking his own laws) for trafficking Drugs in the country HE ran. We then took said president, ran him through a trial for crimes he DID NOT COMMIT ON US SOIL OR US JERISTICTION and he is now permanently in Jail for drug trafficking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega
Ever heard of the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe doctrine.
The U.S. has been disrespecting autonomy of other nations for years.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
I would like the G8 summit to address the lack of good sci-fi TV shows (with the exception being BSG). Somehow though, I think global health, poverty, and energy is going to get what I want pushed to the bottom of the list, right next to discussions about AllOfMyMP3.com.
This isn't news. This is a PR stunt. If they actually do discuss this at the G8 summit (they wont), I would call this news worthy. At best, the US might make a quick speech about curbing piracy in the context of improving global trade and then sit down.
The music industry can want and wish all it wants. As the old saying goes though, wish in one hand and shit in the other. See which hand fills up first.
Or AIDS, flu pandemic, nuclear proliferation, or climate change. Just give us other people's money for free.
Greedy shitheads.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Other than not ship to Russia? What about dropping all Russian artists (such as tATu)? What about threatening to restructure the record companies to pay less tax to the United States (and more to foreign countries) if the US Department of State (and foreign counterparts) do not act to persuade Russian governments to recognize MAFIAA copyrights more thoroughly? Do you intend to underestimate record industry think tanks?
The RIAA will never blame the public opinion backlash for declining sales; they'll blame iTunes for selling cheap music and pirates for distributing it for free. This will cause them to mess with iTunes, and more aggressively go after pirates. I think the only things that will make them stop are more court rulings like the recent one that completely shot down the RIAA's prosecution of some random person, and Apple resisting the RIAA's pressure to jack up their prices.
Not all G8 countries are behind agricultural subsidies.
You have a whole spectrum of opinions on this. You start with France which is furthermost on the "pro subsidy" and "screw the africans, oh god they will flood us". On the other side you have UK and Germany which would like to see the subsidies abolished because they do not produce a lot, but provide Uncle Jacque with financial means for screwing the aftricans via their contributions to EU Common Agricultural Policy. Then you have the Russians, Canadians and the Americans which would like to see these abolished for a completely different reason. They think that they can outcompete everybody else on sheer scale and industrial methods in the absence of subsidies.
So on, so fourth. G8 is definitely not uniform on this. If it was it would have reached to an agreement on agricultural issues very long ago. That is not the case. They are on the agenda every time. Both in G8 and in the EU budget hearings.
Anyway, if you have objections to this, France is the right country to bitch about. They are clearly the worst as far as subsidies are concerned.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I buy from allofmp3 simply because they offer me what I want. Price has nothing to do with it. As soon as another site allows me to set what encoding I want and what bitrate with no DRM, they will get my business. Unfortunately the music industry doesn't understand any of this.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
I read you loud and clear, as I headed a Secial Forces team in that Panama f*skup.
I'm just getting fed-up with our (USA) gov't. upholding big business at the detriment of individuals, and wondering where to apply the oath I took (and seriously took to heart-I cnsider myself a patriot) to defend the USA Constition against enemies foriegn and DOMESTIC.
It has become really stressful for me at a personal level. I can't decide where to draw the line, but am afraid that my indecision is already PAST the line. I just don't know anymore, and this dismays me.
To me, it seems a fine line between protecting your country's existance and keeping same nose out of other country's existance, I am afraid we are rushing across that fine line with a veangeance at the behest of some of our powerful corp.'s/lobbyists...and that disgusts and angers me.
I dunno, something has to give, I'm just afraid of just what gives anymore.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"...who reads that as "British Pornographic Institute" every time I see an article about them? Say what you will about the RIAA, at least their name is clearer."
Not hardly; each time the BPI is mentioned, somebody does the "phonographic / pornographic" joke.
"Damn anachronistic Brits. Who the hell says "phonograph" any more? :-)"
If you want to be modded up again, the next time somebody mentions AT&T, you can point out that nobody says "telegraph" any more. And if the NAACP should happen to come up, you can point out that "colored" is also an archaic phrase; in fact, in the wrong context it's offensive. If the ACM has a chapter on your campus, you can point it out to them that "computing machinery" is rather old-fashioned. No mod points for real-life corrections, though.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Whether they win or lose, I am glad they are increasing awareness of allofmp3.com. Legality aside, allofmp3.com shows one thing very clearly; the operating costs of a music store. It is possible for them to sell tracks at 10 each and still make enough to cover their operating costs and make a profit on top. This shows the average consumer exactly how much profit the labels are making on a 99 iTunes track (or a $1.45 iTunes track if you buy it from the UK music store).
Seriously? Well, yeah, you can definitely charge less if you don't pay the artists anything. What's your point? If your not worried about the artists getting paid you can distribute tracks for free on p2p networks.
Since both are primarily the purveyors loud grunting and other crude and tasteless noises, one could argue that they might in fact be the same entity.
"That means they'll only clear a few billion this year instead of the extra hundred million or so that never makes it to the hands of the people who matter most in all this: the artists themselves. The most important people in the music business are the composers and musicians who write and perform the music and the producers and engineers who put it all together."
Allofmp3.com does not help this situation. I find it highly doubtful that allofmp3.com is paying them anything close to what's fair. And they are most certainly not paying the producers or engineers; those people are salaried or contractors and the record company pays them whether the record makes money or not. Buying from allofmp3.com ensures that a couple of Russian guys get money (which I suppose is a good thing), but it leaves the record company to foot the bill for making the music a reality. Or, in other words, "payback."
"For those of you out there who like say... Nelly Furtado, if she put her songs online at her own site for legal download at $.25 a track, she'd be a very rich woman."
This is a very common claim. Slashdotters are often quite full of advice for people in the recording industry. While there are certainly plenty of examples of musicians who've managed to eke out a living selling their music without a recording contract, and instances of bands releasing stuff on their own after their contract is up or they're dropped from their label (TMBG is one example), the fact is that there are still many, many more people who want recording contracts than actually get them. Why haven't Nelly and countless others done the right and proper thing? Broadly speaking, one of three possibilities is correct:
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.