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Kazaa Agrees to Pay $100m to the Record Industry
siddesu writes "BBC has the following breaking story:
File-sharing site Kazaa will become a legal music download service following a series of high-profile legal battles. The peer-to-peer network has also agreed to pay $100m (£53m) in damages to the record industry. The announcement follows the release of a music industry report that says more than 20 billion music tracks have been downloaded illegally in the last year. Hungry artists across the globe rejoice."
Why does the money go to "the record industry", and not these "hungry artists"?
The record industry claimants should get a 20% discount on future Kazaa downloads.
Like the rest of us ever get a real settlement from record indutry abuses.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Technically, the artists now owe the RIAA money.
Badass Resumes
To quote Janis Ian:
And she goes on to state her opinion on the downloads as:
Source: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.
That's just as interesting a subject as their change of heart. Ideally there would be:
1) the option to purchase individual tracks cheap, like iTunes
2) with as little DRM as possible (preferably none)
3) the option to buy full albums that cost less than the physical version (say, Five Bucks)
4) the full albums would have the goodies like lyrics
5) there would be bonus materials not available in stores (just like with CDs that killed the LP)
6) Peer review of the tracks and/or albums would be permitted *by those who have bought them*, so we could know if the music was good or TeH sUcK.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
What the scariest thing is with this type of settlement is that no one,absolutely no one seems to really know - or care - about what will happen to such a huge pile of money, and further that it probably will only go to enrich those who have major chart successes, their lawyers, or the IFPI itself (claiming it needs more $$ to fight piracy), rather than those copyright holders whose music was actually downloaded.
Of course, as with a major news organization such as the BBC, no need to wax philosophic on the actual real-world meaning and consequences of such actions, and the possible windfall (or lack thereof) to those who created the content in question. Rethorical question if you ask me.
Sort of like the "War On Terror(TM)"... By now everyone forgot why we are fighting it, as we are too involved in the day-to-day fighting to remember what it was supposed to be about.
Carry on lads, carry on....
Z.
TFReport cites Canada as the second worst 'offender' in music downloads worldwide.
Perhaps that is due to our Blank Media levy that makes downloading essentially legal in this country.
Now whether those billions of tracks were subsequently uploaded is another question entirely (this is not covered by the levy), but i suppose that doesn't help the RIAA:
"Them there Canucks did 23 Braaziiiilion downloads. Invade Canada!!"
Did that get counted as an illegal download?
well, given that it's a dpownloadm and what you're doing is illegal, I'd say "yes".
Fair use and the AHRA allow you to copy from a CD you own. Not one that someone else owns. I know they're identical, but what differenct does that make? The law can still be illogical.
In the book "This Business of Music", by M. William Krasilovsky, there is a very poignant flowchart/diagram. In this diagram, it shows in a nutshell how music goes from the artist to the consumer/fan. The bottleneck within this diagram was, not surprisingly, the distribution channels - where the music goes from the manufacturer to the stores/wholesellers. The major distribution chains, at least within the US, are essentially owned and operated by the major music companies. That is the real reason the RIAA and record companies are so concerned, because a large portion of the markup between the artist to the consumer falls in the distribution chain. Therefore, whoever controls the distribution of music essentially controls the elasticity of supply/demand and, therefore, can potentially move pricing. In addition, and to paraphrase from memory, when Radio was first developed, the music industry was concerned that allowing people to listen to music for free would destroy the music publishing industry (i.e. the printing and selling of sheet music). Then, the creation of the recordable, blank cassette tape was supposed to destroy the music industry. And so on...There is no argument that either the RIAA or the recording industry can use that will disprove the simple fact that they are ultimately only concerned for their own pocketbooks, not those of the artists themselves.
That's the problem, most artists have no business sense and thus get fleeced. My wife was watching Biography a couple weeks ago and it talked about Dolly Parton...
Things have changed a lot since Dolly had no reputation and no audience. For one, basically all the radio stations weren't owned by a single corporation. Second, the RIAA members had not consolidated their stranglehold on all major distribution channels. Right now the normal artist's main goal is to be heard. They want everyone to hear their music because they are an artist first and a businessman second. Very few people go into music because they think it is a path to wealth. Given the choice between possibly reaching a large audience, or being specifically stopped from reaching a large audience by a large cartel repeatedly convicted of collaborating to abuse their consolidated position, many choose the former. If they don't they will never sell a CD in a major store or be heard on the radio and most people will never, ever hear of them.
Sure there are counter examples of those few independent artists that won out against all odds, but they are the rare exceptions. Copyright law was designed to benefit artists and encourage them to make more works. It has been abused and morphed by powerful corporations so that it instead is a tool to control art and make sure artists in general make no money off their art. If copyright was abolished entirely it would be a boon to the average recording artist, since the RIAA would have no motivation to stop their distribution and they could still make money the way almost all of them do now, concerts and merchandise.