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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."
I know theres a lot of artists, but does anybody know just how many and just how much of this money will actually go to the artists?
I personally think they will still be hungry.
liqbase
Now lets see how much they'll pay to all the people whose PCs have been crippled by all the malware kazaa dumps on their computers.
FTFA: We have won another battle in an ongoing war," said John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI). "We move forward with a spring in our step."
All they have to do now is get all those undead offenders to pay up.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
$100,000,000.00 / 20,000,000,000 Songs = $0.005
seems rather hypocritical that the RIAA won't allow AllofMP3 to sell songs for $0.05 when they are selling them for 10 times less..
-- lol pwned
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
Wow, 3+ tracks for every person on the planet?
How do they know those are all illegal? My CD collection is in my attic. My p2p software is on my desktop. I DL tracks from CDs I own all the time, because it's easier than finding the CD.
Did that get counted as an illegal download?
I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem
In other news, use of Bittorrent and eDonkey networks is up.
"We have won another battle in an ongoing war [...] We move forward with a spring in our step."
I have to hand it to these guys, they can sure convince themselves of what they want to believe in.
And the hungry artists who were "damaged" by this get a $1 off coupon for their next recording session advance.
Kazaa would be better off throwing in the towel, a keyword search is too broad to block only protected works and will result in the service being mostly unusable for either legit or non legit uses.
Now instead of having a large range of MP3s to choose from I can choose from a limited range of music that is encumbered with DRM. Where do I send my money?...allofmp3.com I guess. I wonder if the music industry will eventually get it?
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
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
Cool - will the 'new Kazaa'...
- have anywhere near the range of the old one?
- ship us DRMed files that aren't compatible with all our devices?
- cost less, the same or more than iTunes?
- be adware sponsored to keep costs of music down?
Unless there are favourable answers to all these questions (and more, no doubt), what possible incentive is there going to be to use this service.
I'd happily pay $50 a month (or whatever, some reasonable monthly fee / bandwidth even) to download whatever mp3s I wanted from Kazaa that anyone wanted to share. I'd happily let my downloads be tracked so it could go into a big database somewhere so royalties could be paid to artists and labels.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
That's not a war, that's a massacre.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries? Ok guys, it's the 21st Century, so you may want to update the name a little. Although, I have to admit, the new USB turntable I installed on my multi-media PC is smokin'!
I wonder if they ever get confused with the International Federation of the Pornographic Industries?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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!!"
You insensitive CLOD! Didn't you hear what happened to Kid Rock?
"Hungry artists across the globe rejoice" isn't even in the article- probably because it's just wrong. And while I do not support illegal filesharing, I do have to agree with earlier posters that the starving artists won't see a dime of this settlement. In fact, I'd be suprised if any artists, even the 'big names', get some of the settlement. The artist's contract only gets them money under certain conditions- and I'll bet that 'settlements from lawsuits' are not one of those conditions. No, this is a victory for the RIAA, but not particularly helpful to anyone else.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
This money could be used for attorney fees for going after the next P2P company, or to go after individuals downloaders/sharers, or to R&D for the next DRM scheme, or for lobbying governments for laws that benefit them and/or make it easier for them to target the above groups.
One thing it will likely not be used for is to work to further integrate musicians and their music into quality, legal digital distribution channels that allow broad consumer rights.
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
I agree with your sentiments. Thats all I do. All the junk on the P2P networks is mostly 128k-160 kbps crap. I'm a drummer and i hate hearing cymbols that sound like you hit one underwater (my interpertation at least). I always go for a real CD. Just incase there is some massive EMP that wipes out my legally ripped MP3 collection, I still have my harcopies that can still play on my CD player that i haven't used in some time. (I only get the CD then rip it to 320kbps MP3)
Wee Mexico on the TOP 10 list!.
On a serious note, instead of "fragmenting" and making harder to see where to go, what they are doing is homogenizing (spell??) it. All those kazaa users will go ([to bittorrent+emule+X]-1) P2P software that is available. That is great from my point of view because that way you will have to hunt less places to get what you need.
I remember once I downloaded winmx and could found the GAMEDEV magazine ISO disks, unfortunately I could not download it because my connction was still a modem. In those days you had edonkey, kazaa, imesh, napster, and I dont remember how many others.
The more of those netwoks they close, the better another network will become (in anonymity, content and users).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
1) $0.22/track - Check
2) None - Check
3) See 1) - Check
4) Nope, sorry.
5) Maybe, I've seen extra tracks available for some albums...
6) Check
Check it out!
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I don't know if the settlement will change the way music/software/content is traded and shuffled via the internet.
But, here is my hope: I'd like to see the RIAA spend that $100m on the following:
*) Pay royalties/living wage/etc. to all those artists from the early days of recordings - the ones that got paid a pittance for performance, but never received any living from the subsequent profitability and ownership of those tunes/recordings. There are tons of older musicians out there that the public loves - musicians that are living in the "poor house" while corporations collect royalties.
*) Fund music education in the schools. Give good instruments to schools - particularly in areas where funding is scarce, and the kids can ill afford today's $1k+ instruments. Help pay music educators, particularly where budgets don't fund liberal arts.
*) Fund collaborations between experienced artists and up-and-coming artists. The beauty of music is that it is also meant to be shared between musicians, on top of being shared with its listeners. Fund collaborations with folks like B.B. King, Carlos Santana, Yoyo Ma, etc. and kids who are getting started out with music.
*) Fund and encourage labels to take risks with artists that are not necessarily the latest commercial success. If not funding the labels, fund the musicians themselves and give them access to qualified folks who can help spread their music.
*) Use the money to promote a broad spectrum of music from less-than-well-known artists. Give the listeners of the world music that comes from the soul, not the boardroom.
A Passionate Independent Musician
the artists won't get a penny.
what will happen is the riaa's lawyers will get a new house, car and maybe some other toys, too.
riaa: "another day, another lawsuit"
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
OK 80% of Pirate CD stands (physical media) were closed in a Mexican city -> 25%+ increase in sales.
.25/.8=.3125 = 31%+ of all sales in the city were pirate CD's - physicals not downloads - and not including impulse buys because they were cheap.
I really think that the record companies might want to redirect their efforts from the P2P users & back to the sources. 30%+ of the CD's were not being cranked out in somebody's basement. This is & always has been big business.
Kaazzaa was stupid, IIRC they offered tracks for sale, but they also encouraged trading.
Personnally, I'm not certain how a P2P company can effectively filter files. Most titles contain common words. Filtering out audio files titled 'Stupid Boy Band #1' is also going to filter any podcast review of it. MD5 checking on the file? Rip w/ a different bitrate & it changes - hell you can rip a random watermark into the file & no 2 source copies of the song would have the same MD5.
The only effective thing is to respond to requests to remove specific indexes. But any bets on **AA surfing & submitting a request to every search engine every day? P2P has a lot of legitimate uses, some that distributers are starting to recognize, and it's not going away. So somewhere/sometime there has to be a compromise. So far the **AA isn't willing to see that. But as long as they are going to keep dumping restrictions people don't like onto how people can use thier media, they are going to see people pirating things en masse.
Files might be being downloaded 'illegally' but here in Europe the recording industry is doing better than it ever was. These n-billion files that are being downloaded cannot be counted as a loss, as they wouldn't be bought anyway. They are being downloaded precisely because they are free; an argument for damage here is absurd.
P2P is best thought of as an advanced try-before-you-buy network. For this reason the people that are losing money from P2P are not recording artists, but Marketing Execs that would like to steer our consumption interests and habits, in short to push crap on us we don't want. P2P lifts the standards of consumer choice.
"Artists around the world rejoice", my llama..
Until purchase or per use royalty is paid directly to the creators of original work, it will never be equitable. If royalty were paid directly to the creators of original work, it would then be up to them to pay for services (e.g., distribution, promotion, etc.) rendered (if the services were actually rendered satisfactorily).
Paying purchase or per use royalty to the creators of original work clearly was impractical/impossible before the advent of computers and computer networks. Nowadays, it should be a simple matter to pay purchase or per use royalty directly to the creators of original work and leave the present 'media companies' out of the royalty payment chain altogether. What are now the 'media companies' could continue to provide their 'services', but they would be paid at the discretion of the creators of original work -- for services actually rendered to the satisfaction of the creators of original work.
If the public and the creators of original works would together petition the (Federal) lawmakers, a 'direct' royalty payment system using the Internet could soon be put in place. The same legislation should also void all existing 'artists contracts' with the 'media companies' as they would have been made superfluous. Contracts with 'media companiees' have always been a bad idea, as demonstrated by the observable fact that they have gone so horribly wrong.
Remember the whole point of copyright and royalty payment is to encourage and reward the creators of original work. Funneling the royalty payment through a third party (e.g., the 'media companies', 'publishers', etc.) was always a bad idea, but it started when there was no other option. The Internet makes it possible to fix this mess rather easily.