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EMI Caught Offering Illegal Downloads
Hypocricy, LLC writes "While the RIAA is swift to punish any person caught offering illegal downloads, they're not very swift with outrage when a member company like EMI offers illegal downloads. Not only did the band King Crimson's contract never allow digital distribution to begin with, but band member Robert Fripp claims that EMI offered their music for sale even after their contract ended entirely."
It's not illegal if a corporation is doing it. Or The President (same thing). Or the CIA. Or if the Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Defense say it's OK.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Contrary to common practice, KC owns the copyrights to their work.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." - Bob Dylan
this is "official piracy" there is no DMCA, there is no "thousands of dollars lost per song", etc, etc
Record companies do this ALL THE TIME.
Thay will most likely get a slap in the wrist and carry on with their criminal activies as usual.
how long until
One writer I know got seriously pissed when her publisher's parent company gave google permission to include her entire book in google books. No, they didn't have the rights required to do that. Did they care? Not really, no.
you are assuming the message of the RIAA is "don't trade digital music because it doesn't abide by good ethical or legal standards or common business sense"
you are giving the RIAA way too much credit if you think that thought ever motivated them
the RIAA's message has really always been "do whatever the hell we tell you to do because we have more lawyers than you"
with such a realization, you can come to understand the RIAA is operating in perfect consistency, without any hypocrisy about its behavior at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The GVU (The German Federation against Copyright Theft) actively used and supported illegal Filesharing by setting up their own servers from which users could download copyrighted stuff. Of course they didn't bother asking the copyright owner if this was ok, they just did it, until Heise.de revealed the story (German Site) and the Office of Public Prosecutor came...
Actually, this looks like a case for the Court of the Crimson King. Yeah, I said it.
Frankly, I prefer the company of nitwits.
The way the music industry is set up right now, the big 4 companies screw the label execs, who screw the label talent managers, who screw the band managers, who screw the musicians. (His career so far has been moving slowly up the chain, so that he's now responsible for more screwing people over than being screwed. Also, he's honest enough that when he was managing a band he wasn't simply taking the money and telling drunk band members they'd spent it all on drugs.)
The fact that EMI assumed that King Crimson had agreed to the one-sided contracts that they have for most everyone else is a clear indication of how screwed up the industry is.
I am officially gone from
Thats true and also irrelevant, this is not a situation where EMI just decided to participate in P2P, this is a situation where they were never given the rights to publish this bands music online in the first place, and continued to do so even after ALL their rights were revoked by the end of the contract.
The RIAA is the big record labels. They invented the name to catch the bad PR so the evil things they do wouldn't reflect badly on the record labels themselves.
Evil things like certifying gold and platinum record sales, and standardizing pre- and post-emphasis equalization formulas so that an LP pressed by any label will sound correct when played back on any turntable manufacturer's device?
You need to brush up on your RIAA history, man.
The RIAA has never gone after anybody, they just like it when people think they do, especially when news companies do. News companies usually aren't stupid and don't get it wrong like that. Slashdot does though. Even when the linked articles mention which specific corporation is ACTUALLY SUING, the /. summary and title all magically replace EMI, Universal, Sony, or whichever other company with "RIAA SUES", which is a complete lie. So the real reason the RIAA won't go after EMI is because the RIAA doesn't go after anybody, ever. Plus, beyond that, King Crimson isn't a member of the RIAA, and they haven't signed an agreement with the RIAA allowing the RIAA to sue in their stead. You'll note that the BSA and the MPAA won't go after EMI for this, either, because they have no legal standing to do so, being as how it is not their copyright.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
It was also, almost certainly a mistake. Compare to most copyright infringement, which is almost always willful.
The band absolutely deserves every cent that EMI made selling their music. They might even deserve a bit extra. But to suggest that this was intentional without knowing for sure is really pretty silly. "Never attribute to malice that which is easily attributed to stupidity," and all that jazz.
What's more interesting to me is the intellectual masturbation that this can generate. The customers didn't know that they were buying illegal songs. They expected, due to the distribution mechanism, legal downloads.
What about people on p2p? They tend to expect illegal downloads, but some bands such as NIN have released music on these networks. How can anyone differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate downloads?
(RIAA) invented the name to catch the bad PR so the evil things they do wouldn't reflect badly on the record labels themselves.
The above statement is complete and utter fiction.
The RIAA was formed in 1952 as a technical consortium to create standards for compatabililty for phonograph recordings such as the RIAA equalization curve.
What they later became is another matter altogether.
RIAA:
Get thy bearings, practice some discipline, or you're in for one more red nightmare. Learn to eat your own cat food, great deceiver, before your coda is a requiem for a fallen angel. We'll let you know if we lament your passing in an epitaph. You may be walking on air now, but soon you'll have only the sheltering sky to protect your easy money, you dinosaur. One big happy family? It is for you, but not for us. If you think the fracture you get when Neal and Jack and me beat you with no warning will leave us sleepless, well, we'll let you know. You should be happy with what you have to be happy with.
Circumcision is child abuse.
If it was a mistake then they would be trying to prevent the sale of the music now that its been brought to their attention dont you think?
Instead they are still selling it. That means that its willful.
When asked about the incident, and EMI executive reportedly said "what's the big deal? Everybody does it! I mean, if the bands just charged reasonable prices, we wouldn't have to steal their suff, would we? I mean, come on!"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"The RIAA (Recording Industry Association) does hire people to monitor illegal downloads. They weigh the evidence, then turn it over to the proper Recording Industry Member (RIM). If Universal holds more of the rights, they give it to Universal."
So what you're saying is that no one gets sued by the RIAA, they just get RIMmed?
To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, the record companies used to be owned by greedy bastards who liked music, now they're just owned by greedy bastards.
This is what happens when the accountants and lawyers seize complete control, and the old-fashioned A&R guys are basically put in the position of the quickest bang for the buck. The record companies, by and large, are parts of big vast corporate machines owned by shareholders that could care less whether they made records, washing machines or F14 landing gear. Some guy up on the nine-millionth floor Big Bloated Monster Corp. says "the unit that owns recording and condom manufacturering isn't performing well this quarter, what's the explanation?" "Well, Mr. President of Big Bloated Monster Corp., people seem to be fucking less and there's this Internet download thing." "Get the lawyers. Sue everyone who downloads music and doesn't fuck."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If I can find Iraq on a map, will you stop lumping all Americans together as morons? If I send video of a protest, will you stop lumping us all together as murderers?
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
"Never attribute to malice that which is easily attributed to stupidity."
I'm becoming more and more convinced that it was Satan himself who was quoted saying this.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America, so why should they give a hoot about band copyrights. Their job is to defend the rights and further the goals of the recording industry. This is like expecting the National Cattlemen's Beef Association to defend the rights of cows.
The band absolutely deserves every cent that EMI made selling their music.
Ah, they deserve a bit more than that, as the law provides for certain punishments for this sort
of thing, including substantial fines. An "accident" is simply no good excuse for a company
of this sort, where due dilligence in their actions is especially important.
C//
Sorry, the GP is correct.
He was correcting an earlier post claiming that the RIAA named themselves thusly to avoid bad press, presumably from lawsuits. The GP was explaining that for most of the RIAA's existence, it's been responsible for rather mundane things like certifying gold and platinum record sales and publishing the equalization standards. Ever seen one of those gold records framed in a black shadow box? It has a big "RIAA" label on it. Remember the "RIAA equalization curve" term from your analog hi-fi days? The very same RIAA.
You appear to be very concerned with accounting chicanery on behalf of the record companies -- as well you should be, particularly if you are a signed artist. But I am not sure how it is germaine. And your "puhleez" and your hostile tone seem misguided here.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
God is imaginary