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EMI May Cut Funding To RIAA, IFPI
Teen Bainwolf notes a report that Big Four record label EMI, which is under new ownership, is considering a big cut in its funding for the IFPI and RIAA. Each of the labels reportedly contributed over $132 million per year to fund industry trade groups, and EMI apparently believes that money could be better spent elsewhere. "One of the chief activities of the RIAA is coordinating the Big Four labels' legal campaign, and those thousands of lawsuits have done nothing but generate ill will from record fans, while costing the labels millions of dollars and doing little (if anything) to actually reduce the amount of file-sharing going on."
I don't see the RIAA keeling over any time soon, instead I imagine it shrivel up into something like one of those debt collection agencies out of Buffalo NY. It will act as a "free agent" for (mostly fake or bought out) music publishers and survive on constant lawsuits on those who will be only more than happy to pay $800 to keep from getting sued for $15K.
Never underestimate the tenacity of unemployed lawyers.
RIAA is a puppet, paid by the big music companies. It doesn't have much power, and no power over what their masters allow it.
RIAA's power will decrease after this.
How about radio play, talk shows? I think it will be business as usual - if the other big music corporations will ignore this. If they will lobby the radio stations, it might be possible that EMI loses some air time.
The analogy goes much deeper. Prohibition also encouraged home-brew. The only federal agency at the time that had the manpower was the Internal Revenue Service, ergo the phrase Danged Revenuers, and charges of not paying federal tax were brought against moonshiners. Now, even if you make your music at home and sell it yourself, an agency of the RIAA has the right to collect royalties on your behalf, empowered by the federal government. If that agency can't find you, they get to keep the money. You can't find many moonshiners today. The media has changed. Marijuana is easier to grow.
cabg x3 is a life changing event...
I'm not sure why this was tagged funny, since it's true.
"Considering" cutting RIAA funding is nothing more than a slick PR move. Until they actually reduce their contributions, they're just as guilty as any of the other big players in the music biz.
I have to disagree that "most people don't know or don't care about the RIAA tactics." Everyone seems to know about kids getting sued, and everyone is pretty annoyed by the whole thing.
Try to think of one person you know that isn't aware of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. Then ask them, and you'll probably be surprised.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Which would you rather have: some dope smokers or kids with bullets in their backs because of gang activity? The gangs won't go away 100%, no, but what is driving them is largely the drug trade. This can not be denied and to deny it is to deny any potential solution the war on drugs may offer.
Maybe if these substances were free of their black market status they'd lose their allure.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
According to the article:
including the close to 30,000 file-sharing lawsuits filed by the record labels in the US alone.
I mean, this is way worse than what I thought it was. I thought it was a handful, you know the ones you hear about in the news. But 30,000 means a lot and a whole lot of work for the legal system (this means that 1 in every 500 lawsuits in the US or 0,2% comes directly from the RIAA). This could be used for other cases we are already overloaded with like drugs, robberies, fraud (identity theft for example), money laundering and other crimes that affect more people than a few copied cd's.
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The point I was making was that they don't have any convictions. They may know about it, and say they care, and say they think it's terrible, but they keep on buying the music. That's very hypocritical. If you have such a big problem, stop buying the music. If you're still buying their music, you obviously don't care that much about their tactics.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The new stuff the RIAA is worried about still gets pirated like mad. The older stuff just is not shared any more.
vi +
Or it could be that the music industry is turning altruistic in it's old age and they wish to slash their profit margins by condoning free downloads.
Advertising isn't altruistic. Giving out free samples isn't altruistic. These dumbasses need to realise that they are RECORD companies and start selling RECORDS again - physical media with full fidelity music on them. Give away the MP3s.
Of course, this will be the death knell of losers who put out a CD's worth of crap that has one decent single they play on the radio. But with some bands it's the opposite. By the time Aerosmith came out, I'd given up buying an album on the strength of a song on the radio, and I REALLY was unimpressed with the minor key whiney Aerosmith song they played on the radio, Dream On. It turned out that that was the only sucky song on the album! But if you had liked that song, you likely wouldn't have liked the rest of the album. I bought it after I heard the LP at a friend's house.
It it was today, and the songs were posted in the internet, I'd have bought it right away.
I always liked Santanna, and when Supernatural came out they weren't playing any of it on the radio here. So I went to CD NOW and listened to the 30 second clips of its songs, and was incredibly unimpressed. "When did they start sucking?" I asked.
Well, my daughter didn't know this but knew I liked Santanna, and bought tha CD for me for Christmas. It was a great CD! Had she not bought it, they would have lost a sale. But had she not bought it and they had posted full MP3s on the internet, I would have bought it.
Advertisers will tell you "sell the sizzle, not the steak". If brains were dynamite, record company execs wouldn't have enough to blow their noses. If they had any brains they would post MP3s and make sure everyone believed in MP3's inferiority to CDs.
That said, the RIAA labels have pissed me off to the point where I only buy indie; the last dozen CDs I've bought have been from bar bands.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
REQUEST: Left tire on landing gear almost needs replacement.
ACTION TAKEN: Left tire on landing gear almost replaced.
Wake me up when EMI actually does something.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]