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Record Labels Change Minds About Sharing MP3s
Mass Defect writes "While the RIAA continues to sue people for p2p file sharing, the record labels have made an about-face and given their blessing to users sharing MP3s via the social networking site imeem.com. In May this year the site was being sued by Warner for allowing users to upload photos, videos, and music to share. However to everyone's amazement, instead of being flattened, imeem.com managed to convince the label that this free promotion was a good thing. In July imeem.com signed a deal with the label. Since then the site has added Sony, BMG, EMI, and now the biggest fish of them all, Universal. Imeem now has the royal flush of record labels supporting its media-sharing service, each getting a cut of the advertising revenues generated by their catalog. Finally someone has figured out a way to do 'YouTube for MP3s' without getting sued out of existence."
About time! When will they get the point that music sharing will ultimately lead to more exposure for their artists, and thus, more revenue?
***i watched you change into a fly***
Imeem now has the royal flush of record labels supporting its media-sharing service, each getting a cut of the advertising revenues generated by their catalog
gee... i wonder why they agreed to drop legal action against imeem.
I agree that file sharing is a problem, but there are plenty of problems in the music industry and these problems have more to do with their lost revenue than file sharing itself. If the record labels had gotten off their ass and got into online music in a big way when it started, we wouldn't have this problem.
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You call it 'low quality', but it sounds as good as radio to me. I'm not real picky about the bitrate of music I stream... In fact, low bitrate is better, since the whole office uses this crappy little connection.
'Loads of ads' is apparently 2 per page. I've learned to tune them out, so I don't care.
The 'download' button is a good alternate (read: not a flash ad) revenue source and I probably -will- use it to buy from Amazon the songs I want to keep.
Registration is free, and what -doesn't- require you to subscribe to get the full benefit these days?
It even lets you create and listen to playlists, so you don't have to play a single song at a time. It's perfect for seasonal music and all those good-for-3-months songs that are oh-so-popular these days.
Personally, I like it and it didn't cost me anything. Plus, the fact that they got some record companies to agree to -anything- is great. Maybe they'll keep continuing to gain some sense.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
No, the copyright system isn't broken. Copyright has worked well for over 200 years in this country. (The patent system is another story). Now laws like the DMCA that criminalize what would otherwise be legitimate acts...that's broken.
Some would argue that the current copyright system is broken.
The original system where a copyright:- Had to be registered
- Lasted 14 years
- Provided for an additional 14 year extension if applied for
was far more sane than what we have now."They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
No, I mean, that would be far too anal for the slashdot crowd wouldn't it? I write and produce music, albeit at an amateur level.. That said, having done so for 20 years now, if a decent 128 MP3 vs OGG or whatever is seriously ruining your enjoyment of the music then I would say you have other issues.
"Copyright infringement is a DIFFERENT THING."
Indeed with stealing you can get away with a mild sentence or some community service when caught. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, will probably put you in debt for the rest of your life.
there are other sites that have been doing this for quite a while (i.e. http://www.deezer.com/) and it doesn't change a thing about how the RIAA feels because without violating the user agreement you can not download only listen.
That's an entirely different argument, Dave. If someone is running a Web server on port 80 and plugged into the public internet, but doesn't have any authentication methods and just assumes that he didn't give explicit permission for anyone to access, therefore no one has access...well, that's just stupid, now, isn't it?
Yes, but accessing a Web server on port 80 plugged into the public internet without any authentication methods is legal.
Copyright infringement is not.
A better analogy would be reaching in to an open car window and removing something that doesn't belong to you: it's easy, quick, technically and physically possible. And it was made easy and quick because the window was down, and you happened to be in the area. So just because it was possible, enabled, or made easier doesn't mean it's okay.
But wait, in my analogy, someone was "deprived" of something, right? And in copyright infringement no one is "deprived" of anything (except the right to manage the music they create, own, or both, in the ways they and their duly authorized agents see fit under our current system of law, but we'll just ignore that for now).
Ok, then. What if you invent a really nifty contraption that makes it easy, practical, and quick to go into Borders and quickly photograph every page of the selected book in a very low key and unobtrusive way, and then have a mechanism that converts the content to a nicely formatted PDF, so that the final product is as desirable and functional as the original, albeit in electronic form.
Copyright infringement? Check.
Something made easy/quick by a technological improvement? Check.
No deprivation of a physical object? Check.
So how is that right, given the recognition and control that we grant to creators and owners of content (and their agents, etc.)?
That's right, but you also tend to make it sound like the record labels are totally benign and that artists get paid fairly. That's also not the case, as recording artist after recording artist has come out and said. You also make it sound like the RIAA don't try to control what gets played on the airwaves. They have rules, you know, for radio stations that says that if they want to play RIAA content, they can't play it alongside of non-RIAA content -- i.e., indie rock. Some radio stations have even expressed this view as completely ridiculous, but abide by it because they feel they have no choice. Doesn't this sound like the tactics of another big monopoly? One that starts with an 'M', ends with a 't' and has a Vista in the middle?
That's right, but you also tend to make it sound like the artists were forced into signing contracts with record labels. If they did so because they believed it was the best thing to do, that was THEIR CHOICE. There is ALWAYS a choice. And any organized framework for managing media content, distribution, and sales, will inevitably involve organizations or groups, no matter how informal or loosely organized, that act on the behalf of their artists. They'll take something for this. Whether it's "too much" is completely subjective, not to mention irrelevant to the discussion. I don't care of the label takes 99% and the artists gets 1% for the purposes of this argument: it doesn't matter, because that is the arrangement THEY entered into of their own free will, and THEY granted the right for their label and the industry trade organizations to vigorously protect the content that they essentially now legally co-own.
As a particular indie gets more popular, they'll realize they can't do it all themselves, and they'll have their own labels and proxy representation. And if someone doesn't care about how their content is distributed or shared, maybe they'll be able to find labels and trade groups who share this philosophy.
The game may change because of the digital realm. It is changing. But it's not going to happen overnight, and the persons and organization that OWN THE RIGHTS to content under the current system of laws have ever
"in almost every other industry does this occur".
There, fixed that for ya.
Unless you really believe that direct producers get something above a very very small cut of the wealth in some other capitalist industry. wich you don't, do you?
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
The DMCA, generally speaking, is a bad law. It grants too much power to individuals at the expense of the people, and it allows for the revocation of rights by a small minority.
Then the artists should stop signing work for hire contracts.
If the artists don't like record companies making the majority of the money then maybe they should stop agreeing to terms where the record company gets the majority of the money.
If you can find people stupid enough to sign their right over for you to make money on then that's just capitalism. The artists are most of the problem.
I find being offended by me offensive.
At this point, it becomes useful to actually investigate what the drawbacks and advantages of current copyright law is, and what possible alternatives are. To simply sit there and argue that "It's the Law!" is simplistic to the extreme, not to mention unproductive. The primary argument for shorter copyrights and expanded fair use is that all art is a product of what's available in the Public Domain, and that as such, the public has a right to access it and use it. So far, I haven't seen anyone successfully argue against that. The argument that copyright law makes more money to individuals doesn't hold water, as a law that requires everyone to change their windows every 2 weeks is also profitable to window installers, but a drain on society as a whole.
In short, your argument that simply because a law exists it must be good and must be followed represents an awfully, incredible naive lack of understanding about where the laws came from and the money that paid for them.
For the record - I've largely stopped consuming copyrighted media because of this crap. There's money to be made off of people like me, if I'm offered what I ask for.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.