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."

Comments

Re:A couple of choice comments on the announcement

[morgan_greywolf]

Oops, I don't mean "steal". I mean "infringe the copyright of". Because the difference totally matters, and makes the latter totally okay. There is a difference, even though copyright infringement is not, per se, totally okay.

Because the copyright system is so, "broken", you know. Gotcha. My bad. 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.

Good for you! After all, if something is technically or physically possible to do, that must mean there is an implicit grant allowing you to do this. 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, the convenience and ease of each of those things is why there are, and always have been, different costs for different privileges. Think it's bullshit if you want. Call copyright out if you want. But that's the current legal framework we have, and before you start tossing around terms like "MAFIAA", why not consider that there will always be groups of artists who want to control their own content, and think they should be paid X, Y, or Z for it. Some might even price things -- like the right to play it on a radio station, or be streamed in a web page, or be downloaded from an online music store, or purchased on a CD -- differently. Some might group together under common legal and marketing representation. They may call it, oh, I don't know, a music label. Some might also realize that it's smart to pool their outward legal representation under an umbrella industry trade organization, even given the drawbacks. There may be different frameworks in different countries, necessitating differing systems of handling sales, releases, and legal issues in various places to maximize one's own return on your investment as you see fit, as is your right 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?

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.

Re:wow

[Aladrin]

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.

Re:A couple of choice comments on the announcement

[ATMAvatar]

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.

Re:pHR33 L394L /\/\P3z!!!1!!

[Novus]

decent quality 128 kbps mp3? an oxymoron!

if you must have lossy compression, use VBR or preferably vorbis (oggs). if it's decent quality you're after, use flac.

My perception goes something like: less than 64 kbps MP3 or 48 kbps Vorbis = awful, 64-112 kbps MP3 or 48-96 kbps Vorbis = bad, 128-192 kbps MP3 or 97-128 kbps Vorbis = decent, higher lossy rates = good, lossless = excellent. YMMV (although I'm curious as to what you'd call good quality if lossless audio is merely "decent", especially since FLAC goes up to 8 channels of 32 bit PCM at more than 600 kHz). In any case, the sound on imeem is better than, for example, Youtube. Of course, if the uploader is just re-encoding a 32 kbps WMA file...

Re:here's the answer

[aadvancedGIR]

So, do they realy get $7500 in ad revenues per downloaded song?

Re:"Stealing"

[gutnor]

"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.