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Investors, "Beware" of Record Companies
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Motley Fool investment Web site warns investors to beware of 'Sony, BMG, Warner Music Group, Vivendi Universal, and EMI.' In an article entitled 'We're All Thieves to the RIAA,' a Motley Fool columnist, referring to the RIAA's pronouncement in early December in Atlantic v. Howell, that the copies which Mr. Howell had ripped from his CDs to MP3s in a shared files folder on his computer were 'unauthorized,' writer Alyce Lomax said 'a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value.'"
They may get to the point where lawsuits are the only real income they have left. When that day comes, and all their Congressional bribe money has dried up, I think we'll see the courts and politicians finally start to hit back hard and finish them off. And they'll die still clutching their outmoded CD's, like pathetic John Henry's fighting innovation to the bitter end.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Now where have I heard that before... Oh, that's right. SCO. And look where they're at...
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
What does that say about the GPL and various developers who have threatened to sue companies that might be violating the license?
I wonder how they define a shared folder? I'd imagine an shared folder to them is any folder on a computer that is connected to the internet, WAN or LAN, has a CD or DVD burner in it, has any kind of magnetic removable drive, or any computer in which the hard drive can be removed.
Maybe I am buying into their crap, or maybe I'm right...who knows. But out of all the companies in the past 20 years that I have seen making huge mistakes, Microsoft is one of the few companies I have seen that is actually at least ATTEMPTING to correct their problems. They are still going about things in a very asshatish way, but I think they are realizing that they are not the invincible juggernaut that they once thought they were.
Of course, the other problem they have is that even when they do make good gestures, many in the IT industry still see them as dicks. Can't please everyone, I suppose...
Living With a Nerd
I've personally never thought - during all this suggestion from various websites - that the Music industry will ever die. In fact, I just think that the current status is a precursor to it revamping itself and embracing the digital era.
The more I read things like this though, the more it seems the downfall of such companies could actually happen. I kinda like it, too. It rumbles in my belly...
ilovegeorgebush
Or rather the columnist believes that's the business model they're now in and predicts it won't work well for them.
The inference people here seem to be drawing (that the labels are in trouble because of the lawsuits) resonates well -- we want to believe that kind of justice works in the market -- but really it has the cause and effect reversed. Sales dropped first, then the law suits started.
Now, the thesis is correct in so far as "sue the customer" is not a productive response to an adverse market. They continue to spiral not because they file the lawsuits, but because meanwhile they do nothing to address the orignal failure of their position in the market.
The "ripping mp3s is unauthorized" angle is FUD all around, though. FUD on the RIAA for using that wording in the first place (yes it's unauthorized, in the same sense that I'm not authorizing you to disagree with my post), and FUD on everyone who cites this as the moment where the RIAA calls all users thieves.
Now, sure, the bad press from the lawsuits doesn't help the RIAA... among the small part of the market that sees what's going on and cares. Don't get me wrong, I'm among that small part of the market (not anti-copyright, not convinced that everything the RIAA says is wrong, but on the whole opposed to their actions over the past few years); but don't be fooled into thinking that slashdot is the world.
As to the investment point of view... yeah, to a point, I wouldn't want to be putting money behind the major labels right now. But Sony? What would be the total impact on Sony if their record label arm spun off or died out completely?
It's about time the recording industry collapsed. Maybe I'm just bitter, but last CD I bought cost $17, very little of which went to the artist. 90% of the money made in the music industry is not music sales but concerts, t-shirts, bobble-heads... you get the picture. Free the music!!
If anyone here thinks that the Fool will harm the **AA's business, think again. The Fool is only telling us what is happening. In a family gathering of more than 25 people for present opening ceremonies this year, I watched quite gleefully to find that only ONE CD or DVD had been purchased. ONLY ONE! There were cameras, books, clothes, presents galore... but only ONE lonely little DVD.
My in-laws really don't care about the **AA and their ways, CDs and DVDs are JUST TOO EXPENSIVE. Never mind the lawsuits, their crap products are priced way out of order.
Time to start ePhoenix records I think....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
No one, including the RIAA's lawyer, has ever stated or implied or suggested that ripping your own personal copies of CDs to your computer is not a legitimate practice. The issue here is making your personal copies available for distribution on the net.
.mp3 format AND they are in his shared folder,
Here is what the RIAA's lawyer wrote in a supplemental summary judgement brief that ignited this firestorm and has been grossly misinterpreted by "pundits" on the net:
"Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recording into the compressed
they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs."
This is a pretty unequivocal statement. If you make your personal copies available for distribution, they are no longer your personal copies since distribution is not the purpose, right, or intention for maintaining personal copies .
Here is what the Judge wrote in granting summary judgment:
"However, the question is not whether Howell owned legitimate copies of
some of the sound recordings on CD, but instead whether he distributed copies of the
recordings without authorization. Howell's right to use for personal enjoyment copyrighted
works on CDs he purchased does not confer a right to distribute those works to others
without Plaintiffs' authorization. 17 U.S.C. 106(3). As he admitted that the sound
recordings were "being shared by [his] Kazaa account," Howell is liable for distributing them
in violation of the recording companies' exclusive right."
where polotically correct in this sense is sensitivity to the dying music industry: maybe there really is no more money in this business
we all talk about "embracing new models", and anger at the industry for seeing napster and fighting them tooth and nail, rather than changing their business model. we yell at the music industry for not using the internet to their advantage... well what if the suits are right? there is no advantage in the internet. that it's simply death for them?
of course there is still money in concerts and movie theatres, those are real world venues. also advertising plugs. but everything that goes on media: movies, music, maybe there really is nothing but a black hole of no cash for the music and movie industries
not that the industries can do anything about it
and copyright of course means shit: it's simply unenforceable. you can trap a few scurrying mice here and there and extract a few pennies from soccer moms and college kids, but everyone will trade anyways, with just more and more bulletproof protocols and apps
not that i'm worried or complaining about this new world. one music exec assholes financial riches gone means our cultural riches greatly improved. there's more than one way to measure richness than just cash in the bank
it's a wonderful new world in fact
long live the death of the music and movie industries
this is really wonderful
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So Vista was an "attempt" to fix XP and the Firewall from hell was an "attempt" to secure the OS? Since Service Pack 2 on XP every time I install a component or piece of software Microsoft rebricks my computer. As near as I can tell they're approach to security is deny all actions then you don't have to worry about plugging holes. Sorry but kiss the puppy it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that deep down Microsoft are a bunch of white hat softies. Microsoft has been a bully for a long time and being a bully makes you paranoid. Even with profits going up every year they still see all the competitors as talking food from their mouths. They'd try to run Apple out of the computer business but remember Apple was their shining example of why they weren't a monopoly. They see Apple as the devil they have to live with they just don't want them to gain market share. If they openly attack Apple they risk another court judgement, not that the last one had any affect. Instead they chip away making things not quite compatible and play dumb. All Microsoft is "attempting" to do is line their pockets. So are most companies Microsoft just tends to be more anticompetitive than most.
The music industry does have one advantage that tobacco doesn't - the RIAA has a sizeable menagerie of pet congresscritters on both sides of the aisle (e.g. their lead lapdog, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
1. Make a modified version of the iTunes software. That version will download music from all sources and mark it as "try out". It will also allow you to publish your music on the same terms. All this would be legal.
2. "Try out" music cannot be burnt on a CD or moved to an iPod. A splash screen appears when it is played. Removing the "try out" label without paying would be criminal.
3. You can buy the music easily, and the complete money goes to the rights holders (who distribute it in a fair way, or the rights holders might be the actual musicians). The music is then marked as properly owned by you.
4. This is combined with a rating system that lets you rate the sound quality of a recording and upgrade if you find a better version somewhere else.
The only thing that is problematic is how music should be handled that cannot be identified.
I suspect musicians will go the same route. Songs will be given away as free advertising, and they'll make their money by booking performances and concerts (and selling memorabilia at such). For all practical purposes that's the way most of the RIAA-contracted musicians work anyway right now, since the studios keep 95% to over 100% (the band owes them money) of all the proceeds from song sales.
Hesitate to explain this, but....
Every windows computer is sharing everything, unless specifically disabled to NOT do so. Does the standard consumer understand this? No... Is it even instructed... NO. Does MS want you to remove the administrative shares? NO...
Every computer by default, first install... C$ is open and available. Its a share.
I strongly believe the RIAA lawyers have run out of ground to stand on.
According to the definitive Johnny Cash version of the song, John Henry did have the skills -- he could do anything you asked him to, short of a college education. What the "he was a dinosaur idiot" people on this thread are proposing is that a poverty-stricken Black child laborer in the mid-1800s should have walked over to the college and spent four years becoming a mechanical engineer so he could then go on to work on steam shovels.
Do I even have to point out this was not exactly an option?
John Henry was a man who took every opportunity and did everything he could to save his family until his heart literally burst. The arguments against him basically amount to telling a poker player, "Well, you should have made sure you got yourself dealt a Royal Flush on the first try..."
Careful what we say guys, 'cause if there's a Heaven, and we make it, we'll all end up working for the likes of John Henry....
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."