Slashdot Mirror
Could the RIAA Just Disappear?
BlueMerle writes "Ars Technica is running a story about how EMI is disappointed with RIAA and ultimately they (RIAA) may disappear. 'Is the RIAA as we know it about to disappear? As rumors continue to swirl that EMI will pull its funding from music trade groups like the RIAA and IFPI, an IFPI spokesman tells Ars that the group is in the middle of a major internal review of its operations.'" I wouldn't bet the farm just yet.
RIAA days are numbered.
Did anyone here - including the submitter - bother reading beyond the first paragraph of the article?
This is not about the RIAA disappearing as in "going away". This is about the RIAA and IFPI merging operations. This would probably actually make things worse, because the combined agency would be larger, would have jurisdiction over more than just the United States, and would continue doing its current work.
It's about finding ways of consolidating operations. And like a company that does this successfully, the resulting agency could actually end up stronger than the RIAA as it currently exists.
I wouldn't bet the farm that the RIAA will disappear they are too important to the music industry, as they should be. I think that the RIAA has gotten side tracked on the real issues of music piracy and needs to stop attacking the consumers. It is the large pirates the ones that are actually making fake discs and selling them for a profit that need to be stopped, as they should. Turning off large sites that share music illegally should also be targeted. Music shouldn't be free or you wouldn't have an industry, but on that same note you don't alienate your consumers by making them feel like criminals(even if they just rip their CD to their MP3 player).
I think what is really important is that their is an internal review going on, maybe a large shakeup will ensue and we can hope to get everything back to the way it should be. Protecting users from fake copies of albums, and protecting musicians from mass pirating. Your always going to have an underground community, you're just going to have to make sure your product is superior and stop the major counterfeiters.
So EMI will no longer farm out its enforcement duties to the RIAA. That's the entire point of the article. There's nothing to imply that they won't continue to protect their intellectual property. Just don't get all excited, now.
There's a few things that still have to change:
1) Copyright should be reduced in duration.
2) The penalties must be adjusted to be reasonable.
3) People must come to respect the rights of property holders, not violate them blindly. Copyright has lots of negative impliciations when well beyond the term of commercial viability, but I believe that copyright can be adjusted to accomodate both that and the property rights of the creator.
4) Slashdot-crowd must abandon the notion that "not-for-profit" redistribution of someone else's work should be permitted without permission of the rights holder.
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If by "disappear" you mean disband, only to have the exact same people start up another, less publicly hated, organization.
My only real hope is that they decide to be less evil in their new incarnation.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Well, having read the entire article and the linked articles I respectfully disagree that this is about the RIAA and IFPI merging. The merger is really beside the point and doesn't seem to be EMI's idea or goal.
The RIAA is effectively an (effective) oligopoly and in that sense it is disappearing. EMI, having new owners, being the first of these labels to sell their tracks without DRM, and now questioning the value of the RIAA and IFPI clearly seems to realize that this oligopoly as it stands is no longer of benefit to them.
That's not to say that a restructured RIAA/IFPI won't become an effective oligopoly as well or that this is what the submitter was addressing, but this very well could mean the RIAA is 'going away' and it is a clear indication that the RIAA in its current (i.e. anti-consumer) form is going away.
I really think the record labels should go away along with the RIAA. They were a necessary evil when recording, distribution, marketing had huge upfront costs. Technological advancements have made professional recording orders of magnitude cheaper, and the Internet has done the same for distribution and marketing.
Except for the very top tier, artists make very little from record sales. Why bother? Just give the music away for free and make money the way artists have for a long time: from live performances and merchandising. Consumers will be happy, artists will do as well as or better than they ever have, and all of this foolishness will go away. A bunch of greedy record execs will be looking for work, but will anyone care?
I care if they disappear. I don't want them to disappear. I want them to be destroyed spectacularly. I want their grandchildren to remember their shame.
Disappearing is not nearly painful enough.
I don't purchase music any more due to the RIAA suing people, period! If they disappear and we can get past this idea that everyone is a thief, then maybe, just maybe, I'd buy music again.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
And yet... EMI is still the only label offering content in iTunes+. That's the DRM free side of iTunes, btw.
So it doesn't look like RIAA is going to go away, its just likely to lose 25% of its membership body. Well, even less than that, since EMI doesn't actually possess 25% market share.
EMI has been going against its brethren for a while now. Let us hope they don't fail...
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Sure, now that Big Media has pretty much got the developed world's governments in their pocket. The real story here is that soon the Big Media/Big Pharma candidate will be replacing our Big Oil president, so the tactics employed by the RIAA up to now will soon be obsolete. Why spend the money to maintain a private goon squad when the Feds are happy to accept the contract?
Caveat Utilitor
I was initially under a similar impression, but they eventually convinced me that, for at least some of them, the issue runs deeper than that. It's not about free entertainment, it's about sharing information and entertainment, about being able to give a copy of your CD to friends so they can check it out, or being able to sample music without having to lay money down upfront (and without going to the trouble of finding a legal outlet). It's more noble than just a lust for free entertainment, and rather than greed, I put it down to short-sightedness and an impractical view.
They (and I) also don't like the fact that we constantly have to defend what little rights we do have to our copies of the media, and always the RIAA is pushing. I mean, I'm fine with the RIAA defending their copyrights, and with copyright infringement being illegal (in fact, I wholeheartedly support it), but you gotta admit, the RIAA are just pricks.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Huh, and here I was thinking the RIAA was supposed to be a standards body promulgating a common equalization curve for grooved recordings.
They are. They are also the ones who forgot to tell the labels that the Compact Disc is a standard format used to sell music. Now we have incompatible and dangerous shiny plastic round things that no longer follow the standard that works and is safe. Visit any CD section and look for the Compact Disc logo on any of them. The RIAA fell down on this one.
The truth shall set you free!
Not before trolls, son. Not before trolls.