Collegiate Resistance To RIAA In Michigan

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There are now at least three complaints being investigated in Michigan against the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, SafeNet a/k/a MediaSentry, one of which was filed by Central Michigan University itself. Two other complaints have been filed by students, one from Northern Michigan University and one from University of Michigan. This appears to be part of the growing sense of exasperation colleges and universities are feeling over the RIAA's harassment."

Comments

Took Them Long Enough

[Nom du Keyboard]

Took them long enough to become exasperated. With the notable exception of Oregon - and even there it took more than one suit to get the State A.G. involved - all of these colleges/universities/bastions of free and open thinking and individual rights have been very slow to fight back against these spurious lawsuits. Too much of a "Not the University's problem" type of thinking on display here.

Re:Took Them Long Enough

[dogeatery]

Wasn't there a post here on /. last year about the RIAA actively avoiding Harvard because of its legal talent and financial ability to fight? I always thought that epitomized this corporate bullying.

Re:Artists, haha

[Z34107]

Even middle men provide a service - if bands don't want access to a large, well-advertised and well-capitalized market base then they don't have to sign with one of those "middlemen."

Record labels and all those other middlemen are advertisers that pay you. The real money is in concerts.

Now, if you expect to be making between 99% and 101% on every CD sold, go indie. Nobody's forcing anyone to sign on to a major label-slash-middleman.

Now, to continue a theme in this thread, "FUCK" everyone who uses "I really love the artists and hate oppression" as an excuse for pirating music. If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.

Re:Artists, haha

[Adambomb]

. If you really want to support the artist, DON'T buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.

Fixed that for you. Revenue from distribution is nil for most artists, if you really want to support them buy merchandise from the whichever-band-it-is's website or attend performances. The promotion angle of the current recording industry has collapsed into itself for the big four, being built around creating the images the advertisers think will sell rather than promotion of talent and advertising the talent. If they truely did shift to a promotion and marketing based business model, they wouldn't be focusing the larger part of their attentions on controlling the distribution channels.

When you control distribution of content and venues, you can tailor a low overhead product to the market rather than finding talent and promoting it. If the ones not being promoted aren't being spun on radio, used in movies/supporting media, or otherwise brought to the publics attention what VALUE have they really given? Having your name on the side of a jewel case crammed in the indie section of your local store doesn't count as advertising or promotion in my book.

As for performances, I can't seem to find any information showing that the recording industry puts effort into providing advertising or promotion for anything but the resulting live albums. I could be wrong though on that one as I'm scrounging between tasks heh.