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Will the New RIAA Tactic Boost P2P File Sharing?
newtley writes "The RIAA's claim that it'll stop suing people may have serious consequences... for the RIAA. When it dropped its attack on seven University of Michigan students, Recording Industry vs. The People wondered if the move was linked to three investigations, with MediaSentry as the target, before Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth. Now, 'LSA sophomore Erin Breisacher said she stopped downloading music illegally after hearing about the possibility of receiving a lawsuit, but now that the RIAA has stopped pursuing lawsuits she "might start downloading again,"' says the Michigan Daily, going on to quote LSA senior Chad Nihranz as saying, 'I figure, if there aren't as many lawsuits they will come out with more software to allow students to download more.'"
What about some of the other potential tactics we've discussed recently, such as the UK's proposed £20 per year film and music tax or the $5 monthly fee suggested in the US? Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?
But if I get taxed £20, i'll be sure to download at least £200 worth of media.
How about producing music people actually want to buy?
I'm sure if Putin and Dell get together they could figure out a great way to sell music in any format the customers want and at a reasonable price!
An annual fee of £20 is significantly less than I spend on music/DVDs as it stands, so it sounds like a pretty good deal.
I must assume that's not their intent, and that they just want to use this top up their revenues to what they think they 'should' be, but if they're going to charge me on the assumption that I'm illegally downloading copyrighted materials, the least I can do is illegally download some copyrighted materials, right?
I predict the following strategy:
1) Stop suing.
2) Collect data on the rise of file-sharing to justify their lawsuits.
3) Start suing
4) ???
5) Profit.
Well, I'm not sure about #5.
[quote]Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?[/quote] Make a system that is as easy as thepiratebay and has as much stuff. Now it is convenience that is killing them. The Free part doesn't hurt, but it also doesn't help as much as the fact that the legal options are as painful as a root canal.
I believe the ultimate goal for the RIAA is to get a fee from every customer of an ISP. Money for doing nothing. The distribution of these fees will be such that independent artists get a token sum, while the RIAA gets money for nothing. That's what all the litigation is for -- to get this fee system established.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I know this sounds like the start of a bad joke, but this seems to be a fairly simple principle. When the USSR made it nearly impossible to get normal goods that the public wanted, an underground sprang up to fill the need. This is simple supply and demand economics. To generalize, making things overly expensive and tied to one internet connected device is only going to encourage a larger underground market.
People, on the whole, want to do the right thing, but you should not deprive them of their right to do whatever they want with things they have legally bought, or they will circumvent it. Humans adapt, learn, and defeat stupid things like copy protection and vendor-lock in all the time. If they really want to decrease piracy, then they should stop price gouging, stop overly restrictive DRM, allow better "try before you buy" methods, and truly embrace college communities via viral marketing techniques rather than call them criminals.
But hey, you already knew this. At this point, we're just beating a dead horse with this argument.
No, I firmly believe there isn't. They chose the wrong strategy, and got caught out in the cold. They lead lives that are so different from ours, they've become convinced by their own arguments, just like the Wall Street bankers and their bonuses. The RIAA really doesn't have much of a choice but to throw in the towel and start off in a different direction. Of course, they won't, and I'll be one of those cheering their burial.
They've made it this far because a large part of their argument comes from the idea that file-sharing is globally illegal. This type of file sharing has to be made firmly, clearly, and once-and-for-all clearly legal. Somewhere, we have to ask ourselves what value do recorded music, video, and programs have? If we're not happy with the free-market answer, we have to find it in ourselves to come up with a solution that modifies the free-market such that we support these activities. Simply declaring the free-market illegal is not a valid strategy. It hasn't ever worked in the past-- witness alcohol, drugs, etc...-- and it's not working now.
Now, I for one think that the arts are far more worthy than the sciences. As an engineer, I was offered a salary 5 times what a friend was making, even though I was going to do numerical analysis of toilet paper (no shit, pun intended) and she was working 80 hour days with children's theater. If the fact that we live in a society that values toilet paper more than theater offends you, then you need to make the decisions in your life that reflect this.
Science is an awesome hobby, and it's what I do for a living, but somewhere we're seriously out of whack when business is worth more than life. The RIAA mentality shows this, and there's really nothing they can do except fight until they've carved out a sufficiently well protected niche that they can survive in some minimal fashion. To take an analogy from Go, they're trying desperately to make two eyes, even though the game is practically over.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
Is there anything the RIAA can do to stop copyright infringement without looking like a bunch of asses? Sure, but they've now in a deep hole dug on the unsustainable premise that they could either sue all infringers out of existence or at least enough of them to cow everyone else into staying off P2P. Turns out that wasn't working either.
Here are my proposals for ways they can get turned around:
1. Do their damnedest to promote all the usable online services. iTunes, Amazon, the whole smash. No DRM anywhere, though I think people won't mind fingerprinting. Do a mix of buy-to-own and subscription services; there are separate markets for each. Sell audio with lossless encoding (Apple Lossless and FLAC if that works in the non-Apple ecosystem). Raffle off concert tickets for buyers on the download services. Try to reach everyone -- Windows, Mac, Linux.
2. Do a "legal" P2P service that traffics purely in 128kbps MP3s of popular songs with lead-in or lead-out ads. "Weezer's Red Album -- now available from your online music store." That kind of thing.
3. Let Web radio live. I'm sure there's a reasonable profit stream there that everyone can tap into if nobody strangles the golden goose, so to speak. It also drives sales -- when I was a kid the only music I actually bought was stuff I'd already heard on the radio. Get people to actually use the "radio" function in iTunes and web browsers and whatnot. Music radio on 3G phones. The possibilities are endless here.
4. Instead of chasing homemade music videos off YouTube, get people to pay a "licensing fee" of say $5 and then let them be. There are also cross-licensing deals for advertising dollars to be had with the video services.
5. ENOUGH WITH THE MEDIA TAXES. If I pay a "tax" on recording media or my iPod's hard drive or whatever I will download everything I can for free. I'm going to assume I'm already "paid up" because guess what, I am. Besides, if we pay a media tax the music industry should be quasi-nationalized.
6. (the one they'll never accept) Deal with the fact that music is now a more distributed phenomenon and that the massive profit margins the record companies saw on audio cassettes and CDs just can't exist anymore. Make what profit you can instead of getting sucked down the toilet with the rest of the economy.
I will bet good money, though, that the RIAA won't do any one of these things over the next five years-- instead they'll just chase the phantom of infringement that they'll never be able to stop, music sales will go completely down the drain, and the world music industry will restructure around the online services being labels themselves. Cut your song in a recording studio then upload it to Amazon and iTunes. They take 35%, you take the rest. Hell, the RIAA should be very very scared of this happening, and I expect they are, but they're going to make it happen and maybe that's a good thing for all us music buyers.
"Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?"
Well, LOTS of things. /. article on big downloaders also being the biggest purchasers.
1. Stop treating their clients as criminals, (see earlier
2. Make more of their catalog available, faster, and more easily, to more paid download services.
2. Skip the DRM crap, (which will save money, too)
3. Divert the cash currently wasted on criminal clowns like MediaSentry and Sony rootkits to efforts to educate the public on how to download music safely, legally & cheaply.
4. Ink deals with content creators that take into account all revenue streams, (including concerts, the real money-spiners for many artists these days), with a fair share for all and which takes into consideration the investment made by production organisations in developing new talent.
5. Make it easy for people to buy/access, and archive/backup 'premium/HiRes/lossless' content (see 'DRM' above).
6. Promote standards for inteeoperability between various media storage and playback devices. Would I pay for to have my vast mp3 collection automagically tagged and sorted, with the ability to stream/upload to any device I own, and maybe grab the video if I want? Well, yes!
Now I'm going to stop dreaming, and go back to helping my teenage daughter convert a YouTube pop video for use on her iPod.
STOP BUYING AND/OR DOWNLOADING COMMERCIAL MUSIC.
Just stop. Seriously. Boycott any and all bands that go through publishers that have any affiliation whatsoever with these criminals. And yes, regardless of what you think, the RIAA ARE indeed criminals. I'm not talking "criminals" as in America's law, I'm talking "criminals" as in moral and ethical laws. Think "LAWFUL EVIL" for all you D&D fans out there. The only difference between you and them are dollar signs. That goes for the MPAA too.
If we could all go one, maybe two years without buying any music or movies (and I'm sure that's possible...it's called self-restraint) that have ties to these asswipes, they WILL go away because they won't have those pretty little dollar signs any more. Now is the BEST time to do this because of the economy. They're more vulnerable than ever.
As I posted in the £20 tax thread, I can't find any evidence that such a proposal even exists.
The UK government did propose, in the interim Digital Britain report, to explore the willingness of rightsholder organisations (eg, the equivalents of the RIAA and MPAA) to fund a Rights Agency [which is stupid idea, but still...] but there never was a "broadband tax" proposal.
I think that the Times article was simply wrong (did you see it quote anything or anyone? Thought not). However, if anyone can find some counter evidence, then I'd like to read it.
I hold no candle for the Labour government - bash away, but when you bash at a non-existent straw man, then you undermine all your legitimate arguments against the real world shit that the bastards try to pull (ID cards, Internet use database, DNA records, etc.)
--Ng
Lower prices.
It's simple economics. Lower prices will result in higher marginal utility and more people will buy instead of download.
Look at it this way. If all of the millions of songs that people are downloading for free were to go away, not every one of those people would go out and buy the music. If the prices were reduced to, say, (allofmp3.com levels) then many people who wouldn't otherwise buy the songs would.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
How to increase sales and decrease downloads? Easy.
1. Make stuff I want to buy.
Granted, that does not reduce P2P useage, because I don't download either what I don't want, and I tend to think many think likewise. Make good music/movies that I want to see/hear and I'll buy them!
2. Get rid of DRM and other nuisances
I still do not buy a good movie if I have to fear the installation of a rootkit, or that it doesn't work in my PC at all (which happens to be my media machine, why'd I buy a dedicated DVD player?). I do not buy the movie if it forces me to sit through ads for movies I neither want nor care for. This is, if anything, the main reason for people to go to P2P instead of buying movies (besides the monetary reason). I don't mind the 20ish bucks for a good movie, but I do mind the hassle I have to worry about.
3. Give additional benefits
Downloaded content can only carry the content itself. Give people something besides the things they get on their disc. Artbooks can have a value of their own, and they can't be reproduced easily. Start hyping the "collectible value" of CDs, maybe design the covers of CDs from an artist so that they all together form nice pictures that would look cool on the collector's CD rack. But for that, you might have to return to artists that crank out more than one or two CDs before you dump them, I know. Another idea would be some sort of "limited edition" versions of CDs, create batches of about 10.000 with different artwork. Some people might buy the same CDs over and over because they gotta have them all. People are hunter and gatherers at heart, exploit that!
4. Create other media and offer discounts
Movies beg for a making of and maybe a published script. Add coupons for this and other media you want to sell that offer discounts on those additional things. People will consider it a bargain and buy them, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I stopped buying CDs when they started producing more and more CDs that were actually "music discs" and not CDs. I found that I could no longer rip them as easily and eventually just gave up. I like having my music in ogg, which no music store has, so I gave up on the idea of downloading legally. And I don't want to be the target of a lawsuit, so I refuse to download illegally. As a result, my music collection is getting kind of stale and the music industry is missing out on the 20-30 CDs a year I used to buy.
It seems that every step they take to reduce piracy just makes it that more unlikely that I'll buy legitimately from them. They make CDs rip-proof and I won't buy CDs. They make online music stores use DRM and I won't buy MP3s (or more technically WMAs or AACs).
I can't speak for every individual obviously, but if they were to just totally stop all of their anti-piracy initiatives, I'd be buying $300-$400 more music each year. There is definitely a cost to trying to stop piracy.
I think the 'fees' and 'taxes' on broadband connections may very well work, but they depend very much on the details.
There has been a suggestion of the same thing being applied here in Sweden, with a strange twist: by paying the fee, you would be allowed to download everything your heart could desire. BUT (and it's a big but) it would still be illegal for you to _upload_ things! The net effect would be that you would be paying for the content the creators put on internet, not for anything else! Marvelous business plan...
If the 'fee'/'tax' allowed uploads as well, it could work. Until the porn industry starts claiming it's fair share of the money. I find it hard to believe there is no porn distributed illegally on internet, so the porn industry should have it's fair share. Yet, I would like to see the politician or high executive from an ISP supporting the porn industry's claim....
I know of people who trade USB keys. They fill them with their favourite songs, and either hand them around, or mail them. I know of people who have exchanged external Hard Drives. Think 500 GB external hard drives full of movies and songs. People will adapt. The RIAA will fall just like the IRA.
Sounds to me like a way to get the Govt to collect money for an industry. In spite of how things appear with what the Thundering Herd of Dumbass in Washington is doing, it is not the Govt's job to ensure profits for any business or industry.
I have one thing to say about how good a Govt run business in the U. S. can be: AMTRAK! (money sewer on rails)
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The old RIAA tactics didn't thwart downloading one iota, so it's hard to believe them 'dropping the lawsuits' will have much, if any, impact on the scenario.
The fact is The record companies that the RIAA represents, put out pretty crappy generic music. It's formulaic, and meant to sell - not be innovative or good.
The 'Indie' record industry has taken the place of most big record labels, by providing music that is more in line with what the artist wants to produce. The music is better, more creative, different, and quite honestly - what people prefer to hear.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
The MAFIAA come off as greedy bastards, and fairness is an instinct in all great apes.
It's amazing. I'm reading past articles in Slashdot, and we were already talking about RIAA and MPAA since 8 years ago.
From an article on Sep 11, 2001:
I felt a mix of emotions: disappointed that I wouldn't have the chance to testify and lock horns with the MPAA and other industry lobbyists, and guilty for having such self-centered thoughts during this crisis.
The earliest article I've personally found is the article MPAA vs. 2600 dated May 2001.
Why do all of the suggestions here assume the world still needs the RIAA, or record labels for that matter? Record labels exist to distribute and advertise music, both of which can now be done online without them. Just get rid of them.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Here's a few options:
- Start treating the indies and non-"top 40 list" artists with respect.
- Stop putting out crap content that isn't worth the price they want to price-fix it at.
- Bring back the single (why do you think iTunes and similar do so well? Because most of the time only one song on the album is any good if it's a MafiAA-produced album).
- Start making the production value of CD's worthwhile again. This means put in proper cover art, lyric sheets, etc rather than just a tiny scrap of paper. Also, stop pushing the normalized volume of the recording so fucking high that it clips out and sounds like crap. Master them lower and retain audio fidelity, thanks.
- Sign some fucking new artists for god's sakes.
There's also one thing I'd love to see happen from the government's end, which would be to reinstate the radio station ownership rules. It used to be, there were over 5000 different radio companies in the US. Now, 98% of the US market is owned by only 5 companies; the biggest and crappiest, "Clear Channel", owns over 50% of the market.
You want to know why your radio sucks today? Because you don't GET local shows any more. There are a small handful of local shows, and the rest is either national-syndicated talk radio (schlesinger, limbaugh, hannity, beck, savage, etc), "top 40" generic shit "music" stations with pre-recorded loops and a guy three states away "reading your local news" to you, or "niche top 40" crap we get down here based on exploiting some racial group (local stations we have here: "La Raza", aka "The Race", the vilest racist mexican Aztlan-movement shit you've ever heard, and "the Box", which is all (c)Rap music about killing cops and regularly features "guest" appearances of the local New Black Panthers leader).
Clear Channel moves into a city, cuts all the employees, pretty much just sets up the stations on automatic reproduction of their master feed, and forgets about you. They get an almost "captive audience" of commuters, and that's that. In many local markets, there is no such thing as "competition" any more because CC owns the entire area.
Reinstate the media ownership rules; make it so we get REAL local music stations again, with REAL DJ's who make their OWN daily playlists, occasionally spin a whole album, and maybe (just maybe) there will be a better chance for music to spread.
Of course, the MafiAA loves media consolidation. That way, they send just one gift basket to one person and get Britney Spears' latest pile of crap spinning on half the stations in the US for five weeks or more, and lock the independent artists completely out of the system much easier. Gyah.
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
Great list, I'd only add one item. Stop trying to bankrupt internet radio. Use at as a medium for promoting new music. Commercial radio is real good at promoting the twenty or so 'hits' that they play over and over and over. Internet radio could be good for promoting everything else. That is if the music industry wasn't intent on killing it.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Check Google for blank media tax.
Hasn't stopped them from pursuing copyright violations so far.
You must remember these people are completely desperate. Their business model is dead. And it's a model that gave them millions for *nothing*. Sit behind a desk and collect royalties. Who wouldn't want that to continue? And if you happen to have the morals of a shark, why not try something like this? Double dipping would hardly be the least of their sins.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I was watching an Australian late night music show (Rage - ABC) the other night and they had an interesting clip of a spokesman from the MAFIAA lamenting about the deluge of pirated music, while standing in front of supposedly 100s and 100s of copies, that was hitting the country from Asia and that, unless things changed, the music industry would be DEAD in a couple of years.
He then went on to wax lyrical about the quality of the copies and getting no value for money etc etc.
The laughable thing about this is that the clip was from the mid 1970'S and he was holding cassette tapes !!
Over 30 years ago, the music industry was facing the same death and mayhem from pirated music that they face today, and yet, they didn't die. Didn't go broke. Didn't get pirated out of existence. In fact - most of them thrived!
I'm not saying they don't have a legitimate issue, but for decades now, they've seriously overstated the threat.
I shouldn't be forced to pay for music I don't listen to.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
P2P users who share and download music and movies are not pirates. They are the cure to a societal disease the has been infecting our country and culture for a long time. So, finally the cure comes along and the cancer (RIAA and MPAA) are screaming because they are dieing. Good! Let the disease drop dead. Stop looking at the pirates of music and video as bad people. They are helping to destroy that which has been destroying American culture for decades. The RIAA and MPAA don't have a leg to stand on. It's ok to pump out trash and shit by the truck load as long as your charge for it? But it's not OK to get trash and shit for free eh? Amazing. I can't wait until they finally prove the damage inflicted upon generations of youth by this crap the RIAA and MPAA have produced. Oh yeah we all get upset about big Tobacco...but we are supposed to feel sorry for the RIAA and the MPAA. Screw the RIAA and the MPAA and screw, especially, Jack Valente!!!
worthwhile again. This means put in proper cover art, lyric sheets, etc rather than just a tiny scrap of paper.
I'd substitute vinyl records for CDs. Here'a an interesting article from "Wired", "Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin". Best Buy and Costco are starting to sell vinyl.
Sign some fucking new artists for god's sakes.
There are at least 4 shops within a couple of miles of me that sell vinyl. At one someone told me vinyl was popular with local artists.
There's also one thing I'd love to see happen from the government's end, which would be to reinstate the radio station ownership rules. It used to be, there were over 5000 different radio companies in the US. Now, 98% of the US market is owned by only 5 companies;
Which rules are you talking about? The rules I'll support are those used before the FRC, Federal Radio Commission, which was the predecessor to the FCC. Back then radiowaves were homesteaded. The first person to use a radio frequency was allowed to use that frequency in that area. If someone came along after and started broadcasting and it interfered with the first broadcaster the second station had to move to another frequency or stop broadcasting. And the courts were applying the common law theory of property rights to this. It was after Radio Act of 1927 which created the FRC that airwaves were licensed.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?
Anything the RIAA can do? No. They're one-trick ponies: "OBEY, or we will destroy you!" By definition, they have been trying to generate bad publicity, because if they don't there is no upside, no deterrence, no reduction in widespread copyright infringement. Not that they've been particularly successful anyway.
Now that doesn't mean that nothing can be done. The studios can do a lot, if they're willing to accept that they can't ever return to the halcyon days of total distribution control. There's still plenty of money to be made, but they'll have to drop their past century of sleazy business practices, and start competing on the merits of their products.
I don't hold out much hope of that happening, but hey, even pigs have been known to fly now and then.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.