Slashdot Mirror
Musicians Oppose Anti-Piracy Measures In the UK
BluePeppers writes "The Guardian has a story, primarily about a deal that allows YouTube to broadcast music videos again, but also covering a coalition of artist unions that are opposing new legislation in the UK that would punish file sharers more severely. From the article: 'A coalition of bodies representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive, illogical and "extraordinarily negative." The Featured Artists Coalition, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and the Music Producers Guild have joined forces to oppose the proposals to reintroduce the threat of disconnection for persistent file sharers, which was ruled out in the government's Digital Britain report in June.""
Perhaps if more big names come out in opposition of measures like this the PRS in Britain and the RIAA in the US won't be able to hide behind excuses like "we're doing this for the artists".
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Unlike American humor which smashes you over your watermelon-like head like Gallagher's Sledge-o-matic, British humor relies on subtlety and odd juxtaposition to tell a joke.
FTS: Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and Damon Albarn
A Fab, a Fag, and now for something completely different.
HILARIOUS! <insert laughtrack>
What is the reasoning behind this kind of tough law? It's one thing to punish filesharers for violating copyrights, but to put them in the poorhouse for it is just reprehensible. Sure, fine them a couple thousand pounds, but it's not a crime worth destroying someone's whole life for.
Aren't music videos supposed to be promotional material? Kind of like adverts for the albums/singles? Why would anyone NOT want people to see them?
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
So these artists are saying that now the stick is far larger than the carrot. What carrot? When have we ever been giving an incentive to pay for the music rather than download it, other than guilt?
I think at this point the stick is just getting larger and pointier and this carrot they may have used at one point has just rotted in the corner.
I can see the Today Programme interview with the PRS (UK RIAA) now
John Humphries (you have NOTHING like him in the US): So you want people kicked off the internet for downloading copyrighted material. Why?
PRS: Because copyright theft is simply theft and its illegal and people should be punished accordingly
JH: But the government says that broadband access is becoming an essential tool in modern society, aren't your punishments a bit draconian?
PRS: John, These people are stealing literally billions from artists, its a massive industry in the UK that makes a lot of money for this country and these people are ruining it
JH: So this is about the artists? Not the publishing companies?
PRS: Absolutely John, these downloaders are just stealing from artists and if this continues there will be no more artists
JH: If that is the case why do three of the most successful artists in this country's history oppose your plans?
PRS: Errrr
JH: I mean if it really was about the artists then surely these people would be all for it. Or is it just about publishing companies that can't be bothered to handle a changing world and just want to dig their heels in and get fat from the restrictive contracts and stifling processes that have got them into this mess?
PRS: Errrr
JH: Lets face it you don't care about the artists, you just care about the money and more importantly you care about making money without having to change the way you work. Lots of companies have led the way in legal digital music but the publishing companies have not been amongst them. Isn't this just about old fashioned companies who can't change moaning about new technology and asking the government to bail them out
PRS: Errrr
JH: And now for the weather
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
... to "The soon-to-be-ousted-middlemen continue to look for new ways to make money in the digital age" and the article is put in it's proper perspective.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Forgive me but some of the richest artists are putting up token opposition just doesn't impress me. Fo rall I know behind closed doors they're patting the record execs on the back for pushing this legislation through. These are after all people who make their living as much by promoting themselves as celebrities as by making music. Forgive me if I am therefore skeptical.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The rights of thousands of artists vs. more profit for a handfull of record companies. Guess who's going to win this one. (hint; one of these two is rich)
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.- Benito Mussolini Maybe I'm being sensationlist, and mod me down if I am, but to me the RIAA and the PRS's influence on their respective government's policies seems to reflect Mussolini's statement.
I've made quite a few tracks for fun... And lately, I've been looking at the possibility to get them on on iTunes, Spotify, etc.
Here comes the great part: I don't need a label on anything these days. There are already several services that will publish independent music direct to major stores and streaming services without going through a bunch of extra layers.
So if I ever decide to publish my stuff I can just ignore the (Finnish equivalent of the) RIAA. I'd rather miss out on any money I could get that route than help rob everyone of any more rights.
Gotta love progress.
.: Max Romantschuk
Dinosaurs didn't want to die either, but nature doesn't like obsolete designs. And neither does free market, at least usually. Unless such obsolete designs are artificially propped up by legal means.
The studios were a necessity until about 15 or maybe 20 years ago. First, they were the only ones that could afford the insanely expensive studio equipment. Until the 80s, no "garage band" could afford equipment that allowed them to create even a sensible demo tape. The advance in computers made this no problem anymore. Anyone can today get affordable equipment that allows him to enjoy the same or at least nearly the same level of quality any big studio could offer, provided he has the skill to use it. So what was left after that was their function as the distribution way. No single artist could afford the distribution system a large music corporation can offer. In came the internet, with instant distribution and an easy way to collect payment.
So, what's currently left is the music studio's edge in PR and marketing. Every other aspect they ever had has been stripped from them and superseded by cheaper means. They may offer it to artists and some artists may opt for it, simply because the studios still have the expertise and often also the better trained personnell, simply by experience, but an artist now has the option to record and publish himselves without having to resort to studios.
Once marketing is somehow taken from their grasp, they have become utterly useless to the music business.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thinking it over, it seems that given a long struggle against copyrights and patents, piracy will benefit that struggle, but only to the extent it is openly recognized, looked at, reviewed, accepted, and of course practiced. If for example many influential people would start preaching 'piracy is ok', 'piracy is good', establishing that as a moral guideline first, that becomes a building point for proposing and approving new laws. New economic and legal models will follow what is being practiced already. It's too bad that decompiling doesn't work. My own guide is a humanist phrase I heard "nobody has ever created anything without using thousands of free, unpaid, uncontrolled, non-patented and non-copyrighted benefits from human history and nature" - such as language, the written word, tools, transportation, food, oxygen, electricity, copper, wires, chairs, cement, medicines, the list is endless. How can they claim to have individually created, own, and control a concept, an idea, a non-existing object, an inspiration, which stands to benefit all future mankind. An individual human being, isolated, with no contact with human beings, with no benefits of accumulated history, would be a primitive man, completely ignorant, the same as a man before human history, with no ability to invent much of anything new. To make contributions to society and human history is nothing more than a human being's purpose for being in the world, our place in time, in society. And not to one's exclusive benefit, financial or otherwise.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
How are you going to organise a sufficient boycott that they'll notice? I can't be bothered joining and I'm aware of the issues.
It used to be simple:
Record companies want music offline, want more money, want no sharing.
Nerds and geeks want music online, all for free, share with everybody.
And there were no other parties. Now there are geeks in 10 different categories (ranging from small groups of geeks at the pirate bay to huge companies such as Google that owns youtube). /.
And it seems that the music industry are now themselves hijacked by the lawyers, media, ISP's, electronics manufacturers and whatever else there is in all the posts here on
And then there's the RIAA who sue everybody, but I'm not sure if they're still being controlled by anyone, or if they now make their own agenda like a Frankenstein's Monster.
And nobody ever seems to ask the artists anything (except Metallica, who didn't realize that 50% of their fans are geeks).
So... I've come to realize that for every euro I spend on music... at least 99.999% should go to all those organizations and industries. And the percentage is still growing. Parasites.
Anyway, I'll just copy my music using my USB stick from friends. Quality and quantity are guaranteed. All offline.
That's the problem, ppl just don't give a dam any-more, we have all been demoralised into mindless consumers while corporations & government do what they like.
The Truth Is Out There:
This is important to note
Why don't you sing a few verses of Kumbaya while you're at it?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Dinosaurs didn't want to die either, but nature doesn't like obsolete designs."
Dinosaurs were an enormously successful group. It's not so much that their anatomy was obsolete, as it wasn't tuned to handle an out-of-the-blue catastrophe like the biggest asteroid impact in the last 250 million years -- same as innumerable other creatures that died out at about the same time. They don't call the end of the Cretaceous Period a "mass extinction" for nothing. It's kind of like saying a business must not have been well-managed if it didn't survive the 1930s Great Depression. No, it could just be a lot of bad luck and a really stressful time that took down many of the good and the bad businesses alike.
Furthermore, dinosaurs did survive. Some of them had already transformed into something new before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction hit: birds. And they've been very successful subsequently.
You're right that there is a message there for the record companies, though.
[captcha: "mutates"]
You mean like how social networking has changed the whole marketing game? They are in their death bed screaming. The trouble is they have stockpiles of cash that they can use to purchase government. Government doesn't exist in a land of market failure, so they just tax more, punish more, and insist that it isn't the broken laws, it is that people just refuse to behave.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
erm... excuse me, but i owned and operated a TASCAM 80-8 in the 70s and several TASCAM 4-tracks with sync cables; all of which i could afford on a meager cook's salary (just took some saving.)
And please take a look at the actual machines used to record the Beatles, up to and including The White Album - 4-tracks.
My machines had a clean +17dB signal and enough track separation to produce not only a demo but a pressable Master, as many thousands of small studios in the 70s and 80s can attest.
Now get off my Ampex 440.
Durka durka.
that's actually their future
there's money to be made in hyping and packaging and promoting the hell out of a pop act, and reaping financial rewards from that in terms of ancillary revenue flows like concerts, endorsements, etc (no $ from recorded tracks, not anymore)
think about the career of someone like tiger woods: he is fabulously rich, but think about how he makes his money. there isn't some army of lawyers preventing you from getting the next tiger woods video. they watch him for free on tv. the golf video market is not exactly a huge industry, and thats the analogy to recorded music products. tiger woods makes millions modeling nike golf apparel. all of those other revenue streams available to tiger woods are still available to your average u2-type band. the u2 of the future will have a multimillion dollar contract to model puma sneakers
the difference is, its a voluntary career path for a lucky band or two, not a mandatory arrangement for everyone, including the one hit wonders who never benefited from past arrangements and never will. at least their star wattage, as dim as it gets, is still worth something if they monetize their dwindling fame in clever ways (think "the long tail" and all that). the lie is that the death of the recorded music for $ model will suddenly impoverish artists. no: the superstars will still be superstars, the one hit wonders will still be one hit wonders, the permanently obscure will still be permanently obscure
there will still be elton johns and jay zs in the music industry future, they just will be decimillionaires instead of centimillionaires. and the suits behind them will snort coke off of a hooker's ass once a week, instead of every day
oh boohoo, won't someone think of the industry. zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hmm.
carrot to stick function
((SmallArtistCost+Profit)-(SmallArtistCost))
------------
(SmallArtistCost)
As SmallArtistCost Approaches Zero
Sounds suspiciously like Calculus.
(Misc text to get rid of filter error. Are they going to enlist Metallica to support them?)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Seven million Britons face having their internet connection cut off and fines of up to GBP50,000 as Digital Britain is implemented.
Lord Carter, the report's author, has now left the Government for consultancies unknown. Lord Mandelson, who has taken over responsibility for digital policy, has been persuaded of the need for a tougher approach after entreaties from starving music mogul David Geffen, who was introduced to him by the Rothschild family. "He warned me in 2001 that these 'MP3 players' would lead to the downfall of civilisation. I understand iPods were popular in the City just before the Great Recession, you know."
Internet piracy is estimated by the movie and music industries to cost them around GBP1.4 billion squillion zillion a year, ripped untimely from their generous artist-supporting pockets.
Critics have compared the proposals to King Canute, failing to turn back the tide. "So it's up to the Government to supply the sandbags. We have an industry to defend!"
Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, will require Internet providers to record users downloading illegal content. The magical copyright detector, which the music industry just knows the ISPs are being obstructive in not enabling immediately, will be used to send a massive voltage up through serious repeat offenders' Internet connections and into their chairs.
Labour backbencher Tom Watson said the sanctions would attach an "unbearable burden" on an emerging technology with the power to transform society. "Sounds just fine to me," said Lord Mandelson.
Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, will be in charge of the party's Internet campaigning ahead of the general election. "Voters will increasingly be searching the web to find out what we think about the issues. If we haven't cut them off."
In other news, membership of the Pirate Party UK, launched earlier in the week, has been increasing at 100 new members per hour.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The labels are always judged by their previous performances, they all have their hall of fame, with sales and profits from a different era, an era when they were the gate keepers of both access to publicity and distribution as well as high quality production facilities. Those times are will over but they are still living in that era. Sales wise the days of Queen, Elton John, The Beatles etc are long over, they will NEVER return.
No artist or band now will ever achieve those profit levels but the carrot the labels hold out for a HUGE share of a new artists profits and control over their careers is the possibility that it could be them. It's the same hook as the lottery, it could be you but it won't. In return for that control and percentage of the profits, the labels can often treat the artist like just another item in the in tray which will be dealt with after a round of golf. An album is held back if it's not commercial enough, after all, the labels are first and foremost a BUSINESS, music happens to be their product. They only invest money ticking all the usual promotional boxes if they believe the return is going to be worth it. From all the new artists and bands signing their lives away to the labels, most will fade into obscurity with their creative talents tied, and everything they do produce owned by someone else. Occasionally one or two will make it relatively big and become stars for a few years. I say "relatively" because they're still nothing (profitability wise) compared to the heady days of the 60's 70's and 80's "big" artists. The labels make sue to blind new artists so they only see the big stars, to tempt them in, knowing that in all likelyhood they'll be chewed up and spat out.
The internet has opened up an alternative world where the labels are excess to requirements. Artists and bands can buy or rent decent recording equipment cheap, they can create or mix the music on their home PC's, set up websites cheaply and joint the various social networking sites free of charge and promote themselves directly to their fans, cutting out the labels altogether. They then have complete control over their music which could be a good or bad thing. This means they're not reliant on some suit with an intray to deal with to get things moving, they set the pace. They're not at the mercy f someone telling them to "make it more poppy". They can be judged on their creativity, not a filtered version of it. More than all of this, they can make a decent living by embracing the internet and their fans. They will never be filthy rich this way, but in reality they would never be filthy rich signing to a label either, the difference is either buying into an illusion or reality.
Labels have long abused both ends of the chain, the artists and the fans. Before the internet they were in an unmovable position. Now the internet has given both ends of the chain an easy way to bypass the labels and they're increasingly desperate to protect their parasitic lifestyles. They know this, and the more they try to extort money from people, the more internet blogs, forums etc report and discuss it, the less their feeble arguments are accepted. They have very little to offer artists other than false hope. The more artists who speak out against them, the more it hurts their credibility reveals them for the parasites they are.
Sorry, another point....
The only thing the labels have to offer is access to the mainstream TV and radio stations to get airplay, which is not a guaranteed way to sales, as some have pointed out; a lot of people leave a channel like MTV on all day rather than listen to CDs.
The disconnection of file sharers from the internet is just going to be another law misused by those in power to censor & silence their critics.
Why does that list of people sound like the old Star Trek Triple?
"Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and Damon Albarn"
sounds like:
"Jefferson, Lincoln, Alzaroth of Seti Alpha 6"
A more effective way to combat the "anti-priacy" forces of the RIAA and its counterparts around the world is to avoid their products all together. If people would spend the effort they expend to obtain music (whether that is money or time and effort) on obtaining solely non-RIAA music, a successful alternative to the RIAA distribution model would arise.
There have been several studies suggesting that pirating RIAA music inhibits the development of alternative business models. The idea being that by pirating RIAA music one is helping the RIAA maintain its mindshare as "the good music".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Maybe it's time these industries (music, media, entertainment, etc) look into why people are driven to piracy? Many of us do so because we: 1) like music so much we can't afford to pay for all the albums we want 2) find it despicable that artists get so little from the sales of their music and would rather steal the album and then actually give them money via merch and going to their shows 3) don't want to waste their money on films that leave them empty and disappointed on the inside when they leave the theater 4) hate the fact that you get bombarded with commercials every 5 minutes when you're trying to figure out what the hell Lost is really about 5) hate corporate suits and want to stick it to the man anyway possible
Using copyleft or open source stuff promotes those concepts, models, _and_ boycotts copyrighted materials. It however has limitations, mainly that a whole new work has to be created, when it has already been done, however under a different contract. Pirating (or as some say, 'liberating') the copyrighted material doesn't boycott completely, indeed, as people are using controlled property. Pirating while acknowledging and communicating it, however, also erodes property owner's legal status. Piracy also does deny financial benefits to ownership. So I just say both strategies have their advantages - although they sort of contradict each other.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
You are right that pirating copyrighted material weakens organizations like the RIAA, the problem is that it does not promote the growth of alternatives. As a matter of fact, it inhibits the growth of alternatives. As long as the RIAA model is the strongest model for the distribution of copyrighted material they will maintain their control of the music industry.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2009/08/03/elmundo/i-01970785.htm -- "RaÃl Castro: 'No fui elegido para restaurar el capitalismo' " -- "Elegido", in Spanish, doesn't mean "elected". It means "selected", or "chosen". Any other question you would need to discuss today, besides difficulties in dealing with ignorance, arrogance, and poor manners? We do have quite a list already. ------- Raul Castro told the truth when he said he wasn't elected to restore capitalism; he wasn't elected - period. --
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Actually it's been going on for years, they just blame piracy for the drop in their sales.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
speaking of which, I never found much in the way of non-copyrighted music downloads.. I expected to find much more by now. Found any good source for that?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Butt in the end, it's all a load of ASCRAP...
No, I just don't listen to much music. The RIAA long ago made it too much work to find music I like. Some time back a major act that I like released a new album. The label pushed one of the songs as a single. That was the only song that got airplay on the radio. It was a cover of a song that I loved, which suggests that people with my musical tastes were their target audience. I found the cover uninteresting. A friend of mine illegally downloaded the entire album and played it for me. I loved every other song on the album.
Now I only buy music directly from acts that I see live.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You can get sued for that nowadays.
And neither does free market, at least usually. Unless such obsolete designs are artificially propped up by legal means.
What makes the legal system "artificial" but the free market not? They are both human creations, of equal artifice.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I do strongly agree with this, and this is also where I see their future function, but that would require a paradigm change and a very painful change in control. They would have to turn from claiming to be the be-all, end-all thingamajig to music and become PR and marketing services for musicians. Unfortunately, that isn't what they want. They want control, and being just a service instead of the controlling instance of music, this would take that control away from them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
C'mon, social networking vs. a hype machinery made up of TV and radio shows? Be sensible! How many people could even the most well connected, well known net "music guru" reach? Compare that to the few millions every week watching some hypemetodeath music show and realize how petty the whole "social networking" thing is. Yes, people might multiply the information, but essentially you're still talking about a few thousand people here who did follow the music anyway. If you're into rap, do you follow someone's blog who writes about death metal? Most likely you won't. But you might watch a TV show because your favorite band is in it and thus also get to see other songs, songs that you most likely won't like but just might.
They still have the firm upper hand in music marketing and that won't change any time soon. For the masses, TV is still the main source of information and entertainment. Not the internet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.