Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Now Blames Journalists For Its Piracy Trouble
adeelarshad82 writes "RIAA executives have written a letter to PCMag expressing 'deep disappointment' for publishing an article on Limewire Alternatives. While the article includes a disclaimer from PCMag that it does not condone the download of copyrighted or illegal material, RIAA executives believe that 'PCMag is slyly encouraging people to steal more music.' The letter goes on to ask PCMag to retract the article from their website. PCMag's Editor in Chief has responded to the letter by stating that music industry's charges remain groundless and that it reeks of desperation. He points out that PCMag covers all aspects of technology, which includes the products, services and activities that some groups and individuals might deem objectionable. He defends publishing the article by saying 'We covered these Limewire alternatives because we knew they would be of interest to our readers. We understand that some might use them to illegally download content. We cannot encourage that action, but also cannot stop it. Reporting on the existence of these services does neither.' PCMag has also refused to retract the article."
Heaven forbid someone should use radio waves for transmitting illegal information! Or, even worse, terrorists might call each other! Let's forbid the very mention of phones and radios too!
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Shouldn't the RIAA be going after them for reviewing CD burners that can burn copied files? Or for reviewing software that rips .mp3 files or .wav files from audio CDs? Shouldn't PC Mag and all other publications be restricted from writing about anything that could potentially assist in copying music?
PCMag is not a music magazine. If it were, there would be ground for such contention; blaming PCMag is saying that a medical journal is pornographic. But then again, the "music industry" isn't at all about music and is not as much concerned about delivering music as it is about owning all the content that exists out there.
I personally would prefer we just stop using grammar. If the intention is clear then does it really matter?
Speaking of which, I am hereby putting everyone on notice who has ever mod'ed me down, that they have cause me emotional distress and based upon the mathematical formulas that the RIAA uses, I will be suing you for
One hundred billion dollars for each moderation. But, we can settle now for just $50,000.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
To be fair, the summary doesn't claim that "RIAA Now Blames Journalists For Its Piracy Trouble". Rather, the RIAA is merely saying "you aren't helping". To use an analogy, if a magazine published an article on how to get past airport security with a bomb, that doesn't mean anyone would say "we blame [magazine X] for our terrorism problem" (as if it's the one and only reason for terrorism on airplanes), but you could certainly see how they aren't helping things.
I wish Slashdot was a little more objective in reporting the news, instead of just spinning the story in a sensationalist way to confirm what people want to hear.
It cost the RIAA $16 for every dollar they collected with the lawsuits
I've heard a lot of different takes on that. Some attorneys I've talked to about it the say quite the opposite, that given the way their scheme worked, the probably turned a profit. Regardless, you're absolutely correct: the music industry is going down because of their own inability to manage the business in the face of anything even resembling competition.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So writing an article about P2P programs is encouraging the stealing of music?
I guess, by the same logic, that automobile magazines encourage drunk driving and gun magazines encourage murder.
There's no scientific consensus that life is important.
EMI is on the edge of defaulting on its CitiGroup loan and being foreclosed upon.
Can't happen fast enough!
I personally would prefer we just stop using grammar. If the intention is clear then does it really matter?
Yes, yes it does. Intent is not sufficient to assure good communication. The Devil is in the details.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Grammar is like ECC.
The RIAA is acting like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Why not blame Google for makeing it easy for people to find info on how to download music.
EMI is on the edge of defaulting on its CitiGroup loan and being foreclosed upon.
Can't happen fast enough!
Actually, I would be sad to see them go down. Not because I feel sorry for a bunch of idiots who can't manage a business, but because I am sure that there is actually a good amount of music on EMI that IS worth listening to.
A much better alternative would be if EMI were actually able to market their products in a sustainable way. It is a shame that the music will suffer. I am not sorry that in this case a terrible company is going out of business, but that when they do go out of business, a certain amount of music will be lost to a degree.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I'll have to check out PCMag and see if it's worth subscribing to.
It's not.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Nobody accused the music industry of being smart, logical, or able to formulate a business model. But, I'd like to point out that the 2009 sales dip might have something to do with the shitter the world economy is in... :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
just get a torrent of it
Obvious bad grammar is something that flags comments as potentially uninformative. If a person gets the "easy to fix" things wrong (e.g. you're, it's, could've), it negatively correlates with the care that person takes to make well-informed statements. If you want to keep using bad grammar, go ahead. Just realise that it will mean your posts are less likely to be read in depth by me.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Then we should all be sure to pirate as much as possible before that happens, so we can save the music for later generations!
Actually LimeWire is great for downloading obscure individual mp3s. This is possible because of the fact that not only the file-sharing itself, but also the search, is peer-to-peer. IMHO this means it is still a better "Napster replacement" than Bittorrent, in the sense that it allows you to explore music rather than simply download it en masse.
If EMI goes under, their assets (including copyrights) will be divided by their credors and assigned for a sale supervised by the credors and a judge. That is how banckrupcy works.
Now, whoever buys the copyrights will probably be interested on some revenue, instead of making music scarce so they can sell their latest trash. That is probable because the buyer probably won't be a studio (all of them are underwater) who has any latest trash to sell. Consequently, whoever buys the copyrights will probably work hard to distribute the music (and yes, that includes lowering the price and putting them on the web) making the whole situation so much better than what we have now.
Rethinking email
This is bullshit. The OED still lists "realize" as the principal spelling with "-ise" as a variant. The Americans didn't change "-ise" to "-ize"; we (the British) switched from "-ize" to "-ise" in the early 20th century.
What a brilliant sig you have.
-- Cheers!