And you can support artists directly at www.musiclink.com.
Re:Slashdot Kicks Another Pointless Can
on
Is Louder Better?
·
· Score: 1
The other people who support me can be found at www.boycott-riaa (which is growing exponentially now), www.garageband.com, www.dmusic.com, www.iuma.com, www.eff.org and, of course, slashdot.
Our first example of extortion is ASCAP. They send people around to all the bars, restaurants, etc. that have music in any form, demanding royalty payments or threatening lawsuits if you don't pay. However, there is no form of recordkeeping or tracking to ensure that the artists and writers whose music is being played are the ones who are being paid. Whatever their "payment" is based on, it has nothing to do with reality. They really don't care what music gets played or whether the deserving artists and writers get paid.
This is merely an extension of the mob-tactics on which ASCAP was founded, which was to collect their "cut" from the mob when they controlled the jukebox business.
Here's another example of extortion -- Columbia Record Club, formerly a subsidiary of Sony, who still owns a good-sized chunk of the stock. They haven't paid artist or songwriter royalties for years, farming the CDs out to swap meets, which the FTC recently busted them for. In an attempt to evade the damage from the lawsuit, they demanded that all customers which had not yet fulfilled the "obligation" to the record club suddenly had to purchase CDs or be billed for product they did not order. This would also remove them from the active membership list, upon which the punitive damages will be based.
They don't tell you that part or that there is even a settlement to which current members are entitled.
That is extortion, pure and simple.
Of course, none of the money will go to the artists anyway, as this is part of the $4 billion a year in goods which are shipped out and never sold nor returned -- product which is paid for out of the artists pocket.
We (the independents) are NOT part of the same industry, as the RIAA does not control our financial future, we do not answer to the five (soon to be four) major labels or the Clear Channel monopoly. We also do not engage in the collusion of copyrights to gain market leverage, buying politicians, using 12-year-olds as the basis for "surveys", price-fixing or any of the other illegal and anti-competitive practices used by the majors.
Assuming that all independent music is "bad bar bands" merely shows that you are ignorant to the state of the music business in America today. Are Crosby, Stills and Nash a bad bar band? They are an independent label. And add Pearl Jam and Natalie Merchant to the rapidly growing list of artists who have enough sense to see that the major labels are a screw job. Lots of them have dropped out of the traditional industry long ago.
Examine the financial records of the major labels and you will see that their Accounts Receivables are dwindling away. Why? Because the artists are not taking the big advances any longer. We prefer to be on our own because we can simply make more money.
Natalie Merchant figured out that she can make more money by selling 50,000 CDs on her own than selling 2 million through the label.
Again, look at the labels' financial records. EMI, who claims to be the most efficient label in the world, somehow has a 70% cost of goods sold. This does NOT include promotion, marketing and advertising, merely the cost of manufacturing.
In other words, we are supposed to believe that it costs them $7 to make a CD, when anyone off the street can get their CDs pressed at www.diskmakers.com for $1.89 each -- and that's for only 1,000 copies.
If the "real" public is not concerned about recording techniques or business practices, as you naively believe, then what was the purpose of your original post? Who were you attempting to illuminate with your wisdom about recording techniques?
The general public is certainly more and more aware every day of the business practices of the RIAA. More important, the U.S. Dept. of Justice is VERY interested and aware, along with the entire e
Re:Slashdot Kicks Another Pointless Can
on
Is Louder Better?
·
· Score: 1
Well, for starters, it's not just me that thinks the labels are misguided. That's why the RIAA is suing everyone -- because we have refused to buy any more of their product. I hear that Vivendi is down 29% for the first half of 2003, which means they will be the first to go.
CD sales are dropping like a rock. The labels haven't changed their approach or their thinking. They've just turned to extortion and litigation to force people to buy their dredge.
You don't believe a culture existed? That doesn't even deserve a response.
The recording industry represents less than 10 percent of the country's recording artists. So when we put the labels out of business, the independent market, which has been trampled on by the RIAA, denied access to the airways, had our webcasters driven out of business, kept out of royalty arbitration in the U.S. Copyright Office, and generally is the victim of the RIAA's restraint of trade, the "new market" won't have to develop. It's been there for years. We can step up and fill the void in a heartbeat.
Because, as you say, today's recording industry has nothing to do with promoting the best music. Their business is to keep the public from hearing it so that they can sell the flavor of the month.
The musicians are fed up with it and so is the American public. Anyone who creates art - and music is truly an art - does not inherently do it for money. If you're lucky and people like you, money can be a pleasant side-effect.
When money comes first, you're not an artist -- you're a whore.
Re:Slashdot Kicks Another Pointless Can
on
Is Louder Better?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is ridiculous. By your logic, labels would never promote anything new or different. If there isn't already a demand for it, why bother?
The purpose of a record label, in fact, the entire recording industry, was originally to connect the artists with the consumers. Now they sue the consumers and the artists are being shunned because of it. Sales are down because people are pissed off at the labels and their terrorist tactics. This is how they are "creating and meeting demand" -- through extortion and bullying.
As for the original topic, Rip is right on. Everything today is overproduced, overcompressed and so phony by the time it lands on a CD that the essence of the music and the dynamics are tossed aside for the "standards" of the industry with no regard whatsoever to content and clarity.
Go back and listen to Abbey Road. Dynamics, engineering based on sound quality and tonality, not make everything as loud as everything else. And there's an article floating around about the guy who is remixing Dark Side of the Moon into surround for DVD. He complained to Pink Floyd that some things were hard to understand and unintelligible and suggested to Roger Waters and David Gilmore that they be brought up in the mix.
Guess what? Those hard to understand passages were put there intentionally to MAKE PEOPLE LISTEN. American listeners have lazy ears and no conception of musical landscape and depth.
That's why people believe that an mp3 is CD quality. Less IS more -- less quality, more money to buy it.
Record labels used to sign acts because people liked the acts. Now they sign them because they sound exactly like everything else.
The industry is ruining our culture and should be gutted. If the RIAA would get out of our computers and stop trying to criminalize downloading, maybe we'd start to hear something that doesn't sound like Britney Spears again.
Destroy the industry and let the culture breathe again.
Yeah, there's a pattern. It's extortion, restraint of trade, false testimony to Congress, paying off politicians (Sensenbrenner, in particular), antitrust and blatant terrorism on U.S. citizens by foreign-owned record labels, all designed to reinstate complete control of the market for recorded music -- like they used to have before the CD-Rs, the Internet and mp3s gave the independent artists the access to free global marketing and promotion.
We don't need the record labels any longer. They've never done anything for the benefit of the artists, which is why you'll always hear them refer to protecting the interests of the copyright owners -- which are the record labels, NOT the artists.
Today, we begin the protests around the country and around the world and websites will have black front pages, mourning the loss of our civil liberties, right to privacy and protesting the fact that our government has been bought out by the British (EMI), the French (Vivendi), the Germans (BMG and the Japanese (Sony).
Tower Records in Los Angeles may be the most-publicized example of a physical protest, but Austin. Cleveland, Washington D.C. and other major cities across the country will hold protests for the next two days.
I have written to each and every US Senator concerning this shredding of our Constitutional rights. If you give a rat's ass about your rights, you should write your congressmen and warn them that those who support the foreign terrorists will face certain defeat in the next elections.
We're pissed off and we're registering to vote the bastards out of office if they support the RIAA terrorists.
We must all start questioning the artists about their lack of business smarts. After all, the RIAA (or its individual member labels) comprise the average rock star's marketing and promotion arm.
In other words, suing all of their fans has, in essence, become their marketing plan. Don't know about the rest of you, but my business is music and I think that employing terrorists (RIAA) is the absolutely stupidest way to sell records that I've ever heard of.
If other businesses were to pick up this advertising campaign, how long do you think they would last? What if Ford sued you for taking a test drive and not buying the car? Thinking of buying a house? If you look in the windows, you must buy or go to jail.
Sound ridiculous? No more so than trying to sell records that people are not allowed to hear beforehand.
Next thing you know, libraries will be illegal. They are, after all, sharing copyrighted material without paying the authors.
This is all turning into a musical version of Farenheit 451, 1984 and Animal Farm, all rolled into one nightmare. It's very ironic that the Germans are more concerned about the rights of their citizens than American legislators, who have not only enabled this, but are taking action to flush all of our constitutional rights down the crapper.
This used to be a great country. Next year the walls go up, we all get labeled felons and the RIAA terrorists become the wardens of the United Concentration Camp of America.
Yeah, this is just what our founding fathers had in mind when they created copyright law -- foreign control and socialist government, by the terrorists, for the terrorists and screw the people.
Downloading is not illegal. What the Rich Idiots Against Artists are using as the key to prosecution is the term "unauthorized distribution."
You can find it and download it, but it is the sharing that's illegal.
At the rate of the settlements from the 4 college kids (about $15,000 each), the RIAA would have to successfully sue about 488 individuals PER DAY, without incurring any attorney's fes or legal costs, in order to recoup the cost of the FREE physical goods they ship out each year.
The RIAA is suing people at random. They did the college students first to extort money from the educational system. Now they're doing Verizon users just to break even.
So each and every person the bastards arrests a) reduces the cash available to do it again; b) further reduces sales because another group of intelligent humans decides that they, too, have had enough and joins the rest of us who already stopped buying their crap; and c) feeds the antitrust allegations of restraint of trade.
That's why we're opening www.fairforshare.com on July 4.
Totally leqal P2P content, AUTHORIZED for noncommercial sharing and redistribution, direct from the artists.
Here is a list of IP addresses from which the RIAA and other agencies will attempt to violate your privacy. Add these addresses to your firewall software. RIAA 208.225.90.0 to 208.225.90.255 12.150.191.0 to 12.150.191.255 208.192.0.0 to 208.192.255.255 Warner Music Group 216.52.242.0 to 216.52.242.255 206.245.128.0 to 206.245.128.255 Business Software Alliance BSA.org 128.121.215.173 BSA.org.tr 212.98.253.0-212.98.253.255 BSA.org.tw 202.39.48.0-202.39.48.255 BSA.co.za 196.2.147.241 BSA.si 212.18.32.20 BSA.sk 81.0.202.0-81.0.202.255 BSA.lv 195.13.160.32-195.13.160.63 BSA.or.jp 61.197.225.96-61.197.225.111 BSA.hu 212.105.232.128-212.105.232.159 BSA.cz 194.213.210.0-194.213.210.255 BSA.hr 195.29.168.0-195.29.168.255 CAAST.org 207.139.69.0-207.139.69.255 BSA.or.at,.de,.ch 195.243.162.0-195.243.162.255 BSAA.com.au 203.147.240.0-203.147.240.255 BSA.ee 212.107.32.152 BSA.it 195.14.162.14 BSAPERU.org 200.4.218.38 CHINESEBSA.org 210.77.158.57 MPAA 63.199.57.96 to 63.199.57.111 64.166.187.128 to 64.166.187.158 198.70.114.0 to 198.70.114.255 209.67.0.0 to 209.67.255.255
Rosen admits that "it's probably just a handful of record executives who think I'm too soft on the issue. Everyone else thinks I'm a total hard-ass monster. And that's fine.
"I think that was very much part of their strategy," she says, referring to the labels. "Everybody could hate Hilary without getting at them. And I wasn't victimized by that. I'm part of it."
Make no mistake people -- there is nothing good about this woman. The only things she could be qualified to report on are avoiding antitrust, creative accounting, contractural servitude and maybe the meetings of the National Liars' Club.
But the Wicked Witch and Evil Bill make an interesting team. A match made in hell.
I'm not quite finished reading them all yet, but I appreciate each and every comment posted here about this topic.
Today, I created MacWizards, L.L.C. Time to raise the stakes.
This week, www.fairforshare.com will appear and we will begin collected music -- 128k mp3 files (and lo-fi as well). All music which we will offer will come directly from the artists themselves or the copyright owners. This ensures that we will have known good, virus-free files as a starting point.
This music will also be licensed by the artists for re-distribution in the 128k mp3 format.
We will offer P2P software beginning July 4 - Independents' Day. It will be open source.
My Declaration of Independents has been transmitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the President of the United States. It had 98 signatures. I hope to retransmit it on July 4 to the same entities with more names.
I have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate an antitrust suit against the RIAA.
While they are working on the legal end, we finish the Edison story starting this week.
Allow me to restate my friend's challenge. He wants to create a documentary about the Internet and P2P showing both sides of the issue, how it is perceived to the public and the reality from the artists' point of view, as well as the consumer.
Do you have an opinion? State it in front of a video camera. Make the most convincing argument you have. We intend to inform the public of the truth.
To participate in this project or the beginning of the new music industry (which involves a totally free, litigation-proof P2P music delivery system), contact either Schmoo or myself.
We launch on July 4 -- Independents' Day.
Our message to the major labels -- Embrace P2P or die.
Did you know that it requires a lawyer to file a charge of criminal copyright infringement?
You can't report it to the government. I tried. Called the Dept of Justice in Washington, D.C. They said call the FBI.
The last time I called the FBI it was about a question regarding the legality of a business transaction. It concerned payola and webcasting. They said they didn't have time for me. When I mentioned Jesse Jordan and the rest of those college kids that got arrested for listening to music, they hung up on me.
Most people can't tell the difference between audio quality and mp3s. I use ProTools on a PowerMac. It works just fine.
The Beatles had a four-track.
It's not the gear, it's the music. With a little trickery, you can make bad gear sound good. You can't make bad music sound good, no matter how much gear you've got.
You can't base a professional recording studio on the cheap system, but there is nothing to stop you from creating a professional recording with it.
1:08pm 04/25/03 Judge rules in favor of Napster follow-ons By Russ Britt (CBS Marketwatch)
In a case that could turn the tide on online piracy, a Los Angeles judge ruled Friday in favor of online file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus, saying the two companies are not liable for online piracy by users of their service. The follow-on services to Napster -- which was forced to give up sharing of music files -- were sued by several major entertainment companies who sought to take the firms to trial. But U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled in favor of the two firms. A third online file sharing service, Kazaa, is not affected by the ruling.
However, it's almost a perfect analogy to the RIAA music police.
So Charlie Northrup is going to start charging the labels for providing content. I love it. How much is this going to cost MusicNet, Pressplay and Rhapsody?
And what about CNN? AOL? Google, Yahoo? Hell, what about slashdot? They're providing us a service.
Patent or not, it's too late to turn off the Internet.
I hate to deflate the pseudo Elvis here, but this whole music thing is coming to a head. I've got the answer and I get to speak at the DMCA.
http://www.azoz.com/news/law.html
Slashdot Mirror
And you can support artists directly at www.musiclink.com.
The other people who support me can be found at www.boycott-riaa (which is growing exponentially now), www.garageband.com, www.dmusic.com, www.iuma.com, www.eff.org and, of course, slashdot.
Our first example of extortion is ASCAP. They send people around to all the bars, restaurants, etc. that have music in any form, demanding royalty payments or threatening lawsuits if you don't pay. However, there is no form of recordkeeping or tracking to ensure that the artists and writers whose music is being played are the ones who are being paid. Whatever their "payment" is based on, it has nothing to do with reality. They really don't care what music gets played or whether the deserving artists and writers get paid.
This is merely an extension of the mob-tactics on which ASCAP was founded, which was to collect their "cut" from the mob when they controlled the jukebox business.
Here's another example of extortion -- Columbia Record Club, formerly a subsidiary of Sony, who still owns a good-sized chunk of the stock. They haven't paid artist or songwriter royalties for years, farming the CDs out to swap meets, which the FTC recently busted them for. In an attempt to evade the damage from the lawsuit, they demanded that all customers which had not yet fulfilled the "obligation" to the record club suddenly had to purchase CDs or be billed for product they did not order. This would also remove them from the active membership list, upon which the punitive damages will be based.
They don't tell you that part or that there is even a settlement to which current members are entitled.
That is extortion, pure and simple.
Of course, none of the money will go to the artists anyway, as this is part of the $4 billion a year in goods which are shipped out and never sold nor returned -- product which is paid for out of the artists pocket.
We (the independents) are NOT part of the same industry, as the RIAA does not control our financial future, we do not answer to the five (soon to be four) major labels or the Clear Channel monopoly. We also do not engage in the collusion of copyrights to gain market leverage, buying politicians, using 12-year-olds as the basis for "surveys", price-fixing or any of the other illegal and anti-competitive practices used by the majors.
Assuming that all independent music is "bad bar bands" merely shows that you are ignorant to the state of the music business in America today. Are Crosby, Stills and Nash a bad bar band? They are an independent label. And add Pearl Jam and Natalie Merchant to the rapidly growing list of artists who have enough sense to see that the major labels are a screw job. Lots of them have dropped out of the traditional industry long ago.
Examine the financial records of the major labels and you will see that their Accounts Receivables are dwindling away. Why? Because the artists are not taking the big advances any longer. We prefer to be on our own because we can simply make more money.
Natalie Merchant figured out that she can make more money by selling 50,000 CDs on her own than selling 2 million through the label.
Again, look at the labels' financial records. EMI, who claims to be the most efficient label in the world, somehow has a 70% cost of goods sold. This does NOT include promotion, marketing and advertising, merely the cost of manufacturing.
In other words, we are supposed to believe that it costs them $7 to make a CD, when anyone off the street can get their CDs pressed at www.diskmakers.com for $1.89 each -- and that's for only 1,000 copies.
If the "real" public is not concerned about recording techniques or business practices, as you naively believe, then what was the purpose of your original post? Who were you attempting to illuminate with your wisdom about recording techniques?
The general public is certainly more and more aware every day of the business practices of the RIAA. More important, the U.S. Dept. of Justice is VERY interested and aware, along with the entire e
Well, for starters, it's not just me that thinks the labels are misguided. That's why the RIAA is suing everyone -- because we have refused to buy any more of their product. I hear that Vivendi is down 29% for the first half of 2003, which means they will be the first to go.
CD sales are dropping like a rock. The labels haven't changed their approach or their thinking. They've just turned to extortion and litigation to force people to buy their dredge.
You don't believe a culture existed? That doesn't even deserve a response.
The recording industry represents less than 10 percent of the country's recording artists. So when we put the labels out of business, the independent market, which has been trampled on by the RIAA, denied access to the airways, had our webcasters driven out of business, kept out of royalty arbitration in the U.S. Copyright Office, and generally is the victim of the RIAA's restraint of trade, the "new market" won't have to develop. It's been there for years. We can step up and fill the void in a heartbeat.
Because, as you say, today's recording industry has nothing to do with promoting the best music. Their business is to keep the public from hearing it so that they can sell the flavor of the month.
The musicians are fed up with it and so is the American public. Anyone who creates art - and music is truly an art - does not inherently do it for money. If you're lucky and people like you, money can be a pleasant side-effect.
When money comes first, you're not an artist -- you're a whore.
This is ridiculous. By your logic, labels would never promote anything new or different. If there isn't already a demand for it, why bother?
The purpose of a record label, in fact, the entire recording industry, was originally to connect the artists with the consumers. Now they sue the consumers and the artists are being shunned because of it. Sales are down because people are pissed off at the labels and their terrorist tactics. This is how they are "creating and meeting demand" -- through extortion and bullying.
As for the original topic, Rip is right on. Everything today is overproduced, overcompressed and so phony by the time it lands on a CD that the essence of the music and the dynamics are tossed aside for the "standards" of the industry with no regard whatsoever to content and clarity.
Go back and listen to Abbey Road. Dynamics, engineering based on sound quality and tonality, not make everything as loud as everything else. And there's an article floating around about the guy who is remixing Dark Side of the Moon into surround for DVD. He complained to Pink Floyd that some things were hard to understand and unintelligible and suggested to Roger Waters and David Gilmore that they be brought up in the mix.
Guess what? Those hard to understand passages were put there intentionally to MAKE PEOPLE LISTEN. American listeners have lazy ears and no conception of musical landscape and depth.
That's why people believe that an mp3 is CD quality. Less IS more -- less quality, more money to buy it.
Record labels used to sign acts because people liked the acts. Now they sign them because they sound exactly like everything else.
The industry is ruining our culture and should be gutted. If the RIAA would get out of our computers and stop trying to criminalize downloading, maybe we'd start to hear something that doesn't sound like Britney Spears again.
Destroy the industry and let the culture breathe again.
Yeah, there's a pattern. It's extortion, restraint of trade, false testimony to Congress, paying off politicians (Sensenbrenner, in particular), antitrust and blatant terrorism on U.S. citizens by foreign-owned record labels, all designed to reinstate complete control of the market for recorded music -- like they used to have before the CD-Rs, the Internet and mp3s gave the independent artists the access to free global marketing and promotion.
We don't need the record labels any longer. They've never done anything for the benefit of the artists, which is why you'll always hear them refer to protecting the interests of the copyright owners -- which are the record labels, NOT the artists.
Today, we begin the protests around the country and around the world and websites will have black front pages, mourning the loss of our civil liberties, right to privacy and protesting the fact that our government has been bought out by the British (EMI), the French (Vivendi), the Germans (BMG and the Japanese (Sony).
Tower Records in Los Angeles may be the most-publicized example of a physical protest, but Austin. Cleveland, Washington D.C. and other major cities across the country will hold protests for the next two days.
I have written to each and every US Senator concerning this shredding of our Constitutional rights. If you give a rat's ass about your rights, you should write your congressmen and warn them that those who support the foreign terrorists will face certain defeat in the next elections.
We're pissed off and we're registering to vote the bastards out of office if they support the RIAA terrorists.
We must all start questioning the artists about their lack of business smarts. After all, the RIAA (or its individual member labels) comprise the average rock star's marketing and promotion arm.
In other words, suing all of their fans has, in essence, become their marketing plan. Don't know about the rest of you, but my business is music and I think that employing terrorists (RIAA) is the absolutely stupidest way to sell records that I've ever heard of.
If other businesses were to pick up this advertising campaign, how long do you think they would last? What if Ford sued you for taking a test drive and not buying the car? Thinking of buying a house? If you look in the windows, you must buy or go to jail.
Sound ridiculous? No more so than trying to sell records that people are not allowed to hear beforehand.
Next thing you know, libraries will be illegal. They are, after all, sharing copyrighted material without paying the authors.
This is all turning into a musical version of Farenheit 451, 1984 and Animal Farm, all rolled into one nightmare. It's very ironic that the Germans are more concerned about the rights of their citizens than American legislators, who have not only enabled this, but are taking action to flush all of our constitutional rights down the crapper.
This used to be a great country. Next year the walls go up, we all get labeled felons and the RIAA terrorists become the wardens of the United Concentration Camp of America.
Yeah, this is just what our founding fathers had in mind when they created copyright law -- foreign control and socialist government, by the terrorists, for the terrorists and screw the people.
What American company are you talking about?
EMI is British and Universal is French. The RIAA is 80% foreign-owned and Warner Music (the only US label) is not listed in the suit.
Downloading is not illegal. What the Rich Idiots Against Artists are using as the key to prosecution is the term "unauthorized distribution."
You can find it and download it, but it is the sharing that's illegal.
At the rate of the settlements from the 4 college kids (about $15,000 each), the RIAA would have to successfully sue about 488 individuals PER DAY, without incurring any attorney's fes or legal costs, in order to recoup the cost of the FREE physical goods they ship out each year.
The RIAA is suing people at random. They did the college students first to extort money from the educational system. Now they're doing Verizon users just to break even.
So each and every person the bastards arrests a) reduces the cash available to do it again; b) further reduces sales because another group of intelligent humans decides that they, too, have had enough and joins the rest of us who already stopped buying their crap; and c) feeds the antitrust allegations of restraint of trade.
That's why we're opening www.fairforshare.com on July 4.
Totally leqal P2P content, AUTHORIZED for noncommercial sharing and redistribution, direct from the artists.
Here is a list of IP addresses from which the RIAA and other agencies will attempt to violate your privacy. Add these addresses to your firewall software.
RIAA
208.225.90.0 to 208.225.90.255
12.150.191.0 to 12.150.191.255
208.192.0.0 to 208.192.255.255
Warner Music Group 216.52.242.0 to 216.52.242.255
206.245.128.0 to 206.245.128.255
Business Software Alliance
BSA.org 128.121.215.173
BSA.org.tr 212.98.253.0-212.98.253.255
BSA.org.tw 202.39.48.0-202.39.48.255
BSA.co.za 196.2.147.241
BSA.si 212.18.32.20
BSA.sk 81.0.202.0-81.0.202.255
BSA.lv 195.13.160.32-195.13.160.63
BSA.or.jp 61.197.225.96-61.197.225.111
BSA.hu 212.105.232.128-212.105.232.159
BSA.cz 194.213.210.0-194.213.210.255
BSA.hr 195.29.168.0-195.29.168.255
CAAST.org 207.139.69.0-207.139.69.255
BSA.or.at,.de,.ch 195.243.162.0-195.243.162.255
BSAA.com.au 203.147.240.0-203.147.240.255
BSA.ee 212.107.32.152
BSA.it 195.14.162.14
BSAPERU.org 200.4.218.38
CHINESEBSA.org 210.77.158.57
MPAA
63.199.57.96 to 63.199.57.111
64.166.187.128 to 64.166.187.158
198.70.114.0 to 198.70.114.255
209.67.0.0 to 209.67.255.255
From the "Wired" article "Hating Hilary"...
Rosen admits that "it's probably just a handful of record executives who think I'm too soft on the issue. Everyone else thinks I'm a total hard-ass monster. And that's fine.
"I think that was very much part of their strategy," she says, referring to the labels. "Everybody could hate Hilary without getting at them. And I wasn't victimized by that. I'm part of it."
Make no mistake people -- there is nothing good about this woman. The only things she could be qualified to report on are avoiding antitrust, creative accounting, contractural servitude and maybe the meetings of the National Liars' Club.
But the Wicked Witch and Evil Bill make an interesting team. A match made in hell.
The whole series at still linked from my front page.
The link should show with the post.
www.azoz.com
Ask Prince why he changed his name to an unrecognizable symbol.
Because Warner Music owned his name.
So Hilary Rosen is doing some moonlighting and writing BSA's press releases now? Or is it Jay Berman?
I can't believe no one else saw this yet, unless I missed it.
Look at the pay-per-play sites that the labels are running. What do most of them have in common? Okay, besides that.
Windows Media Files and DRM.
Who/what is Kazaa and AltNet working with now?
Microsoft, Windows Media files. Self-destructing?
So Microsoft is playing both ends against the middle. They don't care who wins. They've already bet on both horses.
I'm not quite finished reading them all yet, but I appreciate each and every comment posted here about this topic.
Today, I created MacWizards, L.L.C. Time to raise the stakes.
This week, www.fairforshare.com will appear and we will begin collected music -- 128k mp3 files (and lo-fi as well). All music which we will offer will come directly from the artists themselves or the copyright owners. This ensures that we will have known good, virus-free files as a starting point.
This music will also be licensed by the artists for re-distribution in the 128k mp3 format.
We will offer P2P software beginning July 4 - Independents' Day. It will be open source.
My Declaration of Independents has been transmitted to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the President of the United States. It had 98 signatures. I hope to retransmit it on July 4 to the same entities with more names.
I have asked the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate an antitrust suit against the RIAA.
While they are working on the legal end, we finish the Edison story starting this week.
It's time to break the monopoly.
Absolutely the best series I've read anywhere. Good job, Max. Keep kicking the asses of the uninformed.
You rang, Schmoo?
Allow me to restate my friend's challenge. He wants to create a documentary about the Internet and P2P showing both sides of the issue, how it is perceived to the public and the reality from the artists' point of view, as well as the consumer.
Do you have an opinion? State it in front of a video camera. Make the most convincing argument you have. We intend to inform the public of the truth.
To participate in this project or the beginning of the new music industry (which involves a totally free, litigation-proof P2P music delivery system), contact either Schmoo or myself.
We launch on July 4 -- Independents' Day.
Our message to the major labels -- Embrace P2P or die.
What if the bulk of the content creators are now just waiting around to see what everyone is going to do.
The P2P distribution model is free advertising. All you've got to do is get people to look for you and the rest is gravy. It's all free.
It used to seem like the radio worked that way. Now musicians use P2P.
Did you know that it requires a lawyer to file a charge of criminal copyright infringement?
You can't report it to the government. I tried. Called the Dept of Justice in Washington, D.C.
They said call the FBI.
The last time I called the FBI it was about a question regarding the legality of a business transaction. It concerned payola and webcasting. They said they didn't have time for me. When I mentioned Jesse Jordan and the rest of those college kids that got arrested for listening to music, they hung up on me.
This is who I'm supposed to report the crime to?
Justice goes to the highest bidder.
Most people can't tell the difference between audio quality and mp3s. I use ProTools on a PowerMac. It works just fine.
The Beatles had a four-track.
It's not the gear, it's the music. With a little trickery, you can make bad gear sound good. You can't make bad music sound good, no matter how much gear you've got.
You can't base a professional recording studio on the cheap system, but there is nothing to stop you from creating a professional recording with it.
The RIAA site has been MIA since Tuesday.
Do they get a trial first? Or do we let the RIAA start shooting people on sight?
I don't have a link. I got this from Kazaa.
1:08pm 04/25/03
Judge rules in favor of Napster follow-ons By Russ Britt (CBS Marketwatch)
In a case that could turn the tide on online piracy, a Los Angeles judge ruled Friday in favor of online file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus, saying the two companies are not liable for online piracy by users of their service. The follow-on services to Napster -- which was forced to give up sharing of music files -- were sued by several major entertainment companies who sought to take the firms to trial. But U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled in favor of the two firms. A third online file sharing service, Kazaa, is not affected by the ruling.
I can see lots of problems with this.
However, it's almost a perfect analogy to the RIAA music police.
So Charlie Northrup is going to start charging the labels for providing content. I love it. How much is this going to cost MusicNet, Pressplay and Rhapsody?
And what about CNN? AOL? Google, Yahoo?
Hell, what about slashdot? They're providing us a service.
Patent or not, it's too late to turn off the Internet.
I hate to deflate the pseudo Elvis here, but this whole music thing is coming to a head. I've got the answer and I get to speak at the DMCA. http://www.azoz.com/news/law.html