I've read enough Slashdot discussions on the issue of music piracy to observe that a majority share of the opinion of Slashdotters (or at least a significant portion) is that musicians -- whether they enlist the aid of a record company, or go it alone -- shouldn't get too uppity about asking that they be paid for their services. Instead, a better place for them is similar to the folks who play on street corners -- if you're good, you'll get paid, and if you don't, fighting for your so-called "rights" is simply wrong-headed, you "just don't get it," and P2P is some long-awaited relief for consumers at large to take what's theirs, settle the score from decades of overcharging by musicians and record companies, and fight against those who'd dare to demand payment for what's essentially a bunch of ones and zeroes. Perhaps I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but this isn't too far off from the outlook of a significant portion of Slashdot readership when it comes to musicians, songwriters, and other musical artists.
While a few folks in this thread have posted similar views about software developers (whether they're an independent or work for a large company which exploits them), I'm genuinely surprised to see that they're in the minority. Some are even defending the counter-measures, which leads to an interesting comparison to the reaction from Slashdotters whenever the discussion of destructive countermeasures against music pirates is brought up.
The all-too-obvious reason for this disparity is, of course, that more Slashdotters make their living as coders (or know people that do) than as musicians, and it's generally easy to respect one's own skills while not understanding the skills of others. But, I'm wondering if there's something substantiative behind this -- do programmers deserve more respect than musicians? Is it because being a musician is easy compared to writing software? If this is an "all artists are equal, but some are more equal than others" situation, to use the Orwellian reference, can somebody explain why software developers are the "pigs" in this Animal Farm analogy?
"And being the first to come up some form of P2P, some never before explored idea, I could quite easily imagine that the most common use would be for bands to self-publish their own music. Perhaps I myself am in a band and that was exactly my intention in creating it, and thus obviously the only usage that occured to me. In that case I would release my product with perfectly good intentions and apparently in full compliance with the law. However I would then unexpectedly and unjustly get sued into oblivion when "too many" people began using my product in a way I never intended, a way I never even imagined."
I think you'd be in the clear. The proposed change to the law is worded to protect guys like you, while going after "bad actors" like Kazaa. The relevant part of the proposed change:
"In this subsection, the term `intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability."
Of course, the first widely used P2P program, Napster, wasn't created with the intent of your hypothetical situation; Shawn Fanning made the mistake of mentioning that it was a great piracy tool in corporate e-mails, and the Napster web site at one point listed Britney Spears as an artist of the month and encouraged its users to search for Britney Spears on the Napster service. And, they refused to shut the service down even when everybody knew that it was used largely for copyright infringement. Napster had its smoking guns that would've made it a prime target for INDUCE had it existed then (this is no coincidence, of course). You (in the situation you described above) would not.
"Foes of the Induce Act said that it would effectively overturn the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in the Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios case, often referred to as the "Betamax" lawsuit. In that 5-4 opinion, the majority said VCRs were legal to sell because they were "capable of substantial noninfringing uses." But the majority stressed that Congress had the power to enact a law that would lead to a different outcome."
This was summarized on Slashdot as "C|Net News is reporting that a new copyright bill, to be introduced next week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, will likely overturn the Betamax decision". See how this meme got started? It jumped from C|Net mentioning that some people think it will overturn Sony v. Universal, to C|Net claiming that this is the likely outcome.
And now this has morphed again into "Save BetaMax."
" I just think they would be better off going after the big pirate cd/dvd duplication houses."
This happens quite a bit as well. On the micro level, factories are raided with regularity and on the macro level, the US uses economic pressure on countries that it sees as lax enforcing anti-piracy laws.
"Having some movie on a Tivo isn't going to increase the level of piracy."
This is the "everybody on the planet is as smart as me" position which is prevalent on Slashdot.
MP3 piracy existed prior to the arrival of P2P software. Smart people like Slashdot readers knew how to use FTP and newsgroups. But when easy-to-use P2P programs arrived, MP3 piracy grew exponentially.
As big as you think movie piracy is now, it's only going to get bigger. The content providers think that VOD and PPV combined with networked PVRs are just the combination to create that explosion. The news today about the time limits is an effort to curtail this.
If anybody reading this doesn't understand what I'm getting at, consider the sort of user for whom installing a P2P program and adding a DVD burner to their PC is either infeasible or something they don't want to bother with (the DVD-R adoption rate in PCs is nowhere near 100%). But give that user an easy-to-use PVR and the potential ability to send a PPV or VOD movie to a friend in another town with just a few pokes at their remote, and you've got one more movie pirate.
"If you look at the typical contract, you will see that the "copyright holder" *is* the record company."
I think I see where you and the other fellow are confused. There are multiple copyrights. Copyrights on the words and music remain with the songwriter and composers and/or their publishing companies -- the folks represented by BMI, the company we're discussing. These are the folks that BMI means when they refer to "copyright holders."
The copyright on the recording often belongs with some combination of the record company, the engineer, and/or the producer. The record company typically has exclusive rights to distribute the recordings (this is how they recoup the considerable expense associated with producing and distributing the CD), which are licensed to the record company by the copyright holders.
Just to be clear, BMI represents -- and pays -- composers and songwriters... not record companies. They're different revenue streams. Record companies get their money by selling CDs. BMI collects money through public performances.
Your comments are very astute. Producing a CD costs a lot more than many Slashdotters realize. More importantly, the record company's income ends at the $10 or so at which they sell it into the channel.
As consumer goods go, CDs have very low net margins. The devil's always in the details; in this case, the detail is the difference between "gross" and "net."
No problem, that figure surprises a lot of people. The data is here (note I was a little high; it's $13.29 now, down from $13.79 last year). The reason why many folks balk at that average price is because it's a mathematical average of all new CDs sold, and I think many if not most Slashdotters don't buy the most popular music (but they might be "sharing" it;-) ).
It's common practice nowadays for retailers to put a hot new release out at $11.99 or $12.99. During the first few weeks at that price, it will sell a metric buttload of copies, thus offsetting the relatively few copies of $17.99 CDs that are sold at the same time. Thus $13.29 is the average price, and not the typical price when you look at all the CDs on the market, unweighted by their popularity.
"They're the same clowns strong arming taxi companies, restaurants, dentists - any commercial venue with a radio on. I'm not sure I'll group them with the 'good guys'."
I'm not sure how the typical Slashdotter would have songwriters and composers make their money. The common Slashdot rationale for piracy is that artists make their money from public performances anyway -- well, it's BMI who makes sure that they get their money this way. Songwriters and composers largely make absolutely shitty money in exchange for lots of hard work, and they depend on royalty checks to eat and feed their families, while the record company-manufactured stars get the fame and fortune. I would not choose the word "clowns" for a non-profit organization that helps make sure that songwriters and composers get that already miniscule slice of the pie.
I think one way to value a society is by how it values its artists. It's chilling that many Slashdotters are upset that somebody's looking out for this largely underpaid segment of society.
You're absolutely correct -- in fact, the price of music has not kept up with inflation. That record on sale for $9.99 in 1984 would cost $17.60 in today's dollars; meanwhile (believe it or not) the average price of a new CD is now down to about $13.50.
"paying more than 85% of revenue collected to copyright owners." Copyright owners = the record company's"
I'm not sure how you made that connection. BMI is a performers' rights organization. They represent (and help collect money for) songwriters and composers, not record companies. Songwriters and composers, on the whole, make absolutely terrible money, and it's organizations like BMI that look out for them.
"But there is almost certainly a causal relationship between the two: shared music generates greater interest in particular artists, increasing the occurrences of those songs generating performance royalties."
Agreed 100%. While this in itself is not a rationale for piracy (the revenue stream from CD sales goes, in part, to a different set of underpaid, hard working everyday people), I am certain that unauthorized dissemination via P2P results in more radio and club play.
Thanks for being a beacon of sensibility in this utterly retarded thread.
"I'm not so certain that automatically gives them a free pass and a clean bill of health. Weren't they one of the groups behind the bill that killed internet radio?"
It would make sense that BMI and ASCAP would be behind the push to require that Internet radio stations pay royalties to composers and songwriters as do traditional radio stations. However, since I have an understanding of how hard the typical songwriter or composer works, and how shitty the pay is, I have no problem with this. It's a bit like an advocacy organization's efforts resulting in the price of clothing going up by a few bucks with the direct result being factory workers being paid a living wage. Royalties on radio airplay go to the people who need it the most. Despite many Slashdotters' attempts to portray professional songwriters as cocaine-snorting Hummer drivers, it's simply not the reality.
"No, the artists are still starving. BMI is doing well though."
Remember, BMI is a non-profit performing rights organization run by and for songwriters and composers. They're not a record company and their revenue stream is not related to CD sales. They're the good guys -- if (God help you) you decide to become a professional songwriter or composer, you want to join BMI (or its sister organization, ASCAP) because they look after you and make sure you get paid for public performances of your work.
"Maybe the BMI could tell us something we couldn't figure out for ourselves. We know the music artists aren't starving, its not too hard to figure out when they are driving around H2's and flashing their bling-bling."
I think you're confusing the performers -- the pretty people whose photos are on the cover of the CD -- with the songwriters and composers who work behind the scenes creating the music that's recorded by the music stars. Sometimes they're the same person (in the case of a singer/songwriter) but often they're not.
A career as a composer or songwriter is often shitty, backbreaking work for little or no recognition. Very few Hummer H2s for the majority of those who've made this their chosen profession.
Why would they say that? BMI collects royalties on performance rights, not CD sales. CD sales have nothing to do with their revenue stream.
Remember, BMI is a non-profit artists' rights agency, collecting royalties for composers and songwriters for performances -- not sales -- of music which was written or composed by their members.
"Companies such as BMI obviously have the leverage to promote bands in such a way such that Creed, for example, sells umpteen million albums, and a band that no one's ever heard of, like Evanescence suddenly appears and sells millions more."
While BMI could do something like this, that's not their job. That's largely the job of the record company.
BMI collects royalties for performance rights and distributes them to composers, songwriters and music publishers. While they (as well as the other artist rights' society in the US, ASCAP) will tout the list of big-name artists who are BMI members, they're not in th business of promoting some of their artists over others -- they serve all of their members.
"For what it's worth, I believe companies like BMI are behind getting sub-standards like those I mentioned (and certainly many others) airplay, while many other bands who are more sophisticated, never see the light of day....or the airwaves, or whatever."
Not really. Any songwriter or composer may join BMI. They are a performers' rights organization, not a PR firm, advertising agency, or record company.
BMI is a performance rights organization. They are not part of the money flow involved with buying a CD. They are non-profit, run by and for artists and composers -- the "good guys" according to many Slashdotters.
They handle public performances. Not CD sales..
Again: BMI = good guys. They collect money for artists and performers -- the little guys. And this money does not come from CD sales. It would be a stretch to claim that P2P would have any effect on BMI's revenue stream. It's all explained here.
This has to be the mother of all straw men, folks.
"Why should I pay the RIAA for something that they didn't make just so some record exec can get richer whilst the artist starves."
A typical CD represents the efforts of dozens of people. All of them are like you in me in that they expect to be paid for the job they do. While it makes piracy less morally ambiguous if you imagine the average record company to be some coke-snorting executive, it doesn't reflect the reality of the music industry.
"Why can't I give my money *directly* to the artist? It's not like the technology to do such a transaction doesn't exist. "
You are very correct. That decision is up to the artist. Expressed in broad strokes, artists can choose two routes:
Come up with the funds to record and produce their music, including studio rental time or building their own studio. Then, set up their own web site and/or work with a third party that specializes in transcoding into the formats used by iTMS and the other music services. Do their best to promote their own music, or pay somebody to provide expertise and assistance in advertising and promotion. Or...
Get a recording contract (if they're lucky). The record company will pay for all the expenses of recording, engineering, producing, selling, marketing and distributing their music. In exchange for this, they get the exclusive rights to distribute the recordings.
The benefit of the first approach is that although the artist needs to pay for everything up front, they get to keep more of the money earned from sales. But it's back-breaking work that's not for the faint of heart.
The benefit of the second approach is that the record company provides the cash that's necessary, and takes all of the risk -- if the music does not sell, then the artist is not out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. The tradeoff is that the artist doesn't start to make serious money until the costs have been recouped.
There is, of course, no shortage of artists who take the former route. You'll find them playing at your local coffee house or small venue. You'll find them on Magnatunes or other "open source" labels. You'll find them on sites like garageband.com. You asked why you can't pay artists directly -- if you can't find artists who want to sell their music directly, you're just not looking hard enough.
If you're hoping for an arrangement where a record company invests tens or hundreds of thousands of their own money into producing a CD, and then allows you to give money directly to the artist with none going to the record company to recoup their costs, it will be hard to find -- the economics just don't make sense. To construct an analogy closer to Slashdotters' experience... if you had a great idea for a software product but you needed to find investment money to get it out the door, any investor you'd talk to would require a piece of the action. If you told them that you'd like to take their money but then keep the sales income to yourself, you would not get very far in the negotiations. Record companies and strategic investors have a few thing in common: they're not philanthropists, and they're not rich uncles. Just like you and me, if they don't make money, they won't be around for very long.
It's why DATs and audio CD-R recorders have (legally mandated) serial copy management systems, and analog cassette recorders do not.
You're not the first person to make the inference between low-fi and hi-fi recording -- heck, some people even compare P2P to analog radio and wonder out loud what the difference is.
Sometimes, a few orders of magnitude of audio precision make all the difference in the world. It's those orders of magnitude of precision that were the driving force behind digital recording systems replacing analog recording systems, and for the popularity of digital radio systems in the past few years. That's the key difference.
If you're still not sure what I mean, find a friend who has an XM or a (later generation) Sirius box, and compare the quality to FM. You'll likely be blown away.
Sheesh. This is the fifth or sixth comment I've seen here from somebody insisting that this falls under civil law. Is this one of those Slashdot memes?
"This is an extremely disturbing development, seeing as these folks are not guilty of a crime, merely a civil offense."
I'm not sure where you got the idea that this is a civil case. If you'd like to learn more about criminal violations of copyright law, here's the relevant section.
This war will be fought with new ideas, not ignorance. Being the squillionth Slashdotter to parrot the old "civil, not criminal" meme will not help things. If you truly believe that artists have too many rights and it's high time to put them in their place, the first thing to do is to understand how the law works, so you can work to change it.
"The DOJ should saty out of what is clearly a civil matter."
Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold. This has been the case for several years now. Here's the section of US copyright law that covers criminal offenses.
Starting way back when the record companies were giving grief to the original Napster, many Slashdotters and like-minded folks were questioning the record company's authority to involve themselves in such matters, and said that if Napster was breaking the law, then the feds should get involved.
And then they did.
When harrassment of the P2P companies by both the government and private enterprises became more commonplace, many Slashdotters and like-minded folks said that the P2P companies weren't responsible for the actions of their users, and that the record companies should go after the users themselves.
And then they did.
When the record companies started suing the "whales" of the P2P world (those who were sharing sufficient amount of content to nudge into the territory of criminal, rather than civil law), many Slashdotters and like-minded folks claimed that if it really was criminal territory, then the record companies should stop picking on the pirates, and let the government handle it.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree with everything you've said in your last post. Thank you for bringing up another important point that many Slashdotters don't understand: "under the radar" DNE "legal."
Slashdot Mirror
I've read enough Slashdot discussions on the issue of music piracy to observe that a majority share of the opinion of Slashdotters (or at least a significant portion) is that musicians -- whether they enlist the aid of a record company, or go it alone -- shouldn't get too uppity about asking that they be paid for their services. Instead, a better place for them is similar to the folks who play on street corners -- if you're good, you'll get paid, and if you don't, fighting for your so-called "rights" is simply wrong-headed, you "just don't get it," and P2P is some long-awaited relief for consumers at large to take what's theirs, settle the score from decades of overcharging by musicians and record companies, and fight against those who'd dare to demand payment for what's essentially a bunch of ones and zeroes. Perhaps I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but this isn't too far off from the outlook of a significant portion of Slashdot readership when it comes to musicians, songwriters, and other musical artists.
While a few folks in this thread have posted similar views about software developers (whether they're an independent or work for a large company which exploits them), I'm genuinely surprised to see that they're in the minority. Some are even defending the counter-measures, which leads to an interesting comparison to the reaction from Slashdotters whenever the discussion of destructive countermeasures against music pirates is brought up.
The all-too-obvious reason for this disparity is, of course, that more Slashdotters make their living as coders (or know people that do) than as musicians, and it's generally easy to respect one's own skills while not understanding the skills of others. But, I'm wondering if there's something substantiative behind this -- do programmers deserve more respect than musicians? Is it because being a musician is easy compared to writing software? If this is an "all artists are equal, but some are more equal than others" situation, to use the Orwellian reference, can somebody explain why software developers are the "pigs" in this Animal Farm analogy?
"And being the first to come up some form of P2P, some never before explored idea, I could quite easily imagine that the most common use would be for bands to self-publish their own music. Perhaps I myself am in a band and that was exactly my intention in creating it, and thus obviously the only usage that occured to me. In that case I would release my product with perfectly good intentions and apparently in full compliance with the law. However I would then unexpectedly and unjustly get sued into oblivion when "too many" people began using my product in a way I never intended, a way I never even imagined."
I think you'd be in the clear. The proposed change to the law is worded to protect guys like you, while going after "bad actors" like Kazaa. The relevant part of the proposed change:
"In this subsection, the term `intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability."
Of course, the first widely used P2P program, Napster, wasn't created with the intent of your hypothetical situation; Shawn Fanning made the mistake of mentioning that it was a great piracy tool in corporate e-mails, and the Napster web site at one point listed Britney Spears as an artist of the month and encouraged its users to search for Britney Spears on the Napster service. And, they refused to shut the service down even when everybody knew that it was used largely for copyright infringement. Napster had its smoking guns that would've made it a prime target for INDUCE had it existed then (this is no coincidence, of course). You (in the situation you described above) would not.
Back in June, C|Net wrote:
"Foes of the Induce Act said that it would effectively overturn the Supreme Court's 1984 decision in the Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios case, often referred to as the "Betamax" lawsuit. In that 5-4 opinion, the majority said VCRs were legal to sell because they were "capable of substantial noninfringing uses." But the majority stressed that Congress had the power to enact a law that would lead to a different outcome."
This was summarized on Slashdot as "C|Net News is reporting that a new copyright bill, to be introduced next week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, will likely overturn the Betamax decision". See how this meme got started? It jumped from C|Net mentioning that some people think it will overturn Sony v. Universal, to C|Net claiming that this is the likely outcome.
And now this has morphed again into "Save BetaMax."
" I just think they would be better off going after the big pirate cd/dvd duplication houses."
This happens quite a bit as well. On the micro level, factories are raided with regularity and on the macro level, the US uses economic pressure on countries that it sees as lax enforcing anti-piracy laws.
"Having some movie on a Tivo isn't going to increase the level of piracy."
This is the "everybody on the planet is as smart as me" position which is prevalent on Slashdot.
MP3 piracy existed prior to the arrival of P2P software. Smart people like Slashdot readers knew how to use FTP and newsgroups. But when easy-to-use P2P programs arrived, MP3 piracy grew exponentially.
As big as you think movie piracy is now, it's only going to get bigger. The content providers think that VOD and PPV combined with networked PVRs are just the combination to create that explosion. The news today about the time limits is an effort to curtail this.
If anybody reading this doesn't understand what I'm getting at, consider the sort of user for whom installing a P2P program and adding a DVD burner to their PC is either infeasible or something they don't want to bother with (the DVD-R adoption rate in PCs is nowhere near 100%). But give that user an easy-to-use PVR and the potential ability to send a PPV or VOD movie to a friend in another town with just a few pokes at their remote, and you've got one more movie pirate.
"If you look at the typical contract, you will see that the "copyright holder" *is* the record company."
I think I see where you and the other fellow are confused. There are multiple copyrights. Copyrights on the words and music remain with the songwriter and composers and/or their publishing companies -- the folks represented by BMI, the company we're discussing. These are the folks that BMI means when they refer to "copyright holders."
The copyright on the recording often belongs with some combination of the record company, the engineer, and/or the producer. The record company typically has exclusive rights to distribute the recordings (this is how they recoup the considerable expense associated with producing and distributing the CD), which are licensed to the record company by the copyright holders.
Just to be clear, BMI represents -- and pays -- composers and songwriters... not record companies. They're different revenue streams. Record companies get their money by selling CDs. BMI collects money through public performances.
I hope this helps clear it up.
Your comments are very astute. Producing a CD costs a lot more than many Slashdotters realize. More importantly, the record company's income ends at the $10 or so at which they sell it into the channel.
As consumer goods go, CDs have very low net margins. The devil's always in the details; in this case, the detail is the difference between "gross" and "net."
No problem, that figure surprises a lot of people. The data is here (note I was a little high; it's $13.29 now, down from $13.79 last year). The reason why many folks balk at that average price is because it's a mathematical average of all new CDs sold, and I think many if not most Slashdotters don't buy the most popular music (but they might be "sharing" it ;-) ).
It's common practice nowadays for retailers to put a hot new release out at $11.99 or $12.99. During the first few weeks at that price, it will sell a metric buttload of copies, thus offsetting the relatively few copies of $17.99 CDs that are sold at the same time. Thus $13.29 is the average price, and not the typical price when you look at all the CDs on the market, unweighted by their popularity.
"They're the same clowns strong arming taxi companies, restaurants, dentists - any commercial venue with a radio on. I'm not sure I'll group them with the 'good guys'."
I'm not sure how the typical Slashdotter would have songwriters and composers make their money. The common Slashdot rationale for piracy is that artists make their money from public performances anyway -- well, it's BMI who makes sure that they get their money this way. Songwriters and composers largely make absolutely shitty money in exchange for lots of hard work, and they depend on royalty checks to eat and feed their families, while the record company-manufactured stars get the fame and fortune. I would not choose the word "clowns" for a non-profit organization that helps make sure that songwriters and composers get that already miniscule slice of the pie.
I think one way to value a society is by how it values its artists. It's chilling that many Slashdotters are upset that somebody's looking out for this largely underpaid segment of society.
You're absolutely correct -- in fact, the price of music has not kept up with inflation. That record on sale for $9.99 in 1984 would cost $17.60 in today's dollars; meanwhile (believe it or not) the average price of a new CD is now down to about $13.50.
"paying more than 85% of revenue collected to copyright owners." Copyright owners = the record company's"
I'm not sure how you made that connection. BMI is a performers' rights organization. They represent (and help collect money for) songwriters and composers, not record companies. Songwriters and composers, on the whole, make absolutely terrible money, and it's organizations like BMI that look out for them.
It's covered here.
"But there is almost certainly a causal relationship between the two: shared music generates greater interest in particular artists, increasing the occurrences of those songs generating performance royalties."
Agreed 100%. While this in itself is not a rationale for piracy (the revenue stream from CD sales goes, in part, to a different set of underpaid, hard working everyday people), I am certain that unauthorized dissemination via P2P results in more radio and club play.
Thanks for being a beacon of sensibility in this utterly retarded thread.
"I'm not so certain that automatically gives them a free pass and a clean bill of health. Weren't they one of the groups behind the bill that killed internet radio?"
It would make sense that BMI and ASCAP would be behind the push to require that Internet radio stations pay royalties to composers and songwriters as do traditional radio stations. However, since I have an understanding of how hard the typical songwriter or composer works, and how shitty the pay is, I have no problem with this. It's a bit like an advocacy organization's efforts resulting in the price of clothing going up by a few bucks with the direct result being factory workers being paid a living wage. Royalties on radio airplay go to the people who need it the most. Despite many Slashdotters' attempts to portray professional songwriters as cocaine-snorting Hummer drivers, it's simply not the reality.
"No, the artists are still starving. BMI is doing well though."
Remember, BMI is a non-profit performing rights organization run by and for songwriters and composers. They're not a record company and their revenue stream is not related to CD sales. They're the good guys -- if (God help you) you decide to become a professional songwriter or composer, you want to join BMI (or its sister organization, ASCAP) because they look after you and make sure you get paid for public performances of your work.
"Maybe the BMI could tell us something we couldn't figure out for ourselves. We know the music artists aren't starving, its not too hard to figure out when they are driving around H2's and flashing their bling-bling."
I think you're confusing the performers -- the pretty people whose photos are on the cover of the CD -- with the songwriters and composers who work behind the scenes creating the music that's recorded by the music stars. Sometimes they're the same person (in the case of a singer/songwriter) but often they're not.
A career as a composer or songwriter is often shitty, backbreaking work for little or no recognition. Very few Hummer H2s for the majority of those who've made this their chosen profession.
And it's BMI who looks out for these people.
Why would they say that? BMI collects royalties on performance rights, not CD sales. CD sales have nothing to do with their revenue stream.
Remember, BMI is a non-profit artists' rights agency, collecting royalties for composers and songwriters for performances -- not sales -- of music which was written or composed by their members.
"Companies such as BMI obviously have the leverage to promote bands in such a way such that Creed, for example, sells umpteen million albums, and a band that no one's ever heard of, like Evanescence suddenly appears and sells millions more."
While BMI could do something like this, that's not their job. That's largely the job of the record company.
BMI collects royalties for performance rights and distributes them to composers, songwriters and music publishers. While they (as well as the other artist rights' society in the US, ASCAP) will tout the list of big-name artists who are BMI members, they're not in th business of promoting some of their artists over others -- they serve all of their members.
"For what it's worth, I believe companies like BMI are behind getting sub-standards like those I mentioned (and certainly many others) airplay, while many other bands who are more sophisticated, never see the light of day....or the airwaves, or whatever."
Not really. Any songwriter or composer may join BMI. They are a performers' rights organization, not a PR firm, advertising agency, or record company.
BMI is a performance rights organization. They are not part of the money flow involved with buying a CD. They are non-profit, run by and for artists and composers -- the "good guys" according to many Slashdotters.
They handle public performances. Not CD sales..
Again: BMI = good guys. They collect money for artists and performers -- the little guys. And this money does not come from CD sales. It would be a stretch to claim that P2P would have any effect on BMI's revenue stream. It's all explained here.
This has to be the mother of all straw men, folks.
"Why should I pay the RIAA for something that they didn't make just so some record exec can get richer whilst the artist starves."
A typical CD represents the efforts of dozens of people. All of them are like you in me in that they expect to be paid for the job they do. While it makes piracy less morally ambiguous if you imagine the average record company to be some coke-snorting executive, it doesn't reflect the reality of the music industry.
"Why can't I give my money *directly* to the artist? It's not like the technology to do such a transaction doesn't exist. "
You are very correct. That decision is up to the artist. Expressed in broad strokes, artists can choose two routes:
The benefit of the first approach is that although the artist needs to pay for everything up front, they get to keep more of the money earned from sales. But it's back-breaking work that's not for the faint of heart.
The benefit of the second approach is that the record company provides the cash that's necessary, and takes all of the risk -- if the music does not sell, then the artist is not out thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. The tradeoff is that the artist doesn't start to make serious money until the costs have been recouped.
There is, of course, no shortage of artists who take the former route. You'll find them playing at your local coffee house or small venue. You'll find them on Magnatunes or other "open source" labels. You'll find them on sites like garageband.com. You asked why you can't pay artists directly -- if you can't find artists who want to sell their music directly, you're just not looking hard enough.
If you're hoping for an arrangement where a record company invests tens or hundreds of thousands of their own money into producing a CD, and then allows you to give money directly to the artist with none going to the record company to recoup their costs, it will be hard to find -- the economics just don't make sense. To construct an analogy closer to Slashdotters' experience... if you had a great idea for a software product but you needed to find investment money to get it out the door, any investor you'd talk to would require a piece of the action. If you told them that you'd like to take their money but then keep the sales income to yourself, you would not get very far in the negotiations. Record companies and strategic investors have a few thing in common: they're not philanthropists, and they're not rich uncles. Just like you and me, if they don't make money, they won't be around for very long.
The tipping point is the signal quality.
It's why DATs and audio CD-R recorders have (legally mandated) serial copy management systems, and analog cassette recorders do not.
You're not the first person to make the inference between low-fi and hi-fi recording -- heck, some people even compare P2P to analog radio and wonder out loud what the difference is.
Sometimes, a few orders of magnitude of audio precision make all the difference in the world. It's those orders of magnitude of precision that were the driving force behind digital recording systems replacing analog recording systems, and for the popularity of digital radio systems in the past few years. That's the key difference.
If you're still not sure what I mean, find a friend who has an XM or a (later generation) Sirius box, and compare the quality to FM. You'll likely be blown away.
"which is a f-ing CIVIL manner anyway?"
Sheesh. This is the fifth or sixth comment I've seen here from somebody insisting that this falls under civil law. Is this one of those Slashdot memes?
I feel like I'm just banging my head against a wall here, but here's where you can read up on what constitutes a criminal offense in copyright law.
Please help me spread the word. To fight the law, you must first understand it.
"This is an extremely disturbing development, seeing as these folks are not guilty of a crime, merely a civil offense."
I'm not sure where you got the idea that this is a civil case. If you'd like to learn more about criminal violations of copyright law, here's the relevant section.
This war will be fought with new ideas, not ignorance. Being the squillionth Slashdotter to parrot the old "civil, not criminal" meme will not help things. If you truly believe that artists have too many rights and it's high time to put them in their place, the first thing to do is to understand how the law works, so you can work to change it.
"The DOJ should saty out of what is clearly a civil matter."
Copyright violation becomes a criminal matter once the value crosses a fairly low threshold. This has been the case for several years now. Here's the section of US copyright law that covers criminal offenses.
Starting way back when the record companies were giving grief to the original Napster, many Slashdotters and like-minded folks were questioning the record company's authority to involve themselves in such matters, and said that if Napster was breaking the law, then the feds should get involved.
And then they did.
When harrassment of the P2P companies by both the government and private enterprises became more commonplace, many Slashdotters and like-minded folks said that the P2P companies weren't responsible for the actions of their users, and that the record companies should go after the users themselves.
And then they did.
When the record companies started suing the "whales" of the P2P world (those who were sharing sufficient amount of content to nudge into the territory of criminal, rather than civil law), many Slashdotters and like-minded folks claimed that if it really was criminal territory, then the record companies should stop picking on the pirates, and let the government handle it.
And now the government is doing just that.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree with everything you've said in your last post. Thank you for bringing up another important point that many Slashdotters don't understand: "under the radar" DNE "legal."