"Show me where its explicitly forbidden in the constitution, or the FIRST 10 amendments, then ill agree. Until then, it doesn't mean anything and the RIAA ( and anyone else ) can kiss my ass."
Slavery was outlawed by the 13th amendment. Black people must love you.
"Is it that violations of copyright are not actually criminal acts but rather are civil matters to be disputed between the copyright holder and the unauthorized publisher?"
"If they would be satisfied with 50% margin like other industries, then a CD should cost about $1 in the shops."
CDs are sold at about a 50% margin. I think you've mixed up gross margin and net margin, and you have a misunderstanding of the costs required to produce, distribute and market a CD.
CDs are sold into the channel for about $10, I believe. The rest goes to distributors and retailers, who use the profit to do things like pay their employees and other overhead expenses.
Of that $10.00, after the production costs are paid, the record company is left with about $5 gross profit. Not net profit. That's your 50% gross margin there. The difference between gross and net is calculated differently by different people, but the remaining $5 must be used to cover additional marketing expenses (channel programs, and the like) as well as covering returns and price protections.
This is why most CDs lose money, why the record industry has always been generally a shitty one to be in, and why massive layoffs are happening due to the huge drop in sales. Record companies generally run lean.
The whole "the music industry is nothing but greedy executives in Hugo Boss suits who light cigars with $100 bills" notion that you and others perpetuate surely makes music piracy go down smooth and easy, but it's still not the case.
"However, even with my eyepatch on, I can see that the RIAA members are fighting for their economic survival."
Well said. So many people around here seemed shocked that record companies aren't willing to simply crawl into a hole and die. It's the whole "die on your feet or live on your knees" philosophy. Anybody here who runs their own business would fight pretty damn hard for their economic survival, as well.
"On top of that it will fragment the market and seriously weaken their distribution monopoly, etc. etc."
What distribution monopoly? Anybody with the means and the talent can record, produce, and distribute a song. That's why there are hundreds, if not thousands, of record companies in the United States alone. Some have chosen the RIAA, many have not.
What one cannot do is take somebody else's work and distribute it without their permission. That is against the law.
If you write a piece of software and you choose distribute it on your web site on a permission basis (rather than, say, releasing it as shareware), you have a distribution monopoly on the software. If you contract a software publisher to handle distribution and advertising for you, then you and the software publisher have a distribution monopoly on your software. If somebody puts your software on a warez site without your permission, they're not valiant heroes breaking your evil "distribution monopoly." They are software pirates.
"It is so obvious that music sharing has absolutely no impact on CD sales."
Indeed. The fact that the tremendous drop in CD sales over the past few years (and the subsequent layoffs in the music industry) and the utter explosion in online music piracy at the same time is just a huge coincidence of the most astronomical proportions. Why, look at the fact that a leaked Outkast album sold well to nullify all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary!
File-sharing enthusiasts like to use the argument that it's actually due to the fact that music sucks and that CDs are overpriced, perhaps to avoid thinking about the fact that their music piracy might be costing somebody, somewhere, their job. Well, music has always sucked at more or less the same level it has now, and music prices have stayed about the same over the past thirty years -- I remember that $9.99 was a decent price for an LP in 1984; that's $17.32 in 2002 dollars.
There are enough intelligent arguments to make in favor of changing copyright laws; coming out with silly things like "It is so obvious that music sharing has absolutely no impact on CD sales" isn't really helping.
Everybody references that Jay Curry article, but it doesn't make it true. He's a blogger, not a lawyer, and he has his facts wrong. For what it's worth, people tried a similar argument back when Napster was in its heyday. The ninth circuit court of appeals disagreed.
If it were true, don't you think you'd see the P2P companies locating their businesses in Canada? Or, why not dispose of P2P altogether and set up a Canada-based FTP site with all the music you could fit onto it? By Jay's misinterpretation of the law, that would be legal as well.
Remember, Canada is a signatory to the Berne Convention like most other western countries, and intellectual property is a large chunk of Canada's GNP. They're no piracy haven.
"so they just want to scare some into settling, and more into abandoning p2p."
Slight clarification... more into abandoning copyright violation. P2P is a fine and noble concept, but we all know that Kazaa's business model is based on copyright violation. If all the copyrighted material magically disappeared from Kazaa tomorrow, so would the users.
If the RIAA's search mechanism (whatever it may be) finds you and determines that you're only sharing files for which you are the rightsholder or you have the rightsholder's permission (that is, shareware, unsigned indie bands, and the like), then they have absolutely no motivation to take legal action against you. I think they were sufficiently embarrassed by the "Usher" goof-up.
On a side note, if anybody would like to avoid having their life "ruined financially" (if you can call writing a check for a few thousand bucks ruining your life), the best way to prevent this is not to distribute copyrighted material without the owner's permission.
"No, it's not like saying that at all, since copyright infringement and theft are two totally different things. For example, theft is a crime, while copyright infringement is a civil tort."
Googling on "criminal copyright infringement" will yield several links to actual government sites with details on unfortunate souls who were nailed for said crime. You have to be a pretty serious pirate ($1000 or more in retail value) for copygight infringement to fall under the "criminal" category, but nonetheless, the oft-repeated "copyright infringement is civil!"/.-er chant is incorrect. The law is clear.
Huh? The RIAA is a trade group for the recording industry. The deals that Apple made to distribute music were made with the rightsholders: producers, distributors, publishers, composers, performers and the like.
By comparison, let's say I'm a member of Alpha Psi Omega, or perhaps the Rotary Club, or a Book of the Month Club, or some other organization to which I pay money. If you and I work out a deal to buy my bicycle, it would not be correct to say that you'd made a deal with Alpha Psi Omega or the rest simply because I'm a member -- odds are, none of those group have ownership of my bike.
"80 cents to the record companies who have done essentially NOTHING except allow a form of sales that requires them to produce no physical product."
Oh, please. CDs typically take a lot of time and a lot of effort from a lot of people to produce. Look at the "thanks to" section of most CD's liner notes to understand the scope of CD production. The dozens or perhaps hundreds of people who helped make a typical album generally not do so for free. To use but two examples, the session musicians and producers are often unionized and have families to support, thus don't have the option of working gratis so that you can pay less for music. They are just two groups of people whose wages are recouped through the 80 cents that goes to the record company to cover their cash investment.
"On the other hand, if a band can set up it's own independent record company and then promote their music on their own, then they'll get both sides of the fee structure and make 90 cents per song instead of 10 cents."
"If." That's the key word. Successfully setting up and running a record label is very tough to do; it takes lots of time and it takes lots of money.
Re:Definition of a Compulsary License
on
Why Only Music?
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· Score: 1
Thank you for your great post. I was reading the other comments and wondering what was going on before I figured out that 90% of them don't know what the hell compulsory licensing is. I think they think it means forcing users to pay for a download. Wrong. It means that with a compulsory licensing system designed for online distribution, you could download all the copyrighted music you wanted, legally, as long as the provider found some way (advertising, membership fees, or whatever) to pay the owners of the recording and the publishers their compulsory license. And there'd be no way to stop them -- legally, a record company, performer or composer would have no way of stopping an online service from offering their music to you.
"It'd ludicrous to think of paying in advance a "tax" to the RIAA for blank media because we might use it to copy their music."
Then don't. The tarrif on blank music CDs in the US goes largely to performers, composers and publishers, not the RIAA. RTFL.
Re:Theft is not what anybody wants
on
Why Only Music?
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· Score: 1
"Go do some research for yourself. If movies went public domain the moment they left the theaters, hollywood would still be making a 300-400% profit. (although they arrange their books to portray otherwise, screw certain people out of royalties, etc.)"
Some films make a profit. Some don't. The vast majority do not make "300-400% profit" in theatrical showings alone. And I don't mean creative accounting -- many films simply do not recoup enough at the theatres to cover the investment. Sometimes it is because they are simply bad movies, but sometimes it's unfair. The filmmaking business is tough and competitive. Portraying it as an enterprise that's a license to mint money makes that piracy justification go down smooth and easy, but it is simply not true.
It's the same thing for commercial music, as well -- in fact, most CD releases don't make money. This fact is at odds with those who'd portray the record business as a walk in the park, but nonetheless, it's the case. In the film industry as in the music industry, it's the blockbusters that help pay for the failures and, hopefully, keep the company in the black at the end of the year. It's the blockbusters that allow music and film distributors to take risks on indy films and indy bands.
As I'm fond of saying, the recording and filmmaking industries are evil enough without having to just make shit up. 300% - 400%, indeed.
What you're referring to by "re-recording rights" are known as publishing rights -- the ability to do new things with the words and music, such as license them to a cover band, or put the song in a movie (which also requires permission of the rightsholder of the recording itself).
This here page does an excellent job of explaining how the Beatles' publishing rights are owned. Said rights were not unfairly ripped from the hands of the Beatles by the evil RIAA; publishing rights can be bought and sold, and that's what happened here.
While it's possible for the record company to own the publishing rights to a song as well as the recording itself, it's not that common, at least among decent music (where the singer or performer writes their own stuff). At any rate, if you write a song or a piece of music, nobody can take ownership away from you against your will. If a songwriter or composer opts to sell the publishing rights to somebody else, or enter a work-for-hire relationship, that's entirely their choice.
"I will not knowingly contribute to the RIAA if possible (CD-R TAX unavoidable. god the tax is bullshit when they are suing those fucks.)"
Those fucks? In the US, the music CD-R tariff largely goes to musicians, composers and performers, not the RIAA. RTFL. Musicians, composers and performers are the good guys. Not "those fucks."
"And where do you think that money goes? To the copyright holders."
No... the money collected from radio stations by ASCAP and BMI go to artists and composers. This is what ASCAP and BMI do... collect money for artists and composers. They are run by and for artists. They are not related to the RIAA.
These aren't deep dark secrets I'm revealing. Just go to www.ascap.com or www.bmi.com and read up.
You're spreading misinformation about copyrights, as well. Typically, the copyright on the recording is at least partially owned by the record company and/or the producer, as they spent the money to have the recording made. The words and music are typically owned by the folks who write the words and music.
Record companies are evil enough even if you stick to the facts; you don't need to just make shit up.
"Ummm... if you really want to boycott the music industry... you'll have to stop listening to the radio too. They do get paid each time a song is played."
The artists and composers get this money. Licensing for radio airplay is handled by ASCAP and BMI, two non-profit societies that are operated by and for artists. They are not related to record companies or the RIAA.
In short: the money doesn't go to record companies or the RIAA.
I am aware that artists and composers are also part of "the music industry" but in the eyes of the typical/. reader, the artists and composers are the good guys, right?
That's a straw man argument. If you had a day job from which you got 90% of your income and another job that generated 10%, if you found somebody pilfering from your paycheck from the 2nd job, you'd still want to kick their ass right proper. "That's okay, the real money is in my day job" is not something you'd be likely to utter. Why assume that anybody else would be feel differently?
If you're helping yourself to somebody's copyrighted work in lieu of paying for it, the money's gone from their pocket whether their take from selling their work is 1%, 5%, 10% or 100% of their total income.
Hearts and minds? The RIAA has made it clear that they're not trying to win friends with this campaign... they're (in my words) trying to scare the hell out of people. The position that the RIAA has taken in various quotes and press releases is that education didn't work.
Of the folks who've spoken out about being sued by the RIAA, their responses seem to be in four categories:
I thought that by paying Kazaa, I was getting legally licensed content
Of those sued, the biggest category of all, I think, is of people who knew damn well that distributing copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is illegal (100% of Slashdot readers would probably fall into this category), but there'd be little point in going on record with this if you were sued by the RIAA. It wouldn't put one in a sympathetic light, and the "I didn't know the files were on my PC" sounds so much nicer. In general, people tend to lie when they're caught.
"Now, how long before big labels realize that they have to start making more variety of music?"
Not sure what you mean here... the "big" labels are big because they offer everything under the sun.
Sony Music, for example, operates the Columbia and Epic labels, plus Legacy Recordings, Sony Classical, Odyssey, Sony Nashville and Sony Wonder. Virgin has Angel, Bluenote, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, Capitol Studios / Capitol Mastering, Freeworld Entertainment, Grand Royal Records, Java Records, Mosaic Records, Neurodisc Records, Odeon Records, Priority Records, and The Right Stuff Records.
On the contrary, it is the small, independent labels that tend to focus on a particular genre and thus offer the lack of variety that you refer to.
The ads aren't as ubiquitous as in some other IM apps, but they're there, at least in the Windows version. Click the tabs along the bottom of the interface (to show weather, your stock portfolio, etc.) and you'll see them. You'll also see them if you use Yahoo! Messenger's video instant messaging.
You're correct that your statement has been made a zillion times, but criminal copyright infringement is indeed possible under US law. Some recent examples:
A better (but greatly simplified) answer to his (rhetorical) question is because there's a lower standard of proof and a greater chance of success with these civil suits.
Deliberately not keeping logs of who had what IP at what time would also disallow ISPs from giving up information on, say, distributors of child pornography. Although there is obviously a large moral gap between the two, distributing copyrighted material without permission and distributing child pornography are both crimes.
This might be a PR disaster for any major ISP that tried to promise complete anonymity -- sure, you'd attract child pornographers and others whose goal is to commit illegal activity, and make a few more coin each month than if you hadn't, but it wouldn't make you a good corporate citizen.
The obvious way to beat the RIAA, or any trade group that looks out for the rights of its members, is to not share copyrighted material to which you don't have the rights.
"I get so fed up with RIAA FUD that "trading music == illegal activity, no matter what"."
Do you have an example of the RIAA stating or even implying this?
Distributing copyrighted music without the copyright holder's permission is illegal, and that's what the RIAA is attempting to stop. I can't see any reason why they'd try to claim that distributing music with the owner's permission (which is essentially what record companies and services like iTunes and buymusic do), or distributing recordings that are in the public domain (if there are any) is against the law, so if you've seen them doing this, I'd love to see a link. Thanks!
Slashdot Mirror
"Show me where its explicitly forbidden in the constitution, or the FIRST 10 amendments, then ill agree. Until then, it doesn't mean anything and the RIAA ( and anyone else ) can kiss my ass."
Slavery was outlawed by the 13th amendment. Black people must love you."Why has no-one been charged with a crime at all?"
They have. The RIAA and the Secret Service have teamed up on raids. Additionally, the government's "Operation Buccanneer" program went after music pirates, and got one.
"Is it that violations of copyright are not actually criminal acts but rather are civil matters to be disputed between the copyright holder and the unauthorized publisher?"
Not hardly. You're spreading incorrect information. Here's what the law says.
"Do not allow the RIAA to spread the idea that all P2P downloads are illegal."
Who told you that the RIAA is trying to spread the idea that all P2P downloads are illegal? Do you have a citation?
Please -- there are enough credible arguments for straightening out copyright laws; no need to resort to spreading FUD or just making shit up.
"If they would be satisfied with 50% margin like other industries, then a CD should cost about $1 in the shops."
CDs are sold at about a 50% margin. I think you've mixed up gross margin and net margin, and you have a misunderstanding of the costs required to produce, distribute and market a CD.
CDs are sold into the channel for about $10, I believe. The rest goes to distributors and retailers, who use the profit to do things like pay their employees and other overhead expenses.
Of that $10.00, after the production costs are paid, the record company is left with about $5 gross profit. Not net profit. That's your 50% gross margin there. The difference between gross and net is calculated differently by different people, but the remaining $5 must be used to cover additional marketing expenses (channel programs, and the like) as well as covering returns and price protections.
This is why most CDs lose money, why the record industry has always been generally a shitty one to be in, and why massive layoffs are happening due to the huge drop in sales. Record companies generally run lean.
The whole "the music industry is nothing but greedy executives in Hugo Boss suits who light cigars with $100 bills" notion that you and others perpetuate surely makes music piracy go down smooth and easy, but it's still not the case.
"However, even with my eyepatch on, I can see that the RIAA members are fighting for their economic survival."
Well said. So many people around here seemed shocked that record companies aren't willing to simply crawl into a hole and die. It's the whole "die on your feet or live on your knees" philosophy. Anybody here who runs their own business would fight pretty damn hard for their economic survival, as well.
"On top of that it will fragment the market and seriously weaken their distribution monopoly, etc. etc."
What distribution monopoly? Anybody with the means and the talent can record, produce, and distribute a song. That's why there are hundreds, if not thousands, of record companies in the United States alone. Some have chosen the RIAA, many have not.
What one cannot do is take somebody else's work and distribute it without their permission. That is against the law.
If you write a piece of software and you choose distribute it on your web site on a permission basis (rather than, say, releasing it as shareware), you have a distribution monopoly on the software. If you contract a software publisher to handle distribution and advertising for you, then you and the software publisher have a distribution monopoly on your software. If somebody puts your software on a warez site without your permission, they're not valiant heroes breaking your evil "distribution monopoly." They are software pirates.
"It is so obvious that music sharing has absolutely no impact on CD sales."
Indeed. The fact that the tremendous drop in CD sales over the past few years (and the subsequent layoffs in the music industry) and the utter explosion in online music piracy at the same time is just a huge coincidence of the most astronomical proportions. Why, look at the fact that a leaked Outkast album sold well to nullify all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary!
File-sharing enthusiasts like to use the argument that it's actually due to the fact that music sucks and that CDs are overpriced, perhaps to avoid thinking about the fact that their music piracy might be costing somebody, somewhere, their job. Well, music has always sucked at more or less the same level it has now, and music prices have stayed about the same over the past thirty years -- I remember that $9.99 was a decent price for an LP in 1984; that's $17.32 in 2002 dollars.
There are enough intelligent arguments to make in favor of changing copyright laws; coming out with silly things like "It is so obvious that music sharing has absolutely no impact on CD sales" isn't really helping.
Everybody references that Jay Curry article, but it doesn't make it true. He's a blogger, not a lawyer, and he has his facts wrong. For what it's worth, people tried a similar argument back when Napster was in its heyday. The ninth circuit court of appeals disagreed.
If it were true, don't you think you'd see the P2P companies locating their businesses in Canada? Or, why not dispose of P2P altogether and set up a Canada-based FTP site with all the music you could fit onto it? By Jay's misinterpretation of the law, that would be legal as well.
Remember, Canada is a signatory to the Berne Convention like most other western countries, and intellectual property is a large chunk of Canada's GNP. They're no piracy haven.
"so they just want to scare some into settling, and more into abandoning p2p."
Slight clarification... more into abandoning copyright violation. P2P is a fine and noble concept, but we all know that Kazaa's business model is based on copyright violation. If all the copyrighted material magically disappeared from Kazaa tomorrow, so would the users.
If the RIAA's search mechanism (whatever it may be) finds you and determines that you're only sharing files for which you are the rightsholder or you have the rightsholder's permission (that is, shareware, unsigned indie bands, and the like), then they have absolutely no motivation to take legal action against you. I think they were sufficiently embarrassed by the "Usher" goof-up.
On a side note, if anybody would like to avoid having their life "ruined financially" (if you can call writing a check for a few thousand bucks ruining your life), the best way to prevent this is not to distribute copyrighted material without the owner's permission.
"No, it's not like saying that at all, since copyright infringement and theft are two totally different things. For example, theft is a crime, while copyright infringement is a civil tort."
Googling on "criminal copyright infringement" will yield several links to actual government sites with details on unfortunate souls who were nailed for said crime. You have to be a pretty serious pirate ($1000 or more in retail value) for copygight infringement to fall under the "criminal" category, but nonetheless, the oft-repeated "copyright infringement is civil!"Huh? The RIAA is a trade group for the recording industry. The deals that Apple made to distribute music were made with the rightsholders: producers, distributors, publishers, composers, performers and the like.
By comparison, let's say I'm a member of Alpha Psi Omega, or perhaps the Rotary Club, or a Book of the Month Club, or some other organization to which I pay money. If you and I work out a deal to buy my bicycle, it would not be correct to say that you'd made a deal with Alpha Psi Omega or the rest simply because I'm a member -- odds are, none of those group have ownership of my bike.
"80 cents to the record companies who have done essentially NOTHING except allow a form of sales that requires them to produce no physical product."
Oh, please. CDs typically take a lot of time and a lot of effort from a lot of people to produce. Look at the "thanks to" section of most CD's liner notes to understand the scope of CD production. The dozens or perhaps hundreds of people who helped make a typical album generally not do so for free. To use but two examples, the session musicians and producers are often unionized and have families to support, thus don't have the option of working gratis so that you can pay less for music. They are just two groups of people whose wages are recouped through the 80 cents that goes to the record company to cover their cash investment.
"On the other hand, if a band can set up it's own independent record company and then promote their music on their own, then they'll get both sides of the fee structure and make 90 cents per song instead of 10 cents."
"If." That's the key word. Successfully setting up and running a record label is very tough to do; it takes lots of time and it takes lots of money.
Thank you for your great post. I was reading the other comments and wondering what was going on before I figured out that 90% of them don't know what the hell compulsory licensing is. I think they think it means forcing users to pay for a download. Wrong. It means that with a compulsory licensing system designed for online distribution, you could download all the copyrighted music you wanted, legally, as long as the provider found some way (advertising, membership fees, or whatever) to pay the owners of the recording and the publishers their compulsory license. And there'd be no way to stop them -- legally, a record company, performer or composer would have no way of stopping an online service from offering their music to you.
"It'd ludicrous to think of paying in advance a "tax" to the RIAA for blank media because we might use it to copy their music."
Then don't. The tarrif on blank music CDs in the US goes largely to performers, composers and publishers, not the RIAA. RTFL.
"Go do some research for yourself. If movies went public domain the moment they left the theaters, hollywood would still be making a 300-400% profit. (although they arrange their books to portray otherwise, screw certain people out of royalties, etc.)"
Some films make a profit. Some don't. The vast majority do not make "300-400% profit" in theatrical showings alone. And I don't mean creative accounting -- many films simply do not recoup enough at the theatres to cover the investment. Sometimes it is because they are simply bad movies, but sometimes it's unfair. The filmmaking business is tough and competitive. Portraying it as an enterprise that's a license to mint money makes that piracy justification go down smooth and easy, but it is simply not true.
It's the same thing for commercial music, as well -- in fact, most CD releases don't make money. This fact is at odds with those who'd portray the record business as a walk in the park, but nonetheless, it's the case. In the film industry as in the music industry, it's the blockbusters that help pay for the failures and, hopefully, keep the company in the black at the end of the year. It's the blockbusters that allow music and film distributors to take risks on indy films and indy bands.
As I'm fond of saying, the recording and filmmaking industries are evil enough without having to just make shit up. 300% - 400%, indeed.
What you're referring to by "re-recording rights" are known as publishing rights -- the ability to do new things with the words and music, such as license them to a cover band, or put the song in a movie (which also requires permission of the rightsholder of the recording itself).
This here page does an excellent job of explaining how the Beatles' publishing rights are owned. Said rights were not unfairly ripped from the hands of the Beatles by the evil RIAA; publishing rights can be bought and sold, and that's what happened here.
While it's possible for the record company to own the publishing rights to a song as well as the recording itself, it's not that common, at least among decent music (where the singer or performer writes their own stuff). At any rate, if you write a song or a piece of music, nobody can take ownership away from you against your will. If a songwriter or composer opts to sell the publishing rights to somebody else, or enter a work-for-hire relationship, that's entirely their choice.
"I will not knowingly contribute to the RIAA if possible (CD-R TAX unavoidable. god the tax is bullshit when they are suing those fucks.)"
Those fucks? In the US, the music CD-R tariff largely goes to musicians, composers and performers, not the RIAA. RTFL. Musicians, composers and performers are the good guys. Not "those fucks."
I remember that as well. And now, we're seeing bleatings of "they should be leaving this to the government and not filing civil suits."
What will the /. crowd say when the government goes after music pirates like they did the guy who put the Hulk film on the P2P networks?
Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.
"And where do you think that money goes? To the copyright holders."
No... the money collected from radio stations by ASCAP and BMI go to artists and composers. This is what ASCAP and BMI do... collect money for artists and composers. They are run by and for artists. They are not related to the RIAA.
These aren't deep dark secrets I'm revealing. Just go to www.ascap.com or www.bmi.com and read up.
You're spreading misinformation about copyrights, as well. Typically, the copyright on the recording is at least partially owned by the record company and/or the producer, as they spent the money to have the recording made. The words and music are typically owned by the folks who write the words and music.
Record companies are evil enough even if you stick to the facts; you don't need to just make shit up.
"Ummm... if you really want to boycott the music industry... you'll have to stop listening to the radio too. They do get paid each time a song is played."
The artists and composers get this money. Licensing for radio airplay is handled by ASCAP and BMI, two non-profit societies that are operated by and for artists. They are not related to record companies or the RIAA.
In short: the money doesn't go to record companies or the RIAA.
I am aware that artists and composers are also part of "the music industry" but in the eyes of the typical /. reader, the artists and composers are the good guys, right?
That's a straw man argument. If you had a day job from which you got 90% of your income and another job that generated 10%, if you found somebody pilfering from your paycheck from the 2nd job, you'd still want to kick their ass right proper. "That's okay, the real money is in my day job" is not something you'd be likely to utter. Why assume that anybody else would be feel differently?
If you're helping yourself to somebody's copyrighted work in lieu of paying for it, the money's gone from their pocket whether their take from selling their work is 1%, 5%, 10% or 100% of their total income.
Hearts and minds? The RIAA has made it clear that they're not trying to win friends with this campaign... they're (in my words) trying to scare the hell out of people. The position that the RIAA has taken in various quotes and press releases is that education didn't work.
Of the folks who've spoken out about being sued by the RIAA, their responses seem to be in four categories:
Of those sued, the biggest category of all, I think, is of people who knew damn well that distributing copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is illegal (100% of Slashdot readers would probably fall into this category), but there'd be little point in going on record with this if you were sued by the RIAA. It wouldn't put one in a sympathetic light, and the "I didn't know the files were on my PC" sounds so much nicer. In general, people tend to lie when they're caught.
"Now, how long before big labels realize that they have to start making more variety of music?"
Not sure what you mean here... the "big" labels are big because they offer everything under the sun.
Sony Music, for example, operates the Columbia and Epic labels, plus Legacy Recordings, Sony Classical, Odyssey, Sony Nashville and Sony Wonder. Virgin has Angel, Bluenote, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, Capitol Studios / Capitol Mastering, Freeworld Entertainment, Grand Royal Records, Java Records, Mosaic Records, Neurodisc Records, Odeon Records, Priority Records, and The Right Stuff Records.
On the contrary, it is the small, independent labels that tend to focus on a particular genre and thus offer the lack of variety that you refer to.
The ads aren't as ubiquitous as in some other IM apps, but they're there, at least in the Windows version. Click the tabs along the bottom of the interface (to show weather, your stock portfolio, etc.) and you'll see them. You'll also see them if you use Yahoo! Messenger's video instant messaging.
You're correct that your statement has been made a zillion times, but criminal copyright infringement is indeed possible under US law. Some recent examples:
Here's the section of US copyright law which defines criminal infringement.
A better (but greatly simplified) answer to his (rhetorical) question is because there's a lower standard of proof and a greater chance of success with these civil suits.
Deliberately not keeping logs of who had what IP at what time would also disallow ISPs from giving up information on, say, distributors of child pornography. Although there is obviously a large moral gap between the two, distributing copyrighted material without permission and distributing child pornography are both crimes.
This might be a PR disaster for any major ISP that tried to promise complete anonymity -- sure, you'd attract child pornographers and others whose goal is to commit illegal activity, and make a few more coin each month than if you hadn't, but it wouldn't make you a good corporate citizen.
The obvious way to beat the RIAA, or any trade group that looks out for the rights of its members, is to not share copyrighted material to which you don't have the rights.
"I get so fed up with RIAA FUD that "trading music == illegal activity, no matter what"."
Do you have an example of the RIAA stating or even implying this?
Distributing copyrighted music without the copyright holder's permission is illegal, and that's what the RIAA is attempting to stop. I can't see any reason why they'd try to claim that distributing music with the owner's permission (which is essentially what record companies and services like iTunes and buymusic do), or distributing recordings that are in the public domain (if there are any) is against the law, so if you've seen them doing this, I'd love to see a link. Thanks!