RIAA Wants to Hack Your PC

[rold]

These cases are some of the best examples of the "pissing in the wind/shooting yourself in the foot" approach to doing business I have ever seen.. [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] Labels have been screwing artists over for decades, and they have moved on to screwing over the record-buying market as well. I took some marketing in college and I remember one of the key aims in gaining repeat business was "the buyer HAS to be happy with his/her decision after the purchase." Do they honestly believe people will remain happy with their spending decisions upon buying records, knowing they're getting manipulated and supporting such a corrupt system bent on becoming an oligopoly? I think any amount of revenue they could lose from online trading will be HEAVILY eclipsed by the revenue they stand to lose by continuing to act as as a shameless and corrupt monopoly.

[Paul Frindle]

[quote]Originally posted by Anderton: [b]The following is from the Lefsetz Letter, copyright 2001 by Robert Scott Lefsetz and reprinted with the kind permission of the author. This is required reading!! Bob has hit the nail on the head. ************* The RIAA's latest strategy is to terrorize online music trading sites. They want to disable them TECHNOLOGICALLY! Essentially by hogging bandwidth and making one unable to download the song one wants. So the question is, is this like bombing Afghanistan or the distribution of anthrax? What is the ultimate goal of the United States? To eliminate worldwide terrorism. Except for the terrorists themselves, no one is against this mission. Furthermore, the U.S. wants to make the world safe for DEMOCRACY! Free will, free speech, right to pursue happiness. Now, it's unclear whether all Muslims would see this as a goal, or whether all Muslim GOVERNMENTS would approve of this goal, but no thinking person can see these ultimate targets as negative. They're highly laudable human goals. What is the ultimate goal of the RIAA? To eliminate piracy. So that people will be forced to purchase high-priced CDs with only one good track, or in the alternative, subscribe to online services that don't allow one to burn CDs or transfer to hand-held devices. Are these goals that the general populace agrees with? Emphatically, NO!! And therein lies the rub. The RIAA is doing NOTHING to win over the hearts and minds of the people. Ironically, just the OPPOSITE! How do they expect to ultimately win the war? The public has made it perfectly clear what it's looking for. All music, from all labels, along with rarities, for one reasonable price with the ability to burn CDs and download to hand-held devices. The question is, is this UNREASONABLE? Doesn't sound like it to me. The RIAA could work toward this goal. But it REFUSES to. For it likes the status quo. Meanwhile, all these abilities are presently AVAILABLE! Albeit illegally. Legitimate companies are selling CD burners and hand-held devices. Hell, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to purchase a new computer without a CD burner. Yet, the labels essentially want to DISABLE this equipment. Isn't there an inherent disconnect? Equipment people have PAID for, and are used to using, will overnight become superfluous, irrelevant, a waste of money. Do you think they'll stand for this? OF COURSE NOT! Furthermore, it's like asking people to go back to the horse and buggy after experiencing automobiles. No, it's worse. It's like someone BUYING an auto and driving it around and then being told he must garage it. Permanently. This strategy CANNOT WIN!!! It's time to employ a new strategy... Online music is purely a sampling service at 56k. Since broadband has less than a ten percent home penetration, the labels are fighting a war that DOESN'T EXIST!!! They have YEARS before online can eviscerate traditional CDs. YEARS to figure it out. Instead of worrying about stanching the flow of illegal MP3s, they should worry about winning the hearts and minds of the consumers. Hell, AOL didn't achieve a subscribership of thirty million OVERNIGHT! First, people had to buy COMPUTERS! First, people have to get high speed connections. If the online music service is as good and easy to use as AOL, word of mouth alone will force people to get broadband and sign up. It's LOGICAL! But instead of working towards a reasonable end game, the labels are employing terrorist techniques. Using rogue, unidentifiable computers they're going to bring online trading to its knees. This doesn't sound like bombing Afghanistan, this sounds like mailing ANTHRAX! The populace is FREAKING about anthrax. Even those who live far from a metropolis. How do you think those connected online are going to feel about the RIAA messing with the system? Even if they tolerate it, they're going to HATE the RIAA. It's a no-brainer! It's all about the hearts and minds. How about a program to win the hearts and minds. Hell, how about MusicNet and Pressplay being FREE for the first month. ABSOLUTELY FREE! Hell, the labels are KINGS of marketing. But there's no innovation online, because they ultimately DON'T WANT online music. The RIAA is headed for disaster. They need a wartime general. And/or a Mafia consigliere. To deal with the OPPOSITION! To plot strategy. So the war can ultimately be won. (To learn about the RIAA's new strategies go to: [url=http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2818064,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp01]THIS URL[/url] } [/b][/quote] I couldn't agree more - this says it all! Their battle against new technology can never be won because, in a capitalist society, the pressure to generate new revenue by disseminating new technologies is as strong as the RIAA's interest in maintaining their control. Their perception that they can win, illustrates a level of illogical and fanatical belief that rivals any religious doctrine - trouble is that it's not God's word they are protecting, it's capitalism and their own self-interest. People and institutions that fail to be flexible in the face of a naturally changing world will simply be mowed under by events. And for the sake of the good stuff that some of these guys sometimes do - it's a damn shame. They fail to see the great opportunity new technology provides them, instead prefering to wage an utterly futile war on CHANGE as a concept - a war that of course can never be won, all the time humans resist turning into 'consuming machines without will to live and invent'!

[alphajerk]

the RIAA must die [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

[BOOKUMDANO]

Well, despite the fact that the RIAA's request was turned down, I'm a little confused by the negative comments on this, a sound/engineer/producer/musician/artist etc forum. Let me understand your comments from a certain perspective Let's say I'm an artist whose livelihood (ie:income) is derived from record sales....that's how I feed my kids. I pay people like you (with money I make from record sales) to record my tracks, produce my albums ..all with state of the art equipment that I expect you (the studio guys) to keep buying with your money (ie: a percentage of the money I pay you as a client to make the recordings). I, the artist living on royalties, am represented through my record company (whether it's Warner or Billybob's record company) by the RIAA ...a conglomeration of record companies and the artists thereby associated with those companies. Now, the RIAA, doing it's job to protect those of us who make our living at this thing called audio...floats a suggestion (albeit a radical request that WAS turned down) to do something to try and slice into this growing piracy problem......so that I can continue to make royalties ...and continue to have money to pay you to operate your studios and buy new equipment and prevent the music business from becoming non-revenue shareware. And to the RIAA's attempt to attack piracy in an attempt to protect any/all of us in the industry, your response is "....the RIAA must die..". Unbelievable! With that attitude, I'd say that if you continually buy equipment and converse on this forum because this is all one big hobby for you...you better keep your day job if you have one...and don't expect your day job to have much to do with audio if you ever succeed in killing the RIAA.

[rold]

Dano, let me rub my eyes here for a second and make sure I'm reading your post right. As an artist, you're actually defending the RIAA? The RIAA respresents labels - in whatever interest it deems fit. Those interests conflict with the artists' interests more often than not, and when the labels need to change laws to help them screw artists more effectively, guess who lobbies the law-makers on their behalf - the RIAA. The work-for-hire scam should be enough proof of that... [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] They are NOT artist-friendly.

[BOOKUMDANO]

I disagree.

[Anderton]

The organizations that protect the artist are ASCAP, BMI, and the Harry Fox agency. They are squarely on the side of the artist. The RIAA is there to protect labels, true. But the best interests of the labels are NOT necessarily the same as those of the artist; witness the RIAA trying to get all works classified as "work for hire," and the desire to make it impossible for artists to regain control over their work. The more you look into the RIAA's priorities, the more you realize that if they help the artist, it is a happy accident and byproduct, not a primary goal. That's cool; it's a free country, and they can do whatever they want. But we also have the right to fight them when they work against the best interest of the people who actually [i]make[/i] the music.

[BOOKUMDANO]

Craig, I still disagree with the negative comments on this thread. The RIAA is coming from the right place in attempting to fulfill it's responsibility to the record companies ...which directly filters across the chain to all the people (artists) who are getting any royalties, tour support, advertsising coop, recording budgets, living expenses or front money from those record companies....and from whom flows a percentage of that money out to readers on these forums who are in the audio biz ...including manufacturers of all thr equipment that fuels all the dreams. The work-for-hire issue (not a subject of this thread) was a proposal to enable record companies to legally TRY and negotiate it into a contract ...it wasn't going to be a mandatory feature of all recording contracts. I still don't understand how everyone twisted that issue ....and even if everyone out-votes me and decides the RIAA is evil because of the works-for-hire proposal, it still (to me) doesn't justify categorizing the RIAA as "evil" in this current piracy issue.

[alphajerk]

RIAA is AAIR spelled backwards. just think about that for a second... look at the monkey.

[olhhyperback.com]

Craig, The Harry Fox Office, ASCAP and BMI ONLY represent songwriters and music publishers. Please read: http://riaa.com/Copyright-What.cfm The RIAA and its member labels represent (misrepresent?) only the artists who are signed to them. They have also been one of the most powerful first amendment advocates when local, state and federal governments have attempted to censor recording artists. There is also an organization of independent labels, the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD). You'll probably never read about them in any press releases because they represent mostly small artist-owned labels. The public would be outraged if the consumer electronics, telecommunications and computer industries ever appeared to be taking them on. Their absence from any mention in the "debate" speaks volumes about the spin that is being put on these issues by big electronics and big telecom. Probably the most active advocate of artists is NARAS. They led the fight to straighten out the work for hire law. About how well indi artists are doing today: What the telecom industry is shooting for is a law that would allow anybody to sell any artist's recordings provided they pay a government mandated royalty. This means an artist who can sell CDs directly for $10 to $15 will be in competition with web sites who would be able to legally make a copy and sell the same recording for say $5 provided they send the artist $1. (these are totally hypothetical figures) Since these sites will have everybody's music, the only people who will get any additional visibility will be those who pay handsomely for it. Yes it cuts out the labels and stores but it also seriously cuts out the profitability for an artist releasing their own recordings as a means of financing the early part of their career and it will all but destroy the small record labels who support most small and medium sized studios. This is a formula that is very good for the telecom industry, the computer industry and the consumer electronics industry. On the surface it appears good for the public. The only factions with any money opposing it are the RIAA and the NARM who represent the record stores. For this reason we are being flooded with releases slamming the RIAA. The problem is that ALL artists are getting crushed by this in addition to the major labels. If a law mandates that music be cheap or free, only the music subsidized by large corporations will be able to earn even a meager living. The status quo is a LOT better for indi artists in my opinion. ------------------ Bob's workroom (615) 352-7635

[DougP]

[quote]Originally posted by Bob Olhsson: [b]Yes it cuts out the labels and stores but it also seriously cuts out the profitability for an artist releasing their own recordings as a means of financing the early part of their career and it will all but destroy the small record labels who support most small and medium sized studios. This is a formula that is very good for the telecom industry, the computer industry and the consumer electronics industry. On the surface it appears good for the public. The only factions with any money opposing it are the RIAA and the NARM who represent the record stores. For this reason we are being flooded with releases slamming the RIAA.[/b][/quote] I originally wrote a much longer response than this, but I realized that what I wrote boiled down to a single question (well, pair of questions): OK, so if this is an issue of the music industry versus the telecom industry, which side is Time-Warner-AOL on? And if this is an issue of the music industry versus the consumer electronics industry, which side is Sony on?

[alphajerk]

[quote]Originally posted by Bob Olhsson: [b] What the telecom industry is shooting for is a law that would allow anybody to sell any artist's recordings provided they pay a government mandated royalty. This means an artist who can sell CDs directly for $10 to $15 will be in competition with web sites who would be able to legally make a copy and sell the same recording for say $5 provided they send the artist $1. (these are totally hypothetical figures) Since these sites will have everybody's music, the only people who will get any additional visibility will be those who pay handsomely for it.[/b][/quote] well call me ignant then. thats not cool. now i have NO PROBLEM with people actively TRADING music amongst theirselves for FREE [a la napster] but a site that would copy and distribute for MONEY is a whole different scenario. but if the telcomm industry doesnt get off their fucking asses and get me broadband, then their whole plan doesnt amount to shit since 90% of net users right now are STILL dialup... you think i download shit right now? much less PAY to download anything? [even with broadband, i wouldnt do that either]

[alphajerk]

actually though, this could force prices for cd's to FINALLY drop. i have quit buying any cd over $12.99 as it is... and i dont buy music very often. maybe CD's SHOULD be $5.99 direct.

[Philip OKeefe]

[quote]Originally posted by alphajerk: [b]dont say YEARS man... im STILL on dialup with no hope in sight... 28.8 at that [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif[/img] [/b][/quote] Over 5,000 posts - and all at a 28.8 dialup? YOU DA MAN! I'M NOT WORTHY!!! But I hear ya regarding slow speeds. I'm still dialup too, but at least I have a 56K modem. I'd love to go broadband... but they either charge too much for it or the systems aren't available in my area, or they just plain suck for one reason or another. [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif[/img] Phil O'Keefe Sound Sanctuary Recording Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html pokeefe777@msn.com

[alphajerk]

oddly BB's load up almost as quick as when im on broadband... i want broadband for uploading/downloading music.

[olhhyperback.com]

I can assure you which side Sony and AOL probably aren't on... I look at it as two monsters scrapping over who has more of a "right" to screw over artists. The status-quo was never dictated by the majors, it was the direct result of a hundred years' battle waged by composers and recording artists. The record and movie businesses both started out entirely as "work for hire" without artists even getting credits, much less royalties. Today artists legally own any recordings they make with full copyright protection that they can lease or sell part/all of to record labels, telcom companies or nobody if they choose. It's about control but artists are who really have the control that the telecom folks want to take away. ------------------ Bob's workroom (615) 352-7635

[rold]

Hey Bob, In terms of ownership and the other terms, how much different were things back in your motown days? I haven't really looked at the history in detail. Thanks, Harold

[olhhyperback.com]

Motown was originally a partnership between Smokey Robinson and his manager, Berry Gordy Jr. who had been a successful songwriter/producer. Artists got around 3 or 4 percent of retail however their record royalties were not charged for lawyers, management, studio time or merchandising and promotion so the bottom-line was often more money that a 10 point "Hollywood" deal where everything but the kitchen sink is being deducted from an artist's royalties. Motown hired top people to design costumes, train voices and choreograph dance routines. They also carried several artists for years before they had their first hit. While many of us assumed the company was taking unfair advantage of the artists, the first time I read a Capitol contract, I realized that this probably hadn't been the case at all. I understand from Fletcher that Chess operated pretty much the same way. Other artist-owned labels of the era, off the top of my head, included Herb Alpert's A&M and Johnny Rivers' Soul City. Producer-owned labels included Atlantic, Stax, Vanguard, Elektra, Philles, Monument and Sun. Capitol was started by songwriters but sold to EMI in the late 1950s. Possibly the first artist to own their masters and lease them to a major label was the Rolling Stones. Apparently Ray Charles got a similar deal in the mid '60s. It's important to understand that there has never been a "standard" deal. Each is a different tradeoff between up front investment and back-end income. ------------------ Bob's workroom (615) 352-7635

[fuzz]

[b]Possibly the first artist to own their masters and lease them to a major label was the Rolling Stones.[/b] well i did not know that......thats the playing field we should all be lookin at. finace it yer self and lease the masters. damn...that is what i have been talking about for years...that is why i started building my own studio when i was 18. thanks bob "fuzz"

[olhhyperback.com]

Elton John owns all of his masters as do numerous others including Stevie Wonder. In fact I always have to wonder why when somebody doesn't! Certainly in most cases there was some kind of massive advance involved or in one case I know of, the label simply wasn't very convinced and the deal was more or less a favor. ------------------ Bob's workroom (615) 352-7635

[rold]

Hi Bob, Thanks for your time and the reply..I know there's no such thing as a "standard offer", but in a general way, would you consider the approach that motown took in those days to be common? I'm curious as to what a deal like that would mean to an artist today, given today's marketplace... Thanks again, Harold

[phibraphonic]

The RIAA shouldn't be included as terrorist victims but terrorist themselves! Microslop's monopoly is child's play compared to the RIAA. Why don't they just come out and say they don't like the people (fans) who built their empire by supporting them and their artists while they consolidated their resources together into one massive payola regime. I think other solutions for limiting file sharing are possible. Every good idea requires imagination and the time required to think everything out clearly. It could be a new encryption code on the cd or something amazing like a "golden ticket". The bottom line is don't bite the hand that feed you Veruca. lol http://www.mp3.com/phibraphonic

[phibraphonic]

[quote]Originally posted by popmusic: [b] Not possible, at least in the long run. As far as copying music... If something can be listened to, it can be copied -- with little or no signal degregation. Even with degregation... People like mp3s... They're "good enough" for most folks and IMO the quality is so-so... So listening to something that's not a 100% clone of the original is not an issue for most people. As far as stopping file sharing services... It might be possible to take every file sharing dot com to court (and to date this is exactly what's been done), but *EVERYTHING* on the internet is a shared file of sorts. This web page you are viewing is a shared file. E-mail is a way of sharing files. While the non-RIAA-approved Napster-like services will likely get shut down (or run out of money via litigation), files -- music files included -- will [i]always[/i] be shared as long as there's an internet. The biggest issue is that the public is spoiled now... They know what file sharing services are like... You can get what you want [i]when[/i] you want it, and it's for free. These are things that, say, a traditional CD retail store cannot do. As long as consumer demand for file sharing is there, then these types of services will not be going away. [/b][/quote] I understand that Popmusic. I didn't mean to intend encryption was the only solution. The solution has to be creative because as you've stated everything can be copied. Shut down Napster, how about a chain of bootleg cds sites operating off a IM service, being financed secretly by disgruntled investors who lost money from the file sharing service that just closed down. The RIAA better watch it. People are spoiled. The new Paul McCartney album has been available for about a month now online. I saw it on a file sharing service. I didn't even know what it was until weeks later. I didnt even know he was recording! The RIAA will never beat file sharing they will only encourage it. A record company has to offer the consumer something they can't download. That kind of solution could be anything from bubble gum to a golden ticket awarding the lucky consumer a recording session at Abbey Road with George Martin!