posted 01-24-2004 05:56 PM            

The recording industry and the FBI have struck a deal that allows CD packaging to include the FBI's logo on labels warning consumers about the illegality of file-sharing.

The label is not mandatory, and record labels are free to design the warning however they wish. The Los Angeles Times reports that warnings are expected to appear on the backs of CD packaging and that there are discussions about creating CDs that would display the warning onscreen when played on a PC.

Warnings emblazoned with the frightening FBI logo are the latest step by the Recording Industry Association of America to enforce their copyrights and curb the practice of illegal file-sharing. On Wednesday the RIAA filed lawsuits against another 532 suspected online pirates, which brings the total number of P2P network users the organization has sued to 914 since September (see "Recording Industry Sues 532 More File-Sharers").

posted 01-25-2004 02:24 AM            

Pardon my French.

posted 01-25-2004 10:53 AM            

Must be part of that "freedom" the terrorists hate so much.

posted 01-25-2004 12:44 PM            

The reason they are having so many problems is because they are obsolete. The used to exist as a necessary intermediary to get music to the public. Technology required LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, and later CDs be mass-produced so that the public could acquire the music. The RIAA abused their position to take advantage of the public by severely over-charging and raising prices even as their costs decreased. They also abused their position to take advantage of artists by giving them incredibly unfair deals--but the artists had no option but to accept them if they wanted to be heard.

This is, obviously, no longer the case. Internet makes the distribution process literally free. Artists can distribute their music directly to their fans virtually free of charge--and anyone, be it Madonna or some garage band, can do it without the help of the RIAA.

Fans have already realized they've been ripped off which is why so many people get their music free from the Internet instead of paying $15-$20 per CD. And artists are slowly waking up to the fact that they really don't need the RIAA to reach their fans.

Just like the manufacturers of horse-drawn carriages had no reason to exist after cars became popular, the RIAA has no reason to exist in an Internet-driven market. They are, of course, fighting their own demise in every way they can.. by getting Washington to protect them with silly laws as well as suing hundreds of people they accuse of copyright violation.

It is all bad, but the light at the end of the tunnel is the knowledge that this is the RIAA literally fighting for their life... and it is a fight they will lose. Technology guarantees it.

posted 01-26-2004 07:30 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by letxa2000:
And artists are slowly waking up to the fact that they really don't need the RIAA to reach their fans.

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True! Here's a link to the transcript of Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference.
If other music artists woke up to the facts she describes so well in this speech, your estimate could become reality!

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html

Wheels have been in motion for quite some time now and things WILL change - simply because they have to!

This FBI-warning-thingy is so desperate and so useless!

-

posted 02-10-2004 11:45 AM            

There's been a lot of media buzz lately about the effect file sharing has had on the recording industry. Reporters local and national seem to look only to the RIAA's web site when writing about the most recent store closing or falling sales figure.

The RIAA talking points are that file sharing is responsible for recent sales losses, and that a file shared is a sale lost. This logic has resulted in lawsuits ranging upwards of $300 million against individual users. With yearly CD sales in the $14 billion range, this somewhat outlandishly suggests that one user was responsible for a 2.1% drop in industry revenue! What's more, the RIAA's own suggestion that some 60% of files shared on peer-to-peer networks are illegal music seems to be somewhat at odds with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) claim that over 50% of file sharing is of copyrighted movies.

Apple and Pepsi's fresh-faced young music thief from the Super Bowl ad.
From the starting gate, it's clear that the RIAA plays fast and loose with the numbers. They obviously don't particularly care how close to the truth they come in justifying their attacks on file sharing -- and on file sharers. Those attacks culminated this weekend in a bizarre collaboration between the RIAA, Pepsi, and Apple, the Pepsi and iTunes commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII. In the spot, a series of fresh-faced, contrite teenagers targeted by the RIAA (not actors; despite Pepsi's involvement, the RIAA wanted the Real Thing) are labeled incriminated, busted, accused, and charged -- oddly enough, not convicted or guilty.

A particularly presentable girl then puts on her best "I'm getting back at the man" face and tells the audience that she and her pals are going to keep downloading music for free, and suggestively wiggles her Pepsi in evidence.

So we've got Apple, whose co-founder, Steve Jobs, incidentally, lets his kids neither drink Pepsi nor watch TV commercials, and Pepsi teaming up to not only strike fear into the hearts of evil-doers, but also convince kids that they're somehow fighting the good fight by pouring more money and energy into the organization that's threatening them. This, it would seem, is more than enough to justify a boycott of RIAA-backed products.

In the end, though, the RIAA's lawsuits and PR machinations are just the subtext of a much larger issue.

Buy Indy
Boycotting Big Music doesn't have to mean giving up music. There's lots of great independent stuff out there! Here are some ideas of music to check out. Let us know if you have other suggestions!

I-Town Records
Pork Recordings
Warp Records
Stephanie Pakrul
Alan Rose
Sam Shaber
Bjorn Lynne
Marie Zemantauski
David Wiernicki
Ryan Montbleau
The Dent
Wingnut
Trout Fishing in America
Twiin

The RIAA is the voice of the major players in the record industry. Its policies and legislative agenda reflect the goals of the companies that receive money whenever anyone buys RIAA-label CDs from the likes of Sam Goody, Fye, and Wal-Mart.

When you buy RIAA-label CDs, your money goes to support their lobbyists and their lawyers. Those legislative efforts are aimed at destroying independent music and eliminating consumer choice.

As an independent artist, I buy a lot of CD-Rs (blank CD media) to record my music. But of the cost of every CD-R I buy, 2% goes to the RIAA, a deal going back to blank cassette tape days designed to help cover the lost sales from illegal music copying. Have I ever received any of this money? No. But I bet you the Big Music labels have. I pay Blink 182, Madonna, Britney Spears, and U2 for the privilege of making a copy of my own music.

You should boycott CDs because RIAA is ripping off independent musicians.

You should boycott CDs because RIAA labels' contracts do more to destroy music than promote it: as Steve Albini, producer of Nirvana's "In Utero" describes it, a band that signs a standard industry contract and sells a quarter of a million albums will end up $14,000 in debt to the label, which will have profited $710,000.

You should boycott CDs because the RIAA shut down Internet radio for six months, until a groundswell of public outrage forced them to back down -- for now.

You should boycott CDs when the industry launches their pay-per-download music service (named, ironically, after the breakout file-sharing company Napster), and signs a deal with Penn State to force every student to buy music they don't want, and won't even be able to keep after they graduate. You should boycott CDs because Penn State's president is co-chair of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, along with RIAA president Cary Sherman.

You should boycott CDs if you don't want to hand money to an organization that's tried to pass laws that would allow it to legally hack into your computer and destroy all MP3s you have -- legal or not, yours or not -- without any due process or potential recourse, and laws that would make it illegal to have a consumer electronics device that plays any kind of media without checking with the RIAA first to make sure it's OK -- essentially outlawing non-RIAA music.

That's why you should boycott not only RIAA-label CDs, but RIAA-backed music on Internet services like iTunes, Napster 2.0, and whatever soft-drink flavor of the moment e-music store has just opened up -- and you Mac aficionados don't even have to feel bad about costing Apple revenue. The RIAA takes so much of the cut from iTunes sales that Apple can barely pay the cost of uploading the file. Buy an iPod instead, before the US slams through legislation like that just passed in Canada slapping a $22 tax on all digital music players to "pay artists" -- no matter that no artists have ever seen a penny from such taxes (which are as high as 70 cents on CD-Rs, and which, if the Canadian Recording Industry Association had had its way, would have been $21 per gigabyte of hard drive space, jacking the minimum cost of a 200gb hard drive to more than four thousand dollars!) and that you might well have already paid for the music you put on your player.

It's hard to avoid every purchase whose proceeds might end up in the hands of RIAA lobbyists. If you own a Disney DVD, a Sony TV, visit CNN.com (owned by Time Warner), or buy a computer game from Papyrus, who are distributed through Sierra, who are owned by Vivendi, a RIAA label is getting your money. But the least we can do is hit the RIAA labels where the cut is the deepest and the statement the most obvious.

Until the music industry plays fair, it's time to stop supporting it.

posted 02-11-2004 11:21 AM            

Who wants to pay $15 dollars for something that cost a small fraction of that to actually make, to hear music that certainly be forgotten shortly afterwards.

posted 02-13-2004 03:03 PM            

Amazing how Chemmies and us nonbelievers can agree on an issue

posted 02-13-2004 03:09 PM            

Looks like our Big money influenced Senators are caving into the RIAA/Hollywoods greedy demands.

Go figure.

Senate proposes Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act

posted 02-13-2004 03:40 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mech:
I think calling us "Chemmies" is an insult if you ask me.

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Correct,

"Aerosolists" would be more appropriate, if any name.

As a BMI and ASCAP affiliated artist, with CD's up on major record chains, and signed on Canadan American Records, I do not want people making pirated copies of my music. I'd give it away first before I'd allow that. If someone has my permission, no problem. Could you imagine someone making money off of a copyrighted song, that was not theirs?

On the other hand, it costs approx. $1 to manufacture a disc, complete with graphics. The big money is going to the BIG Companies, and their affiliated "Indy" distribution companies. We signed a deal, where we keep the rights to the music, and split the profit with the the co-publisher. Most young bands want to make it big, and are more interested with that than the quality of their music, but that's another story. I know a band that was fronted $1 million, and after tours, agents, publicity, sihning rights away, and greedy managers, wound up owing $17,000, after touring for a year.

The trick is to cut as much of the businessmen out of the deal as possible. Stop thinking BIG, and think quality.