Totally, totally owned. And they're being sued under "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation" laws, too. Classic! And so, so true. =)

"Disabled woman sues RIAA"

I hate the media more and more each day.

Ter13 wrote:

Better than "Cripple cripples RIAA"

But not better than "Woman sues RIAA", or even "RIAA sued by mother."

Kusanagi wrote:

The RIAA are sueing good, hard working people, who illegally obtain copyrighted media without paying for it. The only thing bad is how they handle their business of sueing people who do this, but you can't see them as horrible for protecting copyrighted media, but rather by how they protect it. So please, don't try to single them out as sueing decent people for no reason, they have a reason.

Not a good reason. Downloading is actually a form of fair use under previous statutes, and at best was a gray area. One can argue that the DMCA changes that, but then one can argue more easily that the DMCA is a bad and unconstitutional law that has never been put to a serious enough test to fall.

Overall, MP3 has been very good for music, particularly for artists whose labels don't bother to promote them well and for independent artists. There's considerable evidence to the effect that any negative impact on sales has been from people burning direct CD-R copies of entire discs (which is pretty much an unrelated problem), and from the industry's initial panic over Napster which gave them the bright idea of releasing fewer titles a few years down the road. Negative consumer reaction has also been a significant factor.

The pattern is pretty consistent with the industry's reaction to radio and to cassettes; each time they panicked and tried to prevent new technology from emerging, only to have to acquiesce to it and find a new way to run their business. In the case of radio they also succumbed a new form of parasite, the goons who control which tunes will ever see airplay. Of course now they have to face some looming problems with Webcast radio, where their cartel policies have basically created a situation that will rapidly grow out of their control, possibly even to the downfall of their ability to cry foul over file sharing at all.

Lummox JR

Kusanagi wrote:

Yea, sure downloading helps some artists, but most of the time people are obtaining music that they have not invested any money into.

It's perfectly legal to do that with cassettes. That's codified into law, and it's considered fair use. Fair use is a concept that has seen much ebb and flow, but in the digital age it's been eroding more and more as intellectual property holders freak out about new technologies. Another related problem is that many existing copyrights were due to sunset at the end of their "50 years after the death of the author" term, and that has since been rather ridiculously extended to 70 years to appease the likes of Disney. Corporate copyrights are also an abomination in common use, the goal of which is to essentially prevent work from ever reaching the public domain.

It can be argued, and should a lot more often, that copyright has already well exceeded its intended boundaries. I don't suggest it should be abandoned, but rather that fair use and public domain be given their due.

People are not paying for things they are owning, which are supposed to be payed for, when you download music that you have not bought nor intend to buy, then you are not rightfully obtaining that music in any sense.

Well not quite. If a friend mixes you a tape, that's hardly any different; yet it's legal. MP3 downloads did not negatively impact sales, and indeed CD-R is the bigger threat. If anything, file sharing has vastly increased the visibility of many artists. This is all the more important nowadays, since 10 years ago you could hear the top 100 songs, and now it's only the top 40 that seem to matter. Most radio stations switched to the more restrictive format in that time, to no one's advantage except the absurdly overhyped. (I don't know about you, but I get sick to death of hearing the same handful of songs played over and over and over.)

Notice how I said obtaining copyrighted media without paying for it, I was trying to be careful in how I pointed it out, I guess I should of said copyrighted media which is supposed to be charged for, but the fact is I wasn't just designating all downloading of music. I know of a lot of artists who promote their cds by letting people download their songs, but that is just to get them noticed more, if they were already well known they would not be profiting from doing this.

I knew you were referring to commercial music. However where getting noticed is concerned, in fact many artists who are fairly well known have been even better known because of file sharing. It's really only the top 5 or so who stand to lose out, and there's no evidence that's happened. Falling CD sales happened for a lot of reasons, but they're simple ones: High CD prices, overall lack of talent in the most-hyped artists, and lack of variety. Those factors were present to some extent before Napster, and afterwards got even worse owing to industry decisions and the direction of the music biz in general.

Since they are not well known, this puts them into the lime light and allows them to sell in the future for actual profits.

Pretty much all artists benefit in that same way, not just the struggling ones. Many will make it to the B list, maybe to have their song played once or twice on some radio stations and then never again. It's not because those artists were bad, but because their songs got hardly any airplay and nobody heard them; yet often those singles are much better than anything you can hear 5 times an hour on top 40 radio. It takes just about a miracle to get your first song on the radio in the first place, but those who make it are all too often shafted by the likes of Britney Spears.

A big part of it is, is that people are owning music without paying for it, when they are supposed to be paying for it in order to own it, and thats not exactly something that should be ignored. It's rediculous when someone has around 7,000 songs and hasn't paid a penny for any of them, besides to their ISP for providing the connection to the internet.

I'll freely admit 7000 is a lot. It's probably too much. Depending on the type of songs though it's not necessarily a bad thing in my eyes, unless they're downloading entire CDs. I have no truck with that; if you're gonna do that, buy the frickin' CD. Sharing entire CDs is another matter, if you own them at any rate. If someone is gonna be a putz and download all the songs it's their own business, but the ability to download a smattering and give them a good listen isn't a bad thing. It's been very much a good thing for many artists, particularly as there's still no way to fully preview a CD otherwise. (Amazon has improved by now having all or almost all tracks on the CD playable, vs. just the first 5 like they used to, but it's only a short section that may not even be representative of the entire song. Most music stores are the same way.)

Back when the industry first started shrieking about Napster, I said often that I wished they'd simply make it possible to pay a buck a piece for a song, and would have a wide library available to choose from (and you could get it in full CD quality, which you should for a buck). Well, that's sort of in place now, about 7-10 years too late and in the wrong way. The selection can best be described as "growing", since obviously rare old songs would get passed over for a long time even though people have already converted them to MP3. The sound format is not full CD-quality, but lossy like MP3, and sometimes not as well converted so you have no option to go find another version of the file. It also comes with a lot of proprietary software that tries to put a lot of artificial strictures on how you can use the song--the kind of software that's about half a breath away from being spyware, and half of it probably is, like RealPlayer of old. If you have to move your files to a new computer, you're probably pretty well screwed because you can't play it there; and since you can burn the songs to CD anyway, basically the potential to copy is still there. Way too little, way too late; it'd be simpler if they just set up a drop-box donation system where you could send in a buck after downloading an MP3.

Lummox JR

If you're referring to iTunes, you can move your files to a new computer. To quite a few new computers at the same time, in fact. Also, elements of the recording industry are trying to get rid of as much of the good parts of iTunes as they can, possibly because they see it as a threat to their control over distribution. They want to charge more per song since apple makes money on iPods, and they feel they're entitled to a percentage of this money, and for other similarly flimsy reasons.

Jon88 wrote:

If you're referring to iTunes, you can move your files to a new computer. To quite a few new computers at the same time, in fact. Also, elements of the recording industry are trying to get rid of as much of the good parts of iTunes as they can, possibly because they see it as a threat to their control over distribution. They want to charge more per song since apple makes money on iPods, and they feel they're entitled to a percentage of this money, and for other similarly flimsy reasons.

iTunes is one of those flawed technologies, though, and still has serious limitations. Interestingly, the pomalytes made sure most of those limitations would be foisted upon the Windows market, while they don't have most of the same restrictions.

It comes as no surprise though that even this limited form of acknowledgement of the winds of change has caused a reaction from the industry. Their goal is simple: Get as many people as possible to buy the CDs produced by the few artists they spend the most money promoting. This "extreme focus" form of marketing has its advantages in terms of revenue, but it has the unfortunate side effect of eroding the customer base due to lack of variety.

Ironically they probably could have gotten their own system into place to make money, and I'm sure the fact that they make so little off of iTunes is what chafes them the most. The problem is now, there's no download system that's going to be truly acceptable to most consumers that the RIAA is willing to sign off on, and they've burned so much of their capital with the public that nobody trusts them.

Lummox JR

I've downloaded music that I cant spend money on. Like small time bands that arnt that big in Australia.

Not to mention big bands that dont have CD's in any of the local music stores.