RIAA Says No Mystery In Rash of College Complaints

Doug Lederman writes "As colleges receive exploding numbers of complaints from recording companies about alleged illegal downloading of music files, theories abound about whether the industry is changing its criteria, aggressively targeting users who merely make downloaded music available to others rather than actual infringers. But after weeks of silence, the president of the RIAA says No: Better technology, he asserts, is merely resulting in better enforcement."

Re:In other words...

[MBGMorden]

No, I completely agree with you. What the major labels need to do it offer a good quality, reasonably priced, non-DRM'd, easy to search downloads.

Don't know how well it meets your criteria (since some like "easy to search" are kinda in the eye of the user), but the Amazon music store seems pretty nice. It's got a pretty good selection of stuff available in plain-ol no-DRM MP3 format. What I normally do when I have a song I want to purchase is check Amazon first. If they have it, I buy the MP3 from them, then import it into my iTunes library. Their setup isn't quite as nice or integrated as the iTunes store, but I like to give priority to non-DRM purchases when I can just so that I help lean the statistics in the right direction :). If they don't have it, I'll go ahead and settle for the iTunes version.

MediaSentry - "contractor" or "investigator"

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Note that the RIAA is no longer referring to MediaSentry as its "investigator", instead referring to it as a "contractor" or a "vendor". I wonder if they think that will make their legal problems [blogspot.com] go away.

Re:RIAA causes Mystery Rash in College

[sm62704]

You never know what you'll catch.

You are in violation of Epic Records' copyright of Cheap Trick's song Surrender [wikipedia.org]. Their lawyers will be contacting you shortly.

Re:In other words...

[TheLinuxSRC]

"The actus reus of theft is usually defined as an unauthorised taking, keeping or using of another's property which must be accompanied by a mens rea of dishonesty and/or the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use ." [wikipedia.org]

It is not theft. You have *not* deprived the original owner of his/her property or use. It is copyright infringement. Sheesh.. I thought that was /. 101 stuff.

Re:In other words...

[Moryath]

The CD cost has to support not just the artist but also the promotion and distribution of that album ...which they will charge to the artist in their corrupt and insane fraudulent contract schemes, ensuring that actual profit on the artist's part will only come about from tour/merchandise/product endorsement sales (and the MafiAA will even try to get most of THAT money too)...

plus there has to be enough revenue left over to support the label's business of representing new acts in the hope that one of them will be successful ...which they don't do any more, instead we get mass-pushed crap of the latest Britney "boobjob" Spears/Hannah Nopantsa/K-Fed/Snoop Crapping Dogg/Cop Killa Ni**a Wannabe Poser/etc etc, courtesy of the payola system ensuring there's no decent music on the radio without shelling out $50/month for satellite radio (wonder how much stake the MafiAA had in THAT plan)...

to find that one act that people will really like they have to gamble ...nope, they don't gamble or give new acts a chance any more, they wait until someone gets youtube/net buzz for free and THEN try to enslave them...

I think it's a fair bet their business model will have to adjust

Most of the ARTISTS are even saying this - in other words, the SLAVERY of the crappy contracts, of the constant accounting FRAUD by the MafiAA companies, needs to end.

but to say that the cost of that $20 CD is limited just to the per-copy production cost of the disc itself is not at all realistic.

Actually as far as the labels are concerned, it is. If the artist were actually getting the money, and I was satisfied I was buying a good product, great. The problem is, the MafiAA pays the artists what amounts to less than minimum wage after all the chargebacks and accounting fraud, and THEN piles it on by locking the artists into contracts for years with no way out to seek a better deal, AND then holds them hostage when they've got 1 CD to go by refusing to accept the last offered CD unless the band/artist signs their soul on for another series under the gun. End result? The artist is getting less than 1 cent of the money from that $20 CD, and any other actual services involved (studio time, mixer, etc) are getting likewise hosed.

Artists I like who've put stuff up to purchase/download themselves? GREAT. Love it, have purchased on a regular basis.