RIAA To Stop Prosecuting Individual File Sharers 619
debatem1 writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA has decided to abandon its current tactic of suing individuals for sharing copyrighted music. Ongoing lawsuits will be pursued to completion, but no new ones will be filed. The RIAA is going to try working with the ISPs to limit file-sharing services and cut off repeated users. This very surprising development apparently comes as a result of public distaste for the campaign." An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."
3-Strike Law coming soon... (Score:2, Informative)
Just like the French. First you give us fried potatoes to clog our arteries, then you dump your "huddled masses" from your country to the U.S., and now you invent the 3-strike law to ban us from ISPs without due process of law (a jury trial).
>>>The RIAA is going to try to working with the ISPs to limit file-sharing services and cut off repeated users.
Thanks. ;-)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Film and TV producers also call for action (Score:5, Informative)
In case anyone is wondering this seems to be a variation on this Letter to the Times [timesonline.co.uk].
Re:Good luck with that (Score:1, Informative)
This doesn't sound like just blocking stuff. Sounds like the RIAA wants to be able to give your ISP a ring and then the ISP cuts off your service.
This way the RIAA doesn't have to deal with horrible things like due process and the law. All real nice like; bow to your corporate overlords!
Re:File sharing isn't illegal. (Score:5, Informative)
Downloading shows isn't 'naughty' either. If my comcast PVR (I'm on unit number 3, soon to be 4, and then just buying a tivoHD) would record things properly without killing the sound every 3 seconds, I wouldn't need to go through the effort of downloading content that I'M ALREADY PAYING A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT FOR AND *NOT* RECEIVING.
Re:Film and TV producers also call for action (Score:2, Informative)
There are different types. Phonetic keyboards are relatively slow, but easy to learn. Others offer sophisticated ways of choosing traditional and simplified Chinese characters based on the structure of the character itself, rather than the pronunciation. These can be much faster, but take training and practice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_input_methods_for_computers
Re:Film and TV producers also call for action (Score:3, Informative)
If you come to my country, learn my fuckin' language! What would you think, if I came to the USA or UK, and *expected* you to speak German (or Luxemburgish, which happens to be my mother's tongue)?
If I moved to your country then yeah I'd try to learn the language, but if I'm just visiting, why should I bother? You speak English.
Re:Film and TV producers also call for action (Score:3, Informative)
Did you know that the USA nearly voted for German as their main language?
They didn't. They had a vote somewhere whether the text of new laws should be published in German in addition to the English language publication, but that vote failed. That is not nearly the same as having "German as their main language".
Re:Film and TV producers also call for action (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, and you could get William Shatner [wikipedia.org] to star in a big movie production for it!
My Math (Score:2, Informative)
For this exercise, I'm going to use the information located here: http://futureofthemusicindustry.blogspot.com/2005/01/music-downloads-jupiter-research.html [blogspot.com] (which is also backed up on many other sites)
For an album costing $15.99:
* $0.17 = 1.06316% : Musiciansâ(TM) unions
* $0.80 = 5.00312% : Packaging/manufacturing
* $0.82 = 5.1282% : Publishing royalties
* $0.80 = 5.00312% : Retail profit
* $0.90 = 5.62851% : Distribution
* $1.60 = 10.00625% : Artistsâ(TM) royalties
* $1.70 = 10.63164% : Label profit
* $2.40 = 15.0038% : Marketing/promotion
* $2.91 = 18.19887% : Label overhead
* $3.89 = 24.3277% : Retail overhead
Using that, if we apply it to their 656 million albums sold in 2003, we get 1.70 x 656,000,000 = $1,115,200,000
But, just a note, that this number is likely smaller due to the constantly decreasing costs of CD production (The production costs and overhead were likely more in 2003 than what is outlined in this chart)
Also, if we apply that to the 500 million albums today, we get 1.70 x 500,000,000 = $850,000,000
Another note, that this number is likely higher due to some of those album sales being digital. I can't tell by how much due to lack of information (or at least what I'm willing to research)
While this is obviously a much smaller number, we have to take digital sales into account. Using the chart above, we can eliminate Retail Profit, Retail Overhead, Packaging and Distrubtion from the mix and replace it with a 35% itunes cut (lets just pretend itunes is the only reseller so I dont have to research the cuts from Microsoft and the like). Label overhead is also going to drop significantly, but by how much, I can't be sure.
Regardless, we're looking at AT LEAST a 5% increase in profit for the record labels. Apply that to the 844 million songs and we get $126,600,000 (At minimum) profit for downloaded songs (as opposed to the $84M using the old album profit breakdown)
This leaves us with: 126 600 000 (at minimum) + 850,000,000 (at minimum) = $976,600,000 (at minimum x 2)
So they're most definitely not losing the same amount of money as they are trying to claim. They are making more profits on a different business model. When you break it down you'll see that their profits have either barely been dented, or more likely have stayed the same or even increased.
And when you tack on the $400,000,000 estimated money coming from copyright settlements you'll see that the RIAA = Full of Shit (of all my shitty math in this post, this is about the only equation I can say with certainty is completely accurate).
Contrary to their statements in the press.... (Score:5, Informative)