CMU Professor's Rebuttal Against RIAA Propaganda 542
jsc writes "On Sunday, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette published
an article by Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, stating that
university students are hijacking Internet2 to pirate
copyrighted works, and schools who don't actively combat
file-sharing are teaching their students bad values like
"acceptance of theft". The Post-Gazette didn't let Sherman
get away with it, though... Today they published
a letter to the paper from Roger Dannenberg, a
professor of Computer Science and Music at Carnegie Mellon University,
reminding everyone how past/present behavior of the RIAA and
its members is an even worse model of values..."
Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Robin Hood-Rebound. (Score:5, Funny)
People who live in rubber houses shouldn't either.
Re:Robin Hood-Rebound. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
two things: moral high ground (riaa/mpaa are good guys; your college students are being bad, please stop them) and also the fact that colleged (and the legal system) should NOT be used to help protect one business' outdated sales model.
confusing morality with their profit stream IS the problem. please help to separate the two.
its fine to complain that your business is losing money. the buggywhip companies went thru that - and so will you, riaa/mpaa. could I suggest getting a NEW business model? laying off some of your staff? changing your price and distribution models?
its quite another thing to act all high and holy try to convince us that you are standing for Truth and The American Way. you're not. you're simply a business like all the rest - a business that is in dire need of a major revision.
if you want to complain about lost profits, STOP BRIBING CONGRESS AND LAWMAKERS! there, that'll save you more money than yelling at pimple-faced teenagers.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Funny)
Actually bribing congressmen is cheaaaap. They're having a firesale on laws, everything must go!
Last time I read the reports of cash contributions to senators I was alarmed at how little money it took to buy yourself a DMCA. I think it's in the neighborhood of several million clams.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because they are a bunch of stubborn idiots doesn't mean that their request is unreasonable. If students were using the university's photocopier to reproduce entire text books (let's pretend the use of the copier is provided free of charge by the school) and were buyi
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think they have thought about where this ends up. I don't think the end of the road is certain, but I'll bet it means curtailed development of entertainment in digital form.
Re: Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the end of the road is pretty certain, and goes something like this:
So musicians will continue to make music, people will keep listening to whatever they like (and spend money on that, when they feel like it), some industry folks will keep trying to squeeze money from all this, DRM will continue to be broken, and some lawyers will receive fat paychecks. The most succesful businesses will be those that adapt to new circumstances.
And "stealing" only applies to physical items, not when dealing with all-digital content. Use "copyright infringment", "illegal copying" or "unauthorized distribution" instead. You don't 'own' an image, you may own some rights to decide who is allowed to copy that image, and under what conditions. These rights may vary from country to country, and aren't absolute either (see: fair use).
Oh and BTW: "illegal" is not the same as "wrong".
Re: Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Hear, Hear!
The current music industry is a buggywhip plant asking the federal courts to pass laws making it illegal for Ford to sell Mustangs without buggywhips.
The traditional cost of media is largely distribution costs (if you believe the RIAA). The cost of distribution in electronic format is largely and essentially nil (I know the cost of bandwidth; but I could distribute 4000 copies of a 3 MB song per month for $16.95, or 4 tenths of a cent per copy). The largest costs associated with doing business in the digital format is covering all of the agreements with the traditional distribution services so that they can keep making and selling buggywhips regardless of their objective usefulness and value. As you say, the company that will out is the one that adjusts to the market and provides 1) a simple, pain-free process of acquisition, and 2) a cost that is low enough that copyright infringement is more trouble than it's worth. Who is going to go through the trouble of ripping and distributing songs that can be downloaded for, say, 25 cents?
Re: Robin Hood (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. The RIAA does not say most of their cost comes from distribution. Their cost comes from "investing" in all their artists, of which only 1 in 10 are profitable.
However, don't mistake my personaly beliefs as theirs.
Re: Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
So you state, that during the period during which slavery was legal, and freeing a slave without his/her owner's permission was considered theft, it was wrong for the Underground Railroad to operate, in addition to illegal? That since it was illegal for Rosa Parks to sit in the front of the bus, it was wrong? That since it was illegal for the 13 colonies to rebel against English authority, that it was wrong? That since dissent in totalitarian countries is illegal, it is wrong?
Given that, how is any system but totalitarianism a workable one, if we take the premise that the law is always right?
Re:Robin Hood-Ends of the Mark. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Robin Hood-Ends of the Mark. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but we most certainly DO gain a better system by assuming the laws are not always right.
Re: Robin Hood (Score:3)
However it's not theft, it IS copyright infringement, and it's only a civil matter, so they can only sue you for damages.
Re: Robin Hood (Score:4, Insightful)
So you end up calling something stealing that is perfectly legal. What good does that do you? What is the point in finding a similarity that might work out in some specific case and then apply that to every single case (claiming that copyright infringement is stealing)?? It is trivial to find cases were any such argumentation for claiming copyright infringement is stealing won't work. It is trivial to find examples of actions that is stealing but not copyright infringement but also cases that is copyright infringement but not in any way stealing in any way you look at it.
Actually, the whole idea of using "loosing money" to find similarities is quite stupid since copyright infringement has nothing to do with losing money. Something is not copyright infringement because there is a loss of money or income for someone. Copyright infringement (in these cases) are about creating something new, that is creating a new physical property that happens to be identical to something else. Stealing deals with changes in possession or ownership of such physical properties.
And this is an important thing to note, the differences between ownership of a copy of a work and "ownership" of the copyright to a work. The first actually deals with physical objects, ownership and stealing works out. The copyright has very little to do with this having the copyright does not imply or relate to owning the individual copies. Thus, it is perfectly possible for a copyright holder to commit the crime of stealing a copy of his own work (for example taking a CD from a shop). THAT is stealing, completely unrelated to copyright and copyright infringement.
There are also obvious differences in the consequences between stealing a CD and copying a CD. In the case of stealing, the store (for example) is the one losing out. The copyright holder doesn't get any money in any form when you are convicted. When you copy a CD instead, the shop does not in any way lose out. Instead the copyright holder is the one that can go after you and get money for the infringement.
Anyone claiming that the two cases (stealing and copyright infringement is really the same and can be called stealing) has in my opinion simply not understood the concept of copyright and its relation to actual physical copies, at all.
>And don't confuse the issue with who the seller
>is. The current contracts for music make the
>record labels the sellers.
Not the slightest idea what you talk about. For most people, a store is the seller. The music maker would be sellers to the store.
Re: Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times does it need to be said? THEY NEVER HAD THAT X DOLLARS! If they never had it, it couldn't be taken from them, therefore it is not stealing. It is preventing profit, which is very different. Protestors in front of a store can convince people to not shop there. Did they then "steal" from the store by preventing the profit?
No matter how many times you put "in fact" in front of an incorrect statement, it is still incorrect.
> It is theft, maybe not of the actual media, but of the profit the seller SHOULD have been allowed to make on the item.
No one prevented them from being allowed to make money. They did not offer it at an attractive-enough price, so the person chose not to give their money to a corrupt organization (whether they knew it was corrupt or not).
> you do not have the right to steal their money.
But they have the right to steal mine through illegally-obtained and relatively arbitrary taxes?
Fuck that. Once they start playing fair, I will start playing "fair." You can complain about it being illegal, which I will not argue, but you aren't convincing anyone with those tired, rehashed, B.S. arguments. It is IP infringement, stealing is, by definition, about actual property, it does not include infringing on a company's distribution rights to an abstract concept.
Would you argue that it would be stealing if I recorded a song that sounded almost exactly like a popular one (AKA a remake) and then gave it away, because anyone who liked my remake would have liked the original. Thus, I have deprived the original distributor of the money they could have made by people buying copies of the original. Am I a filthy thief?
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Insightful)
Totally. As a musician and a music appreciater, I would like to see things progress towards more sharing. If music was cheaper, (say 7 cents a song) and the service was comprehensive and easier than "illegal" sharing, I think it would be plenty of revenue to support the artists and the staff required to run the download/distribution system.
Of course this would require major legislation with some sort of sunset, gov-subsidized industry shu
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
You can call it a fallacy, and from a legal pov you are right, but I think the vast majority would consider it a lesser crime than stealing from a non-thief.
Robin Hood-Slippery when wet. (Score:2, Insightful)
It however makes for an excellent slippery slope.
Re:Robin Hood-Slippery when wet. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Robin Hood-Slippery when wet. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well that's some twisted logic but I'll work within your framework...
Is capital punsihment intentional? Given that prosecutors must seek the death penalty specifically, that would be a yes...
Is it premeditated? Given that the US has considered many forms of putting people to death and have decided to rest on lethal injection (for the most part) and it is planned
Re:Robin Hood-Slippery when wet. (Score:3, Insightful)
From Wikipedia...
"Malice is a legal term referring to a party's intention to do injury to another party. Malice is either expressed or implied. Express malice occurs when a party only gives notice of the intention to commit a crime. Implied malice occurs when, in the course of nefarious or unlawful doings, a party causes the death of another party."
When you legally put people to death it is for the express purpose of achiev
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the first time in history that we've ever had any valuable goods that could be duplicated for free like this. That's why people are still trying to get their heads round the issues involved.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
While the theft is certainly illegal, and nobody I have read about says it is, the RIAA's position is exceptionally disingenuous for the reasons mentioned.
They argue that law and government should protect them with MORE (very important point) legislation and they have got much of it already. (DMCA) They argue that they should be able to breech people's privacy, destroy whole internet technologies and dictate to the electronics industry what they can and cannot produce.
They argue this because they pretend to defend the artist rights and musical freedom as they have always done. This is obviously wrong.
The question is not nearly as simple as you have made it out to be. It is not a question of "enforcement of current law", but far more insidious.
Having said all that, a great comment on mp3 theft:
"Stealing music is like taking candy from a...large, fat rich person."
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Interesting)
Or to sum it up... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Insightful)
Bull. People currently employeed are laid off to be replaced by workers oversees. A lost 'sale' might never have been a sale, you can't honestly know for sure. There's a huge difference.
Replac
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Really hurt them, huh!
Same crap, different century.
Re:Robin Hood-Apples verses Apple Juice. (Score:5, Interesting)
When radio was introduced, they fought long and hard, and they weren't the RIAA yet, to make sure music never got played on it under the argument "people will just listen to their favorite songs on the radio! We'll never sell another record again!"
Instead, the radio made them more money than they could have imagined.
When recordable cassette tapes were released, they again fought long and hard to try and make them illegal, because "people will just record their favorite songs off of the radio (which we once said was evil, but never-mind our old argument)! We'll never sell another album again!"
Again, same issue, nothing bad happened to them.
Now it's file sharing will make people never buy albums again! Odd, there's still a LOT of albums being sold, all over the world, and for the longest time they couldn't "prove" any damage because they were breaking all sorts of sales records and forecasts... until they finally raised the forecasts up so high, in the middle of an economic recession, that there was no way they would ever reach those numbers. They artificially made "lost sales" by saying how they didn't meet predictions, and that was only done by raising forecasts beyond any reasonable number.
And the RIAA has only themselves to blame, really. They turned down the idea of digital distribution in the first place, figuring no one would go for it. Then the file sharing programs hit, most notably Napster; then they gave Napster world attention by suing Napster and making the suit public on news broadcasts and such. Had there been no suit or at least no publicity on the suit, millions upon millions of people who now use file sharing programs might never have even known they existed. Joe Average Internet User certainly wouldn't have known about Napster, Kazaa, etc. without that world-wide attention the RIAA gave to file sharing programs.
And, in a bit of a blast of my own personal taste against the RIAA, it also doesn't help that 99.9999999999% of the music their labels put out is absolute shit, either. Certainly the true lost sales couldn't have happened because every new band they put forth is a "me too!" band, all sounding alike and all sucking just as equally, right?
The RIAA made their bed, by their own mistakes, now they can lie in it while I support the non-RIAA artists I enjoy by legally buying my music off of iTunes (when that has what I want) or buying their CDs at smaller stores that cater to my tastes.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair enough, I believe.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Informative)
Prof. Dannenburg never said stealing was ok, he simply said he's not going to help a group that refuses to do what it claims is its mission (help artists). The RIAA isn't only saying stealing is wrong, they are saying that colleges MUST help them, for the sake of all the poor artists. The professor is responding that "If you don't help artists why should I help you?".
P.S. Carnegie Mellon is already not very P2P-friendly: Computing services warns you in several places that if you violate copyright you could get in trouble with the law. There are people on campus paid (presumably by a certain industry group) to rat out other students on the network. It looks like they have all the tools they need, so why should I help them? It's not my job to police artificially low speeding limits or badly placed stop signs.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:2, Insightful)
Lead by example, not threats.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Traditionally, RIAA has stifled innovation by using dubious means, and they have always been scared of new technology, and have tried to prevent onset of technology using monopolistic and legal measures
2) RIAA isn't the right guardian for the right of musicians. One ought to see it more as a consortium of big-label music companies, and nothing more.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. He is merely saying that if the RIAA want's to enlist the aid of colleges to combat piracy (Which is CLEARLY the intent of the RIAA's original letter), they need to clean up their act first.
Speficially, the Professors closing coment may sound like he is trying to argue that stealing from the "bad guy" is acceptable, this is a false assumption. He is merely stating that if they want HIS help, they should start holding up their end of the bargin when it comes to the recording artists, nothing more.
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Informative)
Big difference.
~X~
Re:Robin Hood (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it may be illegal to "steal" from RIAA, but who cares? People are fed up with RIAA, and when they claim that p2p networks will drive them out of business, most people will just say "good riddance!"
Re:Robin Hood-Appeal to Popularity. (Score:3, Insightful)
As I wrote, "everyone does it" does not make anything legal, so it will not get you off the hook with the law.
But it does work in the sense that nobody will call the cops when they see you, nobody will try to apprehend you, nobody will go out of their way to provide information about you to cops.
For example: if you go and mug somebody on a street, most people around will yell and call the cops, some may try to catch you, and when the cops arrive, everybody will be telin
Re:Robin Hood (Score:3, Funny)
Robin Hood stole from the government, not from thieves.
Er... nevermind!
Bah (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Bah (Score:3, Funny)
Full text of rebuttal.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Full text of rebuttal.... (Score:2)
YAIA (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am quite pleased to see authority figures (even if they are just university professors) standing up to the RIAA, I must admit that Prof. Dannenberg actually did rather little to counter Sherman's arguments; while his points are good and valid, they do, unfortunately, follow one of the cardinal rules of internet arguing: Never argue the opponents points, only point out his weaknesses.
Re:YAIA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:YAIA (Score:3, Informative)
Not flamebait. It's a play on Godwin's Law [wikipedia.org] and Internet argument "rules". I thought it was pretty good.
Re:YAIA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:YAIA (Score:5, Funny)
On the topic of discrediting, I think we should remember that Anonymous Cowards have been, historically, the perpetrators of countless GNAA recruitment campaigns, goatse stealth links, and ad hominem attacks. Anonymous Cowards have posted misogynist and anti-semitic attacks of horrifying proportions, and as a general rule are unsavoury characters.
So clearly your point has no foundation.
Lacking Content (Score:5, Interesting)
The first part is ok, I just wish there were more of it. It's not like the recording industry's history doesn't have enough hypocricy to fill several articles. That would have made a better impression. "Extending musical copyrights for centuries is absurd, and clearly just a money grab" is a much better argument (imho) than "You steal from us, so it's ok if we steal back".
Re:Lacking Content (Score:5, Insightful)
You have unrealistic expectations from that type of forum. The problem is, he wasn't writing an article, it was a letter to the editor. Letters that are article length either don't get published or get edited down to two or three short paragraphs. He did the best one could expect within those limitations.
Re:Lacking Content (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed.
I used to write many letters to the editor of the Financial Post (a right-wing national financial paper in Canada - I usually argued the libertarian position). I had a good record of getting them published.
Once I got a call from their letters to the editor deportment, saying, basically, "We like your letter. But, it's too long. Can you shorten it? In the next 5 minutes?"
I responded, "Just use the first and last paragraph. It'll stand on those". Silence for a few seconds, then, "Geez, thanks! That works!!" and "clik" as the line went dead.
The point is I wrote my letter to be edited. Most papers reserve that right, to edit for brevity, typos, and grammer. The desk editor was doing me a curtesy by asking, though the cut he was wanting to make was significant (about 70% of the content, most of which was backing my opening assertion).
So, yeah, letters to the editor are often statements of opinion, with little to back them up. The ones that have their substance back up often do get published in favour of those that don't, even though the supporting arguments are omitted in the final version. That this one had several of those arguments published says something of the importance the editor(s) gave it.
Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to find out who RIAA members are stealing from. That would really stop them from spouting off that the RIAA "protects" artists by allowing them to make a living!
Who's stealing from the artists? Here's one: (Score:4, Interesting)
He never received any royalties. At first he just figured his recordings weren't selling (that's what they told him--how should he know any different--they do all the bookkeeping and tracking of sales!). Later he found out his recordings were indeed selling like hotcakes and he should have been receiving substantial royalty payments every quarter.
Despite repeated promises from Dorian to get the situation resolved "real soon now", he never did receive a nickel, and it turns out that (according to him) just not paying royalties at all was essentially Dorian's policy. While all their big name recording artists (in the classical music world) were wondering where their royalty checks were, the company principals were busy building & buying million dollar homes in various exotic locations around the world . . .
According to my friend, this sort of treatment is more or less the norm in the recording industry. They give you sales records that you strongly suspect are doctored or just plain wrong (but how do you prove it?), pay you royalties 1/10 or 1/4 what you have good reason to believe you should be getting (again, how do you prove it?), pay you occasionally instead of quarterly (per the contracdt), or just "forget" to pay you altogether until you pester them repeatedly, then pay some small amount to keep you quiet.
He says that as near as he can tell, Dorian really didn't know how much they owed people. But of course there is a BIG reward to them for being so incompetent . . . if they were organized and competent they would have to fork over the royalties. But with "gosh, we're so disorganized around here!" and a stupid grin, it all works out for the best . . . for them.
See Dorian's web site [dorian.com] and some articles about their bankruptcy: 1 [playbillarts.com] 2 [stereophile.com] 3 [gramophone.co.uk].
Incidentally, the same friend says that music royalties are indeed his largest single source of income. But--royalties from sheet music, music books, and music-related books, NOT recordings.
This is quite an amusing ironical double-standard (Score:3, Insightful)
*HMpf*
danalien - former filesharer, stopped 'stealing' garbage
Teaching their students bad values (Score:4, Insightful)
KFG
Teaching their students naughty values (Score:3, Funny)
They teach porn?
Re:Teaching their students naughty values (Score:3, Informative)
Ever taken a figure drawing course?
News? (Score:2, Insightful)
Cop Killer: Brought to you by the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
Tonight'll be your night.
I got this long-assed knife,
and your neck looks just right.
My adrenaline's pumpin'.
I got my stereo bumpin'.
I'm 'bout to kill me somethin'
A pig stopped me for nuthin'!
Cop killer, better you than me.
Cop killer, f**k police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your mama's grievin'
(f**k her)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even.
Yeah, it's those damned colleges that are corrupting the moral values of America's youth while the RIAA [magnetbox.com] stands for all that is just and good.
Re:Cop Killer: Brought to you by the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly I'm more than a little disappointed by the decision to pull Body Count then re-release it without that one song. Chickenshit, really---shows the industry for what whores they are. So much for standing up for their artists.
Re:Cop Killer: Brought to you by the RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with the professor (Score:4, Insightful)
It makes sense, at least to me, that the RIAA's all-stakes vendetta against file sharers is taking things too far. While I do think that artists should have the ability to make a living off of their music, it does not at all justify the sheer amount of all out attack that the RIAA has been taking agaisnt File-sharers.
The RIAA's tactis have not done nearly as much I think to stop illegal file-sharing as LEGAL music downloads like Apple's iTunes and others have been doing. The scare tactics employeed by the RIAA only scares off some of the less-diehard file swappers, and does not deter the majority of the sharers out there. While it may seem like the number of file sharers has decreased, the majority of those that have stopped have probably moved to legal forms of getting music downloads. If the RIAA, instead of spending millions on lawyers fees to sue, spend that money on promoting legal music downloading, I have a feeling the impact would be greater
Re:I agree with the professor (Score:2)
Re:I agree with the professor (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet is a distribution channel that they will never (hopefully) fully control. If they can't control their means of distribution, they can't provide stable financial data - which tends to conflict with what share holders want in a company.
Internet distribution can make the RIAA totally irrelevant. With the right hardware [macroundup.com] and new applications [apple.com], almost anyone can make, record and distribute quality music. The RIAA is fighting for it's very existance, IMHO.
Soko
Re:I agree with the professor (Score:4, Informative)
The Internet makes them irrelevant. If the RIAA ceased to exist tomorrow, the knobs that run the radio stations, VH1, etc. would be confused for about a week, then realize the replacement already exists.
More people need to realize this. Maybe somehow, someone like Napster, Apple or Microsoft can get the typical mainstream distribution channels (radio, TV) to not think of the RIAA labels as their sole source. When that happens, well, we can watch what a free market will do. The thing the RIAA labels offer to budding artists is andvertisement and connections. If web-based distribution companies find a way to offer this too, in essence becoming labels themselves, then the RIAA is sunk.
Re:I agree with the professor (Score:3, Insightful)
A slight correction. They can make music with high quality sound. High quality music requires talent that most people do not have, or choose not to learn.
Not impressed. (Score:4, Interesting)
-d
Unreadable (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Unreadable (Score:5, Funny)
Hello...he is a college professor. Did you go to college? College professors never actually say anything useful.
I am not reading the rebuttal. I just picked up a syllabus and I will show up for the exams.
Re:Unreadable (Score:4, Insightful)
I choose not to argue that..
But then, why is it exactly you've chosen to attend a college where you realize you will gain nothing from your professor's teaching? Aren't you just supporting a system that (per your opinion) allows you to pay a lot of money to hear professors to say nothing useful?
Re:Unreadable (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a subtle but important difference.
Re:Unreadable (Score:2)
Uphill Battle (Score:5, Interesting)
- People have been use to getting free music for decades -- ever since the birth of radio.
- People used to feel the money paid on records was mostly in the physical process of making records and distributing them, but now they see with 10 cent CDROMS and 1/10 of a cent per Meg of disk space that playback mediums are now virtually free.
- A lot of people feel recorded music is all advertising. Why would you listen to an artist if you hadn't already heard the artist and why would you pay for something you've already heard?
- In the past people bought records they heard on the radio only because they didn't have a convenient way to record just the songs they wanted and to index, label, store, and retrieve them.
- In the past people didn't feel like chumps for plunking down $10 for and album and $15 for a CD, because there weren't millions of others are getting this stuff for free. Let me make the point clearer - even if the RIAA scares someone into not downloading music from the net, the willingness to pay full price will also be diminished because the tantalizing free stuff lies just a wire away.
- Some portion of the potential audience feels that musicians are over compensated, immoral, prima donnas that can't actually perform outside a recording studio without 100 retakes and then special post processing to improve their marginally capable voices.
- Some people prefer live music and think money paid for a live show is the only real compensation music artists should expect.
- Music artists and the RIAA are seen as hypocrites hawking anti-establishment messages and then looking for special rights, powers, and protection from the establishment to maintain their empire.
- Ever since the death of the 45-rpm single, people have felt coerced into buying all of the songs on a CD or album when all they wanted was a song or two.
- When people buy something they like to feel they actually own it and can do what ever they want with it. You can buy or subscribe to music singles again these days, but not without some flavor of DMCA. Some more draconian than others.
So ironically it is not that some huge percentage of the population is listening to bootleg music, though they probably would if the RIAA weren't fighting this loosing rear guard action, but that the cheapness of distributing music has been uncovered and become known because bootleggers exist. That Genie is not going back in the bottle -- maybe they should change their business models instead.Re:Uphill Battle (Score:4, Insightful)
12. You cannot own a fact, not in the intellectual property sense or the physical sense of the word. You cannot own a number because it is a fact.
The intellectual property proponents are in what I like to call a fortified losing position. At one point they had a business model that was based on distribution and storage and now that model no longer works because distribution and storage have become far too easy and cheap. The whole IP discussion is ancillary to their current and future financial crisis. If they don't change their business model or manage to invade every aspect of your personal life in the name of IP (which has less to do with IP and more to do with monitoring and controlling you in ways most find offensive at best), then they will not maintain their entertainment cartel.
Speaking of hypocrisy.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I never realized how fundamental this is to the RIAA's "problems" of the day. On one hand, they actively record, promote and profit from gangsta rap which doesn't just talk about killing policemen and living the "bling-bling" life, it's practically propaganda for it.
And then they expect us to listen when they tell us not to steal copies of music? That's like Merimac Caverns at midnight calling the kettle black.
i2p will make this all moot (Score:5, Interesting)
On that note I agree with the assertion this letter raises that the RIAA and similar groups are only intrested in the law when it suits them. When it doesn't they either disregard it or spend tons of money to buy our congressmen so they can have it changed.
Re:i2p will make this all moot (Score:4, Interesting)
How about saying copyrights are crap! (Score:2)
USENET (Score:5, Informative)
USENET is still superior: Anonymous uploading of files can be done. Downloads are usually extremely fast & won't be noticed by the RIAA or whoever else is interested. And, reviews ("virus!", "bad sample rate", "wrong file", "goatse.cx warning", etc..) of uploaded files are there to be looked at before choosing to download them.
P2P, bah. There are plenty of USENET front-ends that make finding files much easier and faster to get.
Re:USENET (Score:3)
25 million reasons why... Comcast HSD subscribers. Also millions more: People who don't want to deal w/USEnet (I'm one of them).
I have never had a positive experience getting anything from USEnet other than alt.sex.stories and from what limited reading I did of it in the past month it sucks worse than ever.
USEnet for files is awful even with programs to do it for you. P2P is fast, getting faster, an
Re:USENET (Score:5, Informative)
EXACTLY!
That's one of the major reasons why the quality/quantity of good files is better on USENET.
People who won't bother to learn how to use USENET or download an application to do it for them get filtered out. Serious traders spend an hour or so learning how to use USENET and often keep quality sets of files on-hand so that they can post 'FILEFOO (requesting: FILEBAR)' and be assured that they will get the exact file they want in return.
OTOH, P2P is full of tons of crap that people don't even realize they are sharing because they can't be bothered to RTFM. Example: Search for NOTEPAD.EXE and then browse the users and you'll see that often you're looking at their WINDOWS directory.
Re:USENET (Score:4, Interesting)
I wholeheartedly agree. Although I'm kindof limited by what hasn't expired yet, its a reliable source of high-quality and fully tagged mp3's.
For the interested:
- BNR2 [bnr2.org]
- NewsLeecher [newsleecher.com]
Are the two that I use. They work really well, although NewsLeecher is 15-day shareware.Re:USENET (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, keeping it a Big Secret will ensure its eventual demise because of RIAA or other similar organizations. The RIAA knows quite well what a serious threat USENET is and has been. They're just waiting for the 'right' time to attack. They can't do that now because it would force a direct confrontation between ISP's and the RIAA. RIAA doesn't want to do this for obvious reasons
The point is? (Score:3, Insightful)
Two wrongs don't make a right.
-Erwos
Re:The point is? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you walk into a police station with outstanding warrants against you, complaining of a mugging, the cops are going to catch you first before they go after the mugger.
How many times have we read about pot growers who call in cops to complain of a burglary? And guess what? The cops catch them first.
If the RIAA is complaining of a crime, they must make sure that they themselves are innocent of such.
Exactly what the RIAA companies stole from us (Score:5, Interesting)
Under the legal principal that creates the authority of copyright protection, artistic materials must become part of the public domain after a set period of time. Bribing politicians to continously extend this period on materials that have reached the limit of their copyright is stealing from the public. It's like agreeing to pay a certain amount for an item only to find that the seller has doubled the price on the day that last payment is due... extending the number of payments that you have to make for another fifty years into the future.
And they haven't done this just once; they have done it repeatedly. Which establishes a pattern of confirmed criminal behavior in a court of law. And confirmed criminals don't get to decide what the laws are going to be for everyone else.
No civilized people or government should stand for this.
When we copy and freely distribute, we are reclaiming what has been stolen from us already. Reclaiming it from the people who have committed the biggest crime in artistic history; the theft of the public domain.
It must be pointed out over and over again:
The RIAA has no legal, moral, or ethical authority to call anyone criminals.
Plain and simple in any culture, at any time.
Yep, those RIAA butthead will sell you a (Score:3, Insightful)
To paraphrase NWA, 'Fuck the RIAA'
Su Senor Programmer
What's being pirated? (Score:3, Insightful)
theft / infringement (Score:3, Interesting)
The RIAA uses the word "theft" for its immoral stigma (something "infringement" lacks), while at the same time making cases against people for "infringement" because of the economic benefits to gain from winning such a case. I'f I were sued by the RIAA for "infringement," I'd call them out on it, point to articles where they call it "theft," and demand it be treated thus.
My coworker's kids do this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
My BS to this is... these are public universities funded with my TAX DOLLARS. While I was in school, you could get suspended and possibly expelled for abusing the computing systems (downloading pr0n, running a MUDD).
I'm sorry but how does downloading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on DVD constitute the correct use of a universities network let alone internet2?
So if you look at what the internet2 is supposed to be http://www.internet2.edu/about/ [internet2.edu] you'll see such reasons for the internet2 as:
* Create a leading edge network capability for the national research community
* Enable revolutionary Internet applications
* Ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community.
Where does "Trade Maroon5 CDs" fit under this? Sounds like they (the universities and the leadership of the internet2 group) should be cracking down on these guys.
-
Internet2 for universities only (Score:4, Interesting)
What is the RIAA doing on that network in the first place? It's meant for university networks only. Copyright issues aside, they're not allowed on that network in the first place.
Courtney Love... (Score:5, Interesting)
Courtney Love Does the Math [google.com]
Fantastic article about how RIAA appears to the Artistry
(Link to GCache to avoid slashdotting)
Re:Courtney Love... (Score:3, Informative)
Steve Albini's The Problem with Music [negativland.com] is
More about this.. (Score:3, Informative)
He has a tendency to stick some slides into the middle of his lecture that typically draw attention to some (invariably) republican inconsistency. He'd then encourage a five to ten minute discussion on the topic which spiralled progressively from merely anti-republican to borderline socialist, then finish his lecture on digital signal processing or whatever.
The point he misses is that government intervention has also helped us to get into this mess. The RIAA and MPAA and their stranglehold on media were, in large part, caused by legislation that supported that control (most recently, the DMCA). I don't think we can trust the same government which brought this to be to do something about it. It's just not in the cards.
I typically support a minimal government intervention in business, since congress is pretty much owned by business--the companies' buddies in congress will not allow a law to do any thing that hurts the bottom line for them. This pretty much guarantees that any changed to the DMCA will have a minimum positive effect for the consumer alongside a massive media impact. The spiral of lies continues.
Perhaps the government should be as separate from the concerns of business as it is the church (W aside). After all, though the government has massive powers to help business, business strives to enslave as much as the sad mixture of the Roman Catholic church and the Roman givernment ever did. While the United States can and should make a healthy environment for business, and help protect the United States economy from foreign interests (just as we'd protect a church here from a rival religious faction overseas who intended to harm them), it shouldn't be used by big business to enslave the people. By drawing a line in the sand that grows both ways, the representation of the people can only increase, and most of us would agree that this is a good thing.
Cary Sherman issues the industry's death cry... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what pisses me off? That I *do* find value in music and enjoy it very much and yet I can't get a non-protected err, non-"enhanced", CD from a particular artist that will play in my damned car's CD player ('99 honda accord, stock system so it is definitely not unique). Here I am, willing to part with $15 for a physical disc with liner notes, cover art, lyrics, and some minor biographical info and I'm not able to find one that I can actually use in the one place I want to use it. I don't have anything against iTunes, but if I buy an album, I want the physical object for my library. It seems like the musicians' fans ARE the market and the RIAA has missed the boat by focusing on illegal activity instead of what the market actually is. Which goes to my point. What happens when an entire industry has lost sight of the market? They try to remind the public of their supposed value and then someone or something arises to serve the real needs of the new market to the detriment of the previous (most likely) monopoly.
R.I.P. Recording Industry Ass. of America
Re:What's next... assassians? (Score:2)
Re:What's next... assassians? (Score:2)
But let's look at this seriously instead...
1. Conservatives have been complaining for years about left-leaning professors, judges, and the media for going against conservative "values" (which includes capitalism).
2. The Bush Administration has looked the other way when it hands "terrorists" over to third-world nations with reputations for using torture during intergorations.
3. The Bush Administration woul
Re:What's next... assassians? (Score:2, Funny)
this will become more common in time as the corporations get bigger... its like shadowrun but they would rarely be used because marketing can create armies to do their biding.