Collegiate Resistance To RIAA In Michigan 175
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There are now at least three complaints being investigated in Michigan against the RIAA's unlicensed investigator, SafeNet a/k/a MediaSentry, one of which was filed by Central Michigan University itself. Two other complaints have been filed by students, one from Northern Michigan University and one from University of Michigan. This appears to be part of the growing sense of exasperation colleges and universities are feeling over the RIAA's harassment."
RIAA (Score:2, Funny)
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No, it stands for Ruthless Idiots Against America. The proper organization is the Music And Film Association of America (M.A.F.I.A.A.)
Re:RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
Re:RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
Redundantly
Idiotic
Anonymous
Assholes
The RIAA has taught us a lesson... (Score:5, Funny)
Yay for Ray! (Score:2)
Thanks for the updates -- with so little in the way of good things happening on various political and legal fronts, it is great that you spend the time to keep fellow readers informed and encouraged.
Re:Yay for Ray! (Score:5, Informative)
Ray, Thanks for the updates -- with so little in the way of good things happening on various political and legal fronts, it is great that you spend the time to keep fellow readers informed and encouraged.
Thanks, Tasteless. But it's partly self interest. After spending so much time dealing with the RIAA ghouls, I have to have something to look forward to. Dealing with those guys can make you sour on the human race. Slashdot, on the other hand, makes me smile. Sometimes even laugh out loud. This is the fun part of my day.
Re:Yay for Ray! (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot, on the other hand, makes me smile. Sometimes even laugh out loud. This is the fun part of my day.
I'm not sure whether to say "You're welcome" or "oh I am so sorry to hear that!"
Do both :-) (Score:2)
On the one side that is amusing (but it must be said that the humor here *is* quite special), on the other side you must be really short of amusing things if Slashdot is your only outlet. There's also YouTube [youtube.com] :-)
You ought to come down here for a break (he says looking out over the sunlit lake which is full with sailing boats)..
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And LOLCats. Slashdot is hardly more amusing than a burlap sack full of LOLCats.
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Slashdot, on the other hand, makes me smile. Sometimes even laugh out loud. This is the fun part of my day.
I'm not sure whether to say "You're welcome" or "oh I am so sorry to hear that!"
You know full well. It's the latter.
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Mr. Beckerman,
While I don't think anyone can defend some of the RIAA's tactics, have you ever told any of your clients "well, while they suck, you are committing copyright violation and pirating music"?
Maybe it's just my jaded view of trial lawyers (and I'm certainly not alone in that), but have you ever actually told your clients "Well, you are breaking the law and taking what you didn't pay for"?
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Took Them Long Enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Took Them Long Enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Took them long enough to become exasperated. With the notable exception of Oregon - and even there it took more than one suit to get the State A.G. involved - all of these colleges/universities/bastions of free and open thinking and individual rights have been very slow to fight back against these spurious lawsuits.
Yes they have been too slow. But perhaps the sleeping giant has been finally awakened from its slumber.
Re:Took Them Long Enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Took Them Long Enough (Score:5, Informative)
Wasn't there a post here on /. last year about the RIAA actively avoiding Harvard because of its legal talent and financial ability to fight? I always thought that epitomized this corporate bullying.
Yes. Like all schoolyard bullies they are cowards, and fear those who are
not afraid [blogspot.com]
to fight [blogspot.com]
back [blogspot.com].
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"I get the back, Latrine. That's an order!"
"Okay, fine. Be an asshole."
Unlicensed? (Score:2)
Re:Unlicensed? (Score:5, Informative)
What are the penalties in Michigan for practicing as a private detective?
The law says, "A person violating this section is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 4 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both."
Re:Unlicensed? (Score:5, Interesting)
What are the penalties in Michigan for practicing as a private detective?
The law says, "A person violating this section is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 4 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both."
Cool.
(And I say that at the risk of being modded "Overrated".)
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Couldn't the people who did this just pin the blame on the RIAA itself and get off scot-free?
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Couldn't the people who did this just pin the blame on the RIAA itself and get off scot-free?
No.
It's not a defense to criminal liability that someone else hired you to commit the crime.
But the RIAA and its lawyers could be 'aiders and abettors'.
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'The law says, "A person violating this section is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 4 years or by a fine of not more than $5,000.00, or both."'
Seems like the law hasn't kept up with inflation.
Reminds me of the old joke...
A guy is found guilty and the judge says the fine is 30 dollars.
The guy smiles and says "No problem judge, I got that right here in my left pocket."
The judge says "Well, check your right pocket and see if you have 30 days in there."
all the best,
drew
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It's a little bit like stalking isn't it? Maybe this company should face criminal charges for stalking.
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Until "corporate prisons" exist criminal law is likely to continue to be ineffective against "corporate people".
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If corporate "people" could actually be imprisoned this might be of some value.
a/k/a? (Score:5, Funny)
...RIAA's unlicensed investigator, SafeNet a/k/a MediaSentry, one of which...
This is Slashdot. Isn't that supposed to be:
s/SafeNet/MediaSentry/g
Re:a/k/a? (Score:5, Funny)
...RIAA's unlicensed investigator, SafeNet a/k/a MediaSentry, one of which...
This is Slashdot. Isn't that supposed to be: s/SafeNet/MediaSentry/g
Oh I thought this was Billboard. I was trying to say "SafeNet, the criminal formerly known as MediaSentry".
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I know, I was just trying to make a joke. IIRC, s/*/*/g is the Find/Replace command for ed [wikipedia.org]
Re:a/k/a? (Score:5, Funny)
I know, I was just trying to make a joke. IIRC, s/*/*/g is the Find/Replace command for ed [wikipedia.org]
I knew it was something like that, although I didn't know exactly. I didn't really think this was Billboard, either.
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You must be new here.
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You must be new here.
Thanks, karnal. Of course he's new here. If he knew me better he'd know that I don't know what "exchange-connected" means.
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maybe you should stop trying to flame the one guy around here that actually goes out to make a difference.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/2211235 [slashdot.org] as well as a million other posts about the subject.
So why don't you look at more than the guys UID and back off. Because acting like a child makes you a newb no matter what your UID is.
http://news.slashdot.org/search.pl?query=newyorkcountrylawyer [slashdot.org]
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maybe you should stop trying to flame the one guy around here that actually goes out to make a difference. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/2211235 [slashdot.org] as well as a million other posts about the subject. So why don't you look at more than the guys UID and back off. Because acting like a child makes you a newb no matter what your UID is. http://news.slashdot.org/search.pl?query=newyorkcountrylawyer [slashdot.org]
Thank you, prelelat. I'm glad you appreciated the Judges' Journal article. It took a lot of time to do, but I figured it was an invitation I just couldn't turn down. I am so psyched that the ABA's judicial publication recognized that the RIAA cases present an important 'access to justice' problem, and that the courts need to do something to level the playing field.
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He's not THAT new, but he's a law geek, not a computer geek. He is, however, one of US.
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My other UID [slashdot.org] (I lost the password years ago and changed email addresses several times) is five digits. By "us" I mean he is a nerd, even if he IS a lawyer.
The fact that I used a slide rule and hacked hardware in high school makes me a nerd, not the fact that I come to slashdot. I agree that a lot of the people here aren't; by "us" I don't mean slashdot posters, I mean nerds.
Ray is my third favorite lawyer, right behind my divorce lawyer and my bankruptcy lawyer, both of whom saved me tins of money.
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Re:a/k/a? (Score:5, Funny)
I suggest you do a little reading about NYCL here before you try to bash him. He's contributed a whole hell of a lot more than you (or I) ever will.
Thank you for coming to my aid, woot.
If he knew me better he'd know I can't afford a tie.
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Are you posting this from your exchange-connected outlook or from your law office suite on your brand new vista?
Try to loose the tie before posting here, it's preventing blood from getting to your brain.
I'm not sure Ray wears a tie.
I think he wears a neckless made from the shrunken heads of RIAA lawyers.
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I'm into kung fu, rather than yoga.
And I'm a lowly novice, not a master.
But as to where Dhalsim is coming from generally, he seems like my kind of guy. I would be wearing symbols of the victims who need to be avenged, rather than the skulls of my vanquished enemies. Unfortunately my only super powers are (a) perseverence, and (b) the extra adrenaline one gets from being on the side of justice.
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Ray, the syntax is s/"stuff i'm looking for"/"stuff to replace it with"/g The s stands for substitute, the g means do it globally in the line. You keep on with the lawyering, we've got your backside on the search and replace regexes. ;-)
Too late (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost embarrassing.
Why almost?
Why and how CIO's created this trap (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem that college CIO's (and CTO's) are describing are, as the "exasperation" article suggests, very much of their own making, but the article, and most likely the information officers themselves, is misstating the origin of the problem, and that may be complicating their legal responses.
The fundamental problem is that colleges have been hiring the wrong people into CIO/CTO positions and giving them the wrong mission. College CIO's fundamental job is to provide reliable information services on a limited (often far too limited) budget. People are hired into these positions for their willingness and ability to reduce costs while maintaining security and a high quality of service on the campus. In my experience (and I have had a number of them), they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the educational mission of the college and the freedom of educators to accomplish that mission if it will save a few dollars.
In the early part of this decade the RIAA's tactics worked perfectly with the goal of cost control. Large music and video downloads were overwhelming campus gateways and forcing ever larger expenditures on maintaining them. Blocking the ports most commonly used for music and video downloads was an easy solution to this cost problem, so the RIAA provided an excuse for cutting costs. A series of RIAA initiatives that played to CIO cost cutting and revenue enhancement were all easy to adopt.
The take down notices were another story. CIO complaints about having to devote personnel to this task started immediately, and it is getting worse as the costs grow. Legal costs are particularly problematic, especially if they get billed to the CIO's budget. With the costs of RIAA enforcement spinning rapidly out of control, CIO's are caught in a difficult trap of their own devising, and complaining that costs are an issue now will not impress judges who see a precedent in prior complience with RIAA demands.
The only way out of this mess is for colleges to do exactly what one of the judges suggested: to execute take downs without an investigation such that a student can sue the university and the RIAA for a abrogation of their rights, preferably as a class action. The universities could potentially then join the students in suing the RIAA, arguing that the RIAA forced them to abandon due process at the insistence of the courts, largely because Universities can't afford to do the RIAA's investigations for them, but RIAA evidence is often weak and inconsistent.
I don't know if this can be done (the details of this are a lawyers job to sort out), but I doubt that AG's are going to be able to help much given the precedents that colleges have alredy set for the wrong reasons. An avalanche of investigations forced on the courts might lead the courts to start to set the standards of evidence that the RIAA has to meet before filing a take down to begin with.
The real problem is that no such standard currently exists.
The other solution, of course, is legislation. LOL.
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One of the DMCA's issues is unlike when law enforcement gets a court order for something and you can charge them reasonable fees to provide that as a third party they just expect the ISP's to foot the bill. This makes sense since the media companies bought and paid for that POS legislation.
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complaining that costs are an issue now will not impress judges who see a precedent in prior complience with RIAA demands.
Why?
This precedence is not the legal kind - rulings by other higher courts. It was simply cooperation on the part of the uni's.
Seems to me that just as strong an argument could be made that in the past the uni's complied with the MAFIAA's requests as (a) a show of good faith and (b) it was inexpensive and feasible to do so. Now that the MAFIAA's demands have become unreasonable and they are taking previous acts of cooperation for granted, the uni's should no longer feel obligated to cooperate.
Not that I d
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(sneer). That's what happens when you have a primitive law system solely based on precedent. That's not very far above stone age tribes that have "law" based on custom...
Short logs (Score:3, Insightful)
yesterday there was an article of the EFF website commenting that other colleges (Virginia Tech mentioned) were trying to deflect RIAA harassment [eff.org].
Formal complaints are much better, but the article did bring up a good point; maybe things would be easier for the campuses that didn't log student's network behaviour, or made logs such that certain behaviours weren't linked to any particular student. Would this be reasonable?
Don't tie username to MAC (Score:4, Insightful)
Or just drop the requirement to register the MAC address to a username.
Then all you could give the RIAA would be the MAC address that IP was assigned to at that time, if a judge requires them to keep logs.
And since a MAC address is easily spoofable, there goes any ability to tie the IP to a computer, much less a person.
The good guys. (Score:2, Funny)
Why is everyone backing the college. Clearly the RIAA is acting in a moral way, as evidenced by all the recent court rulings.
Too Late - Higher Education Act (Score:5, Informative)
All of this is now relatively irrelevant.
The RIAA and MPAA bought themselves some of our representatives and they have added some Peer to Peer technology restrictions to the requirements that publicly funded colleges will have to abide by in order to get their money. This memo discusses it, but basically they will have to:
Disclose annually to students that file sharing is bad and illegal
Certify to the Secretary of Education the school will "effectively combat" copyrighted file sharing
Offer alternatives to "illegal filesharing"
Once again our representatives have sold out.
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/epo0815.pdf [educause.edu]
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Or as a non-sarcastic post:
FUCK the middle men who gain most and give little for all the artists hard work, FUCK their rights after creating a monopoly where only they can make big bucks with a large audience. Any kind of industry representative group protecting their copyrights while screwing the artists rights is obviously "harassment".
It's so funny seeing large corporations trying to prevent people from ripping them off. Screw you, loosers! (I don't know what to say about this sentance..). Stop "harassin
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Screw you, loosers! (I don't know what to say about this sentance..)
Neither do I!
Heh, dicketry aside, I agree entirely. The buggy whip makers face hard times ahead. The sad thing is they could use this transition as an opportunity to make themselves the absolute gods of promotion and marketing, possibly leading out of only media related advertising. Had they began at least researching how to change their business models so that the original value of prospecting new artists and finding true talent was their focus, i think they would find themselves in much calmer waters.
Hell
Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Even middle men provide a service - if bands don't want access to a large, well-advertised and well-capitalized market base then they don't have to sign with one of those "middlemen."
Record labels and all those other middlemen are advertisers that pay you. The real money is in concerts.
Now, if you expect to be making between 99% and 101% on every CD sold, go indie. Nobody's forcing anyone to sign on to a major label-slash-middleman.
Now, to continue a theme in this thread, "FUCK" everyone who uses "I really love the artists and hate oppression" as an excuse for pirating music. If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Insightful)
. If you really want to support the artist, DON'T buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
Fixed that for you. Revenue from distribution is nil for most artists, if you really want to support them buy merchandise from the whichever-band-it-is's website or attend performances. The promotion angle of the current recording industry has collapsed into itself for the big four, being built around creating the images the advertisers think will sell rather than promotion of talent and advertising the talent. If they truely did shift to a promotion and marketing based business model, they wouldn't be focusing the larger part of their attentions on controlling the distribution channels.
When you control distribution of content and venues, you can tailor a low overhead product to the market rather than finding talent and promoting it. If the ones not being promoted aren't being spun on radio, used in movies/supporting media, or otherwise brought to the publics attention what VALUE have they really given? Having your name on the side of a jewel case crammed in the indie section of your local store doesn't count as advertising or promotion in my book.
As for performances, I can't seem to find any information showing that the recording industry puts effort into providing advertising or promotion for anything but the resulting live albums. I could be wrong though on that one as I'm scrounging between tasks heh.
Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Funny)
This reminds me of a show I once mixed (I was a freelance sound engineer at the time) The artist, Joe Camilleri (Well known here in Australia) was on a stage in the middle of the main shopping street/mall in Adelaide, right next to a record store. At the side of stage were the record compant reps.
At one point Joe told the audience to buy his CD, then looking pointedly at the record company reps said "Or you could just put 20 cents in the hat"- cause that was how much he got from the CD sales(Which at that time cost $30 aust). The reps looked most uncomfortable, as I LMAO at the mixing desk.
Fixed that for you * 2 (Score:2, Insightful)
If you really want to support the artist, DON'T buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
Fixed that for you.
Download the track/s then send the band a check for their good looks, straight teeth, whatever, anything that will shield them from a possible claim down the line from disbursing a cut to the record companies.
I look for a band run site, not record co. operated, and an address to mail a check:
Yo, Slash, Edge, Duke here's that money I borrowed for that round of coffee when we were kids.Oh, BTW, nice band.
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Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, to continue a theme in this thread, "FUCK" everyone who uses "I really love the artists and hate oppression" as an excuse for pirating music. If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
You bring up a good point. In this big conflict between Pirates and the *AAs, we the users and consumers are the ones that get hurt. But it's easy to forget that the artists themselves are also being taken advantage of by both aggressors as well.
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What? If I'm a band, and I agree to and sign a contract saying I get one cent of every CD sale, how am I being taken advantage of? If the artist and the record company both agree to the terms of the contract, it's a fair deal. Whether you think it's fair doesn't matter because you're not the one signing the contract.
The "think of the artists!" argument doesn't make any sense. If bands really thought they were getting screwed by the RIAA, they'd stop signing contracts with them. If they look around,
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If the artist and the record company both agree to the terms of the contract, it's a fair deal. If bands really thought they were getting screwed by the RIAA, they'd stop signing contracts with them.
They're being taken advantage of by the lawyers and watchdog groups/companies that fight their fans in the name of the record label. I'm not saying anyone's mucking around with their contracts or anything; this isn't about any label in particular, but the RIAA as a whole. AFAIK, artists seldom deal with the RIAA directly, the RIAA's interests are that of the many record labels', not the artists.
...and then sign an RIAA contract anyway, they're idiots getting what they deserve. I just can't feel bad for somebody in that situation.
I don't agree with the whole 'it's fair for them to be idiots' thing, because them being idiots makes it unfair
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What? If I'm a band....
If you're a band? If an individual person can be a band, then I think I'd be more alarmed at the genetic mutation involved.
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I would bet most bands don't actually care about the piracy. I would also bet that if the bands that did care were given an explanation of ALL impacts that piracy has on them, they probably wouldn't care either. Actually, I'll take that a step further: many bands might actually like piracy, and encourage it.
Before anybody flips out on me, let's compare this to a Microsoft "view" (probably not official) on piracy: Microsoft indirectly profits from piracy because each copy of it's OS that is installed on a
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If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert. Buy a t-shirt, even.
Is it OK for me to go to a concert first? (I just heard and saw Flogging Molly for the first time two days ago.)
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Is it OK for me to go to a concert first? (I just heard and saw Flogging Molly for the first time two days ago.)
So long as it it isn't one of their college circuit shows. Irish+Punk makes no sense in venues without booze. :) I'd also note SideOneDummy Records (their label) is not RIAA affiliated, so none of your cash goes to them for buying Flogging Molly CDs. Also check out Gogol Bordello and Go Betty Go. All three are from the same label and way above average bands (IMHO).
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Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Informative)
Irish+Punk makes no sense in venues without booze.
Just think of the uproar if you said "Blacks+Rap makes no sense in venues without watermelon and fried chicken". Aren't double standards great?
I think there is a significant difference. Watermelon and fried chicken are not integral parts of black musical culture, but negative stereotypes about said culture. They have nothing to do with rap music as far as I know.
On the other hand booze is a proud tradition among both the irish music and punk music cultures. Half of Flogging Molly's songs are about drinking. When a band is singing "Whiskey You're the Devil" or "Drunken Lullabies" or "Finnegan's Wake" and the band is discretely drinking dark liquid out of plastic cups... and you have nothing to cheers with and no shots to down, well it is sort of like listening to polka music without beer or a dance floor. It loses half the fun. A goodly number of their songs are traditional Irish drinking songs with specific spots for cheers, played with some faster beats and more nontraditional instruments.
Re:Artists, haha (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there is a significant difference. Watermelon and fried chicken are not integral parts of black musical culture, but negative stereotypes about said culture.
Wait, wait, wait. At exactly what point did all stereotypes about a minority become negative?
Seriously, look at what you're saying:
"Likes fried chicken" is now an insult.
"Prefers watermelon" is likewise.
In whose reality does this make sense???
Yes, they're stereotypes, but that doesn't make them NECESSARILY negative.
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Wait, wait, wait. At exactly what point did all stereotypes about a minority become negative?
They are not. For example, black men having larger penises is a stereotype, but most would consider it positive. Asian people being good at math is a stereotype and most here would consider that positive, although others consider it negative.
Seriously, look at what you're saying: "Likes fried chicken" is now an insult. "Prefers watermelon" is likewise. In whose reality does this make sense???
In a vacuum, it doesn't make any sense, but that stereotype did not form in a vacuum. It originated with racist caricatures and depictions of blacks, associating them with sloth and mental inferiority. Watermelon originated in Africa, but when the stereotype of all afri
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Just seeing them eating it instantly conjured memories of those hateful cartoons of black kids with exaggerated lips and glazed expressions, dressed in rags; cartoons people used more than just to poke fun, but to argue against equal rights.
Check the age of your friend, because unless they are at least sixty years old, this probably isn't their own memory at all.
People can take issue with whatever they wish, and it isn't my place to object. I'm just trying to challenge the willingness to perpetuate negativity that doesn't apply in this modern world.
KFC does not equal poverty today.
IN FACT, I'll take this a step farther. My six year old son has NO IDEA what race even means. I once, in trying to get him to clarify which he was talking about a
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Just seeing them eating it instantly conjured memories of those hateful cartoons of black kids with exaggerated lips and glazed expressions, dressed in rags; cartoons people used more than just to poke fun, but to argue against equal rights.
Check the age of your friend, because unless they are at least sixty years old, this probably isn't their own memory at all.
She's twenty-seven. How can you argue young people would not have seen such hateful images, when I linked to an image posted a few days ago? Now it was probably painted long ago, but that doesn't mean young people haven't seen it; even seen it used in a racist context.
People can take issue with whatever they wish, and it isn't my place to object. I'm just trying to challenge the willingness to perpetuate negativity that doesn't apply in this modern world.
The problem is it is still used negatively to refer to blacks in the US. There are still a lot of racists around, enough so that I've heard comments like "he's probably looking for some fried chicken" used in reference to a black guy.
KFC does not equal poverty today.
Actually,
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Now it was probably painted long ago, but that doesn't mean young people haven't seen it; even seen it used in a racist context.
If it was painted in a different time, in a different context, what bearing does it have today? It is historical, and shouldn't really offend anyone today, unless the case is being made that society still holds this view. Right?
Actually, I'd argue most fast food is associated with poverty today.
Friend, fast food is EXPENSIVE. Far more so than most below the poverty line can afford to enjoy on a regular basis.
I seriously hope negative and positive racial stereotypes go away and people start judging one another as individuals without race playing a significant part. I just don't think it will happen for quite a while yet.
I feel that a huge step forward would be to stop indulging people that seek to perpetuate the negativity. By defending the argument that fried chicken carries negat
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If it was painted in a different time, in a different context, what bearing does it have today? It is historical, and shouldn't really offend anyone today, unless the case is being made that society still holds this view. Right?
Correct. My argument is that some of our society still does hold this view. I'd say most of our society is still racist to some degree. Have you ever seen this site [fstdt.com]? It's a collection of really racist comments from internet discussion sites. Here's a quote from Yahoo answers from just the other day, "If Obama gets elected, do you think that investing in KFC and chicken stocks will be a good investment? -Rich, YahooAnswers". Go ahead an look through the site a bit. It will turn your stomach.
Friend, fast food is EXPENSIVE. Far more so than most below the poverty line can afford to enjoy on a regular basis.
Fast food is expe
Re:Artists, haha (Score:4, Funny)
Signed,
Your friends at the RIAA
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Except the labels have caught on to the fact that concerts are where the money is, and if you research back stories on this topic, you'll find that they've started putting it into the contracts that the label organizes the concerts and gets the profits from those too.
But I agree, bands are not obligated to sign with an RIAA label. At the same time, I'm not obligated to support bands that do.
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The real money is in concerts.
If that is true, then why do all the big record labels have hundreds of millions in revenue each year and only a handful of performing artists ever bring in more than a million in their entire lifetime?
Even middle men provide a service - if bands don't want access to a large, well-advertised and well-capitalized market base then they don't have to sign with one of those "middlemen."
That's a terrible way to describe the situation. It's like saying, "if you don't want to use this pass through the mountains, then you don't have to pay the $100,000 toll that the people who are squatting in the pass are demanding." These "middle men" of the MAFIAA have intentionally manipulated the market
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I think he meant the real money FOR THE ARTIST is in concerts. the Record industry makes more off cd sales then the artist themselves do.
Yep, that's correct. I was attempting to show that the money the studios take could ALSO go to the artists, so ignoring it is like leaving money on the table.
Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, if you expect to be making between 99% and 101% on every CD sold, go indie.
jebbus fark! do you even understand how much it costs to make a CD? I do I recently did it for a friend...
1 45 minute CD 10 tracks.
About 1 hour spend recording each track and mixing/ audio processing.
10 hours to make the audio.
5 hours paid to an artist to make cover art and Cd booklet.
3 hours meetings.
18 hours spent - gear was a laptop+usb 8 channel capture box+ mixer in his home studio with blankets on the walls and ceiling. we recorded late at night to remove any industrial or car low frequency noise.
Results? Far better sound than in a $125.00 an hour pro studio because the artists were relaxed. Album made for less than $600.00 (including pizza and beer) in recording costs and when they buy in batches of 100 the CD's are $3.95 each.
They sell them for $12.00 at concerts and are now making 250% profit on every CD sold.
Only really dumb artists record in a real studio and spend the insane money on "pro mastering" because it's worthless... you can easily get better than studio recording (One of their tracks is insanely good at stereo separation because I put 2 XY mikes in the center (with a foam audio trap between them) and had them sit in a circle.. the audio on that track is spooky when listened to on a stereo setup. You cant get that good of recordings at a studio, they hurry you along and make the artist nervous.
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If you really want to support the artist, buy the CD and then go see a concert.
Nah, I'll pirate the music, if I like it, then I'll see the concert both nights, or see it and buy the t-shirt.
What artists really need is an option for internet ad based revenue. So banner ad urls embedded in their mp3s. If you play the mp3 on your machine, then the player shows some rotating ads. You could turn the ads off if you wanted, but that would hurt the artist, so you wouldn't.
Now some evil people would replace the
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Well... I guess there's going to be at least one person who wouldn't turn them off. I don't think the ad revenue from your single machine is going to be enough.
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Choosing between 'the only game in town' and obscurity with an indie label is not much of a choice for most artists, who simply want to earn enough cash to live while they make more music.
The artists who are established, have toured a lot, etc., are the ones who can thrive with an independent label.
Go to the concerts, get a shirt while you're there. That will support the artist. CD's support the label. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if they would adjust to the 21st century. I agree that they should focus
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Promote? I thought MTV, Channel V (Aust) and stuff like the internet do that well enough.
Distribute? In today's day and age Apple does that.
Write songs for the artists? If you cant write songs you are a meerly a preformer, you have no right to call yourself an artist.
Book venues and organize concerts? Umm no thats why you have a manager. The RIAA's role w
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(I have no expectations of how this post will be modded).
Then why mention it?
Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Interesting)
There are certain socially accepted stereotypes that I'm sick of.
There is a difference between making a living and bing RICH. Why artists have to be rich??
Work for it if you want more money. Nobody can ask for the right to be RICH. A different thing is asking for the right to make a living. And I think that the money the society is giving back to the *AA is MORE THAN ENOUGH to pay a decent salary to all artists. If there is an artists that is making less than whatever is required to make a decent living, or thinks he's not getting he's share of the cake, go complain to the fucking *AAs!. You created them, you supported them, well, you are the father of the monster. It now turned against you? You should have thought about it before.
Millions of developers create the best software ever FOR FREE, and still make a living. They do it because they LOVE what they do. The Stallmans of this world has a lot more moral ground to call themselves artists for coding than the Hetfields for singing.
It's normal to feel sympathy for an artist we like, but that shouldn't stop us from seeing the reality: The artists keep supporting the *AAs by working with them, so The artists have the fault. They are responsible for the actions of the *AAs, so FUCK the *AA supporting artists.
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Agreed.
Of course, there's also the "artists" out there who are asking why they can't "just make a living" by doing what they love. The answer, all too often, is that plenty of other people want to do the same thing, and society is just not interested in supporting that many people to do that thing. Once there's "enough" professionals doing a certain activity, there needs to be competition to choose between who gets paid and who goes and does something else. Otherwise everyone will be doing the "fun" jobs
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I've been saying this for years. My family and I are having financial trouble right now; you think I care about whether some rich artist gets even more money from me? I've begun to feel this way even about (the few still living) artists that I like, such as Clapton. I remember reading once that he gave away 60 guitars to be auctioned off to charity. At the time, I couldn't even get my hands on one. So, no, I frankly just don't care about artists who are already rich. Simply put, I'm not so I don't see why I
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Nobody can ask for the right to be RICH...
...because that's a God-given right.
Just take care not to install yourself in a position of determining who 'deserves' to be rich and who doesn't. Doing that successfully would take talents far beyond any we mere mortals have yet expressed.
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I'm trying to figure out what the secret code is in your use of the language, but I guess it escapes my inferior mind.
You've been hoodwinked, my friend. Your rights are yours whether you surrender anything or not. Anyone that tells you otherwise is selling something.
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You bring up an interesting point... One thing I've never understood here..
Copyright was extended over there to life + 70 years right? Why?
Why do music artists (and others why benefit from this) have it so good?
Why should their kids (that is who the extension is supposed to be for isn't it??) not have to work like everyone elses?
Are the children of 'copyright creators' incapable of working?
Does anyone have a real answer that doesn't make their children sound like lazy wastes of space?
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Copyright was extended over there to life + 70 years right? Why? Why do music artists (and others why benefit from this) have it so good?
I think you're making a mistake. About the time copyright was extended is about the same time the RIAA formed an illegal cartel controlling music distribution. They used this cartel to force artists to give up their copyrights to the labels or be locked out of mainstream distribution.
Artists that benefit greatly from extended copyrights are a rare exception. For the most part it is the record labels benefiting, while the artists make little or nothing. Too many people look at the the 1% of superstars (who h
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Re:Artists, haha (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone?, anyone?
Abba did this -- set themselves up with an end-to-end operation and ended up as (rumour I've heard) one of the richest private corporations in the Nordic regions.
Ok, here's what you do. You find a good lawyer (no longer a contradiction in terms, thanks to NYCL) who knows a bit about corporate law. You don't need that much. Set up a company, limited liability sort of thing, whatever your lawyer recommends that fits within your budget to register and rational expectations for growth(you can always set up a bigger one and sell up to it if you end up needing a different governance model, probably -- YMMV depending on local laws and how you grow as a band). You talk to one of the more reputable accountancy firms and ask them to take you on as a client and find out what their terms will be (run those past your lawyer before you sign anything. In fact run *everything* from that point past your lawyer, including things you may have signed in the past that you thought weren't relevant).
Then you look at distribution media. If you want to flog CD's, find a local indie recording engineer and cut a master. Then you search out reputable CD pressing firms and get them to duplicate them. They can supply full kit including jewel case and graphics if you want, your artwork or theirs (but if you can afford Hipgnosis that's cool too).
At this point you have something to sell. You can send letters (return envelope and price list) and samples out to local record stores, coffee shops, fuel stops and other niche retailers and grow your business. Find a PC or laptop among the group and record everything you do. Don't let this job fall to one of the band members, unless they're unusually focused and don't mind sacrificing the practice, rehearsal and performance time to do this. If you're doing really well, really really well, then find a manager who's a manager and not an RIAA flack and get your lawyer to cut an agreement.
All up you're out a couple thousand for all of this. You might not get a return, audiences are fickle after all. But you might reach stardom too, become the next Savage Garden / Abba / Porcupine Tree or whatever genera, and you'll need that structure to keep the money from evaporating or going to the enemy. Do NOT sign *any* agreements without paying for a lawyer to read and explain just who gets what. In the legal and accounting professions, you do not want to go cheapest route, even if you did buy your first six-string at the five-and-dime.
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You find a good lawyer (no longer a contradiction in terms, thanks to NYCL)
Actually, Ray's only my third favorite lawyer. My favorite is the very nice lady who handled my divorce, and my second favorite is her boss, who handled my bankrupcy. Without them I'd have been fuX0red.
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You must know inexpensive lawyers and business people who will work for free. If you can do all this in a blinding flash (aka 3 months), you're in for middle to high 5 figures (US$) at a minimum. The lawyer will cost you $350-500/hr, the good business rep who doesn't take no for an answer and doesn't piss everybody off will want about $40-50k for the short engagement (you can get a full year for twice that, if you want to extend the contract). You'll need a couple thousand CDs to start, so tack on 5k, plus
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Unlike us and the RIAA/MPAA, Phelps and the Chineses are playing by the same rules.