Choruss Pitching Bait and Switch On P2P Music Tax 119
An anonymous reader writes "A few months back, Warner Music Group started pitching universities on the idea of a new program where they would pay a chunk of money to an organization named Choruss to provide 'covenants not to sue' those students for file sharing, leading many in the press to claim that the record labels are looking to license ISPs to let users file share. Even the EFF has called it a 'promising new approach.' However, the details are quite troubling and suggest that the plan is really a bait-and-switch idea." (More below.)
"The industry still plans to demand three strikes and try to shut down file sharing networks, and it's already giving up on lawsuits. So... it's basically going to keep doing everything the same as before, but force your ISP or your university (who in turn will raise your rates) to just hand over a bunch of money. Oh yeah, also, since the 'covenant not to sue' isn't a license and only covers the rights of the record labels, it means that you can still get sued by the publishers or songwriters whose rights aren't covered by the deal at all. Unfortunately, the press is just repeating the claim that this is a 'file sharing license' when the details show it's anything but that. It's just a way to get people and companies to hand over large chunks of money to the record labels."
Protection money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like a classic mafia protection scheme. /Insert seedy Italian accent/ "You might find your finances in trouble without some.... protection. Pay us and we'll provide that... Else our boss might see to it that you do have an accident."
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I was totally thinking the same sort of thing. Smells badly of blackmail/extortion to me. "Pay us off or we'll sue."
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for ya.
And they wonder why we hate them for scams like this...
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Funny)
And they wonder why we hate them for scams like this...
Chorusss. Even the name sounds like some sssslithery sssnake trying to weasel a deal out of you even though he dosen't have any handsss for a handssshake.
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Chorusss. Even the name sounds like some sssslithery sssnake trying to weasel a deal out of you even though he dosen't have any handsss for a handssshake.
You had such a great snake metaphor going ... and then you stuck a 'weasel' in it. ;)
Why equate chorus to a snake if you are just going to immediately equate the snake to a weasel?
Substitute "weasel" for something like "squeeze" amd the sentence will flow much better.
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's because Jimmy the Snake and Frankie the Weasel are the senior liaison officers for Choruss.
Actually, the name of the group reminded me of a typical show chorus: It's always there making the same annoying background noise, distracting you from what you're trying to listen to.
Obligatory obscure quote...
Oh, we're the boys in the chorus,
We hope you like our show,
We know you're rooting for us,
But now we have to go!
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, administration of the divvying up of funds between artists would be very lucrative for whichever body won such a task, providing plenty of opportunity to charge overhead for staff and resources. This body would almost certainly be the BPI in the UK or the RIAA & MPAA in the USA or made at least made up of the same people and friends of people who are employed in these organisations. Secondly, the selection of which artists earn from the compulsory charges is open to very financially awarding abuse. You can be certain that big labels would be carving off large chunks of the revenue for their star artists and less-publicised artists or independent artists would be getting far less or nothing at all. This power encourages artists to sign with the big labels, rather than act independently. With modern technology and communication, there is far less reason for artists to sign exclusive deals with the big labels so a new way to pressure them to do so is much wanted by groups like the BPI and RIAA. As if the above was not sufficient temptation to the big labels there are further very strong reasons. This enables profit to be made from people who would never buy the music the big labels put out. Musical tastes change as people age and the general rule is that individuals become much choosier in their music purchasing as well as less immersed in mainstream media, thus less subject to buying heavily promoted tracks / albums. A blanket music tax allows the big labels to profit from such people despite changing or lessening purchasing habits. How earnings would be distributed amongst artists is an open question, but as self-proclaimed experts, you would likely see the BPI / RIAA / MPAA having a hand in defining the system and it would probably be based around popular charts despite that not accurately reflecting total purchasing habits. Furthermore (as if we need more reasons), this allows charging for music that has gone out of copyright - a body of work that is, logically, ever increasing.
More than all of this however, is that such an approach eliminates the free market. The proposal prevents artists from exercising their normal legal rights to sue those distributing their work against their wishes (and the proposal does not make sense if it does not do this). In doing so, it forces the BPI and RIAA / MPAA's business model on everyone. There are thus none of the normal controls of the free market on the pricing of recordings or on artists' ability to negotiate with the big labels for better terms.
In short, compulsory charging of ISPs for file-sharing is Christmas for the big lables if this ever goes through. A permanent entitlement to our money regardless of what they produce or if we want it. Indeed, they get paid for what other people do.
What is the phrase I'm looking for, oh yes... "It's a trap!"
H.
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Furthermore (as if we need more reasons), this allows charging for music that has gone out of copyright - a body of work that is, logically, ever increasing.
You mean never increasing. Works don't fall into the public domain in the United States. You can bet that there will be a copyright term extension in front of Congress long before a single copyright term will be even close to expiring. Given that only a very small minority of US citizens actually care about this issue, don't bet on the bill failing.
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The big labels would love to apply a blanket cost to ISPs to legitimise file sharing of copyrighted materials.
I'm not sure about that. Here in France, the "global license" solution to piracy was brought up several times during the debates on the Hadopi law [slashdot.org]. The government, the majors and the SACEM (who collects royalties on music) consistently refused it (on the grounds that it would be too complicated to fairly distribute the money to the artists - as if they ever tried to...).
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> Chorusss
It's actually just a double-S at the end. The double-S is totally cute. And a great reminder of how great life was under the Shutzstaffel [wikipedia.org]'s watchful eye.
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Pay us or we'll force you to listen to gangsta rap?
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because they're not in any sort of legal violation. Threatening to sue [based on legimitate grounds] if you don't pay money isn't any different from threatening to evict if you don't pay rent.
Re: RICO, it only applies if you are committing a bunch of acts that are already illegal. Again, threatening to sue because someone doesn't pay you money is obviously legal (another example would be 'I'll sue if you don't pay for the iPods I delivered to your store').
Already illegality exists for RIAA (Score:1, Insightful)
Using unlicensed investigators in Texas.
Criminal John Doe suits dropped and the names used in civil suits.
Falsification of evidence.
Lying to the court.
etc.
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That's only true if they're asking for money they're actually owed. In this case, they're asking for money in advance, so that if a student downloads some of their music without permission they won't sue. Note that there's nothing mentioned about refunding the money if there are no copyright violations. In effect, this is tryin
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No but if someone was going 'If you dont give us X dollars then we'll sue you for copyright violations'. By doing this they are circumventing
Actually... It is a RICO racket...
1) Threaten to Sue you
2) Offer opportunity to 'settle' for $X
3) Suggest that going to court would result in paying multiples of $X as well as dealing with legal fees and such.
4) It's designed to make most people cave to their whims by suggesting that the law will side with them.
Offering the opportunity to 'settle' for $X while not gran
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds to me like a classic mafia protection scheme.
Except the mafia has a lot more to offer you than RIAA. Sure they take your money, but they can also hook you up with gambling, girls, drugs, loan sharking and protection. RIAA doesn't hook you up with anything other than lawyers and shitty music, at least as far as I can tell.
And at least you always know where you stand with Tony Soprano. Can you say that about RIAA? ;)
Re:Protection money? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, money up front for nothing. If student A does no file sharing at all, they are still licensed. Each student/user will be licensed to share files? WTF is that? I don't need a license to share Linux ISO files over P2P networks. How in blue blazes will they determine what connections should be licensed and which should not? This is too cracked of an idea to fathom. Protection money for doing legal activities?
It's time that the RIAA et al simply died.
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Darn. When you put it that way, it sounds really sleazy.
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And at least you always know where you stand with Tony Soprano. Can you say that about RIAA? ;)
And would you trust Hesh without Tony keeping him in check?
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That's a nice house you got there, sir. It'd be a shame if a judge had to take it away just 'cause your kid couldn't keep his files to himself.
Make a rod for your own back (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
[the proposal is] so bad that it can be described accurately as a bait-and-switch program designed to make people (1) pay lots of money (2) believing they're now free to file share and then find out that (3) file sharing systems will still be sued out of existence and (4) the users themselves, despite paying, will still be liable for massive lawsuits. It's basically a plan to give the record labels tons of money, handed over by universities (so users have no chance to opt-out) without actually changing anything.
In fact, this would be the universities giving up-front financing for future legal action against file sharers.
K.
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In fact, this would be the universities giving up-front financing for future legal action against file sharers.
jup, just like the USA did with the taliban: give them weapons and money first to later be fucked by them.
it's like karate: use your enemy's strength against himself.
how lame to fall for that, dear universities ;)
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Common mistake: They didn't give the money to the Taliban, they gave it to afghan "freedom-fighters". The Taliban later showed up and assumed control.
Where does the money go? (Score:5, Informative)
Let me guess: the artists don't get a dime.
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:5, Informative)
And why should they? It's the MAFIAA doing all this hard and expensive work. You think running a nationwide/worldwide mob is cheap?
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the MAFIAA doing all this hard and expensive work. You think running a nationwide/worldwide mob is cheap?
I know you're being sarcastic, but the real problem is that law enforcement is doing all this hard and expensive work. Tying up the courts and sending the police to your door, all to keep a failed business model afloat. Now the RIAA is so confident in their enforcement connections that they're trying to set up an extortion model to get more money. This is a classic example of taxpayer money distributed upward to the deep pockets.
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all to keep a failed business model afloat.
You do realise, it doesn't matter how much you keep repeating it, its still not true - the music business is far from a failed one, it just isn't kowtowing to all of the incessant demands...
When the vast majority of popular music is no longer represented by the RIAA and other mainstream associations, *then* they have a failed business model. But right now? Its perfectly sound, even if you disagree with it.
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And why should they? It's the MAFIAA doing all this hard and expensive work. You think running a nationwide/worldwide mob is cheap?
/sarcasm on
I love it when lawyers litigate to find purpose and pay in life. Yay for lawyers! Yay for america's fucked up legal system that allows such litigious bullshittery!
When I trip on a curb for my own careless action, I could think 'damn, I should watch my step', but being a well trained American, it is kinda hard to resist the temptation to blame and sue the city. How could any respectable lawyer *NOT* protect my dear ankles from the foolish engineering of the city! Oh dear, the toils of life tr
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Not that I'm recruitin for the New American Revolution... but I did have to bring it up since you seem kinda ripe for the idea...
It worked once... right?
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Not that I'm recruitin for the New American Revolution... but I did have to bring it up since you seem kinda ripe for the idea...
It worked once... right?
I think the major flaw was that the constitution, though quite explicit, did not actually self-define to be explicit, and thus has allowed for such enormous expansion and 'interpretation'.
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not a flaw in the Constitution. It is a law of nature. Culture and language change. If one defines a set of ideas at a given point in time, the cultural environment, language and society will change over time changing the context entirely. In addition, you will have wicked people, like the RIAA, trying constantly to find ways to circumvent those ideas for their personal gain.
For an example, look at how effective this "intellectual property" campaign has been. In 1776, if one used the term "intellectual property", the individual would have been laughed out of the English speaking world. These days, however, I have had people claim that they still "own" a copy of a book that I have purchased. I really do not care who the author is. The book is obviously mine, including all the words contained within it.
The results of this assault on the original meaning of the Constitution are obvious. In 1776, if a person published a book and copyrighted it, that person would have no way to restrict access to that book. The author would have no control over access at all whatsoever. In fact, the mere suggestion that the author could restrict access to the book would be considered as ludicrous as charging people to breathe.
Today, however, it is considered totally correct to use copyright restrict people's access to works. It is accepted that "downloading" a book is a violation of copyright by most people. Not only that, but many people believe that this monopoly privilege is a Natural Right, like the Right to Free Speech. In 1776, no one would have thought of restricting access to a work. In fact, copyright only really regulated reproduction and distribution. So, in reality, downloading should never have been a violation of copyright, and if it were not for an obscure computer software lawsuit (Mai v. Peak), it never would have been. Is that when we went from restricting distribution to restricting access to knowledge?
Therefore, the cultural context has changed, and even the Oracle at Delphi could not have predicted these events with sufficient clarity to allow the Founding Fathers to draft a document that would withstand the wicked cunning of generations of lawyers and the unfathomable stupidity of the general public. Oh, and do not forget to add the inability of the French to understand the Freedom that the US introduced into the Western cultural sphere. That misunderstanding led to the creation of the Berne Convention -- the biggest train wreck in the history of Intellectual Freedom.
So, instead of criticising the Constitution, you might consider trying to understand what the Founding Fathers were thinking back then and helping your friends understand. Certain contextual issues cannot be reversed (the fact that copying is now a necessary part of all non-face-to-face communication comes to mind). But understanding that ideas like "intellectual property", "sharing == theft", "downloading == stealing", etcetera, are completely wrong is a step in the right direction.
In short, we are wrong for allowing ourselves to be manipulated into being unable to understand our own Freedom by crooked entities like the RIAA.
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If what you say is true, what is the purpose of the amendment system which requires a large portion of the representatives' votes to pass?
If times change, and culture/opinion, I think a system that checks for 2/3 vote to ensure majority support would be much more constitutionally aligned than the ability for lawyers and politicians to manipulate and reinterpret the constitution for the promotion of special interests.
Just a thought....
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Even the Oracle at Delphi could not have predicted these events with sufficient clarity to allow the Founding Fathers to draft a document...
That's where you're wrong. The Oracle DID predict this, but Ancient Association of Hallucinatory Futurists (AAHF) restricted dissemination of all but the most obvious predictions, in order to keep them out of the hands of pirates and revolutionaries.
In other words, King George saw it coming, but our Founding Fathers could not.
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I can't mod this (-1 not informative).
Please let this and parent be an example of a "insightful" or "interesting" comment.
The distinction helps me filter.
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That's the beauty of this scheme! (Score:2)
The RIAA gathers license fees, and distributes them among the record companies and artists.. after taking out an administrative fee (100% in some cases).
The payments for "covenants not to sue" are not license fees.
No doubt some small fraction will be treated as a license fee, just to put a veneer of legitimacy on the scheme. But I've no doubt that the RIAA will use the extra layers of administration to make reduce the amount and skew the payout distribution to record companies that play the game.
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Because we all know that not copying music puts $$$ in artists' pockets.
I don't trust this... (Score:1, Insightful)
Back to topic. I don't trust this at all. Sure, the EFF is a great group but sometimes they get their ideals all in a mess much like this one. I just hope they aren't getting any monetary value from supporting this claim that it is a "promising new approach."
Either way, it sounds like people will still be sued, just by different
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Maybe they're trying to shore it up because once it's in place, the RIAA will get slammed for extortion?
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I think the saying is "as far as I can throw a baby grand piano".
Studios acting like scumbags?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, I feel the same way about Big Corn and their fucking syrup they put in everything to make it taste like shit. The problem is that these guys are so entrenched in our political economy that any politician that opposes them will find himself the subject of baby-eating allegations on TV.
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You really have to love the current crop of high fructose corn syrups ads on TV. "It's OK in moderation." Good luck with that when it's in freaking everything.
Hopefully some Stevia based pop will make it to the mainstream sooner than later. In the meantime I'll have to keep pestering the local co-ops to carry some.
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Yeah, some friends and I have a student run store at our college, and we import a lot of food from Mexico to avoid corn syrup. Aside from the higher caloric content per sweetness, I don't know of conclusive evidence it's worse for you (aside from mercury contamination), but boy does it taste worse.
Ironic isn't it? Paying more to buy Mexican products because they're higher quality.
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Products sold in Canada are also sweetened without corn syrup. Even American products -buy a Pepsi in Canada and it's sweetened with refined beet or cane sugar.
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It's a little silly to hear the woman in the commercial say "It's ok in moderation"...then pour themselves a big honking cup of syrupy artificial fruit punch. That cup alone is already as much (or more) sugar than a person should be taking in for one day.
Damn, if someone is going to suck down that much sugar, might as well get it from a worthwhile treat rather than colored sugar water.
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And of course, the drug companies make big profits off that.
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It is in almost everything, then we wonder why everyone is taking Metformin to control their diabetes
And that, dear peebles, is seriously not a joke. Enough corn syrup in the foods you buy will make you insulin-resistant. It's an industry-mandated drug addiction and it's slowly killing people.
Fix it, guys.
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There's no HFCS in my potatos, or my ground beef, or my sack of flour, or my beer, or cheese. Yes, it's in a lot of processed foods, but you should be eating processed foods in moderation anyway.
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Just ask any Canadian that can legally use both...
That being said, why don't the people persecute the RIAA?
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You mean a non dead one? Good luck!
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It would be nice to have at least ONE politician I could vote for who would tell these legalized extortionists where to shove it.
Let me get this straight: You want to address an appeal against legalized extortion to politicians -- the most blatant practitioners of legalized extortion around? Seriously?
The EFF is wrong on this one (Score:5, Insightful)
Last I checked, the EFF were in strong favor of collective licensing schemes. In my opinion, that approach is completely misguided - either it will require a big-brother like system in order to track usage so as to fairly apportion the proceeds to the artists, or it will lead to even more stagnation as the little innovative guys, the ones who are ultimately responsible for significant changes in culture many years down the road, will never see a penny and cultural development will become glacial.
Ultimately the entire business model needs to be scrapped. We need something akin to the street-performer protocol or some combination of multiple business models that channel people's natural inclination to share stuff they think is cool rather than attempt to fight against it as the current system does.
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Collective licensing sets up an organization that can be pressured. Take for instance the pressure on the NEA to only fund inoffensive art.
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Yeah, well, America's founding purpose was to be the land of the free. Founding purposes come and go...
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So cultural development before copyright was glacial?
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a big-brother like system in order to track usage so as to fairly apportion the proceeds to the artists
For what it's worth, I think that could be done without becoming a big-brother problem.
One possible arrangement: Artists can submit their files to the government to be hashed, the government randomly selected people offering some modest payment to be sampled, people who agree to be sampled have their files scanned and the hashes anonymously aggregated. Then you use that to apportion payments. That way even
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Ultimately the entire business model needs to be scrapped. We need something akin to the street-performer protocol or some combination of multiple business models that channel people's natural inclination to share stuff they think is cool rather than attempt to fight against it as the current system does.
Or we could just continue to the use the current system where artists get paid at Starbuck's or McDonald's, and just stop paying the RIAA and its backers entirely. The artists, themselves -- with the exception of already rich ones like Madonna -- probably would not see a difference in their wages, but many more families could keep their life savings.
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Yeah, that's not going to fly for any creative project requiring a significant investment in materials or equipment.
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Pretty shocking approach taken by EFF. Guess it too has fallen prey to the incorrect assumption that the RIAA represents the totality of music when in fact they represent a small number of deep pockets in the business.
I think it is more like the EFF just cannot go so far as to say that the record industry is just an anti-Constitutional cabal of criminals hell bent on stealing from society, and that "illegitimate" file sharing is actually Constitutionally protected Free Speech. They see the law on the books and try to apply it as it is written. The fact is that Title 17 has been violating the Constitution since 1978 (when the 1976 Copyright Act took effect), and it is difficult for lawyers to take such a bold step and
When Will It Stop? (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I naive in thinking that this insanity has to stop at some point? I don't think the **AA can stem the tide of people discovering and using file sharing, so when will they decide to give up, or better yet, focus its efforts on promoting a new business model? It seems like the spend an awful amount of effort trying to subvert the subversives with little or no net gain. I'm not sure that anything they have done thus far as been remotely effective in combating piracy, so assuming we live in a logical world, wouldn't it behoove them to stop pestering people and try something different???
Why don't they try something different like product bundling. Why not pair it with something everyone enjoys like water. Make some deals to include iTunes codes for a 49 cent download of choice when you buy a bottle of Dasani? Or get an album for free when you buy a 24 pack of Pepsi. The subsidy you get from these other product bundlings would surely generate more revenue than some kid downloading it off the net. There are many ways you can give your stuff away for 'free' and still make some hard cash...
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More likely it will play out like this:
Not content to rake in 200 million a year, the city of Chicago will partner with the RIAA and MPAA to tie its massive surveillance system in with the log system of all ISPs, so that it can cross reference all travelers to their downloads, and vio
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too late. The federal government beat them to it.
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Different business model? What? iTunes doesn't really make money, for anyone except maybe the credit card companies, so that is pointless. Giving stuff away with unrelated products is just the same - giving stuff away. Music is already free so how does that change anything?
No, Pepsi isn't going to allow music to be bundled with their products unless they got something for it. I suppose the music industry could pay Pepsi for the privilege and free advertising they would get, but this doesn't get them an
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Ok, I see this said a lot and I don't get it. Do you have any references for that because my back-of-the-envelope calculations say Apple is making tons of money. So I'm calling bullshit unless you can show me a mistake here:
Apple sells 2.5 billion songs yearly at roughly $1 a piece. Last I heard their cut is ~30%. That makes $750 million in revenue for Apple. Running itunes is probably not cheap, but I
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Am I naive in thinking that this insanity has to stop at some point? I don't think the **AA can stem the tide of people discovering and using file sharing, so when will they decide to give up, or better yet, focus its efforts on promoting a new business model? It seems like the spend an awful amount of effort trying to subvert the subversives with little or no net gain. I'm not sure that anything they have done thus far as been remotely effective in combating piracy, so assuming we live in a logical world, wouldn't it behoove them to stop pestering people and try something different???
Why don't they try something different like product bundling. Why not pair it with something everyone enjoys like water. Make some deals to include iTunes codes for a 49 cent download of choice when you buy a bottle of Dasani? Or get an album for free when you buy a 24 pack of Pepsi. The subsidy you get from these other product bundlings would surely generate more revenue than some kid downloading it off the net. There are many ways you can give your stuff away for 'free' and still make some hard cash...
"so when will they decide to give up"
3 years from now...
the economy's been in the shitter, cd sales worldwide are down 50% and the labels are for sale for 25 cents on the dollar. whoever has the money will then...
"focus its efforts on promoting a new business model"
well, probably not so much as promoting but rather catching up with the rest of the world.
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Filesharing != piracy.
Piracy is commercial distribution of copyrighted works without the permission of the authors.
Making deals with RIAA... (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA's bag of dirty tricks has been well-documented. Dealing with them is like negotiating a price for an HIV-positive hooker. There is no price that makes it worth it, not even free. Just tell them where they can go f*ck themselves because you're not going to bother with it. As the fees are likely going to be astronomical one way or the other, I know where I would have wanted my tuition to go -- towards a legal defense fund and not to the RIAA.
Nothing to See Here,Just Move Along... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another death rattle from an obsolete industry.
Not really even news unless you actually believe the music industry will be a viable entity a couple years from now.
No one wants to pay a middleman anymore.No news there. Obsolete business practices and outright lies don't qualify the industry as a "pay here" cash box anymore.
Music is free. Get over it,get a haircut and get a REAL job. The industries mewling is just like all the Buggywhip manufacturers that cried unfair when the automobile came.
Don't pay for music unless it's live in front of you and the artist gets the money(less any overhead). To the artists rooted into the industry, get out now while you still can. To every artist not in the industry, stay away it's a con game you can never win complete with extortion, swindling and theft.
Lets hear it for the powerful new future of music now that the industry lies bleeding!
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After stewing over this problem, I realized that to solve the music industry's woes is a fool's errand. We all know (one of those universal truths) that music is not a scarce commodity. When something can be copied at a cost of ***0*** dollars per copy and distributed for next to nothing (Itunes), or even precisely nothing (via P2P), it makes perfect sense that the price should be...wait for it...nothing.
I don't hate musicians.
Canadian CD Media Tax (Score:2)
Re:Media Tax in Spain (Score:1)
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Bait and switch? (Score:2)
Bait and switch is where you advertise product A for low low dollar, then when the customer arrives you tell him it's out of stock, and try to get them to buy B at more more dollar.
Selling an empty box - which is much closer to what TFA describes - is not the same thing.
Here's a random idea (Score:3, Insightful)
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They can't prosecute you if you aren't consuming their content.
Well the point of the article is that even if they can't prosecute you for not using their content, they've found a way to charge you for not using their content.
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And they cannot "prosecute" anyone since these are all civil lawsuits -- "persecute", however, is a different issue. But the RIAA has managed to sue dead people. How can dead people be "consuming content"?
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Filesharing != piracy.
Piracy is commercial.
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That sort of sentiment really just ignores one simple fact: that if you engage in piracy you are very unlikely to suffer any consequences for it. That's why the RIAA is attacking this with such broad strokes: it can't actually identify those who are committing piracy.
On the contrary, the pirates should be rather easy to catch: they are the ones selling the works for money. File sharers are not pirates. So, piracy obviously is not the problem.
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Yeah, but if you are going to get technical, every time you listen to a CD you purchased on any CD player, you are creating an actionable copy of the music (Mai v. Peak). That also goes for viewing web pages, watching rented or purchased DVDs with any software or hardware, displaying the text -- including email -- of any file that was written by someone else without explicit written permission for each work in question. According to Mai v. Peak, copies in memory are actionable, and digital devices cannot
Short summary (Score:2)
Warner is asking universities to give money to prevent students being sued.
This only protects against being sued by Warner.
Why would anybody have thought any differently?
No private organisation could EVER promise full protection against being sued since there is no legal obligation for copyright holders to be a member of such an organisation. Such an organisation can only promise protection against it's own members.
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Well, if it were an actual license from Warner - then students couldn't be sued for distributing Warner material - they would be covered against the bands & writers by Warner's license. As a covenant not to sue, well, it's really just extortion.
Choruss? - excellent name (Score:2)
Step 3: Profit! (Score:1)
This Is Disgusting (Score:2)
So, let me get this straight. Students who do not buy record industry music because they believe that the record industry is evil and should not be supported cannot do so because their universities will charge them in place of the record industry. Even if such a fee covered all music downloads, individuals could still not choose not to pay, not to contribute to an organized cartel that takes people's life savings for keeping a CD or two on their hard drive. And remember folks, the RIAA has never sued a
Ch..ch..changes, or: the new equilibrium (Score:1)
The RIAA and others seem unable to realize that when something is technologically possible, and becomes known and embraced, it is de facto the new reality and no amount of scheming or prohibitions will bring back the old.
I do remember vinyl LPs, and how the advent of CDs shut down my favorite record stores on Melrose in short order. Nowadays we have P2Ps and other filesharing methods. Nowadays a talented musician can easily obtain equipment and create music away from studios, right there in her living
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Shut up Lars! we heard ya already