What is Digg?52 Comments
- sirzed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40"[RIAA president] Sherman accuses the CEA of staking their case "out of the mainstream" and asserts that the CEA's primary worry is their bottom line, not consumers' rights."
*cough cough* Funny, you could say the same about the RIAA... - Daunting, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24A while back I would have staunchly disagreed with you. However, after some contemplation I really considered the RIAA and it's associated companys' purpose. Much of the RIAA's reason for existence is the distribution of media by willing artists. The artists take a willing set back by not acquring a reasonable ratio of funds from record sale to allow their music to be distributed to a wide audience that would be impossible by other means.
However, now you can bypass the oligarchy of recording insignias and have yourself be the top middle and bottom of receiving music. The RIAA becomes obsolete in the process of you receiving your media. Besides the one copy that may have been used to make thousands upon thousands of duplicates there are no fingers dictating the allocation of it. This angers, saddens, and scares the RIAA *****. Their monolopy on being the middle man on handing media from the artist to the consumer has now been taken down to the artist to the consumer. Quite a humanistic act is happening.
Art has been free from corporate totalitarianism for thousands of years before the advent of industrialized mega-conglomerates. However Cary Sherman is implying that there would be no insentive for creativity if they didn't control EVERY aspect of distribution. They wish to control the way you use the media you legally bought by assigning ipod users as theives and sending indiscriminate threats and legal action to individuals. Their inability to adapt to reasonable rebellion is becoming their downfall.
If it was up to the RIAA there would be no monetary consideration for both artist and consumer. Already most of the money that is made from music sales go straight to the RIAA without consideration for the artist. He speaks of the artist disingenuously by attempting to extract sympathy. However, the RIAA is anti-artist in many respects.
That's enough for me, I have to go download a song to placate my anger. - Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Good, then I hope they understand why I refuse to use their DRM protected music.
- tombomb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19What is the RIAA's definetion of fair use? We load a bunch of malware on your computer while you pay us ~$20 for a CD that isin't worth that much?
- lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Don't worry, in a generation the RIAA will be gone. Do you really think our kids are going to put up with them?
Information/Art wants to be free. When it finally is, we can truly say we live in a digital age.
/melodramatic moment - bdmbdm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Isn't this in the wrong section? It defiantly belongs in the comedy section since this article is pretty funny!
- Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16If the RIAA loves fair use, it's because they think they've found a way to charge for it. "Now rip your CDs to your hard drive/iPod/Zune for only $3.99 per track! See? We love fair use!"
- interiot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15So fair use is for academics and the press only... But normal users aren't allowed to personally transcode content so they can play it on more than one device (or otherwise make personal copies without distributing them)? What a load of crock.
- bioskope, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11psst Sherman I hear the homeless guy down by the alley sent an e-greeting card with the latest Mariah Carey tune set to be played when opened up. A 25,000$ lawsuit shall we say?
- straxus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"Information/Art wants to be free. "
Don't anthropomorphize information. It hates it when you do that. - aragon127, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Any fan of Mariah Carey deserves this.
There should be a mandatory fine for playing her at any time. - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Information "wants to be free", but information providers have deep pockets to pay off politicians to legislate against "freedom". If you think record companies are going down without a fight you're being an idealist.
- w0rd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I need to point out that we have no context to that quote from the CEA president. They could be talking about downloading a copy of an album that you already own, something that I've done and many people I know have done because it's a lot easier when all of the work is already done for you. I can't see anything wrong with this, but I bet the RIAA could. Anything involving the Internets and 'their' music that isn't iTunes/Napster/Real is evil and must be sued until it's dying corpse stops twitching.
- cypherz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Well, the industry shills are here it seems. Why else would the parent post be dugg down?
Supporting local bands and their self-promoted music is part and parcel of "Fighting the RIAA."
However you feel about pirates, the RIAA and its constituents have been attempting to lobby their way into a complete monopoly on all music in the USA. Supporting self-promoted bands and musicians is an excellent alternative to buying formulaic pop crap from the big labels. - itisme, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8@bloskope
if you send Mariah Carey I think the penalty should be higher! - halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@cohortq
I think they'd be happy if you had to pay a fee every time you listened to the song. - jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Why dont you go out and watch local bands, and buy their selfburned albums. In such a global market there should be small bands that can live of the locallity rather than sell truckloads of cd's. At least if they sell in their city themselves, they can get a better cut.
I would love to hear of a band who turned down a label because they were famous enough in their own city. Unfortunately fame and money means being with a label, nowadays. Altho some bands do dump their label and go solo, and live from their established fame and make money from a few gigs and limited edition cd's. - JasonPrini, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Describing the water as they drown.
- zachary80, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Downloading music illegally definitely isn't fair use, but copying music I own to my computer and MP3 players should be
- Daunting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Downloading a song from a torrent is technically illegal. I have yet to hear a person who have downloaded music consider otherwise, even if their knowledge of the law is limited. However, this is not about illegal downloading, this is about the consumer's ability to use the media that she legally paid for through the medium that she wants. That is what the RIAA is lobbying wholeheartedly against. If they had the chance they would dismantle 40 years of technological advancement to codify their earnings.
"Let's be clear. The CEA's primary concern is not consumers, but technology companies--often large, multinational corporations which, like us, strive to make a profit. A moneymaking mission is perfectly acceptable."
I don't know who he's trying to impress, but slyly targetted (albeit mild) attack on the CEA is EXACTLY what the RIAA was Created for. Fair use is absolutely farthest from their minds.
It's good to know that they're coming out of the darkness of their polished board meetings and hummers to try to position themselves as the good guys. Shows that they're beginning to sweat. - lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For no other purpose then to hear myself rant, I will expand on what I mean by "information/art wants to be free."
Information and art have at least one thing in common, they are a message from one entity to another. That message could include anything, ranging from information about how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, or in the case of art, it could be an emotional/symbolic message that is hard to put into words. The quality/usefulness of the message can vary, making it more or less valuble. Messages that have a high amount of value are often capitolized on. In other words, people use the message's value as a way to make a profit. However, the value of the message does not depend on any profit being made, it is the other way around. The message will exist whether or not people are making profit because some people will always be compelled to send the message (artists) and some people will always be compelled to recieve the message (consumers, or conesuiers). The reasons compelling the artist to make high quality messages (works of art) can include making money, but making money is not a necessity since other, more "pure" reasons will always exist.
Now the recording industry used to have a legit purpose. It used to be a way to make a message available to many people. Before the industrial revolution, the only way to hear music was live. The artist was limited in how many people could appreciate his "message" and the consumer was limited on how many messages were available to him. After the invention of the phonograph, people were no longer limited to live performances, and it greatly increased the number of people could hear a particular message (mass media). Until the later 20th century, the recording/production/distrobution/marketing of music was a very expensive process and required quite a bit of capitol. In order for one artist to send his art/message to many people, he/she had to go through the recording industry. There was no other way to be heard by the whole world.
This has changed. Since a single computer can do everything an entire recording studio used to do, virtually anyone who can afford something like a car can also afford to make a high quality album. That takes care of the recording/production aspect. With a connected world, other aspects are different too. There are many online sites that will take care of finding people to listen to that music. In the future we will definitely see more/better sites that do this. That takes care of the distrobution/marketing.
Will this make the quality suffer? It is unclear. What society considers to be "quality" music will be more democratic. In other words, the people will decide what they like, not a bunch of capitolists trying to decide for them. Sites like digg are a testament to whether this is effective. Even digg has upsides and downsides. Mob mentality will always cause certain artists to go under appreciated and certain artists to have too much attention. But over all, at least it will be the peoples choice. In my opinion, this will keep the quality of art consistent if not better.
So basically with a system like that, we will be cutting out the middleman, the RIAA, the obsolete portion of how we recieve our messages. Few people will be able to continue to charge people for recordings, because so many others just want to get heard. They are not doing it for the money, or at least they are not doing it to get rich. There is a difference between getting paid for what you do and getting rich from what you do. Of course, live performances are impossible to reproduce (even bootlegs are not the same) and musicians will always be able to charge for that.
All over the world, there are people who just want to send a message, who know they have talent and just want to share it. Even inside the big pop stars, this feeling exists. Going back to my origional claim, this is the part of art/information that "wants to be free." Also, people will always have a need for art whether or not they have the ability to pay for it. On the consumer side, it is the mirror image of that feeling that lives in the artist. As long as there are people who yearn for art, and people who yearn to share their art, art will exist. When it is shackled by the expectation of profit, it will always strive to break free. This we have illegal downloaders. What they are doing is against the law, but it is a law based on how things used to be. Eventually, these laws will change too, but it wont be until after it is obvious that they don't work anymore.
To answer the couple of people who doubted whether following generations will be able to do anything, look at this generation. Sure, there are still laws being made in america that seem to shackle music. The great thing is, those laws are powerless to stop it. And they certainly don't inspire people to follow them. All the following generations need to do is keep doing what our generation has started and eventually there will be no way for the RIAA to make money off of music. Basically, the only advice we can give our kids is, "keep up the good work." - scorchedearth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is why I buy electronic music from underground artists in Europe.
The RIAA doesn't have its fingers in that pie and at least the artists get more of a share. - djdole, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What a crock of shiat.
They mean champion of their own definition of fair use.
Not really surprising though, since the RIAA has a long track record of believing it can rewrite the laws to suit it's own agenda.
RIAA: "We can FLY too!*"
*By "fly", we mean "bend you over and use the courts to rape you, your wallet and anyone nearby and too". - processoriented, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Really what it comes down to is that we will have to re-invent the entire compensation scheme for artistic invention to keep up with technology. This is not new. We have done it several times, and each time, there are early adopters, mainstream consumers, and conservative stalwarts who've got a vested interest in seeing the old ways maintained. The RIAA is acting (in this iteration of progress) as the conservative stalwarts. That's fine, the rest of us should have expected it.
In the era of patronage, artists were paid by an explicit benefactor who would commission a specific work of art. The advantage there was that most of us common folk could benefit from the art for no more than we were already paying in tribute or tax to the benefactor. The disadvantage was that we were treated solely to art that met the tastes of the patron.
In the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries we were able to realize more choice in the art we consumed because we were not limited to the tastes of a single or small collection of patrons, but we had a huge infrastructure of distribution that lent itself to promoting hits at the expense of anything with niche appeal.
Now, distribution is so incredibly cheap that paying for the infrastructure in place seems silly and pointless. Clearly we want artists to be compensated for their work, but we need a new economic model that will do this without servicing the overarching infrastructure that does nothing but distribute in old, outmoded fashion.
What will that look like? Honestly I don't know, but I am encouraged that there is so much effort going into finding a new economic model. Ideas like Creative Commons licensing and self-starting publicity through You-Tube or MySpace hold promise, but I think that there is still room for improvement.
The main issue is that the democratization of distribution does not reward hit artists much better than artists with niche appeal. This dynamic seems to be the RIAA's secondary concern (behind their ill fated desire to maintain their entire infrastructure).
Were I appointed King of the RIAA, I would drop the apparent top priority of attempting to maintain the infrastructure and put all my energy into coming up with an economic model that will both reward artists according to their popularity (as they should be) and take advantage of the incredibly cheap distribution models available. - Swift2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We need artists to take action against these clowns. In the day, the record labels had enormous costs that somebody had to amortize. They had to have studios, talent spotters, record-pressing plants, and then distribution and promotion. What are they now? Vestigial organs. Their real costs are down to near zip, and all they have left is a brand name and a promotion machine. Any decent musician with Pro Tools and some gear can make a recording, and sell it as a file. What's left? Promotion. And for that, these massive companies take over the Intellectual Property of the artists and give them a tiny percent of each sale.
I think the big groups should gang together and leave the labels entirely. Then they can promote their songs, and distribute them the way they choose, and screw these mega-mergered corporations. Their time is gone. Over. Done. Finished. - UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Perfectly put. RIAA's just clinging on to a dying business model. I don't see why so many self-proclaimed capitalists reject that perspective.
- PeppermintPig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree. Heh.. I posted before I saw this, but you covered the situation just as well.
Patronage, advertising subsidizing, and merchandising are but a few of the solutions to help artists survive. The RIAA makes the assumption that it has a right to profit, essentially, and is clearly aggressive in the pursuit of maintaining that this is the case via lobbying and bellowing a message of fear towards consumers. - nightwing2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The funny thing is how an RIAA tool can write an editorial about"fair use" and DRM and NOT mention the main reason the average Joe wants to bypass DRM - to shift their media from one device and format to another. Two pages of corporate fluff and FUD, and not a word on the core issue. Typical PR flack-catching...
The RIAA is not there to protect artists - it's there to protect the music companies and their lucrative gravy train - 50% of revenue, plus costs(!!?), for helping a band to produce and distribute an album. This imbalance is most obvious in the revenue distribution for iTunes, where almost nothing from the $1 goes to the artist - despite the absolutely minimal need for "value-added" work to take an existing CD track and make it available to an on-line sales company.
The RIAA would love a world where we constantly have to re-buy (or better, rent) the media we use; heck, Microsoft has been trying (with bad results - like their latest support process) to get people to pay rent rather than buy its software... why shouldn't the music industry. If nobody falls for it, it will hopefully die a quiet death. - PeppermintPig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not only is the RIAA a danger to fair-use, but so are the people they are alienating who now believe stealing any digital media is acceptable. RIAA and Government set a bad precedent that hurts independent artists who don't have the luxury of such violent protection methods. Some people, however, appreciate what's going on and patronize local or independent artists, and this is a step in the right direction. On the one hand we want artists to be respected, but on the other hand we need to accept that the profit mechanisms are changing in the world of digital media. The only way you're going to get a truly liberated information society is by resisting authoritarianism, socialism, the government backed corporation, and copyright/patent/trademark. Free market solutions will be able to handle everything without the need for force or coercion.
- stevejb68, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It seems that Sherman is an idiot. Piss off the consumer and soon they will not buy the product, or find something somewhere else. If the consumer gets mad, quits buying the music, then who is going to pay the artists and record labels? And who will pay Sherman's high priced salary then? Hmmmm? It is interesting to see that some artists have already been deciding to leave the big labels and go out on their own, or with the less restrictive smaller labels.
- mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think there are exemptions for teachers/education settings. If I recall from my brief stint at a copy shop you can photocopy copywritten materials if they are soley for use in a classroom/educational setting. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jlebrech
House Concerts. I found out about a lot of good music from House Concerts.
Host one at your place! - UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Okay, mildly off topic, and I'm not trying to start a debate, but will someone PLEASE explain the difference to me between:
1) someone buying an album and uploading it online to share it with anyone who wants to enjoy it for free
2) someone buying a book and donating it to a library to share it with anyone who wants to enjoy it for free
I'm serious here. I wouldn't think comments like meebs's were completely insane if someone could offer even the slightest bit of contrast between the above two examples. - drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Unfortunately the trouble is that 99.9999% of bands suck, where I live there is a pretty big local band scene, but unfortunately there's not one that I would actually want to listen to their songs outside of the live context.
- CentralNexus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've bought the same albums in Vinyl, Cassette, and CD. I shouldn't have to do that every few years just because the technology of the moment changes.
Society has trained people from the get-go to ignore copyrights. How many music teachers in high schools photocopy sheet music for their students instead of handing them the originals? Technically illegal? Probably. How many libraries across the country have coin-op photocopiers galore around their buildings? MOST with some warning quoting one or more copyright laws above them.
If the RIAA pushes hard enough why have music in libraries around the country? Lets make THAT illegal. Of course then book publishers will probably insist their books be pulled as well. We have to tread carefully in protecting rights or ALL publications will be so restricted that none will exist outside PRIVATE collections - and those will be on "loan".
The flipside is the offense that publishers constantly seem to inflict on their customers automatically assuming all of them are going to steal their stuff. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"you can't compete with free."
there's always gonna be a way to copy audio. even if that means routing a cable from the audio out back to the line in. at some point, the signal has to be "heard". At that point, DRM is rendered useless.
in the meantime, we already have all the tools we need. they can outlaw them, but it's not like they can install something on everyone's computer to check or "illegal" software. nor can they stop the manufacture of the tool outside the bounds of their jurisdiction.
they're fighting a losing battle. ironically, with the very money we gave them. - M0b1u5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The RIAA are a bunch of scum-sucking ***** whose intestines, I expect, will rebel, and leap out of their throats and strangle their dog-brains to death, rather than suffer another day of life.
Well - we can hope at least! - cohortq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what is the RIAA definition of fair use?
- pfunked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1UberNick:
This is a "copyright" issue. In the Library example there is one copy of the book. In the digital music example multiple copies are made (thus, obviously, invoking copyright law). - mrgreen4242, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Don't drag iTunes into this, that's a pretty great model actually. Blame the bands that signed away the rights to thier music. They don't get any money from digital sales because they have crappy contracts. I've talked to local bands who sell music through iTunes. They get over 70cents per song, all said and done. Knowing that Apple takes like 12 or 13 cents or something, that makes me suspect they've hired someone to manahge thier digital distrobution (probably also handles CDs sold online and to distributers) but doesn't OWN the music itself. They work FOR the bamd, not the other way around, which makes sense.
A successful band could make a living off iTMS sales. If they do their own accounting and sales, retaining the rights to their music. One hit could sell .5m copies, and fuel 100k sales of a ten track album. That's a million bucks at 70cents profit per track. Now, that's obviously not a typical situation... but it can happen, I'm sure. Think about that band that performed on the treadmills on the MTV awards show (Ready Set Go was it?). They were they because they put together a really cool viral music video, and it landed them a huge national stage. I'd bet they sold close to that sort of volume after that show, and while they may have been signed afterwards, they could have easy continued to self produce with the revenue off that single. - Nightfall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1When it comes to fair use, the RIAA is trying to double dip and that is the argument here. Look at the DVD industry when they come out with multiple versions of the same damn movie. One regular edition, one extended edition, one holy crap edition, one PLATINUM HOLY CRAP edition, etc. It never stops. The RIAA really can't sell the same song more than once, so they have to try to limit fair use. The fact of the matter is that if you buy an album in the stores, you should have access to download that music again if the CD goes bad. You should also be able to burn it on another CD, put it on your MP3 player, and so on.
That said, there has to be some restrictions. I am a published photographer and I have caught a few publications using my work without my consent. I have asked for payment and these publications have paid me. After they pay though, they should be able to do what they want with the material. I shouldn't be able to go back to them and try to get more later. - swoopdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this is why all the artists I listen to still put LPs out on Wax.
support underground music! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hate to say it, but there's also a HUGE burden on new unsigned talent to REMAIN "UNSIGNED". The more they keep getting sucked onto major labels, the more they feed the RIAA. They can't let themselves get signed to such an archaic model, and then whine when it fails them. If they want to be compensated, then they should let the current system wither and die, and allow the new one to form.
I applaud the few artists that are doing their best to fight the current system. Keep up the good work. - djdole, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@mrgreen4242
iTunes would be an even BETTER model if they actually sent you the physical album or single after you bought the digital copy.
(That is in regards to music,...not really movies/videos since their price online(on itunes) & off line(in stores) isn't really comparable) - halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There are a lot of places to get free, legal music downloads
http://www.jamendo.com/en/
http://www.archive.org
Are just two examples. - techgnostic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3lukas88, maybe I'm being overly cynical, but do you really think the RIAA is going to put up with our kids? I wish our sons and daughters the best of luck ...
- mewhocorrupts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think a lot of it comes down to artists still striving to get signed to a label, as if that was the apex of a musicians career. These days, it doesn't mean anything to be signed, except that the process of distribution and show scheduling is invisible to you (and honestly, I don't think it should be). From the artist's perspective, it may seem like a vacation. But once you sign that piece of paper, not only is your music sold, but your image is out of your control. As an artist, your music should be yours. As a human being, you should maintain your own image. That's my opinion, anyway.
- Bruujoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone interested in bands that get it done themselves, as well as the creative process in general, should check out Instrument.
http://www.southern.com/southern/band/FUGAZ/17980.html - UberNick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@pfunked
Appreciate the comment but still don't see how "copying" affects the moral and legal implications at all. It's just an issue of convenience. Would it make things better if people couldn't "copy" my shared music, but rather had to listen to it through an audio stream? Or they could only "move" the file from my computer to theirs, but had to move it back when they were done? Not trying to flame, just understand the difference. -
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