Fuck The RIAA

The BBQ Pit
101

George Ziemann:

“BEFORE the Napster hearings, all the labels reduced the number of releases. For the first two years (2000 and 2001), the decline was about half of the percentage of decrease in releases, which is exactly why the RIAA stopped posting new releases in 1999.”

The record companies have a profound lack of quality artists. File sharing is a scapegoat for their own stupid business practices. Indie labels on the other hand are seeing increasing sales, in spite of the fact that the RIAA does everything it can to keep them off the radio.

With the economy down, and the recording industry getting caught for price fixing, heaping insults onto their customer base, putting out a horribly sub-standard product, and not taking their lack of releases into account when judging declines, I am actually surprised the declines weren’t bigger.

102

How are they being helped by you having a song that you didn’t pay for?

Lets pretend for a moment that you didn’t have the option of downloading the song. Then you are forced to determine how important it is to have the song. If you really want it, you would probably pay for it. Thats the way it should be. We all make choices every day on how to spend our money and what is or isn’t important for us to own.

Then along comes napster, kazaa, whatever. Now, you do have access to the song for free. But morally, it changes nothing. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you should.

103

You’re comparing download MP3s to a starving person stealing a loaf of bread from Saddam Hussien?

[mob boss tony]
And what if your family needed cigarettes? Would it then be wrong to take them from the cigarette truck?
[/mob boss tony]

I want to make this very clear. I dislike RIAA with a passion. I think they are out to fuck everyone they possibly can with irrational arguments and use twisted figures to back it up.

HOWEVER, arguments like yours help their case. It is quite apparent that people such as yourself don’t believe you are committing theft. Every commercially released song you download without owning you are breaking a copyright. That is against the law.

I would still like an honest answer as to why people even have so many of these songs downloaded they supposedly don’t even like in the first place?

104

musicguy, it’s true that Kriss Kross isn’t directly helped by gex gex downloading the song, but the question of damages is tough to answer. Would K K have a single additional penny in their pocket if downloading were impossible? I don’t think that is easy to answer.

Certainly, some downloaders would have bought the album, others would not have, and some may have discovered the artist through downloading, and bought the album as a result. We all know that the companies spend untold dollars trying to get their music on the free radio, can’t kazaa be thought of similarly, as advertising?

I’m not arguing that it’s right to download, but it’s a very complex subject, and I think that any broad brush approach to describing it is likely to be inaccurate.

105

ATTENTION PEOPLE OF EARTH:

Illegal downloading of music is a violation of copyright. It is copyright infringement. IT IS NOT THEFT!

106

/John McLaughlin/
WRONG!!!

You can dance around it and try and rationalize it away all that you want, but it is still theft. You are not paying the artist the money that they are owed for services rendered.

107

Payton’s Servant, where in Title 17 of the U.S.C. does it say this exactly?

108

Payton’s Servant, you’re still wrong. You can look it up in any lawbook you want. Theft and copyright infringement are not interchangeable terms, and simply referring to copyright infringement with a more loaded term won’t win you any arguments.

109

…and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, you can show me where I’m “rationalizing” theft. Thank you!

110

I agree that there isn’t any easy answer to your question. Look at it this way though. Say I put out a product. You either like it enough to buy it or you don’t. If you don’t, I go out of business. If you aren’t willing to buy it but find an illegal way to obtain my product for free, I’m one step closer to going out of business. And forget about the RIAA for a moment or the misconception that everyone who puts out a record is a millionaire. There are artists who make a very modest living off of what they do. Take away the income and viola, no more artist.

Where else in advertising do you get the actual product for free through the advertisment?
Doesn’t it occur to anyone that if an artist doesn’t get paid for their work, then they are forced to find another line of work? If they put out a product that doesn’t sell, it really doesn’t help them at all or make them feel good when a million people download their work. They aren’t going to get paid and they, most likely, won’t be making another record. Doesn’t that hurt everyone in the long run?

111

Here, I disagree. You will go under because I’m not willing to buy, NOT because I get the product for free. My obtaining, or not obtaining the product (in the case of music) does not directly affect your revenue, my willingness to purchase the product does. Certainly, if I am not willing to buy because I can get it for free, then the effect is clear, this is not always the case.

In a way, I get the product free over the radio, I certainly get to listen to it.

You’re exactly right, and that’s the point of copyright laws. The laws give you the ability to earn a profit, not the guarantee. You still have to work within the marketplace to sell and distribute the product. The music industry has ignored the changing market and now complains that they aren’t doing so well. They are using the same model that they used 50 years ago, before there was ANY popular home recording options. Record the music, imprint it on media, package the media, distribute to stores.

The market today is crying out for more options, and the industry does nothing but fight other options and look for stronger copyright protection.

112

cheesesteak,

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I’m not by any means a defender of the industry, especially regarding the price of CD’s. But one thing needs to be pointed out…

It really isn’t that simple. Most stores won’t sell a product that “Joe Band” brings in off of the street. Also, there is no way that a band could come close to touching the marketing ability that a record company has. Self-promotion sounds like a good idea but it’s a big country (world) out there. You just can’t begin to get the same exposure that a label can give you. There is an over saturation of bands trying this route via the internet and very few are successful. There is a purpose that the labels serve in this regard. Yes, they take a big chunk of the profits for doing so but if a band is able to sell out a large arena because of their marketing efforts, the band will do very very well, in merchandising, for example. I know this is a bit off topic but I think it helps paint a more complete picture of the role that the industry plays.

113

Um, the actual product includes media (the CD itself), liner notes, and a case. Not to mention the fact that the music on the CD is, well, CD quality. Downloaders get no media, no notes, no cases, and highly compressed songs of variable quality.

Personally, I look at MP3s as my own personal radio station. I download many different songs from a plethora of artists. If I find I like an artist a lot, I’ll buy the CD. If not, I don’t.

See, If I want to find new music, I have a few choices:

  1. Turn on the radio and hear a total lack of variety and far too few new artists.
  2. Tune into an online radio station with a bitrate so low the music sounds like it’s underwater.
  3. Buy CDs at random and throw away the ones I don’t like.
  4. Download MP3s.

Sorry, but #4 is the only viable option for me. You can scream “THIEF” until the veins in your forehead pop, and, in a way, I am. Oh well. Doesn’t mean I feel bad about it. It also doesn’t mean I’m going to be holding up a liquor store (or even stealing a pack of gum) anytime soon.

Also worthy of note are the incredible gems people dig up that never would have seen the light of day without the Internet. There are ancient performances of artists playing on TV shows that people salvaged from 20-year old VHS tapes. There are also tons of live concert performances. Now, I know that most artists are satisfied to release one live album every ten years or so, but that’s clearly not what the fans want. If I see a band in concert, I want to be able to purchase a recording of that show. Why don’t bands do this? Who knows? The market seems to be there. I frequently see alternative record stores selling bootlegs of major label artists performing locally. Somebody in a suit probably decided that they wouldn’t make quite as much profit as they would like to, so millions of fans lose out. I’m sorry, but fuck that. Fuck that with a big, pointy stick.

And what about music videos? The vast majority of artists release several, then just forget about them. Some artists release compilations of their videos on DVD, but they tend to be the exceptions. Sorry fellas, but if you can’t make perfectly good material available to me, I’m going to have to find some other way to get it. If I had a choice, I really would pay for your DVD of cleaned-up videos with stellar sound quality. You don’t make it, though. Pity.

114

Ya know, I actually don’t have as much of a problem with the obscure stuff that isn’t available for purchase. Granted, if I was performing and had a crap night, I’m not so sure I would like the idea of a bunch of people hearing it. But in the case of an old album that is out of print, I would rather the music have some sort of longevity so that people could continue to enjoy it.

I guess my major point in all of this is that it saddens me when an artist doesn’t get compensated at all for their work. If people wouldn’t mind paying something, say a buck a download, with a portion going to the artist and even a portion going to the people that financed the artist, then I really wouldn’t have an issue.

There are solutions out there and it is a shame that they aren’t being fully explored. I wholeheartedly agree that the industry has been dreadfully slow in keeping up with the changes in technology. But if the artists don’t get paid, the pool of interesting, non-mainstream performers dwindles and everybody loses from that.

115

Indie labels are seeing increases in sales, which pretty much ends this argument.

The major labels are seeing decreasing sales. Of course, they are also releasing less, and what they do release is generally low quality, but they won’t mention that because how could that affect sales?

In fact, if you want artists not to get paid, you should support the major labels, and let them keep their strangle hold on the industry that allows them to coerce artists into unfair contracts, and even go so far as to “lobby” for some pretty nasty anti-artist laws.

The interests of the major labels do not coincide with the interests of the artists.