‘Sharing music is a cultural thing’
p2pnet.net News Views:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big Four Organized Music gang, are under investigation for price fixing and bribery.
There’s no doubt they’re guilty and yet they’re getting way with using their so-called trade associations, such as the RIAA, to sue their own customers, including kids, for the heinous crime of sharing music with each other.
Or, we should say, they used to be getting away with it because increasingly, people are standing up to the labels, as did Paul Wilke.
And they’re winning.
Wilke decided he wasn’t going to allow the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to cow him as it had done so many Americans. So he took them on, ultimately forcing them to drop their case against him.
“Everything in the motion for summary judgment was presented to them before we filed it, and I was very clear to the RIAA attorneys that this case was an exception,” said Daliah Saper, who led the legal team which worked for Wilke.
In other words, the RIAA lawyers, Holme Roberts & Owen, had apparently failed to adequately research the case before laying their charges.
But, says a Reader’s Write:
This case is not the exception, it’s the rule.
The problem for most is not enough cash to fight back, so they settle, even though they’re not guilty of anything.
I believe you can walk into ANY home into America, and find mp3’s on the computer that are perfectly legal, and yet the computer owner would find it difficult to prove. So expensive to prove, in fact, that they’d have to settle.
In response, “Certainly you can find them on any computer running windows XP,” says another p2pnet reader:
I mean they come with the program in the form of wma’s to demonstrate the media player. Windows also comes with a ’shared folder’ whether you’re sharing or not.
I believe that sharing music is a cultural thing and that it’s been going on since the dawn of time. Certainly for far longer than the cartels have been in existence.
Putting the cartels into the grave will no more end music than it did before they came on the scene to take up the role of business vampire.
It’s a fallacy that has been pushed to further their own agenda.
So is the push of how large a percentage of music they “own”. Without them, national anthems would belong to the country that claims them as their anthem. The only difference here is that the cartels have a legal method to steal while denying the public the same.
The cartels have hit the digital era with a well designed effort to sew up fair use rights when the political atmosphere was conducive to their plot. Where it was too much of a problem to end it through political law changing, they’ve used technological methods as an end run around the issue.
The right of copyright also means the demise of the privilege as it cedes into public domain.
Public domain is a no-money maker for the cartels. While they haven’t ended it yet legally they’ve certainly extended the timeline to milk it and have put the eternal guard dog on the product so that it never ever reaches public domain in its original fashion and has been arranged to be illegal to change its form when it does reach public domain.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Also See:
standing up to the labels – RIAA blows Wilke case, October 14, 2006
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October 16th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
What a coincidence. As this story appeared on p2pnert, I was receiving the following announcement from the Restaurant Industry Association of America (RIAA) of which I am an associate:
Confidential Memo
To: All Associates
From: Chairman
Restaurant Industry Association of America (RIAA)
At our recent Board meeting, we have decided that we are the victims of food sharing. Sharing happens each time someone orders a meal at one of our restaurants and shares the meal with someone else. Typically, a parent orders two meals for four pertsons, two parents and two kids. A situation such as this ones deprives us of the sale of two meals.
We have estimated that we loose billions of dollars as a result of food sharing.
Our lawyers has contacted the RIAA’s lawyers for advise in controlling sharing. Unfortunately what RIAA’s lawyer did was threaten us for copyright and trademark infringement, alleging that we cannot call ourselves RIAA too.
Nevertheless we can learn a great deal from what has been published about the other RIAA’s anti-sharing, sue-them-all campaign.
We have therefore made a list of recommendations for our associates.
1. Contact your congressman. Invite them to free meals at your restaurant and then tell them that you support legislation to make the sharing of meals at restaurants a crime. We are sory to burden you on this, but as you know, our lobbysit has not been replaced yet after his arrest and conviction.
2. Hang up a sign that those entering the restaurant see. The sign shall say:
Food sharing in this restaurant and in the privacy of your home is a crime. The FBI investigates allegations of food sharing.
Privately, we know this is not true, but the other RIAA has gotten away with it for several years. We shall too.
3. To close a loophole, when stating prices, add “per person” to the prices.
4. Dont’t forget. We are doing this to protect the cook’s jobs. Always mention the cook when talking about the food sharing problem.
In our next Board meeting we will discuss the possibility having our own program to sue the customers that share food. Our lawyers are working on this. I will keep you informed.
rv
October 18th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
F00KERS