Are you paying attention, RIAA?
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA is going blind trying to terrorize American students into becoming good little consumers, offering spurious ’settlement’ deals designed to get them to incriminate themselves for a non-existent crime.
It’s win-win all the way for the Big 4, and lose-lose for the students.
Sadly, all too many school staffs are helping the (Recording Industry Association of America), forwarding threatening letters to the students they’re supposed to be advising and protecting.
“You or a friend may have received a nasty letter asking to settle with the RIAA for an amount of money based on how much music you have been accused of sharing,” writes Rick Martinez in Florida International University’s The Beacon.
“Sixteen FIU students received such letters in April. Today, these students are facing expensive lawsuits and risk having criminal charges on their record,” he points out, going on:
Maybe you’re an artist. It’s only fair for artists to receive compensation for the music stolen from them. So everyone should pay the RIAA so it can compensate the artists, right? Not really. Few artists so far have seen a cent from the RIAA’s pre-litigation settlements.
Music sharing, however, has brought artists money. Music sharing lets fans to try out new music without having to risk spending $15 on a new CD they can’t return if they don’t like it. It increases artist awareness and allows new bands to become popular faster than ever before. It has allowed musicians of all genres to reach their target audience and has boosted concert attendance.
But that about buying music online?
Digital Rights Management makes buying tunes online a bad deal. It restricts how many copies of the song users can burn onto a CD or transfer to MP3 players. DRM also forces you to choose one sole provider of music and one compatible MP3 player. For example, if you buy protected music on iTunes, you can only play it on iTunes and your iPod.
Even Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc., opposes DRM. He says they only use it because the labels force them to.
The RIAA needs to understand that it’s by pleasing customers that you make them want to give you their money. The RIAA needs to find a compromise where recording companies and artists are properly compensated and listeners are happy with the cost of buying music.
For listeners, this should mean that if you buy a song, it’s yours – you own it and you can do whatever you want with it. It should also mean compatibility across music vendors and music players. If you want to buy a song on iTunes and put it on your Zune, you should be able to.
But so far, the RIAA has not made a real investment in researching how to get music to customers in a way that pleases everyone.
Instead, its efforts have made it lose the respect of many of the artists the RIAA is supposed to represent and the confidence of many of its customers.
The RIAA should realize, a little bit of effort and investment could go a long way. It could make their business more profitable and their customers happier than ever before.
The pic in the upper right is by Khadija Harris and it goes along with Martinez’ story.
Between them, they say it all.
Also See:
forwarding threatening letters – RIAA student victimisation campaign, July 21, 2007
The Beacon – THE RIAA VS. YOU: Note to music execs: sharing is nice, August 30, 2007
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August 31st, 2007 at 8:04 am
” But so far, the RIAA has not made a real investment in researching how to get music to customers in a way that pleases everyone. ”
It’s actually very easy to do this, and make a LOT of money.
A PROVEN system already exists.
It’s inexpensive, easy to use, gives the customer a LOT of choice and
control over quality and format .. Aaaaannd it has a system in place to pay license
fees to the collectives.
It’s the system AllOfMp3 uses.
It works .. people pay.
People pay because the price is right and it’s easy for them.
People pay willingly aaaand no DRM.
So why .. since AllOfMp3 pays all of the legal licensing fees to the Russian equivalent of
SoundExchange are the labels so heel bent on shutting it down ?
If the Labels set up their own version .. AllOfMp3 will be a solidly established competition.
That’s why.
In addition, if the labels use a system that too closely resembles the AllOfMp3 system, they
may have to pay a fee to use the same system.
There is a model system in place.
They just won’t acknowledge it.
Further proof that it is control they are really after.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Quote: Few artists so far have seen a cent from the RIAA’s pre-litigation settlements.
——————————–
Actually no artist will recieve any money from settlements. If you will do a search of back history here at p2pnet, you will find earlier articles of when sue’em all started. In them it will plainly state that no money goes to the artist from these lawsuits.
This is strickly a money making venture by and for the corporation. The initial money was to be rolled over into a warchest to continue the lawsuits. All is being done in the name of the artist but no money will go to them. So the artist gets the doubious values of credit for the actions of the RIAA. Funny how it is that the labels don’t want direct credit for the marching orders they give their legal beagle go getters, isn’t it?
August 31st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Do not settle! Nobody settle! They are liers they can not do much against you! just go to court and deny any wrong doing. Tha’t all. No presumed “dowloader” never lost a case against the RIAA Why? because they have no proff of anything. AN IP adddress is nor you. and in a matter of fact it is not even a computer because of the dynamic address assigement system. They just hit blindly the babies, the computer illiterates, the grand-pa, the grand-ma, the deads! And of couse maitain a strict boycott. NO CD no dowload and if you can no movie, no theater ticket. Nothing. It will take a couple more year for these parasites to starve to death.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:24 pm
” So the artist gets the doubious values of credit for the actions of the RIAA. ”
Take that a step further.
The RIAA take all the bad press and the heat, but never forget …..
They are merely the front for the Major Record Labels.
Sony, Warner etc …
The LABELS are pulling the strings, and paying noone but themselves and
the RIAA ( nothing but a Lawyers club ).
Don’t share, don’t buy.
If you MUST have it, buy used.