p2pnet - rss feed: ‘Trim and stylish’ RIAA henchman Joel Flatow
p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- A new name has turned up on the roster of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA.
It’s Joel Flatow.
On second thoughts, though, he’s not so new.
“Eight years ago, the Long Island native came to L.A. to start the Recording Industry Assn. of America’s West Coast office, a move that made him a musical diplomat in a town dominated by film and television,” says the Los Angeles Times, describing him as “Trim and stylishly turned out”.
And six years ago, at Yale, “pirates raided the Jonathan Edwards Master’s house to disrupt a Master’s Tea with Joel Flatow, JE ‘86,” said the Yale Herald at the time.
“Shortly before the tea began, the ‘Men of JE,’ disguised as ‘music pirates,’marched into the room, brandishing plastic swords and shouting ‘Argh’!”, says the post, going on >>>
They also distributed burned music CDs with a mix of hits by popular artists including Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott, Outkast, and the Beatles, as well as many illegal remixes by oft-sued prankster Freelance Hellraiser.
Before Flatow entered, however, most of the crew had left, leaving only a couple pirates to deal with their nemesis, and when Flatow arrived the Men were surprisingly silent.
During the Tea itself, Flatow defended the RIAA’s lawsuits against Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network, and other suits against music pirates around the world. Participants also saw a preview of a 30-second commercial that’s due to air on MTV within the next two months. The clip shows pop stars, including Missy Elliot and Britney Spears, beseeching viewers to refrain from illegally downloading music.
Flatow only briefly kidded the JE pirates at the beginning of his talk and emphasized that Yalies need to view music both as art and business.
Fast forward to 2008 and these days Flatow’s life, “is all about connections,” says the LA Times.
Connect, connect, connect.
“Over the past decade, he’s used his political links and savvy to help the recording industry wage its fight against piracy,” it states, continuing he’s using “the musical ones” to, “help politicians and nonprofit organizations raise the funds for their causes”.
Not only but also, “Working with Rock the Vote, he helped line up the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the Democratic National Convention in 2004,” says the story, going on, “Recently, he organized a meeting between Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Melissa Etheridge at the singer’s San Fernando Valley home, where they met to discuss ways to shut down music counterfeiters.
“We should all become involved in politics,” the story has her saying. “It’s a government of ‘us’. ”
Actually, it’s a government of Them. And not at all incidentally, the ‘government’ is the only organisation which isn’t governed by anyone.
Anyhow, Etheridge, “credits Flatow for being an important connector between musicians and their politics, regardless of the party,” says the LA times.
“Times are changing, especially in the recording industry,” she says in the story. “Joel does a very good job of representing artists and keeping their interest alive in this corporate environment.”
And Oh Yeh. Did we mention the trim and stylishly turned out Flatow is also big mates with Hollywood Howard Berman?
No?
Well, together, they’re, “working on legislation that would require local broadcast stations to pay royalties to performers,” says the item.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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July 11th, 2008 at 11:19 am
And the artists say we’re hurting them?
July 11th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
RIAA == Racketeers Industry Assoc. of America. They are not producing anything useful anymore. Nobody needs mass-copy service in year 2008 at awful prices but they’re trying to use racket, repressions and bribing (argh, they call this “fund raising”) to enforce anti-competetive behavior when shitty items sold at awful price and all alternatives are jammed. Actually, it is such people should be called “pirates” and “bandits”. And I’m pretty sure that these RACKETEERS and BRIBERS should be JAILED. However they have enough moneys to escape from justice. It’s actually shame since laws should work equal for everyone.
July 11th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
The legal system panders to the wealthy and is oppressive to the poor. Even laws are interpreted that way. Perhaps we should view music as art AND business, but it is not OUR business. Once music is made public they should forget about it and stop interfering in OUR business, not trying to continue to enforce copyright issues. Recording has always been an option, and there was no problem. Now with the digital age they feel they can control it, but wrong. Also they hate the fact that digital allows for a pretty good copy or at least one that people find acceptable, plus it is recopyable and non degrading. Worse still is that people can get it “free”, a dirty word. It’s not so much a matter of lost profits, as the propaganda goes, but the insult, but which is more than compensated for by their new business model -litigation. But don’t worry too much folks, it’s all coming to an end soon, along with the rest of this corrupt system, and they won’t bribe their way out of it. In fact money will be useless and so devalued people will throw it into the streets. Something to look forward to for those striving to do what’s right.
July 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
“A new name has turned up on the roster of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA.”
Just one more headstone to carve.
July 12th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Joel Flatow another music parasite. Target aquired.