MAFIAA corruption: deep, deep
p2pnet news view MPAA | RIAA News:- 
There’s an interesting article by Mike Masnick in Techdirt about just how deep the corruption of the MAFIAA delves.
Another victim of the nuclear meltdown of the global economy seems to be royalties. Yes, you heard right, revenues from content royalty collection agencies such as PRS in the UK, SoundExchange and ASCAP in the USA, AMCOS and PPCA in Australia —- the list goes on.
It seems since the economy is doing horrible interest rates are lower than ever, and this is ‘hurting’ the collection agencies’ profit margin.
First off, all collection agencies MUST be not-for-profit to ensure public acceptance of this greedy type of operation. The royalty collection agencies (’asshats’) extort collect royalties on performances, and uses of copyrighted materials, they then place these payments in bank escrow to extract profit from the interest off the money they collect.
With interest rates at rock bottom currently, the profit margin gained from the interest is diminishing.
This is more than likely why ASCAP is suing AT&T for ringtone royalties, and PRS is increasing their royalty rates in the UK — except for SoundExchange, which doesn’t pay the artists at all and make its profit off the payments, and not the interest accrued.
Typically the asshats’ charter allows them to hold royalty payments in what’s called ‘reserve’, thanks to the sodomizing contracts artists and musicians must sign with the MAFIAA. The contract is sometimes upwards of 50% of all revenue (placed in reserve) to offset unsold CDs, returned content, and other write-offs.
The contract can also include a clause so artists don’t see royalty payments for 18 months, giving the MAFIAA and their cohort asshat collection agencies plenty of time for ‘creative accounting’.
SoundExchange is a perfect example, touting over 130 million in their coffers of collected royalties they are somehow unable to find the artists to pay. An incredible amount for a not-for-profit asshat, wouldn’t you think?
So the MAFIAA screws the artist during signing a ‘360′ deal, which can be expanded to cover new technologies and their cut on a whim.
Eminem learned this the hard way being unable to receive royalty payments on digital sales. Then the artists get screwed on the back end concerning royalty payments for using their content. Diabolically ingenious on the part of the MAFIAA. They may not understand the internet and how to parlay it into legitimate profits, but they definitely understand creative accounting and how to screw the artist with experienced ease.
What motivated this article is the comparison between the loss in revenue from lower interest rates and file sharing. Whereas the profit margin concerning interest rates can be calculated, the loss of revenue due to file sharing can’t be. I don’t see the RIAA going to Congress and demanding the interest rates be increased, but they do run crying to Congress when it comes to ethereal monetary loss from the invented numbers of lost profit due to file sharing.
It seems due to lower interest rates, the asshats are going after legitimate businesses to demand higher royalty payments, and in the case of file sharing, where they can’t extract their gallon of blood, they go after the distribution models such as bittorrent in order to end its existence.
So, if the asshats are counting every single penny, looking for ways to increase their bottom line, it seems to me the issue of lower interest rates is more important to them than file sharing is.
I certainly wish the artists of the world would call their slave masters to the carpet and start fighting the good fight, and stop putting up with the ass raping from their labels. With CD sales in the basement, and the RIAA suing customers into oblivion, it might be prudent for the musicians to come to terms with their fans and cut out the middle-man entirely.
The MAFIAA is dying — literally — so don’t be pulled into Hell when the beast finally hits the deck.
File sharing is never going away. It’s as common as listening to the radio, and only gains in popularity for every single ‘victory’ the RIAA posts a press release for.
The MAFIAA is doing more to promote file sharing than anyone of us ‘pirates’ could hope to achieve. For every single victory they claim, several thousand more fans realize the RIAA and the Big 4 for what they are, and turn to file sharing..
File sharing music on the internet is doing insignificant harm to the artists’ bottom line compared to what the MAFIAA is extorting out of you.
With that mind, we continue to share more and more music/movies/tv/videos/software/books.
Because we can.
surfer – p2pnet
[Share The Wealth]™
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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July 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
bullseye
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
VERY well written Surfer!
I’m adding it to my MySpace account blog (properly siting you of course), hopefully the likes of Joe Satriani, Matthew Good, Nancy Wilson, Eric Johnson, Jack Johnson, etc… will see it and maybe think twice.
And if I can, email it out to artists. I wonder if that’s a smart move… maybe I better use that temp account I created for p2pnet’s article on the video I wrote, and access it from the library.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I listen to a talk news radio broadcast at work, and these goons are also trying to extort money for the “privilege” to continue reporting the local news.
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:21 pm
all my articles are released under Creative Commons, quote away Robert. You can help get the word out.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
“[Share The Wealth]™”
So I cant use it anymore???
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 am
its a parody, tm and then let everyone use it., u know like ‘i’ll show them fuckers!’