Duped by the RIAA !
p2pnet.net News View:- We’re being duped. The RIAA keeps saying it’s saving the MUSIC when really all its label members are interested in is saving THEMSELVES!
It’s out of control. Irrelevant of the Grokster decision. These billion dollar companies with their high-priced lobbyists have infected the media and the minds of the public to the detriment of ART! What’s worse, they’ve convinced the musicians signed to their labels of the validity of their position, which is equivalent to slaves standing up for plantation owners.
I don’t know about you, but I believe in MUSIC, not LABELS!
Look at what’s happening in the radio sphere. Terrestrial’s tanking. Both in value and listenership. But, when the station owners lobby for further curtailing of satellite radio, when they carp and complain, we LAUGH! Because we’ve lived through Clear Channelization. We’ve actually LISTENED to the radio. So, why is it that the LABELS get a pass? Do we have to wait, under the mirage of getting musicians paid, until they eviscerate all new models of music distribution? Because that’s what they’re trying to do. The labels carp all day long about P2P, about burning. Instead of looking at the MOTIVATION, they’re just looking at the COST! Most products in the marketplace people don’t want AT ANY PRICE! You can’t GIVE THEM AWAY! But, people love music so much, they’re willing to infect their computers with spyware, they’re willing to spend hours, just to GET IT! Do you really think the only reason they want it is because it’s free? And if an appropriate price was charged demand would dry up? NO, if a fair toll was exacted, people would pay for online music, and the market would burgeon. But, concomitant with this musicians would only need major labels if they wanted to be the new Britney, since they could get paid in the new system, they wouldn’t need the major label as distributor/enforcer/collector!!
So, even though the majors would make a ton more if they AUTHORIZED new distribution models, they’re stifling them. For fear of losing market share. And Don Henley and the other apologists take their position, even though these artists are being raped by the labels themselves, which don’t pay the proper royalties on time and want to pay the same percentage for online distribution as for physical, even though there are no manufacturing and essentially no distribution costs.
This is about money, not art. This is about corporations bullying Americans using tools the public can’t afford to keep the truth from becoming well known. HISTORY is contrary to the labels’ position, but in this topsy-turvy world we live in ensuring that the past reigns is somehow seen as GOOD! I mean the labels would have threatened Gutenberg into submission and labeled Eli Whitney a traitor to cotton-pickers. I mean this befits a nation that no longer believes in science, that doesn’t believe global warming has been proven. Let’s stop all progress RIGHT NOW to benefit a handful.
New models would pay huge dividends to old copyright holders. But, their future dominance would not be ensured. They’d have to think, strategize, EXECUTE rather than sit back and rake it in. The major labels are Smith Corona, they don’t want the personal computer to gain a toehold, for fear their typewriter business will be EVISCERATED!
Music is something created by PEOPLE, not corporations. MUSIC will survive whatever happens in the Supreme Court, whatever bullshit story the major labels foist upon us. But, will the populace be exposed to this music? Will they get a chance to be enriched by melodies not authorized by men in three thousand dollar suits who are more worried about whether the "singer" is cute enough to be on TV than whether the track sends the listener on a mental journey? THAT’S the question. We’re not fighting over who’s getting paid, we’re fighting over the distribution of one of life’s major forces to the broadest segment of the public possible.
Please take off your blinders. The goal of the major labels is not to enrich your life, is not to get the most music in the hands of the most people. Rather, the labels are just interested in making money, and controlling a future wherein this continues to happen.
Music has a right to exist forevermore. Sony BMG, Warner, EMI and Universal do not.
Bob Lefsetz – The Lefsetz Letter
==========
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
June 21st, 2005 at 8:55 pm
You’re preaching to the choir.
To paraphrase Basil Fawlty: “”You should go on Mastermind. Next contestant, Bob Lefsetz. Special subject: ‘The bleeding obvious’.”
June 21st, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Lots of new people come to p2pnet every day. This month I’m averaging 11,604 unique visits per. And you can bet your booties a lot of them have no idea about all the bullshit strokes the entertainment cartels pull – and get broadcast on- and offline over and over and over, thanks to the mainstream media.
So Carry On Preaching, Bob. And thanks. Same goes for everyone else who carries the message.
Next contestant, You. Special subject? ‘Spreading the word effectively.’
Cheers!
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:21 am
The RIAA just loves you roll over types. Cynical, lazy and basically no help. Better get to the mall, bub, I hear there’s been a hot new shipment of DRM’d RIAA shit made just for you at your local record store.
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:23 am
you obviously don’t understand what “preaching to the choir” means. LOL
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Bob Lefsetz states….
“I mean this befits a nation that no longer believes in science, that doesn’t believe global warming has been proven. Let’s stop all progress RIGHT NOW to benefit a handful.”
Well, I have no idea what all that means. Just senseless rambling. The earth is warming and that is virtually impossible to deny. However, man’s role is less certain and what to do about it is even less certain.
Could it be that reasonable people think that a modest warming of the earth is no big deal and that science has told us that drastic emmission cuts would do very little to help temperatures while doing a lot to hurt the economy ?
Perhaps you disagree but that doesn’t mean that we are a “nation that no longer believes in science”. Perhaps Bob just has his own view of science and jumps to conclusions and refuses to consider that there are some very smart people with very different opinions than his.
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:05 am
Previous poster wrote:
————————
Bob Lefsetz states….
“I mean this befits a nation that no longer believes in science, that doesn’t believe global warming has been proven. Let’s stop all progress RIGHT NOW to benefit a handful.”
Well, I have no idea what all that means. Just senseless rambling. The earth is warming and that is virtually impossible to deny. However, man’s role is less certain and what to do about it is even less certain.
Could it be that reasonable people think that a modest warming of the earth is no big deal and that science has told us that drastic emmission cuts would do very little to help temperatures while doing a lot to hurt the economy ?
Perhaps you disagree but that doesn’t mean that we are a “nation that no longer believes in science”. Perhaps Bob just has his own view of science and jumps to conclusions and refuses to consider that there are some very smart people with very different opinions than his.
——————————————————————–
nice pile of rhetorical bs designed to confuse. ‘reasonable people
can disagree’ because it’s in my best interest that they keep arguing and
wait another 5 years so I can continue to make money off of oil.
A nation that no longer believes is science means: one where the
insane religious beliefs of some cause them such psychological
discomfort that they band together to lobby for the scientific facts
of evolution and the extremely-well studied and refined theory
explaining how it works) to be ‘taught’ as ‘controversial.
A modest warming of the earth will … let’s see … melt the glaciers,
raising the level of the oceans.
Own any waterfront property?
Any idea what % of the world’s population lives within say 30 ft
of sea level?
Hurt the economy? Puh-lease
What the hell do you think people innovating and creating cleaner
technologies and sources of energy would do?
Hmmn, maybe create jobs – IN THE USA for a change.
In case you hadn’t noticed, our entire standard of living is based
upon prior innovation – consumer products in the 50s, computers,
the internet, pharm, etc.
Do you think that insurance industries, money traders and lawyers actually produce anything?
The fundamental building block of economics is human work -
producing something, not leeching off of others’ production.
Wall street just moves around the wealth that is created by people’s
work.
-JOS