‘Quality’ fake music product
p2pnet.net News:- Organized counterfeiters are becoming increasingly sophisticated, says the Big Four record labels’ RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) in another ‘study’.
Possibly for the first time, it doesn’t try to link file sharing with the activities of criminal duplicators who copy readily available physical product for sale on blackmarkets and undergrounds.
However, the RIAA continues to misuse ‘piracy’ and ‘pirates’ when it describes illegal copying activities.
Crooks are, “increasingly manufacturing and selling high-quality product that closely resembles legitimate CDs while large criminal enterprises are becoming increasingly involved in the piracy racket, illegally burning massive numbers of blank CDs with music from today’s most popular artists,” says the RIAA, going on:
“While the manufacture of authentic-looking CDs has exploded due to the proliferation of smaller-sized copying plants, CD-R (blank CD) burning operations experienced a consolidation in 2004. CD-R reproduction in the eastern half of the United States is now dominated by organized criminal syndicates intent on monopolizing the illicit market share by operating on high volume and very low profit margins. As a result, the price of pirated CD-Rs on both the wholesale and retail level has dramatically declined.”
Latin music continues to be among the most heavily counterfeited genres and remains the focus of a major portion of RIAA efforts, it says.
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July 13th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
This is simply because there is such a huge artificial gap between the cost of manufacturing and the retail “value” of the product. If the big media companys were not so greedy this would not be nearly the problem it is. Sure, the media companys have costs other than just physical product production and distribution (both are real costs for counterfeiters too), but the “margin” they charge over and above ALL costs associated with getting a piece of media from the artist’s head to consumer hands is so grossly inflated that they might as well paint targets on their foreheads that say “steal from us”. Try walking thru a bad neighborhood at night with $100 bills hanging out of your pockets. Duh…
July 13th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
One Criminal Syndicate competing with another criminal syndicate. both have the ear of government, both have nearly unlimited capitol. This is real interesting.
Rick
July 13th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
You hit the nail on the head with that one. Great post.
July 14th, 2005 at 12:28 am
The music industry for the mega-corporations has all but ceased to produce new and interesting stuff. They have fell back to remastering old works in ever increasing amounts. Those old works are also still out there in unprotected (read without DRM) containers and it is easy to get copies of them. Very easy. Since the mega music corps haven’t been inflaming the buyer as they did in the past, there isn’t the excitement that once was over some group coming out with a new album.
What the industry has instead attempted is to lock up the product, make it harder for the legal customer to use, and raised the prices to unheard of levels in attempts to retain the same income from less. None of those practices endear the customer to loyality to the music industry. The industry has responded by calling the customer a thief and ignoring customer satisfaction in the persuit of the bottom line. They have no one to blame but themselves. I for one have no pity for them. Nor do many others.
This article is about nothing but turf protection and criminals fighting over the dollar. Easiest way to end it is to eliminate the copyright extensions to corporations and allow them only for the author of the work and only for a limited time, which I don’t call the present time limit really a limit.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:49 am
It makes me wonder. Do the shareholders of the RIAA and it’s member organisations have any idea how much money the RIAA is just throwing away on all this crap?
Or is it all just a big tax dodge? Maybe the IRS should start taking a look at the RIAA’s books…
July 14th, 2005 at 3:34 am
The RIAA’s offical status is a non-profit status. How they get away with that, I don’t know with all the lawsuits that are going on. Seems to me that certainly qualifies as a profit.
The stockholders aren’t into the RIAA. It is an independent organization representing the stockholders interests by trying to force laws and to enforce copyright infringement. It’s authority granted it by the major mega-corporations that it represents.
The mega-corps are only showing the stockholder what it wants them to see. Everytime you hear stockholder reports it is all roses and smell good. When you hear of p2p it is usually the RIAA and it screaming bloody murder it’s being thieved to death.
I much agree that the non-profit status should be re-examined by the IRS. Every since the RIAA has went on this sue’em all campaign there should be tons of money flowing in and more to come. Can’t see how that is non-profit unless the creative accounting can slip in a few mega-dollar deductions.
July 15th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
SAID TO BE LETTER
Ivaylo