Cancer Man

In this age of countless radio channels, TV channels, Internet, music CDs, vinyl, cassette, and I pods, why is the conduct of the music industry, especially in the US, so needlessly anti-social, paranoid, greedy, and irrational?

Why is the RIAA being actively hostile towards the American consumers over petty things that are mainly a non issue in other developed countries? Why is there a supposed loss of profit or theft of property through file sharing, CD sharing, or even playing music in public?

Why is music copyright such a insurmountable roadblock for most TV shows going out on Region 1 DVD? The studios pay the record labels for the music content on TV shows, that sounds comparatively reasonable. But supposedly paying the record labels again for DVD releases and even reruns?! That sounds f**king ridiculous, with both the studios and record companies shooting themselves in the foot over copyright issues that shouldn't be there.

I'm puzzled why music copyright in America is such a unwieldy dinosaur that appears to be easily three decades out of date, trampling over the consumers, and actively demolishing the rest of the entertainment industry.

Draven

Because record companies are unable to look beyond "if it plays, you pays" model.

Hopefully, this attitude will be their downfall.

cinten

If the RIAA had their way you would have to purchase separate versions to play in a cd player and on your ipod.

al_bundy

i think by law they have to defend their copyrights or at some date in the future someone can say that they let file sharing go on so the copyrights are now invalid

the reason for paying for reruns is the contract states specifically how the music can be played so if they asked for unlimited playings they would have to pay up since that would mean the networks would get more advertising revenue. and you want to make things as specific as possible or someone can say they now have unlimited rights to the property

the movie industry seems to get it right. the only way to fight file sharing is to increase the quality and the file size to get most people discouraged about spending a week to download a movie. The music industry is way behind the power curve by selling what is essentially 20 year old tech, the CD.

Sean O'Hara

Warners just announced yesterday that they'll be selling DRM-free MP3s through Amazon, leaving Sony as the only company holding back. To me that suggests that the RIAA companies are getting sensible, not more ridiculous.

Sean O'Hara

You're thinking of trademarks. Copyrights are absolute.

al_bundy

in the case of Sony it's their media people that hold them back. last few years there were several good articles in the WSJ about how the hardware people had some good products ready to sell and the media people killed them by scaring the CEO and the upper management about lost profits

rennervision

I could've guessed Sony was the only one. And gotta love those root kits some of their CDs install on your PC. Their paranoia is so extreme, I wonder how they ever manage to muster up enough courage to actually sell a product.

dgmayor

There's a great article in this month's Wired from David Byrne (i.e. The Talking Heads) about the music industry, the different models and how it's changing due to the internet, mp3's, etc.


Actually, here it is:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/m...16-01/ff_byrne

It's talks about how music changed from a social event to a product due to technology (Vinyl, cassettes, cd's) and how the internet is changing things again for the better.

Rogue588

The use of the word "getting" would infer that it was, at one time, not ridiculous...which we know not to be true.

Haven't read the article yet, but i'd disagree with the internet changing things for "the better".

hdtv00

Yeah add up how much it would legitimately cost to fill up your IPOD....I read an article on that the other day.....$40,000. Um, nope nothing out of fucking balance there huh....

Coral

Yeah, I'm not convinced the internet will be a totally positive thing for consumers.

I can see these new models working well for artists and I'm glad they'll have better chances to to profit off their sweat.
As a consumer I won't be happy if digital distribution becomes the main way to purchase music as I want and will always want my music in a physical form with artwork, etc... something I can touch and put on a shelf.

I like the idea that artists have a quicker and cheaper way to get their music out there, allowing them to reach more people than ever before. This will result in my discovering good artists that I wouldn't have heard if the record label were in total control. However, with these easier methods of getting artists out there, there will be MUCH more crap I have to sift through to find those gems. The quality:noise ratio is horrible right now in the industry, and with the floodgates opened to every slob who own's a guitar (or should I say sampling machine) it'll get worse. This may turn me off from searching for those hidden gems - as it'll probably be too much work to find them.

Cancer Man

That is perfectly understandable, which is why I don't download music from illegal sites, I'm caught in the past somewhat like Coral is, but I still think the march of technology and a vaster media is rendering copyright practically redundant (in some ways it was silly to begin with - if intellectual property is commercially sold on a universal scale it is essentially out in the public domain, even though copyright law is a form of consolidation for the people manufacturing or/and distributing said intellectual property. Copyright on intellectual property should realistically expire in less than thirty years).

But music copyright is also infringing on the rights of consumers not interested in music products - how is holding back on the destribution of Dark Skies, Ally McBeal, and Cold Case on DVD protecting intellectual property? How is changing or editing music content on the DVDs of Quantum Leap, NCIS, and Married With Children protecting intellectual property? Especially when the said intellectual property was purchased by the TV studios for their use in the first place?!

It even gets as stupid as DVD publishers forced to remove commentary from some DVDs because people in them were singing songs!!!

That sort of BS is not pragmatic at all, the record labels are being needlessly vindictive, paranoid, and greedy morons screwing over the consumers, provoking said consumers to illegally aquire TV shows denied to them on the legitimate market. Not scanning music CDs or MP3s onto home computers for private non-pirate use must be provoking a likewise response with other consumers as well.

nothingfails

I am waiting for the RIAA to charge royalties for having a song stuck in your head

Mikael79

In my opinion, it's a matter of old executives afraid of a new technology taking money out of their pockets, and fighting like hell to try to stop it in any manner possible.

In their minds, it's easier to try to kill new ideas rather than embracing technology, adapting and working with consumers.

Cancer Man

It seems like the music executives are molding and carving out their own shanks to slit their own throats with if they're fruitlessly protecting intellectual property out in the public domain by stepping on the consumer's toes at every opportunity, while pointlessly keeping countless TV shows out in limbo because of blatant greed and copyright protection for the sake of it (I also heard copyright protection abuse is also extending towards the restriction of the use of books in education and showing movies at school).

hdtv00

RIAA suing citizen for copying legally purchased CDs to PC

"Ira Schwartz, the industry's lawyer in the case, is arguing that MP3 files created on his [Jeffrey Howell's] computer from legally purchased CDs are indeed "unauthorized copies,"


http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/29/r...sed-cds-to-pc/

Nope nothing to see here.....lol. They just totally do not get it.

Boba Fett

They didn't sue him though for merely ripping the CDs to his hard drive; they're suing him because he shared all 2000 of them.

I'm amazed at how many news sites are failing to mention that fact.

al_bundy

how much would it cost if you bought physical CD's? about the same

That'sAllFolks

The funniest thing I've read all day.

hdtv00

Yeab Boba is right, how the hell do they leave THAT out of the stories lol.

Anyway, nothingfails that is classic, I'm gonna have to steal that lol.

rennervision

Yeah, CNN is reporting the lawsuit is over ripping CDs as well. I kept scratching my head trying to figure out how the RIAA knew Joe 6 Pack was ripping his CDs. I'm relieved to learn CDs aren't using the PC to report back to HQ whenever they are copied to our hard drive.

calhoun07

If they really want to protect the copyrights and discourage illegal downloading, then they need to start charging realistic prices for CDs. New CDs can still come out around the $15.00 range, but after about six months they drop to $10.00 then in a year they are about $5.00 each. Some even could end up in 2 for $7.00 bins at places like Wal Mart.

Seriously, I cannot and will NEVER understand why old music still remains so high priced. Like a soundtrack for Moulin Rouge at Best Buy goes for about $14.00 but I can buy the whole friggin movie for half that.

DVDs and games always go down in price the longer they are out. And they do brisk sales, the majority of them, and while there is DVD piracy out there, it's not nearly the the issue it is for the movie industry as it is for the music industry. The movie industry is fighting more with movie piracy on NEW movies before they hit DVD, not the older Wal Mart bin titles or the low priced titles at Target.

If I had a choice between buying a full CD with the original bit rate and original artwork for $5.00-$10.00 over downloading it for a low price or even getting it for free here and there online through dodgy means, I'd pick the low price physical product any day. And things used to be that way, back in the day of LP and cassette. I recall buying many LPs and cassettes for under five dollars. $1.99 LPs and cheap cassettes...those were the days.

CDs came along and if the RIAA had their way it would be a rental only market and CD burners and ripping technology would be out of our hands. They fear the digital age. They disliked the magnetic tape age as it was, but the digital age freaks the holy moses out of those old farts running the industry right now. To me, getting songs for free online is no different than listening to them for free on the radio and getting cheap downloads from the Russian sites is no different to me than buying cheap 45s back in their heyday.

And, yes, I download from Russian sites. They are legal, regardless of what the RIAA would try to have you believe, and allofmp3 still operates under another name and was found to be legal in a court of law.

And speaking of Russia, that's perhaps why the RIAA fears the digital age...because it brings cheap music back to the people. They can't charge $15.00 per album anymore because DVDs have shown you can move units at a lower price and still make a profit. And studies have shown that most people are willing to pay about $2.00 for a whole album in a download, not the dollar per song, or even 89¢ per song. And charging $2.00 for download albums, $5.00 for CDs, and about 20¢ per song have been shown would pretty much kill illegal downloading all together.

So stopping illegal downloading can be done, but it's going to take a proactive choice from the RIAA, not the reactive moves they have made in the last several years that seek to punish their own customers. I say they need to be disbanded or new people brought in to run it with a new business model. I think the way Russia runs their music industry is the most ideal in the world, and it terrifies the US and the UK because it WORKS. And they make money even though they charge so little. Hand over fist money.

zombiezilla

Great points, calhoun07. Well written, too. Thank you for an opinion that mirrors my own!

Sean O'Hara

Sony just announced that they'll be selling DRM-free mp3s through Amazon. With all the majors on board, that's pretty much the end of the DRM era -- unless you're still buying through iTunes.

I think this is a move by the labels to break Apple's stranglehold on the market. They want to sell digital music through other outlets, but they don't want to alienate all the iPod owners, which means DRM-free is the only way to go.