RIAA trying to institute ISP surcharge

Just like with blank CDs and digital music players, the RIAA is trying to make money off of something that has little to directly do with its business. It is now pressuring ISPs to add a surcharge to internet access fees that would go directly to the music executives' pockets. The rationale, they argue, is that... well, there's really no rationale, just another typical RIAA money-grab justification. Read about it at Wired and Slashdot.

Artists contemplating suing RIAA

So where does all the money from those lawsuits against grandmothers, students and dead people that the RIAA brings go? Not to the artists, apparently. Artists are now contemplating taking legal action against the RIAA for their "fair share" of the winnings.

I don't know whether to cheer because the RIAA might be losing some money, or cry because the artists are just as shortsighted. Anytime you hear a group complaining that the money it receives is not "fair," you know the lobbyists and lawyers can't be far off...

So this is the future of music? Artists suing the RIAA? The RIAA suing everyone else? Everyone bickering over the winnings? And what about all of the other "collection" agencies? How depressing. At least I have isohunt.

RIAA affiliates hijack Shareaza.com, threaten suit

There's bad, there's low, and then there's RIAA and friends:

"Late last year a company affiliated with the French RIAA hijacked the Shareaza.com domain name from the original, open source project's owner. They are passing off their own for-pay software, which violates the GPL, as the real thing. Now, having stolen the Shareaza project's identity, the scammers are threatening legal action to shut down the real open source team."

Kind of sad, kind of funny

This is a leaked official RIAA training video produced with the National District Attorneys Association telling U.S. prosecutors why they should bust music pirates: Because it'll lead them to "everything from handguns to large quantities of cocaine [and] marijuana," not to mention terrorists and murderers!

The whole video is over 60 minutes long—these are just two of the more outrageous minutes with Jim Dedman, from the NDAA, interviewing Deborah Robinson and Frank Walters from the RIAA about the benefits of going SWAT on music pirates. At one point, Walters says the piracy/drug connection can be so bad that you get asked "When you buy a CD, would you like it with or without—the with is enclosing a piece of crack or whatever the case may be.

http://gizmodo.com/358648/leaked-riaa-training-video-find-pirates--find-crack+dealing-terrorist-murderers-too

RIAA, again, fights to lower artists' royalties

Well, look who isn't sticking up for those starving artists (again). It's their old "friend" the RIAA. The spin the RIAA is putting on this issue is making even me dizzy:

"Record companies are suffering a contraction of their business at a time when music publisher revenues and margins have increased markedly," the trade group wrote. "While record companies have been forced to drastically cut costs and employees, music publisher catalogs have increased in value due to steadily rising mechanical royalty rates and alternative revenue streams made possible, but not enjoyed, by record companies."

Response to Neil Portnow's SJ Mercury Editorial

Neil Portnow, the president and CEO of the Recording Academy, wrote an editorial in today's San Jose Mercury news on page 16A called "Record industry, tech firms must forge common future." I wrote the following response and posted it in the comments of that article.

-----------------------

While Mr. Portnow's attitude towards technology is an improvement over that of his predecessor Michael Greene (remember the 2002 Grammy Awards speech? [1]), he nevertheless seems to posses a tunnel vision regarding the current music industry's relation to
technology.

The problem with music today is not so-called 'piracy' (I prefer to call this activity 'sharing music with fellow music lovers') but a lack of creative thinking with regard to how modern computer and networking technology change the landscape of music creation and distribution. The record industry, in the old model, solved two problems of the artists -- paying for expensive studio time and distributing the music via CD or vinyl to the masses. Both of these activities can now be done by artists themselves for little cost: modern recording and mixing software is available for every computing platform and costs an iota of studio equipment, and artists can distribute their songs directly to fans over the Internet for virtually no cost. There is simply no need anymore for an artist to go through a record label to release music.

So how does the recording industry maintain its relevance (read: cash inflows) when it is essentially serves no useful purpose? One word: copyright. While looking at the Recording Academy's 'principles' web page, [2] you'll notice that principle #2 states the need for "[compensating] copyright owners." Well guess who owns all the copyrights to the vast majority of music recorded over the last century? The recording industry, of course. The members of the RIAA want to act as a tollbooth on the information superhighway,demanding a fee in order to allow anyone to listen to or share music. None, if any, of these fees go to the majority of artists --they only serve to line the pockets of industry executives who justify these payments with the battle cry of 'artists' rights.' It's a tried and true tactic of the industry: forward the 'starving artist' myth, collect cash via royalties.

In addition to paying the wrong person, the executive instead of the artist, American copyright law has a host of other problems which degrade the liberties of music-loving individuals. Music industry lobbyists often talk about these laws as if they were as absolute as the law of gravity, and they're not. They can be modified for the better, and certainly must be if we as a society hope to gain back some of the rights we've lost. This issue is far too complicated to go into detail about here, but I highly recommend reading Lessig's Free Culture (online for free -- as in freedom -- at [3]) as an introduction to the issue. Suffice it for now to say that the current system produces ugly results such as the ridiculously high damages the RIAA can demand in court from ordinary individuals like Jammie Thomas. [4]

Finally, Mr. Portnow's article contains some misleading statements that merit pointing out. He offers the example of legislation that would correct an 'anomaly' and make the broadcast industry pay similar fees to play content as Internet radio services. The absence of this legislation doesn't put Internet radio at a 'disadvantage' -- it still pays the same amount to the industry. The party most disadvantaged by this lack of legislation is the recording industry who stands to rake in another $20 billion if its lobbying efforts in Washington are successful (a lucrative tollbooth, indeed). Mr. Portnow also elevates George Lucas as a technology visionary, which makes his ranch the appropriate place to talk with Silicon Valley executives. All technology, however, is not created equal. While Mr. Lucas may have pioneered special effects and sophisticated audio, he certainly lags behind in file-sharing technology, which is,
of course, what the summit was all about. When Mr. Lucas releases all of his movies online for free, then I believe it will be appropriate to laud him for his technology savvy in more than one sense.

Mr. Portnow believes that the future of music hinges on the harmonious relations of the music industry and the technology industry. However, for artists and fans alike, the ideal future of music would be one that includes less of the music industry.

References:
[1] Michael Greene's 2002 Grammy Awards speech http://www.boycott-riaa.com/education/grammy_speech
[2] The Recording Academy's 'Principles' http://www.grammy.com/principles
[3] Lessig's 'Free Culture' http://www.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf
[4] Ars Technica article on Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-verdict-is-in.html

Additional reading:
The Promise of a Post-Copyright World http://questioncopyright.org/promise
The EFF's The RIAA vs. The People http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaa-v-thepeople.php

Setting up an epic lawyer-fest for the ages?

From slashdot today:

"First it was Napster; then it was Internet radio; then it was little girls, grandmothers, and dead people. But now our friends at the RIAA are going decidedly low-tech. The LA Times reports that the RIAA wants royalties from radio stations. 70 years ago Congress exempted radio stations from paying royalties to performers and labels because radio helps sell music. But since the labels that make up the RIAA are not getting the cash they desire through sales of CDs, and since Internet and satellite broadcasters are forced to cough up cash to their racket, now the RIAA wants terrestrial radio to pay up as well."

Finally, the RIAA is duking it out with another entity that can afford to pay lawyers: ClearChannel. No one is quite sure how this battle will turn out, but hopefully it will erode both entitys' power and credibility (after all, ClearChannel sucks, too). An odd coincidence is this onion article, just put out today.

Imprisoned for life for "Piracy"?

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pushing a new bill, the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007. This bill has a number of ridiculous clauses, such as life imprisonment in certain circumstances for "piracy."

Additionally, it has provisions that would bring a tear of joy to any RIAA prosecutor's eye. These include expanding the rules by which wiretapping is allowed to detect copyright infringement, criminalizing attempting to infringe copyright, generally making punishments harsher for copyright infringement, and even having the department of homeland security notify the RIAA about "pirated" importing of CDs (it's notable that no other copyright holder qualifies for this kind of treatment).

There was a bill before congress like this last year and it didn't go anywhere. Hopefully this bill will suffer the same fate.

Who isn't in the RIAA's pocket? Harvard!

Finally, someone influential in the academic community has taken a strong stand against the RIAA's tactics. Professor Charles Nesson and Professor Wendy Seltzer of Harvard Law School have written an editorial in the Harvard Crimson stating that doing the RIAA's dirty work in outing its students is contrary to the school's educational mission. Rock on.

Who is in the RIAA's pocket now? Congress!

It is a sad day when our elected officials turn on us on the command of the RIAA, et al. Congress has sent letters to universities asking what they are doing to prevent illegal downloading of copyrighted works. Congress warned that it would be "forced to act" if it was not provided with "acceptable answers."

The RIAA has co-opted the FBI, police, and judicial system against us in the past, and now it seems like they're directing their efforts towards the legislative branch. Aren't we fighting a war? Aren't we destroying the earth? Aren't there any other social problems that deserve Congress' attention? Why are they wasting their time getting paid off by the RIAA to do their dirty work? Oh, right... they're politicians. I can almost hear the auctioneer:

"Now bidding on Lamar Smith's (R-TX) vote! Can I get seven thousand dollars? Cary Sherman places a bid in the back for seven thousand; can I get eight?"

What a great day!

No, really. For once, I'm being sincere. How has my day been great? Let me count the ways:

1. Music sales, especially CD sales plunge Take that, RIAA! Your demise is imminent!
   
2. News Corp and NBC announce plans for YouTube clone File this under "We're a bit late to the party" and "We don't get this community-driven thing... this service will work, right?"
3. University of Nebraska asks RIAA to pay its processing fees Take that, RIAA! Although they did ask rather politely, don't you think?
4. Child Online Protection Act struck down No censorship in the guise of anti-porn filters! Yay!
5. EFF sues Viacom over DMCA YouTube request The EFF, always fighting the good fight.
6. It's California weather in DC... time to go outside!
   

P2P endangers children and undermines national security? Yeah, right.

The lobbying wizards over at the MPAA and RIAA are at it again, presumably. This time, they have managed to get the US Patent Office to release a statement saying that peer to peer file sharing endangers children and undermines national security. Seriously. I'm not making this up. The only things they fail to include in this are claims that the sky is falling and Armageddon is coming.

You know a business model is in danger when its backers start invoking the "Think of the children! (tm)" and "Terrorists could strike again! (tm)" arguments. Oh, and remember kids...

Yet another RIAA extortion tactic

My, this is getting old. Seems like the RIAA has come up with yet another way to squeeze every last penny they can out of the college crowd with bullying pseudo-legal tactics. Instead of dragging the "infringing" student through the inconveniences of the courtroom, he can just agree to settle beforehand to pay out $3000!

Part of me wonders why the RIAA keeps up these morally reprehensible shenanigans. Aren't there people, and not monsters, at the RIAA? The other part is looking squarely at the dollar sign on my keyboard. It seems that in the light of the recent counter-suit for attorney's fees that the RIAA came out on the loosing side of, they have decided that proving a student (or other poor soul's) guilt is just too much... justice. What a convenient way to supplement that declining revenue stream of CD dollars!

RIAA-speak: artist promotion = crime

Mixtapes are a vital part of musical artist promotion, especially for certain genres such as rap. Unfortunately, the RIAA thinks that distributors of mixtapes that don't play by their rules should be locked up. That's what has happened to DJ Drama, whose "Gangsta Grillz" mixtapes are famous for breaking new artists. There is a bit of hope that there is an end in sight to this intimidation and stifling of artistic creation: the author of the above-linked NY Times article closes with:

It also seems clear that mixtapes can actually bolster an artist’s sales. The most recent Lil Wayne solo album, “Tha Carter II” (Cash Money/Universal), sold more than a million copies, though none of its singles climbed any higher than No. 32 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. That’s an impressive feat, and it’s hard to imagine how he would have done it without help from a friendly pirate.

Let's hope that the rest of society will soon wake up and see that the negatives of the RIAA's actions clearly outweigh the positives.

But we represent starving recording artists!

If anyone was doubting that the RIAA does not have as its first priority the artists that it claims to represent, today's news might just convince you beyond a shadow of a doubt. As crazy as it sounds, the RIAA is petitioning a judge to actually LOWER the percentage of a song sale that goes to an artist! The article puts it quite nicely:

At best the RIAA is kicking artists when they're down via this action, and at worst has fully revealed that despite repeated claims that artists need to be protected from piracy, the organization is very much the tool of the major labels and publishers who have famously never really cared about the artists in the first place.

The article continues...

Tactics like this raise serious concerns for the future of interoperable DRMs and any trend towards more rapid acceptance of new technology and the demands it imposes upon the music distribution industry. If the RIAA is nothing but a litigious arm of the stodgy business men in the music industry who can't see past a perceived necessity of protecting established revenue streams rather than pursuing innovation and listening consumers' demands, it seems doubtful that the litany of complications currently facing consumers who demand flexibility in managing their legally acquired digital content will be resolved anytime soon.

Hear, hear.

Greed knows no borders

The RIAA isn't just a terror in the United States; it also seems to have found it's way all the way to Moscow. Russia has just agreed to shut down AllOfMp3.com, a site that came under RIAA scrutiny for allowing cheap, legitimate (according to Russian law) downloads. The RIAA wasn't happy because they weren't getting a cut of the money (this sounds familiar) and thus pressured the US government to put it as a major item on the US-Russian agenda. Looks like they got their way. Lobbyists are quite effective, aren't they?

Great anti-RIAA blogs

The Recording Industry vs the People

"A blog devoted to the RIAA's lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people."

Boycott-riaa.com

"Take a stand against the RIAA"

RAC -- Recording Artists Coalition

Not explicitly anti-RIAA, but close: "a non-profit, nonpartisan coalition formed to represent the interests of recording artists with regard to legislative issues in which corporate and artists' interests conflict, and to address other public policy debates that come before the music industry."

Defective By Design

Anti-DRM blog. Of course, anti-RIAA and anti-DRM are related issues.

At least the Aussies have some sense

Sounds like things over there aren't so much different from over here... the music lobby lies and cajoles in order to get its way and is always in bed with the government. Super lame. At least the Aussies have the sense to cut through this bullshit... some of the time.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20713160%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

Article snippet:

Piracy statistics are labelled "self-serving hyperbole" in a draft government report.

A confidential briefing for the Attorney-General's Department, prepared by the Australian Institute of Criminology, lashes the music and software sectors.

The draft of the institute's intellectual property crime report, sighted by The Australian shows that copyright owners "failed to explain" how they reached financial loss statistics used in lobbying activities and court cases.

Figures for 2005 from the global Business Software Association showing $361 million a year of lost sales in Australia are "unverified and epistemologically unreliable", the report says.

BSAA chairman Jim Macnamara said the figure was an extrapolation, but other studies had supported it.

"They're entitled to say they're not convinced, but not necessarily entitled to say it's unverified," he said.

The study, which says some of the statistics used by copyright owners are "absurd", will be redrafted after senior researchers disagreed with its conclusions.

Painting a picture of an industry seething with competitive jealousies, the report describes how "well-connected Canberra-based lobbyists" fight for government attention and police time on piracy.