Dealing with the RIAA? 259
I've Read the Frelling Manual, and I still have Questions!
J.Charles asks: "Always looking for new ways to help out the independent music scene in my region, I recently started thinking about putting together a streaming radio station. Mind you, this is to be non-profit, with the sole purpose to help out independent artists. I had made a small stream years ago using Shoutcast, but this was before all of the RIAA stipulations were being crammed down everyones throats, and I really paid no mind to copyright law.
If I am to do this, I would like to keep it fully legit in the eyes of the RIAA, because we've already seen the MPAA come after file sharers, citing gigantic fines, at the university I work for, and I really don't have the money for legal counsel.
So I've found adequate hosting, and read up on the stipulations published on the RIAA website, but most of it is quite murky, and skims over the 'how-to' of things.
For example, do I really have to pay royalties for each stream running? If so, how do I keep track of that, or do I just have to pay the royalty times the number of my maximum consecutive streams available? Is there Shoutcast plugin software for generating the play list information that must be sent to Soundexchange? Are there any grants available to help offset the cost of paying royalties and license application fees ($500 a year!)?
Basically, I can't find any streams that appear to be running 'legit', so I have no one to answer all my questions. I've even thought about contacting the RIAA to see if someone there would assist me, and perhaps help fund this project, since it would make a good example of a legit site, and afterwards I could serve as educated help for other people in my situation. I mean, the RIAA recognizes streaming as an important business, you would think their interests would lie in helping educate people to use it the way they would like.
Is anyone out there running a legit stream, or know someone who does? better yet, has anyone seen a guide for people in my shoes?"
I'm, Trying to Play Nice, But They Won't Return My Calls!
Jarrett Wold asks: "I was working on a chat client earlier this year, and I wanted file sharing capabilities (a la Napster). However I did not want any of the legal liability so unlike Napster, I actually contacted RIAA and the MPAA before I started any development.
Considering RIAA and MPAA's itchy trigger finger regarding copyright issues I figured I would pitch a solution to them. It was simple, since they represent a large number of copyright holders, they should create a database listing all of those copyright holders. It's easy enough to determine that Metallica has copyrighted material, what happens with that unknown band that you're not sure about? At least this way we would have a definitive list for all the people represented by RIAA and MPAA. Who also bring the largest number of lawsuits against file sharing applications.
Now I'm not rich, I don't have a lawyer and considering I live in North Dakota, I make on average $8.25/HR for data driven web development. If you work at Burger King in another state, you make more than I do flipping burgers. I started a month long stretch of making phone calls and sending emails. I called RIAA around 15 times proposing that they construct a database of copyright holders so I could be compliant with copyright law. I even suggested that if they charged a penny per user they could pull in 250K a month for use of their database. It would also force file sharing apps to have a business model. I'm all for avoiding '.COM The Bubble, Part 2'.
The RIAA was flat-out uninterested. They would listen politely, and take down my number or refer me to a voicemail of either a legal person (who never returned phone calls) or some person in management who simply stated it wasn't their responsibility to compile such a database. So, after fifteen or so emails, a half dozen long distance phone calls I gave up on RIAA. They obviously want publicity about the injustice of file trading rather than fixing the problem.
I then proceeded to call the MPAA. They were amazingly helpful, everyone that I spoke seemed enthused about doing something along this line. I suppose when you represent studios rather than individual artists the motivation to fix a leaky faucet is top priority. However, after sending a variety of emails and speaking with half a dozen people on the first phone call, I was sent off to someone in their technical department and curtly told that they were working on their own solutions. Do not get me wrong, the MPAA was keenly interested in a fix, but it seems that they too feel that the burden of listing copyright holders is not on them. In fact one executive I spoke with noted that there would be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of entries, in such a database. I suggested the revenue model again. It was received with interest and shot down in the next moment with the same argument.
So needless to say I gave up. I am now targeting my product specifically for the business market. I have noticed that CD-R manufacturers are not being sued for all the MP3's that are being burnt onto the media they freely distribute. The same goes for Samsung, I have yet to hear of them being sued for making VCR tapes that can record TV shows without commercials (if you're quick about it... ahem TiVo). Nor do I hear of ICQ being sued for it's file transfer abilities that also enable piracy if a user is so inclined.
At what point does the responsibility of the copyright owner come into play? Should it not be the representative groups (RIAA, MPAA) to come up with an 'exclusions list'? In fact technically speaking it's just not possible to determine what's copyrighted without something along those lines.
Who else has gone through this? I figure that the person who pirates is the one responsible, rather than the service itself. File sharing applications have valid purposes. However, if RIAA and the MPAA do not want to make a definitive list of copyrighted material it's nearly impossible to comply to excluding copyrighted material. Saying that file sharing applications facilitate piracy is the same thing as saying search engines facilitate piracy.
Napster had the wrong idea, if they could have worked out something with RIAA regarding this same concept they would be a leviathan. However it makes you wonder if these lawsuits weren't strategic in nature. I believe in the end, history will show that killing Napster was the worst mistake the music industry could have made. They lost control of a contained problem. It wasn't fixed. However when 26 million people scatter to the winds and start their own file sharing networks (Morpheus, Gnutella and many more) the problem is decentralized and unsolvable.
The biggest question of all is to the artist: why aren't you demanding some form of technical action out of the RIAA, instead of lawsuits? Why aren't you asking them to 'Sit down in a room with those file sharing companies and figure out a way to fix this'.
You can't sue them all!
I guess, my North Dakotan notion of business is that if there's a problem fix it before it gets out of hand, however it seems RIAA wants to do the opposite. I guess lawsuits could conceivably be a nice addition to the bottom line and excuse for bad accounting...;)"
And One Last Plea, for Internet Radio...
If you are still interested in saving internet radio, there is one last chance, until the next one arrives next year. There is a bill in play right now that must be passed before October 20th if some of the more popular Internet Radio sites are to return. You can find out more information on this latest push from the Radio and Internet Newsletter and also from Soma FM.
And the answer is..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Their music? (Score:3, Insightful)
"How do I legally use the city's toilet water without breaking the law?"
Why is RIAA involved? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they are independent then RIAA members have no contract with them, and thus RIAA does not dictate the terms of their performance (either public or recorded)
So again, why do you care about the RIAA? Are you trying to mix in Metallica with your "only helping local indie bands" stream?
Ignore them (Score:5, Insightful)
If you plan to stream music solely from independent artists who have no connection with the RIAA, then I suggest you ignore them altogether.
They should not have a say in matters that they had nothing to do with.
Piracy never hurt print. (Score:5, Insightful)
So music and movie publishers are inherently safer than text publishers from counterfieting, yet they act more paranoid. Do they think they are entitled to something that text publishers are not? And why do they want protection from copying when copying would help them? Do they LIKE copying? It gets them attention that their music never could!
It's About Control (Score:5, Insightful)
They just need a scapegoat (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Topic Suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
So maybe it's high time to give them (or at least the *AAs in general) their own category?
Re:New Campaign (Score:4, Insightful)
Quote from website. Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, Multi-Platinum Award Winning Artist, Producer, Founder and CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment: "As an artist who has dedicated his life to music and the music business, I have seen what illegal music copying has done and continues to do to new and established musicians. I understand why people download music, but for me and my fellow artists, this is our livelihood. When you make an illegal copy, you're stealing from the artist. It's that simple. Every single day we're out here pouring our hearts and souls into making music for everyone to enjoy. What if you didn't get paid for your job? Put yourself in our shoes!"
The greatest ripoff artist of all time has the gall to say this. Listen up, SEAN COMBS. You owe me for having to put up with your over-sampled, entirely lifted 'music'. You are an excellent example of how 'the public' will eat anything put in front of them, including a steaming bowl of crap. Put yourself in our shoes, INDEED.
Of course they won't deal with you. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, when you call up the RIAA and don't mention that you are contacting them on the behalf of a commercial entity, they assume you are a customer. Would most people give their sworn enemies the time of day if they called? No way.
Based on this attitude, the only choice is to push DRM. Sure they label it Digital Rights Management, but we all know it stands for Digital Restrictions Management. They honestly think that they have the right to police and search their customers private property.
I can't wait until DRM falls flat on it's face. Of course they'll just be blaming their customers for that as well--which is what they've done for a long time.
Re:Piracy never hurt print. (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you figure? It's easier to copy the latest Stephen King bestseller than it is to copy the latest Britany bestseller? I can rip a 65-minute CD in seconds; a 500 page book in... hours, maybe? And that's upstream of any OCR, which is the only thing that would make it compressed and portable enough to be of any enduring use.
The text and images that Amazon et.al. use are teasers and promos, not complete copies by any means.
Piracy is an issue for the RIAA (as has been stated so many times on this board, it should be on a FAQ somewhere...) because CD burning and file-sharing programs made it easy for the average consumer to copy and distribute the media.
Text piracy has not taken off yet because it is a bitch to digitize the original paper. Video piracy is only now on the cusp of being a problem for the studios because, up until now, the average consumer was surfing a mere dial-up connection unsuitable for the larger filesizes.
Do they LIKE copying? It gets them attention that their music never could!
Huh? Wha...?
Re:Piracy never hurt print. (Score:2, Insightful)
(Do moderators even bother to read the comments anymore, or do they just mod stuff up at random?)
Re:RIAA Just Wants You To Go Away (Score:5, Insightful)
Contact the Individual Companies... (Score:3, Insightful)
They are Associations of recording companies and motion picture companies. The job of the RIAA and MPAA are to: Provide a united front in litigation, lobbying, and public relations for the companies. If you noticed - there is no uniform RIAA music sharing program, there are a few different ones run by different groups of companies... In other words, even the companies that employ the RIAA can't agree on compensation. If you want to get a master list of music and copyright holders - contact the individual music labels, they better have at least some sort of crude list, and compile the master list yourself.
I wish you luck in your endeavors...
A question for an artist familiar with the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Way-back-when, volume distribution channels made sense to obtain economies of scale that no one individual could obtain.
Today that economy of scale argument doesn't apply (at least is significantly), which is why mom-and-pop web stores can reach an audience as large as the big guys. At least for Internet-capable consumers, which seems to be the core consumer group of concen.
The technology exists today for artists to form their own version of the RIAA. It wouldn't even require a central organization/site, but could be distributed. (Simple model: songs contain the URL of where to pay.)
The problem isn't technical. It would only take a handful (or 1) of successful artists to bankroll the development (I'm sure there are plenty of open source developers who would jump at the chance).
So why haven't the artists created such an entity?
Obviously this won't do anything for back catalogs. But the problem will remain unless someone takes the first step.
RIAA and artists? Riiiiiight! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, the only way the artists are going to get any halfway-reasonable cut of royalties from distribution on the internet is if they strike out on their own (and perhaps form their own recording companies), or if they convince Congress to pass some legislation benefitting them. Otherwise the RIAA and its members will continue to have not the slightest bit of concern for the artists.
A message to musicians. (Score:4, Insightful)
TOURING
Perhaps Sean Coumbs or Brittny Spears should spend less time sitting around complaining how they'll 'only' make a million on their next album and not two million, and spend more of their time TOURING... if you think about it, it makes sense. I mean, I'd pay 40 bucks to see a band a love, hell I'm going to see the String Cheese Incident in Vancouver on Thursday for 43.50. Now mulitply that by a few hundred thousand people, all over the country, thats a lot of money! Furthermore, concidering that artists make significantly more money on concert tickets than they do on CDs, since the record companies keep most of their CD money.
Touring is a financial model that can (and has made ) millions. Look at the Grateful Dead or Phish. These are bands that made millions of dollars, most of which they made by touring, not by selling CDs. Hell if you look at the record sales for Grateful Dead CDs, they rarely made any money, ususally managing to sell enough to break even.
So my message to the artists quoted on the music united website:
Stop whining and start touring! Realize that the reason people steal 'your' music is because they feel ripped off by you. You want your millions? Go out to the people and perform, most of us will be happy to come see you."
No precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
If they said today "Okay... want to stream, send a cheque for $x to PO Box y...", they'd have a hard time defending it if they said, later:
"We've decided the appropriate streaming fee is $3x"
"We're losing $2x per unauthorised stream occuring"
or
"They're all pirating b*****s", which is promptly responded to with the display of a cancelled cheque for $x.
And after 4 years... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this striking lack of commentary indicates two possiblities:
1) Rather than posting passionate diatribes on Slashdot, Slashdotters are out in the streets protesting against the RIAA. They're burning CDs on the streets, getting shot at with rubber bullets by the RIAA mafia, and so on.
2) Slashdot readers are bored by hourly updates on the RIAA "standoff," and have decided to put an end to the byte-littering and wasted hours by not posting yet again a message about how much they hate/love the RIAA here.
Cliff forgot to point out that some of those stories, while possibly interesting at one point in Slashdot's history, are now only semi-interesting.
Need To Break RIAA's Distribution Lock (Score:5, Insightful)
At heart, the RIAA represents a distribution oligopoly. It isn't really about music or entertainment -- musicians and artists are simply the source of the RIAA's product. And, it really isn't about copyright or intellectual property -- the RIAA is using copyright and IP legislation to maintain its lock on the distribution channels.
Frankly, any reasonably possible alteration in U.S. copyright law won't break the RIAA's lock. Contrary to the wishes expressed here on occassion, the U.S. is not going to do away with the notions of copyright and intellectual property. The very best we can hope for -- via the Eldred case -- is a reversion to the shorter copyright terms of the 1976 legislation, if the Supreme Court acts against form and declares the Bono Act unconstitutional. Today's music would revert to the public domain when your grandchildren are in college, rather than your great grandchildren.The RIAA's lawyers would still chase you down for copying CD's to the net.
Nor can we expect musicians to willingly stop signing conracts with RIAA companies. Musicians and many other people in the music industry have a vested interest in copyright. (In fact, I've heard them make cogent arguments for perpetual copyright.) Their interest is in being paid. The contractual abuses that some musicians apparently fall prey to are not the issue here. (Musicians deal with that by hiring smarter managers and better lawters.) Musicians like/want/need money just as much as the rest of us. Plus, given a lucky break, they have a very tempting chance at real wealth. I wouldn't count on many musicians lining up to break RIAA's lock. (Yes, a few who are either rich enough or poor enough to afford it will thumb their noses at the RIAA, but not enough.)
I suspect the way to break the RIAA's distribution lock is to leverage technology to create another distribution channel. Napster, Kazaa and the others demonstrate that the technology is there. However, these channels do not offer professional musicians a profitable alternative distribution channel. (It isn't profitable if you don't sell it.)
I'd like to see a few popular and commercial successful recording artists start selling "Internet-only" music directly to customers. In other words, they use the net to sell music that is not available elsewhere. It won't be free, but if people are willing to pay, say, $9.00 instead of $18.00 for a CD's worth of music, maybe the RIAA's lock will start to rust.
Re:The simplest answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually that won't work. You see, the RIAA is not composed of artists who make music. It's composed of companies who distribute music. So when you ask them "What do you really have to do to play their music legally?" all they hear is "Hey, I want to be a music distributor too!". To which they respond "F**k off and die, this is our turf!". Actually, they only take that tactic if you actually distribute music on your own. If you just call them, they apparently just ignore you.
A crude scenario, but that's the gist of it. The RIAA members like the way they have the music distribution business all tied up. Nice and neat. The "Internet" is just going to screw all that up which they hate. They are not going to play nice because it means them giving up control. It'll never happen. They will either succeed in destroying the Internet in the US (and turning America into an intellectual backwater in the process) or die trying.
Re:Well, there's one way to deal with them.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Microft
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A message to musicians. (Score:1, Insightful)
hmm... not so much as you started with, eh?
you are an optimist (Score:1, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with the musicians breaking away from the RIAA; the musicians (who want to make a living) will go where the money is. It's the public that needs to take their business elsewhere. That means putting money on the table for the independent online music that is already out there. There's tons of it. But like hapless heroin addicts, they keep going back for more RIAA/MTV top ten bullshit.
And all just because it's on the TV, the magazine covers, the programmed radio... people are fucking sheep. It's the audience that's at war with itself. BUY WHAT YOU WANT YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. THE STUFF THAT YOU BUY IS WHAT GETS PRODUCED. IF YOU DON'T BUY ANYTHING, YOU CAN'T INFLUENCE WHAT WILL BE PRODUCED.
Re:The simplest answer: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why play by the rules? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe this is "evil" of me, but it seems to me when you have to come to a point where you just say, "Fuck the rules".
When we (Americans) attempted to secede from the British empire, did we "play by the rules"? No, we told the British to go fuck themselves, and hid behind trees and picked them off like target practice because they were marching down the middle of the road in bright red coats like dumbasses. In short, they were playing by the *old* rules, and if we had chosen to play their way, we would have gotten our asses kicked.
It seems to me the surest way to lose a battle is to allow your *enemy* to call the shots. And, the RIAA has publicly declared us as their enemy. And don't talk to me about the poor artists...any artist can now self-distribute; because they choose to (paraphrasing from American Beauty) "sell [their] souls and work for Satan just because it's more convenient that way", it's not my problem.
So, I respectfully submit that we should just stop purchasing CDs, plain and simple. And we should stream whatever the hell we want. And we should trade whatever the hell we want. Let's organize a worldwide open source project which creates a P2P file sharing / music organization system specifically designed to trade RIAA-endorsed music for FREE, but has a pay structure for independents.
They can't put us all in jail, and if it's a war they want, let's give it to them. In short, let's prove them right. Make some musicians broke, if that's what it takes. They're part of the problem, anyway, for signing these idiotic contracts in the first place. (If they were truly "artists", they'd realize a bohemian lifestyle is sometimes worth some freedom, just like painters and sculptors and the rest of us.) And then, after enough macaroni and cheese, Sellout Artist X will fucking sign with an alternative organization who gives a shit about artists' needs instead of an organization which was designed, from top to bottom, to rape their every orifice, milk their last breath and throw away their corpse when they're done.
Sure, it'll take a while for the economy to shift, but I've just decided that I'm never going to buy another RIAA-endorsed CD again, unless it's used. In short, I will only buy in ways that prevent royalties from going to them.
It's simple, really: fuck the RIAA. All they are doing is making me *want* to intentionally pirate their music.
Man, when you actually cause your fans to start plotting ways to intentionally fuck you, your PR people and lawyers are really screwing with your future prospects at profitability. (I was a huge music fiend when I was young, and wanted to work in radio, until I found out what a shitty business it is.) Now, I think I like Microsoft more than the RIAA. That's saying a LOT.
So, to end my insane rant, can someone on this board enlighten me as to WHY we should play by the rules?
Re:New Campaign (Score:1, Insightful)
Again, do the world a favor by a) getting your little brother and sister away from disney's awful propoganda on the teevee, b) not breaking the law, choosing instead to buy independent music directly from the artists or their publishers that do not feed this socialist association of mobster cartel chiefs.. start by following the ogg
hitler rosen and mob boss extremo bad jack are awful people, and regardless of the perception is belief crowd's soothing of their conscience, they go to hell, period.. history will remember them for the scum they are.. and sonny bono for the bone head he was