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RIAA needs to be disbanded, says Moby
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 20 June, 2009
Following the recent jury decision against alleged file sharer Jammie Thomas, in which the woman was fined $80,000 USD for each of the 24 songs she shared via P2P, the popular artist Moby has written a blog entry claiming the RIAA "should be disbanded" for using the wrong techniques against people who are just trying to listen to music.
His full post:
"The riaa have sued Jammie Thomas-Rasset ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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numscull
Junior Member
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22. June 2009 @ 15:32 |
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I grew up in the 60's when musicians stood together, fought, and wrote songs against injustices in government policies and against big business greed and graft. It is good to see a few musicians stand up for the poor, weak victims being preyed upon by their own representative group, the RIAA. But, by and large, most musicians are keeping quiet and, even worse, supporting the RIAA tactics. Granted you don't want to deficate in your own nest, but you also shouldn't shovel the fecal matter on the heads of your consumer base. If there is one thing needed to quit the "sue the weak to make a point" mentality of the RIAA is to get the musicians to put pressure on their reps, stop the madness, and come up with a more viable solution to the file sharing problem. But as I see it now, today's musicians have become whores and slaves to their owners.
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fgoodwin
Newbie
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22. June 2009 @ 16:16 |
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Hey numscull, when you work hard to produce something, and see it stolen and given away illegally, how would you react?
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Kitsch1
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23. June 2009 @ 05:02 |
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Originally posted by fgoodwin:
Hey numscull, when you work hard to produce something, and see it stolen and given away illegally, how would you react?
Anyway, learn how to spell numskull before you call someone that. By the way, good to know that subtlety isn't lost on you: the issue is black and white. I think that people should have to pay every time a song is played. If a dj plays a song, everybody should have to pay royalty fees. If you play a song and someone hears it, the person listening should have to pay as well. That buddy sitting next to you in the car when you slide in a cd should have to pay. Essentially, what you are saying is that hearing a song that you did not pay for constitutes theft. Now who is the numskull? That would be you.
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thesimone
Newbie
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23. June 2009 @ 11:19 |
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Originally posted by numscull:
It is good to see a few musicians stand up for the poor, weak victims being preyed upon by their own representative group, the RIAA. But, by and large, most musicians are keeping quiet and, even worse, supporting the RIAA tactics.
It's a tough subject, true. I've found that artists who have trustworthy management (I'm one of the lucky ones) generally don't get trapped into making bad decisions.
However, IMHO, it's the artists who don't have the benefit of a business-minded partner/team who fail to realize the economics and financial side of things. They seem to be the ones who aren't articulate enough to speak out for or against these issues.
Originally posted by numscull:
...put pressure on their reps, stop the madness, and come up with a more viable solution to the file sharing problem.
Right on - however, most artists are too one-sided and wrapped up in their 'art' to even consider the magnitude of this topic. It's unfortunate when I meet some of the bands we perform/tour with who still believe that all they need to do is to 'play' and be 'discovered' while thinking that the label will have their 'best interests' in mind.
It's a business and most bands don't really get that. /soapbox
Originally posted by numscull:
But as I see it now, today's musicians have become whores and slaves to their owners.
My management team (Miramar)comes from the 60's and has told me time and again that things are different now. Back then, everything was fresh and new.
There wasn't the type of competition in music nor the immediate delivery of communication like there is now. There's so much great talent - you can see it in any town, any night of the week - but that doesn't mean there's an increase in strategic development or business strategy.
I feel that it's the technology that has allowed just about everyone the ability to produce content- quickly, and with good results.
I think that speaks to your comments about being slaves to their owners. One of the owners has been Technology
The technology has exploded, there's more talent than there are customers and the labels expect lots more from their artists. As a result, I've seen bands who say that it's 'too difficult' to handle the business side of things and would rather focus all their efforts on their writing or performance.
MySpace has become a 'Super Center' of art without filtering the good from the tripe. Customers/Fans don't have the focus or loyalty to 'discover bands' on their own anymore because of all the spam and headaches that result from simply connecting to the net.
As a result, the bands appear to be more driven to agree to label terms (that they don't fully understand) simply because it's taken so much effort for them to get noticed.
Bands used to stand for something. We stand for the environment.
Our mission is to recycle at least one compact disc for every 'Simone' disc that goes out the door. We encourage our fans to bring in unused or unloved (even broken) cd's to our shows that we trade for our discs. We partnered up with a recycling center who specializes in plastic recycling and we just ship them off to them.
This has been a great thread and I've enjoyed being a part of it. It's new to me (being here) but it's so cool getting everyone's perspective on this major issue.
Thanks guys-
Simone
edited by moderator to remove advertising from signature
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 6. July 2009 @ 09:13
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EvilDeeds
Junior Member
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23. June 2009 @ 17:51 |
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@ thesimone: +1 fan in the UK... :)
If you pop over for a gig at any point consider it +2 tickets sold too, plus trade-in cd... just do me a favour though and do at least one gig outside London, preferably near Manchester! ;)
As for the article - I'm sure any sane person would realise that being charged a few million for just over 20 songs is a tad extreme, who's fault that is depends on your perspective.
Personally, I think think we need to clear out the dinosaurs in the "organised" music industry and stop trying to control the uncontrollable - music distribution... it wont happen though, the corporate giants are full of bloat, bloat financed by a brief stint at being able to control and often exploit artists/listeners for every penny possible because they had the means to distribute their content beyond what they could themselves - giving up all that control means they will have to start slimming down a bit, and nobody likes to diet! :)
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numscull
Junior Member
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23. June 2009 @ 17:58 |
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Originally posted by fgoodwin:
Hey numscull, when you work hard to produce something, and see it stolen and given away illegally, how would you react?
Let's put that broad question in perspective of digitally reproduced music. Yes, musicians, song writers, producers, etc. put a lot of effort into making commercial music in which their livelihood depends. Copyrighted material is protected by law for a very good reason. But in the digital age it is way too easy for anyone with half of a brain to take a CD, rip it to wma, mp3, etc. and distribute it to anyone they want to, illegal as that may be. Anyone can purchase one DRM-free song, copy it, and send it to anyone free or even sell it. Millions do it every day. So the six million dollar question is: how can copyright holders prevent, or slow down dramatically, the mass distribution of free music? Anything short of shutting down the internet, outlawing computers, or going back to the days of vinyl, I can't think of any. But I can say that picking on ordinary, hard working people is not the answer. The RIAA does not issue a cease and desist letter first to suspected infringers which it should. They simply send a settlement offer paper and then play litigation hardball with anyone, innocent or not, who dares to stand against them. And these suspected infringers are mostly, if not all, people of very limited resources unable to sufficiently fight the RIAA monster. So to answer your question of how I would react to writing a song, performing it in a studio, recording it, marketing it, and promoting it only to be freely distributed to millions and losing incalcuable royalties? I would be furious, heart broken, frustrated, and I may even go home and kick the cat. But in retaliation I would not, nor would I support, the intimidation and financial ruin of a few, randomly selected defenseless people to hopelessly think I could stop or slow the raging sea of shared music. In closing I will apologize to those musicians I have called names in my last post.
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thesimone
Newbie
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24. June 2009 @ 13:23 |
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Quote:
Originally posted by fgoodwin:
Hey numscull, when you work hard to produce something, and see it stolen and given away illegally, how would you react?
Anything short of shutting down the internet, outlawing computers, or going back to the days of vinyl, I can't think of any.
Right on - I have a fan who, at 66y/o, freely trades/shares music. I asked if they thought what they were doing was wrong. They said that 'the record company owed them' for all the different formats they were 'forced' to buy over the years (vinyl/tape/cd/etc).
That type of animosity toward the artists and labels plants seeds of resentment each time the consumer is 'forced' to 're-buy' the same body of work over and over again.
My general market of fans, 18-29, has pretty much grown up with broadband p2p nets promising instant gratification. The older fans have grown up with significant format shifts.
To me, it just doesn't seem like there's a viable 'one size fits all' solution that would solve the overall problem and I think that's what the industry is focused on. If they (RIAA, et.al.) would spend a bit more time looking at the big picture and all of the dynamics that play a part in it all, (rather than being heavy handed and severely punishing the few) perhaps they would find a range of solutions that are more individualized to the offender(s) based on income/consumption/geographic region/historical sales data per artist/etc.
No, it's not simple, but at least they should try to solve the problem rather than to hand down fear-inducing, absurdly out-of-proportion judgments.
Originally posted by EvilDeeds:
@ thesimone: +1 fan in the UK... :)
If you pop over for a gig at any point consider it +2 tickets sold too, plus trade-in cd... just do me a favour though and do at least one gig outside London, preferably near Manchester! ;)
Thanks a lot! I've been working on details to get over there for a 2 or 3 week pub tour. Perhaps this September if all falls into place :)
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Senior Member
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26. June 2009 @ 13:13 |
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This whole thing boggles my mind, years back I always recorded many tunes from my amp to my cassete recorder and listened at home as well as in the car, why the beef now.
I'm not totally up to par with this ladies case, but did a jury award this, if so I have not heard one word about these nitwits if thats the case, what were they smoking, or should I say what they were not smoking, the smokers would have laughted themselves off the courtroom just listening to this nonsense.
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gisin
Newbie
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26. June 2009 @ 14:09 |
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The real problem is big labels. Frank Zappa recognized this early on.
Big artists like Moby don't need them. They should drop them, and start a movement for artists co-ops to replace them.
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Serialluv
Junior Member
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26. June 2009 @ 14:10 |
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Originally posted by FredBun:
This whole thing boggles my mind, years back I always recorded many tunes from my amp to my cassete recorder and listened at home as well as in the car, why the beef now.
I'm not totally up to par with this ladies case, but did a jury award this, if so I have not heard one word about these nitwits if thats the case, what were they smoking, or should I say what they were not smoking, the smokers would have laughted themselves off the courtroom just listening to this nonsense.
Yes it was a jury award, shocking as it seems, not being a US citizen I may be out of date but I though you had some great laws over there, such as "one must be judged by a jury of your peers" I wonder if there were any single mums involved I doubt it? And it has been mentioned, alebit legal as it would it seem in the constiution "against cruel and unusual punishments" surely she can fight on this and win by way of appeal, how can they justify the monetary value of those 24 tracks being worth that amount, the sheer upload for each song is plain wrong.
I am in the target market grou for lots of musicians as well as many other industries 18-35 and have also grown up, as Simone puts it with the p2p instant gratification, I was using telnet back when I was younger and message boards to share media in the early 90's! I do however still buy media, if it's worth buying, ie if I 've enjoyed it I'll buy it!! I spend over £200 on DVD's and CD's last month probably will again this month, but I will still utilise the "try before I buy policy" by way of the net.
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Senior Member
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26. June 2009 @ 17:07 |
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Serialluv, I agree, you know I also download music, I listen to it and whatever strikes my fancy I buy it, christ I have tons of CD's I buy, I have bought way more CD's since I was able to listen to music and make my decision, when before I hardly bought any cause was always paraniod I would only get one or two songs to my liking, you think these guys would learn a little something here.
And yes it really suprises me how this particular subject which has been on the news all over the place, everybody mostly anyway is outraged, everybody is bitching about the RIAA, the laws, the record companies, hey, these guys do what they do, it's the way they do things, they get paid to do it that way, but the jury, I hear nothing about them, there the ones I would be angry at, where did they get these people from, somebody didn't do there homework picking them nitwits.
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