RIAA, Did you know? Options

[medic]

Did you know, the big 5 recording companys (Sony, EMI, BMG, Universal and Warner Brothers) have been screwing artist for decades. When you purchase a $16 CD, the artist only recives about $1-2 dollars of that CD sale. While the recording company makes $5-6 on ever single sale. Five major record labels have a monopoly that's bad for musicians and music culture.



On Tuesday, the Recording Industry Association of America filed another round of lawsuits against people who allegedly downloaded and shared copyrighted music. In doing so, the association finally topped the 3,000-served mark.

The association argues that file sharing is directly responsible for the widely reported slump in CD sales from 2000 to 2003. This, however, ignores the fact that the economy was in a post-Sept. 11 recession and that many other industries suffered even greater declines in their sales at the time. Still, it is reasonable to assume that downloading was a cause of some drop in CD sales.

But this simple narrative is a bit more complicated. The two primary direct competitors for young music buyers' dollars — video games and DVD's, both also widely and freely traded on the Internet — continued to do quite well. And during the first quarter of 2004, CD sales in the United States rose 10.6 percent over the previous year, an upturn that the recording industry association confidently attributed to its lawsuits. But a report issued in April by the Pew Internet and American Life Project stated that the number of people who said they had downloaded music files during the same first quarter had increased by 5 million, to a total of 23 million, from the project's previous survey in late 2003.

In other words, at the exact moment file-sharing activity rose, so did CD sales. These numbers supported an economic study by Profs. Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman S. Strumpf. Their findings indicated that file sharing had no measurable effect on music sales. "At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline," the professors concluded. These men are not anti-copyright activists by any measure — Mr. Oberholzer-Gee is a professor at the Harvard Business School and Mr. Strumpf is a visiting fellow at the Cato Institute.

With its new round of lawsuits, the recording industry association is once again demonstrating its failure to recognize the obvious: file sharing isn't going away. Consumers have grown attached to it, and more and more musicians believe file sharing can help promote their music in an age of limited play lists at radio stations. Given its hold in our culture, downloading, in some form, must be part of any solution to this impasse.

A blanket license model, like that legalizing the use of copyrighted material by cable television and radio, can point us to a future system that might work for file sharing. There would be differences, of course, but there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Various lawyers, professors and organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting individual freedoms in the digital age, have offered workable solutions.

Simply put, these varying proposals go like this: given that the movie, video game and software industries continue to grow — and file sharing's harm to the music industry is debatable — additional fees needn't be exorbitant. The foundation's plan calls for generating a $3 billion pot of money — the amount the industry says it is losing annually — by charging consumers a $5 monthly licensing fee. The fee could come bundled with, for instance, a consumer's broadband Internet access bill and would be similar to paying a cable bill. Rather than replace the music industry's business model, this would supplement it with a steady revenue stream.

Some critics call these plans unrealistic, but a legally sanctioned cable television system also seemed like a pipe dream in the 1960's because of the television industry's resistance.

It would be dishonest, and foolish, to suggest that hammering out a compromise palatable to all sides is going to be easy. But the alternative — to do nothing, or to pass new industry-backed legislation — would continue to criminalize the everyday behavior of millions. And it would continue to stifle an innovative way to distribute artistic works.

How do musicians get paid for downloads? Simple: collective licensing lets people download unlimited music for a flat monthly fee ($5-$10) and the money goes to musicians and labels according to popularity. This solution preserves the cultural benefits of p2p, gets musicians way more money, and levels the playing field.

Companies such as Apple, Wal-Mart, Napster, CinemaNow, Music Match, Dell, F.Y.E, SongTouch, and Movie Link use collective licensing to bring millions of music artists and music titles to you.

So what are your views on the way the RIAA is reacting to this?

[ComradeRed]

Although, a record label needs to hire advertisers, maintain office buildings, etc. The $6 they get is split among hundreds of workers, not to mention thousands of shareholders. The $1-$2 the artist gets goes to no one but themselves; so they are still getting a lot more money than the people that work for record labels.

[*not_your_average*]

http://jamesandannie.cyberflunk.com/images...g_communism.jpg

Although, a record label needs to hire advertisers, maintain office buildings, etc. The $6 they get is split among hundreds of workers, not to mention thousands of shareholders. The $1-$2 the artist gets goes to no one but themselves; so they are still getting a lot more money than the people that work for record labels.

Excellently put, Minda. (And I love the picture. XD)

To answer the question though, I believe the RIAA's attempts at stopping MP3 downloads will become futile. Ultimately though, it's all about money. Because of downloads, the artists are slowly starting to make more money than the company, and those companies are not happy about it. Money is the only true goal of these corporations.

[mai_z]

Last time I checked, money is the true goal of just about EVERY corporation.
Everyone knows that no one's going to be able to stop music downloading off the internet, but if the companies can make some money off that too, Why not? They want you to download of legal sites, and buy CDs...so the money comes directly to them. It's all they've ever been after

[aera]

Excellently put, Minda. (And I love the picture. XD)

To answer the question though, I believe the RIAA's attempts at stopping MP3 downloads will become futile. Ultimately though, it's all about money. Because of downloads, the artists are slowly starting to make more money than the company, and those companies are not happy about it. Money is the only true goal of these corporations.

yup, the more they try, the more people download. so basically, they're marketing it. which leads to artists getting more money than the companies. then to them catching people. then over again.

[sadolakced acid]

last time i encountered a copy protected CD i ripped it, and burned copies for my friends.

next time i encounter a copy protected CD which i cannot rip, i will attempt to return it and hopefully get on fox news.

and i will say to the cameras, "i can't rip this CD, so why should i buy it? i want it on my computer, in MP3, not DRMed crap WMA. And the only way to do that is through illegal file sharing. so why buy a CD i'll never use?"

yea...