Remember RIAA Promising Legal Cease-Fire?

[Eleas]

I would think individual song download at a cheap and reasonable price would reduce it, as you no longer get those downloading as they're morally offended by an exorbitant price.
What they really need is a new business model (yes, and the sky is blue). The songs being a lure (possibly given away free) to create fans who will buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other crap.

You are joking right? You do realise that as a business the recording industry has every right to charge whatever they want for their product. Lots of poeple here seem to think music is some "right" of theirs and its immoral to charge more than "they" think is fair. Folks music is not food. You will not starve and die if you do not get to buy your music.

What makes it "their" product? It's not as if they have a hand in producing it. The most they do is tell people it's out there, a process that today would have worked nearly as well by word of mouth if there hadn't been a concerted effort by the recording companies to stifle independents. Conversely, if the recording companies suffer, it's not as if the bands themselves are very much worse off than they already are. To spell it out: it's the present state of cartel lockdown that is immoral.

The fact that entertainment can be considered frivolous does not automatically confer any moral worth to companies whose business model is predicated on charging exorbitant fees without actually providing any services. That is unless, of course, you're equating morality with rampant profiteering... ah, I see the problem.

[Mr Bean]

You are joking right? You do realise that as a business the recording industry has every right to charge whatever they want for their product. Lots of poeple here seem to think music is some "right" of theirs and its immoral to charge more than "they" think is fair. Folks music is not food. You will not starve and die if you do not get to buy your music.

As the last two have pointed out. It's not "their" product. The RIAA is a racket, they have enough money and spent enough time that getting coverage in America is next to impossible without the RIAA approval. They own the distribution networks. They have all the promoters signed. They have firm solid contracts with outlets like MTV(Even if it's only on MTV 2/3 that music gets played) they know and in many cases own stakes in major venue locations. The RIAA in short has under it's firm control everything from the stages major bands play on. To the promoters who make up posters and create band websites. The local organizers who create buzz, and places like Ticketmaster which enable easy purchase of the tickets to your even. If you want to be bigger than have a guy at the front with a jar to collect money you will run into the RIAA not once, not twice, but dozens of times setting up your average concert.

It's only "their" product in the sense they have a lease on it, or in the case of musicians with bad business sense they might own particular songs or have the first rights to future productions. If I download the latest 50 Cent single, it's not going to be the rapper coming to my house lawsuit in hand. It's going to be the RIAA on behalf of him two steps removed(Once to the label he's signed to, then to the RIAA itself which all the major and minor labels belong to).


What's it called when one business controls everything? Monopoly! And while it's a fun board game it's bad for consumers. If you want to get signed you must play ball with the RIAA. And only when you do have a fan-base can you walk away from them, but thanks to contracts that they are forcing new people to sign, you might not be able to walk away until ten or more years after you make it big.

[SirNitram]

You are joking right? You do realise that as a business the recording industry has every right to charge whatever they want for their product. Lots of poeple here seem to think music is some "right" of theirs and its immoral to charge more than "they" think is fair. Folks music is not food. You will not starve and die if you do not get to buy your music.

No one's arguing it's a right. However, monopolistic price fixing, which the RIAA clearly engages in, is illegal. Which anyone who knew basic antitrust law would know.

But then again, you're too stupid to get basic economics. Yes, it's wrong to charge more than the customers think is fair. Supply vs. Demand. Lots of supply of discs, demand is increasingly not in line with their pricing. In properly regulated markets, this causes the price to drop, until the price is in line with what the consumer thinks is a fair price for the product. But like most pro-business cheerleaders, you're a moron who can't comprehend these things, and would likely try and find a map in The Wealth Of Nations to find where all the gold is.

So you go on ranting about them having 'every right' when they don't. In the meantime, I'll point out the RIAA has arranged to have criminal proceedings delegated to it, without the constitutional protections of criminal proceedings. But you're likely too stupid to get what that means as well.

[Sarevok]

I would think individual song download at a cheap and reasonable price would reduce it, as you no longer get those downloading as they're morally offended by an exorbitant price.
What they really need is a new business model (yes, and the sky is blue). The songs being a lure (possibly given away free) to create fans who will buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, and other crap.

You are joking right? You do realise that as a business the recording industry has every right to charge whatever they want for their product. Lots of poeple here seem to think music is some "right" of theirs and its immoral to charge more than "they" think is fair. Folks music is not food. You will not starve and die if you do not get to buy your music.

Can they legally charge for it ? Sometimes yes. But legally you can also be beheaded for insulting what you consider fictional characters in some countries.

The point is it is not their product anymore than thoughts in my head is owned by someone else. I am free to make whatever patterns of 1s and 0s I want on a hard drive that I bought with my own damn money. 0f course that might hurt the people bringing us great music and thus I am not advocating abolishing all restrictions. It is just that even in third world one can download a full length mp3 in matter of seconds. With technology so ubiquitous you will never be able to stop filesharing. The best the powers that be can do is stop being an ass to people who still buy music when they can just spend 30 seconds to p2p it.

[Jade Falcon]

Didn't Courtney Love of all people once go on a major anti-RIAA rant mentioning that the RIAA likes to put themselves forward as the 'champion of the artists' while they're bugger all of the kind.

[Eldalote]

RIAA stupidity doesn't end in America either.
I live at a Dutch university campus which has a large *Local* network.
Under Dutch laws downloading content is always legal and uploading is legal as long as it doesn't leave your *local* network.
About two years ago RIAA somehow managed to bully the FBI (WTF are they doing over here anyway) into arresting a student who had been sharing about 50TB of films and music on campus (He never shared on the internet).
Of course the case was thrown out of court at the first minute by the Dutch judge, it almost became an international incident.

If the RIAA wanted to do this in another country, I can only imagine what they would do in America.

[Oskuro]

In Spain, the equivalent of the RIAA, the SGAE ("Sociedad General de Autores y Editores", that is "Authoers and Editors Genral Society") is actually marking up the price of anything capable of holding data (CDs, DVDs, HDDs, Mobile Phones, USB Drives), and are even trying to do the same with the pricing of ADSL connections, all in the name of compensating authors for the potential use of said items for piracy.

So, first, we have a private company setting up a tax that affects everyone, regardless of the actual use of said gear.

Secondly, the SGAE steps in to "protect" authors without the author's consent. The do it by default. This has led to some rather unpleasant situations, like a bar owner who got a visit from SGAE's lawyers due to the music he was playing on the bar, despite the fact that he had created said music!

And, thirdly, the greatest idiocy is that, if you're already paying a tax, the piracy should be legal, right? No! We still have to deal with obnoxious DRM and stigmatization (Because according to these guys, downloading a movie is a crime. Curious how I can walk in into a video store, fill a backpack with movies, walk out, and if caught, it still doesn't classify as a criminal offense).


I just wonder if there are deals between both organizations. Also, I've heard there's something similar going on in France.