RIAA declares radio stations to be pirates

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-06-29 07:53pm

Alan Bolte wrote:Well, a business can't operate a television or radio in a public area without paying certain fees. Ridiculous, considering that the radio waves are already there.

What do you mean the radio waves are already there? The vast majority of radio waves transmissions are artificial, and then there's the whole issue about interference. There's a reason spectrum use is tightly regulated.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2008-06-29 08:23pm

I don't know this for certain, but I can't help but think that radio stations are barely staying afloat as it is at the moment. Being forced to pay royalties presents the stations with the ultimatum of tanking or going indie. The RIAA wants neither, in the long run, though I don't know that they realize it.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2008-06-29 08:24pm

What he means is that the fees are coming and going.

The person broadcasting them initially is paying and the people who are receiving (in a public area) are being asked to pay a second time for something that is already there.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2008-06-29 09:36pm

I can see the reason for tight regulation of broadcasting, the spectrum is a quite limited resource. But regulating reception? That's like handing out licenses to scream an obscure language into a bullhorn from the rooftops, and then restricting use of Klingon-to-English dictionaries. The former can only intelligibly be done by one person at a time, and so should be licensed. Anyone within earshot can listen, so why make the hotel with dictionaries in every room pay royalties to the author of whatever's being screamed in Klingon?

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-07-03 08:44am

Don't worry all of this nonsense will be rendered even more irrevelent by technology in ten to twenty years time and the music industry cannot chain down music anymore than the Catholic Church could restrain the printing press. Copyright and royalties was only supposed to have had a time limit of 15 years.

Setesh · Post by **Setesh** » 2008-07-03 09:05am

Big Orange wrote:Don't worry all of this nonsense will be rendered even more irrevelent by technology in ten to twenty years time and the music industry cannot chain down music anymore than the Catholic Church could restrain the printing press. Copyright and royalties was only supposed to have had a time limit of 15 years.

That's the trick here, you can renew copywrites as long as you own the property. Because the 'industry standard' contracts state the publisher not the artist owns the music they can get 60+ years out of other peoples work.

The real trick to bringing down the RIAA house of cards are the growing number of bands self-publishing, especially the ones who have the money to fight off the RIAA membership if they try the 'royalty collection' shit on stuff they don't in fact have rights to.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-07-06 01:53pm

If music industry standards were applied to book publishing then what would happen to the libraries and current private use? They would be possibly be burning books after being read once or storing them in locked boxes (that you need to insert coins to open them).

Napoleon the Clown · Post by **Napoleon the Clown** » 2008-07-07 06:06am

Um, Orange? Libraries lend CDs, so I doubt there'd be a problem. Unfortunately for the RIAA, the US government probably is strongly inclined toward telling them to fuck off when it comes to their own toes.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-07-07 09:31am

Napoleon the Clown wrote:Um, Orange? Libraries lend CDs, so I doubt there'd be a problem. Unfortunately for the RIAA, the US government probably is strongly inclined toward telling them to fuck off when it comes to their own toes.

The US Gov has done a pretty good job of chugging RIAA cock so far. Or do I have to remind you of the DMCA?

Napoleon the Clown · Post by **Napoleon the Clown** » 2008-07-08 03:09am

Like I said, when the RIAA steps on its toes. Otherwise, they're pandering to get more money.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-07-11 10:54am

I don't think the current music copyright system is good business sense in most respects, when they so heavily restrict televisions shows with music content and that encourages torrent downloads (or pirate DVDs) that thus self-fulfills a prophecy. Media companies like Sony are too stupid and overly invested in themselves to see this.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-07-11 11:03am

Big Orange wrote:I don't think the current music copyright system is good business sense in most respects, when they so heavily restrict televisions shows with music content and that encourages torrent downloads (or pirate DVDs) that thus self-fulfills a prophecy. Media companies like Sony are too stupid and overly invested in themselves to see this.

That's as obvious as the fact that the color of sky is infact somewhere near RGB(0,0,255).