RIAA an undemocratic, unelected, overpowerful regime (Indepth report)

theinquirer.net ^

[chance33_98]

Ping

[Paul C. Jesup]

If you think the drug cartels are bad, the music and movie cartels (RIAA and MPAA) make them look like amateurs.

[HHFi]

My personal opinion is that record sales are down because 99.9% of the stuff being played on the radio today sucks harder than a pro model Oreck vacuum cleaner. On the rare occasions when something worth buying comes out, I buy it. In fact, I just picked up Amy Rigby's new CD, "Till The Wheels Fall Off," and it's terrific. Of course, it's also on a small, independent label, which is where almost all decent music can now be found.

John Stossel did a "Give Me A Break" segment on "20/20" last night about the file-sharing controversy. He asked about the ridiculous lawsuits against the students, and the designated record industry weasel said they didn't really expect them to pay those big amounts, that was just "legal stuff." But then, Stossel reported that one of the students had to pay them a settlement of $12,000, his entire life savings, so it might as have been $97 billion to him. I'm sure the college tuition money he'd worked his whole life to save bought a couple of toots of really primo cocaine for a couple of these poor, staving record industry SOBs.

BTW, the same charming music industry spokesman claimed they were just going after distributors, but when Stossel asked if that meant they wouldn't sue his own teenage son who just likes to listen to songs off the Internet, he refused to say no. Nice bunch. They make the Sopranos look like the Osmonds.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

As the recording industry continues to sue college students, an organized boycott among students of all music produced by major labels would be a reasonable response. Another option would be a huge, class-action lawsuit against the major recording labels for the kind of software hacking they plan to implement.

Major labels have been operating as an organized crime syndicate for a very long time. Payola is rampant and music quality has very little to do with what is played on the radio. The radio stations are programmed by a few individuals who make music-playing decisions for huge numbers of stations at a time. A handful of so-called "consultants" are making music taste decisions for millions. The whole system is absolutely rotten to the core.

In the heyday of popular music, individual disc jockeys would play records THEY liked and lo and behold, many newcomers got the break they needed and deserved and many STARS were born in that way. What a concept!

[Moby Grape]

Why are there some in our country who see "freebies" as a "right", simply because those who own something are rich? There are welfare freeloaders and now the new class of "give me something for nothing" little whinning piggies at the tit, art welfare recipents.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Why are there some in our country who see "freebies" as a "right", simply because those who own something are rich? There are welfare freeloaders and now the new class of "give me something for nothing" little whinning piggies at the tit, art welfare recipents.

This is a strawman arguement. If you ask most p2p users, they will likely tell you something to this effect.

That they will NOT buy ripoff prices for crap from people who treat them like they are the enemy. But they will pay a fair price for crap from people who treat them with kindness and respect.

[Paul C. Jesup]

buy=pay

[strela]

That they will NOT buy ripoff prices for crap from people who treat them like they are the enemy.

Honest people have one option when confronted with "ripoff" prices - not to pay them. The option of stealing the product thus priced is not one that an honest person has.

[TechJunkYard]

It is not an independent and duly authorised legal body and yet has acquired for itself the power to hack into any computer to examine the contents of the hard disk and the power to deposit new software or modify exiting software.

'scuse me? The Berman Bill died in committee, and Berman said he would not re-introduce it. So where did RIAA get this new "power"?

What did I miss?

[strela]

What did I miss?

When you find out, please let me know too. The author of the piece made some fairly astonishing claims about these alleged new "powers" of the RIAA.

Hmmm, lessee, they supposedly have been granted permission to frame poor, honest computer users ("... the RIAA appears to have the power to download music files onto any hard disk, then to claim that those files were put there by the users of that computer ..."). Can't any 13 year-old eL3Et hAx0r d0oD do that already?

Guess I need to sue RIAA for that unsightly ring of flab around my waist, stinky feet, waspish personality, and ho-hum love life as well.

[RayChuang88]

In my opinion, the RIAA cartel is just as bad as OPEC at its height of power in the 1970's.

Because the RIAA can often dictate what records get sold and what music gets played on the air, they could effectively shut out any musical act that is not "approved" by RIAA member music labels. Take for example a lot of really great techno or house music heard in discoteques coming from Europe and Japan (and are extremely popular there); you'll rarely hear it on radio stations here in the USA except in a select few very large markets, and even in that case it's not played commonly. RIAA are more interested in the latest boy bands, rap artists, country & western artists, contemporary adult artists, or long-time established acts; can you imagine the first-creative peak Elton John/Bernie Taupin of the 1970's surviving in today's musical marketing environment--I didn't think so.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You forget an honest person may download in just for the spite of it.

(sarcasm) How can you steal something that is just a microscopic chain of ones and zeros.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You forget that the RIAA has already been sued for price fixing and they lost that case.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You need to check out the online Anime stores, they sell a LOT of J-pop and J-blues/jazz.

[wizzler]

What do you get when you add:

- an inability to use logic
- an ignorance of the law
- an ignorance of basic economics
- a tendency to analyze the world in terms of one's own limited life experience
- a flourish of self-righteousness

??

You get a "file-sharing" advocate.

I suspect this is why teenagers comprise the bulk of the pro-downloading crowd.

[merak]

There is a price for anything which maximizes profits, and that is not the highest price you'd ever get for one or two copies. You learn that in basic calculus or business 103, and apparently everybody on this planet understands this other than for the RIAA. Those guys went from selling LPs for $6 - $7 to selling CDs which were cheaper to produce for $16 and in 18 years they've not dropped the price a single penny.

Absolutely no way can I feel sorry for them. They deserve what they're obviously going to get.

[merak]

Sounds like you own stock in the recording industry; I'd suggest you sell it, ASAP.

[myself6]

The beautiful thing about this is we can use this "new class" to our advantage in the fight against socialists and their financial machine.

[wizzler]

No, I own no stock in the recording industry. If I did, however, it would be a shame to lose money because some people have taken it upon themselves to steal from me and my fellow investors.

One of the funniest things about all this is how a lot of folks are suddenly record industry experts. We now get all this "incisive" analysis of the music business from people who three years ago probably had never even heard the word "RIAA."

And not only do people now fashion themselves as experts -- which is fine, whatever -- they're so passionate about their analyses. The minutia of the record industry is suddenly the stuff of emotionally charged diatribes.

Now, why would that be? In 1998, there weren't tons of people fashioning themselves as music biz experts. There was no collective outcry against "overpriced CDs," no constant chatter about record labels' fiscal books. People gave about as much thought to the music biz as they did the inner workings of the train industry.

What changed is that "file-sharing" came along. Or, more specifically, file-sharing came along and was challenged by those whose stuff was being stolen. And so the freeloaders needed to concoct a host of justifications. Thus the rise of the Armchair Record-Industry Expert, arming himself with a set of increasingly convoluted rationales for use in his mission to keep getting free music.

The Armchair Record-Industry Expert is everywhere now. He was first spotted mostly in teen chatrooms, but he has since moved into more legitimate arenas of discourse such as Free Republic. He strides into a room with an armful of arguments and assertions, many of them developed from the labor-intensive act of pure guesswork and speculation. His historical perspective is grounded in the four-year span since file-sharing arose; the broader, age-old principles behind copyright and intellectual property have no resonance for him. He has no grasp on the basic tenets of supply, demand and price.

But, man, is he passionate about the topic of file-sharing, often assigning a quasi-spiritual character to the Internet. And, man, is he mad at that damned record industry.

Me -- I'm passionate about the topic because I find the phenomenon to be one of the most distressing developments I've ever witnessed. To watch something transform into this wide-scale disregard for morality, honesty and the law has been utterly sad.