Free Republic

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

One of the Big Four labels is apparently unhappy with its return on investment when it comes to funding industry trade groups such as the IFPI and RIAA. British label EMI, which was recently purchased by a private equity fund, is reportedly considering a significant cut to the amount of money it provides the trade groups on an annual basis. According to figures seen by Reuters, each of the Big Four contributes approximately $132.3 million to fund the operations of the IFPI, RIAA, and other national recording industry trade groups. That money is used in part to fund the industry's...

San Francisco (IDGNS) - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) won the first of many digital music file sharing cases Thursday against a single mother, with a U.S. jury finding her guilty of copyright infringement and fining her a total of $222,000. The U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota could have fined Jammie Thomas as much as $3.6 million, but opted not to. She was found guilty of stealing and giving away via Internet peer-to-peer Internet file sharing Kazaa a total of 24 songs from companies including Capitol Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Records....

Lawmakers, music industry executives and rappers disagreed Tuesday over who was to blame for sexist and degrading language in hip-hop music but united in opposing government censorship as a solution. "If by some stroke of the pen hip-hop was silenced, the issues would still be present in our communities," rapper and record producer David Banner, whose real name is Levell Crump, said in prepared statements to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing. "Drugs, violence and the criminal element were around long before hip-hop existed." At the hearing, music videos showing scantily clad women were played; music executives in dark...

A hugely popular seller of music downloads is illegal, according to the music industry, and prosecutions are underway. AllofMP3.com, a Moscow-based service that undercuts iTunes by enormous margins, was accused today of paying nothing to artists. The website, run by MediaServices Inc, has long protested its innocence. Yet the prices are remarkable: a British shopper can download an album from iTunes Music Store for £9.79; or typically about £0.75 from AllofMP3, which prices its downloads by file size. And the choice is enormous. All those Beatles albums that Apple is not allowed to sell can be found at AllofMP3.com for...

Chippewa Falls Prom CD Paige Pearson The prom committee usually comes up with ideas for giveaways, and this year they decided on CDs featuring songs played at prom like the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" and Sara Evans' "Born to Fly." One little problem: those songs are protected by U.S. copyright laws, and it's illegal to copy songs that are not in the public domain. Chi Hi officials say they are more than willing to comply with the Recording Industry of America, which is currently investigating the case. That might include paying a licensing fee or even trying to retrieve...

THE POP LIFE Royalties From PBS Dismay Bluesmen By NEIL STRAUSS Published: September 25, 2003 On Sunday PBS is scheduled to begin its weeklong documentary series "The Blues," with Martin Scorsese as executive producer. In the episodes, directed by Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis and others, the past, present and future of the blues are honored, explored and explained. But some record labels and music publishers say there is one old blues tradition being honored by PBS that would be better off left in the past: underpaying the artist. Randall Wixen, president of Wixen Music Publishing, says PBS offered...

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3 — The world’s largest recording company said Wednesday it would slash wholesale CD prices in hopes of reviving music sales, which have dropped 31 percent industrywide in the last three years. UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP said it would cut the suggested sale price on a majority of its CDs by $6 to $12.98. The company hopes retailers will follow its lead and drop their CD prices to around $10 or less. The price changes would go into effect by Oct. 1.       “We expect (this) will invigorate the music market in North America,” UMG Chairman and...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- Hilary Rosen, the U.S. recording industry's head lobbyist who waged a high-profile battle against Napster and music piracy, is resigning at the end of the year.</p> <p>In a statement, Rosen cited personal reasons for leaving the Recording Industry Association of America, where she has served as chief executive since 1998.</p>

HILARY ROSEN -- Jack Valenti's RIAA female clone -- has now gone on record saying that as part of the fight against music piracy, ISPs should be held accountable for the actions of their users and charged a fee for giving their customer's access to services such as Kazaa or Morpheus. The result of holding ISPs liable for the ways their customers use them would be catastrophic. Should ISPs be held accountable for the actions of pedophiles? How about members of racist groups? How about groups that are legal but we wish weren't, like the KKK, Aryan Nation, and the...

CD Price Fixing Last week I talked about USB Interfaces. This week I report on a lawsuit brought by 28 states against five of the largest record labels in the world. Ok, let's say you sell widgets, and you charge $30 per unit. People love your widgets so much that they'll pay the $30 because they cost the same at most stores. But you've been doing something very naughty - you've been rewarding the stores that agree to sell your product at the price you've fixed. FOR SHAME.... Not only is that dishonest, but it's morally reprehensible to make your...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. lawmakers have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to go after Internet users who download unauthorized songs and other copyrighted material, raising the possibility of jail time for digital-music fans.</p> <p>In a July 25 letter released late Thursday, some 19 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle asked Ashcroft to prosecute "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and Morpheus and the users who swap digital songs, video clips and other files without permission from artists or their record labels.</p>

They told me downloads were "destroying sales", "ruining the music industry", and "costing you money". Costing me money? I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet…and check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing.

<p>Popular music has been upended by every technological advance from electricity and the phonograph to cassette tapes and recordable CDs. The switch from analog to digital accelerated the pace of illicit duplication and distribution, sounding the loudest alarm yet. As Napster struggles to survive, other sites from Gnutella to KaZaa are filling the void. Last week, labels and music publishers sued Audiogalaxy, a booming file-swapping network that lured 3.5 million users in March.</p>