RIAA strikes out at students

[soulkraka]

If not even your mother knows who you are, you'd kill to have you music copied over and over and get as much exposure as possible.

Once you get some recognition, suddenly all those who copy your music turn into spoiled greedy bastards with all sorts of qualities that make them lower than the lowest form of life.

Human nature...

PS. Just a generalized observation.

yes, a generalized observation but like many generalizations has truth. Im sure back in the day Metallica was happy to have people sharing their demo that was bought at shows......

[kaden]

Creative Commons

[shamann]

If I steal your wallet, gamble with it, hit the jackpot and give you 10X the money I stole, does that make it okay? Course the odds are you'll never see a dime of it back.

A flawed assumption that property rights are equal to copy rights. Information is not an object, and as such is in no way affected by the dominion of scarcity. Even if you favour intellectual property rights, it is incorrect to compare it to property rights, and is only done so as rhetorical trickery.

We all live with a series of social agreements, whether we made them or not. And we do so for various reasons, most of which have nothing to do with any moral assessment. Strangely some of us seem to have gotten confused by this and now seem to think that state law defines morality, that if it's illegal it must be wrong. What a crock, and I can probably give you a list of a thousand immoral laws in very short order.

We can all agree that music is a commodity to which we are all denied unfettered access, just the same as we can with software, but it's still an agreement. Illegal filesharing is a violation of a social agreement that offers exclusivity to intellectual works. But the preferred way of saying it by those with something to gain is "stealing" because it is a loaded, fear-inducing word. Shame shame, you're a stealer!!!

You want to talk about the validity of copyright, sure. But you want to talk right and wrong, whereby your position is automatically the right one because it fits in line with the state's, then perhaps you ought to investigate 20000 years of right and wrong thoroughly before you start forcing your way on all others.

[xoxos]

(nothing against foosnark.. just trying to push the impression that everyone agrees that gang/government/pirates all which is oc erroneous because everyone knows pirates are upstanding accredited professionals and it's not easy to face up to all the pillaging and plundering every morning)

[soulkraka]

Chase, as kaden mentioned do check out creative commons. they have multiple ways to copyright your music, basically variations on "some rights reserved" copyrighting.

You can specify , for example, that its ok to share but not sample your work OR its ok to sample as long as the artist significantly alters the material OR its ok to sample period, no restrictions.

there are evn whole labels that are based on this form of copyright.

http://magnatune.com/

[Hink]

...

I would like to see you back up where anyone said "home taping is killing music"....hell they encouraged it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_tapin ... ling_music

damn nobody reads my posts...yes, post cd....let's count okay 60-70-80, notice 80 comes after the other two?...I clearly stated then restated 60's,70's and early 80's...that was mid to late 80's...as I said after the cd and dat....

[xoxos]

oh... that short term memory loss thing

[Hink]

Is there a way to copyright music and not have the RIAA to have anything to do with it?

For instance say I was famous, is there a special copyright that would allow people to trade my song on p2p programs and still protect my song from being sampled or have melodies stolen from it?

music is copywritten automatically when a song is written. You must establish ownership of the rights. Also to prevail in a copyright infringement case there is a far tougher burden of then ownership...that's infringement...that means someone had a chance to hear your song, and then represented it as their own. If you and I both write songs that are the same but had no idea of the other neither of us would infringe on the other and it would not be actionable...

[Hink]

still this whole disscussion is going in the wrong direction...let's not fight amoungst ourselves. I am concerned of losing the right to post, sell and swap our own music and that is the real agenda behind this...the pirates are wrong...but we must not let the RIAA pull one over on us. Protect the artist, his/her rights to songs....don't let Simon choose...

[Rellik]

Of course you can copyright your music and have the RIAA have nothing to do with it.

The RIAA exists only as a regulatory organization among recording industry companies and record lables - it's not a part of the government. Their would only be issues if you tried to put out a CD or other form of media without the RIAA's involvement, since it would come into conflict with RIAA-specified codes and databases - you could sort all these things out for yourself, but it would be much more difficult than to just send in the form to the RIAA. But if you're not putting out a CD, then it'll be fine.

By the way, about the point some people are making about burnt CDs being publicity for artists - of course this can be true. Piracy obviously has both positive and negative effects - i mean, heck, I wouldn't have ever gotten into computer music if I hadn't pirated a certain piece of software that got me hooked (later bought).

However, the fact still remains that it's copyright infringement. And if the copyright you're infringing happens to be under the care of the RIAA, then they may prosecute you for the infringement. Even though there are these very real benefits of piracy, it doesn't change the fact that it is what it is: doing something unauthorized by the original artist or their representative.

As I keep saying, these are just the pains of the internet being born. Grocery stores have long allowed shoppers to taste a grape or two to see if they are ripe - ice cream shops give free samples - there is even precedent for limited "stealing" being allowable in most organized religions (a few grapes from a vineyard, a few olives from an orchard, a few bushels of wheat from the corners, etc.). It will just take time for people to realize that they WILL get in trouble if they do this kind of thing too much - when everybody realizes that, then a little copyright infringement on the fringes is certainly within the realm of reason. Until then, the RIAA is just sending the message the only way it can that it means business about protecting its clients.

[munchkin]

Stealing is stealing. No amount of justification makes it right.

Well this doesn't seem to bother the record companies who steal from musicians and consumers all the time.

Proof? Still pointless justification.

Looks like you're going to stick to your guns about this but if you have any success the bitter pill you'll have to swallow will be when you're earning a few percent for your music and your boss is flying his own Lear jet. All your creativity for a few percent. If that's not stealing I don't know what is.

If you think the law should uphold the dishonest practices of the record companies (and they're all at it - even the so-called 'independents') then I'm not really sure you are on the side of the musician.

[toine6]

If I steal your wallet, gamble with it, hit the jackpot and give you 10X the money I stole, does that make it okay? Course the odds are you'll never see a dime of it back.

So you are saying that it would be better for Fantomas if I had never gotten that burnt c.d. and had never bought any of their albums??

And this is so because of the "odds"?

And how do you know the odds???

No. I'm not saying that your stealing of one CD is bad for Fantomas, it seems it's been positive for them in your case. Is stealing right or wrong, well I think that's debatable as it's an ethical type of argument.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree, I'm just asking the question...

About my only argument is that it is stealing, and no one's convinced me otherwise. Actually it's probably better defined as an involuntarily taken high-risk loan in some cases. I believe that needs to be defined, and then the arguments can continue, most of which are of moral and societal reasons. Stealing may be great for music does that make it right? I don't know.

And this is so because of the "odds"? And how do you know the odds???

I believe human nature is what makes the odds high. In my estimation the majority of the people who take music are not going to pay for it. Might be okay though, as even if 99% of those who take it, dare I say "illegally", if 1% of those buy, then it's better than nothing.

[diverdee]

All your creativity for a few percent. If that's not stealing I don't know what is.
(

Amen - anyone who has ever had a record deal definately knows where you are coming from. Most of my old friends (& myself) have had deals in the past - some with majors & had charted with singles yada-yada-yada. Now we all work for a living, mostly shitty jobs - cos of all the time we spent working on our musical 'careers'. My old manager & some of the record & publishing guys I met - damn they are living life stush. (I'm starting to sound like the old muso in the league of gentlemen now - 'it's a shit business').

[The Chase]

Remember a while ago when people hacked the RIAA's website? that was awesome

[munchkin]

still this whole disscussion is going in the wrong direction...let's not fight amoungst ourselves. I am concerned of losing the right to post, sell and swap our own music and that is the real agenda behind this...the pirates are wrong...but we must not let the RIAA pull one over on us. Protect the artist, his/her rights to songs....don't let Simon choose...

Yes this is the real agenda. The record labels want to control the distribution of music. If they control distribution they control what we are allowed to hear then they can sell any old shit. Why else would they form monopolies and force the competition against the wall? The RIAA claim to represent the interests of all musicians but who actually pulls the strings? Certainly not the thousands of tiny labels promoting a few musicians.

I presume it's common knowledge that MTV and radio stations plug certain music because they get kickbacks. This has been going on for years. The major labels had this 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' agenda all stitched up. Any musician, label or record shop that didn't play ball got crushed.

Well that's all in flux at the moment. The internet has let a bit of anarchy in and the monopolies hate this 'do it yourself' attitude. They can't control it so they can't make money out of it. The RIAA want to change this by destroying any form of music sharing that isn't under their influence. That's the real agenda all right. As if they care whether 'Blue' or 'Foetus in a bucket' lose a few sales. They have a far greater and further reaching agenda to fight for.

These organisations are conservative by nature. They want to hang on to their power. That's why they are running scared and are blind to the emerging opportunities. They want to continue controlling music and bang out 'product' for mass consumption at huge profit. Musicians are collateral. Product. It's nothing new and now they are attempting to stamp their control on the new forms of distribution.

They'll probably win in the end but it's delicious to see them squirm as we take advantage of their weakness. Do I sound like I'm gloating?