RIAA: Copying Your Bought Digital Music For Yourself Is Stealing

[Mark T]

I think you will find that nightclubs in the UK do require a licence (which pays the royalties), not having one is a good way to end up in court....

I'm curious as to how the royalties are shared. How do they know who should recieve royalties? How do they know which record labels music has been played?

 

[Solid Lifters]

When in a band here in the States, the night club or bar owner must pay for the cover tunes played by the band(s) they hire. Sometimes, you'll need to sign a contract to play a simple bar gig and often written in the contract is stated who pays the record companies.

The RIAA has gone after bar owners for not paying the cover tunes played by the bands they've hired.

All this is scare tactics and it's really a very desperate act that wont work.

 

[V1P3R]

Would it be possible to hack the RIAA website and set it up as a file server to get music from?

 

[Alfaholic]

some single mum gets knocked out for 200K US because she shares music that she paid for with a friend, and a business operating without a license plays music to all and sundry all night and gets hit for £1300?

Am I detecting two utterly disparate views on what constitutes justice, or has the US dollar dropped tremendously in value recently?

 

[FoolKiller]

I'm curious as to how the royalties are shared. How do they know who should recieve royalties? How do they know which record labels music has been played?

Oh they have a whole society set up to take care of this.

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP)
They are the ones that get the fees from radio stations and clubs and whatnot.

I know radio stations have to fill out forms listing what music gets played so that they can pay the right fees. In a club the licensing fee may either be spread out equally or the club provides a playlist of sort. Most bands and DJ will have these kinds of things set up ahead of time so they aren't stumbling through their set. I have no clue how they track things like requests.


This also brings up a question of how this might affect garage bands that usually get the occasional coffee shop type gig. I know in college occasionally a few student bands would get together in the Chinese restaurant across the street from campus for $2 a head to cover beer for the band. Most of these little college bands would do covers of Van Morrison and the like, typical coffeehouse/college stuff. They had no license and many concerts were broken up by the police when we exceeded the maximum fire marshall approved number for the building. Of course, this was the same place that was widely known to sell alcohol to underage students, so I doubt they were too concerned about music or public performance licenses.

 

[Casio]

Have anyone here paid attention to what Radiohead have done yesterday? Personally I think it's a fantastic lead in what would be a great new direction.

They have released their entire new album 'In Rainbows' on the internet for 'whatever the buyer wants to pay for it'

Today, Radiohead made its seventh studio album, In Rainbows, available on the Internet. The 10-song work is the British band's first new release since it separated from Capitol Records, the label that promoted Radiohead's music for more than a decade. It's also the band's first full attempt at e-commerce. Rather than setting a fixed price for the download, Radiohead invites fans to pay whatever they think the music is worth, without using any of the digital-rights-management software favored by the major labels.

I think it's a great idea, as they've also released a album box set thingy which arrives on December 3, with the CD, art/lyric books, and a couple of vinyls for 40 quid.

Why have they done this? I think it's because they know people will download their music anyway, and that fans of theirs will buy the expensive set which will probably make up for the few lost sales of people who actually would have actually bought the CD.

 

[Swift]

So let me get this straight. I download a song/CD on iTunes. I then burn it to a CD so I can listen to it in my car or other CD player and that's stealing? I'd love to see her try to prosecute this.

 

[Danoff]

So let me get this straight. I download a song/CD on iTunes. I then burn it to a CD so I can listen to it in my car or other CD player and that's stealing? I'd love to see her try to prosecute this.

One of the things that really bugs me about this is that the RIAA seems to think that they can license these things in any arbitrary way, and then confuses breaking the license agreement with stealing.

If the license you agreed to when you purchase the CD said that you could only listen to it on Tuesday. The RIAA would argue that such a license is totally reasonable because you need to buy 6 other copies to listen to it throughout the week. But they'd also claim that listening to your Tuesday-licensed copy on Wednesday was theft - which is isn't. It's a violation of the license agreement. Those aren't the same thing.

Copying a song to your HD isn't the same thing as stealing. It may be a violation of a ridiculous license, but stealing is something else.

BTW, here's a tutorial on fair use and copyright:



(^it's a bit opinionated, but mostly accurate)

 

[Mark T]

The way I look at it:

If you copy a song/CD and then sell it or distrbute it illegally via the internet, then that is illegal and is a form of piracy. The record label loses out. If you partake in this activity you should accept any consequences that come to you.

If you own an original CD/song purchased from an official song distributor and copy that CD/song for your own private use that should be perfectly legal. No one loses money.

 

[DustDriver]

it would be funny if employees of RIAA listened to the radio during work, and someone sues them for that
Should be an easy win.

Here in belgium it's called sabam or something. I heared a story where some sort of scouts had a fund raiser party.
People from Sabam busted the party and wanted to give a fine for playing the music.
turned out those scouts were smart enough to only use free cd's and nothing else, so they couldn't fine them
Annoyed as those sabam people were, they went to the kitchen where a radio was playing and fined for that.

 

[Kylehnat]

So let me get this straight. I download a song/CD on iTunes. I then burn it to a CD so I can listen to it in my car or other CD player and that's stealing?

That's what I take from this. The music industry is just shooting itself in the foot with bad publicity. I'm not going to pay $18 for a CD at the store, and I sure as hell would not to pay $11 to download music, and have it stranded on my computer.

 

[Jondot]

Have anyone here paid attention to what Radiohead have done yesterday? Personally I think it's a fantastic lead in what would be a great new direction.

They have released their entire new album 'In Rainbows' on the internet for 'whatever the buyer wants to pay for it'



I think it's a great idea, as they've also released a album box set thingy which arrives on December 3, with the CD, art/lyric books, and a couple of vinyls for 40 quid.

Why have they done this? I think it's because they know people will download their music anyway, and that fans of theirs will buy the expensive set which will probably make up for the few lost sales of people who actually would have actually bought the CD.

I know, it's genius. Interestingly, though, I heard that the majority of people buying it actually put in the standard CD cost (£8 or thereabouts), and very few people have just paid the delivery surcharge and nothing else.

The Charlatans have done something similar, but for different reasons. They've just decided to, essentially, give away their tracks on the 'net for free. Why? Apparently because of the measly sum they were making from CD & download sales - they received some ridiculously small amount per legal download (something like 20p - 4p per member). They've now dropped the record label and are just giving music away in the hope that if the music reaches more people, more people will go and see them play live. And that's where they make their money - from the no-middle-man CD & t-shirt sales at gigs.

 

[Kylehnat]

Exactly. Bands don't need record labels for money, they need them for exposure. If they can get exposure some other way, they'll still make as much money. That's why most bands don't give a damn about illegal downloading.

 

[FoolKiller]

from the no-middle-man CD & t-shirt sales at gigs.

Technically, there is a middle man. The guys selling the shirts and whatnot at the stands are contractors from the local region that bid on the jobs. A guy from my church runs one and my dad works for him for side money.

 

[hellnback]

Give me a break, it's not the record industry or the RIAA can turn around now and act like angels and take the higher moral ground.

Once upon a time you use to be able to get you music on big black plastic like disks with all these etches on them, the material and production methods were quite expensive so quite rightly you spent a tidy sum to obtain what you wanted...

Then in a slice of luck they found a way to put music onto a small plastic disc which was cheap to produce, more durable, and even better, they could mass produce them, alot of them. They were so pleased with their achievements they promptly offered these discs to the public at a *cough* bargin price, which incidently was a *cough* little higher than the previous disks...

(Incidently, I ask, have those prices ever really dropped that much or to a level you would expect?)

And there my fellow friends is a classic example of karma...

They ripped off the music buying community for years so don't come crying to us now when there is payback.

On another point, they seem to be only prosecuting those who 'share' big libraries and as a result have lots of traffic. So what do we learn from that? Download with impunity

 

[FoolKiller]

Then in a slice of luck they found a way to put music onto a small plastic disc which was cheap to produce, more durable, and even better, they could mass produce them, alot of them. They were so pleased with their achievements they promptly offered these discs to the public at a *cough* bargin price, which incidently was a *cough* little higher than the previous disks...

(Incidently, I ask, have those prices ever really dropped that much or to a level you would expect?)

It depebnds on where you shop. There was an anti-trust suit, which the music industry settled, because the labels and certain music stores were working to prevent and discourage multi-item stores, such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal*Mart, from being able to offer discounts reflecting teh reduction in production costs. See settlement info here.

After that time prices quickly dropped from between $15-$20 across the board to $10-$12 at most of the places that offer up discounts. Plenty of places still try to sell them around $17 (and why people keep them in business I don't know), but the businesses not closely tied to the music industry do offer properly priced CDs.

Now, what I truly find funny is that the online sales of music try to charge us the exact same prices for a digital version as they do for a CD. The consumers are more and more often only buying individual songs so that they can pay $3 to get the only songs they will listen to anyway. This should be a sign that we need better quality music, but the industry response is to try and recover losses by creating more fluff that can be produced for cheap. I would equate this to Ford or Chevy losing sales to Toyota and then deciding to make cheaper, less reliable cars and selling them at the same price as their current models to cover the profit losses. I constantly believe that if the industry put out more music that was on the level of bands like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, where the artists actually writes the music, sings the songs, and plays the instruments, we would buy more. I know I would. Instead we get low talent eye-candy making fluff handed to them by the labels and then lip syncing their way through shows.

I don't buy less music because I can get it for free. I buy less music because there is less music I want to buy and listen to. You are more likely to find me listening to songs from 10-40 years ago on my iPod than anything made this decade. There are a few exceptions, and those songs I had to work to find.

On another point, they seem to be only prosecuting those who 'share' big libraries and as a result have lots of traffic. So what do we learn from that? Download with impunity

While that makes a good joke, I wouldn't seriously encourage this. If you like the music pay for it. The musicians and the companies deserve compensation for bringing you something you find entertaining. If you can find a way to purchase the music that gives more to the musicians I say do that as well. Buying the CD at a concert is a good way to do this, but you will find a couple of dollars mark-up to pay the contractors working the booths.

I have friends who constantly tell me about bit torrent and various other free sites they have found, but I refuse to use them. They have gotten overly confused, mainly because I was the first one of all my friends to use Napster. My views have changed and I recognize that anytime I get music for free in a way that wasn't provided by the musicians (or as a prize) then I have stolen. Maybe it is because when Napster came out I was in college and struggling to make my way financially and now I have money, or maybe I have just matured. Either way, when I did it then it was wrong and it still is now.

Pay people for their work, and if you can do that without paying to the industry itself do that.

 

[Year.Zero]

Interesting that there's a thread about this— I just read something on the Nine Inch Nails website where Trent just posted that he's now a free agent. He's always been quite vocal about this thing (interference from Record labels) and now he's free to do what he wants.

08 October 2007: Big News

Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

And then in his next post he talks about the release formats of songs:

*talks about release formats*

I can make this easy for you: if you just want to hear the tracks as cheaply as possible, get it digitally. The highest fidelity will likely be Amazon (through legal means).
If you want something that's aesthetically cool and will enhance any collection, get the vinyl. Trust me, it looks great. The extra tracks are fairly minor embellishments to the whole (and surely someone will upload them instantly).
If you want higher quality tracks legally, a nice package AND a complete multitrack of the whole record, get the physical CD / DVD ROM.

**insert comment from NINSUX: "I thought he said all the multitracks were going to be posted online, now he wants us to PAY for them??"
Relax, friend. One second after this package goes to the manufacturing plant someone will kindly upload those missing multitracks and everything will be OK. If they don't soon enough for your liking, just yell loudly out the window and I'll do it myself.

It seems more and more bands are getting fed up with this. I thought I read something he said about DRM-free music somewhere else too. . .

Here it is:

Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails, is another champion of digital music and software advances that offer artists the chance to engage with audiences in new ways. During the band's current European tour, fans have been "finding" unprotected versions of tracks from the band's forthcoming album, Year Zero, on USB Flash drives left dotted around the stadium.

The drives - and even the clothes the band wear - also contain images and links to cryptic websites. Reznor remains an unrepentant advocate of music files that are free from Digital Rights Management, seeing the USB drives as a convenient promotional vehicle.

"The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there," he explained. "The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want - DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it."

 

[niky]

+1.

Why force people to pay more as "development fees" for a medium that's outmoded (CDs) or one which didn't require the company to invest that much in (internet), anyway?

 

[m7ammed]

the future lays with the Gaming industry, quality of music isn't like what it use to be and its going down every year