RIAA Now Reaches Denial Stage
from the you-really-believe-that? dept
It appears that the RIAA goes through a slightly different "stages of grief" than your average person. It starts with lawsuits, is followed by gibberish, and then comes denial. Believe it or not, the RIAA is now claiming that downloading and sharing of unauthorized songs has now been "contained." Of course, reality doesn't back that up. BigChampagne, the firm that tracks all of this stuff, notes that it appears to just keep going up, with no noticeable hesitation or decline due to the recording industry's tactics.
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Denial? More like...
karma's a bitch. may she have sharp teeth.
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contained
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Truth
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Teyre next plan of attack
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SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Dammit Mike BE QUIET!! They might HEAR YOU!
Let 'em believe its contained and they can focus on other things...let em buy full spread front page ads in all major publications to announce their "victory" for all I care.
The main point is, they're in denial and backing off...
At least I HOPE their denial is leading to them backing off.
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The silly part is...
File sharing is about as contained as terrorism now days. For every Napster that goes down 1000 come up.
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Re: The silly part is...
tell me about it, my block gets bombed ATLEAST 4 times a day. jackass.
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Afterall, a bankruptcy lawyer is cheaper than paying what they get in judgements.
Doesn't matter anyway, I'm still not buying CD's, period.
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Mission Accomplished!
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RIAA is sooo smart whoa is me........
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"Russians in Afghanistan"....??????
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Why do people think their efforts are in vain
Although I don't care for them more than the next person, and I certainly know that they can do little to hamper illegal music downloads, I think it would be naive to think they hadn't made some minimal impact (I'd imagine that even 0.1% less worldwide downloads means $$ for the industry)
If they never would have tried anything, and programs like napster and kazaa had been allowed to flourish, the situation would certainly be worse for the record industry. Meaning that perhaps if they hadn't made such a fuss about it to begin with sites like Itunes maybe wouldn't have caught on so fast?
I'm not aggreeing with their tactics, they should have from day 1 worked with downloaders, not against them.
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
No... I'm going to stick with my belief that it wasn't this alleged "piracy" that would have killed the beast, it would have been the reliance on a business model that over-charges for unusable content. And it wouldn't have "killed the music industry"... it would have hastened the trend we're seeing now: musicians self-releasing their music on download and making money on other things to sell (shirts, tickets, etc).
Besides, the whole "piracy" is still a legal debate anyway.
Now this one, I agree with. I was reading through the article linked in the post and realized something that I hadn't really put together until then. The RIAA has certainly had a "hulk smash!" approach to this. It dawned on me finally when I read the comment from XM about how (paraphrase here) "lawsuits are the RIAA's negotiating tactic".
I now have this politcal-cartoon-esque image in my mind of a cave man labeled "RIAA" standing over a slain game animal labeled "business model", swinging a club labeled "lawsuits" around at anything that moves. I have that image of a grunting, unthinking Neanderthal just trying to save its meal from anything that may try to take it. Like his own shadow, for example.
If there are any cartoonists around, feel free to yoink that. I'd love to see it in ink. :)
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
Errr... do you live in the same world as teh rest of us? They only helped people be smarter about their file sharing. LOL Their tactics had people learning new and better ways to share and download stuff. I had people that were concerned about the RIAA and I simply enlightened them in the ways of the dark side. The only ones that they stopped are the few clueless that didn't know anyone that could better educate them. ANd just becasue soemone decides that downloading pirate stuff is risky does not mean they will bend over and bay over inflated prices for the stuff. I haven't bought a music CD in over 15 years. And yeah 0.1 % is pretty much ZERO effect. LOL It's like saying you put a dent in the rising of the world's ocen levels by preventing a few drops of rain from reaching the ocean. LOL get real my friend.
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
Years ago there were warez sites filled with porn banners, a few newsgroups where you could download the occaisional useful program which might even work now and then or perhaps a few mp3s of very mainstream artists, and that was about it. Then the first peer to peer networks started. Bad quality music files were the first to be slowly downloaded, but it got better and better as time went on. Every time there is an article on P2P in the mainstream media, more people decide to give it a try.
Thanks to the RIAA and their publicity machine, its bigger than before. A perfect example is the recent case of the Pirate Bay site having it's servers confiscated. They were back online in a few days with MORE users than before.. Who needs to advertise.
What could have happened, is for these companies, both software and music/movie industry to wake up and accept that piracy has gone on from the first time a book was printed and the first note was written down, and will go on for ever. Then to find a way to take advantage of the system. Can't see this happening though, so it looks like they will have to sue themselves into extinction.
John
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Re: Why do people think their efforts are in vain
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Good bands
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What did you expect?
If they don't say that they can lose the precious money they get from record labels.
They don't care what do we think as long as they still get more money
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don't beleive me? take a look at some of the recent artivcles on how the trafic for T.P.B. has DOUBLED since the MPAA/RIAA took their site down and they came back online.
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I don't buy CDs...
I get my music from Magnatune. Google it.
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Re: I don't buy CDs...
Indeed! I discovered Magnatune just last week, and I LOVE it! You can preview any of the music on the site (even listen to whole albums) before buying it. You then choose how much you want to pay for it (with a reasonable lower limit), and half of that goes to the ARTIST! (The RIAA is probably looking for a way to outlaw that!)
What's interesting about listening to the albums for free online is that each track has a short announcement in a really sexy female voice about what you just heard ("That was (CD name), (track #), performed by (artist), from Magnatune.com") -- sort of like you would hear on an all-music radio station. I'd almost rather buy a version with the announcements than just the music! These folks actually motivated me to finally buy an MP3 player.
I have no business relationship with Magnatune (although if they ever have an affiliate program, I'd probably join it) other than as a customer. I expect that Magnatune (or other similar venue) will be the only way I buy music from now on.
--
The Celtic Fiddler -- violins and accessories.
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Kinda reminds me of...
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fighting peer to peer networks is like...
or boxing a glacier
or even like trying to repeal the law of gravity.
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I've seen the future..lala
I wonder if lala.com will be the next thing to catch RIAA attention.
Millions of people swapping CDs for less than $2 each. One large, well organized used CD store.
Niiice.
I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
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Go back to sleep.
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Admission of defeat
This metric refers to the growth in unique files, not the growth in those doing the sharing.
About 2 billion is the total number of significant commercially produced titles ever made. It represents the entire catalogue that comes under the control of the RIAA.
This is not denial. It is an admission of defeat. Sharing is not contained, it is saturated.
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Re: Admission of defeat
I didn't think of that. Wow. Talk about spin-tactics. That goes right up there with "I didn't sell out, they bought in".
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I'd do it to
But then I think to myself, no that's A) telling them we still like their product enough to get our grubby paws on it and B) I'd feel bad for the few artists out there that still are half-way decent, I'd reall like them to get their 12 cent monthly check from their respect label for each set of 20 albums I buy.
For now though, I've seriously decided to simply boycott these greedy jerks. Until they wise up, they can kiss my sweet dollar goodbye.
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NSMike is right
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It is contained...
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Hmm? Think the RIAA is foolish enough to try? Sure would be fun to watch it go down. So far the RIAA has refused to even comment on lala.com.
BTW, Lala.com opened to the public on 6/8 and the cost is $1.50 ($1 + .50 for shipping. 20% of the $1 goes to the "Z" Foundation will focus on providing health and dental care that is often inaccessible to working musicians.
Time to go through all those CD's you never listen to anymore...
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Everyone can rest easy now...
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" Just because you stop illegally downloading a song doesn't mean you are going to turn around and buy the enitre CD instead. That has been the RIAA's justification for all the ENORMOUS cash-loss claims they have been spouting, and it's just wrong!"
Yup. And the iPod established that:
1) People will pay a nominal fee to download a song,
2) They want _SONGS_ not entire CDs, something the RIAA is choking on... Sorry, no Heimlich available.
3) Most will accept the DRM and device containment restrictions as long as they are offered alternatives like iPod ready docking stations, car CD players, etc.
Only in Europe has device portabilty become a real issue.
And like it or not, the POV of the average Techdirt reader does not represent the POV of Joe Average. He knows and cares a whole lot less. The average iPod owner has no idea how it works, nor does he care as long as it works.
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RIAA
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NO WE HAVEN'T!
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Downloading
I think Japan now has a cure for file sharing.
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Acceptance. Or rather, resignation. I hope, anyway.
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British Music Industry
From what I've read, they are extremely big in making a clear reputation for not pursuing small time piracy, and only going after major distribution.
This could be propaganda, as there are people who have a couple gigs of MP3's with uploading enabled.... But interesting nevertheless.
What they've apparently done with this method of addressing things? Gotten some laws implemented rather quickly, and the method for dealing with online piracy normalised.
Leave it to America to be the first to flip the bird.
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Oh, almost forgot, lala.com rules!
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Then give us back our rights to fair use...
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A Scary Thought - RIAA and Net Nutrality
They could get the ISPs under "Aiding and Abbeding".
Scary Thought
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it's just a coverup
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it's just a coverup
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Denial?
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BigChampagne
Can you ask them for me Mike? Are they going to release anything mid year?
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;-)
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Real music, anyone?
It seems to me that what's in danger is the commerce-orientated and invariably anodyne manufactured music: invented somewhere deep within the industry, performed by a bunch of mindless and artificially-selected wannabe-stars and sound-engineered to a synthetic gloop considered to be widely palettable. This thin product is then bolstered with intense publicity, marketing, identification of the music with some particular issue or identity, fashion, scandal... anything to avoid direct and critical examination of the music itself.
I think we'll see a return to the situation where composition, musicianship, improvisation and the power of musical performance are highly valued, and thus prevalent, rather than glamour and hype. This vast profileration of music trash won't be supportable any longer. The gum-bubble of vat-grown pop bands will burst; the production-lines will grind to a halt. My goodness, music might even become an art form again.
So no wonder they're frightened. As someone above suggested, they're becoming superfluous. A lot of music spreads by word of mouth. Most of the music I listen to has been played to me by friends... and while copying is so easy, that's a lot of sales lost, even without P2P software. As the power of standard technology found in the home continues to rise, apparently exponentially, it will become more and more difficult to impede copying activity. My advice to them would be: get away from reliance on music, and get into supporting musicians.
james
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