Since When Does The Associated Press Simply Reprint RIAA Propaganda?
from the a-word-from-the-other-side,-maybe? dept
We all know that the RIAA likes to think its strategy of suing its best customers is about "educating" people, but you would think that by now the press would know better than to simply reprint RIAA propaganda. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The latest AP article (that's getting picked up in a variety of places) about the threat letters to college students basically reprints a lot of RIAA propaganda as fact, misstates what the letters are actually about and doesn't bother to get a quote from anyone who questions the RIAA's legal standing or business rationale for these letters. Instead, it's a scare story that the RIAA will use to show universities that their students better pay up. The article is full of stories about students who can barely afford to pay, but who feel compelled to pay the RIAA $3,000 without ever getting a chance to defend themselves. The article never once notes that the students often have pretty strong legal defenses, and Universities have no requirement to pass on the threats until an actual lawsuit is filed. Meanwhile, it falsely states that the lawsuit threats are for "downloading" when they're actually for sharing or uploading. You would think that, with the RIAA having so many cases shot down these days, while various universities are fighting back against the bogus RIAA threats, that an AP reporter would at least mention some of these issues, rather than accepting the RIAA spin as fact.
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Inconceivable!
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Mike Does What he Accuses others of
"We all know that the RIAA likes to think its strategy of suing its best customers is about "educating" people, but you would think that by now the press would know better than to simply reprint RIAA propaganda."
It is simply not correct to keep on asserting that college students are the "best customers". Read the industry reports- the lions share of the $ spent to buy product is in the 30+ segment. And customer has a clear and specific meaning in the English language. I think we all know what it means and I wish you would quit distorting the word. At the point a person is infringing or downloading a specific song they have not paid for (or offered legitmately for free as a promotion or whatever) they are not a customer for that transaction.
Please do not distort the argument by such inaccuracies. You have some valid points but this is pure pandering and sloppiness that you accuse other reporters of.
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Re: Mike Does What he Accuses others of
You misunderstand me. I'm not saying "college students" are the industry's best customers. I'm saying music fans are.
And customer has a clear and specific meaning in the English language. I think we all know what it means and I wish you would quit distorting the word.
How have I distorted it?
At the point a person is infringing or downloading a specific song they have not paid for (or offered legitmately for free as a promotion or whatever) they are not a customer for that transaction.
That's an exceptionally narrow view of a customer -- and while it wouldn't surprise me that that's how the RIAA thinks of its customers, it also helps explain why the industry is in so much trouble.
When BMW puts an ad on TV, according to your definition, they're not advertising to customers. I'd argue the opposite. They're advertising to people they believe will be future customers -- and are targeting those most likely to buy.
The music industry is targeting those most likely to buy as well -- but instead of targeting them with opportunities, they're targeting them with threats and lawsuits. Can you imagine if BMW did the same thing?
The whole point is that the biggest fans of music are where you are most likely to obtain your money from... and pissing them off makes it much less likely that you will be able to make any future revenue from that. That's just bad strategic thinking.
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Missing the point
1) Without a college degree one is far more likely to earn low wages throughout ones life.
2) High wage-earners tend to spend more on entertainment than low.
Therefore:
3) It is clear that college students are far more likely to have higher earnings spend more sums of money over their lifetime.
It amazes me that **AA are going out of their way to p!ss off a group, who will be their best customers one day.
I believe that was Mike's point. I also believe that most of us (including the banks!) get it. Apparently you didn't.
When I was a "starving student" I taped off the radio. Once I graduated I started buying. Over the years I have spend thousands of dollars on CDs. The tapes are long gone. Had the **AA smacked me or my friends around back then they would not have have seen a dime of my money. Ever.
Do they have a legal high ground here? Possibly... but they seem obsessed with winning a battle while losing the war.
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boycott
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What's that?
Also the labels report business activity under the entire conglomerated business because of their LP/LLP structure.
In a world where you can make the news, you can make the statistics too.
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no truth in the press????
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Everyone is a criminal...
"The industry says attitudes need changing, and invests money from the settlements in educational programs meant to be used by schools and other groups to spread the word that illegally downloading can have severe consequences.
Some of the programs are tailored to start with third-graders.
"We do recognize that by the time students reach college, many of their music habits are already formed," Engebretsen said."
Wow.
They're going to BULLY third-graders, before their "music habits" form?
What the hell is a "music habit"??
These people are insane.
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there is a far larger axis of evil that effcts us
to,lesser degrees: ClearChannel and Live Nation
and while i am on a roll, lets not forget WalMart
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>Yawn
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looking to the past ...
For those that lived thru that era, I'm not trying to offend or make light of your plight, only saying that the RIAA "re-education" program sounds a bit chilling, much like the "re-education" of the youth in Germany.
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Repeating PR as News
The only way to find out what's really going on is to go to source documents yourself and read news from very wide variety of sources.
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RIAA threats
The RIAA is hurting the very people they are claiming to protect and the AP is helping.
Even big time acts worried about cd sales will do better on tour. Things are changing and most musicians know it.
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boycott
I have said it before and I will say it again. The price of music would drop if no one bought it. And although it is wrong to steal music, telling us we should buy a seperate license for each player we have it on is just silly. They have the right to say that, but YOU have the right to not buy the product.
I do find it interesting that the RIAA members that are bitching the most are fairly wealthy. So ask yourself, how many expensive cars could they buy and how many parties could they go to with a stack of unpurchased disks?
(But don't steal, either)
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Instead of paying the actual artist that had their music stolen via royalties, the money is going to education. The promotion of RIAA on the badness of stealing music.
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