RIAA Still Pretending It Represents Musicians
from the feed-a-musician,-support-those-who-ditch-the-RIAA dept
The somewhat redundant new copyright lobbying organization, The Copyright Alliance (who still doesn't seem to actually understand copyright) held a little dog and pony show in Washington DC last week. It didn't sound all that well attended from the News.com description, and even copyright's best friend, Rep. Howard Berman skipped the show, despite being a scheduled speaker. Perhaps even Berman has noticed the shifting tide. However, other than a sad display of solidarity, perhaps the most ridiculous statement on the event came from the RIAA, who hung up a t-shirt saying "Feed a musician. Download legally." That suggests that the RIAA still wants people to believe it represents the best interests of musicians. Such a concept becomes more laughable every day, as musicians seem to be shoving each other aside to bail out on the record labels to take their chances making money without them. The RIAA has never represented the interests of musicians, and it's sad that so many politicians act as if it does. The RIAA has always represented the interests of the recording industry -- whose own interests have often involved treating musicians terribly. So if you want to feed a musician, you're better off not paying money to the RIAA -- but figuring out ways to pay for things where the money actually goes back to the musician.
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Filed Under: copyright, lobbyists, musicians
Companies: copyright alliance, riaa
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So is usenet.com any better?
RIAA is the pits, but at least a fraction of sales goes to the artists.
Perhaps the better business model would be like Radiohead. Pay what you think it's worth.
The other thing about torrents/binaries etc is that a lot of the music is just not available via retail download/brick&mortar shops.
Just my rant....
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Re: So is usenet.com any better?
I insist on previewing before paying, though, despite whatever legal downloads may be available... way too many dollars go into marketing meant to sway me and that seems the only practical recourse. I want music *I* like...
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Re: Re: So is usenet.com any better?
Same thing with other stuff. I watch movies and tv shows before I buy the boxed sets. It's been years since I bought a video game without reading a few reviews, asked about it on forums, or talked to a friend that bought it first. And I know I'm not the only person that will test drive a car before buying it. It puzzles me as to why the recording industry thinks they are special in thinking that music fans should just blindly buy music from them that is locked down to the point where you can barely do anything with it.
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Re: So is usenet.com any better?
That's like your uncle who paid your way through college, but molested you.
I buy my CD's at concerts. That way the artist gets money for the gig and a much bigger cut of the take from the CD than the RIAA would ever give them.
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Why bring usenet into the picture?
I used to read a couple of groups on Usenet years ago when it was included with my ISP subscription. Binaries was cool when I first found it, but it was more often a haven for virus' and Trojans and just plain bad and incomplete files. It's just not worth the time to mess with unless you have a decent discussion group.
EtG
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Paying for Usenet
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Doris Day
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Representing who
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Download VS Buy
All this crap is ridiculous. I can download a track listen to it when I want , where I want copy to whatever I want easily, or I can buy a cd/pay for a download and hope it doesn't come preloaded with junk that keeps it from playing on my MP3 player.
Hmmm, tough call.
If I can get a cd that is assured to have music I like (as in can listen to *all* of the tracks to weed out filler) and can be freely copied to my MP3 player and backup CD's then sure I'll buy it, but with all these cd's nowadays preloaded with DRM I'd rather not roll those dice.
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#7
Here Here!!
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RECORDING INDUSTRY
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Re: RECORDING INDUSTRY
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Re: Re: RECORDING INDUSTRY
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misrepresentation of event
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Mike on RIAA Again? NO WAY!
Mike writing about the RIAA again...and again...and again...and again....and again....and again....and again....and again...and again...and again....
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