Latest Trick From RIAA: Pissing Off Music Reviewers With Annoying Voice Over Anti-Piracy Messages
from the can-they-be-this-clueless? dept
It's no secret that the way that many albums get leaked online before their release date is via review copies that are sent out widely to music reviewers and radio stations. Apparently, the big record labels have been employing a new strategy to prevent that from happening. As TorrentFreak notes, they're putting annoying anti-piracy voice over throughout the CD. Thus, just as you're listening to a song, the music will fade out, and a voice over will announce some message about piracy and unauthorized uploads. This is pissing off reviewers, such as the one here who did his review of the album with the voice overs ("an album that can best be described as perhaps the Mona Lisa after a 2 year old covered in chocolate has crawled all over it. Yes it might once have been a great painting, and yes you can still see that greatness, but really all you can see now is little chocolate hand prints.") In other words, in its effort to prevent the inevitable, the labels are pissing off the reviewers of the album by making it impossible to actually hear the album as it was intended to be heard.
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Filed Under: music reviews, riaa, voice overs
Companies: riaa
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Payback?
As ever, this isn't likely to stop piracy - like movie studios, the labels may find insiders are willing to leak decent preview copies and, whatever they do to stop pre-release copies for leaking, the floodgates are opened as soon as the first CDs are pressed and sent out. All this does is make it more difficult for people to find music they might like and therefore buy.
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Yea, verily,
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you cant review
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Re: you cant review
You really think that ClearChannel would get out of bed with the RIAA?
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All hail RIAA...
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Let's make it illegal to even listen to music!
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EURIKA
Stop all radio stations playing music including internet.
Stop all reviews of music.
make anyone eho wants music go to the store listen to a few 30sec samples.
pay 20/30 GBP /US doller for a disc you can ponly play 10 time then it wipes itself and you have to buy another.
and make it so it cant be copied I dont think im far wrong.
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Re: EURIKA
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"Must be pirates downloading MP3s."
"Let's piss everyone off."
"K."
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(The topic of used CD's sales always interested me in the royalty area. after all doesn't the first buyer pay royalty on the new disk, and then subsequent transfers to new owners should also pay some prorated portion of the royalty? Don't give any ideas of this distorted philanthropic but impossible view of used CD sales to any lawyer--all of a sudden used CD's will be illegal--especially the ones that are marked "for promo purposes only, sale or transfer is illegal".] Ouch. And if any legalities use this idea above as a variation of copyright enforcement... it is copyrighted BY ME. Pay UP!
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Re: used albums aren't something the record compan
Granted I'm not saying what the record industry is doing is right. They haven't done anything right for years. Suing consumers, making versions unplayable, limiting useage rights for purchased music via DRM. Overall the only outcome that will pass is the end of big music labels and the inception of bands being independant and organizing their own shows.
May take a while but it will happen.
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I'd put it into a music editor
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Re: I'd put it into a music editor
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The reality
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Re: The reality
Take me for example, I like Napster. I don't have the money right now to get it so I don't download any songs at all. If I did, I would have it. Now if they would give me DRM free music so I can legally put it on my iPod. (I like how Google's spell check knows Napster but not iPod)
Pissing off reviewers just so that they can think they are doing something is not the way to go. The album "on Komodo Rock" got a 2.2 out of 10 just for that. They said in the review "What I’ve heard of this album is actually pretty damn good, very emotional, very mood driven, and had the potential to be a truly great album" but they still gave it a 2.2. That's not going to help sales. Deffinantly not going to stop piracy.
I can't find information on this album. Too many sites about a web site called "Komodo Rock". Someone give me some names of songs so I can see if it already is up for download.
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welcome to watermarks
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Looters
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Re: Looters
And you base this on what exactly? If this is their solution to the problem, I would think they'd be better off not distributing review copies, period. I wouldn't think that a reviewer would be inclined to give an album praise when they are unable to listen to the music as intended.
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Music Reviewers Are Full Of It
Of course, after they get older than 30, it must be damn embarrassing to have guests visit you in your parent's basement and have to hide all the kiddie rock CDs.
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Burn them back...
A few months of seeing their albums get ignored by music reviewer ought to teach them a lesson. Unless of course RIAA somehow figures out how to sue music reviewers for not reviewing their albums.
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There's an easy fix for this
Simply rate any music released this way as "F", without exception, until they stop doing it. This will not only generate pressure from the artists, but it will hit them in the only place they're sensitive: the bottom line.
It is (past) time for these dinosaurs to be extinct.
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Voiceovers?
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Radio station did this too
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I'm on the artist side of the record industry and piracy really, honestly doesn't worry me, artists make their "money" out of live shows and the sale of Merch at these shows, the people who pirate, generally are actually pretty intelligent, I can imagine it would take some skill to backward engineer anti-pirate enabled software.
I guess what I'm saying here is with the knowledge I know of mixing, this wouldn't stop the pirates cause it could be undone (to a certain degree) now if the voice over was happening whilst the music was still playing, well that's another story!
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Re:
>If it's just a simple 'fade out-voice over-fade in' it would
>be easy to undo ...
It is not. The music is still playing during the voice overs, just at a low volume.
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Opps the truth
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Dear Scorpiaux
Try again. I spend thousands of dollars a year on DVDs (legally purchased, from stores, and amazon, etc, before you ask). Yet every time I press play, I am forced to sit through "FBI warning.....". Then "Interpol warning...". Then repeated in French and/or Spanish..... I say forced because they prevent fast forward/next title. This is an original, commercial, legally purchased, DVD. I could, with no trouble (yes it is DMCA illegal, but who would know), Copy every DVD, remove the stupid warning, and produce a copy for my viewing without all the nonsense. Why should I have to even consider it.
So, yes, all these warning DO annoy people who ARE NOT freeloaders. Who pay for what they get, and resent being treated as a potential thief.
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Re: Dear Scorpiaux
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Yeah, I'm with the above.
I got another whole set of DVD's - I didn't pay for the 'Anti-Piracy' short on the beginning of them - nor did I want it. I really just wanted the movie from start to finish - that's why I paid for it. If I would have gotten it from Torrent - you know, I would have had just the movie and none of the Anti-Piracy BS.
So - why as a paying customer - do I have to put up with the BS?
And the reviewers - well, they shouldn't make assumptions. I agree with his analogy. In any event - they should review them just as they sound, if they add some kind of 'voice over' - who's to say if it's part of the song or not? lol
RIAA = Suck.
I STILL have not bought a new CD in 8 years :P
But i've bought plenty of DVD's - but then the MPAA isn't suing everyone left and right... although, I'm sure they would like to.
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Reviewers pissed off
To put it another way, perhaps music criticism, as it exists in 2008, is yet another part of the old model that should be examined and, possibly discarded.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
Music reviewers are a component of the marketing portion of a business model, not a consumption model. After all, the recording industry doesn't give out review copies out of the kindness of their hearts; they're looking for positive reviews to generate album sales.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
That's exactly right. And reviewers don't do reviews out of the kindness of their hearts either. They get paid somewhere along the line by someone. I cannot imagine a professional reveiwer who wants to get paid and who wants repeat business telling a company, large or small, or an individual, "I'm sorry. Your copyright protection schemes are getting in the way of your music being ripped off by copyright infringers. I give this recording a grade of F. Go somewhere else." AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN! If a reviewer has a track record of picking hits, regardless of what he or she has to listen to, that reviewer will command bigger checks. He or she is not going to spoil that connection and refusing a lucrative business deal by siding with a bunch of freeloaders.
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If positive or negative reviews meant anything either way, we wouldn't be reading about someone like Britney Spears every day, because she would not have had a career extending beyond what should have been her only hit.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
Reviewers don't "command bigger checks" because they have a "track record of picking hits". Reviewers get paid to review, and if those reviews are considered insightful, entertaining, etc., then those reviewers will continue to get paid. Moreover, they're not paid by the record companies (modulo a few shills who don't matter): they're paid by publications, web sites, etc., who have no reason to care that record A is a hit while record B is rubbish.
See, for example, the work of Lester Bangs -- I'd recommend starting with "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung".
And don't forget that for every formally-published reviewer, there are many more: for example, the music directors at any radio station which carries the genre in question. Those people may not write up their opinions, but they do in large part decide which records go in the on-air studio and which go in the "later" pile. And given how many they've got to go through, annoying them with idiotic messages crafted by the lunatics desperate to save their dying "industry" is probably a pretty good way to ensure that the recording never sees the light of day again.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
As far as reviewing a recording and commenting on it, everyone is a reviewer. If I were going to use a reviewer, I would be after that reviewer's track record in picking hits and picking flops. The ones with the best records at doing this would get my attention. I would want to know as much as possible in advance which ones I should invest in. No one ever gets 100%.
Looks to me like you are quite angry. Did someone pan one of your creations?
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Given all of that, I again ask you what your solution is. Don't give me any shit that it isn't "your job" to think up a solution. You act like a child with your snide, condescending remarks so I assume you have all the answers.
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Re: Lucretious
That's true and no law will ever deter everyone determined to break it or ignore it. Certainly, any law that is not enforced will be useless. Not enforcing the law is an invitation to breaking it. For that reason the laws on copyright and copyright infringement need to be enforced. The number of people who have decided to break the law by infringing music copyrights doesn't impress me in the slightest. There are millions of people in jail right now for breaking various laws and probably an equal number or more are paying penalties without being incarcerated. Adding a couple million more to either group would be relatively insignificant to society at large, especially if those people had to pay society back for the costs they inflicted on the rest of us. In this situation there are far more people who do not break the law and who acquire their music legally and pay the asking price for it or in some rare cases, they bargain for a lower price legally. Technology does not trump the law however much some people wish it did. It might cause a society to change its laws but a society cannot be coerced into making changes just to please the few at the expense of the many.
I sometimes think I have heard or read all of the excuses people have made that they think justifies their illegal unauthorized copying of copyrighted music and movies, but from time to time a new one appears. My list is now up to 17 different excuses.
What should be done? One thing that would help is to educate our children to understand that copyright infringement is both illegal and wrong. We should also explain what it is and what fair use is. We should enforce the laws. Where necessary we should enact new laws and revise existing laws. As an aside I have read about opposition to a potential law that would make it clearly a crime to attempt to infringe a copyright. The are laws against murder AND attempted murder, armed robbery and attempted armed robbery, embezzlement and attempted embezzlement. In fact most, if not all, crimes have an associated "attempted" crime that brings punishment upon conviction.
Some people question why a company would want to punish its "best" customers by filing lawsuits against them. Shoplifters at Sears, and Macys, etc. are not thought of as customers that they should want to keep. And so it is with copyright infringers, why would any recording company want to do business with them? You don't reward law breakers; you punish them.
I am not naïve enough to think that what I post here will change the minds of most of the posters, but it may cause non-posters who read it to think about the issues knowing that there really are two sides (or more) to this discussion. I do imagine that there will be some very hostile reaction by those who disagree with me. What their focus should be on is not me but the issues.
That's enough for now.
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Re: Re: Lucretious
You would be referring to the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 that was proposed by the disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Creating a category for "attempted copyright infringement" is simply a bad idea. For one, the line between fair use and copyright infringement is not clear-cut; it is decided on a case-by-case basis. I fail to see how a definition of "attempted copyright infringement" could be reached when an actual violation depends on the situation. What is also worrying is that the law allows for the authorization of wiretaps on infringement attempters.
While some of the other provisions of this law may be justified (I didn't read the entire thing), I believe the potential for abuse of this law by the RIAA, MPAA, and other over-zealous copyright holders is too great.
For instance, the law allows for the seizure of any equipment that could be used for copyright infringement, as opposed to what was actually used. So, if the RIAA sues another grandmother for copyright infringement over a peer-to-peer network and happens to win a court decision, they can take any computer in her house and anything else that could conceivably be used for copyright infringement.
Quite simply, this looks like another attempt by the RIAA and MPAA, to influence intellectual property laws to the detriment of the public.
I'm assuming, of course, that since I disagreed with you that I will promptly be accused of "wanting something for nothing" again, which is quite simply not true.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
I should take a poll? Why don't you? It was your idea, after all, I don't see why I should perform your research for you at my expense. Alternatively, you could spend some time working in the field, acquiring first-hand experience -- see below.
Oh, and by the way, your methodology for picking a reviewer is completely wrong -- unless, of course, you're one of the sheeple who has been conditioned to like whatever's popular. A far better methodology is to identify reviewers whose likes/dislikes align with your own (whatever they happen to be) and then to investigate music (or books or films or whatever) that they like but which you haven't experienced. This is the model behind any number of social networks, and to at least a first approximation, it works quite well. (And of course it works regardless of the popularity of any reviewer's picks/pans.)
I suggest that you spend the next few years either working in the business or reading copiously in order to come up to speed on how things actually work (or don't, as the case may be). This will provide you with at least some background that will enable you to put some of these debates in perspective.
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Re: Reviewers pissed off
I think I understand your post. My understanding about "how things work" especially in the field of "professional music reviewer" is inferior to yours IYO. Are you an expert in this field?
It is intriguing to me how you and your fellow posters here like to construct strawmen and then spend a lot of time and words attacking it rather than the central issues, one of which is illegal downloading of copyrighted music. Does it really matter what role a given music reviewer has and who pays him or her when it comes to the issue of whether or not unauthorized downloading of music files is copyright infringement? I could mention in a post anything about the differences in quality between cassette tapes and CDs and someone here would demand that I go to school to get a degree in EE and come back in 5 or 6 years to discuss illegal file downloading. That's very childish.
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Re: Re: Reviewers pissed off
It is infringement, but that isn't really the question here. The real question is why the RIAA continually attacks the symptoms of the problem without dealing with the cause. The topic of this article is yet another example of this.
Music reviewers are an asset to their business model. They help to promote the latest releases by giving (hopefully) favorable reviews, which in turn would increase album sales. However, some of the recipients of the pre-release discs make illegal copies and distribute them via peer-to-peer networks. In typical fashion, the RIAA deals with the symptom by punishing themselves, the reviewers, and the artists by distributing what I would consider defective discs.
To quote an old cliche, it's cutting off the nose to spite the face.
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Whose business is it?
That is something else that intrigues me. Contracts between recording companies and artists is a matter that is between them and that excludes you and me and any other party not provided for in the given contracts. If a given recording company or the RIAA negotiates a contract with an artist that gives them and not the artist control over the copyrighted work, you have no say (no standing) in that arrangement. None. You might think that it is terribly unfair, but artists do not have to sign agreements with anyone and that includes the RIAA. It is probably a fair assumption that artists are not usually good businesspersons. If a contract is very unbalanced against the artist, that is the fault of the artist. I have no sympathy for the plight of the artist. They need to wise up. That does not give anyone the right to break the law. That comes to the subject of RIAA. Unless you are a part owner in the RIAA or a recording company, what they do as long as they do not break the law is their business alone. So what if they don't follow the hocus pocus mumbo jumbo ooga booga of Mike's infinite goods manifesto? That's their business and their decision to make. What happens to their survival depends on them and their actions as it should. Competition is the most likely factor that will cause RIAA and others such as the MPAA to change their modus operandi, not a bunch of screaming memes who think breaking the law is cool.
Personally and professionally I could not care less about the survival of the RIAA and the MPAA. That is their problem, not mine. In my own field (which I will not identify here) I am more akin to the artist than other entities in this battle. I know first hand the pressures of being a Lilliputian in a land of giants, a Lilliputian who is constantly beating off ants. I sympathize with the artists; I don't sympathize with those who, like sharks, observe the artists' weaknesses and try to rip them off with illegal downloading frenzies. I have successfully fought off attacks from the giants and the ants. There are some artists in the music business who have done the same. I say more power to them. "May (their) tribe increase." [from Abou Ben Adhem]
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Re: Whose business is it?
I don't agree with everything Mike posts concerning his economic theories, but at least I can recognize the logic behind it. Dismissing it as "hocus pocus mumbo jumbo" shows a lack of understanding or a lack of maturity, or both.
That being said, you are correct, it's their decision to make. I would simply ask that when they continually complain about lower music sales year after year that they own up to the real reasons instead of blaming piracy for everything and quoting bogus dollar amounts of loss due to piracy.
Piracy is definitely a problem, but not to the extent that the RIAA is making it out to be. They operate under the assumption that they are entitled to record-breaking profits every year. Instead of recognizing that the CD era is dying and that consumers aren't going to have to replace their music collections for the digital era, they blame piracy. Their lower sales figures are more indicative of a failing business model than of rampant copyright infringement.
The good news is that the RIAA members are slowly starting to understand this, as shown by the dropping of the numerous anti-consumer DRM schemes on digital downloads. Incidents like the review discs show that they unfortunately haven't come to the full realization of that yet.
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Re: Re: Reviewers pissed off
What we are witnessing is the end of an age. It's become painfully clear to everyone of adequate intelligence that old concepts of copyright, patent, etc. are no longer viable. They don't apply, they don't work, they are obsolete. What's needed -- and this is what much current debate focuses on -- are new concepts that replace them, that actually work in the environment we find ourselves in.
As might be expected, there is considerable resistance to this -- motivated by the usual suspects: fear of change, greed, laziness, inability to adapt. We've seen this before -- an example I often use is the resistance of slave-owners to abolition because it "interfered with their business model". They failed to adapt. They died. Good riddance -- they were expendable.
Of course, that didn't happen without a fight -- a fight that in some ways is still going on, as ignorant, stupid people who still embrace racism are unfortunately not extinct yet. Similarly, the changes that are required vis-a-vis IP et.al. won't happen without a fight -- there are plenty of trolls and greedpigs who either Don't Get It or simply aren't capable of Getting It.
But it will happen. It's inevitable. And many years from now, observers will look back on the pathetic fools who continued to cling to these outdated ideas with a mixture of pity and contempt. They will wonder how anyone could possibly be so short-sighted, so reactionary, so mired in obsolescence.
Evolve or perish.
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Re: Re: Re: Reviewers pissed off
True. They need to be strengthened lest technocracy be allowed to rule.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Reviewers pissed off
Right...because user rights haven't been eroded enough by the current legislation....
We could start by repealing the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act...that would be a decent start.
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Re: Re: Re: Reviewers pissed off
What about selling rights into the public domain so that they cease to be a bone of contention? If the copyright holder gets a big enough pile of money at some point in the life-cycle of an album (or movie or software app), then selected rights to make and sell copies could be released into the PD, turning what is now digital piracy into royalty-free fair use.
The trick is to build a big enough pile of money...
That's what my company (https://www.PropagateLtd.com/) is trying to do. The site describes itself (I hope).
Cheers,
Jeffry R. Fisher
President, Propagate Digital Content, Limited
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I wonder who this partial quote is from?
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