Former RIAA Boss States The Obvious: The Record Labels Screwed Up... And Continue To Screw Up

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

Hilary Rosen was the head of the RIAA for many years, and led the RIAA's attack on Napster and other early file sharing systems. She resigned in 2003, just before the RIAA began its campaign of suing individuals for file sharing, though long after the strategy had been decided upon and put in place. Since she left the RIAA, she surprised people by saying a lot of things that seemed to go against her former views -- including throwing some support behind Creative Commons, admitting that music interoperability was important (something the labels fought against for a long time) and then came her rather surprising admission that she believed suing file sharing platforms was a dead end strategy and that she hated DRM -- and then even admitting that this has always really been a business model issue, rather than a legal issue. Of course, what she ignored is that she helped make that so.

Billboard is now running an interview with Hilary Rosen to discuss "10 years since the Napster decision" and she's equally forthright, complaining about the many, many mistakes that the industry has made:

The one lesson the industry did not learn after Napster was speed. When you're talking about technology, you have to move quickly on opportunities. The constant refrain is 'there's no money in these opportunities. There's no advances. We don't see the pay off.' But the thing you have to keep pushing back on is 'what are you comparing it to?' If you're comparing it to physical sales or comparing it to an iTunes download, then you're right, it's going to be hard. But what you really need to compare to is how else fans are getting the music, which is free. The lessons of Napster, of rapid fire adoption, have been too quickly forgotten. The industry has moved a little too slow and have not benefited as much as they might have by the benefits of technology.

She does a little to defend the RIAA by noting, accurately, that:

I think the RIAA became the central organizing vehicle for people's anger. But they don't work for the consumers. They work for the industry. It's the business leaders in the industry that are calling the shots there.

That's absolutely true, of course. But it leaves out the fact that the RIAA itself has always promoted the idea that it does represent the best interests of music itself, including for the consumer. And that was true when Rosen was there as well. So whenever politicians or the press want to understand what's happening in the music world, they look for a quote from the RIAA, not recognizing that it's a very twisted view -- one focused on protecting a business model used by a single set of companies in the industry.

Either way, it's a worthwhile read, though it reminds you how little the industry did back when it actually could have embraced the future.

Filed Under: hilary rosen, record labels
Companies: riaa

Six Months And Still No ISPs Officially Signed Up On The RIAA's Program

from the so-now-what? dept

Six months ago, you may recall, the RIAA announced that it was shifting its strategies away from suing individuals (though, it would and has continued to sue some) towards working with ISPs to kick file sharers off the internet via a three strikes policy (the industry prefers "graduated response"). However, no one could find any ISPs who had agreed to it, despite rumors that Comcast and AT&T were onboard. Yet, when later comments made people think that AT&T had agreed to such a plan, AT&T issued a denial, claiming that it was not working with the RIAA in that way. Now, Greg Sandoval points out that there still aren't any ISPs officially signed on. Among the interesting nuggets in the article is the report that the RIAA thought it could pressure ISPs into signing up by having NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo take their side. The only problem? The ISPs know that there's absolutely no legal angle that could force them into a 3 strikes policy, so Cuomo has no power to do anything. So, basically, for now not much has changed. The RIAA (post-layoffs) is still conducting lawsuits (though, fewer of them) and is hoping to push ISPs into agreeing to a plan most ISPs recognize would piss off most of their customers. But, of course, never count the RIAA out. For too long, they've shown that when they're stopped at one door, they've already been planning for many months to sneak in through one of many backdoors.

Filed Under: isps, three strikes
Companies: riaa

Will The RIAA Shut Down Public School Kids From Singing Pop Songs On YouTube?

from the questions,-questions... dept

Dave Title points our attention to a public elementary school in New York City (PS22) that is making news for putting together a chorus that sings various pop songs (and sings them well!). The videos are quickly spreading around YouTube: Apparently, Stevie Nicks was so touched by seeing them sing the Fleetwod Mac song above, that she's asked the group to sing at a Fleetwod Mac show in NYC. But, of course, Title wonders how the RIAA feels about all of this:

However, this seems like a video ripe for takedown by the RIAA. These kids did not get the rights to perform this song and they are now spreading their cover for free! This is just the sort of activity the record industry seems to keen on stopping - whether it is a chorus of school-kids or a couple of people doing a karaoke version of the latest Beyonce tune.

Of course, the idea that this video could somehow create a direct negative impact to the sales of Fleetwood Mac songs is simply absurd. That won't stop groups like the RIAA from spitting out takedown notices and DMCA claims faster than you can say, "hey, that was cute."

Admittedly, the world of copyright law is beyond complicated but we need to find a way to let people legally play with all the content released into the world. People are going to play with it no matter what so it’s really just a question of whether or not energy is spent prosecuting people or facilitating them. I wonder which choice would make more money in the long run.

Indeed. Hopefully the RIAA knows better, but, remember when the Girl Scouts were threatened for singing songs around the campfire?

Filed Under: copyright, music, ps22, singing
Companies: riaa

Jammie Thomas Refuses To Settle: This Is Probably A Bad Idea

from the she's-likely-to-lose dept

Despite the judge in her case pushing hard for the RIAA and Jammie Thomas to come to some sort of settlement in their rather infamous lawsuit, it appears the sides have not come to any settlement, and a new trial will be heard. The case, famously, was the first in which the RIAA actually won, only to have that ruling quickly thrown out after the judge realized he made a "material misstatement of the law" to the jury in suggesting that merely "making files available" should count as copyright infringement (a point of disagreement in different courts right now). There were some other questions concerning certain "misstatements" by execs from the record labels, which could have misled the jury.

While it's good that the judge reconsidered based on the misstatement over "making available," this seems like a case where Thomas probably should have settled. It certainly appears that there is plenty of other evidence that she was, in fact, breaking copyright law. While I think the law is bad and the fines are ridiculous, her chances of winning in court remain slim. Handing the RIAA a case where it has so much evidence on its side doesn't help matters. It's likely that it will win again and will once again use the ruling to tout its ability to win in court. Perhaps the only redeeming factor of such an eventual court ruling is calling additional attention to the ridiculous damages that would be awarded.

Filed Under: file sharing, jammie thomas, settlement
Companies: riaa

Labels Losing Money With iTunes Variable Pricing

from the shot-yourself-in-the-foot-again,-did-ya? dept

Right before Apple finally implemented variable pricing in iTunes it wasn't hard for many to predict that it would backfire badly on the major record labels as they tried to jack up prices. So, it should come as little surprise to find out those predictions appear to be entirely accurate. New reports say that the major record labels are losing revenue from variable pricing. Unit sales are dropping to the point that revenue is less as well. That's just bad business no matter how you look at it -- and totally preventable if they knew their own business. Plenty of people made it clear that sales would drop with higher prices, and it's amazing that the execs were unable to accurately predict how much.

Sometimes when we question the motives of entertainment industry execs, people say that we're being unfair in questioning the "intelligence" behind those moves. We're told over and over again that industry execs are much smarter than we are, and they know better than we do. And yet, almost everything that has been predicted has come true... over and over again. The industry keeps doing things that at least make it appear that it has trouble understanding the long-term implications of almost every move it makes. Perhaps they are smart. And perhaps it's all part of some grand plan. But, to date, the only evidence we've seen is that nearly every move made by the industry has backfired, and resulted in less revenue coming in, while those who predicted alternative and embraced alternative business models are finding tremendous success. At what point do we stop assuming that the legacy industry execs "are smarter" and recognize that they seem too focused on the old way of doing business to recognize how to competently change course?

Filed Under: itunes, variable pricing
Companies: apple, riaa

RIAA Still Filing Lawsuits...

from the but,-of-course dept

Back in December, the RIAA claimed that it had discontinued its strategy of filing lawsuits against individual file sharers. Specifically, the RIAA's letter to Congress stated "we discontinued initiating new lawsuits in August." While we've pointed out in the past that this is wholly untrue, some Hollywood lawyers took us to task, claiming the RIAA never said anything of the sort (even as RIAA lobbyists have been pushing that exact story to the press over and over again). It seems the entertainment industry wants to have it both ways. They want to claim they gave up the lawsuits when it suits them as a publicity stunt, but when you corner them, they want to claim that they never said they'd stop filing lawsuits. So, the lawsuits keep coming. As Ray Beckerman has noted, there are still new lawsuits being filed on a regular basis. Once again, the RIAA's original claim appears to have been nothing more than a PR stunt to get newspapers to claim the group had given up on its backwards legal strategy, when the truth is quite different.

Filed Under: lawsuits
Companies: riaa

Former RIAA Lawyer At DOJ Will Only Avoid RIAA Issues For A Year

from the ethics? dept

Plenty of folks have noted that the Justice Department has been the landing place for a number of RIAA lawyers. Some have suggested not to get too worked up about this, given that the Obama administration's ethics rules supposedly forbade those lawyers from being involved in issues related to their former work. However, it looks like the limit on these guys is actually quite narrow and for a very short period of time. We'd already noted that the highest ranking former RIAA lawyer, Thomas Perrelli, in his Senate confirmation hearings, said he hoped to use his position to increase intellectual property enforcement from within the Justice Department.

Now, Pro Publica, an online investigative reporting operation, has published the ethics agreements signed by Obama administration appointees, including Tom Perrelli's agreement, which appears to only preclude him from working on issues that impact his former clients for one year. Also, it seems pretty narrowly focused on the specific clients he worked for, but not other aspects of the same industry. In other words, in less than a year, he can certainly start helping the RIAA from within the Justice Department -- and his Senate testimony suggests he's interested in doing so. That's not quite the ethical separation we were led to believe would exist in the administration.

Filed Under: ethics, justice department, thomas perrelli
Companies: jenner & block, riaa

Administration Lobbyist Ban Not Doing What It's Supposed To Do

from the too-bad dept

While conceptually, I think many people appreciate President Obama's stance against bringing lobbyists into his administration, in all practicality, the rule has been a combination of meaningless or troubling. Tom Barger points to a NY Times article where many people are upset that some extremely qualified folks who worked for non-profit human rights organizations are being denied positions in the administration. There's been some pushing to get the administration to make an exception for human rights and non-profit lobbyists, noting that the intent of the rule was to bar corporate lobbyists from gaining too much influence, but the administration has struck down those suggestions, saying it leads to a slippery slope.

But, of course, in reality, we know that slippery slope already exists. That's because the ban on "lobbyists" is really only being used for folks who were officially registered as lobbyists. That leaves out tons of people who worked for these corporate entities or even for the lobbyist groups themselves, but weren't officially registered lobbyists themselves. We've already seen how the Justice Department is, for example, being filled with lawyers who regularly worked with the RIAA, MPAA and BSA -- three of the biggest copyright lobbying organizations, and those individuals have wasted no time in expressing their desire to continue pushing those industry's viewpoints in their new positions.

So the idea that lobbyists are being kept out is pretty silly. As the NY Times article notes, all this really does is encourage lobbyists not to register themselves as lobbyists, but to focus on lobbying unofficially, so that they can still get administration positions at a later date. That creates less openness and transparency, and a larger risk of regulatory capture, rather than a diminished one. We all like the idea of trying to keep corporate influence out of the law making (and law enforcement) side of government, but a blanket ban on all lobbyists, while letting non-lobbyist lobbyists in the back door isn't exactly reassuring.

Filed Under: administration, lobbyists, obama, politics, riaa
Companies: riaa

Court Rejects Plan To Broadcast Tenenbaum Trial

from the no-surprise,-but-disappointing dept

This doesn't come as much of a surprise, given earlier precedents saying that broadcasting a trial wasn't allowed, but an appeals court has officially told the district court in the Tenenbaum trial that it cannot webcast live from the courtroom. This is somewhat unfortunate, though, a bit of a sideshow issue. And, given the oddities involved in the lawsuit up until now (from all parties involved in the lawsuit), it's not clear how useful webcasting the courtroom proceedings would have been. Still, it does seem rather silly to limit the ability to webcast from a courtroom, and the RIAA's assertion that it would be a bad thing because the content would be "readily subject to editing and manipulation" simply makes no sense at all. That's true of any content. But do we see regular "manipulation and editing" of public appearances made by RIAA spokespeople? No, of course not.

Filed Under: tenenbaum, webcast
Companies: riaa

Yet Another Copyright Lobbying Group Caught Infringing

from the always-seems-to-happen... dept

These days, it's nearly impossible not to infringe on copyright in one way or another during your regular day -- but it's always amusing when big-time copyright supporters are caught infringing (and it seems to happen quite frequently). The latest is musicFIRST, the lobbying group funded (potentially illegally) by the recording industry, which has been pushing a campaign claiming that radio is piracy and demanding that radio stations pay even more royalties than they already do.

But, of course, when it comes to licensing or paying royalties itself... well, you know... that's a different story.

Billboard has noticed that MusicFIRST appears to have quoted the entire lyrics to the Beatles song "We Can Work It Out" in a mocking press release it put out earlier in the week -- but failed to get the necessary license. Now, of course, many of us believe that quoting lyrics like that is perfectly reasonable fair use. But... the recording industry (you know, the folks behind MusicFIRST) doesn't believe that, which is why they've shut down plenty of people for posting lyrics on the web and even thrown people in jail for posting lyrics on the web.

But, when they do it? It's fine? Funny how that works...

Filed Under: copyright infringement, lobbying, lyrics, musicfirst
Companies: musicfirst, riaa, soundexchange