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posted by LaminatorX on Friday March 14 2014, @01:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the blather-rinse-repeat dept.

Fluffeh writes:

"In a written statement to a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on the DMCA takedown system, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman informed lawmakers about the ongoing struggle against online piracy. 'All those links to infringing music files that were automatically repopulated by each pirate site after today's takedown will be re-indexed and appear in search results tomorrow. Every day we have to send new notices to take down the very same links to illegal content we took down the day before. It's like Groundhog Day for takedowns,' Sherman says.

Google, however, clearly disagrees with the RIAA, Katherine Oyama, Google's Senior Copyright Policy Counsel said 'The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy, as services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated. The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.'"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by G-forze on Friday March 14 2014, @01:45PM

    by G-forze (1276) on Friday March 14 2014, @01:45PM (#16362)

    'The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy, as services ranging from Netflix to Spotify to iTunes have demonstrated. The right combination of price, convenience, and inventory will do far more to reduce piracy than enforcement can.'

    Not charging a hand and a foot for something that has been around for decades and costs cents to produce would also go a long way. But arguing with the RIAA about this is pointless. If copyright infringement were to actually dissappear (as a problem, if not completely), then the goons at RIAA would be out of a job. Now who thinks they would be working towards that goal?

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 14 2014, @01:54PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday March 14 2014, @01:54PM (#16369) Homepage

    " Security risk blocked for your protection

    Reason:

    This Websense category is filtered: Peer-to-Peer File Sharing. Sites in this category may pose a security threat to network resources or private information, and are blocked by your organization. "

    Well, shit. So much for the first link. It's kind of funny that there was an article just posted about Tesla's business model and bypassing the middlemen; because the RIAA are just middlemen and should be bypassed by the artists.

    So why don't more established and wealthy artists just let their contracts expire and go into business for themselves, especially since they've already beaten the odds? Are people so vain and lacking self-respect that they are willing to let Big Media pimp them out, dictating their band names and even their appearance in exchange for being on T.V.?

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by wantkitteh on Friday March 14 2014, @02:43PM

      by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday March 14 2014, @02:43PM (#16404) Homepage Journal

      Music contracts are amazingly complicated and impossible to escape, by design. I used to do tech support for a recording studio and spent some idle time reading some of the paperwork left lying around. The standard formula contract seemed simple at first, effectively granting a label exclusive rights to distribute your material for a period of time or a number of releases. However, the small print always included a couple of big sticks up the a*se that the more business minded of the musicians there would expound upon at length directly proportional to how intoxicated they were:

      - Perpetual rights for the label to distribute and profit from any material submitted to them under the terms of the contract
      - Prohibition of the artist to re-release any submitted material in any recorded form once the contract expires

      Technically and legally, you can split from a label but you'd end up like Tina Turner post divorce - nothing left but your name and reputation. No legacy royalties, no back catalogue, even performance rights to your previous work would be a struggle to assert.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday March 14 2014, @03:13PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Friday March 14 2014, @03:13PM (#16426)

        A buddy of mine worked in the music industry for a while as a band manager. He described it this way:
        "The recording company execs screw the label execs. The label execs screw the signing agents. The signing agents screw the band managers. The band managers screw the musicians. It's one giant line of people all screwing each other, except for the musicians, who just get screwed."

        If you're good enough to make it as a musician, do everything you can to avoid signing a recording contract. That advance is never worth what it appears to be, and you're basically making yourself an indentured servant for the rest of your life. This bit [salon.com] is very revealing, and still quite true.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Friday March 14 2014, @03:26PM

          by wantkitteh (3362) on Friday March 14 2014, @03:26PM (#16438) Homepage Journal

          The result of this gangbang is tracks like this my MC Front-a-lot: (Fairly SFW IIRC)

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ihtm8zCss [youtube.com]

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by M. Baranczak on Friday March 14 2014, @03:44PM

          by M. Baranczak (1673) on Friday March 14 2014, @03:44PM (#16458)

          Steve Albini, on the same subject:

          http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 [negativland.com]

        • (Score: 2) by everdred on Friday March 14 2014, @04:40PM

          by everdred (110) on Friday March 14 2014, @04:40PM (#16496) Journal

          > It's one giant line of people all screwing each other, except for the musicians, who just get screwed.

          And they screw groupies, so they're happy.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Friday March 14 2014, @06:29PM

          by isostatic (365) on Friday March 14 2014, @06:29PM (#16555) Journal

          A buddy of mine worked in the music industry for a while as a band manager. He described it this way:
          "The recording company execs screw the label execs. The label execs screw the signing agents. The signing agents screw the band managers. The band managers screw the musicians. It's one giant line of people all screwing each other, except for the musicians, who just get screwed."

          I thought the musicians screwed the groupies

          • (Score: 1) by paulej72 on Friday March 14 2014, @06:58PM

            by paulej72 (58) on Friday March 14 2014, @06:58PM (#16569) Journal

            I thought the musicians screwed the groupies

            Unfortunately that was for fun not profit

            --
            Team Leader for SN Development
        • (Score: 1) by paddym on Saturday March 15 2014, @12:02AM

          by paddym (196) on Saturday March 15 2014, @12:02AM (#16694)

          What I can't understand, is why aren't their hundreds of competitors rising up and competing to be the labels for new musicians? It would seem like any label willing to undercut and put musicians ahead of the bottom line would soon be the king of the hill.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @02:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @02:43PM (#16405)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoupment [wikipedia.org]
    http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/con tracts.htm [soundonsound.com]
    http://www.toomuchjoy.com/?p=1397 [toomuchjoy.com]

    It is really hard to feel bad for someone saying 'hey they are stealing from me' when they are stealing billions from their own employees. Thru the use of 'breakage', poor thru rates on paid to play, and best of all recoupment. They have even managed to turn the argument over onto google saying its not their fault the poor artists are not getting paid see its google who lets you find that music for free. When the record companies are the ones who are the real thieves. Do two wrongs make a right? No, but I sure do not feel bad for them that they will get their asses handed to them by the internet.

    They are trying to put the genie back in the bottle and recapture the accounting model (ironically using streaming/radio). However, once you format shift to a convenient enough format you do not buy it again usually.

    In some ways there are collectors/hoarders. People who amass huge collections of this stuff, books, music, movies, games, etc. Then there are consumers who enjoy it and then throw it away to buy again some other day. You see it shift back and forth. From people who are 'streaming is the best evar' too 'I have enough on my 2TB drive to last me the rest of my life'.

    Consumers are razor blade buyers. Hoarders are straight razor buyers. (New site, I am inventing a new way of describing people I grow weary of cars analogies). For one you will be buying again a few weeks. The other will last you years but takes a bit of work to use properly.

    RIAA does not want someone to buy a straight razor. They want you to buy it again and again and again.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @03:23PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 14 2014, @03:23PM (#16433)

      It's also hard to feel bad when the music industry bunch themselves are uploading songs to youtube too. Clearly they believe that a nonzero amount of sharing and free downloading/streaming is better than zero. Seems to me they are just quibbling over the amount of file sharing and their cut of the $$$$$$.

      On a related note, seems to me Disney doesn't do that much "take down" on Youtube for those Mickey Mouse videos for kids. I guess they figure that if Youtube/Google really removes them all, Barney or Dora or something else would be very happy to fill the vacuum.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @01:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 15 2014, @01:46AM (#16719)

        I saw a counterexample for that.

        Some YouTube user uploaded ALL(?) the episodes of KIM POSSIBLE (2002 - 2007)

        Naturally Disney eventually found out and told YouTube to terminate the account which they did.

        So I guess Disney is using the 'hook 'em while they're young' method of getting children to watch and like (a lot) Disney programming available for free on YouTube. When they are older (Kim Possible's target audience), they can surely afford to go out and buy it.