RIAA Or how not to treat the Customers

[Mr Bean]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/799397.asp
Sales are way down for Music CD's today and the RIAA blames Piracy

To a certian extent they are somone-what right, But to another picture this,

By Law I can make one Back-up of any CD I buy. But thanks to the RIAA I CAN'T thanks to all the Copy-protections the've thrown on CDs half of which don't work and the other half half do but reduce compatablity(Belive me I was mad when last year I went to buy a CD to find that its copy sceme prevent me from playing it on my Computer OR in my Car, Needless to say I returned it the next day, hoped online and got all the songs

The point is those idiots at the RIAA have themsleves to blaim, Right now I can go buy a CD for 21.99, It cost them around .31 Cents(American) considering shiping, packing and all the other stuff to get it onto a store shelf, A few years back that used to be .81 to 1.21 but a few advancments and in CD Mastering let them cut the cost in half, now 60% of a CD's acutal cost is made up of shiping it to a store.
And yet back when they where 1.21 I could go buy them for 14.99 to 17.99(Even the day after they where relased)
Why is it going up in price? The Qualitys not getting Any Better, I know I can find 512k Quality Copies of every Backstreet crap song out there on Morpheus or Kaazaa if I wanted and if I shelled out the twenty bucks for the CD I would be getting 192k-256k Quailty off the CD, rasing the question of why even bother buying it to begin with.

Then you have Hardware websites such as www.hardocp.com orginising Protests to tell RIAA to get the damn copy protection scemes of thier CDs and to stop buying CDs untill they do and I think they have over 40k people signed up for that.

So whats your thoughts on the matter Considering awhile back the RIAA tried to get Permision to hack peoples computers to look for illeagle copies some ISPs even refused accecss to them http://www.informationwave.net/news/20020819riaa.php

So whats your feelings on the matter?

[Mr Bean]

Link to where the RIAA wants to hack your computer
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946316.html


Discuss

[Graeme Dice]

I'm looking forward to the disaster that will occur if the hacking law goes into effect. Since everyone in the world is a copyright holder, it basically gives free reign to anyone who wants to break into the computers of others.

[RedImperator]

Pirates are a perfect scapegoat for the industry. They ARE breaking the law, and it IS stealing--you're not entitled to free music. That being said, the industry is in trouble thanks to their own boneheaded marketing decisions. Rock has been totally homegonized, as has hip hop, country has been neutered and lobotomized, and the rest of the genres have been consigned to niche markets. Radio, which used to sell albums, has gotten so bad that most "top 40" stations have less than 20 songs in their rotations, and has largely been relegated to background noise by the general public. And apparently, the station managers haven't figured out that nobody wants to listen to 10 minute commercial breaks followed by 15 minutes of music. We won't even discuss the dumbing down of MTV (something that couldn't have seemed possible by the late 1980s). The record companies are producing crap which isn't selling enough to meet their marketing projections, and then they go and create a public relations fiasco by treating their customers like criminals.

I'm no frothing leftist. I hate socialism and it's bed wetting idiot cousin, liberalism (modern liberalsim, not Classical liberalism, of course). But for once, the lefties are right. Commercialism has killed popular music. These idiot MBAs running the show have been taught nothing but marketing, marketing, marketing, and apparently have assumed that the public is a flock of bleating sheep that will buy anything that's advertised heavily enough. Then their Marketing 101 theories fall apart in real life, and they turn on the same public which has let them down and accuse all of them of being thieves, because heaven knows it can't be the EXECUTIVES that are wrong. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because after a few years of being treated like criminals, the public has no sympathy for the record companies whatsoever, and people like me who never used to download songs out of principle now stuff their hard drives full of them.

Fortunately, capitalism punishes idiocy. Give the industry a few more years, then watch the record companies start K-Marting their way into oblivion, thanks to poor record sales caused by price gouging, piracy, and lousy product.

[Durandal]

I'm looking forward to the disaster that will occur if the hacking law goes into effect. Since everyone in the world is a copyright holder, it basically gives free reign to anyone who wants to break into the computers of others.

The RIAA is far ahead of you, Graeme. They saw that very loophole and put a choke chain on ole Fritz Hollings. They've withdrawn the bill, for now. I assume that they're in the process of modifying it so that "copyright holder" is defined as "the RIAA and MPAA."

[Crazy_Vasey]

The RIAA are morons, they jack up CD prices while there's a recession happening and they blame the loss of sales on P2P software. Idiocy.

[Darth Wong]

Fortunately, capitalism punishes idiocy. Give the industry a few more years, then watch the record companies start K-Marting their way into oblivion, thanks to poor record sales caused by price gouging, piracy, and lousy product.

Capitalism punishes idiocy if left to its own devices. However, the RIAA is trying to get the government to intervene on its behalf.

[Lagmonster]

An interesting follow up to this would be to see where money from music sales actually goes.

My gripe is that I'm not paying, say, Chris DeBurgh to write and sing a song for me. I'm paying his agent to put out a CD featuring only those songs they want on a specific album in an order that they choose and at a quality they determine. I can't object to this (I'm sure people would refuse to pay the artist directly, too, and artists don't have the time or capabilities to mass-produce and market albums), but personally my feeling is that - given the choice - I would rather hand the artist 10 bucks directly for the right to download a few of my favorite crisp MP3's off his website than hand a company 20 bucks for an uncopyable CD, and at the end of that see the artist only get three-fifty.

[C.S.Strowbridge]

I read a study where the average person who downloads musics buys More CDs than people who don't. Most people use .mp3s to see if they will like the CD, try before you buy. However, if there's only one song they like and the rest are utter crap it costs the RIAA a sale. But who gives a damn if bad artists don't sell bad music.

Anywho, the three biggest causes in the music industries downturn were:

1.) Overall economic downturn: Last year was not a good year.

2.) Increased Competition: CDs are almost as expensive as CDs.

3.) The music sucks: For every good CD released last year I could probably name 3 that completely sucked.

[Mr Bean]

The music sucks: For every good CD released last year I could probably name 3 that completely sucked

I'll do you one better and say I can name eight that sucked inculded every single RE-Release inculding a Korn CD I found re-relased the only thing diffrent about it was that there was a new copy protection scheme on it

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Maybe if every other artist wasn't a rapper, sales would be higher. And if the artists had any talent, they would be even higher than that. These laws are just to make the recording industry wealthy while limiting the consumer's choice.

[RedImperator]

Fortunately, capitalism punishes idiocy. Give the industry a few more years, then watch the record companies start K-Marting their way into oblivion, thanks to poor record sales caused by price gouging, piracy, and lousy product.

Capitalism punishes idiocy if left to its own devices. However, the RIAA is trying to get the government to intervene on its behalf.

The government can't pass a law making people buy lousy records, which is the root of the RIAA's problem. And a government crackdown on piracy is going to be just about as effective as the government's 60 year crackdown on marijuana has been, maybe less, because you don't need to go drive to a sleazy neighborhood to buy MP3's from questionable characters.

[Durandal]

You'd be surprised at how fanatically creative the RIAA is. They want all computer hardware to be neutered, so hard drives won't be able to hold any media files unless the RIAA says so.

Sad but true.

[Alferd Packer]

You'd be surprised at how fanatically creative the RIAA is. They want all computer hardware to be neutered, so hard drives won't be able to hold any media files unless the RIAA says so.

Sad but true.

I've heard this as well. Worry not, it cannot happen. Given the logistics and costs of such an operation, the gov'munt would never, ever go for it.

[Mr. B]

I've heard this as well. Worry not, it cannot happen. Given the logistics and costs of such an operation, the gov'munt would never, ever go for it.

Remember the Justice Dept is run by John Ashcroft, the guy who cares about civil liberties as much as we do trekkies and creationists.

[Darth Yoshi]

Don't be so sure. With Bush in charge, the feds just might try it.

[Joe]

Oh, come on, this is ridiculous...

[Alferd Packer]

People wouldn't stand for it. Nerds would revolt! They'd put all those 1337 Counterstrike skillz to use! ANARCHY! PHYSICALLY WEAK, UNIMPOSING ANARCHY!

When the revolution comes, the RIAA will not be spared!

[consequences]

"The RIAA were the first against the wall when the revolution came"-quote from Encyclopedia Britannica released in 2100 that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp

[Lagmonster]

People wouldn't stand for it. Nerds would revolt! They'd put all those 1337 Counterstrike skillz to use! ANARCHY! PHYSICALLY WEAK, UNIMPOSING ANARCHY!

When the revolution comes, the RIAA will not be spared!

I laugh myself into several comas. I know a lot of people who spend a lot of time playing Counterstrike. When the revolution comes, they will not be fighting heartily against the powers that be. They will be passing through the digestive systems of random forest animals.

No strike against them, though. It's just a funny thought, considering the people I know.

[Alferd Packer]

"Man, this AW/M is really heavy. How the hell are you supposed to bunnyhop with it?"

But we digress.

MP3 priacy is stealing. Stealing is wrong. No point in arguing that. The RIAA, however, is acting far too late to stop it. They'll never be able to do it. If they wanted to stop it, they would have had to clamp down on the technology in about '95 (or earlier, that was my first run-in with MP3s, IIRC).

So it's here. Now what do we do? Some people have elected not to download MP3s. Good for them. The majority, however, continues to download faster than ever. Most have no moral qualms at all with this. They either don't see it as stealing (which it is), or simply don't care.

The RIAA likes to think that this is an example of the rampant moral decay of Western society. I assert, however, that it's simply bad business. They've been shoving the same stuff down our throats for so long that we've grown largely sick of it, and have sought music elsewhere. All they're doing is showing that there is no demand for the available supply. The RIAA needs to give us a reason to buy from them again. They're trying to get the gov'munt to give us that reason. That won't fly. So, what else can they do? DVD audio, maybe. Give us something that sounds better than CD audio, encoded in 5.1 or 2 channels. After all, there's no law that says we have to buy the tripe they shovel towards us. They have to make the tripe they shovel at us so appealing that we want to buy it.

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

Why doesn't the RIAA ban radio stations if they want to seize control of the entire music industry?

[Darth Wong]

Why doesn't the RIAA ban radio stations if they want to seize control of the entire music industry?

They tried, many years ago (either a ban or extremely strict, almost punitive licensing fees). However, the association of radio broadcasters has a powerful lobby in Washington.

They got a second chance with Internet broadcasters, and they succeeded. The new licensing scheme approved by the courts will cause massive bankruptcies among Internet radio broadcasters, as licensing fees will exceed gross income for many of them.

The RIAA and MPAA have fought home entertainment since Day One. Remember the lawsuit against Sony for making VCR's that could record TV shows? The only question is whether the judiciary and the government will go along with their bullshit. 20 years ago, they said no. But today, with George Bush and his "rich lobbyists are always right" mantra in the White House ...

[Mr Bean]

They got a second chance with Internet broadcasters, and they succeeded. The new licensing scheme approved by the courts will cause massive bankruptcies among Internet radio broadcasters, as licensing fees will exceed gross income for many of them.

Acutal it already has, I know my old favorite Radio Station G105 out of NC was great(The main hosts, are a Self-Admited Redneck whos half his family is outright racist opposite a somewhat but not quite Bible Thumping Black Lady who is equaly redneck in a diffrent way, The Manager who's one of the typical NY White Guy DJs who seems to know everyone plus "Tommy" Tommy was not one guy rather around six(They went through them like South-Park Goes through Kennys) The only requirement for Being Tommy(Aka Flash) was being over 250 Pounds, Under 6.2 and being willing to do very dumb things, Most of which they did live in Public, Including I remeber the time they attached $2000 Dollers to a Remote Control Air-Plane and told everyone a week ahead of time they would fly the thing around the Duke Campus and the first person to knock the plane down, Via WHATEVER method they wanted got the Cash. Lots of crazy stuff, funny as hell cause most of it was vaugly designed to hurt Flash in some way that or be VERY funny)

Thier classic is of course a very expensive Mic and Wirless set-up about the size of a ciggrate pack that lets them communcate with Tommy while on the Air even if he's 100 miles away in Realtime. They use it to do everything from have him pitch a Tent in a Sam's Club and start cooking stakes on a George Foruman Grill to Dressing him up in a Prisoner Uniform and give him a few fake tattos and have go through a Drive Through in A Donated Cop Car (They had people inside too to get thier reactions)


But saddly I lost all that as when the court case came up they shut down Internet service and soon after the results where annoced decided despite the fact they where the most succeful Online Radio show in the state(And most sucessful regular Radio Station in the state) they would not make any money on the deal and shut down production

Ahh well they stoped production altogther last year I belive but still it pissed me off, those where some good memories

[Stuart Mackey]

Link to where the RIAA wants to hack your computer
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946316.html


Discuss

Thank christ I live in New Zealand. They can hack my computer and "whoops, so sorry, thats illegal and any evidence you find is inadmissable" along with "please pay all costs".