Scary Funny (RIAA Related)
 

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/20...LIFE_IMAGE.htm

I could see this getting out of hand...

Form a country wide boycot to stop buying CD's until the RIAA changes there policys.
You will see how fast the DJ's, station mgrs., recrod store owners, artists, recording companies, radio stations, then finally the RIAA starts "Singing Another Tune."

I estimate it should take about 3-6 months for an effective boycot to work.

Remember, you control your money and you also control your childrens' money (or you should).

That comic is absurd.

People who are mad at the RIAA for suing people for file-sharing need to realize something:

Those people were doing something illegal.

Now, have I downloaded a few music files myself? Sure. But that 12-year-old girl had downloaded over 1000 songs. (The number may have been higher, I can't exactly remember.) That could be 100 CDs, or about $1500.

The reason people don't think it's wrong is that it's so easy.

Now, I don't think that it was a very good public relations idea, but these lawsuits are well within their rights as copyright owners.

Making 'mix tapes' or CDs has always been illegal. Performing music in public without purchasing the license has aways been illegal. These concepts highlighted in this comic are nothing new.

But what's ridiculous about it is the idea that the RIAA or anybody is going to go after somebody for a single copyright violation. Besides that, the article makes use of plenty of things which are in the public domain, anyway.

I make my living on intellectual property. I work effing hard producing it. When I'm done, I don't own it - my employer does. But every time somebody copies a game I make, that's more money I'm not going to see. The RIAA members are just like my employer - they pay artists to make content for them. They're losing millions to file-sharing. While I don't agree with their tactics, and I don't think it's going to get them anywhere, they are well within their rights under copyright law and have been for a very long time.

While I agree with your points, riddle me this...

Why in the hell can I buy a 2-3 hour DVD for less than a CD with 8 songs on it that last 45 minutes... THIS is why people download music and how the RIAA got ITSELF into this mess...:mad:

Being a musician and having many songs copyrighted, I think it is absurd that the RIAA is going through the charade to disguise what this is really about. This is a financially motivated and politically greased issue.

The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act of 2003 (HR 2517) and The Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act (ACCOPS) (HR 2752) do not do much more than funnel money out of the tax base and into a few pockets. The carefully crafted use of the word 'unauthorized' when it should say 'unlawful' opens up a whole can of worms. It would allow un-copyrighted material to be subject to the same rules as copyrighted material.

It also provides for absurd penalties for violating non-laws (reproduction of non-copyrighted material). You can be imprisoned for photocopying a hand sketch that isn't copyrighted. In contrast, you would get three years for accidentally running over and killing a child in the street with your car.

There are strong copyright laws already in place, the RIAA is simply trying to get the taxpayer to foot the bill through taxes for their legal expenses.

Copying copyrighted items is already illegal and has penalties of up to $10,000 in fines and up to one year in prison. We don't need new laws to tell us that.

Doug

I hope you're not thinking "Happy Birthday" is in the public domain. The two little old maid sisters who wrote it are from Louisville, KY. Their estate holds the copyright.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.htm

Just wait until the NFL sues schools for having football shaped name tags on lockers, since the NFL has the unofficial trademark on all things football related.

You think I'm joking? Ten years ago, if I would have said "Someday you wont be able to say the word "Superb0wl" on the radio without paying the NFL, I would have been committed to an insane asylum. Today not being able to say the word is the norm.

Doug

That I wasn't sure about. But thanks for informing us.

I know that plenty of Christmas carols are public domain. My point was that this cartoon makes it seem like any use of music will get you jail time. It's media sensationalism, and while I know that's what they're best at, when it only serves to misinform people it pisses me off.

They are not "misinforming", they are merely showing the legal extremes of the proposed laws. Micro$oft was harvesting private information in IE4, Adobe is getting bad press right now for their background piracy reporting software embedded in their products.

It is not unreasonable to comprehend that in less than five years, there could be "virus" scanners at the large corporate ISPs that do nothing other than log who is downloading music and sending the results to the RIAA.

With new legislation HR 2517, Internet traffic monitoring (by your ISP) will now be admissible in court without a warrant or court order as is currently required.

Like I said before, the laws are already here, we don't need additional ones.

If the RIAA chooses to work with vendors like Apple's Music site, they could put a huge dent in piracy, but they choose to try and corner the market instead of sharing in joint ventures.



Doug

Well, as I said, I don't agree with their tactics. Just because I defended their right to file lawsuits against people ripping off their property doesn't mean I think it was a good idea. It'll just cost them huge sums of money, and I don't think it'll get them anywhere. It doesn't really provide a solution.

Anyway, you're right - by itself, that cartoon was not misinformation. But combined with how it is interpreted, which I would argue was thoroughly considered and even the reason for writing it in the first place, it just spreads panic and paranoia and leads to urban legends like those found on snopes.

It wasn't helpful in the least. How about, 'hey, if you don't want to be sued by the RIAA, stop ripping off their stuff.'

Conversely, you could argue that people wouldn't be ripping off the RIAA members' stuff if they provided more value or a better way to get that 'stuff.' Again, I didn't say I agreed with the RIAA members' methods.

Oh, and I don't think anybody ever disguised what this was about - the RIAA members are making every effort to tell people how much money they're losing to piracy. Of course it's a financially motivated move. They're huge companies - what other motivations are there?

To make the world a better place for all mankind :D

Again, I didn't say that I agreed with their methods. I fully agree that their practices have not helped them in the long term at all. But I don't pretend to understand the music distribution business well enough to say why a CD costs what it does.

Of course I agree with you, and everybody else who says it, that CDs are too expensive and the method for distributing music has to change with the times. But that doesn't make it right to rip it off until then.

I defend their rights to sue and collect for theft of their products, what I disapprove of is exercising their existing rights under the law very publicly as a bandwagon for changing the laws.

Doug

Its not like the quality of pirated music is any good. You can't exactly blast a mono 128k mp3 file without blowing your speakers. If you really like the song, you'll go buy the CD.

They are trying to keep from changing with the times. The royalties on the music are pennies compared to the money they make from duplicating, distributing, and selling physical products.

While that doesn't give people the right to rip them off, bands that try to sell their music directly for download are snubbed by their own labels and pressured into physical distribution only makes you wonder who is blurring the line between right and wrong?

Two wrongs don't make a right, but Three lefts makes a Right every time :D

Doug