NEWS: Best. Lawyer. Ever!

I'm a musician. I like musicians getting paid. I'm also a lawyer. I understand why they're doing the things they're doing.

I just think that if they're trying to promote awareness or engender sympathy, they're going about it the wrong way. I also think they're quite short-sighted when it comes to the effects of sharing music, which makes their policy decisions even dumber.

I agree. Pretty much all the decision-makers in the music industry are short-sighted. They find something that works and run it into the ground without thinking ahead. Someone somewhere could've seen the rise of the popularity of the Internet and have figured out some way to make that work for them. Instead, they were too focused on airplay and album sales so they dismissed it until the file-sharing got so out of hand that they had to address it. Now they're trying to play catch-up and make a public display out of whoever they can nab stealing music online. I think they could go about things differently but it still irks me when the masses see no problem with violating copyright laws and screwing the artists they supposedly admire. I'm sure the effects aren't as drastic for the most part (perhaps more so for smaller artists and labels) but I still think if people wouldn't steal music, none of this would be an issue.

with regards to music sharing, the cat doesn't even remember what the bag looked like.

personally, i think it's a simple matter of giving people a reason to pay for music -- not 100% of music, not without exception, but just a good reason most of the time.

i buy music from artists i want to support; i buy music from artists that give me a good excuse to get the actual physical goods involved (Ragni made a graphic novel that they sell with their EP for $15 total); i buy music when artists and labels make it easier to buy than steal (hi iTunes!); i pay for tickets and merch every time my favorite bands come to town -- and i discovered several of them by stealing their music. these are all factors to which the industry has to adapt, and it's not especially hard if you're not a giant old corporate dinosaur.

so does that mean the big labels will die? maybe, but if they do it's because they couldn't adapt to the market -- at no point should an industry expect the market to adapt to them, which is exactly what's going on, which is exactly why big labels are dying a slow death and indie labels are selling music like gangbusters.

How do you say "Pwned" in Latin?

First, Metallica never sued fans. They sued napster, a startup that was attempting to make a fortune on the backs of artists with not compensation whatsoever. So Sean Fanning can suck a bag of dicks.

Second, it's been repeatedly demonstrated that a significant number of people the RIAA contacts did not, in fact, download any illegal content in any way, and that's discounting the instances where it's been other people downloading on their computers, or when security has been compromised. Wireless networks are usually left open due to ignorance, WEP takes less than 90 seconds for a determined individual to crack, and mac addresses are easily spoofed. Add to that the flagrant misapplication of law, the willful ignorance of local and state level statutes, and the sheer arrogance of companies like Sony-BMG, and honestly, we're all just waiting for one of these cases to go to court with a lawyer like this on the defendant's side, so that the judge will have a chance to establish precedence for these cases to be seen as the legal horseshit they are.

Additionally, the industry has failed miserably at what one would assume is a fundamental task. Which is : making a convincing case that they have actually lost money from people stealing songs. While copyright law doesn't require that they do so, public image control would seem to encourage it.


Who knew the music industry could be so tone deaf?

I'd have much less of a problem with the artists asking people not to pirate their music (or heck, going after them in court, if they've got compelling evidence to back them up) than I do with the RIAA doing it. As Courtney Love pointed out at length in a letter that I'm too lazy to dredge up for this post, they represent the real thieves. They're getting 90+% of the money on every album published under their labels. They've got all sorts of underhanded tricks to milk the cash cow, and they barely let the people who actually make the music see any of it. Excuse me if I don't cry them a river.

(And of course, as skeptik said, they've yet to provide much in the way of evidence to back up their claim that music piracy is actually hurting sales/losing them money.)

I didn't say Metallica sued anyone. People gave them crap for being so anti file-sharing when they already had a lot of money. My point was that if they're entitled to the money they have every right to be pissed.

I also acknowledged that the RIAA made mistakes. I'm sure Grandma Bessie in Small Town, USA never downloaded hundreds of gangsta rap songs. However, many (probably most) of the people contacted about file-sharing actually did it. We can all argue back and forth about what's fair punishment and what's not but the fact remains that they broke the law. If you don't illegally download songs, you won't have to worry about RIAA all up on your ass.

The first part of your paragraph directly contradicts the last sentence.

Most people contacted by RIAA did something wrong. Most people who do not illegally download songs are not contacted by RIAA. It's not a contradiction to say that some mistakes were made. If it was a more even number of correct and incorrect accusations, that would be different. It's like saying if you don't kill someone you won't go to jail for murder. It's true with the exception of a few cases in which a truly innocent person was convicted of a crime he/she didn't commit. It would be foolish to say anything is ever only one way or only another in every single situation.

Carpe Rectum?

You hear most of these new bands?!?

Yeah I would feel bad about downloading songs if I didn't go out and see the bands I find that I like, and also buy their CDs.

Also, was anything mentioned on these boards about the rate change for internet radio stations?