Unpaid Artists and the Fight Against the RIAA

[chrismgtis]

I wrote this a while back. Let me know what you think. If you want to take the time to read the whole thing. :laugh:

You can find the article here: http://chrislgrooms....t-against-riaa/

The music industry initially responded to P2P file sharing as it has often responded to disruptive innovations in the past: it sent its lawyers after the innovators, hoping to smother the technology in its infancy. Beginning with the December 1999 lawsuit against Napster, the recording industry has sued major P2P technology companies one after the other: Scour, Aimster, AudioGalaxy, Morpheus, Grokster, Kazaa, iMesh, and LimeWire.

5

Although these same technologies were also being used for non-infringing purposes, including sharing of authorized songs, live concert recordings, public domain works, movie trailers, and video games, the record industry has won most of these lawsuits—but it is still losing the war.

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After Napster was shut down, new networks quickly appeared. Napster was replaced by Aimster and AudioGalaxy, which were supplanted in turn by LimeWire, Morpheus and Kazaa, which were then partially supplanted by eDonkey and BitTorrent.

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Source:

RIAA Five Years Later

The RIAA are thieves. This is indisputable fact. It's own description of "Who We Are" states, and I quote directly from the RIAA website "the RIAA works to protect the intellectual property and First Amendment rights of artists and music labels". I don't know about you, but personally I've only been told such incredible lies by drug addicts.

It has never compensated a single artist. It is the artist's product that is being stolen. They claim to represent and compensate these artists.

This whole debacle makes about as much legal sense as a police officer confiscating a stolen pair of Nike and then suing the the perpetrator for $675,000 (a price that the RIAA has itself charged for a product worth much less than a pair of Nike). Then pocketing that money and refusing to compensate Nike or the store owner for one dime.

Yet, they get away with it. They are thieves that have not been challenged by the same court system that is in place to protect us.

RIAA v. Tenenbaum

is a court case wherein the

Recording Industry Association of America

accuses

Joel Tenenbaum

of illegally downloading and uploading files, thus violating U.S.

copyright

law. It is only the second such case (after

Capitol v. Thomas

) to come to trial, a large number previously having been settled out of court. After the judge entered a finding of liability, a jury assessed damages of

$

675,000, although that amount was later reduced to $67,500 on appeal.

Source:

Wikipedia.org

.

In Capitol vs. Thomas (2007) the RIAA fined Jammie Thomas $1.92 million for infringing 24 songs, which was later reduced to $54,000. The actual worth of 24 songs? About $24.00.

Let's assume that they want to charge the individual sharing the audio files for every person that downloaded the song from the accused. Assuming they even had the file up long enough after downloading it themselves for anyone to retrieve their own copy from that person. Where do they come up with the data for the number of copies fully transferred? They don't. It's impossible. They just pull a number out of thin air.

$3500 is the average payment to the RIAA for settlements out of court. I estimate that is about 3500x the value of a single song. So they are assuming that 3500 people downloaded the song illegally from the file sharer, without proof. If the charge goes to court, there is a good chance that instead of paying $1.00 per download for 3500 downloads, you're going to pay around $550 instead.

The RIAA has fined dead people. People without a computer. The elderly and children. If they can't accurately figure out who has a computer, how can they come up with what I'm only assuming they figure is an average of 3500 downloads? Again, they don't. It's a random number that has no factual basis or legal bearing.

It costs more to hire a lawyer than to settle out of court. Not to mention the evidence for what happens if you take the charges to court. The RIAA will change the charge from a miniscule $3500 to a random (example) $1.92 million dollars. A severe scare tactic to prevent you from taking the charges to court, because they know the risk it poses to their incredibly illegal crusade. But who would have known that the court system would have allowed this to continue for so long. So they continue to add hundreds of millions of dollars to their bank account.

Where do they get the nerve to claim that they protect the First Amendment rights of artists? Do they know what the First Amendment says? They absolutely do not. You are hilarious RIAA.

The EFF are one of the few organizations to have ever fought for musicians rights and the EFF has fought hard against the RIAA for violating those rights. The EFF is also non-profit. EFF should start a record label. I'm willing to give them 75% of my earnings just to screw major labels.

The RIAA has profited over $100 million from lawsuits that were settled out of court. If they can provide proof that 25% of that has gone to artists directly, I'll delete this article and begin a crusade supporting the RIAA. I'll even tattoo the letters RIAA on my forehead.

The RIAA alienates consumers and music lovers. It forces as many consumers into bankruptcy as possible to pay for yachts, mansions and Lamborghini's. It ****es us off with it's asinine tactics. It's Digital Rights Management (DRM). Charges full price for low quality audio. Launches a campaign that signs so called musicians purely to sell an image rather than talent. They sue us without legitimate proof of theft and without sufficient technological knowledge of how P2P works to identify offenders. Normally with no proof whatsoever.

RIAA is a rogue organization. They might as well walk into a Wal-Mart and taser random individuals to accuse of stealing cupcakes and force them to hand over $3500. It's not their damn cup cake anyway.

Consumers (aka law-breakers) can no longer afford to purchase music after having been sued. The money received when the RIAA wins a lawsuit does not go to any artist. It goes towards the RIAA's crusade to sue those who share music freely. They have admitted this themselves.

In truth, the RIAA is a rogue and illegal organization designed for the soul purpose of capitalizing on artist's creations without representing the artist nor compensating the artist. RIAA may represent the labels that represent the artist, but it represents the artists itself about as legitimately as King Louis XVI represented the thirteen colonies. What this amounts to is theft. Exactly what the RIAA accuses file sharers for doing. Yet the RIAA provides no benefit whatsoever to anyone whatsoever except for itself (RIAA) and those behind the curtains of the RIAA – the record labels.

When I catch someone stealing, I should be able to take the thief to court and make a killing. Oh wait, I don't have expensive lawyers and bribe money to get away with it. Damn the man.

Think about this. The record company rips off the artist and pays them next to nothing for their product to represent them and provide them with services – oh what a valuable service. Services that are worth maybe $500,000. It makes millions upon millions per album, taking an excessive cut of the profits at the expense of the artist's hard work, talent, product and image. The record company in turn hunts down anyone who "illegally" acquires or uses a recording. It makes even more millions of dollars in the process. Then it refuses to provide the artist for it's fair share.

Judges allow this to continue. The court allows this to continue. The government allows it to continue.

The RIAA only benefits record labels, record executives and God knows who else that is behind it. At least file sharing itself provides many benefits to artists. It is free marketing and free word of mouth. Which is a very powerful tool – if not THE most powerful for any business. Don't forget – artist's make almost nothing for their album sales anyway, so why not embrace this free marketing anyway and benefit from it? Anyone with a grasp of the most basic concepts of business will agree with this. Because they don't stand to profit as much from it.

The RIAA stated that musicians can not profit or make money whatsoever without the RIAA. Another lie that is so transparent and incredible the RIAA should be laughed off the face of North America. Musicians can't make a profit because of the labels that the RIAA represents. Labels force them into contracts where the label takes 99% of their earnings. The contracts are crafty and confusing. You don't realize you've been had until it's too late.

You ask, who the hell signs a contract like that? Musicians that want to succeed. Major labels are a monopoly of con artists. The motto might as well be, either do it alone or let us rip you off, because you know we can get you under the spotlight.

Personally I do not agree with anyone downloading music without later purchasing it. If they enjoy the music, they should buy it or delete it within a few days. I wholeheartedly support this. If you enjoy it, purchase it. It is a great way to sample music, rather than having to buy an entire album because you know you enjoy one song.

The money that we pay for an album or single does benefit an artist on a VERY SMALL scale if that artist is on a major label. If the artist is not on a major label they profit really well. On a major label, artist's can not survive on 1% earnings. Of which 99% is hoarded by the record company.

I quote directly from an article by Courtney Love (Hole's frontwoman):

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.

That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.

That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

So $45,000 is a lot of money to survive on for one to two years is it not? Hell no. This is a very hopeful estimate by Courtney Love. It is a "if the artist is lucky" scenario. Sure, plenty of people would love to make $45,000 per year, but the problem is that it is often years before another album is released. In reality it is not a $45k/year income.

It is typically far worse.

Goo Goo Dolls sold 2 million copies (of which album(s) I'm unsure) and still owed money to the record labels. If you sell 2 million albums that amounts to about $28,000,000 depending on where any one person purchased their copy and when. No matter what your thought process is that is a rip off. Even after paying for managers, marketing, music videos, etc. The record companies have capitalized on success just like this for decades. The record company most likely pocketed at least $26,000,000 from GGD's success.

TLC's album "CrazySexyCool" sold 10 million copies, but they had to declare bankruptcy anyway.

Sevendust said in an interview that they were lucky to break even every year after playing hundreds of shows.

Obviously plenty of artist's don't know how to handle their money, but in most cases you can easily blame that on a poor choice of accountant or downright extortion or laundering.

To make matters worse, Obama has sided with the RIAA. He inducted an RIAA lawyer into the Justice Department. So now we have RIAA support in the Justice Department. Thank you Obama for hiring a lawyer who has supported the war front on music industry extortion.

The Obama Administration is also pushing to "end piracy". I won't get into the politics too deeply. Do your own research, but take a look a this nonsense.

According to the Obama administration, the RIAA, and MPAA, the world economy is pretty much doomed if we don't start prosecuting pirates at home and abroad. Without such a crackdown, businesses will go bankrupt the coalition argues. Biden states, "Piracy hurts, it hurts our economy."

So now piracy hurts the economy? Is the Obama administration on drugs? If the music industry is in danger, it's because the RIAA and record labels are stealing billions of dollars from musicians and marketing absolute garbage. Consumers are sick and tired of the bull **** and don't want to pay for the garbage sold by these extortionist thieves.

Today, an album is not a profiting business for an artist (was it ever?). You must create other products to survive. So many people call this "selling out" which is absolute non-sense. I don't hear anyone calling rappers sell outs and they are incredible master money makers (and they don't make that money from album sales). They market what is valuable instead of what their soul wants to create. That is the purest form of selling out.

Record companies make it nearly impossible to survive unless you're Michael Jackson. You have to be realistic. If you want to do what you love, you better prepare to be a cut throat entrepreneur. So music lovers; deal with it or stop paying for products that major labels are selling.

I will be the first to complain that the music industry is becoming infested with no talent, non-deserving acts such as Justin Beiber, but they make a lot of money for one reason. Little girls only care about how attractive a singer is and will eat up any kind of product he sells with his name on it.

The record labels are not in business to provide you with quality music. They are in business to market and sell an incredibly valuable product that has absolutely nothing to do with quality. If you want that to change, we had better all stop paying record labels and start supporting independent artists.

If you want to help the artist's, one suggestion I have for you is this: never purchase an album from a label. Yes, as a musician myself, I support this. I know I can't make money on album sales anyway when under contract with a label.

Spend your money on other things. If you buy an album, buy it from band's who don't have record deals with major labels or buy it used (Amazon.com for example) so that the record labels can not profit from your purchase. Find ways to benefit the artist where they profit more than the lousy 1%.

This new era of media is an incredible thing. If only artist's could more easily benefit from it, but it requires excessive "out of the box" thinking on a musician's part these days. There are plenty of tools out there to get noticed, such as Last.FM, Myspace Band Pages, Facebook Band Pages, Pandora and Reverbnation. Use these free services to find music.

So WHO is behind the RIAA? Who are the real faces? I can't confirm them all, but to name a few.

1. Edgar Bronfman (Chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group)

2. Andy Lack (CBS and NBC)

3. Eric Nocoli (CEO of EMI Group)

4. Douglas Morris (Universal Music Group)

Source: Consumerist

P.S. to The Court System – You guys are dumb ****s for allowing the RIAA to continue business and steal from musicians. And for awarding such asinine damages. Stop taking bribes or start upholding law and common sense.

Check this out: Study: Fair Use Contributes Trillions to U.S. Economy

Related Links: RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use, RIAA: Stop P2P Downloads or "Lose All Federal Funding", Radiohead to Testify Against RIAA, Moby Says the RIAA Needs to be Disbanded, RIAA Insists Musicians Can't Make Money Without Them, RIAA Keeps Settlement Money – Arists May Sue, File Sharing Lawsuits at a Crossroads.