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Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Apr 26, 2006 07:34 PM
from the it's-ok-to-share-eh dept.
from the it's-ok-to-share-eh dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah
McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition.
The artists say in a press
release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and
DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop
claiming that they represent their views."
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well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
4 words buddy.
Britney Spears and nSync
Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house
Parent
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
The Partridge Family. Full House. Mini Pops. Ricky Martin. Bob Barker. Fox News. Everybody loves Raymond. McDonalds. American Idol. Oprah (and Dr. Phil). Paris Hilton. That Kato guy. The list goes on
We exported Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne to see if you'd get the joke. People keep buying tickets, so apparently not.
Oh, and BTW, you can keep Howie Mandell and Alex Trebeck too. We want Shatner back though.
Parent
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
And you can have Shatner back if we can keep Evangeline Lilly and Elisha Cuthbert. Deal?
Parent
For once (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For once (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:For once (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, Quebe-what?
Oh, I slay myself.
Parent
Re:For once (Score:5, Informative)
HTH. HAND.
Dlugar
Parent
Serious question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Serious question (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
However my guess would be that it is something along the lines of
- Her label did it, not her
- She is opposed to her label having done it, and
- This is why she is starting a public pressure group specifically designed to get her label to stop doing such things.
Perhaps you will suggest that Sarah McLachlan should have used her leverage as an artist with the label to prevent them from engaging in such practices with her music at the time the CD was released. If you do this, I will laugh until I pass out from lack of oxygen.Parent
Re:My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
First: most of those artists are either on the Nettwerk label (McLachlan) or are managed or co-managed by Nettwerk (LaVigne, BNL, McLachlan, Raine Maida, Kreviazuk, Sum41). That makes it pretty obvious that two things are actually happening:
1) The artists, while feeling pretty hosed about how much rampant downloading is still going on, are not so hard-hit by that action that they feel outraged.
2) They do actually have some say about this since they are money-making artists on predominantly major-distributed labels.
I think that second point is key. Every major label artist, by that I mean one signed directly to an international major label, featuring international mass distribution, has either remained silent about this issue or has been so outspoken against downloading in particular that they've greatly damaged their fanbase ([cough]Metallica[/cough].)
Yes, most of these artists are on independent labels (biggest exceptions: Lavigne is on Arista, BNL are on Warner.) However that does not exclude them from major international distributorship (Nettwerk is distributed by EMI. Sloan is distributed by Sony / BMG. Most of the others have major distributors for their releases.) Whether you like Avril Lavigne's music or not, she is a top-five-selling artist who has joined this group of artists to make it known: she still doesn't agree with the tactics her major label is claiming to represent by suing her fans.
If it were a smaller artist - say: Harvey Danger, who actually allowed full on torrent files of their album to be released with no restrictions whatsoever last year - the attention payed to that motive is slight, and the response is usually "Big deal, who's heard of them? What difference will that make?"
I get the feeling that this is more likely a management / publishing mandate, with some artist buy-in. Nettwerk also handles or has a great deal to say about the publishing for all of these artists.
Interesting development. Maybe we'll finally get the music industry that consumers actually want, instead of this cat and mouse crap. Anything that goes a step or two towards evening the playing field when it comes to this industry is definitely a good thing. The last thing we need (which we have now) is another five Nickelbacks getting mass airplay on radio and then hearing them and their label and agents complaining that sales are down strictly because of downloading.
ad
Parent
repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Canada's low gun ownership rate will make the occupation much easier.
Parent
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
AMERICA FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
Canadians fleeing to the recycling station with shitty American beer cans in hand will be easy picking off by our highly skilled red neck population. While our gansta/thug population might be a little questionable in their aim, they will make up for it with round output and shear enthusiasm at being given the chance to bust a cap in yo cracker ass. To the Canadians defense though, our skinny white guy wanna be rappers from the 'burbs will likely take out a few Americans as they hold guns bigger then their head sideways and shoot like fucking retards.
We will send then send in the upper middle suburban punks dressed in 200+ dollar outfits of pre-ripped black jeans, black shirts with an obscure band on it, and metal studs randomly glued on to their clothing to clean up the mess. They will hunt down the surviving Canadians in a desperate attempt to retrieve the empty cans of shitty American beer in the hopes of draining the last drops of swill that might be left at the bottom of the can. The wrist scarred (across the street style, not down the highway) teenaged girls , feminine teenaged guys, and sketchy 40 year old men goths at that point will come out to add insult to injury by read shitty poetry about death and try to one up each other by doing grotesque things to the corpses.
Have no fear though, us Americans are not without compassion and mercy. We will blast some shitty (is there any other type?) emo music over the battlefield and send the emo kids out. They will promptly start to cry. True, they are crying at the memory of their long lost sixth grade girlfriend and lamenting at the difficulty of their inhumanly difficult life living in suburban America, but we can pretend they are crying for lost Canadian souls.
Oh hell, what is a little karma. At least I amuse myself.
Parent
Re:AMERICA FTW! : CANADIAN RESPONSE (Score:5, Funny)
The mere sight of crappy American beer cans {empty or not} brings out the deeply cherished Canadian Hockey Fan in every person who has spent at least one hockey season in Canada.
Sticks will appear {seemingly from nowhere}, pucks will fly faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a speeding locomotive {yeah the big "S" was invented in Canada}, and to add insult to injury skate blades will be used to run over your multitudes, twitching, soon to be remains.
After this induced frenzy has calmed, we Canadains will then politley bandaged any surviving Americans {not many}, administer Tim Horton's coffee and donuts to stablize them, and return them to their home state for medical care.
On the bright side though, the American emo kids will still be there to cry over your remains - primarily because we Canadains are polite and so don't pick on the whiners. Oh that and we'll need the emo kids to carry the empty American beer cans back across the border!
Both your and my karma are now rapidly dropping, but at least you amused me!
Parent
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not a week goes by that I don't have to defend my igloo against a polar bear attack!
Parent
It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last album (Score:5, Interesting)
Just last week I saw the Sarah McLachlan DVD and thought, "stupid drm" and not about the artist. I will force myself to see her in a better light now, but if she's not touring near me, I can't exactly give her the money I want to (by buying her material) because although she's going the right away about things _now_, her cds on the shelf are still DRMed.
In the end I was forced to I download Afterglow. I became a pirate because I couldnt experience the music on my, and on my creative zen.
For an artist I discovered via napster a long time ago, this sure does suck. Are they trying to lock me out of the market, or really fence us into a no-rip-no-choice era? Either way I see it, when I can't use WhateverAMP and my mp3 player, they've lost me as a customer.
Matt
Legal Download (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last albu (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last albu (Score:5, Informative)
As a previous poster already pointed out, Nettwerk's own Werkshop [werkshop.com] sells unencumbered MP3s for $0.99 per track, or $9.99 per album. Lossless FLACs are also available for $10.99 per album and, in some cases, $1.09 per track.
They also sell the Canadian, Nettwerk releases of her CDs, which carry no DRM.
Parent
Missing Artist (Score:3, Funny)
Yet there is no mention of Bryan Adams.
What kind of a hoax is this?
Re:Missing Artist (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
"Piracy" is good for the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, like RMS, I hate applying the term "piracy" to non-commercial copyright violations, so I won't use that term. Instead, I'll call it what it is, unauthorized copying.
Unauthorized copying is to the RIAA what "terrorism" is to the Bush Adminstration, namely, a scapegoat and a straw man argument with which to justify draconian legislation and to garner (barely) sufficient public support for any new legislation favoured by both institutions.
As the Bush Adminstration maintains the conditions (ex: War on Iraq) to indirectly promote terrorism, it justifies renewing the Patriot Act on the basis that it will "help stop terrorism". To make a blatantly obvious statement, the goal of the Patriot Act does not in any way, shape, or form have anything whatsoever to do with stop terrorists, but is instead intended to grant the government the ability to further spy on and control its citizens.
In the same vein, I believe that the RIAA wishes to maintain a certain level of unauthorized copying because it will allow them to justify legislation such as the DMCA and the broadcast flag. The goal of such legislation is not to eliminate or even substantially reduce unauthorized copying, but to maintain control over the industry and keep out fledging competitors, such as independent artists who would have otherwise been promoted through P2P, and to maintain their antiquated business models, which for all intents and purposes should have become obsolete.
So, it's all an elaborate shell game on their part.
If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Funny)
"But we would download torrents! In fact, we'd just download more!"
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Informative)
On a side note, Kraft dinners have many attributes, but tasting good isn't one of them. Mind you, they can serve as great thermal insulator for your garage.
Parent
Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:4, Informative)
addDRM(music);
switch (whatHappensAfter) {
case "piracy goes down":
println("See?! We TOLD you the evil pirates were stealing! DRM works!");
break;
case "piracy goes up":
println("Ahh! They're stealing more to spite us! This is war!");
break;
case "piracy stays the same":
println("Those filthy pirates will steal no matter what we do! We must make the DRM stronger!");
break;
}
addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
money++;
Parent
Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like at least a few artists have come to realize that the music industry cartel's stand on DRM is not helpful to artists. If they can get more artists on the bandwagon, they may be able to influence the debate. It's a helluva lot more difficult for the labels to convince people that DRM "helps artists" when the artists themselves are against it.
Broken Social Scene - their action (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually bought the copy-protected one (which wasn't labeled as such) and the label offered to replace it. HMV wouldn't.
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
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Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:5, Informative)
The Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson also wades in with, "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music."
So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.
Re:Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they could all be against sharing and downloading: nothing in their stance says "we think it's OK for you to download music without paying for it." What they've said is that they think the RIAA lawsuits are wrong, which is a totally separate issue from whether you think downloading music is morally wrong or right in the first place.
You can still be an artist, and dislike it when people steal your music, but think that the RIAA has gone way too far. Likewise, I'm against shoplifting but I wouldn't want them to start chopping people's hands off for it; I can be against chopping people's hands off and still be "anti shoplifting."
The black and white attitude where anyone who's anti-RIAA or anti-lawsuits is automatically pro-filesharing is just what the RIAA would like you to believe. It's an automatic "with us or against us." I'm not necessarily saying that you said that, but I think a lot of people make that assumption and I was just taking your comment as an opportunity to clear it up.
Just because somebody hates the RIAA/MPAA doesn't mean they think it's necessarily right to just go on Kazaa/BitTorrent and download stuff without somehow compensating the artists for it.
Parent
write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
Proud to be a Canadian today.
P.S. I especially like what's on their front page as the #1 bullet:
1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Well duh?! When was that last time you saw a successful business model where you sue the pants out of your customers?
Re:write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Funny)
Well if you were in the business of selling more pants
Parent
Avril Lavigne? Sum 41? (Score:5, Funny)
Canada: Indie Music Explosion (Score:4, Interesting)
And you know what we're filling them with? Some of the most popular bands among my friends have been The Arcade Fire [arcadefire.com], Death From Above 1979 [deathfromabove1979.com], Controller Controllor, Broken Social Scene, Hawksley Workman [hawksleyworkman.com], Joel Plaskett Emergency [joelplaskett.com], Jimmy Swift Band [thejimmyswiftband.com], Matt Mays [mattmays.com], and countless others. Many of them allow their live shows to be traded on etree [etree.org].
You want to know why these groups are popular? They tour a lot, play a lot of gigs, put on great live shows and are overall in it for the music and the fans. We've identified with the artists that put the music before the money and appreciate the innovative sounds and artistic views that they bring.
The true Canadian music scene is alive and prospering already without the help of the major music labels, with or without all their evil tactics. Anyway, at the very least, just check out these bands!
Same Group of Do-Gooders... (Score:5, Informative)
None of the major labels would dare utter sacrilege like this. But to be fair, in Canada even the Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is not as virulent as it's ugly cousin to the south. They moderate their message somewhat with more honesty, for example recently releaseing a study [michaelgeist.ca] showing:
CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.
(words of Prof. Michael Geist, University of Ottawa)
Barenaked Ladies - Tech Savvy guys (Score:4, Interesting)
Just getting back from Asia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin (Score:5, Funny)
No need to post as AC to admit that. Now, if you'd said Gordon Lightfoot and Bryan Adams on the other hand...
Parent
Re:That just shows (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know anything about the person or her music, but that name always sounds like a feminine hygiene product to me.
Parent
Re:Publicity stunt (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't about convincing the labels. It'sz about ensuring that the government hears the other viewpoint.
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No it's not (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah that's a good idea... these people Sarah McLaghlan, the Barenaked Ladies, and others could start a label and call it Nettwerk [nettwerk.com] or something. Except it seems like some other chick names Sarah McLachlan and some other band called the Barenaked Ladies already did.
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