RIAA Co-Opts More Universities 305
southpolesammy writes "The Register reports that six more US Universities and colleges have agreed to enter into protection schemes with the RIAA. In short, several institutions have signed deals with the RIAA's lapdog, the Napster music service, to 'goad these schools toward becoming music brokers'. The underlying threat of being sued by the RIAA if they don't pay them off is almost certainly the driving force behind their acceptance of this scheme. And of course, there's the ever-present gag order they'll probably enforce on these new universities as well. Great business model guys. Way to engender yourselves to your biggest customer base."
Basic literacy is a must (Score:5, Interesting)
v. en*gen*dered, en*gen*der*ing, en*gen*ders
v. tr.
To bring into existence; give rise to: "Every cloud engenders not a storm" (Shakespeare).
To procreate; propagate.
v. intr.
To come into existence; originate.
It's about time. (Score:5, Interesting)
*Yawn* yes, the RIAA is bad. BUT, come on... (Score:5, Interesting)
has tried to unethically shape our legal landscape, much less the shadier tactics they've employed.
They're scum, no question about it.
However, the other side of the equation is almost pathological. While you have many honest people who simply want to defend their Fair Use rights, you also have a loud, vocal "I want I want I want" community who simply believes that it is eeeee-vil that they should ever have to pay for goods (cds) or services.
there has to be some sort of compromise between the two, and I honestly think this is a first, halting step in the right direction. I don't think much of napster, but I believe that if a university sponsored the use of a service such as Real's [real.com] Rhapsody service which allowed unlimited streaming (as opposed to a mandatory $X a song) of music, it would be a good compromise between the two posistions. People would have access to a large library of music, and the artists would be recieving compensation.
Hell, if nothing else, the sponsorship of such a program may well help to diminish any credible claims that the RIAA has to push through bizarre and draconian laws.
What would be a better program (Score:5, Interesting)
a) a reduced Napster subscription price
b) a reduced price on iTunes songs or
c) a free "I None of these would have to be paid for from univerisity funds(I'm from Penn State, I still wonder where our mysterious funding comes from), it would give the users a choice, and the RIAA could still make boatloads of money.
Gah, people who think they have some sort of inate right to music piss me off, but not nearly as much as the RIAA....
Streaming music is a good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
The best thing about unlimited streaming is that I can listen to albums which I would probably never buy, or even take the time to borrow or copy. When someone says 'hey, listen to this band' I can check them out right away, for no extra money.
Anticompetitive (Score:5, Interesting)
How is it . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:*Yawn* yes, the RIAA is bad. BUT, come on... (Score:5, Interesting)
It pisses me off also how the RIAA is trying to crack down on file sharing. I would never have bought any of those CDs if I hadn't heard them before. Hell, I'd probably never be listening to Coldplay or Radiohead in the first place! I see the Internet as a try before you buy medium, where you can see what you're getting before you take the plunge and fully buy an album. I think that is what the RIAA is missing out on, and I'd like to see them try and dispute it.
It sort of pisses me off to see all these people going around saying how they have all of Artist X's CDs, when really they just have a bunch of MP3s burnt onto CD. You can hardly call yourself a fan if that's what you do.
Re:As if college prices weren't bad enough... (Score:2, Interesting)
Only the music that *they* want you to hear, not all the music you want.
More news from Georgia Tech (Score:5, Interesting)
2004-06-11 01:49:15 RIAA subpoenas Georgia Tech for student names
According to Georgia Tech's [gatech.edu] college paper, the Technique [gatech.edu], nine Tech students are among the victims [nique.net] of the RIAA's last round of lawsuits [slashdot.org]. The RIAA has subpoenaed the Office of Information Technology (OIT) [gatech.edu] to release the identities of individuals who were using computers at specific network addresses identified as being the sources of large amounts of file sharing. Tech has indicated they intend to comply with the subpoenas. According to Randy Nordin, Tech's chief legal advisor, the RIAA has asked that he tell the students to contact their attorney to see if an out of court settlement can be reached. The deadline to comply was June 2. In the past, violation of the school's Computer and Network Usage Policy [gatech.edu], would've resulted in disabling the student's Internet access until the student matter was sorted out with the OIT or the Dean of Student's office.
Napster isn't Napster anymore. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As if college prices weren't bad enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
Acutally, I did read the entire article:
"This is a nice service if holding onto to your tunes is not important. Once their four years at school are over, the students are cut off from Napster and lose all the music they've download. That is unless they pay 99 cents per song or $10 per album to own a permanent download that can be burned onto CDs or MP3 players.
Keep in mind too, that this charge applies to ALL students, not just those that want to download music. And what about those from other countries/cultures that won't find their particular tastes in music on Napster?
The total cost of this is yet to be determined. That's just the price these colleges agreed to for now - who knows what the RIAA will start charging them in a few years, or what will happen if their students find a way to circumvent the Napster, etc, etc, etc...
"Napster offers a unique blend of a name students recognize, a broad music library that appeals to every taste and community features that let you discover new music and share your favorites with friends...."
Ah, but you can only share them with friends that are also currently enrolled at another one of these universities...:)
Re:Real nice network you got here... (Score:2, Interesting)
"The authors concluded that file-sharing has a statistically insignificant impact on record sales."
Granted that the findings of that particular study are hotly debated, I still tend to believe it. As far as I've seen, many users of P2P networks use them like a preview service, then go out and buy the albums.
I can't help wondering, when are the RIAA folks going to get it through their thick heads that suing music fans is much more likely to hurt sales.
Then again, I'm Canadian and can download with impunity, so it doesn't affect me. It sure is fun to watch the madness, though.
Schools Not To Apply At (Score:3, Interesting)
Bye bye alumni donation (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an alumnus of one of the universities mentioned, and I'm writing up a letter to be sent to the President and Board of Trustees. It will express my disappointment in their capitulation to RIAA pressure and negligent misuse of funds, and let them know that as long as this deal is in place, the university will no longer be getting any alumni support from myself, and I will encourage my fellow alumni to do the same.
Napster has no legitimate educational purpose. They can go ahead and waste someone else's money (read: the current student body's) on this worthless and unjustifiable service, but I can make sure they will not be wasting my money on it.
No, its not. (Score:1, Interesting)
I do.
I don't want to have to pay ANOTHER fee in my tuition, just so that other students can be coerced into buying music. I don't listen to RIAA produced crap. I don't want to pay for it. But it sounds like I will have to.
Re:What would be a better program (Score:1, Interesting)
While I have gotten used to the fact that much of my tuition goes towards things I don't need and will never use (hell, I *have* to pay something like $250 a semester specifically for use of the wellness center, which I have used all of twice in two years... yeah, that was a good week), it's still crap that we were more or less forced into this as some sort of capitalistic protection plan.
I agree that a much better solution would be some sort of nationwide deal for college students... provide a college ID, get free access while you're in school, or 50% off downloads... whatever, something along those lines though. No bullying individual colleges into the deal, maybe even some choice in the matter - there are I don't know how many music stores out there, it'd be nice to pick a different one (in my case, one that isn't windows-only, since I am primarily a mac user). Of course, that isn't in their best interests... I'm sure we'll see a lot more universities signing up for this, as it isn't the best publicity when one of your students gets busted for pirating music.
Anyway, as a disclaimer, I am a music student whose source of income is and will go on to be music, and I am wholeheartedly against the approach the riaa has taken to fight music piracy.
Just keep it up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:*Yawn* yes, the RIAA is bad. BUT, come on... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with that to a point, but do want to bring up the fact that when a CD goes out of print, sometimes it is *VERY* hard to ever find an original copy. I know of quite a few artists that have released CDs that weren't chart-burners and wound up dropping out of print. I'd love to have the CDs, but they are friggin *IMPOSSIBLE* to find. NO record stores in the entire area have the CD. ("Ambition" by Tommy Shaw from Styx is a perfect example) - I was on the "watch list" at no less than 15 records here in the SF Bay Area. The CD was *NEVER* found. Nearly 8 years later, I found a copy on eBay - and paid $90 for it.
I would LOVE to own more and more CDs but I just don't listen to a lot of the crap that's out these days. The CDs that I do want, I cannot find. (Example: the brand new Marillion CD - neither Borders, nor Best Buy, nor Circuit City has the CD. Tower Records said they could order it - 2 weeks shipping.)
Finding music can really be a pain in the ass sometimes.
In the second example, I'm going to order the CD directly from www.marillion.com instead. They're a very smart band..
I dont think its racketeering (Score:5, Interesting)
If you threaten to sue for an illegal act you believe the other party is committing against you unless they agree to get a contract that makes the act legal, I doubt you can legally call that racketeering.. or protection money. It would be called 'giving them a chance to legalize' and would look good in court.. ' see we tried '...
Not that I'm a lawyer or a judge, but logically this is how I would view it being a jury member..
They are still slime however....
Re:Real nice network you got here... (Score:5, Interesting)
[From the linked article] Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, called the first-quarter figures "good news," but cautioned that the results were measured against a dismal period. "The numbers of 2003 were down about 10 percent to 12 percent from the year before," Sherman said. "If we didn't have that kind of increase it would be really terrible."
Nothing new. The RIAA not only believes it is entitled to huge profits but also increasingly huge profits every year - even during a recession. Yearly two-digit profit increases are the RIAA's God-given right; anything less is proof of rampant piracy. Haarrrrrgh, matey, I bought only one (music) CD last year (and downloaded no music). I really plundered the RIAA! Now if they'd just take that long walk on a short plank . . .
Student technology fees (Score:2, Interesting)
I wish the article revealed the source of the funds. Many campuses collect a "technology fee" in addition the more general tuition and whatnot. A subset of those univerities actually put a student committee in charge of spending that money.
I suspect that many of those committees would be inclined to spend some of the money to make unlimited music a supported technology. After all, the campus has already collected it. Imagine a handful of 20-year-olds sitting on a pot of a few hundred thousand dollars and deciding between a bulk purchase of Microsoft licenses and unlimited music. Who thinks they are going to go for unlimited copies of Office?
The new internet paradigm: The Information Economy (Score:5, Interesting)
I was reading a while ago a comment that started to make me think. I don't remember who and when,. but it went something like this:
"Let's say we invent a car replicator that could replicate cars at the cost of raw materials. Car manufacturer would go bankrupt. It would throw of the economy as resources aren't as scarce now, and that's the basis of economy(along with unlimited needs)"
Then a reply:
"But they[car manufacturers] would fight to the death to make this not happend, have it outlawed and destroyed in it's infancy."
Then I started thinking...
Let's go back to the basics. Things cost money because of 2 things:
1) It costs money to produce/sell/ship/etc.
2) Supply and Demands
The economy is based on the fact that a near 0 cost is impossible and that supplies are limited.
However, with the net we see a radical shift about Information(data). Demand is very high and supplies unlimited(you can copy bits at [virtually] no costs.) Any commodity that can be turned into pure data is at 'risk' of this new paradigm. It throws off economy completely.
Is it bad?
Take the car example above... would it be a bad thing for people, us? It sure would be bad for corpos, but us? (ok, bad example, car pollutes and all, more traffic jams, etc...)
Let's say we have machine that replicates food instead, at virtually no cost. It would make all companies producing food to go out of business, so it's going to be really bad for the economy, same as cars. However, is it going to be bad for us, humans? for humanity? Heck, we'd be able to feed everyone at virtually no cost.
Building replicators? Energy replicators/cold fusion? Hell, we'd solve all our problems.
Sure, it's science fiction... unless we're talking about data. With internet and all, costs to replicate and share data is near to nil. We have those sci-fi things in our hands right now, but its restricted to data and information. Is it bad? It's throwing economy off for sure, but in the end, isn't it better this way?
Sure, RIAA and all are in a uproar, and they should be. Since music, movies, games, etc. can all be conveyed using only data and have no material worth, this throws their market off.
I believe we'll have to adapt to this new economy. 'The Information Economy'(TIE, that makes us TIE Fighters... ok, bad pun, couldn't resist =). RIAA and all needs to revise their market and all, they'll need major changes if they want to survive. Market based on information and data will be obselete soon(tm). They'll have to start making actual products to make money.
I don't advocate filesharing of copyrighted materials and all per se, but we won't be able to stop it... and I don't think we should try to stop it. Information wants to be free. It sucks that music, movies, games, etc. are *all* data, but it's not humanity's fault, and certainly not OUR fault. why should we pay for people who based their revenu on information that can now be copied at virtually no cost?
Information is free because it doesn't fit in the whole 'economy' we created. What should we do, fight it? Embrace it? Makes you think, doesn't it?
I say, let's do what's best for us, humans, in the long run, and not corpos that will come and go.
Then again, that's my somewhat socialist view of the whole thing, so YMMV =)
Re:our daily allowance of Timothy, in disguise. (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, I originally wrote the story from the point of view of the RIAA trampling on organizations' rights, with the users' rights (or the lack thereof) being the end result of the lack of ability (or funds) to fight back. I happen to agree with the letter of the law regarding the RIAA's efforts, but I disagree with the method they are taking to enforce their copyrights, although ultimately they are doing what anyone else would do in their situation given a business model that is pending implosion if nothing is done. But in this case, I object to the RIAA basically strong-arming the universities saying "Buy this, or we'll bury you in litigation, which even if you win, will cost you more than this due to lawyer fees." That is effectively what they have done in this case.
But if you think about it on an even deeper level (for which I may be giving the RIAA too much credit, but nonetheless), this could actually be one of the greatest consumer adoption schemes ever devised. As the old saying goes, "like any good addiction, the first hit is free". So the RIAA cuts extremely cheap deals to allow college students to download music to their hearts content. But at the end of their tutelage, they're left with nothing and an insatiable desire to keep downloading music. Therefore, the post-college consumer buys into the Napster/iTunes/Rhapsody or whatever service is available at the time. The end result is that RIAA gets money from the colleges now for what they would otherwise pretty much lose to filesharing, continues to beat the "piracy" initiative into kids heads, and then gets a captive audience afterwards. It's devilishly clever.
Racketeering? (Score:4, Interesting)
How is this different from racketeering? Seriously; is it just that the forces involved have accountants that seperates them from the mob, or is it more that the mob will *only* break your knees, so that you can at least pay them back for services rendered...
Not a troll. I'm just curious about how this "protection money" and such is not being jumped all over. I'm sure that I'm just seeing one side of this, but it - to me - appears to be an execution of a more strong-arm agenda.
Re:The new internet paradigm: The Information Econ (Score:3, Interesting)
I would just like to point out that we already have what almost amounts to "food replicators" - industrial scale farming.
Farming used to account for approximately 100% of employment. The advent of modern industrial scale farming has resulted in the eliminated of about 98% of all agricultural employment. 98%! That's a staggering figure! We have all seen just how "bad for the economy" that turned out
But back to the music industry...
The advent of the internet makes the publishing industry obsolete. Anyone who uses P2P essentiale becomes a publisher/distributor. It eliminates the wasteful need to pay some middleman/publisher for doing something that no longer needs to be done. P2P however has no effect on the need to create such works in the first place. To put things into perspective, once you trim off the 90% fat leeched off by the RIAA, it would only take about $4 per person per year to fully fund the actual artists making the music and to pay them just as much as they get now. $4 per year, a trivial sum. However the publishing industry will fight tooth and nail to sabotage any attempt to get money to the artists while bypassing the publishing industry.
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Re:The new internet paradigm: The Information Econ (Score:3, Interesting)