Could the RIAA Just Disappear? 114
BlueMerle writes "Ars Technica is running a story about how EMI is disappointed with RIAA and ultimately they (RIAA) may disappear. 'Is the RIAA as we know it about to disappear? As rumors continue to swirl that EMI will pull its funding from music trade groups like the RIAA and IFPI, an IFPI spokesman tells Ars that the group is in the middle of a major internal review of its operations.'" I wouldn't bet the farm just yet.
Answer: Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
RIAA days are numbered.
Re:is it possible? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not about the RIAA disappearing as in "going away". This is about the RIAA and IFPI merging operations. This would probably actually make things worse, because the combined agency would be larger, would have jurisdiction over more than just the United States, and would continue doing its current work.
It's about finding ways of consolidating operations. And like a company that does this successfully, the resulting agency could actually end up stronger than the RIAA as it currently exists.
Not betting farm but will put up the cows (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what is really important is that their is an internal review going on, maybe a large shakeup will ensue and we can hope to get everything back to the way it should be. Protecting users from fake copies of albums, and protecting musicians from mass pirating. Your always going to have an underground community, you're just going to have to make sure your product is superior and stop the major counterfeiters.
Re:Answer: Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, I RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the replacement? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a few things that still have to change:
1) Copyright should be reduced in duration.
2) The penalties must be adjusted to be reasonable.
3) People must come to respect the rights of property holders, not violate them blindly. Copyright has lots of negative impliciations when well beyond the term of commercial viability, but I believe that copyright can be adjusted to accomodate both that and the property rights of the creator.
4) Slashdot-crowd must abandon the notion that "not-for-profit" redistribution of someone else's work should be permitted without permission of the rights holder.
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Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
My only real hope is that they decide to be less evil in their new incarnation.
Re:What's the replacement? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Copyright should be reduced in duration.
Copyright in the digital age is dead and quite useless. As laborers realize that their real income comes from billing for labor to-be-done, rather than billing for labor already-done, copyright will quickly dissolve to being useless. Artists are laborers, and those who realize that their future incomes will be derived from that which can't be easily duplicated by others will be the ones who profit and stay in business. Performing live is something that others can't easily mimic. Supply and demand, friends. There's a near limitless supply of digital content, so the price falls to near zero. There's a VERY finite supply of the time a specific artist can perform, so their income will come from selling that time to fans (i.e., live concerts or performances). Yes, this creates a real dilemma for writers, but I believe that MOST readers will prefer the artist's accepted printed book rather than the knock-off.
2) The penalties must be adjusted to be reasonable.
The penalties for being caught violating copyright are the least important factor in the situation. The time, and money, spent fighting a legal battle against an organization with a scale of income many MANY times higher than the defendant are the real costs. If you are found guilty of a civil violation, you declare bankruptcy and the judgment goes away. You don't get back the years, and tens of thousands of dollars, that you lost fighting to save your name. Reducing penalties will likely not fix this problem.
3) People must come to respect the rights of property holders, not violate them blindly.
OK, I won't steal the physical CD you have. The minute that I use my labor to duplicate something else, that product is mine. If I see you made a neat toilet, and I spend my hours buying porcelain, laying it into a form, and making my own toilet, you should have little control over how I move my arms, and use my mind, to duplicate the product that I want. Copyright, and other intellectual property restrictions, do little to promote new content or creations. The biggest wall for content creators is distribution, not creation. Millions, even billions of people create content, but only a few are able to distribute it.
I respect the rights of PHYSICAL property holders, but I see no reason why they should control how I think or use my body and tools.
4) Slashdot-crowd must abandon the notion that "not-for-profit" redistribution of someone else's work should be permitted without permission of the rights holder.
Actually, the "not-for-profit" redistribution and re-creation of another person's original thoughts is a positive for the original creator, as it is a free form of marketing and advertising for them. Artists who tour regularly should LOVE people duplicating their digital works to friends and family and co-workers. Studio time is akin to the time (and money) one spends going to college or getting another education. It is what you DO with that education (i.e. studio time) as a long term labor that dictates how you get paid for your education.
Just because a guy spent 4 years in college doesn't mean I should pay him $50,000 a year. Just because a band spent 4 years working on an album doesn't mean that their recorded work is worth a single penny to me. The laws of supply and demand, while restricted by ridiculous IP laws, will still win out in the long run.
The RIAA is worthless, and many bands that I work with and am friends with realize that already. The only bands who care are the ones who sold their souls to their management companies in exchange for access to the monopolized distribution sectors (radio, TV, large distro magazines) which are already going the way of the do-do. Radio, TV and large distro mags will soon be worthless in the next digital era.
Re:is it possible? (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA is effectively an (effective) oligopoly and in that sense it is disappearing. EMI, having new owners, being the first of these labels to sell their tracks without DRM, and now questioning the value of the RIAA and IFPI clearly seems to realize that this oligopoly as it stands is no longer of benefit to them.
That's not to say that a restructured RIAA/IFPI won't become an effective oligopoly as well or that this is what the submitter was addressing, but this very well could mean the RIAA is 'going away' and it is a clear indication that the RIAA in its current (i.e. anti-consumer) form is going away.
Record labels could disappear, too (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the very top tier, artists make very little from record sales. Why bother? Just give the music away for free and make money the way artists have for a long time: from live performances and merchandising. Consumers will be happy, artists will do as well as or better than they ever have, and all of this foolishness will go away. A bunch of greedy record execs will be looking for work, but will anyone care?
Re:Well.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Disappearing is not nearly painful enough.
Don't Give Me Wet Dreams (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the replacement? (Score:2, Insightful)
The cost for most works today is not in the duplication but in the production. What you describe essentially dooms any artform that can't be performed live, which is a huge number versus the handful that can. It affects more than just writers, it affects anyone whose works can be or are digital in nature.
And no, most people will go for the cheapest version available which will always be the knockoff, be it physical or digital, because they have only the cost of duplication (which is trivial or non-existent, mind you.) Versus the original creator, who has to shoulder the costs of production along with duplication.
This statement gets me:
Well, we have this for manual labor today. But then, the houses are built under the auspices of being sold later. You don't expect them to only build on-demand lest they be confiscated upon completion if unsold?
Copyright gives us the advantage by which we can make a venture on a work of art, whereby we can create something that may not be in demand. This allows artists to gather funding and produce a work without being beholden to someone else's vision. This involves risk but currently copyright allows some way of recovering that risk.
Ignoring copyright throws mud on the efforts of those who honestly do the work, and eliminating it needlessly reduces the amount of work today.
Note that I did not say eliminates. Some people would still create works, but it'd be considerably less (and lower budget) than currently.
I agree that the penalties should be reduced significantly.
Sure, then you can re-record the song by re-playing all the instruments and re-mastering the audio. Or re-filming that film. Or re-animating that work of animation. Or re-staging and acting out that play. Your copying of a file from one folder to another does not constitute what you just described, and the rest can be solved by limiting duration of copyright to more reasonable levels.
And yet... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet... EMI is still the only label offering content in iTunes+. That's the DRM free side of iTunes, btw.
So it doesn't look like RIAA is going to go away, its just likely to lose 25% of its membership body. Well, even less than that, since EMI doesn't actually possess 25% market share.
EMI has been going against its brethren for a while now. Let us hope they don't fail...
Re:is it possible? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, now that Big Media has pretty much got the developed world's governments in their pocket. The real story here is that soon the Big Media/Big Pharma candidate will be replacing our Big Oil president, so the tactics employed by the RIAA up to now will soon be obsolete. Why spend the money to maintain a private goon squad when the Feds are happy to accept the contract?
Re:Not betting farm but will put up the cows (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and lord knows capitalism is the only way one can make a living and besides it's your god-given right.
Oy vey - deprogrammers needed!
Re:Not betting farm but will put up the cows (Score:3, Insightful)
Music doesn't need an industry to survive, or even thrive. Distribution is no longer an issue, except to those who wish to control it. Production will always be profitable, if enough people like what you produce.
Re:Seek professional help (Score:3, Insightful)
They (and I) also don't like the fact that we constantly have to defend what little rights we do have to our copies of the media, and always the RIAA is pushing. I mean, I'm fine with the RIAA defending their copyrights, and with copyright infringement being illegal (in fact, I wholeheartedly support it), but you gotta admit, the RIAA are just pricks.
Re:is it possible? (Score:3, Insightful)
They are. They are also the ones who forgot to tell the labels that the Compact Disc is a standard format used to sell music. Now we have incompatible and dangerous shiny plastic round things that no longer follow the standard that works and is safe. Visit any CD section and look for the Compact Disc logo on any of them. The RIAA fell down on this one.
Re:Is this possible? (Score:1, Insightful)