Musicians Oppose Anti-Piracy Measures In the UK

BluePeppers writes "The Guardian has a story, primarily about a deal that allows YouTube to broadcast music videos again, but also covering a coalition of artist unions that are opposing new legislation in the UK that would punish file sharers more severely. From the article: 'A coalition of bodies representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive, illogical and "extraordinarily negative." The Featured Artists Coalition, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and the Music Producers Guild have joined forces to oppose the proposals to reintroduce the threat of disconnection for persistent file sharers, which was ruled out in the government's Digital Britain report in June.""

Re:Good stuff...

[Spad]

PRS != RIAA

PRS is the Performing Rights Society; the UK equivalent of the RIAA is the BPI. The PRS is more like ASCAP.

Re:I love British humor

[Aradiel]

Blame Mandelson - he swans off on holiday to Corfu, meets with various people including someone involved in organisations not unlike the MPAA, then suggests this legislation which both artists and the ISPs are strongly opposed to. It seems obvious that if he suceeds it will only please the higher-up executives, and not the people who provide the products involved.

Re:Good stuff...

[im just cannonfodder]

lets not for get who is actually behind the MPAA - RIAA, these are the companies that need to be targeted and boycotted into changing their ways, purchase only 2nd hand media and do not purchase anything branded sony, why allow the fecktards to dictate hardware DRM anymore.

Name and shame the companies as all the **AA trade group name is for is to protect the fucking capitalist corporate globalist wankers from bad press.


RIAA, CRIA, SOUNDEXCHANGE, BPI, IFPI, Ect:

# Sony BMG Music Entertainment
# Warner Music Group
# Universal Music Group
# EMI

MPAA, MPA, FACT, AFACT, Ect:

# Sony Pictures
# Warner Bros. (Time Warner)
# Universal Studios (NBC Universal)
# The Walt Disney Company
# 20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
# Paramount Pictures Viacom--(DreamWorks owners since February 2006)


If sony payola (google it) wasn't bad enough to destroy indie competition you have this:

Is it justified to steal from thieves? READ ON.

RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio
http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/29/0335224.shtml [slashdot.org]

"With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/24/141326/870 [dailykos.com]

Re:We are doing it for the artists

[Hasney]

No, PRS will probably say that they are already successful artists with lots of money and they are looking out for the small guy.

Utter bullshit, mind you, but that's the position they'll probably take.

Re:Stick and Carrot

[Zoxed]

> ...First, you got a good looking CD,...

Lots of good points, and here is an additional one: (at least in theory) a bought (i.e. pressed) CD should last much longer than a home made (i.e. burnt) one.

Re:I love British humor

[slim]

Blame Mandelson - he swans off on holiday to Corfu, meets with various people including someone involved in organisations not unlike the MPAA

That someone was David Geffen [wikipedia.org], of Geffen Records and Dreamworks SKG.

Re:I love British humor

[segedunum]

Not only that, but he's unelected and has been kicked out of government several times before because of his slimy ways.

Re:Good stuff...

[Jaysyn]

www.riaaradar.com will help you in finding real indie acts.

Re:Advertising

[Anarchduke]

Yess....forcing consumers to listen to their music their way, and purchasing music their way.

One might even say they are trying to control things.

Re:Stick and Carrot

[AdamInParadise]

I bought only two "mainstream" CDs last year: in both cases the CD came in a flimsy paper case with a one-page booklet. I'm talking about a new album here, from a famous artist, not a single and not a re-re-re-release. So the "an album is a piece of art" argument is getting past its prime. Especially when the cover is not all that hot.

On the other hand, the price of the actual CD on Amazon is usually competitive with the price on iTunes (or even cheaper sometimes), so I will keep on buying actual CDs even if I only uses them once, when I rip them as FLAC files. My last "standalone" CD player broke at one point between 2002 and 2008 and I never replaced it. Between that and my favorite radio streaming at 128k, a computer and a decent pair of amplified speakers is all I will ever need.

Reselling those CDs is an option, but with the current prices spiralling down toward 7 or 8 euros per album, with shipping you're only going to make one or two euros on the sale. It is not always worth the shot.

Re:I love British humor

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's more info about how crooked this guy is [wikipedia.org]... he's had to resign twice now.