First Three-Strikes Copyright Court Case In NZ Falls Over 80
Bismillah writes "The 'Skynet' anti-filesharing law introduced last year in New Zealand is starting to bite, with people being hauled in front of the Copyright Tribunal by the music industry after receiving three notices. Of the three Copyright Tribunal cases to be heard currently, the first one's just been dropped. Why? Nobody knows. RIANZ isn't saying. Interesting things: the accused was the ISP account holder, a student sharing a place with others who also used the Internet connection. The cost of the five songs downloaded is NZ$11.95 but RIANZ wanted NZ$1,075.50 because it estimated the music was shared/downloaded 90 times in total. A high deterrent penalty of NZ$1,250 was also asked for."
How About (Score:2, Interesting)
What about a P2P system that allows (not requires) the user to keep a log of successful downloads of a song or movie, and his/her share of it? For example, if I run a Bitorrent client and someone downloads ten chunks out of 100 of a Michael Jackson song, my client would log 10% distribution of that song. At the end of the month I could make a donation to the artist in the amount equal to the price of their song on iTunes/whatever multiplied by the number of downloads and the fraction thereof. If a user could demonstrate that they had done this, and had indeed paid, what then? It would be pretty hard to demonstrate monetary damages if the artist was paid for every download.
Re:"Making available" is faulty logic (Score:5, Interesting)
Recording Industry - Stop stealing from everyone! (Score:5, Interesting)
Greetings and Salutations;
I have to say that I am glad that the case failed, and, with luck many more will too. The only people that will get nailed by these enforcement measures are, I fear, the naive and (mostly) innocent youth who are not the soulless thieves engaging in the wholesale business of selling copies of the music without passing royalties along to the artists (and, yes, I do include the recording industry in general in that latter category). IN America, the RIAA did, at one time, provide a useful service at a reasonable price to an artist. However, like many organizations, it has evolved to being in the business of getting as much money as possible from the consumer, and, giving as little of it as possible to the artists that provide its life-blood. Speaking of which...thanks to the creative accounting practices of the RIAA, a given artist might expect a royalty rate of 10% to 20% on an album, but, the actual rate never climbs over 2.75%. A quick search turns up a number of detailed articles about how this works....
But, I digress - so back to copyright infringement... If the recording industry had not spent the past several decades inhaling stupid gas by keeping its head firmly planted in its ass, it would realize that there are some simple steps that it could take to make everyone in the process richer and happier. I would propose these changes:
1) drop all chasing after individuals, and, go after the companies that do wholesale duplication and flood the market. Frankly, the recording industry's record of suing college students, grandmothers, and, 6 year old girls for mountains of money is not doing anything positive for them. It is not making the purchasing public think "wow...they are really standing up for the artists! I WILL buy that new album for full retail!", nor, is it actually causing a drop in copyright violations or filesharing.
2) Seriously reconsider the cost of a CD. One of the major reasons that filesharing happens is that few people are interested in paying $25+ for a recording that might have one or two good tracks on it.
3) Continuing that thought...stop producing mindless, shallow and mind-numbingly boring albums. I, over the years, have bought quite a few albums. One of the criteria I use to decide if I am going to spend my hard-earned money on the recording is the question - can I tell what track is being played? If I have an album where there are a dozen tracks, all of which sound identical to each other...I probably will pass on that recording. Now, here, part of the problem does lay at the feet of the artists. I think that they have realized that it is all about money, and that the music means nothing. This has depressed their creativity so much that they are phoning in the performances. However, I also believe that if given positive feedback, in the form of fan appreciation, and cash, they might well get that spark back.
4) realize and accept the fact that file sharing, rather than depriving the company of profit, is the best and cheapest advertising that they could get. The best salesman in the world is the person who has personal experience with the music, and, is pushing it to their friends. When Napster was new, and still legal, the recording industry pushed to kill it by claiming it was the reason that CD sales were down by 15-20%. Well, independent polls showed that people were using it to sample a new artist's music, and, more often than not would go out and purchase that artist's CDs if they liked it. At the time, I was in a fair number of chat rooms, and, I always made it a point to ask how folks were using Napster. About 1 person out of 100 said they were using it to get as much music for free and they had no intention of buying any more CDs. The remaining 99% were using it as a s
easy solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't buy and don't copy/share/p2p/whatever major label music. There are a lot of musicians that distribute their music outside those channels - on jamendo for example. Look for what you like, get a legal, drm-free download and please: donate where you know the money actually ends up with the musicians. Just let the major labels die. Don't give them money or even attention (e.g. by sharing songs by artists in their thrall).
Re:Recording Industry - Stop stealing from everyon (Score:2, Interesting)
...Continuing that thought...stop producing mindless, shallow and mind-numbingly boring albums. I, over the years, have bought quite a few albums. One of the criteria I use to decide if I am going to spend my hard-earned money on the recording is the question - can I tell what track is being played? If I have an album where there are a dozen tracks, all of which sound identical to each other...I probably will pass on that recording. Now, here, part of the problem does lay at the feet of the artists. I think that they have realized that it is all about money, and that the music means nothing. This has depressed their creativity so much that they are phoning in the performances. However, I also believe that if given positive feedback, in the form of fan appreciation, and cash, they might well get that spark back.
While I appreciate and agree with your feedback here, let me expound a bit on this particular problem. The music industry does not go after "artists" anymore. They go after brand names. Pretty boy toys and pedo-riffic little girls that they can dress up and whore out and slap their face on every piece of product they can, which most products have absolutely nothing to do with music. Oh and speaking of music, let's touch briefly back on that. You want to save music? Start by making autotune illegal, and ban lip syncing. You would probably eliminate 50% of the "artists" out there, but in monetary terms, you would probably be affecting 90% of the industry revenue, hence the reason this bullshit perpetuates.
This is the shift that the music industry has taken. It's not about music anymore. It's about maximizing revenue during that precious 15 minutes of fame, no matter what the cost is to the product or the industry. Of course, we now see the power of the almighty marketing dollar and it's hold on the "music" industry when you have hypocrites like Britney and Demi sitting on a judges panel trying to tell other people that they suck at singing, as if those autotune addicts have room to talk.
Re:"Making available" is faulty logic (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about New Zealand, but generally speaking, it is uploading that is illegal, not downloading.
In the offline world, if someone is selling dodgy CDs at a car boot sale, it is the person selling them that gets prosecuted, not the customers.
Re:"Making available" is faulty logic (Score:5, Interesting)
free license to pirate
For the record, you may refer to this as a "Letter of Marque" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque). Also, if you are pirating with the blessing of your Government (say, because you paid a tax to do so), you may officially refer to yourself as a "Privateer" (official pirate).
This posting removes a moderation, but education of slashdot on the subject of the patriotic/profitable practice of Officially-Sanctioned Vessels/Crews for Stealing is a worthy cause.