RIAA: Ripping CDs to iPod not 'Fair Use'

dotpavan writes "EFF has this article about RIAA saying that ripping CDs and backing them up does not come under Fair use. Ars Technica also reports on this, by quoting, "The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future. Myriad online downloading services are available and offer varying types of digital rights management alternatives. For example, the Apple FairPlay technology allows users to make a limited number of copies for personal use. Presumably, consumers concerned with the ability to make back up copies would choose to purchase music from a service that allowed such copying. Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices. Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights.""

Big surprise

[nagora]

An organisation whose entire business model is now to resell the same product over and over again is hardly going to say that buying it once is enough. But in a world of "one dollar, one vote", who's going to stop them?

Re:Big surprise

[nagora]

It seems to me that the arguement in the article is just further incentive to not buy CDs.

Which is exactly what the RIAA wants; they make far more off a download than a CD, at least on a per-track basis. Ringtones even more so. And for a lower quality product.

TWW

CD price structure

[mevets]

The retail price of a CD includes the money siphoned in the distribution channel. The IP value of a CD (performer + composer + producer) is about $5, the residual is marketting + distribution. Apparently CDs follow the movie industry model of loading the cost into the distribution channel, where it is safe from the grubby hands of artists. These essentially free distribution channels are a direct threat to this model.
Being able select individual tracks permits you to pay only for the oats, leaving the turd on the road; thus killing another well established profit model.

Re:CD price structure

[phiwum]

The IP value of a CD (performer + composer + producer) is about $5...

Fascinating. Now, how did you calculate that?

Re:Big surprise

[toph42]

Yes, and then they can cry about piracy causing a slump in CD sales and call for even more draconian "reforms." Copyrights were provided for in the Constitution as a neccesary evil, only to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." When the copyright laws stifle rather than promote that progress, then they need to be repealed.

Yup...

[Greyfox]

They're gearing up to do their best legally and technically to kill the secondhand CD market. I suspect that a lot of people now buy a CD, rip it and then sell it to a secondhand CD dealer. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a lot safer than pulling your music off the Internet (No lawsuits) and cuts the RIAA out of all sales except for the first one for any given CD in that system.

If you don't like it, write your local Congressman, point him at this story and tell him that you like your ipod and copyright issues are high on your priority list when you're considering who to vote for in the next election. Also don't buy CDs that benefit the RIAA. Go browse the International section of your local music store. Chances are you can find a lot of independent artists in there whose music is new and interesting and which cost half to a quarter what the latest RIAA produced crap does.

Re:Big surprise

[Xymor]

Actually each one of these places you can play your files is one copy, and since you have a limited amount of copies, you're gonna have to re-buy the same song you already own once you have no copies left.
In my understadnding, once you buy a CD, you have a license to play it's songs in any format, in as many devices as you want and as many cars you have.
Another problem is iTunes proprietary format not being compatible with all media devices(or devices not compatible with DRMed media in general).

Re:Big surprise

[Conception]

"In my understadnding, once you buy a CD, you have a license to play it's songs in any format"

This is actually a big problem in understanding. You don't have a license to play songs anywhere. YOU OWN IT. You can do anything you want with it. It is -not- licensed to you. It's like saying the apple you buy at the store is licensed to you. No. You just bought an apple. Same goes for CDs. The RIAA is trying, and seems to be winning, the idea that you are buying and owning something. That's the battle they are fighting, and winning I think.

Re:Big surprise

[Dunkirk]

No, no. That's the entire point of DRM. Piracy is a straw man. What person, having bought an iPod, and collected some music tracks, is going to say, screw it, I'm throwing away this investment, and going with some other service? No, they want to be able to access their whole collection on whatever device they have. That means they stay with an iPod, and with iTunes. It's classic Microsoftian tactics. DRM keeps people locked in APPLE'S DRM-ed vertical stack. That's EVERYONE'S strategy with DRM.

Re:Big surprise

[jmv]

It's actually the opposite. With a CD, you can do whatever you like in terms of portable player (no matter what the RIAA wants you to believe). With DRM-protected music, you'll end up buying the same music several times, which is *exactly* what the RIAA wants. That's probably the only way they can sustain your business. If you don't produce anything new, your only hope is to keep selling the old stuff.

Re:Big surprise

[montyzooooma]

Downloaded tracks cost relatively more than the CD version and you have less control over what you can do with them. With the CD you can rip it, lend it, play it or turn it into a shiny coaster if you want. Just because the RIAA doesn't think it's fair use to rip your CD to your iPod doesn't mean they are right. The only downside to the CD is that there are often only a half or a third of the songs on it that you'll actually listen to. That's a big downside though.

Re:Big surprise

[msobkow]

The **AA has spent the past 20 years trying to change the rules. You used to be able to send back cassettes or albums for replacements when damaged; the only charge was shipping.

Now they tell you it can't be replaced, because that version has been replaced by a "new" release, even with relatively-recently purchased media.

Currently they're trying to cut it back further, so that it's not even legal for you to listen to your media on a portable device without paying yet again.

To hell with the greedy bastards. Once or twice at the trough was more than enough -- no more.

Re:Big surprise

[freedom_india]

If RIAA sells a media (a CD treated like a chair) then they have no FUCKIN right to tell me whether i resell it, rip it, or use it to wipe my ass if my toilet paper runs out.

If they treat it as a license to listen to something (like Windows CDs), then they MUST replace a damaged CD.

They can't have it both ways.

Courts have ruled for past 150 years that the concept of reselling something is sacred. In other words if RIAA sells something to me, i have every right to make a second sale of it to someone i like. RIAA loses the right to dictate whether i can sell it or not once they have sold it to me.

On the other hand, if they license it to me, then we ALL should send back Akon CDs to them (even perfectly good ones) and ask for replacement. That would bankrupts them.

Re:Big surprise

[mOdQuArK!]

They can't have it both ways.

If they get the right laws passed, sure they can.

Re:Big surprise

[Jaseoldboss]

then we ALL should send back Akon CDs to them (even perfectly good ones) and ask for replacement.

You're not going to like this [boingboing.net] then are you.

Coldplay's latest CD X&Y comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. Of course, these rules are only visible after you've paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc's rules say, "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund," so if you don't like the rules, that's tough.

(Emphasis mine). This basically means that it's your job to ensure that you CD player can play non-CDs which are nobbled to within a hairs breadth of not playing. They will only replace it if it's been pressed improperly not if the DRM causes it not to play.

Re:Big surprise

[uradu]

> They can't have it both ways.

Actually, musical rights are governed by a special version of a well known quantum physical law, the RIAA's Musical License-Property Duality. This law stipulates that the rights to musical works depend on the situation: if music is to be resold to a third party, the rights to it behave like a license, thus disallowing such sales. If however the music medium becomes damaged and unplayable, its rights take on the shape of those to physical goods, making medium exchanges impossible and unfair to the manufacturer. It's a very strange and fascinating area of quantum (musical IP) physics.

Re:Big surprise

[homer_ca]

This is an old assertion by the RIAA. Repeating it now doesn't make it any more true. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch, architect of the DMCA, disagreed in a 2000 Senate hearing:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010531100247/http://g areth.membrane.com/leflawnet/hatch.html [archive.org]

A skeptical Hatch then turned to the Recording Industry Association of America president, Hilary Rosen, a surprise addition to the roster of witnesses. Wedging herself into a space next to MP3.com head Michael Robertson, whom the RIAA recently helped to sue, Rosen found herself subjected to the kind of puzzled questions about fair use -- a notorious legal morass -- that millions of music owners have been asking themselves for the last few months.

"Can I make a copy of a CD that I buy and put it into a car?" asked Hatch. When Rosen hemmed and hawed, Hatch muttered, "The answer is yes."

"Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?" Hatch continued. "Is it fair use for me to rip a CD? Is it fair use if (a computer network) decides for efficiency reasons that one copy is sufficient to serve for storage, instead of keeping 200 separate copies, is that fair use?"

"None of these is fair use," Rosen eventually replied. She argued that musicians' willingness to "tolerate" people making copies was an instance of "no good deed goes unpunished."

Re:Big surprise

[TomRitchford]

"In that case stop driving a car, stop using the phone, stop using the internet, stop watching tv, stop using electricity, stop using heat, hell pretty much stop using just about everything you have.

"By the /. definition, every company is a greedy bastard."

What poor reasoning. "Because no company is perfect, it's pointless to criticize any of them." This is particularly stupid in this situation, where we do all have a perfectly good mechanism to bypass the record companies for the most part (p2p or just ripping your friend's CDs).

Re:Big surprise

[Grishnakh]

What the hell are you talking about?

Car: I go to Honda and give them $20k or so, and they give me a nice car that's extremely reliable and fuel efficient. They also honor their warranty and repair the car when there's a problem during the first 5 years. The car works great for 10-15 years. What's the problem here? There's no blatant greediness; just a good product for a reasonable price.

Internet: I pay $50 per month for my cable modem service, and it works just as advertised. The price hasn't changed in two years, and they haven't been trying to force me into paying more money for the same thing (yet). Just another simple business transaction.

Electricity: Same as cable. I pay x cents per kilowatt-hour. The power stays on, I haven't had any brownouts or blackouts in 5 years since I moved here. What's the problem? This isn't greed, it's simple business. Provide a good service for a fair price.

CDs: Buy a CD, and find out it isn't really a true CD, and doesn't play correctly. Try to return it and they won't accept it. Buy a normal CD and they tell you that the content isn't really yours, you can't resell it, but you can't use it the way you want either (on your iPod). So is it licensed or not? Neither; it's whatever way they'll make more money, even though this isn't actually backed up by any laws. This is greed, plain and simple, and it's evil.

There's honest ways to earn money, and there's dishonest ways of taking money. The music industry is doing the latter.

Re:Big surprise

[jocknerd]

I respectfully disagree completely. In my opinion, buying a CD that has no copy protection on it is the only way music should be purchased at this time. Forget what the RIAA says. I can rip my CD's to my iPod. Why? Because the technology is there and the courts have granted me Fair Use rights.

And why do I want to own CD's instead of songs from iTMS? Several reasons. One, its a physical copy that can be resold. And two, because legally purchased music from online stores such as iTMS have DRM built in. Sure, Apple's Fair Play DRM is the least restrictive measure of DRM there is. But its still restrictive. How? Try playing your music through TiVo's desktop software. It can't play DRM'd AAC files. But every CD player in the world can play a true CD. And that CD can be legally ripped to a format of my liking regardless of what the RIAA's lawyers want to say. And the Fair Play DRM is also on Apple's videos on iTMS. But guess what, unlike the music, they won't let you copy these videos. So, essentially, you are locked into using iTunes and Quicktime for these videos. Which brings up the real reason for DRM. Vendor lock-in.

Sure, the RIAA pretty much insisted that Apple use DRM when they opened iTMS. But it has screwed the RIAA ever since. Had they not insisted on DRM, iTMS would not have the upper hand in their battle with the RIAA. Apple may not have wanted DRM then, but I guarantee you they want it now. Why? Because if the music on iTMS doesn't have DRM, then it would be much easier for you to purchase music from iTMS and play it on any player out there. With the DRM, you are pretty much forced into using the iPod. Do you think that Apple would give up the vendor lock-in now? And what if an independent artist wanted to put their music on iTMS but didn't want any DRM. I wonder if Apple would go along with that or would Apple insist on DRM. Has anybody tried this? I'd be interested to know what Apple said. This would tell once and for all Apple's stance on the DRM issue.

Re:Big surprise

[hattig]

All very true, but you're preaching to the converted.

Instead tell your (if you are American) government to stop the RIAA riding roughshod all over you in the name of profit. Or do the equivalent in your area of the world.

And start supporting unencumbered music not sold by RIAA members, and give artists money by seeing them live.

Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Viewsonic]

Apple specifically tells you to back your songs up the moment you purchase them by burning them onto an audio CD with the iTunes software itself! At which point you not only have a hard copy of the music you just bought from iTunes, but it is now DRM FREE. You can rerip that CD as many times as you want with NO DRM on the actual files. You can even do this with iTunes itself!

Your whole point about CDs costing less than iTunes is also bunk. Nearly every album on iTunes that can be bought as an album costs quite a bit LESS than any copy I can find in the stores on CD unless they are clearencing them out.

Your DRM tin foil hat theory is disturbing.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[soupdevil]

But CDs created from iTMS files are inferior to regular CDs in several ways. They are CDRs, with higher fail rates, they are lower quality audio, and they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Indras]

But CDs created from iTMS files are inferior to regular CDs in several ways. They are CDRs, with higher fail rates, they are lower quality audio, and they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

Not to rain on your parade, but does anyone really care about artist's notes and track listings? I can make a track listing myself, one that doesn't include 90% crap music like most CD's released today.

The only thing I ever wanted to find in a CD case was some freaking LYRICS!

It's so annoying to have a song stuck in my head and not even know what the words are, just a few scrambled words and a tune. So, you'd think the best place for the words to the song would be the artists themselves, right? You can't exactly call them on the phone, the best you can do is buy the CD. The last four CD's I purchased did not contain the lyrics to the songs inside. That was about six years ago.

Now, if a song gets stuck in my head, I download the MP3 and look up the lyrics in google, then play it a few times until I learn all the words, and *poof* it's out of my head.

As a side note: I seriously think the only reason songs get stuck in my head is because I get stuck on a verse and don't know what comes next, so it backs up and tries again. Once I learn all the words, I stop thinking about it.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

. . .they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

How many real CDs come with anything more than half-assed attempt at these anyway? Considering the crushing heel of the RIAA, those incentives have lost their appeal for many people I imagine.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[vertinox]

Apple specifically tells you to back your songs up the moment you purchase them by burning them onto an audio CD with the iTunes software itself!

Yeah... Ermm... Well, this isn't a great backup method as it sounds. Firstly, you taking a lossy codec and recoding it back to 16-bit 44khz (from whatever audio you original have). Then if you want to get it back to your iPod (after a catostrophic computer crash and you formatted your iPod by accident) you have to re-encode it back to a lossy format (in which you loose a crap load of quality). I've done this way before iTunes when a computer crashed and the only backups of songs were... ermm... audio cds that I burned from Music Match from mp3s. I can tell a difference in the audio when I get it back to MP3 (even at 256kps).

Secondly, this is a big painful bitch to go back and rename all the mp3s since chances are the cds you burned aren't the exact albums and they don't match anything on Gracenote/CDDB etc and you have manually guess what each track is from and type the song and artist etct in the mp3 tag and file name.

A really big big royal pain in the ass when your computer crashes and you have a dead hard drive.

I believe you can backup the auido to a data disc of AACs or mp3s, however this does not remove the DRM from the files. So you still can't get the files to non-iPod audio devices and if you hose your computer and reinstall and in the process appear to hose you iTunes account those DRM'd files on your backup cds might be worthless.

Personally, I buy cds and rip them at highest quality (huge mp3s) so I can play them on my iPod and share out my iTunes folder to my Turtlebeach Audio Tron so I can listen them on my stereo. The Audiotron can't read DRM'd iTunes files so its kind of pointless for me to buy from there even though I have been tempted on trying to get a song out of my head. Chances are the next day I've gone to the local indie record store and bought it anyways.

The only thing I can see DRM doing for me is removing features with my listening experience and forcing me to buy the same song twice.

No thanks. I'll be old fashioned for right now.

Re:Big surprise

[maraist]

Why? Because if the music on iTMS doesn't have DRM, then it would be much easier for you to purchase music from iTMS and play it on any player out there.

Right idea, wrong direction.

It isn't that the music is selling the iPod, the iPod is selling the music. Apple is doing just fine w/ the iPod, DRM or not.. BUT, the clever part is that by having the iTunes player exclusively operate w/ their store-front, they have verticle integration. Similar to an MS platform. They can leverage one revenue stream against another.

If apple didn't have DRM in two forms, one that an iPod player is tied to a PC, and that iTunes is tied to the player + PC, then it would be easy for someone to use non-iTunes software, thereby breaking the vertical integration.

iTunes may or may not be lucrative (relative to profits from the iPod). But it's a stable platform of lock-in. Once you have $50 worth of iTunes (call it $25 of profit; less than the likely $100 of profit for a high-end iPod), then a person will be hesitant to throw all that away by moving to another PC software package (which doesn't support the DRM).

Throw in gift certificates / parental allowances for music purchases etc, and your invested interest grows and grows until lockin is inevetable.

Their store-front (visa v iTunes player) is like the AOL desktop of the 90's or IE/firefox toolbar or the google-task bar or of course the immensely lucrative stock windows desktop. It's real-estate as in central manhattan.

Re:Big surprise

[cayenne8]

"With a CD, you are essentially limited to only playing it in a CD player. For the majority of consumers (particularly the biggest target market, Gen-Y), not a very good deal."

Does no one any longer care about the loss of fidelity? I mean sure, a lossy format copy of music is great for a portable player in a gym or even in a car, a couple of the worst possible listening environments.

but, for home use...would you not rather have the best possible sound in your better listening environment? I don't mean you have to spend tons of dollars on super high end audio, but, at least maximize the sound for your enviroment?

On a slightly different note, I do like fairly high end stuff...but, it isn't like I built my system overnight. I've worked, saved and bought and replaced componets over many years. Do people just not know or care what really good sound reproduction is?

Re:Well...

[numbski]

There's just one problem with that.

If you're over 19, you're no longer the RIAA's target demographic anymore. Quite literally:

"It's not you Marty, it's your kids! We've got to do something about your kids!"

We've got to educate our 10-19 year olds not to give any more money to the RIAA.

Good luck with that. :(

Buy it again, Sam.

[IIDX]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

Thanks, so I'll just buy another copy. Great solution.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just print your own money to pay for them with. If anyone complains point out that "replacements are readily available (from banks) at affordable prices".

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Maximum Prophet]

Um, I have several CD that are no longer available, except perhaps, used, at higher prices than I paid for them. Changes One and Two by Bowie come to mind.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Rev Wally]

What about those CDs that go out of print?

About 10% of the CDs that I own, I would never be able to find again.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your own silly fault for not buying several copies of the same CD the first time around, affording you a level of redundancy!

I feel so sorry for the poor RIAA, having to deal with you tightwads with limited storage space, and welcome the day when they can download whatever they want directly into the back of your brain and charge it to your bank account.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[bloodredsun]

"Affordable prices"

Which in the UK would be 15 quid for an album with probably 3 or 4 good tracks and the rest as fillers, so there's no way that I'd be buying another copy. Frankly, the Recording Industry Ass. of America are having a laugh.

I'd rather back up all my CDs (and of course rip them to my iPod), leave the originals at home and put the copy in my car/take to work, so should one get damaged/be stolen I haven't lost anything. At no point have I engaged in file trading or selling of pirated copies, I've merely protected my (costly) investment. Now that's fair use, and to complain that it's not is why the Recording Industry Ass. of America are labelled "Pigopolists".

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[elmegil]

Exactly. $18US for the average album is NOT "affordable prices". I already re-bought a lot of my collection from vinyl to CD an I refuse to be gigged again.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

False. There are many recordings that have gone out of print and probably won't reappear, especially in the classical genre. Try finding Philip Pickett's recording of Susato's "Dansereye" (released 1994, just twelve years ago), or Horenstein's recording of Mahler's Third, considered to be one of, if not THE best, interpretations. (Yes, it's available from Amazon.uk, but not in America.) The Boston Symphony Chamber Players' recording of Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale", with John Gielgud, Tom Courtenay, and Ron Moody has never made it onto CD from LP. THAT is an awesome interpretation. And on the Celtic side, the early LP recordings of the Boys of the Lough are unlikely to ever appear on CD. And those are just a few examples from my own library!

So unless you buy nothing but popular crap, you had better back up your recordings or they will be lost to everyone forever if the RIAA wins this fight.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[idonthack]

My friend's house burned down, and most of his three thousand CDs had major smoke damage. They were unlistenable. Estimate fifteen dollars per CD.

3,000 × $15 = $45,000

Right, right. Very affordable prices.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Billosaur]

As we say in Joisy, if a member of the RIAA board becomes, shall we say, "damaged", replacements are available at a reasonable cost...

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[elrous0]

if a member of the RIAA board becomes, shall we say, "damaged"

You can't kill someone who's already dead inside.

-Eric

No CDs

[Agent00Wang]

So are they arguing that you have to buy music from an online dealer (something akin to iTunes) if you want to be able to use your portable device? Sounds like just one more reason not to buy CDs.

you FUD-spreading tool

[RMH101]

iTunes ripped CDs have zero DRM in them. nothing. nada. iTunes *downloaded* tunes do.

What about...

[orderthruchaos]

a boycott? Seriously... it seems the only way to get the attention of hostile businesses is to deny them income.

Backup and preservation of investment?

[richardoz]

When I was a kid my, my friend's dad has an audiophile turntable, cassette deck and reel-to-reel setup. When I would purchase and album, I would take it over to his house and copy it to cassette and sometimes reel-to-reel. I would never play the album again unless I lost or damaged the cassette. What options would I have today if the RIAA has their way?

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Lumpy]

What options would I have today if the RIAA has their way?

Recording devices would be illegal and all legal turntables would have a surface scratching device right behind the needled to ensure that you could only play it once and then have to buy it again in the name of "protecting the copyrights of the poor poor artists."

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Overzeetop]

You clearly don't have a three year old in your house.

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever hear of disc rot [brainwashed.com]? You wanna see the pile of CDs I have that have degraded to the point of non-playability? Its not disc rot, and I'm not sure what it is, but I even have a bunch of CDs that have developed random pin-holes while sitting in their cases after I ripped them to MP3. They are now unplayable. I've never been able to track down a cause, but I spot checked a few friends collections (who also ripped them long ago and don't use them any more) and they are starting to see the same thing on some of their older CDs.

Very affordable

[Anonymous Coward]

" Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

No duh. When my "The Wall" CD was wrecked, I found the music on Kazaa Lite, and it as at an extremely affordable price I could not refuse.

Re:Very affordable

[Hogwash McFly]

We don't need no litigation
We don't need no rights control
No play restriction on our iPod
Execs leave us buyers alone

Enjoy?

[ShadowsHawk]

" Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights."

Since when did enjoy == screw the customer for every last dime?

Re:Enjoy?

[ettlz]

Since when did enjoy == screw the customer for every last dime?

Silly! Screwing is an inherently enjoyable activity!

I hope this comes to court

[mwvdlee]

With that particular declaration under oath in the Grokster case in mind, I hope this comes to court.
The only question that remains then is "which of the two statements is perjury?".

Re:I hope this comes to court

[lost_packet]

technically, only MGM admitted as much

At least some of the Justices, Scalia in particular, seemed troubled by how an inventor would know, at the time of inventing, how its invention might be marketed in the future. How, some of the Justices asked MGM, could the inventors of the iPod (or the VCR, or the photocopier, or even the printing press) know whether they could go ahead with developing their invention? It surely would not be difficult for them to imagine that somebody might hit upon the idea of marketing their device as a tool for infringement. MGM's answer to this was pretty unsatisfying. They said that at the time the iPod was invented, it was clear that there were many perfectly lawful uses for it, such as ripping one's own CD and storing it in the iPod. This was a very interesting point for them to make, not least because I would wager that there are a substantial number of people on MGM's side of the case who don't think that example is one bit legal. But they've now conceded the contrary in open court, so if they actually win this case they'll be barred from challenging "ripping" in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel. In any event, though, MGM's iPod example did exactly what their proposed standard expressly doesn't do: it evaluated the legality of the invention based on the knowledge available to the inventor at the time, not from a post hoc perspective that asks how the invention is subsequently marketed or what business models later grow up around it.

from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tka/2005/03/29#a53 [harvard.edu]

not under oath, not perjury

[spiritraveller]

Neither statement is perjury, because neither statement is made under oath... These statements are just arguments made by the lawyers. One is made in a brief and the other was made in oral arguments in a completely different case, with different parties.

As a lawyer, I can say whatever I want to a court, and the court knows that. If I make a bold statement that turns out to be false, it may affect my credibility with the court; it may cause me to be found in contempt of court; it may ruin my reputation and cause me to hang my head in shame... but it ain't perjury.

Realize also, that these are statements of what the lawyer believes the law to be. They aren't statements of "this happened" or "that happened". It's the same as when the Independent Counsel asked Clinton "Is it true or not that you are the highest law enforcement officer in the country?" It's a question of legal opinion, and not a factual matter, so it isn't perjury.

Now, when you get sworn in and you say "I didn't have sex with that woman (koala bear) (llama) (whatever the case may be)." That would be perjury.

buffering...

[muftak]

Ripping a CD that you own to an mp3 player, is just like your CD player reading the cd ahead into a buffer. Are the RIAA saying that CD players with buffers are illegal?

Let me get this straight

[Snarfangel]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

I thought I was "licensing the content," not "buying the CD." Shouldn't I be able to put my licensed content wherever I want?

Until the companies offer free download replacement of the music I am (ahem) licensing, so I can store that content on a blank CD or wherever else I want, why should I care what they consider "affordable"?

Re:Let me get this straight

[tinkerghost]

I HAVE IT
CDs are like particle waves.
CD's obviously have 2 mutually exclusive, but simultanious behaviours - just like photons.
If you do the math one way, photons are a wave. Use different criteria, and poof they are particles.
CD's are no different, we substitute law for math, liscense for wave, objects for particles, and CD's for photons.
The result: if you do the law one way, CD's are a liscence. Use different criteria, and poof they are objects.
WHOOT - PATENT TIME: Quantum Law.
Now if I can only work out a theory of relativity that shows how software is relavent to patents...

Re:Let me get this straight

[Snarfangel]

Actually, that was me, but when I hit submit the screen went blank, and when I refreshed the Slashdot page it didn't show up, so I retyped the comment under my user name rather than AC. Since I own the copyright, I'm free to copy it to another location, albeit accidentally. :)

What rights?

[Miros]

If you ask me, the RIAA "enjoys" its copyrights a bit too much already. They're trying to transform the music industry from one in which you "buy a copy of a song" into one in which you "buy a limited licence to play the song" under which you have no fair use rights (since you dont actually own the copy, only the right to play it). This is bad for all of us, and I would suggest that companies like Apple really helped pull off the bait and switch. At this point, if people stopped using the online download services and started using CDs again instead (for the rights) the record companies would probably pull the CDs or encrypt them somehow so you still had to be bound by their overrarching licensing agreements.

Sorry guys, but I think the age of "my music" or "owning music" is dead, and currently in the process of being burried. This is just the latest shovel of dirt.

Re:What rights?

[pla]

Sorry guys, but I think the age of "my music" or "owning music" is dead, and currently in the process of being burried. This is just the latest shovel of dirt.

Last shovel of dirt, yes - But on the RIAA, not on our right to own our culture.

Slashdotters (and all people) need to keep in mind the difference between a major country's legal systems saying "fair use does not include a right to backups" and the RIAA spewing yet another round of customer-repelling male cow feces. The former means a lot of people turn into criminals overnight by the wave of the magic wand-of-exclusive-law. The latter means... Nothing at all.

Audio Home Recording Act of 1992

[NutscrapeSucks]

Look it up. RIAA sued Creative in the early days of MP3 players and lost.

Re:Audio Home Recording Act of 1992

[superid]

It's here [wikipedia.org]

Now IANAL, but from what I've read it seems that you really DO NOT have the right to make copies of anything you buy/own. The act states that you will not be prosecuted for doing so.

That's simply not true

[91degrees]

Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.

I have several CDs that I couldn't replace easily. Sometimes they go out of print.

Re:That's simply not true

[Vo0k]

We had a damaged legal copy of Windows CD at the university. The replacement disk costed over twice as much as the local (commercial) pirate charges for the CD and over 1/3 of the full licensed version.
We bought the CD from the pirate and later claimed it was a backup copy from before the original got scratched.

Re:That's simply not true

[mwvdlee]

I have a number of promotional give-away CD's.
These are perfectly legal, but some of the companies which distributed them no longer exist, so I cannot get copies from them even if I wanted to pay full price.

Sometimes entire companies go "out of print" too!

What a ripoff...

[IcePenguin2001]

RIAA Goon 1: Okay, so we want to make a bunch more money because we're greedy bastards. How do we do it?

RIAA Goon 2: Let's sell CDs covered with heroin! Then they'll need to keep buying more CDs to get their fix!

G1: Although we're above the law, I don't wanna use heroin. It's expensive.

G2: Hmm... I've got it! Let's charge them for something they ALREADY OWN!

G1: Great Scott!! Like what?

G2: We'll tell those suckers that ripping CDs to MP3 players (especially iPods!!) is illegal and that they'll need to buy DIGITAL (ooooh the d-word) music for their MP3 players.

G1: Brilliant! Except, we already said that was legal when we sued Grokster.

G2: Well, say now it isn't!! The dumb consumers bend to us!! We are above the law!!

G1: Well, all right. Good idea, Jim. I'm gonna go now, I have $2.4 million from Britney Spears' latest album to roll around in and wipe my ass with. See ya!

The end of CDs and albums

[Charles Dodgeson]

If they persuade me or the courts that they are right, then I believe that I've purchased my last CD. Surely they must realize that they are putting an end to the CD business this way, and therefore albums. As they say, we'll all use alternatives to buying CDs.

One possibility, however, is that they want to argue that we don't automatically have the right to make such copies of purchased CDs, but that they will grant us limited rights to do so. Or maybe they just aren't thinking.

Legally speaking...

[MaestroSartori]

...they could be correct. I don't know the law well enough to say - if memory serves correct, it gives some examples of things which are fair use, none of which include anything like backing up or shifting from one media to another for personal use. So yeah, technically they could be correct.

But I think most people would agree that fairness is also a moral concept, and in that sense it's obvious that it is indeed fair use to copy something you already have to your MP3 player or PC to listen to in a more convenient way.

Here's a hint to the lovely people at the RIAA and similar bodies around the world: if people can't use CDs in this kind of way, they won't buy them.

Congress was not impressed with their arguments

[lheal]

January 24 on C-SPAN there were hearings on Senator Smith's Broadcast Flag bill.

The RIAA spokesman said the Broadcast Flag was needed because with HD radio
(which is just digitial radio), now people could record music off the air
without paying for it. They want to stop that. They put forth the CD ripping argument, too, saying there was nothing to prevent people from copying songs willy-nilly and sharing them, denying royalties to the struggling artists.

The Senators didn't like his view at all. It seems that many of them have
IPods, and like to grab songs, interviews, and other audio so they can listen to
them on the plane! They like their Dean Martin as much as the kids like their Ice Masta Jam.

I was pleased to see liberals and conservatives both on the side of fair use,
rather than on the side of corporate profit. I think they've been getting mail.

Oh. Thanks for letting me know.

[MartinG]

I have been buying CDs and ripping them to play on my iRiver. I may as well just download them instead of buying in future if its just as illegal.

What are we buying?

[plumby]

I'm a little confused. When I buy a CD, am I buying the physical disc, in which case I surely get the right to do with it as I see fit, or I'm buying the right to listen to the music, in which case the media that it's on should not be relevant.

I can fully understand (assuming that I am only buying the rights) that I can't legally copy the music and give/sell that to someone else, but I'm no longer clear on what 'buying' a CD actually buys me.

IN CAPITALIST AMERICA...

[Jerk City Troll]

I'm no longer clear on what 'buying' a CD actually buys me.

...music buys YOU!

Dear RIAA,

[Jerk City Troll]

16 million iPod sales in 2005 alone. Nearly one billion songs purchased from iTMS. 90% and 70% market share respectively. Just thought I'd remind you that the market has spoken and you're old. In closing, screw you.

Sincerely,
Everyone

Affordable?

[keyne9]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

Let's see here.

Original CD price: $16.99
Backup CD price: $0.30

Any specific reason I should be required to pay approximately fifty-six times more money to replace a scratched/mutilated CD?

Is my iPod different from a cassette deck?

[cob666]

How is ripping a CD I bought and listening to that music on my iPod different than recording a CD I bought onto a cassette and listening to that out of my boom box? Didn't the RIAA already have a 'fair use' tax placed on blank media that takes this into consideration?

What the RIAA doesn't realize is that there are quite a few people like me that ONLY purchase CDs so I can listen to them on my iPod. Before getting a portable mp3 player I would purchase perhaps one CD per year (I listened to the radio in my car and at work). Now I buy CDs so I have new content for my mp3 player.

The RIAA will be shooting themselves in their collective FOOT if they turn a CD into a 'limited playability license'. I for one would not buy another CD if I didn't have legal 'fair use' rights to the content.

I haven't bought a physical CD in years...

[HaloZero]

...and now I'm certainly not going to.

'Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.'

Next, I'm sure they're going to say that copying the contents of a data CD (Microsoft Office, or Frontstep CRM) to a network software repository is infringant use on that license. Just prevents me from having to

1. Find the CD once I know that I need it...
   
2. Determine that the CD isn't being kept in the master disc binder...
   
3. Determine which of my coworkers was the last to use it...
   
4. Try to root through their crap in an attempt to find it.

Back to music discs, though.

So I'm not allowed to store the data on a networked disk drive to enjoy throughout my own personal network, nor am I allowed to play it on my own iPod, iPod Pico, or Rio Karma, or whatever the hell it is you kids have nowadays.

Am I breaking the 'license' I bought when I play it in a CD player with 120second or 300second skip protection? Technically, the data has been encoded to digital media, and is therefore must be mutable into a file format.

Online alternatives would seem like the solution. Because then I can just download an album, burn it to a disc, rerip it without copy protection, and REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Seriously, this shit has got to stop. Maybe satelite radio is where it's at...

Media levy ....

[gstoddart]

Well, here in Canada, a media levy has been charged on recordable media -- ostensibly to compensate the artists for 'stealing' their music. The only music I have has been purchased legally -- I have every single original CD. Somehow I doubt under their funding formulas any of the artists I listen to are actually being compensated under this levy. It probably all goes to the big mega acts; the smaller artists and the ones who have been long dead are probably ignored from this formula.

The only things I burn to disk are data, and mixed CDs for playing in my car. As far as I'm concerned, I've never stolen anything from them, and they're the ones stealing me by charging me this levy under the assumption I must be comitting theft.

They will never convince me that I don't have right of first sale on my CDs, and they will never convince me that I can't buy a CD and then listen to it on whatever device I wish to.

Someone really needs to stop this absurdity with the recording industries.

Contradictions...

[morgdx]

From Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v Grokster, Donald Verrilli representing the petitioners:

...and let me pick out the iPod as one, because it's the most current example, I guess. From the moment that device was introduced, it was obvious that there were very significant lawful commercial uses for it. And let me clarify something I think is unclear from the amicus briefs. The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod...

Funny how I can't find this on anyone's website anymore

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argum ent_transcripts/04-480.pdf [supremecourtus.gov]

Re:Contradictions...

[cthenkel]

Well, its still up on their website. Someone should let their webmaster know that their site needs updating to reflect the RIAA's new position on ripping CDs.

http://www.riaa.com/issues/ask/default.asp#stand [riaa.com]

"If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail."

This is too much...

[ursabear]

[rant]

I understand copyrights and piracy and all the issues around all that. That isn't my focus for this article...

If it is indeed the RIAA's choice to try to prohibit putting one's music on one's portable, this latest thing is lunacy. It IS fair use to listen to one's music on alternate devices that one owns!!! Every artist I know (including myself) WANTS people to listen to their music!!! How is this latest thing going to PROMOTE music? How is it going to create or keep FANS interested?

I don't normally get hot under the collar about this stuff, but this isn't very smart on their part. When you've bought a CD or bought tunes from some service, the listener has every right to want to listen to it! Putting a copy on a portable (or putting it on a backup CD) doesn't amount to piracy - it is normal use.

Many of us give away music in an effort to try to get people to discover our sounds. MOST of us WANT people to jam/groove/listen to our music while doing things that are important to fans (music is a part of daily life for most folks, and me, personally, I'd like to be a part of that - my musical friends feel the same way) and portables are a ubiquitous means of "being there."

You CAN'T forget about fans, RIAA! Period!

[/rant]

Sorry for the rant post, Slashdot. I feel better now.

What about citizens enjoying the public domain?

[Luscious868]

Thanks to likes of the RIAA and MPAA, citizens are no longer able to enjoy the benefits of works entering the public domain in a reasonable period of time. The original intent of copyrights and patents was to give the copyright/patent holder a reasonable but limited amount of time to profit from their work before it became avaialable in the public domain to benefit everyone.

The RIAA and MPAA have essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money. Now, I think most of us are reasonable people here and we want to see people get rewarded for their work but the current copyright laws are just plain stupid. I'd prefer 25 years but I'd be willing to let that time limit be doubled. 50 years is more than enough time for any person or corporation to reap the benefits of their creations. After 50 years, copyrighted material should enter the public domain.

Remember that copyrights and patents aren't some inherient right. Copyrights and patents are contracts between creators and every other citizen of this counry. We agree to give the creator an exclusive right to control who can reproduce a work with the understanding that after a certain limited amount of time the work will enter the public domain so that everyone can benefit from it.

Both culpable

[Tony]

You are so right, my rights-oppressed friend. But *AAs are culpable for buying the laws; Congress is culpable for selling them.

Both should be punished severely, and I'm not talking swatted across the bare backside by Mistress Trish in her beautiful leather attire, either. I'm talking Smite.

I hate the business of politics.

Listening to music no longer considered fair use.

[TangoCharlie]

Today the Record Industry of Ameria (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) released a joint statement regarding the fair use of Music CDs and Movie DVDs. It states that listening to music CDs using CD players was immoral, illegal and said that people who listen to music are thevies and criminals. Similarly, people to buy motion picture DVDs and the proceed to what them are scum and should be sent to Guantanimo with all the other enemies of the state. The two organisations provide a helpful list of those activities which are considered acceptable and those that are not.

Acceptable
~~~~~~~~~~

Buying CDs and DVDs.

Not Acceptable
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copying (read pirating) music CDs to MP3 players (especially those f**king iPods!)
Copying (read pirating) music CDs and movie DVDs to audio and/or video tape.
Lending music CDs and DVD movies to your friends.
Listening to CDs.
Whatching DVD movies.
Downloading divx movies from Limewire.
Buying pirated CDs/DVDs.

The RIAA and the MPAA state that all these unacceptable actions help crime and support terrorist organisations such as Al-Queda and must be banned, and the perpiTRAITORS should be shot (preferably by Dick Cheney!)

Either one or the other

[Britz]

Either they sell you a license and you can loose your copy but still get it back, because you own a license, not a copy.

Or you buy a CD as a "thing" and can do whatever you feel with it, as long as you don't sell the content to someone else.

At least that is how it should be and how it used to be in Germany, but we are working to get to where the US law is now. And we are pickung up speed.

Why does no one get it?

[athlon02]

It's so obvious people...

You need to buy a copy of the song for EVERY piece of hardware. See you get the CD for your CD player. You buy the songs online to put on your MP3 player. You buy a DVD-Audio copy for your DVD drive. You buy the songs online again for your MP3 CD's for your car stereo. Oh, and lest we forget, you write a check to RIAA for the copies of the songs that are in your head. Wait, you HAVEN'T written your check yet? You should be ashamed!

RIAA trying to do....

[HangingChad]

...what MSFT has already done. RIAA is trying to implment the same type system for music that MSFT was able to successfully employ for software. They're angling for product activation. Where you activate your music content before it will play on a device.

Why is that so far fetched? You went along with it for software and they're using the same basic talking points. It'll cut down on piracy and everyone will enjoy lower prices on music. And if you believe that I have a bridge in San Francisco you can buy cheap. MSFT increased their prices in the wake of product activation, so will the music industry.

And while RIAA's running the propaganda campaign in the media they're quietly sinking millions into lobbying efforts to get the few in Congress they don't already own, like Orin Hatch, to go along with what they want.

You put up with it in software, you voted for the people selling you out to corporate lobbyists. I realize this will be an unpopular point, but you get what you tolerate.

Last straw for me.

[moultano]

I'm never buying a piece of music from the RIAA again. I'm not going to give money to companies that use it to assault my rights in court.

Vote with your dollars people.

Fair vs. Fair

[Opportunist]

I'm a fairly fair person. Treat me fairly, I treat you fairly.

Is it fair to prevent me from enjoying my right of "fair use" by installing copy protection mechanisms that keep me from doing what I legally could do, but can't because I may not circumvent copyright protections?

Is it fair to still charge a "copyright fee" on CD-Rs that I can ONLY use for writing content that I do have the copyright for anymore because of the forementioned copy protection mechanisms?

Is it fair to install rootkits on my computer, without asking or at least informing me, without giving me the ability to get rid of them even if I cease using the product it came with?

Is it fair to dictate what devices I can use to play the music I license?

Is it fair to prevent me from copying content I do have the copyright of because the same copying mechanism could be used to copy content belonging to someone else?

Is it fair to put pressure on politicians to tip the balance between producers and consumers more and more in the producers favor?

Is it fair to assume that I don't give a rat's rear what someone treating me like that considers "fair"?

Which question do you think would deserve a "yes" as an answer?

Quick, RIAA, fix your website!

[yeremein]

If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.

Source [riaa.com]

crap, there are NOT easily replaceable CDs

[swschrad]

I have a bunch of music I treasure that is NOT availiable on CD, and is NOT readily availiable, or availiable at all, on CD any more. RIAA is just so full of crap that they rot the floor behind them wherever they go.

Replacement CDs

[JustNiz]

You're not buying the CD, you're buying the rights to play the music. Furthermore their mechanisms DO prevent you from copying CDs (unlike their argument goes). See the Sony case.
Therefore:
If you're not allowed to make your own backups then the music industry should accept that providing you have proof of original purchase they have to provide you with replacments on demand when the original gets lost, scratched or whatever.

Lets not even get into what happens if (like me) you emigrate to a different country and your whole DVD collection (hundreds) won't play anymore because of the purely artificial restriction enforced by region code.

Anyone read RIAA.com?

[Kcowolf]

From the "Ask the RIAA" section of their website (http://www.riaa.com/issues/ask/default.asp#stand [riaa.com]) :

What is your stand on MP3?

This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right. (emphasis mine)

Their Way

[Renraku]

If they had their way, CDs would be copy protected and require a CD key to play (a la Windows or PC game keys), would require an internet or modem connection to phone home on each play (like Steam), and would occasionally be completely unavailable to play due to server problems..

They would completely have no problem with forcing this upon the customer. When confronted, they would shrug and say that it allows them to serve their customers better. By the way, if you buy the 'Special Edition' CD, its authorizations are listed on a different server that doesn't go down quite as often.

And if you play the CD in another computer, the key is invalidated and you must purchase a new one.

It appears that the RIAA have backed into a corner

[GuyverDH]

And have nowhere to turn.

They've sued their customer base.
They've spent millions on ineffective marketing campaigns.
They've pushed labels to cookie-cutter their music and bands.
Now they wonder how they're going to raise profits?

If they move forward with restricting our right to backup a flimsy media so that we can listen to the music that we've purchased the right to listen to, then we the community need to fire back.

ie - counter-sue the RIAA/MPAA on the grounds that we pay money for a product that is INTENTIONALLY DEFECTIVE.

They produce a products that are brittle, easy to break. They produce products which require a scratch free surface to play properly, yet the products are made of a material that scratches almost by air flowing over it. They produce products which illegally extend copyright, by making the encryption never ending.

I'd say there's enough there to start a massive world-wide class-action lawsuit and force them to refine their product, at no additional cost to us, so that they are scratch resistant, and have an encryption method that turns itself off after the legal copyright limit.

If they cannot do that, then they'll have to retract their position, and allow us to make backups of their defective products.

Running at Cross Purposes

[jasonditz]

I'm getting the sense here that the RIAA and the online downloadable music companies which are going to be their major source of future revenue are running at cross-purposes here.

The downloadable music companies like Apple have always tried to argue that deep down we knew there was something "wrong" with using the illegal download services... that it was not just marginally illegal, but immoral. The RIAA's ever broadening definition of what violates their copyright keeps cheapening that concept.

To be honest with you, once affordable legal downloads became available I started switching over to them for convenience sake, and also for the added bonus of not being in violation of any laws. But now the RIAA comes along and says "guess what, that Culture Club CD you bought 10 years ago and ripped onto your hard drive because you don't own any audio CD players anymore... that was a crime". Well, at this point I'm breaking the law anyhow. So my choice is to either shell out a few grand to replace ever cassette tape and CD I ever bought with iTunes, or to keep playing the ripped, but legally owned stuff, knowing that the RIAA is still going to bitch.

But you know what? This probably does have an effect on how I'm going to buy music in the future. If the RIAA is going to argue that downloading a bunch of Bjork songs off a P2P service is the legal equivalent to going to Best Buy and buying the CDs and ripping them to my hard drive... there's no good reason for me to shell out the money anymore, is there?

If you can't listen to music anymore without being a criminal, then why pay for the priviledge?

Fuck the RIAA

[alfredo]

I can appreciate some restrictions on use of copyright material, but they want too much control over products we pay inflated prices for. They say we are hurting the artist, but what really hurts the artist are the draconian and deceptive contracts the artists have to work under. You can have a Platinum recording and end up in debt to the record company because they shift the financial risks to the artist and assume none for themselves. Many of your favorite artist barely make a living wage even though they are generating millions for their labels.

Ask Toni Braxton. She made millions for her record company and ended up being in debt to her label.

Re:These people really don't get it do they?

[Miros]

That isnt their goal at all, in fact, it's quite the opposite. They're trying to kill the CD market in favor of the online download business. Onine downloads do not give us the same rights that buying a CD does, in fact, we get less rights (seemingly only the limited right to play the song, and copy it to another medium a limited number of times). By making CDs more expensive or difficult to acquire, or incompatible with portable music players, they can cause the market to shift itself to mediums that they can better control, even before the CD becomes completely obsolete.

True colors shining through

[Steve525]

... but this is simply going too far!

I'm glad that the RIAA has made these statements. Before when their arguement for stronger copywrite protection was "Look at what Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, etc. are doing", they had an arguement that the politicians/judges could be sympathetic to. Now if their arguement is "Fair use; people don't need no stinking fair use," I don't think the politicians and judges are going to be as sympathetic. It doesn't necessarily mean they won't still get their way, but at least it's a lot easier to argue against them.

Unfortunately, unlike you (if you are actually going to do what you claim) I don't think too many people care enough to do anything about it.

Re:Death of an industry

[lennart78]

This is allready happening. Various 'aggregators' allow musicians and/or indie labels to publish music on iTunes and Rhapsody, against a hefty sum that is. Tunecore (http://www.tunecore.com/ [tunecore.com]) offers the same, against much smaller costs.

Record companies had 3 monopolies which allowed them to firmly control the recording industry:
* To record an album you need a studio, which is expensive. Record companies paid band to use studios, tying the bands to the record company.
* To publish an album, you need to put it on CD (or LP), and get it out to record stores (distribution). Both of these activities come with huge expenses upfront.
* Finally, you need to promote and plug a band, which requires a network of people you know.

Nowadays, as a musician, I can record decent quality productions at home with the aid of a computer, at a fraction of the costs it would take if I were to do it in a studio. Distribution can take place via the Internet, (e.g. Tunecore), and for promotion/plugging, web2.0 like community networks and a well designed website can get you somewhere.

Basically, there is no more need for a record company. Their days are over, and the general public should realise that there are plenty possibilities to make do without them.

Re:Death of an industry

[AeroIllini]

Basically, there is no more need for a record company. Their days are over, and the general public should realise that there are plenty possibilities to make do without them.

While I agree with your sentiment, that record companies in their current form are now obsolete, I would have to say that the days of the record companies in general are not over yet. However, their purpose and place in this business is quickly changing.

Sure, you can do all that stuff yourself, recording on your home PC, publishing online, marketing through deli.cio.us or whoever. But that just gets you "good enough." In order to get a GREAT product, you really should use a professional recording studio with extremely high-end microphones, a professionally trained producer, and marketers who actually went to marketing school. All of that stuff is expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars, and that's where the record company comes in.

The record company should really be thought of as a venture capital firm for musicians. They front some money to the artist to pay for all the recording, producing, distribution, and marketing fees, and then the artist gives them a percentage of their earnings from that album in return. In other areas of venture capitalism, the risk is shared by both parties, the VC firm and the startup. If the idea is a flop, they BOTH lose money. However, in the last 30 years or so, the record companies have gotten so powerful that their cut of earnings has steadily gone up, and they started adding clauses about the band having to pay back all that up-front cost as well, with interest, out of their cut. The net result is that the record companies will sign just about anybody, because the deal is so one-sided that the band will go broke and declare bankruptcy long before the record companies ever lose money. They just sit back and get rich off other people's music, and this worked because they were the only game in town. It was either them or printing flyers and posting them on street corners.

The next generation of record companies (and I am fairly sure a new generation is coming) will succeed because they will play nice. The deals they cut with the artists will be fair to both parties, the IP rights will be shared, and everyone will get rich if the band succeeds. When the risk is shared like that, there is pressure on the record company to only sign good bands that will be good long-term investments. The flavor-of-the-month approach only works when there's no risk to the record company, since there are 3 flops for every superstar. Signing bands with appeal AND musical talent is a long-term investment: the band will continue to grow and create more great music, develop a loyal following of fans, and be very visible. Marketers call that "building a brand"; musicians call it "fandom". Either way you look at it, it's good business: the record company has performers and albums they are proud of, the fans get better music on average, the musicians actually make money, and everyone gets to keep their soul. Good times.