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CRIA Falling Apart? 242

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hoping-others-aren't-far-behind dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) has been falling apart recently. The biggest blow occurred when 6 major Canadian independent labels quit which was followed by some problems with the Copyright Board. Of course, this is all happening after the whole Sam Bulte incident. The article explains what happened with plenty of links for specific information."
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CRIA Falling Apart? More

CRIA Falling Apart?

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  • Victory is Ours!
    BwahahahahahahahA!!!!!!11

  • Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall! Tear down the wall!

    We are the listeners!

  • Confused (Score:3, Funny)

    by wolf369T ( 951405 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @03:42AM (#15155535) Homepage
    Oh, it's *CRIA*... I thought it was *RIAA* :(
    • both are merely fronts for the interests of their umbrella group [ifpi.org]

      Progress against any of them is progress against all of them. With any luck, a sufficient defeat in Canada will allow Canada to get a foothold in the world music industry for the near future as the old guard is defeated in a long series of battles.
      • Hmm... you think that if the IFPI wanted us to take them seriously at all, they'd have what the hell that stands for *somewhere* on their website. Agreed though - progress is progress, just like how as soon as someone successfully defends an RIAA lawsuit (or better yet, lodges a successful countersuit), they'll never be able to win again.

        • Re:Same shit different pile (Score:5, Informative)

          by ozmanjusri ( 601766 ) <aussie_bob@nOspAm.hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @05:01AM (#15155702) Journal
          Hmm... you think that if the IFPI wanted us to take them seriously at all, they'd have what the hell that stands for *somewhere* on their website.

          Will you take them seriously now that you know IFPI stands for "International Federation of the Phonograph Industry"? It's an appropriately anachronistic name for an organisation determined to block progress in music distribution.

          • Will you take them seriously now that you know IFPI stands for "International Federation of the Phonograph Industry"? It's an appropriately anachronistic name for an organisation determined to block progress in music distribution.

            Just think, in this day and age, it'd be more like "What's a phonograph? and why does it have to be protected?"

            I wonder if it'd be just as silly concept to have these groups to protect things like manual printing presses, and then try to extend that to everything from typewriters,

      • Re:Same shit different pile (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dwandy ( 907337 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @07:41AM (#15156118) Homepage Journal
        too many lies [ifpi.org] to count... but anyways...

        Copyright is the means by which a person or a business makes a living from creativity.

        not today. Today copyright is how businesses steal 'ownership' from artists.

        Copyright also protects culture ...

        bullsh*t. Copyright puts culture under the lock and key of a corporation for their own profit, not for the protection of the culture. There's plenty of culture that is currently unavailable to us because the 'owner' doesn't see a profit. how exactly is that 'protecting' it in any good way?

        ...and fosters artistic integrity.

        right. that's why when an artist is signed to a label who owns them and their work they always remain true to their roots and never produce works as they are told to. sure.

        This gives talented people the incentive to create great works...

        Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence that without copyright 'great works' would not be created, in fact shakespear worked without the benefit of copyright, and has arguably created some of the greatest works of all time. Secondly; talented, creative people can no more not-create than they can not-breathe. It's in their blood. It consumes them. It drives them. They require no outside incentive.
        And if it's all about incentive, how does retroactively extending copyright (Sonny Bono Copyright act) increase their incentive? It's already made! no further 'incentive' is necessary... Clearly it's about money, not creativity.

        Copyright has underpinned an extraordinary modern economic success story, accounting for tens of millions of jobs worldwide.

        There's two possibilities here: Either copyright has created the correct number of jobs (i.e. the same as without) or copyright has created an innefficient system where the consumer is paying too much (in order to pay for the bloat, i.e. the *extra* jobs created)
        If it's the first case, than copyright has done nothing, and is irrelevent. If it's the second, than we have done ourselves and economic disservice...

        The dramatic growth of the artistic, cultural and other creative industries in today's major economies would have been impossible without the strong levels of copyright protection that those countries have developed over many decades.

        Proof please.
        Again, there is absolutely no evidence that copyright has in any way increased the quantity of artisitic creativity anywhere. What there is, is proof that creativity happens without copyright, and there is proof that copyright generates monopoly profits for corporations who become larger and more powerful and demand tighter copyright controls for their own profits.
        I'm going to postulate that the real reason that there is more recorded art today is for a few other reasons:

        • Increased leisure time for the masses (increases both the time for people to create and consume art)
        • Increased ease of access (thanks to recordings, and modern transportation, including the steam engine, internal combustion engine, the airplane and last (but not leastly) digital media and digital transports),
        • Decreased creation costs. Joe six-pack can have a semi-professional recording studio in his basement, write a book and self publish etc etc. i.e. The production costs have dropped to really really cheap

        I would argue that the creative work that will have the most impact on society this century will have been created largely by people who will never be monetarily compensated, will be consumed by people who will never even say thanks, and yet will continue to evolve, to be worked on and yes to be monetized. That creative work is known as GNU/Linux, but comprises a larger scope of work that can also be called Open Source, or Free Software.

        So all we really do get

  • Not to worry, true believers! They'll be back (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @03:45AM (#15155547)
    The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.

    • Re:Not to worry, true believers! They'll be back (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gorshkov ( 932507 ) <AdmiralGorshkov.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @04:37AM (#15155658)
      The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.

      Probably not, actually. The labels that left, although they do have a few well-known acts, generally have small, relativly unknown artists in their stables ... and those artists tend to be in *favour* of downloads as it increases their exposure.

      They're simply doing what's best for their business, not what's best for Sony.
      • "Copyright puts culture under the lock and key of a corporation for their own profit, not for the protection of the culture. "

        I have copyrights for my artwork and music, and neither have gone anywhere near "a corporation." Unless you count my web host.
      • Probably not, actually. The labels that left, although they do have a few well-known acts, generally have small, relativly unknown artists in their stables ... and those artists tend to be in *favour* of downloads as it increases their exposure.

        Trust me, there really is some good in this world. Nettwerk has been one of the most critical labels of heavy-handed legal tactics. They're funding some RIAA defences, they were one of the first to leave the CIRA, and they aren't just a stable of artists that no one has heard of; Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne.

        And they sell mp3s on their site. Not WMAs, not ACCs -- *mp3s*, no DRM.

        I'm a cynical bastard, too, but there's actually a few labels out there that get it. Don't sell them short.

  • Artists just want to be heard (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @03:49AM (#15155551)
    Most artists just want to be heard.
    Their music should be considered free advertising for their art form, and hope to get enough interest to then go on tour.
    It saves them time running around town sticking flyers up on walls.
    P2P networks provide the free distribution.
    Artists win by selling concert tickets, putting on a great show so people want to come back, and sell t-shirts, posters.
    They get 100% of the revenue and greedy corporate bastards have to go find a new job that actually creates products.
    Why isn't the old school gone yet?

    • Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MaestroSartori ( 146297 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @05:10AM (#15155724) Homepage
      Because what you said it isn't true, at least not for all musicians. See, you have to separate the love of the art we have from our desirve to live a decent quality of life. Us musicians don't just want to make music for everyone's enjoyment, you see. Some of us want to eat as well!

      Many musicians, especially big popular artists of course, want to sell music, and make their living from that. They don't consider their music to be advertising - they may rarely play a gig, they may never want to go on tour, but they may still love making music and want to be able to make a living from it.

      Sadly, the people who mask their desire to download music for free from P2P networks claim they're doing it to "fight the man", destroy the evil record labels and so on. That's fine, as far as it goes, but it's an excuse and nothing more. It won't help people like me - I'm a solo musician who plays several instruments, but I'm not in a band. I can record stuff I could never play live. I've enjoyed gigging, but I don't think I'd like to tour really. But why shouldn't I make a living selling music?

      If I wanted to sell my music, I'd like people to respect my wishes. If they don't, and I'm relying on making money from my music to live, then I'm fucked and I won't make as much more (if any) because I'll need a job to pay the rent. Which is why I've skipped trying to make a living from music, and instead I'm a games programmer who makes music in his spare time.

      • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Funny)

        by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @05:35AM (#15155790)
        Us musicians don't just want to make music for everyone's enjoyment, you see. Some of us want to eat as well!

        You fucking selfish asshole.

      • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Znork ( 31774 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @05:46AM (#15155811)
        "want to be able to make a living from it."

        Yes, well, I'll betcha there's a bunch of people who'd like to be able to make a living from posting slashdot comments. That doesnt mean it's in the public interest to finance it.

        If they 'love making music', to be utterly and horrifically frank, they'd still do it without copyright, and a free market would be better spending resources on other things, as the music would get done _anyway_. You dont get paid for doing what you want, no matter how much you'd like to, you get paid for doing what someone else wants. Only if you're very lucky do they coincide.

        It's the laws of supply and demand, and with anything that's infinitely duplicatable at near zero cost, the supply outpaces the demand fairly soon; there are only so many hours per day to listen to music, and it's not a resource that needs repeated production (while touring and performing music actually is, which makes it vastly more suitable to make money from in a market economy).

        That said, I personally do think it's in the public interest to finance the arts beyond what the true market value is. But it should be done not through monopoly rights on works, but through levies off those profiting from the duplication, fixation in media, performance and distribution of those materials. IE, let anyone and everyone copy, perform, sell, and do whatever they want with copyrighted material (keeping attribution intact), but tax the revenue of the record companies, bands and orchestras performing live, CD duplicators, etc, and divide the revenue among the original creators so they can spend more time creating.
        • I agree, to an extent. I do make music despite the fact that I can't make money from it, because I enjoy the act of creation, and I agree that most musicians probably would continue to do so. I just don't think that a world where the only way to make music for a living is to perform it live will necessarily result in a better world.

          Like I said in my original post, I write stuff I couldn't possibly perform. I write things which are possibly physically impossible to play (using samples and sequencers, as well

          • ...who knows what great works might be lost - not from me, maybe, but from the next Mozart or whatever - just because the person who might have made them had to go work in a fast food joint to pay the bills.

            That is the way art is, and I don't know how to make it better without undesirable side effects. Supporting art out of general taxation tends to support artists who agree with the current government, since government administers the tax revenue, and degenerates into tax support for re-electing the in

          • I agree, to an extent. I do make music despite the fact that I can't make money from it, because I enjoy the act of creation, and I agree that most musicians probably would continue to do so. I just don't think that a world where the only way to make music for a living is to perform it live will necessarily result in a better world.

            Then, we, as a society, need to re-think the relation with have with our own artists. We need to re-think the extend of the copyright law. The technologies aren't going away.

          • Why *do* so many people seem to have this base-level objection to paying for recording music?

            I object to paying for duplications of recorded music (which is what is being sold) because they have next to no intrinsic value.

            Copyright law has the effect of creating an artificial business model. It allows duplicators (the record labels) to create a tie between the creative process (which has intrinsic value due to scarcity) and the duplicates of the product of that process (which have next to no intrinsic valu

        • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @06:54AM (#15155977) Homepage Journal
          The battleground isn't about musicians "being able to make a living from it", but rather whether they can make a living from it in perpetuity.

          If I repair your car today - no matter how good a job I do - you pay me once, and I get to eat today. If your car keeps running for another 20 years, you don't have to to keep giving me royalties because of what a great job I did. Hell, even a doctor only gets paid once for a life saving operation.

          However, if I make a hit album today, the RIAA, CRIA think that I should be allowed [or, more importantly, they should be allowed] to live off the proceeds of that record for the remainder of my natural life, as can my family for 50+ years after my death.

          Why are creative people rewarded in perpetuity, when doctors don't?
          Because creative people get to write legislation.
          • Why are creative people rewarded in perpetuity, when doctors don't?

            I'm pretty sure that doctors get paid for each patient that sees them; why shouldn't creative people be paid for every copy of their song that a person gets to enjoy?

            I'm not saying that copyright law--particularly in the United States--isn't broken. I'm just saying that the analogy is defective.

            • Doctors have to do additional work to see each patient. Artists on the other hand (and record companies) expect to be paid in perpetuity for one piece of work they might have done years ago.

            • I'm pretty sure that doctors get paid for each patient that sees them; why shouldn't creative people be paid for every copy of their song that a person gets to enjoy?

              I'm pretty sure that doctors get paid for each patient that sees them, not by every person that gets to enjoy the patient for 50yrs after the patients death. ... :)

              so, I'd say the analogy is intact.

              In other words, the doctor gets paid for the work, not for the number of people who come in contact with her work later.
              As the doctor gets p

              • A service only has value as a service, that is why artist only get paid once for a concert. A creation has perpetual value. Doctor's get paid once to treat a patient, they get paid for long after that patient's death if they create something (a textbook, a device, a therapy) from that patient's treatment.
          • Because creative people get to write legislation.

            BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhaha...*snort* HAHAHHAHAHAHA!

            Dude, that was a bad slip. I mean, creative people? That's like the worst misspelling of "rich executives that like to screw the little guy" that I've ever seen.

            The people that do write the legislation are heavily influenced by the money coming into their pockets by entertainment industry lobbyists. The laws serve the RIAA/CRIA people, not the artists.

            I can't remember now, it's been so long since I've heard, bu

          • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @09:54AM (#15157135) Journal
            Your argument is flawed.

            You compare a one-time service to a succession of purchases. If you fix my car I pay you once and I don't have to pay you ever again. If you buy my CD, you pay me once and don't have to pay me ever again.

            People in this thread seem to be suggesting that an artist should only get paid once for a song. Ok, sure, so I create an album, I get paid for it (what, $15? for a year's work or more?) and then if I want any more money, I have to create a new album?

            You're suggesting that patrons of the arts (as a whole) should only have to compensate an artist once. Should prints available at the Louvre be free? I mean, the artist has already been paid for their painting, right?

            Without copyright licensing (and copyright expiration, grrr Disney), then the creative process becomes something that people can only do in their spare time, when they're not working at their day jobs. I hate to tell you, but making art is not exactly an easy process. You don't just sit down and think 'I know, I'll make a hit single!' and then spend a few hours a night for the rest of the week polishing it up. It takes hard work, it takes passion, it takes enthusiasm.

            Suddenly we're back to the FSF's concept of software. People should never be paid to write software, it all wants to be free! So work shitty day jobs, and then write software in your spare time. The flaw in that analogy is that paid, directed work accomplishes more than loosely-organised communities of hackers ever have. Cases in point: Apache (Apache foundation), PHP (Zend), MySQL (MySQL AB), Linux (RedHat, Suse, IBM, Sun, etc), and so on).

            So we should not contribute to the artists that make music we wish to listen to? They should give us their creativity for free? We should not have to pay for performances? If you honestly think this, then you don't understand what art is all about.

            • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by smoker2 ( 750216 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @12:42PM (#15158707) Homepage Journal
              Without copyright licensing (and copyright expiration, grrr Disney), then the creative process becomes something that people can only do in their spare time, when they're not working at their day jobs. I hate to tell you, but making art is not exactly an easy process. You don't just sit down and think 'I know, I'll make a hit single!' and then spend a few hours a night for the rest of the week polishing it up. It takes hard work, it takes passion, it takes enthusiasm.
              And most importantly, it takes luck. A hit single exists only because the fickle public like it and buy it. You could spend a year "creating" a piece of shit , but under your rationale, we should still have to pay you in perpituity just because it's "what you do" !
              So we should not contribute to the artists that make music we wish to listen to? They should give us their creativity for free? We should not have to pay for performances?
              Classic straw man. As was your crack about only getting $15 for an album. If that album sold 1 million copies, you stand to get $15,000,000. Does that cover your expenses for a year, in any way, at all, hmmmm ?

              But no, apparently, not only do you get to make $15M for 1 years work, you get to make money from that years work, for the rest of your life ! And if anybody dares to suggest that maybe you've had enough, you start complaining that your fucking family won't be able to survive without the income from a 20 year old lucky break ! Last I heard, families of lottery winners can not expect a regular payout from the lottery.

              Breathe ......

              If I'm ranting, it's because I saw a BBC news article yesterday, where some pimply lawyer was asking for the UK copyright laws to be brought into line with the US, because it simply isn't fair that people who made a record in the sixties, can't expect their entire line of descendants to ponce off it !

              Colour me disgusted.

              In fact, I don't care if they extend copyright to infinity, it will only cause me never to buy another cd/dvd ever again. Wonder how much money great-nephew Larry (on the mothers sisters brother-in-laws side) will be able to expect then ?

              It's funny, someone wrote a song which said "Pop will eat itself". How ironic.

              If you honestly think this, then you don't understand what art is all about.
              Bwhaa haah haaa haaah haaahahaha ! And you do do you ? Apparently "Art" is all about making money, when all along I thought it was about self expression.

              Did Michelangelo get paid for painting the Sistine Chapel ? Why yes he did ! Did Michelangelo get paid every time somebody looked at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel ? No, no he didn't.

              Last I heard, Michelangelo is considered a great artist.

          • "If I repair your car today - no matter how good a job I do - you pay me once, and I get to eat today. If your car keeps running for another 20 years, you don't have to to keep giving me royalties because of what a great job I did. Hell, even a doctor only gets paid once for a life saving operation."

            The basis here is that musicians, poets and authors are typically the three lowest-paying jobs. There's little or no job security. By comparison, it is relatively easy to make a steady income if you are a

        • But it should be done not through monopoly rights on works, but through levies off those profiting from the duplication, fixation in media, performance and distribution of those materials.

          How do you define (and measure) 'profiting?'

          What if the 'record companies' give away the recording on CD in order to promote some other product? How are you going to measure the profit from such an action in order to tax it?

          What if no one makes copies commercially and everyone just p2p's it, or emails it to their friends?
        • It's the laws of supply and demand, and with anything that's infinitely duplicatable at near zero cost, the supply outpaces the demand fairly soon; there are only so many hours per day to listen to music, and it's not a resource that needs repeated production (while touring and performing music actually is, which makes it vastly more suitable to make money from in a market economy).

          It's not only the supply and demand of copies of the music work, but supply and demand of the artists. There are millions of ta
        • "but tax the revenue of the record companies, bands and orchestras performing live, CD duplicators, etc, and divide the revenue among the original creators"

          What, equally? If 100 people listen/have copies of your music, but 10,000 people listen/have copies of someone elses, shouldn't they get a larger chunk? Or anyone who wants a share of the pie, all they have to do is make a track? In which case, how do you keep track of how many people have what, so you know how to divide it up? What about selling oversea

      • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @06:08AM (#15155849) Journal
        In relation to my sig, the day I will fully respect musicians' preferences to earn money on their music will be the same day my rights to play my purchased music won't be stolen by a third party. I will give you peace and understanding if the feeling is mutual.
      • I am burning my right to moderate, but my question to you is, Do you have fans. If you think that you have then do you think that they will not pay for owning CDs signed by you. If you don't have fans then I guess your music is not good anyway. If you think it is but you haven't found the right audience then how do you propose to find them without using P2P.
        • I don't have many people listening to my music just now, partly because I'm not making much due to work, partly because I'm not promoting it at all. I'm just making it for me, really, and I'm fine with that. My worry is that I can see it getting to the point where only live music is practical to make a living at, and only then if you're willing to perform publically often, and attempt to sell physical objects to people attending performances.

          My concern isn't so much for me as it is for music in general - wi
          • I'd be willing to buy a CD of a band I like. I do it all the time. I don't think that if we get to the point where you can freely download anything on the net, that people will just stop buying stuff. We are pretty much at the point, where you can get any music you want, online, for free. But I still buy CDs. I buy them because I like them more than the downloads, and I like supporting artists who produce good music. You don't have to sell that much music to make a good living. There are 6 billion p
          • The point is with P2P you don't have to promote a good thing. It will promote itself. You need to promote substandard things the kind that RIAA needs to promote. The other thing is that the RIAA had a stranglehold on the venues of promotion. They controlled all the venues from the Radio to the CD. But now with the Internet and P2P you can let others do the promotion without spending anything. This kills the RIAA. And everybody will be happy when they are dead. Now we really get into the realm of meritocracy
      • I can record stuff I could never play live. I've enjoyed gigging, but I don't think I'd like to tour really. But why shouldn't I make a living selling music?

        You aren't asking the right question.

        The right question is - "Why shouldn't you be able to earn a living making music?"

        The answer is - you should be able to try.

        Just like when Joe the Office Peon goes to work for 8 hours, he gets paid for 8 hours of office droning. If his employer takes the reports that Joe wrote and distributes copies to everyone in t

        • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @08:22AM (#15156294) Journal
          Just like when Bob the Construction Hand builds a bathroom, he gets paid for building the bathroom. But Bob does not get paid everytime someone uses that bathroom to take a crap.

          Just like when Neal Stephenson the Author writes a book, he gets paid for writing the book. But Neal does not get paid every time someone...wait...what?

          Shockingly, different industries have different models for compensation.

          You should be paid to produce a recording of music - by the hour or by the song, or whatever. But once the actual work of making the music is over, you don't deserve to get paid anything more. You don't deserve to get paid every time somebody makes a copy of the music nor do you deserve to get paid every time somebody listens to that music either.

          Then where's the incentive to write a good book that people want to read? If you're lucky, you'll get paid on the basis of what your last book earned...but I'm pretty sure this would just be an opportunity for book publishers to screw authors--particularly new authors.

          While there are obvious and gross deficiencies in the implementation of intellectual property law in the United States (and elsewhere), the analogies used to advance arguments here on Slashdot seem to be equally flawed today.

          • Just like when Neal Stephenson the Author writes a book, he gets paid for writing the book. But Neal does not get paid every time someone...wait...what?
            Shockingly, different industries have different models for compensation.

            huh? that is the copyright model. whether it's music or books.

            This is a music discussion (and not a book discussion) because people (so far) still like to read from paper, and so 'piracy' became an issue first and most easily for music.
            Everything being said here can equally be sa

          • >> Then where's the incentive to write a good book that people want to read?

            just like where's the incentive to write good code. Easy, if you write a shitty book, you won't be hired again.
        • I just love it when people who have not done anything creative since pre-school preach to those blessed/cursed with talent on how they deserve free access to their creations.

          Your really don't have a clue.
        • the problem with that is that somebody then has to front the money. if i can't get paid for each cd that gets sold / copied, then some entity (perhaps a record company) has to pay me up front for it. if you're willing to give me, say $25,000 USD (a modest salary for a year) so that i may go about the business of making music full time without having to worry about the rent / groceries / etc., fantastic. i look forward to doing business with you. so how do you plan to recoup this money you've paid out?

      • Re:Some artists just want to be heard... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @07:35AM (#15156091) Homepage Journal
        See, you have to separate the love of the art we have from our desirve [sic] to live a decent quality of life....They don't consider their music to be advertising - they may rarely play a gig, they may never want to go on tour, but they may still love making music and want to be able to make a living from it.

        So, they want to make a decent living without having to work? Join the club. People who slave away for 8-10 hours every day are so sick and tired of hearing about musicians whine and complain that they can't make millions of dollars off of a few days or weeks worth of work.

        You want to make a living making music? Fine. Work for eight hours a day, five days a week like the rest of us. Don't expect any kind of everlasting income from a single recording of music.

        • "You want to make a living making music? Fine. Work for eight hours a day, five days a week like the rest of us."

          Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones is a good example of a working musician, take a look at that guys fingers, you can see how long and hard he has practiced.

          OTOH: There is always a nagging voice in my head that says, nobody on the planet works hard enough or is talented enough, (at anything except maybe accounting), to be able to justify million dollar paychecks. At least not while a bi
        • Ok, I'm tired of people commenting that musicians don't work for a living. Creating music that people enjoy and that you yourself enjoy is hard work, just like a carpenter building furniture that people will enjoy and something that they will be proud of creating. Proforming that music is hard work, I play extreme metal as a vocalist and lead guitar and playing that fast, screaming that hard and expressing myself that much for an hour or more leaves a person completely exhausted. It takes a lot more effo

      • I've enjoyed gigging, but I don't think I'd like to tour really. But why shouldn't I make a living selling music?
        ...
        ... Which is why I've skipped trying to make a living from music, and instead I'm a games programmer who makes music in his spare time.

        So it would be fair to say that copyright hasn't helped you make a living at 'art' then, no?
        Why argue to protect a system that already doesn't pay you anything?

        I'm going to go on a limb here, and suggest (without intending to offend, pretty much 100% of

        • I'm talking about me selling my music myself - no labels, no studios, not necessarily even copyright. But it sounds like people object to the act of selling any music, and just want me to support myself with gigs I couldn't play, and wouldn't necessarily want to if I could.

          That's the option that commoditised music totally removes from me. I'm left with the status quo, which is to make my music and release it for free. And work a day job which stops me creating as much as I'd like, which means the world has
          • I guess I have two follow-ups:
            No copyright law doesn't mean you could not sell your music. It would just be different than today.
            Couple of options:
            You have a site where you sell your music. Even without copyright a substantial number of people would buy it from you instead of looking for it 'for free'. iTunes is the proof.
            Alternately, you sell your music to a site, who then sells it. They will pay for the music because they get first-mover advantage.
            I'm sure that there are other ways art can be sold in
            • Good post, well reasoned. I agree with most of your points about the record industry too. Aren't we getting along well? :P

              But we do seem to be talking at cross purposes - my views have no real relation to copyright, or to the record industry. I'm more concerned with people and P2P, the way that free access to recorded music is increasingly seen as a right. In that context, it seems to me that the prevailing view is that paying for recorded music isn't going to happen anywhere near as much. So artists will b

              • Aren't we getting along well? :P

                no reason why not ... just a friendly discussion! :)

                I guess then what really needs to be a part of this conversation is what an adequate 'reward' or 'payment' there should be for creating work.

                Certainly what I (and many others here) don't agree with is being paid forever for working for one hour. Like the day-job you have, your creative work should be compensated on (in essence) an hourly wage.
                The current system pays $millions/hour to a select few, and basically doesn't

                • We're getting on well, but are still at cross purposes a bit:

                  I agree that copyright isn't necessary to make money from music. What *is* necessary though is the will of people to pay for recordings of music. That's what I think is slowly disappearing, mostly because of the actions of big labels and the emergence of P2P. And that's why I worry about the future of recorded music. Releasing things with Creative Commons licenses, or just releasing them and letting people do what they like, it's fine. But some me
          • "That's the option that commoditised music totally removes from me. I'm left with the status quo, which is to make my music and release it for free."

            To turn a hobby into a living you need more than just musical creativity. You have locked yourself into one business plan, ie: "I can't perform my mixing so I am left with selling recordings to distributors".

            To make money for yourself you need some creativity of the marketing and accounting kind, (gargggle, spit), even famous writers can't predict what ou
      • Because what you said it isn't true, at least not for all musicians. See, you have to separate the love of the art we have from our desirve to live a decent quality of life. Us musicians don't just want to make music for everyone's enjoyment, you see. Some of us want to eat as well!

        Take if from me (I own an Indie label).

        If you want to make a living from just CD sales and not bothering to make T-shirts and go on tours like most musicians... Well... You are horribly mistaken.

        We make more money on T-shirts and

  • Oh noes. (Score:5, Funny)

    by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @04:15AM (#15155608)
    CRIA me a river.

  • Why do they have so much power in the first place? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pimpimpim ( 811140 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @04:24AM (#15155626)
    Ok, it might be a bit naive, but for god's sake, this is an association of record labels. How come they have the right to decide about having a levy on cd's or not? Something went horribly wrong here...

    Now of course lobbying groups with lots of money get lots of stuff organized for themselves, but here it seems like all legislation concerning music-copyright is more or less directly taken over from the record companies. That's like taking all environmental legislation over from either greenpeace or chemical industry.

    I think the biggest mistakes are from the government of giving so much one-sided power to industry instead of being a representative of the people as they were actually chosen to be. Yeah, I know, reality is different, but it just still amazes me, maybe I'll get more desillusionized (reality-numbed) as I grow older.

    • Ok, it might be a bit naive, but for god's sake, this is an association of record labels. How come they have the right to decide about having a levy on cd's or not? Something went horribly wrong here...


      Personally I am glad they did the levy. Makes me happy as I can download to my heart's content. Now if I was someone who used CDs or DVDs for pure backup purposes then yeah I could see how that sucks.

    • I think the biggest mistakes are from the government of giving so much one-sided power to industry instead of being a representative of the people as they were actually chosen to be.

      But don't you know, that the corporations are people too, at least legally ? And richer and more powerfull people than you could ever hope to be. Virtually immortal, too. So why do you think that the government would side with a short-lived powerless real human being like you against the gods of capitalism ? Especialyl now,

      • So why do you think that the government would side with a short-lived powerless real human being like you against the gods of capitalism ? Especialyl now, when said entities are growing beyond any government by becoming international ?

        An individual may be short-lived and have very little money in comparison, but the PUBLIC as a whole far outstripes any corporation. In fact, far outstripes ALL corporations, combined.

        The media industry is unlike most others, in that it really can't be an off-shore entity. I

    • First the CRIA lobbies FOR the levy, and the personal copy provision. Ok, they get it. At first, a pain because most CDRs are used for data, and no one knew what "mp3" meant.

      But its in now. And the CRIA is now lobbying AGAINST it.

      This time, they lose. As Bulte shows, the "zealot users" will not tolerate the flip-flop.

      Ratboy
  • A note:

    A summary that says "the article explains it" is not very useful to me, or anyone really.

  • I actually agree with the CRIA on something.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by d_jedi ( 773213 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @05:08AM (#15155717)
    They want to get rid of the private copying levy. Well, hell.. that's been a long time coming.. especially since they were the ones who pushed for it in the first place.

    I agree with this sentiment, although for different reasons. Why the hell should I be paying a private (music) copying levy for a CD-R that I buy which will never contain any music?

    If this means that Canadians lose the legal right to download music on P2P sites, I think this is a fair compromise. After all, most of the P2P sites are crap nowadays, anyway.. infected with bogus files by the RIAA surrogates and "traffic shaped" by our ISPs.
    • Speak for yourself, if you know where to look, you can find all kinds of great music online via Bittorrent.

      I'd rather keep the levy, and continue with my legal music downloading.
      • then you aren't wholly within canadian law..

        it uploads too.
        • then you aren't wholly within canadian law..

          it uploads too.

          Yes, the law is completely moronic.

          They might as well make it legal to buy and own guns, but still illegal for anyone to SELL them, EVER.

          Same paradox.
      • At least one of the major Canadian ISPs (Rogers [rogers.com]) traffic shapes BitTorrent traffic. I tried grabbing the latest Fedora Core release from a very well-stocked torrent when it was released and got a max of around 2-12Kbytes/sec.

        Compare that to the 600K/sec I got downloading it via http from a mirror. Yay Rogers.

        I'm just glad I had an alternative for that particular data set.
        • You may have already tried this but since I'm a Rogers customer I thought I'd mention that setting BT on port 1720 still works (at least in my area - Ottawa).
          • Shaw cable does the same thing. Another thing that works is to use the new Azureus, and set it to require encrypted traffic (not exclusive). Then the packet contents aren't known, and the packet shaper is moot.

            I was limited to 20k/s on incoming data, 100k max even though I was paying the extra for their 'premium' service (6.7M total downpipe). They tried to tell me they don't limit traffic. Liars! I can get 200-600 k/s again on some torrents.

    • You're totally missing the point of the levy.

      The levy gives you the right to make private copies from any source.

      Go to your friend's house, borrow his CD collection and burn copies for yourself.

      That's legal.

      Record broadcast radio onto cassette for your own private listening later, that's legal too.

      Any private personal copying is legal in Canada and it was made possible because of this levy. Would you prefer to have it be illegal to make mix-tapes? It is in most Berne countries.
  • After extensive clicking through links, I think I have a vague idea of what's going on here. What I don't understand is why none of the sources offer a clear explanation of what has happened. They spend a lot of time discussing irrelevant details, but none giving information on the background of the story.

    It's incredibly cryptic, the way the links and stories are written. Reminds me of the way that blog comments are arranged in reverse chronological order. Incredibly annoying. To understand it, you need to

    • It's incredibly cryptic, the way the links and stories are written. Reminds me of the way that blog comments are arranged in reverse chronological order. Incredibly annoying. To understand it, you need to read the last link you click on first. WTF, people? How about writing for humans?

      Ummm ... have you noticed the stories on Slashdot are posted listed in reverse chronological order? How about Fark? How about most web-based e-mail?

      Have you noticed that most sites do that?

      The reason is, the newest stuff is

      • Have you noticed that most sites do that?

        Yes, and it usually sucks when you are talking about a story or comments. Have you noticed that slashdot comments are listed in chronological order? As for email, I don't know about you, but my email client lists things chronologically (or sorted by subject, if I choose). One of the reasons I dislike web-based email is reverse chronological order.

        I don't really care if most sites do that. One of the reasons I find the internet less useful these days is because of st

        • You are talking about completely different paradigms. Listing news headlines is very different to telling a story. Notice how the English language reads from top to bottom? Notice how stories usually start at the beginning?

          We are talking about discussing a single issue here - why is it unusual to expect a coherent way of arranging the information?

          In news, and factual reporting, you're often giving a summary at the front, with more background and analysis as you go further down. Think of the executive summa

  • is this little brouhaha not filtering to lawmakers pondering (more like currently burying) the "digital media consumer right's act" in congress?
  • As an organization that represents wealthy companies or groups, the CRIA is just doing what they believe they are being paid to do. They call it "protecting the rights of their members", but "protecting rights" actually translates to "maximizing proffits". They could realy care less about anyone's rights, their job is to make their members richer. There's really nothing wrong with that, it may not be a nice polite way to look at it, but that is their business model and that's ok.

    The problem I have with i

  • What I want to know is... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StringBlade ( 557322 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @07:18AM (#15156031) Journal
    What needs to occur to cause major U.S. record labels to break away from the RIAA in the same fashion?

    I can only see this as a Good Thing(TM), but it seems like the CRIA is a mere shadow of the RIAA in terms of power and influence over legislation and the industry itself.
  • Humm....I am not sure that I would call the Label that carries one of the most successful and well known Canadian Rock groups of all time Class B.
    Anthem records I wouldn't exactly say is a class B Label.
    UHHH...RUSH! http://www.rush.com/ [rush.com]

  • Nettwerk Records is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bloosqr ( 33593 ) on Wednesday April 19, 2006 @08:18AM (#15156275) Homepage
    I run a synth podcast show [bloosqr.com] and because of legal reasons have had many contacts w/ labels (me contacting them for permission, not them busting me) and I can not emphasize how cool the nettwerk label is :

    Check out their about [nettwerk.com] page :

    Nettwerk Music Group is Canada's leading privately owned record label and artist management company. Nettwerk is responsible for managing some of Canada's biggest artists like Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and many others. Nettwerk has several offices located around the world including offices in New York, Los Angeles and London; with our main office right next to Granville Island in Vancouver, B.C.


    Litigation is destructive, it must stop .... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not.

    Even the smaller indie labels have not taken a stand as strong as Nettwerk has. Nettwerk is indie, but they carry Sarah Maclachlan, Delerium, Avril Lavigne and bands of that size, so they aren't exactly small.

  • Stand back!

    (pausing)

    (waiting)

    (in suspense)

    (dead din of the silent air)

    When are we going to get the "other" Slashdot article on "RIAA is falling"?
  • Indies, make sure you join CIRAA [ciraa.ca].

    -b

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