Canadian Music Stars Fight Against DRM 506
An anonymous reader writes "Some of Canada's best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah
McLachlin, Sum 41, and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition.
The artists say in a press
release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and
DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop
claiming that they represent their views."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
4 words buddy.
Britney Spears and nSync
Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well duh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to talk about f*cked up.... The conclusion I came to was that the public were the only losers... to the tune of a ridiculous sum of money.
Of course, we won't even bring up the rather odd discrepancies in counting resulting from Diebold Systems
Re:well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether you beleive it or not isn't the issue. The issue is that we shouldn't have to take it on FAITH that the voting process isn't being screwed with with those machines.
No democracy is safe from tampering if the voting process isn't open, if the voters can't be genuinely assured their votes are being counted properly. Otherwise the whole thing is a farce. Even if the "mistakes" were "in
Re:well duh (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd have to apply that to most slashdot posters also. DRM just 'feels' wrong, though if it is only stopping you from doing something illegal, then really it's not bad. Giving other people music which they've not bought is wrong, though I and many people do it sometimes.. I dont think DRM should have to be necessary though, and I dont have a problem wit
Re:well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
That is really beside the point. The fact that they make wholesale tampering so much easier and so less traceable. When Diebold comes in and "upgrades" the machines with un-certified code before an election, they could really hand the election to whomever they wanted. Is this a good situation as long as they hand the election to the highest bidder or the candidate least likely to re
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
The Partridge Family. Full House. Mini Pops. Ricky Martin. Bob Barker. Fox News. Everybody loves Raymond. McDonalds. American Idol. Oprah (and Dr. Phil). Paris Hilton. That Kato guy. The list goes on
We exported Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne to see if you'd get the joke. People keep buying tickets, so apparently not.
Oh, and BTW, you can keep Howie Mandell and Alex Trebeck too. We want Shatner back though.
Re:well duh (Score:5, Funny)
And you can have Shatner back if we can keep Evangeline Lilly and Elisha Cuthbert. Deal?
Bob Barker?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, if we could get Bob Barker, William Shatner, Pat Sajack, and Richard Dawson in a tag-team, caged death match... That would be worth paying to see. :)
For once (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For once (Score:2, Funny)
Re:For once (Score:2)
Re:For once (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, Quebe-what?
Oh, I slay myself.
Re:For once (Score:5, Informative)
HTH. HAND.
Dlugar
Re:For once (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For once (Score:2)
I can't say the same thing about Quebec.. a lot of people refuse to speak English and they're fucking rude about it. Even in Montreal there is a snidey attit
Re:For once (Score:2, Funny)
Quebec has a chip on its shoulder (Score:3, Interesting)
The Quebec people need to take a downer! And Quebecers need to realize that the union they seek a'la EU would actually take away rights that they have now. The EU looks like a rag-tag bunch of countries, but in fact there are many c
Re:For once (Score:2)
Serious question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Serious question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Serious question (Score:2, Insightful)
My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
However my guess would be that it is something along the lines of
Re:My first guess. (Score:5, Insightful)
First: most of those artists are either on the Nettwerk label (McLachlan) or are managed or co-managed by Nettwerk (LaVigne, BNL, McLachlan, Raine Maida, Kreviazuk, Sum41). That makes it pretty obvious that two things are actually happening:
1) The artists, while feeling pretty hosed about how much rampant downloading is still going on, are not so hard-hit by that action that they feel outraged.
2) They do actually have some say about this since they are money-making artists on predominantly major-distributed labels.
I think that second point is key. Every major label artist, by that I mean one signed directly to an international major label, featuring international mass distribution, has either remained silent about this issue or has been so outspoken against downloading in particular that they've greatly damaged their fanbase ([cough]Metallica[/cough].)
Yes, most of these artists are on independent labels (biggest exceptions: Lavigne is on Arista, BNL are on Warner.) However that does not exclude them from major international distributorship (Nettwerk is distributed by EMI. Sloan is distributed by Sony / BMG. Most of the others have major distributors for their releases.) Whether you like Avril Lavigne's music or not, she is a top-five-selling artist who has joined this group of artists to make it known: she still doesn't agree with the tactics her major label is claiming to represent by suing her fans.
If it were a smaller artist - say: Harvey Danger, who actually allowed full on torrent files of their album to be released with no restrictions whatsoever last year - the attention payed to that motive is slight, and the response is usually "Big deal, who's heard of them? What difference will that make?"
I get the feeling that this is more likely a management / publishing mandate, with some artist buy-in. Nettwerk also handles or has a great deal to say about the publishing for all of these artists.
Interesting development. Maybe we'll finally get the music industry that consumers actually want, instead of this cat and mouse crap. Anything that goes a step or two towards evening the playing field when it comes to this industry is definitely a good thing. The last thing we need (which we have now) is another five Nickelbacks getting mass airplay on radio and then hearing them and their label and agents complaining that sales are down strictly because of downloading.
ad
Piracy = Live Music. Lots of it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Serious question (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Serious question (Score:2, Interesting)
Jebus...did you read the article? Did you read the part about how they say that the record company does not represent their interests??
Jesse Cook had the same problem. "Nomad" was released with full DRM bullshit without his knowledge or consent. His official forum was
Re:Serious question (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Serious question (Score:2)
Re:Serious question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious question (Score:3, Informative)
Overwhelmingly, performance rights are covered by venues licensing repertory catalogs from publishers such as ASCAP. If you are in a band, and you do cover tunes at the local club, it's covered by such a blanket lic
repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Canada's low gun ownership rate will make the occupation much easier.
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Informative)
AMERICA FTW! (Score:5, Funny)
Canadians fleeing to the recycling station with shitty American beer cans in hand will be easy picking off by our highly skilled red neck population. While our gansta/thug population might be a little questionable in their aim, they will make up for it with round output and shear enthusiasm at being given the chance to bust a cap in yo cracker ass. To the Canadians defense though, our skinny white guy wanna be rappers from the 'burbs will likely take out a few Americans as they hold guns bigger then their head sideways and shoot like fucking retards.
We will send then send in the upper middle suburban punks dressed in 200+ dollar outfits of pre-ripped black jeans, black shirts with an obscure band on it, and metal studs randomly glued on to their clothing to clean up the mess. They will hunt down the surviving Canadians in a desperate attempt to retrieve the empty cans of shitty American beer in the hopes of draining the last drops of swill that might be left at the bottom of the can. The wrist scarred (across the street style, not down the highway) teenaged girls , feminine teenaged guys, and sketchy 40 year old men goths at that point will come out to add insult to injury by read shitty poetry about death and try to one up each other by doing grotesque things to the corpses.
Have no fear though, us Americans are not without compassion and mercy. We will blast some shitty (is there any other type?) emo music over the battlefield and send the emo kids out. They will promptly start to cry. True, they are crying at the memory of their long lost sixth grade girlfriend and lamenting at the difficulty of their inhumanly difficult life living in suburban America, but we can pretend they are crying for lost Canadian souls.
Oh hell, what is a little karma. At least I amuse myself.
Re:AMERICA FTW! : CANADIAN RESPONSE (Score:5, Funny)
The mere sight of crappy American beer cans {empty or not} brings out the deeply cherished Canadian Hockey Fan in every person who has spent at least one hockey season in Canada.
Sticks will appear {seemingly from nowhere}, pucks will fly faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a speeding locomotive {yeah the big "S" was invented in Canada}, and to add insult to injury skate blades will be used to run over your multitudes, twitching, soon to be remains.
After this induced frenzy has calmed, we Canadains will then politley bandaged any surviving Americans {not many}, administer Tim Horton's coffee and donuts to stablize them, and return them to their home state for medical care.
On the bright side though, the American emo kids will still be there to cry over your remains - primarily because we Canadains are polite and so don't pick on the whiners. Oh that and we'll need the emo kids to carry the empty American beer cans back across the border!
Both your and my karma are now rapidly dropping, but at least you amused me!
Re:repeat in america please.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not a week goes by that I don't have to defend my igloo against a polar bear attack!
It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last album (Score:5, Interesting)
Just last week I saw the Sarah McLachlan DVD and thought, "stupid drm" and not about the artist. I will force myself to see her in a better light now, but if she's not touring near me, I can't exactly give her the money I want to (by buying her material) because although she's going the right away about things _now_, her cds on the shelf are still DRMed.
In the end I was forced to I download Afterglow. I became a pirate because I couldnt experience the music on my, and on my creative zen.
For an artist I discovered via napster a long time ago, this sure does suck. Are they trying to lock me out of the market, or really fence us into a no-rip-no-choice era? Either way I see it, when I can't use WhateverAMP and my mp3 player, they've lost me as a customer.
Matt
Legal Download (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last albu (Score:3, Insightful)
returned the product and pirated it instead.
That's funny, because you could also just as well have pirated it without returning the product - that way you'd still be supporting the artist (in a very small way, and yes - you'd also be supporting the label, the drm guys, the shop owner, the guy driving the truck with packages of CDs/DVDs, etc.). All in all, though, n
Re:It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last albu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a shame its too late for Sarah's last albu (Score:5, Informative)
As a previous poster already pointed out, Nettwerk's own Werkshop [werkshop.com] sells unencumbered MP3s for $0.99 per track, or $9.99 per album. Lossless FLACs are also available for $10.99 per album and, in some cases, $1.09 per track.
They also sell the Canadian, Nettwerk releases of her CDs, which carry no DRM.
Missing Artist (Score:3, Funny)
Yet there is no mention of Bryan Adams.
What kind of a hoax is this?
Re:Missing Artist (Score:5, Funny)
"Piracy" is good for the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, like RMS, I hate applying the term "piracy" to non-commercial copyright violations, so I won't use that term. Instead, I'll call it what it is, unauthorized copying.
Unauthorized copying is to the RIAA what "terrorism" is to the Bush Adminstration, namely, a scapegoat and a straw man argument with which to justify draconian legislation and to garner (barely) sufficient public support for any new legislation favoured by both institutions.
As the Bush Adminstration maintains the conditions (ex: War on Iraq) to indirectly promote terrorism, it justifies renewing the Patriot Act on the basis that it will "help stop terrorism". To make a blatantly obvious statement, the goal of the Patriot Act does not in any way, shape, or form have anything whatsoever to do with stop terrorists, but is instead intended to grant the government the ability to further spy on and control its citizens.
In the same vein, I believe that the RIAA wishes to maintain a certain level of unauthorized copying because it will allow them to justify legislation such as the DMCA and the broadcast flag. The goal of such legislation is not to eliminate or even substantially reduce unauthorized copying, but to maintain control over the industry and keep out fledging competitors, such as independent artists who would have otherwise been promoted through P2P, and to maintain their antiquated business models, which for all intents and purposes should have become obsolete.
So, it's all an elaborate shell game on their part.
They don't believe so strongly as to walk away... (Score:2, Interesting)
Several of Sarah McLachlan's CDs are DRM'd:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php [eff.org]
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~freeculture/wiki/index.php
(data unavailable for the other members, but it wouldn't surprise me), and almost all (Broken Social Scene and possibly a couple others being exceptions) are currently signed to RIAA/CRIA member labels. Most have released albums with those labels in the last couple years - i.e., since the campaign of lawsuits started.
Put yo
Re:They don't believe so strongly as to walk away. (Score:2, Informative)
And there's no sign of DRM on 2004's Barenaked For The Holidays. That's the album that was re-released on a USB key full of DRM unencumbered (but still lossy) MP3s last year...
If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Funny)
"But we would download torrents! In fact, we'd just download more!"
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of the lyrics of the song are:
If I had $1,000,000, we wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner (aka macaroni and cheese)
But we would still eat Kraft Dinner, we'd just eat more
The only thing Canadian about it is the term "Kraft Dinner". AFAIK, macaroni and cheese is generically refered to as Kraft Dinner there.
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:5, Informative)
On a side note, Kraft dinners have many attributes, but tasting good isn't one of them. Mind you, they can serve as great thermal insulator for your garage.
what? (Score:2)
Obscure? The summary lists the Barenaked Ladies. The post's subject is the name of a famous song of theirs. It doesn't get more obvious than that...
Re:what? (Score:2)
Re:If I had a million dollars... (Score:2, Informative)
TITLE: If I Had a Million Dollars
If I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a house - I would buy you a house
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
I'd buy you furniture for your house - maybe a nice chesterfield or an ottoman
And if I had a million dollars - if I had a million dollars
Well, I'd buy you a K-Car - a nice Reliant automobile
And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love
If I had a million dollars
I'd build a tree fort in o
Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Record companies smarter than they seem (Score:4, Informative)
addDRM(music);
switch (whatHappensAfter) {
case "piracy goes down":
println("See?! We TOLD you the evil pirates were stealing! DRM works!");
break;
case "piracy goes up":
println("Ahh! They're stealing more to spite us! This is war!");
break;
case "piracy stays the same":
println("Those filthy pirates will steal no matter what we do! We must make the DRM stronger!");
break;
}
addMoreDRM(music,movies,television,software);
money++;
Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:3, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm [wikipedia.org]
Cheers
Re:Not suprising from Avril Lavigne... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, I was. You didn't get the joke. Next time, read the rest of the post, and check for sarcasm.
Convictions that Rock (Score:3, Informative)
On DRM: "Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice."
On P2P file sharing: "Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates. Sharing music has been happening for decades."
On DMCA "the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act is one of the world's most draconian pieces of intellectual-property law."
On Lawsuits: "Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical. We do not want to sue our fans. The labels have been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names."
Members include: Sum 41, Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Our Lady Peace and Sloan to name a few.
Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks like at least a few artists have come to realize that the music industry cartel's stand on DRM is not helpful to artists. If they can get more artists on the bandwagon, they may be able to influence the debate. It's a helluva lot more difficult for the labels to convince people that DRM "helps artists" when the artists themselves are against it.
Re:Excellent news (Score:3, Insightful)
Broken Social Scene - their action (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually bought the copy-protected one (which wasn't labeled as such) and the label offered to replace it. HMV wouldn't.
Argh - the link (Score:2)
[Hero] (Score:2)
Barenaked ladies changing foot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Barenaked ladies changing foot? (Score:3, Funny)
Bwahahaha, leave it to pirates to illegally remix an antipiracy track
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:5, Informative)
The Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson also wades in with, "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music."
So at least one of them is against sharing/downloading.
Re:Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:3, Interesting)
The press release names Steven Page (the other lead singer of BNL) as the contact, so I think this is actually their baby.
Re:Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:2)
That article was dated the 12th of May, 2004, perhaps he has changed his mind since then.
Re:Hypocrisy with Barenaked Ladies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, they could all be against sharing and downloading: nothing in their stance says "we think it's OK for you to download music without paying for it." What they've said is that they think the RIAA lawsuits are wrong, which is a totally separate issue from whether you think downloading music is morally wrong or right in the first place.
You can still be an artist, and dislike it when people steal your music, but think that the RIAA has gone way too far. Likewise, I'm against shoplifting but I wouldn't want them to start chopping people's hands off for it; I can be against chopping people's hands off and still be "anti shoplifting."
The black and white attitude where anyone who's anti-RIAA or anti-lawsuits is automatically pro-filesharing is just what the RIAA would like you to believe. It's an automatic "with us or against us." I'm not necessarily saying that you said that, but I think a lot of people make that assumption and I was just taking your comment as an opportunity to clear it up.
Just because somebody hates the RIAA/MPAA doesn't mean they think it's necessarily right to just go on Kazaa/BitTorrent and download stuff without somehow compensating the artists for it.
Mod parent up. (Score:3, Interesting)
write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
Proud to be a Canadian today.
P.S. I especially like what's on their front page as the #1 bullet:
1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Well duh?! When was that last time you saw a successful business model where you sue the pants out of your customers?
Re:write to them and say thank you (Score:5, Funny)
Well if you were in the business of selling more pants
Re:write to them and say thank you (Score:3, Interesting)
It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it depends on your measure of success.
The litigious bastards still exist - years after they should have died a horrible death. Their stock price has actually increased by 20% in the last six months (from roughly $4 to $5 per share); 40% if you measure the extremes of the price range for the same period. Their legal action against IBM is still grinding its way through the court system despite little, if any, sign of having a case. Th
Avril Lavigne? Sum 41? (Score:5, Funny)
Still a little confused (Score:2)
Then they say most Canadian artists are on independent labels. If you are not with them they can't do anything in YOUR name.
oh well, at least saying something is good as there's too much noise on the other side
Canada: Indie Music Explosion (Score:4, Interesting)
And you know what we're filling them with? Some of the most popular bands among my friends have been The Arcade Fire [arcadefire.com], Death From Above 1979 [deathfromabove1979.com], Controller Controllor, Broken Social Scene, Hawksley Workman [hawksleyworkman.com], Joel Plaskett Emergency [joelplaskett.com], Jimmy Swift Band [thejimmyswiftband.com], Matt Mays [mattmays.com], and countless others. Many of them allow their live shows to be traded on etree [etree.org].
You want to know why these groups are popular? They tour a lot, play a lot of gigs, put on great live shows and are overall in it for the music and the fans. We've identified with the artists that put the music before the money and appreciate the innovative sounds and artistic views that they bring.
The true Canadian music scene is alive and prospering already without the help of the major music labels, with or without all their evil tactics. Anyway, at the very least, just check out these bands!
Same Group of Do-Gooders... (Score:5, Informative)
None of the major labels would dare utter sacrilege like this. But to be fair, in Canada even the Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is not as virulent as it's ugly cousin to the south. They moderate their message somewhat with more honesty, for example recently releaseing a study [michaelgeist.ca] showing:
CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services.
(words of Prof. Michael Geist, University of Ottawa)
Barenaked Ladies - Tech Savvy guys (Score:4, Interesting)
CRIA and RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Just getting back from Asia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just getting back from Asia (Score:3, Informative)
False.
Common consumer CD-R and DVD-R hardware often run into a number of limitations, as they are only designed to burn "proper" within-the-specification disks... and those limitations and specification compliances are then used as the basis of DRM schemes, but hardware for pressing CDs and DVDs (as opposed to CD-Rs and DVD-Rs) are perfectly capable of pressing any possible bit pattern. That can and do produce a perfect bit-for-bit copy of anything.
-
Bout time, I like the speeding ticket idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin (Score:5, Funny)
No need to post as AC to admit that. Now, if you'd said Gordon Lightfoot and Bryan Adams on the other hand...
Re:Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin (Score:3, Informative)
yikes.
Gordon Lightfoot did the worse thing for his song that anyone could do. He bequethed it to the famil members of the men that dies.
So now to get permission to use it, you half to tlak to dozens of people abut the worse day of their lives. Effectivly locking it up.
Re:Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin (Score:2)
Wow, that represents about 80% of my beat-off fantasy time right there.
really? [gov.bc.ca]
Re:That just shows (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know anything about the person or her music, but that name always sounds like a feminine hygiene product to me.
Re:Correction (Score:2, Informative)
Shows how much you know. Avril Lavigne didn't even release her first album until 2002...
Re:Publicity stunt (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't about convincing the labels. It'sz about ensuring that the government hears the other viewpoint.
No it's not (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah that's a good idea... these people Sarah McLaghlan, the Barenaked Ladies, and others could start a label and call it Nettwerk [nettwerk.com] or something. Except it seems like some other chick names Sarah McLachlan and some other band called the Barenaked Ladies already did.
Re:Effectiveness of measures (Score:3, Informative)
So where does it have the intended effect again?