When the elephants fight! RIAA vs.mp3.com

[shaggy]

The Motion Picture Industry spends three times per $1 million profit vs. the RIAA's million. Read this letter from mp3's Michael Robertson. http://www.mp3.com/response.html?cp=link1

[Bob Olhsson]

That three times figure is pure BS!

Yes, a tiny number of titles earn a great deal more per dollar invested than films do HOWEVER record companies have to release many many unsuccessful titles in order to discover those few huge hits. The sales per title INCLUDING the big hits are actually pathetic and many of us hope that the new owners of the record companies figure that out and begin looking for new talent again..

[shaggy]

Debate is good. Vince Cerf (co-father of TCP/IP protocol suite) talking about the future of the internet-to loosely paraphrase: " I see the entertainment industry absorbed by the internet- which will become the medium for delivery".

Most PT's users get the little money they make from TV & Film and that is why timecode is such a heated issue.

Where is the RIAA client money? Another new island for Richard Branson? Join the mile high club for only $6,000! Without sounding bitter: They are not going to start signing bands again. They have to go. I just don't know what to think about mp3.com. Another Goliath? Or a David?

[shaggy]

for Frank Senior; Did you know ASCAP and BMI are demanding double royalties from internet radio stations? One play from disc-another play from hard disc. That's what I mean. Maybe, just maybe, this might be good. Now. How do you really feel?

[JRogers]

I am not a signed artist. Mp3.com has given me on the average 12 hits a day on my bands site. I think it is great that anyone can put what they do for the public to hear (and buy) for free.

[editor]

Good topic, I agree that the ability to post your music on the net is a good thing. I also agree that the entertainment industry will be absorbed by the net. I also think that artists, producers and engineers should get paid for their efforts.

As far as the net absorbing all entertainment, for those of us who think ahead this could be a wind fall.......Although, I also think that the net will be absorbed by huge multi national corporations, the same guys who absorbed the record companies and america. They will continue to treat all of us with the same dis-regard they have treated us with for years; and whore us in every way possible to make a buck......artist and black smith alike.

[Frank Senior]

I'm a song writer.

I don't think charging double royalties on Internet radio stations is fair. I think INet stations should pay anual affiliation fees like all other broadcasters.
I agree that INet will become the dominant delivery mechanism for audio in the future. And I think the creators of that music should be paid.
OK. So maybe RIAA comes off like the establishment monolith that protects the old-fatguy-robber-barron labels, it doesn't matter. Unauthorized duplication is still stealing from the owner/creator.
Someone needs to make this point: if you use someone else's intelectual property for your own profit, you have to pay.

A personal note: aside from being a songwriter I'm also a fair musician and a truly lousy engineer (Laughter.) Not even qualified to swab out the loo. But hey, I keep reading this mystifying stuff on these boards, and I'm learning!

Keep those zinger posts coming, editor, shaggy, et. al.

[CCash]

I could spend all day at the mp3 site, or just ask...

How are the labels and artists (potentially) getting ripped off, at least any more than they are now with CD-Rs? After looking through some of the threads, I got the impression that you have to upload CD info directly from your CD in the drive?- to the site, at which point you have "approval" and access to said song(s)-- like storage, or a jukebox, (even though playback comes from their collection) right? If only YOU can access "your" songs via passwords or challenge/response, is there still a piracy threat?

Is there less hijacking with myplay.com (the other company) which the RIAA seems to support and requires you to upload the actual file? Seems it would be the same.

One client was thanking the co. for the sales and opportunities, then did a 180 and said she felt now that she was getting ripped-off. Is mp.com then streaming (broadcasting) this music for free or something?

Never did like the biz side of music.

[Paul Curtiz]

Hi Ccash !
The scary thing with MP3 is that you can download almost ANY record that's a current hit, just like that, for free (I am not even talking MP3.com, there are hundreds of sites out there - MP3.com at least tried to protect themselves legally by including some sort of bogus protection).
I didn't believe it when some friends told me, so I tried and trust me, there are people out there who put the top 100 on line just like that. Download the mp3, convert it to wav format, and burn your CD. Granted, the result is not as good as the original CD, but it's pretty damn close and most people won't hear any difference. The catch is that to get to the site that lets you download you have to "machete" your way through a jungle of advertisements pop ups, and I guess that's how they make their money.

I am a recording artist (small scale, small scale) and in Belgium, it's a real struggle to get hold of your performing rights (meaning radio/tv airplay). One national company has the monopoly over the situation and they have a hard time working a computer (the employees call it "the video system"), let alone get a hold of your foreign airplay rights or understanding the mp3 biz. I'm sure Oasis, Mariah carey and Britney Spears won't notice the difference on their bank accounts, but if you are an artist and this is your first crack at commercial success, you're going to miss out on sales or performing rights here, meaning you'll have that less money to invest into your next recording, that long awaited mansion in the hills or the Ferrari. And it's YOUR money ! You have worked for this and you are entitled to it (so do Oasis, Mariah Carey and the other one).

You can't stop things from moving on, and I'm convinced that we WILL buy our music from the internet in the very near future. But there's got to be some control of this.

I feel nobody is allowed to use my music for commercial purposes unless my record company or myself have agreed to.

I'm taking this a to a furher analogy : let's say you write a song, and some corporation (let's say Digidesign) uses it for a tv commercial promoting their new "TC ruler feature". They don't ask you and have no intention of paying you for the use of your song. Would you be happy ?

(Nothing personal Ccash, just letting the thoughts flow here). (Nothing personal Digi, just joking).

The one good thing about our Belgian national performing rights company is their motto : "performing rights are the artist's salary". They got that right !

Cheers



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Paul Curtiz / Scratch Studio

[CCash]

Oohhh. So it IS that bad. I try not to spend too much time on this darned thing, so I only surf in the shallow end. Except for this damn user conference. How did I get by without it??

I liked the Furher analogy- hilarious. And yeah, I'd be fierce if my song popped up on a commercial and I didn't know/get compensated for it. But geeeez, I thought that's why we had a legal system. You'd win, if you knew about it - mechanical copyright laws.

But the Internet is a whole nuther ball o' wax. Plus, in your home country, the Franhofer Institute- the main developers of MP codecs, are ready for AAC (Advanced Audio Coding). Sample frequencies up to 96kHz and can do multichannel- up to 48 tracks! depending on the capacity of the network. Good or bad thing? Both I guess. MPEG4 is being developed as well.

On the security side, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), is a think-tank that will determine the next big "standard" and will then implement some type of watermarking scheme (it may end up just being MP3s) for copy protection. Right now they're just kind of watching things develop. As soon as the hackers bust that up, they hope by then they'll have a whole slew of simultaneous encoding protection schemes being used - to keep the bandits on their toes.

BTW, This all came from Recording, Dec `99.