Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits

Well, it's about time... the lawsuits haven't work..

interesting, this comes just days after Saddam Hussein's spokesman admitted the US did successfully invade Iraq in 2003.

Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits - WSJ.com [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Mistrial for RIAA's $222,000 defendant

This is great... the "make available" argument was bogus to begin with.

Mistrial for RIAA's $222,000 defendant | Politics and Law - CNET News

A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the verdict against Jammie Thomas, the peer-to-peer network user ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 for allegedly sharing music online.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis of Duluth, Minn., declared a mistrial in the case against Thomas, who was charged in October with violating copyright law by making 24 songs available for others to download on the Kazaa network.

Davis set aside the verdict on the grounds that he misguided the jury, telling jurors that simply the act of making a copyrighted song available for sharing amounts to infringement. The judge first indicated in May that he was considering granting a new trial.

In June, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other consumer and industry groups weighed in, also claiming the jury instructions were erroneous.

The Recording Industry Association of America argued that the jury instructions were valid.

"Requiring proof of actual transfers would cripple efforts to enforce copyright owners' rights online--and would solely benefit those who seek to freeload off plaintiff's investment," RIAA attorney Timothy Reynolds wrote in a court filing.

Thomas is the only individual charged with copyright infringement by the RIAA who has taken her case to trial.

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DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD

This should have been "legal" years ago... And while this is a good first step, it still has a long ways to go. Paying more money to watch your movies on other PC is silly, only being able to rip the movie "uncompressed" is lame.

And the whole idea of having to pay for the right to copy and watch your own DVD's is just silly....


DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD | Crave, the gadget blog - CNET [This Post Continues after the jump...]

The online music rip-off and the failure of DRM

PC Pro: Blogs & Analysis: Features: The online music rip-off [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Apparently, one third of us have been copying DVDs

WOW, one third!

I didn't realize it was so high since there is no legal software for doing it. But a lot of th is has to be legitimate DVD copies of legally owned DVDs. I mean do the studios realize what the expected life time of a DVD is in the hands of a 6 year old? Or when left in a hot car for use on the road.

Not using (and not allowing us to make) homemade backup copies of movies in this case is just silly.

Also, my biggest pet peeve is that my bedroom TV is an old VCR/TV comb. I have a DVD connected but the silly Macrovission analog copy protection makes the color and brightness look awful. (as If I would want a VHS copy of a DVD anyways!!!) So I have to make backup copes just to disable that.

So I hope they don't consider this 1/3 number to just be people that copy DVD's they don't really own. Some of us still buy them and just use copies in certain situations to keep them safe.


Apparently, one third of us have been copying DVDs! | Crave, the gadget blog - CNET [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Digital TV foreshadows erosion of Internet rights

Ahead of the Curve | Tom Yager | InfoWorld | Digital TV foreshadows erosion of Internet rights | June 18, 2008 03:00 AM | Tom Yager [This Post Continues after the jump...]

NBC admits "inadvertent" broadcast flag use

NBC admits "inadvertent" broadcast flag use, still doesn't explain why it actually worked - Engadget HD

This is why this "flag" was a bad idea to begin with. MS should release a patch to disable this.. but they won't... [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Neither Intellectual, Nor Property

I don't have time to comment on this, but I agree whole heartedly. The limitations of physical objects just do not apply to ideas or anything that can be stored in a digital file these days.

Techdirt: If Intellectual Property Is Neither Intellectual, Nor Property, What Is It? [This Post Continues after the jump...]

DRM-Free Music Spells Trouble

I could not DISAGREE more with this.

DRM is a form of control AFTER the sell. What other products to producers still control AFTER they sell it to you? Does FORD limit where I can drive my car? No! Then why should a movie studio limit which laptop or PMP I watch a movie on (after I paid for it). DRM is an artificial control placed on digital media and I'm happy to see it go.

This doesn't spell trouble, it spells flexibility. But it does it spells the end of high profits from selling low cost copies of music and movies. Ford would love to spend millions designing a new car, but mass produce copies of the car for $500 while selling them for 20 thousand dollars each. The days of selling a CD or DVD for over $20 when it only costs 50 cents to make are over. Movies were invented when the only way to make money from them was from the box office, now they make more money on DVD sales. But have the prices at the box office gone down any? I dont' think they will go out of business if the insanely high DVD profit goes away.

The idea that it is OK to make 4000% profit on selling a plastic disk is dead. Movies will have to make their money in the movie theater, singers and performers will have to make their money at the concert hall. They will still make some profit off of DVD and CD sells (or whatever medium replaces them including downloads) but the cost of these will be much closer to the actual cost to make the discs than it is now. And this is a GOOD THING, not trouble.

DRM-Free Music Spells Trouble: Digitization - Columns by PC Magazine

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/4663/drm-free_music_spells [This Post Continues after the jump...]

The RIAA speaks--and it gets worse

All I can say to the RIAA, is that it is better to remain silent and have the world think you a fool.... than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!!

The RIAA speaks--and it gets worse | The Digital Home - Don Reisinger's take on the tech closest to home - CNET Blogs [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Recording industry should brace for more bad news

Recording industry should brace for more bad news | Perspectives | CNET News.com
By Wayne Rosso
Story last modified Wed Jan 16 16:51:02 PST 2008

The recording industry is facing yet more bad news.

Forget about Warner Music Group's plummeting stock price, or the shrinking retail floor space. Forget about EMI's announcement this week that it's cutting 1,500 to 2,000 jobs. At least the new owners of EMI are recognizing that they bought into a dead industry and are trying to confront it head-on with significant changes in business strategy. It remains to be seen if the suits who now own EMI can navigate the shark-infested waters of a business that feeds on schadenfreude.

The big problem that EMI, and by extension the rest of the industry, faces is the sudden stampede of brand-name artists away from the traditional recording companies. The Eagles are with Wal-Mart, Madonna left Warner for Live Nation, a concert promotion company. EMI has lost Paul McCartney and Radiohead, and Coldplay is said to be threatening to leave. Last week, the label's biggest seller, Robbie Williams, announced that he too would be leaving the label. All pretty devastating.

Record companies have always depended on the revenue and cash flow generated from platinum-selling artists to finance new talent. If that revenue stream disappears, how can they compete?
The case of Robbie Williams is very interesting and will probably be studied in business schools for years to come.

The case of Robbie Williams is very interesting and will probably be studied in business schools for years to come. Williams' managers, Tim Clark and David Enthoven of IE Music, are two of the most savvy, straight-shooting entrepreneurs in the business. They worked diligently to build Williams into a global superstar and then broke industry tradition by virtually creating a new music industry model, the 360 deal. They formed a joint venture between Robbie and EMI. For 80 million pounds ($157 million), EMI got a minority stake in the venture, which included all of the revenue that Williams generates--concerts, record sales, merchandising, sponsorships.

At the time, EMI was assailed for being a sucker, but the reality is that it made a great deal and it has more than paid off. This model has since been duplicated by Linkin Park, Madonna, and several other artists. It has become the rage du jour in record label business affairs departments and hailed as the model that will save the business.

But what Clark and Enthoven realize is that the point in time has come where major artists can do it themselves. First you had the Radiohead experiment. The band has been criticized by industry and media types for botching it and leaving a lot of money on the table. The important issue is that Radiohead made a bold first step, no matter how successful it was. Now artists like Williams can take full control of their assets, and enlightened managers like Clark and Enthoven can implement groundbreaking models that heretofore have been stymied by old-school thinking.

If you're a big enough star, you just don't need a record label anymore. In fact, even if you're an unknown, Clark and Enthoven have shown that you don't need a major record company behind you to be successful. Backed with money from London-based venture firm Ingenious, they just made a deal for a new singer named Sia with Starbucks. The Sia record will enter the charts in the Top 40 in its first week of release.

I don't know if Williams will sign with another record label or not. I really doubt it. The bottom line is that music has lost its economic value to consumers. But it still has emotional value. People will never stop listening to music. They've just stopped paying for it. So the challenge comes in figuring out how to capitalize on that emotional value. There are lots of ways to do that and guys like Williams, Clark, and Enthoven are sure to find them and transform the landscape.


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A Music Tax

This sounds like the CD tax Canada has. Since CD could be used to copy music, the music idustry gets a cut of EVERY CD sold.

Great idea if you're the Music Industry, but silly otherwise.

The Music Industry’s Last Stand Will Be A Music Tax [This Post Continues after the jump...]

RIAA suing citizen for copying legally purchased CDs to PC

See... I told you so....

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use

RIAA suing citizen for copying legally purchased CDs to PC - Engadget

I've heard that this may be a misterpretation, that the RIAA is suing the guy for copying the music AND putting in a folder that was "shared" via a P2P program (not just "shared" on a local network like the "my shared music" folder on a PC)

However, the story is still alive and well on the internet, and anything that is bad press for the RIAA is good for everyone else.


** UPDATE **

Ok, the gig is up.... the RIAA stops short of stating it believes "personal" use copies are fully legal, but nothing in any RIAA lawsuit actually charges someone with making personal copies on a PC or iPod.

Not that they don't want to, and some record companies have in the past said ripping a CD was infringement, but the RIAA is smart enough to give up on that issue. They're assholes, not idiots.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9839897-1.html



** CORRECTION **

The WashingtonPost Issues an official correction. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized

This is ridiculous....

Slashdot | RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized: "'It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies... Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the '.mp3' format for his and his wife's use... Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs' recordings into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies...''"


and makes this all the more scary.. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Copyright Police

Congress' copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend money

Before you think this only applies to the "real pirates" who profit from copyright violation, keep in mind that many people think coping a CD to a PC is a copyright violation, and this new law would allow police to take your PC just for that reason.

More Here... Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer
(http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/10/1522241)
Note that you do not have to be found guilty of ANYTHING to permanently loose your PC.

and Here [This Post Continues after the jump...]

How Much Do You Infringe On A Daily Basis?

Techdirt: The Infringement Age: How Much Do You Infringe On A Daily Basis?

Here are some examples...

• Replying to an email with quoted text? Infringement!
• Reply to 20 emails? You're looking at $3 million in statutory damages.
• Doodle a sketch of a building? Unauthorized derivative work.
• Read a poem outloud? Unauthorized performance.
• Forward a photograph that a friend took? Infringement!
• Take a short film of a birthday dinner with some friends and catch some artwork on the wall in the background? Infringement!

and my own....

• Video your child's birthday party with the radio playing in the back-ground. Infringement!
• Copy music from CD's you own to your iPod. Infringement
• Use a song on a DVD showing you childhood photos - Infringement
• Video tape you daughters dance recital - Infringement
• Sing a song in the shower - Unauthorized performance
• Copy a DVD you own to take on vacation with a portable player - Infringement
• My Favorite, post the above list to my blog -- INFRINGEMENT !!

The cost for all of this? (not including my examples)

All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million [plus possible criminal charges]

Here is a link to the Actual Paper. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

Laughing at the music industry!

Who else is laughing at the music industry? | Crave : The gadget blog:

"Warner, I appreciate your attempt to try to make amends, but actions speak louder than words. Call me when you strip DRM from songs, denounce the RIAA and lose the greed."

This is great!! I LOVE Apple, if only because they are doing to the Music Industry what the Music Industry did (and is doing) to artist (singers, song writers, performers, bands, etc). Apple dictates the rules to the labels the same way the labels dictate the rules to the artist, and Apple takes a cut of the profit the same way. The labels all HATE it, but it's just a taste of their own medicine!!

Of course this means that Apple is as evil and greedy as the labels... but that's beside the point! Eventually even Apple will become a useless middleman too.

UPDATE:
Here's more on what I think is the same speech. [This Post Continues after the jump...]

DVD Ripping Faces Another Test

Argh... why is Hollywood so bent on protecting an encryption scheme that has been cracked already. The cats out of the bag already people!! If you don't support legal means of putting movies on a jukebox or computer, people will just use other means.

Changing the CCA license will

- do NOTHING to stop piracy.
- put an innovative company out of business.
- give the people that pay for DVD's less choices.
- prove that Hollywood believes there is (or should be) no such thing as "fair use"


It's ridiculous


- DVD Ripping Faces Another Test - News and Analysis by PC Magazine [This Post Continues after the jump...]

$3 DVDs in China

Paramount and Warner Bros. market $3 DVDs in China:

Well, all I can say is THANK YOU pirates. This proves that piracy is a GOOD thing for us customers.
DVD's are too expensive, why do they cost $15-$20 here in the US if $3 still makes a profit? It's pure profiteering by the movie studios an makes there ridiculous claims of loosing "millions of dollars" to pirate all the more silly.

Now if they would just wise up and lower US prices too!! [This Post Continues after the jump...]

MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed

When will people learn.

If you buy something with DRM, you're not really "buying "it no matter what the price, or official "terms".
You are essentially "renting" it and they can "evict" you at any time, for any reason.

Slashdot | MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed

also at ..Baseball's DRM change strikes

Last year, the US Copyright Office considered—and then rejected—an exception to the DMCA that would give consumers in this sort of predicament some recourse. Under the proposed exception, those stuck with busted DRM schemes would have had the right to bypass the DRM. As it stands instead, paying customers are at the whims of content providers and whatever DRM clearinghouse they happen to be using at the time. It's no wonder so many sports fan turn to BitTorrent for game footage.

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