RIAA

[StigTC]

A pretty long article from The Inquirer about the RIAA.
Pretty interesting stuff.
Linkage.

[Zero Alpha]

The way the RIAA were running about enforcing copywright i had automaticaly assumed they were a USA legal watchdog. I was very supprised to find in this article that they arnt, as this means they have been breaking all kinds of laws! for starters breaking into computer systems, even if its to try to enforce the law, is still illegal if done by anyone other than cops. creating programs to freeze your computer or delete files is technicaly virus creation, which is also illegal. im sure there are countless privacy laws broken, and computer crimes commited by the RIAA, so it ought to be time to stamp on them. any company with this kind of vigilanteism and flagrant disregard for the law needs to be stopped.

[ 05-09-2003, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: Zero Alpha ]

[WillowIX]

I must say I did not find this article very enlightening. It was as biased as the RIAA surveys. However, the link to findlaw's article was an unexpected find. Read it here!Or you can first read the enquirer article and then Findlaw's and compare them. This little snip shows why RIAA and the music companies are embarking on the wrong journey:

From Chris Sprigman's article at Findlaw (link above) Enter Apple Computer's new iTunes Music Store - a new and improved legal download service. It allows you to buy (not just "rent") music for $.99 per song, or $10.00 per album - significantly cheaper than the cost of a typical CD. Songs bought can be downloaded to a Mac or Apple iPod portable music player, or burned onto a CD. In its first week in business, Apple sold more than one million songs - despite the fact that the iTunes service is available only to users of Apple computers, which have less than 4 percent share of the U.S. market. Meanwhile, Apple has announced that it is adding additional music to its library, and will introduce a version of its service for Windows machines by year-end.

[Grojlach]

From Chris Sprigman's article at Findlaw (link above) Enter Apple Computer's new iTunes Music Store - a new and improved legal download service. It allows you to buy (not just "rent") music for $.99 per song, or $10.00 per album - significantly cheaper than the cost of a typical CD. Songs bought can be downloaded to a Mac or Apple iPod portable music player, or burned onto a CD. In its first week in business, Apple sold more than one million songs - despite the fact that the iTunes service is available only to users of Apple computers, which have less than 4 percent share of the U.S. market. Meanwhile, Apple has announced that it is adding additional music to its library, and will introduce a version of its service for Windows machines by year-end.

An interesting initiative, though I have to say I prefer the real deal, with official packaging and booklets and similar. I doubt it will really shut up the illegal circuit, but at least it'll make one of the most often heard excuses to resort to illegal music without ever buying any CD's - "CD's are too expensive so I download 20 GB's of music a month, because the record industry is like, evil and stuff" - obsolete and powerless, more or less.

[ 05-10-2003, 06:43 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Grojlach: An interesting initiative, though I have to say I prefer the real deal, with official packaging and booklets and similar. I doubt it will really shut up the illegal circuit, but at least it'll make one of the most often heard excuses to resort to illegal music without ever buying any CD's - "CD's are too expensive so I download 20 GB's of music a month, because the record industry is like, evil and stuff" - obsolete and powerless, more or less.

Exactly Groj. [img]smile.gif[/img] If this becomes a Windows service, and with the proper advertising, I wonder what the Music companies will blame their falling numbers on. It might be that they decide to lower the prices. Naah, let's not go that far.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by WillowIX: Exactly Groj. [img]smile.gif[/img] If this becomes a Windows service, and with the proper advertising, I wonder what the Music companies will blame their falling numbers on. It might be that they decide to lower the prices. Naah, let's not go that far.

Well, here in The Netherlands, CD-prices have been on the rise for years, long before Napster ever popped up, even. I have to say that when I read numbers in the above article about the "outrageous" rise in CD-prices to 15 dollars, I seriously wonder what they would have to say about the current CD-prices in my country, which are currently varying from 20 to even 25 (!) dollars. There have been complaints about the CD-prices for years now, and yet they've only gotten higher and higher in that same period.