Home taping didn’t kill music, says Ben Goldacre - but where did all the money go?
posted by Artw on Jun 11, 2009 - 168 comments

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA
posted by mr.marx on Apr 8, 2008 - 7 comments

Home taping downloading is killing music authorship. The Society of Authors warns that authors will simply stop writing if they aren't compensated for piracy of their work (as unlikely as that seems). Perhaps they should follow the example of Jim Griffin, newly hired at Warner Music to persuade broadband providers to attach a $5 per month surcharge for the benefit of the major labels, in exchange for halting the lawsuits that have thus far been their mainstay weapon against piracy.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Apr 2, 2008 - 88 comments

A proposal for the monetization of the file sharing of music from the Songwriters and Recording Artists of Canada. "Most Canadians are aware that the Internet and mobile phone networks have become major sources of music. What they may not know is that songwriters and performers typically receive no compensation of any kind when their music is shared or illegally downloaded... We believe the time has come to put in place a reasonable and unobtrusive system of compensation for creators of music in regard to this popular and growing use of their work."
posted by tranquileye on Jan 29, 2008 - 38 comments

Steal this album. "In the dying days of the music business as we once knew it, record labels are waging war on leaks—only to discover that many of the saboteurs come from within the industry itself." It's easy to arrest a geek or lay draconian fines on a single mom; what happens when their witchhunt leads to their own offices? Animal Collective won't always be around to get the culprits off the hook.
posted by Coherence Panda on Jan 2, 2008 - 62 comments

Good Copy Bad Copy is "a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture," featuring Danger Mouse, Lawrence Lessig, Dan Glickman of the MPAA and others. The film's creators are releasing it free of charge, via Bittorrent.
posted by jbickers on Aug 3, 2007 - 30 comments

One creative cartoonist claims that micropayments would virtually eliminate the problem of piracy. On the other hand, programmer Sean Barrett disagrees.
posted by alona on Feb 17, 2007 - 16 comments

Tube Wars: A new front opens as the IFPI [think global RIAA] threatens imminent legal war with ISP's.
posted by trinarian on Jan 17, 2007 - 30 comments

Every Song Ever Recorded His goal: to own a digital copy of every song ever made. His reason: to preserve them through the upcoming apocalyptic jihad. Just don't ask him to share. (via Macsurfer)
posted by joaquim on Nov 11, 2004 - 39 comments

The file-sharing fight continues.
Recording industry associations in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada have filed lawsuits or taken other legal action, aiming mainly at heavy users accused of offering a large number of songs online.

In other news, A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales.
posted by ashbury on Mar 31, 2004 - 9 comments

"What a Crappy Present" [via waxpancake]
posted by riffola on Dec 17, 2003 - 28 comments

Send them back! We're feeling great about ourselves! Because we sent our mp3's BACK!
posted by Espoo2 on Nov 19, 2003 - 12 comments

Think the RIAA is doing something new by threatening and suing? Think again... it's all part of a 4-step process.
posted by clevershark on Nov 10, 2003 - 13 comments

A prankster turns himself into the RIAA:
JH: Hello. I just downloaded some illegal MP3s and my friend told me that the RAII is going to sue everyone who downloads music. What should I do?
RIAA: Hold on just a sec.
posted by Inkslinger on Sep 15, 2003 - 25 comments

Killing the music Who is the real enemy here? Mefites argue on whether downloading the latest eminem is theft or merely copyright infringement. RIAA says this activity is killing CD sales and wants to slap a lawsuit on everyone with a cable modem. Everyone seems to be missing the real culprit here. [via Ars-technica]
posted by Nauip on Aug 5, 2003 - 128 comments

Buymusic.com may be acquiring their “300,000 song” music catalog from distributors who have no rights to the digital distribution of the songs. In other words, piracy on a massive, corporate, for profit scale.
posted by alan on Jul 29, 2003 - 22 comments

The NY Times reports that music companies are considering some new anti-piracy measures of questionable legality. The ideas include a program to lock up user's computers, another to find and delete illegally downloaded files, and what amounts to a DoS attack on user's computers. There are some supporters of these possibly extralegal measures. Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a bill last year to provide the music industry with a "safe harbor from liability" when pursuing P2P traders. Should media companies be allowed to operate outside the law in their efforts to stop illegal downloads of their music?
posted by punishinglemur on May 3, 2003 - 23 comments

Federal judge rules Morpheus, Grokster not liable for Internet piracy. Well that is until the big pocketed music industry finds a favorable judge and wins the appeal.
posted by thedailygrowl on Apr 25, 2003 - 3 comments

European music copyrights from the '50s due to expire this year, and to grossly oversimplify things, RIAA is on the warpath, saying that imports from there would be acts of piracy. Considering that there's a gold mine's worth of material begging to be shown the light again (the Maria Callas material mentioned in the article, for example), no doubt there will be some great releases...but will EMI's actions be more the exception than the rule? (NYT link, yadayada)
posted by PeteyStock on Jan 2, 2003 - 17 comments

Not 421 CD burners but "the equivalent of 421 burners". Now, most agree the RIAA is grasping at straws trying to control something they clearly can't, but this seems to be the most amusing yet. This article offers a suggestion or two concerning the possible music industry slump.
posted by robotrock on Dec 15, 2002 - 22 comments

Piracy is Progressive Taxation says Tim O'Reilly. Of the 7 lessons in this article, "Free is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service" is probably the best model of how things will progress.
posted by tboz on Dec 12, 2002 - 36 comments

Pearl Jam Roach Motels. In response to an article last month revealing that Epic Records Group had glued CD players shut to prevent piracy of promotional albums (namely Riot Act by Pearl Jam and Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos), music critics at PopMatters ask the following: "Who needs whom more? Do the media outlets need the record labels, since they release the albums that help them sell magazines along with the label's CDs? Or do the labels need the media outlets, without which the newest release by the latest youth-oriented pop contrivance would fall with a deafening thud?"
posted by jacknose on Oct 25, 2002 - 27 comments

Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column..."Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick on Sep 12, 2002 - 22 comments

Music Industry releases new piracy-proof format! But not to worry there is already a crack out for the format.
posted by Dr_Octavius on Sep 9, 2002 - 25 comments

Hosting Provider Bans RIAA - According to this press release, Information Wave Technologies will actively block all RIAA IP space because RIAA is intentionally seeking to invade customer networks / hosts to check for copyright violations. Additionally, they are going to deploy a "honeypot" system (simulates a GNUtella client sharing copyrighted material) in order to log requests for the files and correlate them with attempts to invade the host -- RIAA's stated plan to combate music piracy.
posted by Irontom on Aug 19, 2002 - 24 comments

This new RIAA lawsuit really frosts my cookies! I can't believe the Recording Industry Ass. of America has the balls to think they can censor the Internet, but they contend that "As a matter of fact, copyright itself was written into the Constitution before the Framers ever even got to the first 10 amendments." Therefore, the RIAA reserves for itself the right to determine which Internet websites you may view. Please discuss.
posted by Maxor on Aug 17, 2002 - 71 comments

Music Labels Plant Online Decoys, Consider Suing Individual Users. The music industry is stepping up its fight against online piracy, planting "decoys" on free peer-to-peer services and considering lawsuits against individual song-swappers, sources said on Wednesday.
posted by ncurley on Jul 4, 2002 - 9 comments

Music industry makes first mature move in years!
Universal and Sony will respond to piracy by selling CDs at $9.99 - and singles at .99. How easy was that? (Link requires free registration but well worth it, IMO)
posted by magullo on Jun 12, 2002 - 51 comments

The Eminem Show reached #2 on the Gracenote charts last week, even though the album was not officially released until Sunday. Gracenote doesn't give exact figures on traffic, but it said the No. 2 slot in its charts represented a total figure of listeners in the "mid-tens of thousands" over the course of the week.
posted by ry on May 28, 2002 - 15 comments

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!! A bit of a repeat, but absolutely justified
posted by magullo on Jan 18, 2002 - 19 comments

Interesting article from The Guardian discussing the fact that people seem willing to pay for annoying ringtones, but seem unwilling to pay for near-CD-quality music. Unfortunately it doesn't really address the question of "why?"
posted by jedro on Jan 11, 2002 - 15 comments

Copy protection for CDs does not have future says Philips. Philips spokesperson Klaus Petri, speaking to Reuters, says its company counts on the fact that the refusal of consumers will convince the music industry to step back from copy-protected CD's. Petri said that Philips could sue the manufacturers of CD's with copy protection (as managers of the world-wide CD patents), because they would not correspond to the standards. "those are silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's". [via Neowin.net]
posted by riffola on Jan 9, 2002 - 16 comments

The RIAA wants to hack your computer (via Fark ) The RIAA tried to attach a rider to the anti-terrorism bill currently in Congress that would have allowed them to hack anyone's computer without consequence. One more reason why the RIAA is evil.
posted by Maxor on Oct 15, 2001 - 34 comments

Charley Pride's Copy-protected CD hacked -- or is it? Apparently, the people involved in trying to keep the CD off Napster failed to realize they are dealing with the World Wide Web.
posted by Hankins on May 16, 2001 - 6 comments

How to win friends and influence people! Metallica goes after Seattle ISP for copyright infringement. I got this link from a pal-has anyone else heard about it?
posted by black8 on Apr 30, 2001 - 19 comments

the shame of the music industry The industry seems ut to foil any attempt to allow known methods of foiling guards against making copies of music. Is this ethical and right or an imposition of monopolistic control over technology?
posted by Postroad on Apr 30, 2001 - 16 comments

If you are downloading from Napster or some other service, the RIAA is tracking you. Here's a screenshot of the Recording Industry's secret weapon.
posted by andre_111 on Mar 23, 2001 - 17 comments

CD Sales down by 39%? And guess who's to blame. (Also linked in the article is the interesting stopnapster.com site.)
posted by gi_wrighty on Feb 26, 2001 - 43 comments

Napster takes first steps in trying to appease the RIAA, and specifically BMG. To me this approach is the stupidest thing Napster could have done. Who would want to pay a membership fee to use Napster if one can't even burn the files onto a cd?
posted by JFunk2800 on Feb 21, 2001 - 1 comment

Chiariglione steps aside. SDMI over?
posted by aflakete on Jan 25, 2001 - 0 comments

A while back, you'll remember, a professor from Princeton cracked the SDMI watermark, but couldn't publish [MeFi search], and weren't awarded the prize because they wouldn't NDA. Well, a French team has also cracked it, and not being bound by the US DMCA, they've published. Good thing? Or bad?
posted by baylink on Jan 23, 2001 - 3 comments

IBM, with the latest attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. Their fatal flaw is betting on a post-napster world, though I bet their EMMS technology gets cracked before that ever happens.
posted by mathowie on Jan 22, 2001 - 11 comments

Sony's left hand disagrees with its right hand. Sony Electronics just announced a player at CES in Vegas which will play MP3's off of a CD in addition to playing normal audio CDs. Sony Music, on the other hand, is part of the SDMI initiative which is trying to stamp out MP3's. "They were pissed." (Via GeekPress)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 7, 2001 - 10 comments

Well now if I'd known this I never would've signed up with them last summer. My three months are up anyway. Bad move, emusic.
posted by aflakete on Nov 22, 2000 - 8 comments

Smashing Pumpkins encourage piracy "The Smashing Pumpkins printed just 25 copies of their new album - but they've asked fans to make MP3s, please. Reportedy they're flipping the bird at their label, Virgin"
posted by dilok on Sep 12, 2000 - 10 comments

If you haven't already read "The Heavenly Jukebox", you should really check it out. The Atlantic Monthly recently posted this great article subtitled "Rampant music piracy may hurt musicians less than they fear. The real threat -- to listeners and, conceivably, democracy itself -- is the music industry's reaction to it". While somewhat long, it's a very interesting read, going into the original copyright lawsuits in England over a hundred years ago to today's ordeal pitting the RIAA against the millions of people downloading Metallica mp3s off of Napster. Well worth reading.
posted by ookamaka on Aug 18, 2000 - 1 comment

"Hatch Warns Labels, Don't Make Me Come Over There and Spank You" Oooh! This is gonna be good. [ From Inside via Dan Lyke's excellent Flutterby. ]
posted by baylink on Jul 13, 2000 - 20 comments

Kid Rock Starves To Death: MP3 Piracy Blamed ... "This is exactly the kind of thing we've been warning our fans about," James Hetfield, the lone surviving member of Metallica, told reporters during a press conference at Hollywood's Grace Church Homeless Shelter. "First, they found Madonna dead of a crack overdose in the alley behind Liquid. Then my best friend and bandmate Lars is killed by cops during a botched hold-up of a liquor store. Now, Kid Rock dies of starvation like a filthy dog in the street. My God, people, didn't we learn the lesson of Elton John?"
posted by aurelian on Jul 12, 2000 - 8 comments

The Brunching Shuttlecocks are planning to follow Metallica's lead in seeking out pirates of their MP3 music on Napster. They have different ideas about how to deal with said pirates, though.
posted by harmful on Jun 2, 2000 - 3 comments

Motley disses Metallica Mister Sixx and pals give their response to Lars' crew, on the whole mp3/napster issue. Sounds like 2 groups of people are benefitting from all these lawsuits, lawyers and flash-cartoonists...
posted by nomisxid on May 31, 2000 - 4 comments