"It's ridiculous. What's the world coming to when Big Brother wants to charge you for singing a wee tune?", Sandra Burt said. So, Big Brother thought about it a bit, and decided, well, maybe she's right.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Oct 21, 2009 - 34 comments

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

In the 1980s, songwriter, artist and cultural critic Momus recorded a number of albums for the legendary indie label Creation Records, combining influences as diverse as Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop and Balearic acid-house. These have largely languished in Sony Music's vaults over the past few years, occasionally fetching hefty prices on eBay. Now, Momus has taken the step to commit auto-piracy and release his Creation albums online, for free; over December, he will post MP3s of all six albums to his LiveJournal blog, each with freshly written liner notes. The first one, 1987's The Poison Boyfriend, is here. [more inside]
posted by acb on Dec 9, 2008 - 15 comments

Guitarist Joe Satriani sues Coldplay over Viva La Vida (audio). Satriani's version: If I Could Fly (audio).
posted by starman on Dec 5, 2008 - 111 comments

Mashup artist Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, is another artist to try the 'pay whatever you want' Internet release model. However, his 55-minute album consists of over 300 samples from other artists, with many current and past hits. No stranger to current controversies in copyright, Gillis also appeared in the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy. Previously. [more inside]
posted by uaudio on Jun 20, 2008 - 44 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

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright A fascinating illustrated historical tour, looking at how different technologies have shaped how we think about copyright and intellectual property.
posted by carter on Jan 31, 2008 - 4 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

CASH is the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders, a project conceived and initiated by musician Kristin Hersh. CASH is "read-write" — more than consumption; a collaborative online effort — helping make music ownership more of an interactive affair facilitated through Creative Commons licensing.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jan 5, 2008 - 9 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

Dear Rockers. Guilt ridden music lovers get to feel better about themselves.
posted by bowline on Nov 26, 2007 - 29 comments

Oink.busted
posted by awesomebrad on Oct 23, 2007 - 405 comments

An impressive array of anti-RIAA articles, mostly from people within the music industry.
posted by Dr. Wu on Apr 24, 2007 - 13 comments

The Indie Band Survival Guide: A fantastic, free, 101 pages collection of useful information for musicians - covers topics such as recording, copyright, major label contracts, commercial radio, promoting your music, band websites, distribution, filesharing and live shows.
posted by Ira.metafilter on Feb 25, 2007 - 9 comments

While Courtney pulled an Albini, Jeff handed out the bread. Are the peasants acting like emperors, or do they still want something shiny, aluminum, plastic, and digital? Debacle or cage, something's got to give (pdf). Alternatively, you can just roll your own.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Feb 4, 2007 - 32 comments

Make a mixtape highlighting a young artist, have that artist proclaim his delight about the project on the CD, reignite that artist's career, repeat, then, the RIAA has you arrested for counterfieting. The RIAA continues its vain struggle to understand the new music economy. In the meantime, at least one company gets it, offering DRM-free CD downloads of obscure titles.
posted by caddis on Jan 18, 2007 - 67 comments

Permission to Innovate? How the Record Industry Is Like 17th-Century French Buttonmakers A corporate consultant blog makes a weird but compelling argument that the RIAA and MPAA are forcibly imposing a draconian 17th-century business model on the 21st century.
posted by jonp72 on Jan 13, 2007 - 45 comments

Wish you could have bought shares of Pearl Jam before they were famous? Fans sponsor bands in $10 'parts'. Once 5000 parts have been pledged, the band gets a proper studio recording. Tracks are made available free. CD's are sold. Money goes to the band and to the 'believers' who sponsored them. Might work. Probably better than this model.
posted by gregor-e on Aug 17, 2006 - 30 comments

Canadian musicians protest file-sharing lawsuits. The Barenaked Ladies, Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, and many other Canadian artists have formed a coalition to protest the hard line taken by the recording industry against file-sharers, and call for copyright reform. Is there a better way to protect intellectual property rights than suing file-sharers?
posted by Johnny Assay on May 5, 2006 - 35 comments

The RIAA would like to remind you that copying purchased music to your iPod is illegal without first gaining permission from the copyright holder. Thank you.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome on Feb 16, 2006 - 88 comments

The Columbia Law School Music Plagiarism Project is a repository of the music industry's most famous copyright infringement cases of the past 100 years. Each case contains links to samples of the original song and the alleged infringer, and there's even a song list for easy browsing. (My favorite: Gilbert O'Sullivan v. Biz Markie).
posted by Saucy Intruder on Dec 17, 2005 - 42 comments

If you liked the Kleptones and other posts about mashups, you might have caught "raiding the 20th century" in early 2004. Well, DJ Food has completely updated it for 2005 and now clocks in at a full 59 minutes of monster mashup mix madness. Download the mp3 here and enjoy the eclectic sonic landscape.
posted by mathowie on Oct 19, 2005 - 14 comments

A new, controversial law making its way through the Finnish parliament is confusing, but its implementation may infringe on already existing Finnish laws of free speech. With decisions set to be made later this week, a demonstration has already been planned for Tuesday. On the other hand, some sources seem to be saying that this new law should present no major issue. Thus, it seems like there's a small amount of confusing legal voodoo going on: while the law wouldn't make it illegal to copy music to MP3 players, it would mean that "the breaking of copy protection for the copying of the content of a sound or video recording for personal use would be prohibited." It looks like no one knows exactly what they want out of this law, or how to interpret it. DMCA, anyone?
posted by taursir on Oct 2, 2005 - 6 comments

FHM rips off Music Thing blog. Compare and contrast. Fair use or a plain old fashioned rip-off? You make the call. Seriously, how common is this kind of thing and is the net producing content to be repackaged and sold commercially without proper permission?
posted by skallas on Aug 3, 2005 - 25 comments

Legitimate MP3 downloads! If you like the big beat duo The Chemical Brothers, I'm sure you'll be impressed by these two excellent remixes: Flip The Switch & Believe EP. Primal Scream's deep house masterpiece is given similarly impressive treatment in Screamixadelica. Maybe you prefer the punkier electronica of The Prodigy; check out Always Outsiders, Never Outdone. BTW don't forget to donate to the nominated charities on each site if you decide to keep the tracks.

On slightly more dodgy ground, copyright-wise, are the remixes and mashups from tone396, lionel vinyl, fakeID & Go Home Productions (these are clearly only a handful of artists, but in my opinion are some of the best) - I wonder how, or even if you can, apply copyright laws to some of these kinds of hybrid productions.
posted by smiffy on Jun 28, 2005 - 19 comments

After much discussion about legality, within thirty days we will know if Russian authorities are going to bring criminal charges against Allofmp3.com for large-scale copyright infringement.
posted by anathema on Feb 23, 2005 - 20 comments

A small new future. 1999 was the year the RIAA began writing checks the record industry couldn’t cash.
posted by xowie on Sep 23, 2004 - 16 comments

All samples must now be licenced according to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, including tiny samples that have been modified to the point of being unrecognisable. "We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way." via /dev/null
posted by Jimbob on Sep 9, 2004 - 40 comments

DJ Danger Mouse has been making waves recently with his Grey Album that cross-pollinates the music of The Beatles' classic White Album with the lyrics and delivery of Jay-Z's recent swan song, the Black Album. The results? "One of the more interesting pirate mashups ever done." (Pitchfork). "Most ambitious remix." (Village Voice). "As fun as it is daring." (Boston Globe). "Ultimate remix record." (Rolling Stone). Not surprisingly, EMI is far from amused by the unsanctioned and unapproved project and the limited release will no longer be distributed. So, download it now (or check out these Real Player samples).
posted by boost ventilator on Feb 18, 2004 - 92 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

LAMP is an on-demand music service offered to the MIT campus through its cable TV network. The NYTimes mulls the copyright implications.
posted by liam on Oct 27, 2003 - 7 comments

The RIAA Strikes Back. (c/o arstechnica.com) What do you do when nothing else seems to be working and you're the RIAA? Do it Soviet style! Take your message to the classroom! Indoctrinate the kiddies! Get them to rat on their friends! I don't know about everyone else, but I think that this latest RIAA tactic is particularly insidious. But what is worse is that schools apparently are welcoming the RIAA. And you thought that Coke machines in the cafeteria were bad...
posted by tgrundke on Oct 24, 2003 - 37 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

Why the RIAA's lawsuits aren't worth moose droppings. Tech Central Station columnist Jay Currie explains how Canada's copyright law, which instills the right to copy music in exchange for levies on blank media, renders the RIAA's legal precedent against file-sharers useless up north.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Sep 13, 2003 - 14 comments

Hi! You have the right to remain silent! (wanna cyber?)

The RIAA, bastions of goodness and justice, are sending IMs to nasty file-sharers, telling them that what they're doing is naughty. And that they might just end up in court.
A private company they're hiring plans to send a million messages per week, telling the thieving pirates that the RIAA knows where they live.

Looks like "Hilary Rosen" is one person I'll be putting on my ignore list.
posted by Blue Stone on Apr 29, 2003 - 27 comments

Royalties Reunited allows artists to collect the royalties from British radio stations, pub jukeboxes, restaurants, gyms and linedancing clubs that "their people" have forgotten to claim. DJ Shadow is there - that's a little money. Nobukazu Takemura is there - that's less money. But the one that surprises me appears after a search for "stupid" - a rather famous actress has failed to collect for her Christmas #1 megahit. I believe we're talking about a lot of money. Are you going to tell her or should I?
posted by Pretty_Generic on Feb 3, 2003 - 4 comments

Verizon Must Reveal Internet Song Swapper In a recent discussion of the Supreme Court's decision to protect the rights of the individual from the greed and sloth of the many I warned that the RIAA and MPAA, comically inept though the media paints them, would soon have things their way. This link is to a news report about an important step in their fight for individual rights.
posted by BGM on Jan 21, 2003 - 23 comments

The story of 'Wimoweh' 'Mbube' or more popularly 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. In which a Zulu migrante creates one of the most recorded songs of the twentieth century, but because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, failed to get any royalties and died a pauper. A contribution to the music copyright debate.
posted by feelinglistless on Jan 10, 2003 - 14 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

Have promotional remix competions done more damage to copyright protection than good? As an avid collector of bootleg/illegal remixes & mashups, its interesting that the proliferation of such remixes through low-key releases and the internet has not, in recent times, resulted in any legal action.
posted by mary8nne on Nov 2, 2002 - 8 comments

One Dollar Cuts So many times so many of us have said we would buy music online if the price were right. It looks like that opportunity is now here. Are we going to put up or shut up? Is this article going to end up as a piece of PR or as an online social shift? (via /.)
posted by Tystnaden on Oct 24, 2002 - 49 comments

Comic books, cannibalistic worms, albinos, copyright infringement, and the Blues. This story has it all.
posted by anathema on Sep 27, 2002 - 6 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

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

Dear Mr. Ashcroft: People who download copyrighted music files deserve jail time, and you should start prosecuting them. Signed: Joe Biden, John Conyers, Dianne Feinstein...
posted by xowie on Aug 10, 2002 - 54 comments

D-O-S attack disables RIAA site. Do you think someone's trying to make a point about one group lobbying for the power to shut down individual's computers if they SUSPECT them of doing something they don't like, and another group ALREADY having that power?
posted by thunder on Jul 30, 2002 - 25 comments

Open source music? Give away the songs without copyright, sell the audio source files dirt cheap and waive the copyright. That's the idea behind Brad Sucks. Are any bands you know of doing something like this?
posted by Leonard on Jul 30, 2002 - 5 comments

Drop the marker and back away from the CD-RW drive. Add Senator Joe Biden (D - Delware) to the list of politicians eager to put the brakes on technology, kowtow to Hollywood and otherwise stop the Earth from turning: Biden's new bill would make it a federal felony to try and trick certain types of devices into playing your music or running your computer program. Breaking this law--even if it's to share music by your own garage band--could land you in prison for up to five years. And that's not counting the civil penalties of up to $25,000 per offense. Biden's bill is on the fast track and not getting the same press attention that Sen. Holling's CBDTPA bill had earlier this year.
posted by scottandrew on Jul 29, 2002 - 28 comments

John Cage's representatives try to claim copyright on silence. [Ref: 4'33"]
Okay.
posted by Su on Jun 29, 2002 - 69 comments