I hate the RIAA

[3-LockBox]

Our good gentlemen from the RIAA just can't seem to get enough good publicity:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003466811

http://gear.ign.com/articles/749/749883p1.html

http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2006/12/riaa_petitions_.html

How long until they invade Poland? or Russia?

France has already petitioned for conditional surrender as we speak...


This proves to me that the RIAA believes that recorded music, and the way in which we listen to it, is the sole intellectual property of the RIAA.

[bobsticks]

Yeah, its probably more important to make sure the ties continue to make bonus than to take care of the creators and artists...



(there must be a shortage of single parents and grandmothers to sue)

[Dusty Chalk]

The RIAA hates you, too.

...and me.

[BradH]

Yeah, its probably more important to make sure the ties continue to make bonus than to take care of the creators and artists...

No doubt. Check out the assumption that lies at the heart of this twisted logic:

"We hope the judges will restore the balance by reducing the rate and moving to a more flexible percentage rate structure so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers."

Catch that? It's not the artists who create sound recordings, it's the record companies.

It reminds me of Nick Nolte in North Dallas Forty when he says, "We're just the equipment! We're the jock-straps!"

Flexible percentage rate structure my @ass They should pay what they owe to everyone they've screwed over the last 80 years. They're as dirty as the movie moguls who used to keep their books in Anchorage in case the Feds raided the New York offices.

[bobsticks]

That was not lost me. I am one that believes there are few "mistakes" in speech and these jackasses meant every word and inference of the statement that was issued. The proggiest band in the world has never been so pretentious.

It is my most sincere hope that bands will soon find a way to harness the internet as a tool to totally cut out the bean-counters (and this is coming from a bean-counter).

[basite]

RIAA hates us, we Hate RIAA even harder, and then the RIAA guys were pissed because we are hating them more than they hate us, so now they did something to make that up, and now we hate them even harder, so they have to do something again now,

it's just like a little kids fight, (i hate you, i hate you even more, no i hate you the most


let's start a war... *evil laugh*


nah,
they're arseholes, what are you going to do about it?
they just are, look it up in a dictionary, search for Arsehole, and you'll find RIAA as definition,

the whole world hates them, but no-one can do something about it.

[BradH]

it's just like a little kids fight

There's nothing childish about Duke Ellington begging a promoter backstage for $20 in 1969. Frank Zappa saw that with his own eyes.

When the Stones first went to Chess studios in Chicago they found Muddy Waters painting the building outside. They didn't even know who he was at first. He told them he needed the money.

These stories are legion. Look at all the gangsters they hired to proffer cars and whores and coke to get records on the air. The music industry is one of the greatest scandals of the age and they've done everything with impunity.


the whole world hates them, but no-one can do something about it.

To the contrary, the Information Age is killing the execs where it hurts. But they still don't get it. That's why they reach for near-sighted, desparate tactics like tapping into ringtones without realizing those can be torrented and posted just like anything else. Just the other day I saw a ton of them on USENET.

[basite]

yes, i know, it's going bad,
and in this way, the small bands and artists are going down completely,
and i know that is not good, that is bad, really bad, because in this way we're all going to end up listening to britney spears, because everyone else is ruined,
it's stupid what the RIAA is doing, but they make alot of money out of it, and that's what's it about. As long as they are making too much money out of someone else, it's fine FOR THEM. Not for us and the artists of course, they're being sucked empty, but do you think the guys at RIAA care about that?
they think this: We're rich, too rich, and we're getting even richer, it's all going perfect.
that's all they think about.

the ringtone thing is true, and the information age is the evil gangster. We know that, but you'd be the first convincing a 15 yeat old teen to GO BUY HIS CD, he just won't he'd rather download it, because it's free.



RIAA, STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR MONEY, AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS.

but this is quite impossible, you catch one, and another starts.

[MindGoneHaywire]

A small point...don't hate the RIAA, it doesn't really mean much. Hate the labels. The RIAA does their dirty work, but they're the ones that deserve the scrutiny. The negativity is valid, but something tells me the labels are just as happy to see people proclaim they hate the RIAA, because the focus is off the specific entities themselves. As an example, the RIAA isn't the outfit suing downloaders, the suits all name the labels themselves. But the RIAA is the tool used for the strong-arm tactics that lead to the lawsuits, as well as the aggressive collections. The RIAA offers doubletalk about protecting artists...but if, as has been speculated, the artists are not benefiting much from the money coming in from the collections, or, hell, legal, paid downloading (the lawsuit pitting Cheap Trick & the Allman Brothers against Sony is an example), that's not the RIAA, it's the labels, they're the ones responsible for paying the artists. But people don't go around saying 'I hate Elektra.'

Movie studios will be just as happy if the MPAA is able to deflect negativity from the public, should issues like 'creative accounting,' among others, become more relevant in public debate in the future.

[BradH]

yes, i know, it's going bad,
and in this way, the small bands and artists are going down completely

I don't know. I think what the Arctic Monkeys are doing is interesting. You know that's gotta dirve 'em crazy in the executive suite.


RIAA, STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR MONEY, AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS.

but this is quite impossible, you catch one, and another starts.

Yes, it's impossible. That's why the labels should stop worrying about illegal downloads and think of innovative ways to make money - preferably something more foresighted than bending the artists over for more "flexible rate structures" while pining for the old industrial distribution model. But that would entail long term thinking and that runs counter to the quarterly profit motive.

[audio_dude]

hahahahaha!!!! I LOVVEE CANADAA!! we can download all the file sharing music we want!!! its LEGAL HERE!!! ahahahahah!!!! (yeah, the RIAA sucks arse!)

[BradH]

Actually, the Ellington story is most likely bs from Zappa now that I think of it.

[MindGoneHaywire]

I'd never heard that, anywhere. Seems a bit of a reach, even in the annals of record labels failing to live up to their contractual obligations regarding royalties. Hyperbole from Zappa, perhaps? Or something completely out of context? He prided himself on honesty, being a straight shooter, didn't he? Sounds like a mistake of some kind. What's the source?

[BradH]

What's the source?

Here's Zappa from his book, The Real Frank Zappa Book, about the Newport Jazz Festival in 1969:

Before we went on, I saw Duke Ellington begging-pleading-for a ten-dollar advance. It was really depressing. After that show, I told the guys: 'That's it---we're breaking the band up.'
We'd been together in one configuration or another for about five years at that point and suddenly EVERYTHING looked utterly hopeless to me. If Duke Ellington had to beg some George Wein assistant backstage for ten bucks, what the f*ck was I dong with a ten-piece band, trying to play rock and roll--or something that was almost rock and roll?

Here's Barry Miles from his book Zappa: A Biography:

But there is something wrong with this story.
In 1969 Duke Ellington was 70 and feted wherever he went. Only two months before, he had been guest of honor at the White House to receive the Medal of Freedom and President Nixon had sung Happy Birthday at the piano. In 1969 Ellington was travelling with 18 musicans usually on well-paid State Department tours. He played the West Indies and Europe (including concerts behind the Iron Curtain) and the previous year he had toured South America and Mexico. Ellington famously ate little but caviar and steak, and on a tour of India he had his filet mignon flown in from the States. It seems extremely unlikely that he was begging for $10, as Zappa claimed in The Real Frank Zappa Book.
Don Preston: "That's not what happened. A lot of stuff in that book is bullsh!t. It was just his imagination."


He prided himself on honesty, being a straight shooter, didn't he? Sounds like a mistake of some kind.

Zappa most definitely prided himself on his honesty and being a straight shooter but Miles's book deconstructs the Zappa myth as convincingly as he does the Lennon myth in the book on McCartney. These aren't hit pieces or yellow journalism or even attempts to re-write history. His book on Zappa is an unflinching, detailed biography. If it runs counter to the image Zappa's fans have of Zappa it's only because that myth was largely self-created (as was the case with Lennon). Miles busts Zappa time after time after time on several things that have become received wisdom in Zappadom such as the LSO experience and the whole "devoted family man" image. Miles isn't without faults of his own. Some of his descriptions of Zappa's worldview are skewed because Miles is an old school British lefty who clearly believes the cultural center of gravity resides somewhere between New York and London. This leads him to make some ludicrous statements, particularly about L.A., and restricts his full understanding of Zappa's love/hate relationship with all that is banal in American pop culture. By the end of the book you'll probably be as tired of him as you are of Zappa but, on balance, it's by far the best book I've read on the subject and Miles gets most analyses right. But don't expect a hagiography because the central thesis of this biography is that Zappa, while brilliant, was his own worst enemy and Miles succeeds in showing in detail just how that happened.

In short, no, Zappa was not a straight shooter and was, in many ways, as twisted as many people thought he was. In retrospect, how could it have been any different?

[royphil345]

I agree to a point... But, quite a bit of money is going out all over the world from the USA for products, services and labor... While in other countries... MUCH of the music, video and software is stolen from the USA.

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Heres a question: If I had a band and wanted to produce my own album, do I have to register with the RIAA? Can I just sell my CDs without them?