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Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Ohio (transplanted f
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RIAA rant
What with all the current hubbub concerning the RIAA's most recent antics, and a lot of confusion surrounding who they are, what they do, etc., I decided to just put up a piece I published elsewhere, written shortly after 9/11, from my viewpoint as a former Muzik Biz "insider".
Just a little editorial, for whatever it's worth. Enjoy.
It didn't take long for some of the more crass elements of our society to begin rearing their ugly heads under the guise of patriotism, or to begin to attempt to further their own narrow agendas, hoping to hide "under the radar" of our current national situation.
Such was the attempt of the RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America), which acts as an industry-wide public front for the "Entertainment Biz" at large and the record company mega-conglomerates in particular.
The RIAA has a lobbying and legislative arm which is extremely powerful on Capitol Hill. In the past few years they have successfully slipped "amendments" into totally unrelated legislation which have stripped their artist rosters of creative and financial control, cut off the artists means of recourse to injustices by the record companies, and through a sly manipulation of the contract and bankruptcy laws, made their "artists" virtual slaves to the companies. In my estimation, this organization, of which I was once a member, has become despicable.
Their most egregious attempted "dirty trick" was to tack on an amendment to an urgently needed bit of national security legislation, brought on by our current terrorism situation. The bill was sure to pass nearly unanimously, and only a huge outcry by the legislators themselves and the technical press got the amendment pulled. This amendment would have permitted the RIAA to hack any computer user's computer anywhere and, if "pirated" material (read: any MP3 music or video file, whether it was legitimately acquired or not) to do whatever was necessary to destroy that material, up to and including wrecking your computer by remote control, with no liability for any damage they cause. Not even the CIA or FBI can do this kind of thing without a warrant.
Now, it's well known that the Record Biz is waging a war against music piracy. On the face of it, being a musician, one would think I'd be all for that. However, the whole MP3 thang serves a purpose. It publicizes, advertises, distributes and generally performs functions that the record companies have generally become utterly inept at, unless you're the pretty face of the week that is purely a pre-fab media creation. The only thing it doesn't do is compensate the artist fairly for their work. Well guess what: THE RECORD COMPANIES DON'T COMPENSATE THEIR ARTISTS EITHER!!!
A good look at the innards of the way a recording contract really works reveals that only an absolute moron would sign a major label contract. What the artist/performer gets is their name of the front of a CD, a five or six figure advance, a production budget to make their record at an overpriced company studio, and a lifetime of slavery under a financial system where, the more records you sell, the more money you lose. What the RIAA is really after is compensation for the copyright holder and publisher of a given piece of music. This is a good thing in the case of older-line songwriters and such, who managed to hold on to their publishing rights and copyrights. The modern record contract typically calls for the record company to keep half to two-thirds of the publishing revenue, and the record company owns all of the rights to your songs as recorded, that is, the master tapes, in perpetuity.
This is unconscionable. Even writers "lease" their manuscripts to publishers for a specified period of time, after which time the rights revert to the author. So, what the RIAA is really going after in this whole MP3 fight is not the good of the artist/composer/author, they are simply trying to fatten their own wallets. And the chances of the actual artist ever seeing a dime are about the same as bin-Laden's chances in New York City right now. So, the mp3 thing is really a moot point, the artist gets screwed regardless.
Now, some forward thinking independent labels and artists use mp3 resources very effectively, releasing freebies from new albums, or even entire albums to mp3 websites. And the numbers would appear to indicate that this is a very effective marketing tool for increasing sales of lesser-known labels and artists. Let's face it an mp3 is about like a crummy cassette copy of a CD, sound wise, so if someone likes what they hear, they'll get the record. And those same numbers indicate that the mp3 phenomenon has not hurt major label record sales to any appreciable degree. In my opinion, if the record companies would quit lying about the production costs of one CD and price them reasonably, that would alleviate about 50% of the pirating right there.
But I digress. The point of this rant is that these sleazeballs, under the guise of protecting their artists (who are effectively enslaved) sought to invade basic privacies and freedoms (by the way, copying a CD or whatever for personal use is perfectly legal) in the interest of nothing more than corporate greed. It has nothing to do with public good, safety or well-being. And to attempt to do this by tacking a hairball amendment onto a piece of national security legislation is so low as to be beneath contempt.
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A word to the wise is usually unneccessary.
Last edited by Tomteriffic; 08-15-2003 at 08:55 PM.
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