pretty simplistic understanding of a very complicated issue. if you only by music from RIAA represented labels (there's only 3 of them now) then this is pretty relevant. but there are hundreds of thousand if not millions of independent labels all with very different stories and relationships with their artists and audience.

You are right to be mad.
However, there's also the question of actual revenue loss.

For example, if I download an mp3 of a song, does that mean if I hadn't had a link or way to download it, would I have actually spent money buying it?

Of course there is actual revenue loss from piracy, but Hollywood and the RIAA have taken the claim to moronic levels.

Tell to RIAA, MPAA and all the acta/sopa/pipa supporters.. For them it's very much a business affair and each work of art, every color, every rhythm and every word should be copyrighted. My artist inside says BS, i do what ever i like even if only one person ever hears or sees the results.

Art was doing great until 50s. Since, everything is getting harder and more protected. Art does not thrive on profit driven world. And we as a global community will never reach peace until our artists are free to communicate.

This is what happens when you illegally download music off of the internet. The RIAA almost solved the problem of starving artists, they just weren't quick enough.

Bless their bleeding hearts all the same, what with protecting artists and shit. Round of applause for the RIAA and the American justice system. Doing ALL of the hard work protecting our rights so we don't need to think about them -- EVER.

Can I tell that to the TSA employee who checks my crotch for bombs? Or the NSA employee who reads my E-Mails?
Aren't you tired of being considered a possible security risk until proven otherwise by your own government? Aren't you tired of being considered a criminal?
I'm sure the RIAA could sue you into poverty for that one or two songs they consider pirated that they'd find on your PC if the government just would let them look for it. 'Cause you know, you're probably a thief. You look like you would steal a car. Or a purse.
The terrorists of 9/11 won. They successfully terrified the nation.

RIAA is trying to kill this fair use project http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/beastles-get-nuked-by-the-riaa.html

I guess the obligatory "I told you so" is in bad taste, but...

http://videosift.com/talk/Obama-Backs-RIAA-with-150-000-Per-Track-Punishment#comment-721610

http://videosift.com/video/Dancing-With-The-Czars#comment-861804

http://videosift.com/poll/Anyone-else-have-some-good-vids-sit-for-48-hrs-unsifted#comment-950425

http://videosift.com/poll/Should-VideoSift-have-a-game-room#comment-695979

http://videosift.com/video/Obama-s-Unprecedented-War-Powers-Claims#comment-1236012

(*&^(*)^% the RIAA.. or is it the MPAA ?? or the DMCA ?

I am watching this movie tonight. Decent Cam version is available, the only way I will not watch a cam version is if it is too dark, or if it has audio not synced up.

Can this (crowdsourcing / crowdfunding) work? Clearly, yes. In situations similar to hers, it likely works better than signing with a label. However, I'd wager that the bigger you get, the more likely it is to have that turn on its head.

On the other hand, her method builds a solidly loyal core following, while handing the reins to a major label (and therefore the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) practices shitting on the heads of their core followers from on high. The longer the RIAA types spend on their strong-arm tactics, the more that tipping point between smaller artists -> crowdsource vs. bigger artists -> labels swings in her favor.

Maybe the whole thing will come crashing down and "patronage" (crowdsourcing) will become the way artists get funded, as it was during long periods of human history (including highlights like the Renaissance) .

i would put money on the fact that she didn't take RIAA filters into consideration.

>> ^DrewNumberTwo:

Your car analogy is accurate, but misleading. If the car were newer, then it would in fact be against patent law to make one on your own. The SCO case is, I believe, patent law, not copyright.
I don't get your argument regarding publishing companies of various kinds trying to make money for themselves and not paying artists much. This is the old "artists deserve more money" argument. Frankly, they don't. And I'm saying that as an artist. If you're an artist and you give someone your art in exchange for whatever percentage, then you've agreed to that amount and you deserve that amount, and no more. The fact is, selling art is hard. It might not seem that way because we see it everywhere, but having art sitting in your house or on your computer and making money off of it is just plain difficult. The easiest route is frequently to let someone else do that for you, and to artists who can't afford a cup of coffee, making some decent cash sounds like a good deal.
Artists who don't want to go that route are free to keep their content and sell it themselves.


If the car were newer it'd be illegal to sell it. If you made one for your own use, there shouldn't be any legal recourse for the company to follow. It's been a long standing tradition that reverse engineering is allowed, only broken with the digital age and "no bypassing of countermeasures".

SCO is patent law, but they were selling licenses to "guarantee" people they won't be prosecuted once they won. They were selling something they hadn't even proven they owned yet...another aspect of the digital world that's broken. People without the legal rights claiming they do and infringing. Businesses do it all the time by taking other people's pictures and using them in their ads. Even Congressional members have been caught doing it....they don't understand why it's frustrating for a "normal" person who can actually be sued when it happens.

The publisher argument was to show that the traditional way of publishing is no longer relevant in the digital market. They are trying to muscle in after the fact, in spite of customers and in spite of self published authors to dictate what everything should sell for and how it should be sold. They are failing overall, but it doesn't change the fact that they are trying. They are also going after the libraries and trying to undermine the lending system the libraries have, after they've already sold them the goods. So here, the publishing houses are using their wealth and power to attempt to stop distribution channels they don't control much like the RIAA. NYT won't acknowledge self-published authors on their best seller lists, because of it's ties to publishing, in another attempt to discredit non-publisher affiliated authors.

The law is there to protect people, not the people who have corporate backing. A self pubbed author makes 70% of book sale price on Amazon, less than 15% if it's through publisher. The self-pubbed author pricing is usually less than 5 dollars...something around 3 dollars usually. And the publisher authors usually sell for hard back prices, 15 dollars or so. They want to force everyone to sell books at the 15 dollar mark, when self-pubbed authors have found that under 5 bucks gets them the most coverage AND money. So despite the evidence, the big pubs are attempting to influence the market and infringing on the rights (not necessary their copyrights, but I believe they are by attempting to prevent them from distributing it as the people want and the author wants) of the other authors to sell their works as they see fit by attempting to take over the market places.

The future of publishing houses looks like they will have to become small electronic based outfits that provide the author with an editor, cover artwork (relevant and beneficial to sales of book), and possibly facilitate audio book deals and other countries markets so the author can continue writing instead of marketing. For a 15-20% percentage of sales so they have an incentive to do it right and sell quantities at the popular pricing schemes instead of taking the lion's share and scooping up all authors so they get enough to stay afloat despite the content creators getting crumbs. But it still doesn't mean they should be attempting to prevent non-affiliated authors from being noticed and selling books as they see fit due to deals they make on behalf of all "book sales" they control or not.

As I said, copyright reform is needed. Also, the media companies have, for the most part, completely mishandled what should have been an incredibly profitable way to deliver their content. I get what you're saying about content creators spreading their own content. They're working on it! But running a business is an entirely different skill set, so distributing through a company that knows what they're doing (to the extent that they actually can pay you) makes more sense most of the time.>> ^MilkmanDan:

>> ^DrewNumberTwo:
99% of the people of the world are pirates? There's about one computer for every three people. My parents don't even know what pirating is. There are less than 10 billion people on Earth, not 50 billion. This guy's exaggeration makes it look like he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
Granted, copyright reform is needed. But I think it's a mistake to put it in a different category from physical media without recognizing that 3d printers are on track to become household items.

My parents know what pirating is, but they aren't savvy or motivated enough to browse over to PirateBay, run uTorrent, PeerBlock, etc.
However, they ARE savvy enough to fire up YouTube, where they can find "infringing" videos that get around auto-detection by horizontal flipping, etc. etc. etc. The RIAA's and MPAA's of the world would love to point at them and the hordes of people like them and and say "pirates! Cough up $1000 for every song/video/whatever"!
In the meantime, I'm living in Thailand. Piracy is my default way of obtaining media. In many if not most cases, it would actually be very difficult or impossible to "legitimately" obtain said media. If that makes me an evil criminal, so be it. But I tend to think that it says much more about the distribution system being broken beyond repair and utterly antiquated than it says about the people like me. The real content creators need to stop listening to (and paying) the AA's crying over spilled milk and start looking for ways to embrace (and fund themselves via) the pervasive and un-policeable internet, which will be the way to distribute their creations. The cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box is opened, the internet isn't going anywhere and nobody will ever be able to stay a step ahead of the pirates.
Maybe 3D printers will become a household item within our lifetimes, but we're a long ways off from Star-Trek like replicators.

>> ^DrewNumberTwo:

99% of the people of the world are pirates? There's about one computer for every three people. My parents don't even know what pirating is. There are less than 10 billion people on Earth, not 50 billion. This guy's exaggeration makes it look like he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
Granted, copyright reform is needed. But I think it's a mistake to put it in a different category from physical media without recognizing that 3d printers are on track to become household items.


My parents know what pirating is, but they aren't savvy or motivated enough to browse over to PirateBay, run uTorrent, PeerBlock, etc.

However, they ARE savvy enough to fire up YouTube, where they can find "infringing" videos that get around auto-detection by horizontal flipping, etc. etc. etc. The RIAA's and MPAA's of the world would love to point at them and the hordes of people like them and and say "pirates! Cough up $1000 for every song/video/whatever"!

In the meantime, I'm living in Thailand. Piracy is my default way of obtaining media. In many if not most cases, it would actually be very difficult or impossible to "legitimately" obtain said media. If that makes me an evil criminal, so be it. But I tend to think that it says much more about the distribution system being broken beyond repair and utterly antiquated than it says about the people like me. The real content creators need to stop listening to (and paying) the *AA's crying over spilled milk and start looking for ways to embrace (and fund themselves via) the pervasive and un-policeable internet, which will be the way to distribute their creations. The cat is out of the bag, Pandora's box is opened, the internet isn't going anywhere and nobody will ever be able to stay a step ahead of the pirates.

Maybe 3D printers will become a household item within our lifetimes, but we're a long ways off from Star-Trek like replicators.

>> ^bmacs27:

What they're probably acting on is the positive correlation between dollars spent enforcing copyright, and profit per publication. Does that suffice for you?

I don't buy that either, the data on litigation shows that it cost more than it brings in.

If you could show that litigation produces less pirating, again the data a few years ago showed the inverse correlation, then you might have something, but I want to see the data.

The entire MP/RIAA PR campaign against "piracy" is based on their claim that they are loosing money, which has not only not been demonstrated, but in fact appears to be the opposite of what is happening.

Copyright has become a broken social convention, because the copyright conglomerates have sought to extend it indefinitely, and to use strong arm tactics and dishonesty to enforce their power grab.

I'm in favor of a sane copyright system, but if we don't have one I can't really blame anybody for ignoring it.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.