RIAA: U R 5t34lin6 T3h Lyric5 T0 T3h Mu5ic!!1111

[CrossoverManiac]

Here's the BS (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm):

Song sites face legal crackdown

By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter



The music industry is to extend its copyright war by taking legal action against websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics. The US Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents sheet music companies, will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006.
MPA president Lauren Keiser said he wanted site owners to be jailed.
He said unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the internet but were "completely illegal".
Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".
Bitter battles
The move comes after several years of bitter legal battles against unauthorised services allowing users to download recordings for free.
Publishing companies have taken action against websites in the past, but this will be the first co-ordinated legal campaign by the MPA.
The MPA would target "very big sites that people would think are legitimate and very, very popular", Mr Keiser said.
"The Xerox machine was the big usurper of our potential income," he said. "But now the internet is taking more of a bite out of sheet music and printed music sales so we're taking a more proactive stance."
David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers' Association, added his concerns.
"Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing," he said.
"Music publishers and songwriters will consider all tools under the law to stop this illegal behaviour."
Sandro del Greco, who runs Tabhall.co.uk, said the issue was not serious enough to warrant jail time and sites like his were not necessarily depriving publishers of income.
Learn
"I play the drums mainly but I play the guitar as well. I run the website and I still buy the [tab] books," he said.
"The tabs online aren't deadly accurate so if someone really wants to know it they'll buy the book.
"But most of the bands I listen to don't have tab books to buy so if you get them online, that's the only way you can really learn it unless you work it out yourself."
The campaign comes after lyric-finding software PearLyrics was forced off the internet by a leading music publishing company, Warner Chappell.
'No alternative'
PearLyrics worked with Apple's iTunes, searching the internet to find lyrics for songs in a user's collection.
"I just don't see why PearLyrics should infringe the copyright of Warner Chappell because all I'm doing is searching publicly-available websites," PearLyrics developer Walter Ritter said.
"It would be different if they had an alternative service that also provided lyrics online and also integrated [with iTunes] like PearLyrics did. But they don't offer anything like that at all."
A Warner Chappell statement said the company wanted to ensure songwriters were "fairly compensated for their works and that legitimate sites with accurate lyrics are not undermined by unlicensed sites".
"We have requested that PearWorks provide us with information regarding the sources of their lyrics, and have further asked that they discontinue the service if these sources are operating without a licence."

Ever wondered what the lyrics for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are and looked them up online? Well, according to the RIAA and David Israelite, you were stealing because the RIAA owns all things that has to do with music. Hell, if a car blasting its speakers while playing 50 Cent passed you by on the road and you didn't stick your fingers in your ears, you were stealing music from the RIAA. What a bunch of pricks!

[Alex]

This has actually been going on for a while, as many band specefic sites had to remove lyrics from their pages 3 years ago.
This i find a bit mystyfying.
I understand not wanting to copy a novel onto a webpage, but lyrics arent much without the music to go with them, and cds often don't even have the lyrics in the notes anymore.

[Spike-X]

I've taught a bit of guitar. This involved showing people how to play copyrighted songs. Should I go to jail for not making them buy the tab books instead?

[Spike-X]

Hell, if a car blasting its speakers while playing 50 Cent passed you by on the road and you didn't stick your fingers in your ears, you were stealing music from the RIAA.

Don't give them any ideas.

[Alex]

I've taught a bit of guitar. This involved showing people how to play copyrighted songs. Should I go to jail for not making them buy the tab books instead?
Actually, i've seen tab sites closed as well.

[Punchy]

RIAA has never claimed to own anything, they just represent the artists that do.

[Spike-X]

No, they represent the record companies who do.

"You're stealing from artists" is just a hypocritical line used by the major record companies, who spend every second they can (when they're not suing twelve-year-old girls and grandmothers) thinking of new and creative ways to screw their artists out of as much money as possible.

And no, this does not justify stealing music.

[Punchy]

C'mon Spike, you sound like a high school punk in an AOL chatroom.

Record sales profits are distributed in percentages and yes record companies usually get a substantial percentage due to their investment in the record. But the artist does as well and they are paid in accordance to the sales of their CDs. If they have signed over all of the rights to their royalties then that's on them. But this notion that DLing is taking from the big, bad record companies and not artists isn't presenting the entire truth.

[CrossoverManiac]

No, they represent the record companies who do.

"You're stealing from artists" is just a hypocritical line used by the major record companies, who spend every second they can (when they're not suing twelve-year-old girls and grandmothers) thinking of new and creative ways to screw their artists out of as much money as possible.

And no, this does not justify stealing music.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_Industry_Association_of_America

Work (Made) For Hire controversy

In 1999, Mitchell Glazier, a Congressional staff attorney, inserted, without public notice or comment, substantive language into the final markup of a "technical corrections" section of copyright legislation, classifying many music recordings as "works made for hire," thereby stripping artists of their copyright interests and transferring those interests to their record labels. Shortly afterwards, Glazier was hired as Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel for the RIAA, which vigorously defended the change when it came to light. The battle over the disputed provision led to the formation of the Recording Artists' Coalition, which successfully lobbied for repeal of the change.

Damn straight.

[howyadoin]

Does anybody have a nerd-to-English translator? I have no idea what that thread title means.

[Adam Crocker]

Does anybody have a nerd-to-English translator? I have no idea what that thread title means.

Translated from leet-speak, it goes: "You are stealing the lyrics to the music."

[Tridge]

True story: the RIAA are pigs.

[Punchy]

True story: people do not steal movies or books or comics but for some reason have no moral trepidation whatsoever about stealing music.

[Leslie Lee III]

True story: that article has pretty much nothing to do with downloading mp3s.

And people download everything you just listed.

[Tadhg]

True story: people do not steal movies or books or comics but for some reason have no moral trepidation whatsoever about stealing music.


The only reason why more people steal music than movies is because movies are larger files and so even with broadband it takes a lot longer to download movies. If Peter Jackson's King Kong was only 6 meg in size, it would be as widely downloaded as any song. Comics are stolen less, because less people care about comics. Books, well people don't like novels on the computer screen.

[MKTerra]

True story: people do not steal movies or books or comics but for some reason have no moral trepidation whatsoever about stealing music.Isn't it technically copyright infringement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement)? IANAL but I think it makes a difference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States) in legal terms.

[Punchy]

True story: that article has pretty much nothing to do with downloading mp3s.

And people download everything you just listed.

Not with nearly as much frequency.

[GoGo Yubari]

Not with nearly as much frequency.

Because downloading movies takes a long time (I'd guess an average file size for a movie is around four-hundred megabytes as opposed to a size of three or four for a song of average length) and comics has a much smaller fanbase than, y'know, music.

[Leslie Lee III]

Any decent quality movie will be at least 700mb, most of the proper releases are twice that at 1400mb, then you've got the 4.7gb DVDR copies and some even putting full 8+gb DVD DL copies. Not things you can often find on Kazaa or the average downloader of 128kb Eminem songs will have the HD space fore.

Not with nearly as much frequency.

It's not because they feel bad about it. It's because most people don't know enough about how to get decent copies or are technologically held back. So your "true fact" isn't true and doesn't tell the whole story.

[spoon_jenkins]

Ever wondered what the lyrics for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are and looked them up online? Well, according to the RIAA and David Israelite, you were stealing because the RIAA owns all things that has to do with music. Hell, if a car blasting its speakers while playing 50 Cent passed you by on the road and you didn't stick your fingers in your ears, you were stealing music from the RIAA. What a bunch of pricks!
The idea that published song lyrics and printed music are intellectual property protected by copyright law isn't some new idea cooked up recently the RIAA. They've been protected by federal law for a long time - definitely several decades before the RIAA came into existence. In fact, I think federal protection for pritned music preceded protection for recorded music. And hearing music while passing someone's car isn't copyright infringement.

[Spike-X]

Actually, if they've got it turned up loud enough so that people on the street can hear it, it might technically count as "public broadcast".

But, again, we shouldn't give them any ideas.

[Evan Waters]

First off, the RIAA couldn't give any less of a damn about the rights of "the artist." They represent the labels, and the labels have specifically arranged things to give the artist virtually no power. They cut them out of royalty agreements, forbid them from forming or joining unions or guilds, maintain a fairly deceptive financing system (giving the artist an "advance" which is used to actually make the record, and which must be paid back before he or she sees any real money)- they're an effective monopoly and should not be in charge of any copyright discussion, period.

[spoon_jenkins]

Actually, if they've got it turned up loud enough so that people on the street can hear it, it might technically count as "public broadcast".
Yeah, but you're talking about the guy in the car, not the passerby who overhears it. So that neither contradicts what I wrote nor bolsters CrossoverManiac's claim (although maybe he/she was just being hyperbolic). I suspect it would be easier to get a stationary car playing music labeled a public broadcast, but I'm just guessing.

Now, that's to say that a given prosecution is a good idea. If the same entity owns the copyright for both the printed lyrics and the sound recording, it would be a really bad idea to prosecute people for "publishing" lyrics on the internet, because that could alienate/dampen the market for the recording.

[Punchy]

First off, the RIAA couldn't give any less of a damn about the rights of "the artist." They represent the labels, and the labels have specifically arranged things to give the artist virtually no power. They cut them out of royalty agreements, forbid them from forming or joining unions or guilds, maintain a fairly deceptive financing system (giving the artist an "advance" which is used to actually make the record, and which must be paid back before he or she sees any real money)- they're an effective monopoly and should not be in charge of any copyright discussion, period.

This is as ignorant a post as I've seen for a while.

An artist has every right to his royalties. It's as easy as registering yourself with ASCAP or BMI.

Any artist can join the AFM Union. It's as easy as signing up and paying your dues.

If an artist has signed away his rights to royalties or won't join a union he/she is doing it on their own free valition because they have stars in their eyes.

How is an advance deceptive? If any artist signs something without knowing what it is that is their own fault.

Funny that you think record labels hold guns to artists heads and "force" them to do things ...

[Tridge]

you can also DIY records, but that doesn't guarantee that they'll get distributed or sold at/by a store. (In fact, this pretty much assures that you'll not be sold in major chains. Indie stores may be more receptive to your wares, though.)

[Punchy]

Programs like ArtistShare (http://www.artistshare.com) are changing that.

[Tridge]

hey now, that seems really neat.

I'll have to look further into that!

[Spike-X]

And of course, all the ranting and raving in this thread (including my own) ignores one small, but significant fact - it's not even the RIAA that's behind this. It is, as stated in the article posted, the US Music Publishers' Association who are acting like giant gaping arseholes in demanding that lyrics/tab site owners be jailed.

[Evan Waters]

Funny that you think record labels hold guns to artists heads and "force" them to do things ...

When the record labels are basically perceived as the way to get your music out there, on the radio and on store shelves, it gives them a lot of leverage. It may not be "holding a gun to their head" (and I never said it was), but when your choice is the RIAA or obscurity...

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Lets have a poll of how many Bands and solo artists who have had stories about Record Labels screwing them . Its sad but they hold the power and the artists are forced to jump. ;)

[Punchy]

When the record labels are basically perceived as the way to get your music out there, on the radio and on store shelves, it gives them a lot of leverage. It may not be "holding a gun to their head" (and I never said it was), but when your choice is the RIAA or obscurity...

Well RIAA isn't really a choice when it comes to record labels. RIAA isn't a record label, they have no rights to your royalties, advance, or any other profits derived from your record contract.

I assume you were talking about major labels.

How many artists on major labels are starving? How many are getting the shaft? Have you ever seen Cribs? The answer is not many.

And if an artist is out for only fame and fortune than it's their choice to sign a high-risk record contract. But if they are true artists who make music because it's their passion then obscurity is not so bad. Just ask the hundreds upon hundreds of obscure artists who have fans on this board and across the rest of the world.

[Punchy]

Lets have a poll of how many Bands and solo artists who have had stories about Record Labels screwing them . Its sad but they hold the power and the artists are forced to jump. ;)

They do hold the power. But they hold the money as well. If a record company is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars recording and promoting you then they have a right to drop you if their investment isn't profitable.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the state of major record labels these days. I don't think they have any interest in cultivating the artist over the long run or marketing music to any other market than teenagers.

BUT they have a right to do that. That's why as an artist you have to be very careful who you get into bed with. You have to read the fine print, you have to be willing to sign over royalties in exchange for mass marketing.

If you're not prepared to do that, it's your own fault for signing the contract in the first place.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

They do hold the power. But they hold the money as well. If a record company is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars recording and promoting you then they have a right to drop you if their investment isn't profitable.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of the state of major record labels these days. I don't think they have any interest in cultivating the artist over the long run or marketing music to any other market than teenagers.

BUT they have a right to do that. That's why as an artist you have to be very careful who you get into bed with. You have to read the fine print, you have to be willing to sign over royalties in exchange for mass marketing.

If you're not prepared to do that, it's your own fault for signing the contract in the first place.

I always do find it funny that when all these acts do sign bad record deals , the labels complain & plead pverty when sales aren't high. Or the industry goes down.

In fact last year album sales went up and the industry and labls creamed thier pants. I meany it was them slappin each other on the back claiming they really had stopped the theft and thats why sales went down.

But this year sales fell . So who was to blame again ? You can't blame the industry for a real lack of big bands and stars now. Nope...ya gotta trot out downloading and call people SCUM some more.

Lets just be truthful...the major labels have pretty much kicked the people so much no one wants to buy as much anymore. Thier tired of hearing from the RIAA at how thier scum and ruining the industry.

The only ones to blame now for slipping sales is the labels and RIAA. They can keep shippin blame to everyone but til the products get better and more fans jump back...things won't change.

[Punchy]

Lets just be truthful...the major labels have pretty much kicked the people so much no one wants to buy as much anymore. Thier tired of hearing from the RIAA at how thier scum and ruining the industry.

The only ones to blame now for slipping sales is the labels and RIAA. They can keep shippin blame to everyone but til the products get better and more fans jump back...things won't change.

I don't know why everyone thinks RIAA is a record label or even a marketing entity within the music business. They aren't. How could they be to blame for 'slipping sales'? That makes no sense. Unless your claim is that people stop listening or buying music because of RIAA ... and that is so off-base I'd need to see some poll numbers to back it up.

Labels have a lot to do with the sad state of the industry. But if you are relying on major labels to produce good artists for you then you've been listening to bad music for a while.

[Evan Waters]

I don't know why everyone thinks RIAA is a record label or even a marketing entity within the music business.

It represents the labels- it's basically a cartel, actually.

[Evan Waters]

How many artists on major labels are starving? How many are getting the shaft? Have you ever seen Cribs? The answer is not many.

Yes, because everyone who signs with a label becomes a star. Right.

And if an artist is out for only fame and fortune than it's their choice to sign a high-risk record contract. But if they are true artists who make music because it's their passion then obscurity is not so bad. Just ask the hundreds upon hundreds of obscure artists who have fans on this board and across the rest of the world.

I'm not talking obscurity in the sense of someone like Kirsty Maccoll or Robbie Fulkes. I'm talking obscurity in the playing-the-same-club-for-20-years-and-maybe-getting-a-CD-released-locally sense. I'm talking obscurity in the having-to-work-two-other-jobs-just-to-be-able-to-record sense.

Not all artists want only fame and fortune, but most of them want to be able to make a living off of their work.

[Tadhg]

This exchange is probably one of the best ever!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Awhile back I remember watching Hammer on VH1. The old hip hop/rap star who scored a ton of big hits in the early 1990's. The guy who became richer than hell.

Well for about a year or 2 Hammer was producing his own albums and sold them where he played. He claimed he was making pretty decent money like that. His wife handled his sales as he performed.

The record label wanted him and offered him a dollar for each album sold. Hammer started to walk out : " Why should I sign with you " Hammer started " when I can sell my own CD's and put on my own concerts. I'm making 14 bucks a pop."

The Label tried talking to him telling him they could sell his albums world wide and make him a bigger star. Hammer held out and they got mad....one record executive wanted to boot this punk out. But another asked him what he wanted.

" If I make 2 and half dollars on each album sold and retain my royalties then I'll sign." People thought Hammer had lost it. He demanded his royalties and even his agent tried talkin him out of it. No go as the record company talked it over and agreed.

Garth Brooks wierdly pulled the same stunt after his 1st album took off. He wanted the " Hammer " deal.

[Punchy]

He then proceeded to lose all of his money buying mansions, cars, and paying an enormous entorage. Smart businessman that Hammer.

Miles Davis negotiated a similair deal with Columbia back in the 50s when artist compensation was much worse than it is today.

Good for Hammer, I don't see how this relates to the line of conversation.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

He then proceeded to lose all of his money buying mansions, cars, and paying an enormous entorage. Smart businessman that Hammer.

Miles Davis negotiated a similair deal with Columbia back in the 50s when artist compensation was much worse than it is today.

Good for Hammer, I don't see how this relates to the line of conversation.


It to me shows that Hammer wouldn't let a Label screw him over. Yeah..he made bad business decisions and kept a 200+ member entorage. But Hammer was smart on his music in this sense. He wasn't gonna let the Label take his royalties or his profits on CD's.

Whats scary is Hammer could have continued under Death Row and became a sell out. His " Funky Headhunter " look wasn't something I agreed with. But he more than likely would have made money doing it.

But he stopped. He realized that it wasn't him and he lost a lot. I saw him on TV and he's a Preacher now. I'm sorta glad he never sold out his good image for money.

[StoneGold]

I've taught a bit of guitar. This involved showing people how to play copyrighted songs. Should I go to jail for not making them buy the tab books instead?
Yes. Actually, that's how all this got started, was selling sheet music. Seriously. Course, this was waaaaayyyyy back when.

[MKTerra]

Well RIAA isn't really a choice when it comes to record labels. RIAA isn't a record label, they have no rights to your royalties, advance, or any other profits derived from your record contract.

I assume you were talking about major labels.A list of RIAA member labels (http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp) is on their website.