10 songs
Tue, Dec 2, 2008 by Claire Connelly
The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) is suing a seriously ill teenager for illegally sharing music, despite the fact that her family couldn’t afford to represent themselves in court, let alone pay a fine.
19 year old Ciaro Sauro illegally shared ten songs. Ten songs. But her family couldn’t afford to defend the case, so a Federal Judge found her guilty in absentia and imposed an $8000 fine, which she can’t afford to pay either, due to hospital bills.
Moreover, Sauro denied the claim, saying “Look and see where the downloads came from, and look and see that it’s not me. It’s not fair to do to me.” Better yet, the internet account is in her estranged father’s name, he doesn’t live at the same address.
Thankfully, according to a local report, Pittsburgh Attorney James Brink has offered to represent the Sauros for free and will ask a judge to reopen the case.
These are the same companies that tell us we should value market forces, and yet are either stubbornly refusing to see the truth and adjust their marketing plans and prices accordingly, or they see the truth and still refuse to change thinking they can use outdated business mechanisms and old-school litigation to intimidate people into buying music.
News alert: No one is on the side of record industry (besides the CEOS and record label owners that walk away with million dollar bonuses). I know a lot of people that refuse to download music on principle – in support of the artist. But I have yet to hear anyone say “I really love this record label, they work so hard, they’re truly amazing, they deserve my $60 .” (When we know it costs about 5$ per cd to produce).
As an aside, I predict that in ten or fifteen years the record industry will become defunct due to the massive amount of profit they reap from selling albums and merchandise. Artists only receive a small proportion of the profits from cd sales. Most of the money they make is from merchandise when they are on tour.
I predict that with the rise in success and popularity of internet marketing (it has already superseded both radio and television advertising), bands will start employing internet marketing agencies who will take a much smaller share of the profits, and simply begin releasing albums online. That way the people who actually make the music can reap the rewards of their hard work and determination.
It’s also an affective way of keeping costs down for consumers, not having to include a mark up to cover the costs of pressing cds, printing cd art etc. Consumers have the choice of buying only the songs they like, or whole albums. It’s a mutually cost effective way of targeting audiences.
An Irritating Truth
http://www.anirritatingtruth.blogspot.com
Speaking of out-dated mediums, I’ve been reading up on the fact that some labels are going to start selling albums on flash-disks, which have the album in both WAV and mp3 formats and come with digital arts and all sorts of things. Sounds fun but I still think the net and full digital releases are the way of the future.
Here’s hoping that the interests of musicians and consumers align with full digital releases online.
Here’s hoping that the digital revolution doesn’t result in an increase in musicians who are profit driven. (As opposed to the people who put their heart and soul into producing music and are interested in maintaining a more than amicable relationship with their fans).
The good thing with full digital releases is that the artist should be making a bigger hunk of the pie. I think itunes takes a percentage and then the rest goes to whoever, depending on how contracts are drawn up, so for those who put their heart and souls into it can rest easier, and a little bit more comfortably.
Although that brings up the point that Apple are going to be at the forefront of the digital revolution, and I don’t really trust them all that much to do whats right by people.
There are plenty of internet advertising agencies around. They don’t need to compete with iTunes necessarily. All they have to do is have is a launch page to safely download the launched album (virus free etc).
No one is going to care about the state of the site if they can have speedy high quality download.
Competition between agencies isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it results in lowered prices.
But even still, apple aren’t doing too badly at the moment, and their prices are agreeable for the most part. (At least for individual songs).
As long as Steve Jobs is around, but who knows what will happen to apple if he ever decides to retire.
True, but I think itunes is probably the only place that has a gaggle of lawyers ready to tackle everything, and you know so much is gonna happen when it finally does happen.
I’m just gonna miss the good old days of actually buying a cd and opening it up for the insides and the album art and going through it physically instead of digitally. Ahhh the memories…
You can still download the album art, and burn the cd… it’d be almost the same. It’d sort of be like you’re completing the process. Making it yours.
That’s very Radiohead, although i thought both the last release from them and the last Beck CD was pretty awesome and interesting.
The Beck one was the one that came with a whole heap of stickers and you could make your own album art.
I’ve heard some digital companies/musicians are considering letting consumers have input into the cover art etc.