After reading this article and this, I am at a loss. What is RIAA is trying to achieve? Totally alienate everyone? I think the copying for personal use has come before the courts before. Since IANL, I will leave the legal stuff to the people who know about them. RIAA, the only music I listen is what I hear over radio in my car and occasional listening/viewing on TV. May be you can take on TIVO like entities because they record music and TV shows.
I have not bought a CD in years (but we buy even more expensive Japanese music, which cost us twice as much as a US music CD, because we have a Japanese member in the family.) in protest to ugly practices of RIAA. But I think now I will visit stores looking for music that is not RIAA affiliated.
I hope musicians will learn that they are too being ripped off by a bunch and react properly. also I hope more of; "RIAA Gets opposition From Student Lawyers" , "RadioHead Might Find That Pot of Gold "In Rainbows"" and less of "Jamie Thomas appeals RIAA (Capital Records v Jammie Thomas) decision," this year and most preferably that RIAA finds a better way to protect IP, intellectual properties of artists, not pockets of few individual corporations.
Update;
I also saw the following article; Make your own deductions;
The only problem with the outrage over the news that the RIAA has begun to target CD ripping is that no such claim was made. RIAA lawyer Ira Schwartz, writing in a supplemental brief, made clear that the defendant was being targeted not for ripping CDs, but for putting songs in a shared Kazaa folder, making them available globally.
tag: RIAA, Music piracy, Music, Jamie Thomas,
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Next Step For RIAA, "Listening to Music is illegal"
Friday, December 21, 2007
Yahoo China Violates Chinese Copyright Laws, Court Rules.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Beijing court has upheld a ruling that Yahoo China violates Chinese law by facilitating mass copyright infringement through music downloads, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said.
"The ruling against Yahoo China is extremely significant in clarifying copyright rules for Internet music services in China," said the IFPI, which aims to combat piracy and promote copyright laws.
Officials at Yahoo China could not be immediately reached for comments.
Early this year, music industry leaders including Warner Music Group Corp sued Yahoo China for alleged copyright infringement involving more than 200 unlicensed songs, seeking damages of 5.5 million yuan ($747,100).
Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate Court said in April that Yahoo China, part-owned by Yahoo Inc, one of the world's biggest Internet companies, should bear some responsibility for the copyright infringement, although the music was downloaded from servers of third-party Web sites.
The court ordered Yahoo China to delete links to free Web sites offering music downloads and to pay about 200,000 yuan for facilitating distribution of unlicensed songs by other sites. Yahoo China then said it would appeal against the verdict.
The Beijing Higher People's Court upheld the April ruling on Thursday, under new Chinese copyright laws which entered into force in 2006, the IFPI said in an e-mailed statement dated December 20.
Despite enormous market potential, music sales in China totaled $76 million in 2006, less than 1 per cent of the global recorded music market, the IFPI statement said.
The IFPI, which represents the world's music companies, estimates that about 85 percent of all music consumed in China is pirated.Tags:
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
A Prince, A Web Sheriff, A Pirate Bay, All for a Song.
Pop music star Prince who was honored with a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for his "visionary use of the Internet to distribute music." and long considered an Internet innovator and a friend to the culture of free file sharing. He was among the first major recording artists to sell music online. This summer, Prince distributed more than 2 million free copies of his album Planet Earth as part of a newspaper promotion in the United Kingdom.
But Prince, one of America's most successful recording artists for three decades, seems to have had a dramatic change of heart. Within the next few days, he is expected to cap an aggressive two-month legal campaign to protect his copyright by suing The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracking site best known for helping people find unauthorized copies of music and movies.
"Prince is obliged to come up with the plan because no one else has done anything about this blatant piracy," said John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, the antipiracy firm Prince hired to coordinate his copyright fights.
Yes He must be very happy, and it might be that only Web Sherrif and lawyers will end up with Green Stuff. I don't know about Pirate bay other than what read in the news but are they rich enough to pay for three court cases at the same time? Even if verdict is for Pirate Bay to pay, will they have money to pay?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Oink Goes Boink!
Although I do not condone works of big music business' I think these are the things that they should go after rather than grand mothers and small kids. The people who create sites like oink and people who join those sites are real culprits.
Here is the news release by BBC.
British police arrested a 24yo man in Middleborough on suspicion of being the site admin, while Dutch police simultaneously raided the sites Amsterdam-based servers. The raids, which were coordinated by Interpol, follow a two-year investigation by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
The raids in Amsterdam and the northeast English city of Middlesbrough followed a two-year investigation into a members-only Web site, which allowed users to upload and download albums before their release.
Prerelease leaks have become one of the most damaging forms of piracy for the music industry which is struggling with falling sales. Recorded music sales have fallen by more than a third in the last six years, the industry says.
An estimated 180,000 members paid "donations" via debit or credit cards for OiNK's catalog of music and other media.
