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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/30/state2258EDT0268.DTL
Quote:quote:Pac Bell’s Internet arm sues music industry over file-sharer IDs
RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, July 30, 2003
(07-30) 22:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —Pacific Bell Internet Services jumped into the contentious music-downloading fray late Wednesday, filing a lawsuit against the recording industry and questioning the constitutionality of the industry’s effort to track down online music sharers.
In a complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Internet service provider PBIS, operated by San Antonio-based SBC, alleges that many of the subpoenas served against it by the Recording Industry Association of America were done so improperly.
The suit also called to question some sections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the federal law the RIAA contends supports its latest legal actions. A spokesman for SBC said the RIAA’s use of the DMCA in its legal quest for online song-sharers butts up against the privacy rights of SBC’s customers. . .
It’s about time.
Thoughts?
Discuss.
Quote:quote:It’s about time.Thoughts?
Discuss.
*thoughts?* Yawn….. Kazaa just got thru trying to sue RIAA n fell on their butt. This current attempt will go the same way.
RIAA has a right to persue individuals who are stealing their property, a thief has no defensible right to do what they are doing.SBC needs to be investigated for their promotion of illegal activities.
*Discuss.* These are early days and nothing is set in concrete regarding this litigation, discussion at this time would be pointless.
However………. let the discussion begin.Post Scrip.
Kazaa is now jumping into bed with RIAA………… Obviously 4 million users of Kazaa can go to hell as far as the kazaa management are concerned.
Get serious here,… BIG business OWNS you. 🙁Quote:quote:Originally posted by rustedtightQuote:quote:It’s about time.Thoughts?
Discuss.
*thoughts?* Yawn….. Kazaa just got thru trying to sue RIAA n fell on their butt.
I have a feeling that SBC has a [sarcasm]LITTLE[/sarcasm] more money to fight with than Kazaa–and that’s what it’s going to come down to.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by rustedtight*Discuss.* These are early days and nothing is set in concrete regarding this litigation, discussion at this time would be pointless.
However………. let the discussion begin.Early? Early for what? Napster was shut down years ago, was it too early for that to happen? No. And you’re right, there’s no point discussing anything until AFTER it has happened… 🙂
Quote:quote:Originally posted by rustedtightGet serious here,… BIG business OWNS you. 🙁
Never said they didn’t… Besides SBC is much much larger business than the RIAA.
Quote:quote:RIAA has a right to persue individuals who are stealing their property, a thief has no defensible right to do what they are doing.SBC needs to be investigated for their promotion of illegal activities.
Size does not matter. 😀
By the way, Napster 2.0 comes out later this year, redesigned as an RIAA-friendly commericial service.
There was a good article on the LA Times yesterday about how the music industry has changed over the past decade. The premise of the article was that in the day before the Internet, recording companies were in control of the music industry. Now the fans are in control. We can get more information than ever before through fan sites. We can download (either illegally or legally via iTunes and others) only the songs that we want rather than purchasing an entire CD just to get the one or two that we like. We can find and access the most obscure music that we’d never be able to find in the corporate record stores. In some cases, we can even connect with the artists themselves.
Most recording companies are still reeling from this change and trying to fight it. The smarter ones are embracing the change and finding ways to work with it. For example, David Benveniste, manager of the band System of a Down, used viral marketing concepts on the Internet to help break that band into the mainstream, and is applying the same techniques for other bands using his Streetwise Concepts & Culture web site. His belief? If you can get people excited about a band, even if that means giving away songs for free, you’ll always find a way to make money.
I tend to agree. The recording industry doesn’t like to promote unknown bands. They like sure things. This stifles creativity and choice.
The Internet, on the other hand, is the perfect vehicle for the unknowns to become known.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by JeffIf you can get people excited about a band, even if that means giving away songs for free, you’ll always find a way to make money.
Exactly. If you produce a quality product, you’ll be fine. But the industry has been pumping out crap or CDs with one or two ‘hits’ for years. Now P2P sharing, iTunes (which I see doing very well), etc… are forcing them to up the ante. It’s much like a form of musical Darwinism–sink or swim–produce a quality product, or get out.
They cry about lost record sales when bands like Radiohead leak out their own material months prior to release dates and still sell the hell out of units.
The bottom line:
If you produce a great record, people will buy it. You’ll be fine.
If you produce a mediocre record with only one or two decent tunes and the rest is fluff, you’re doomed for failure and deserve it.
On a side note, I’ve bought more CDs this year than I have in the past three. Crazy eh?
Quote:quote:Exactly. If you produce a quality product, you’ll be fine. But the industry has been pumping out crap or CDs with one or two ‘hits’ for years.Define industry, is it the industry or the artists that produce this endless stream of ‘crap’, if the artist does not care why should the producers who are able to market ‘crap’ on the popularity of an artist that produces 80% crap?
Are we maybe to blame for accepting such ‘artistry’ in an industry run for profit? Is it not time to stop buying ‘crap’, to turn away from concerts where 80% of the crap is produced under ‘cost effective’ (crap) conditions cos you the audience are a sucker?
The ‘industry’ needs to get off it’s collective ‘industrial’ ass n see that the game has changed, no longer is it acceptable for artists to ‘load’ an album with what is in the artists own veiw garbage, and the industry needs to keep in mind where its income is sourced and cater to that source… if that means control of the artistic content of an album, the choice of material.. then so be it.
Where this is unacceptable to an ‘artist’ they can produce and market their own product.. when it is popular they will reap 95% of the profit instead of 8%.
In all other industries it is a buyers world.Why did you delete my post?
You’re pretty much saying what I said earlier. To answer one of your questions, both the industry (RIAA member record companies) and the ‘artist’ are to blame. I’m not going to define what the ‘industry’ is because 1) you already know 2) it’s fairly obvious; however, the ‘artist’ in this instance can be the performer, the writers (since many big budget image artists don’t even write their own material anymore), the marketers, the pasty fat balding male who shapes the young boy band into teenage heart throbs, etc….
Like you said, they need to cater to the source (customer). Instead of throwing money down on the image of some ‘artist’ they sculpted out of musical feces, they should concentrate on supplying content. Yes, they need to get with the program and see what people are downloading. People aren’t (for the most part) downloading the entire Briteny Spears album; they are downloading the singles–not the fluff. When they download Radiohead material, I’m willing to bet it’s the entire album. You can insert any consistent and musically self-sufficient artist in that last statement.
Afterall, people aren’t downloading image, they are downloading content.
Quote:quote:Originally posted by rustedtightgot anything intelligent to add?
copy/paste from another thread has no relevance.Also, regarding your ‘size doesn’t matter’ comment, I think size (amount of money and political pull) does matter in this case. SBC didn’t build a monopoly by praciticing good business tactics.
Where did I copy+paste from? Link please.
[edited since my other post was deleted for some reason.]
Quote:quote:Also, regarding your ‘size doesn’t matter’ comment, I think size (amount of money and political pull) does matter in this case. SBC didn’t build a monopoly by praciticing good business tactics.Lets wait n see. I’m willing to be judged at the end.
The “industry” is profit-motivated, as they should be. They have found that promoting a new band is an expensive and risky venture, so they try to limit their risk and expense by promoting as few new bands as possible. In fact, if they can promote OLD bands that have a proven track record, so much the better.
This is also seen on the radio, where corporate-owned radio stations recycle the same, limited playlists over and over and over again.
Where so we (the fans) go to find something new? Where do we go to find something different? For me, it’s the Internet. Discovering a new, little-known band is hardly possible otherwise.
The industry cries that CD sales have declined 20% in the past two years. So what? CDs are 20 year old technology. It’s time for a change. Instead of fighting the Internet, they need to embrace it and find ways to make it work for them.
Thank God for MP3s. Thank God for the Internet. Thank God that the RIAA will NEVER be able to put the genie back into the bottle.
Is file sharing really killing the music industry, as the RIAA claims? Not according to this article from the BBC.
One of these days the RIAA will realize that they are fighting an uphill battle that they will never win. If everyone stopped illegally downloading songs through p2p networks, what would be the outcome? My bet is that the RIAA would still be in the same financial situation, without anyone left to sue. Most consumers today aren’t looking for albums anymore, they want the singles. So the demand is there now for the sales of singles, but the product isn’t there. Consumers are tired of all the filler put into many of todays albums. Give them what they want. You cannot create demand for a product through threats and legal action. Its absurd.
that is 100% correct what shifter says…. how many tracks in a single album are hits ( not super hits, they are rare these days…) just 2 or 3… for which we pay all the money… why??? What’s the use… introduce single tracks with optimum prices and you will be selling more… A company in India has launched this where Customers can pick the tracks online and pay… the CD is delivered to them, but the only problem being the music company allows only those songs whose albums are booked with them… but in all it was a gr8 approach…
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