P2P: The RIAA has already lost - part 2

p2p news / p2pnet:- Bands and solo artists are being “unfairly squeezed”
in the digital era, says a recent UK news report, talking about
mainstream performers and completely ignoring the fact that Big Music's
machinations aren't all that's impacting and altering the world of
digital music.

Because it's not just about market share, 'product' and who gets what as
the korporate music klans divvy up the money.

"A cartel is a group of producers whose goal it is to fix prices, to
limit supply and to limit competition," says Wikipedia. "Cartels are
prohibited by antitrust laws in most countries; however, they continue
to exist nationally and internationally, formally and informally."

The infamous drug cartels are possibly the most insidious and powerful,
but close behind them are the cartels run by the international software
and entertainment industries which together control, almost absolutely,
the traditional print and electronic news media.

The Net and blogs and independent news sites are slowly but surely
changing that and in the same way, indie music labels are now making
their presence known and felt, although EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and
Universal, who together comprise the Big Music cartel, and the people
who rely on them, are doing their best to pretend this new, vital form
of competition doesn't even exist.


In the meanwhile, through the Net, for the first time, indie musicians
are showing the public there's more available than merely Oasis,
Radiohead and Jamelia, say.

And there's nothing unfair about it.

“I lived through the first punk revolution in '76,” posts Julian Bond.
in a comment to IFPI reports booming business.

“And I worked in a studio in the early 80s. I well remember the
explosion of creativity as people discovered they could self publish.
For a brief while there were hundreds of indy labels and thousands of
people doing short run pressings in the UK.

“Of course, most of those bands sank without trace and the indy labels
got swallowed up. It really is time to do this again and disintermediate
the big cartel.

“This time around the small labels can keep going and make a real run at
it with pure internet pr, marketing and distribution. What's needed is
for the middle aggregators like Amazon to support them along with the
search engines and information aggregators like last.fm.”

Bond was responding to an earlier post.

Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The RIAA has already lost

No one ever mentions the fact that independent musicians / labels sales
have exploded over the last three years and more than make up for any
(perceived) losses the RIAA are claiming. (Christian Science Monitor, 2004).

That should also tell the courts that there are valid LEGAL reasons for
free downloading! I doubt if Amazon would continue to offer free
downloads if they hadn't discovered it also fueled sales. The RIAA even
cried when BBC offered Beethoven for free downloads - who owns the
copyrights for Beethoven now?

That's the real crime, they are stealing culture and history.

People exploring musical tastes are just what the RIAA fears the most.
One of the first observations made by original Napster shortly after
starting, was the majority of songs being traded were not songs the
music industry (RIAA) had any interest in.

Times have changed and people want choices even if they have to pay for
radio (Sirius) to get it. How many kids would really buy what they
download, ie have the extra $5k to fill up their iPods with purchased music?

The mp3 player has the p2p network to thank for it's success - another
shot in the arm for creativity and innovation. That's also why music
stores the RIAA develop haven't got a chance as long as they promote a
very narrow, limited musical range - and it's highly doubtful that they
will voluntarily change.

I doubt if RIAA will ever offer the musician much more than $0.10 on the
dollar.

I can't think of an industry that works so hard against giving the
customer what they want. P2p is only one part of the growing "music
underground".



The RIAA has already lost. The numbers tell the story.

The more aggressive RIAA becomes, the more downloading becomes symbolic.


http://p2pnet.net/story/6473