But I refuse to pay the RIAA so they can turn around, and through some poorly signed contracts by the band, only pay the band a few percent at best.

Help me pay the band. I WANT TO PAY THE BAND!!!!

This is why I only support my local Houston music scene now because I control the "how much" and "who gets" of the whole thing.

I just think its time the RIAA goes away for good. Many bands have proven that you can go it alone and as time goes on going it alone will get much easier for the bands.

axiomatic

craighyatt

So YOU'RE the bastard that dog ears all the books I buy at B&N. Completely off topic, but isn't that what a library is for? I don't go into a book store to buy used books. Prick.

And speaking of libraries, I hear tell that you can get movies and music there, too! Is the RIAA going to try to shut them down too since you don't have to pay to take a CD out, and so they don't get their pound of flesh?

Thoth74

I haven't listened to a single song in the top 40 in the last 4 years - its all crap that I could make on ReBirth in half an hour.

b-b-b-b

rpphoto

LDiesel

That definitely lifted my spirits on a cr@ppy Monday morning...

FÜ¢|< the RIAA!!!

BigDanInTX

Why did the film industry move from the east cost to the west coast?

I am wondering if royalties had anything to do with it...

nuff said?

madgeek

No seriously. Screw them all! They been ripping us off for years and I personally have no compassion for any of them.

Let the artists record their own music and give it away for free on their web site. Watch a commercial and the the band gets all the money from the advertising revenue. Not some no talent shark that cuts deals for RIAA and never sang or played a note in their miserable, shallow, pathetic little lives!!!!

Get with the NEW AGE and stop supporting the only form of legalized slavery still permitted. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RECORDING CONTRACT???

THE RIAA IS DEAD or at least dying. LONG LIVE THE INTERNET!

Did Lincoln quit when he crossed the Delaware?

Did the Allies quit when the Germans bombed Pearl harbor?

Come you pathetic little worms!

Toga! Toga! Toga!

PresidentBlutarsky

while reading the comments on the good old days of sharing mix tapes, etc. i was reminded of the barnes and noble business model.

i used to feel a little guilty for hanging out in barnes and noble gobbling up all the "free books" i wanted to read.

then i realized that a) i was also gobbling up expensive coffee and cookies and b) i was buying a ton of books every year because eventually i'd find a keeper from all the books i was sampling for free.

i think this is what the ham-handed riaa is overlooking... that a business model is all about traffic... file sharing generates more traffic and, ultimately, more sales.

security provisions that require a lot of overhead and/or piss off your customers only eat into your profits.

to quote stephen covey: "win/win interactions are built on a foundation of mutual respect and trust... A win/win approach requires a mentality of abundance (plenty for everyone) rather than zero sum (fixed amount)."

craighyatt

bennyb

deadhead05

bben46

fakiee

Hmm, what rights did I have to utilize an ol' 1980 invention called the cassette tape.

the compact cassette tape was a '60s invention. not to be pedantic or anything...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tape

x23

and my parrot say up yours RIAA

Im off to sharpen my false leg before boarding my ship to free land

aaaarrrrrrr ~scwark~

scorn

zamafir

But this is gizmodo. It cuts me to the heart to see you say such things. So I still persevere...

If you have to know one thing about the economy it should be this: A market transaction is perfectly symmetric. There is no buyer side and seller side. What occurs is an exchange of goods. We tend to think of the side that gives up money to be the buyer, but the money is just a place holder for goods. You can turn the transaction around. The "seller" is BUYING money (or the goods that he can get for that much money) from the "buyer". They as as much a "buyer" as the side that gives up the money. An example of an application of this: Most people feel that the "seller" should not try to get as much as he can for the product he is selling. Why not? View the transaction for the other side and see that the "buyer" is doing the same thing. The "buyer" is trying to sell his/her product (money - or the goods the money can buy) for the highest price (the most ammount of goods) he/she can get.

My point: RIAA should do everything it can to get more money for the goods it (its member companies) is selling. Its hypocritic to say otherwise, because that is what you are doing. You are exchanging goods with the people who own shares in the companies represented by RIAA and it is not clear to my why they should not try to get as much for what they are selling (music) as you are for what you are selling to them (the goods that can be bought for the money you just sold to them)

But maybe you feel that the world would be better off, economically, if we all were not such bastards trying to maximize our profits? Free market economists do not thing so. The model for the economy that we have says otherwise. And to see why you will have to learn economics.

Maybe you think rich companies (and people) like RIAA's members should not try to maximize their profits? But then you are confusing two things. Transfers of money from the rich to the poor and the market mechanisam for generating maximum output in an economy. Deal with the problem of transfers separately. When you mess with the market (price) mechanism, bad things happen.

pppddd

gizmodohomepage

thechansen

See islamists/christians/creationists v.s. the sane...

The only way to do it is to educate everyone else.

Synthaxx

And keep quiet please, Democrats.

Sharpless

QWERTYthon

skywalker268

aestheticity

What i do have a problem with is the way the music dinosaurs fail to embrace the new medium.
Just look at newspapers. They're not faring to well either. Do they blame people for reading the news on the "demonic internets"? No, they adapt!

These people, and the corrupt monkeys they wield (i.e. RIAA) should be banned from every electronic device forever. They clearly don't understand.

Synthaxx

For a generations that is getting used to using a computer as their stereo this is going to be eveb more the case. I haven't pirated mainstream music in four years, but I haven't had to buy it either.

Uglyshoe

Imahottguy

namlu

The RIAA is beyond ridiculous, demonizing a technology that's helping them more than it's hurting them.

Pterror

Luuey

Except for the owner of the music store, and his employees.
And everybody that worked on the cd that was not a member of the band.
And the record company, who also would have received a cut of the money, more actually then the band probably.
And the advertising agency, who won't get repeat bussiness from the record company because their advertising campaign failed to raise CD sales.
And maybe other people, i'm sure.

Sean

500cuts

jackfrost132

Taris

by Sylveran-01

I still stick to the sure-proof Method of downloading a random track of an album I'm interested in and seeing if it's alright or K-Fed bad. Depending on this Litmus Test, I will then proceed to the nearest CD store (never buy anything form a Mega Conglomerate if I can help it) and BUY the CD...

See! See! Piracy does hurt music sales! Think of all those terrible CD's that people like Sylveran don't buy because they pirate a free sample and don't like it!

Here's how the music industry is meant to work people: the RIAA synthesizes and overmarkets 128,000 bands. 12 are good, but you don't get to know what 12. Every band has one catchy song per album...the 12 good ones have an album full of good songs. Again, you don't get to know which 12. You hear one catchy song from a band, and you are supposed to go buy their CD, hoping they are one of the 12 good bands. If you get the CD home, and play it, and it turns out the band was one of the 127,988 lousy bands, you are out of luck. You are not allowed to return the CD you bought. No matter how terrible it is, or how much you think the near constant playing of "one good song" on the radio was really a form of false advertising. No returns for music CD's, except for the same exact terrible title. Period. Ever. Because of pirates. Or something.

This is how it's supposed to work. If you have a discerning taste in music, that's your problem. It is not fair that somebody's family should go hungry just because they work with/for/in a terrible band. It is your job to support terrible bands with your hard earned money. It is not fair to support good bands, but not bad ones. It's not their fault they're terrible, is it? It's not their fault they chose to go after a music career when they had no talent, is it? Is it even their fault they have no talent? NOOOO, IT ISN'T!

If you went to college and learned to do something useful, then you should have even more money to give to people who chose to make a career out of playing/supporting/producing terrible music. It's only fair. Otherwise, all those terrible bands would have no incentive to form terrible bands in the first place...and then what music would you buy? Think of how empty music stores would be without all those terrible bands taking up space. It would be sooo lonely, and empty, and sad.

(PS: please excuse me for using the euphemism "band" to describe what nowadays so often amounts to people on stage "singing" and "dancing" with no musical instruments in sight...)

(PPS: Copyright law is good in general...it provides an incentive for artists to produce art. But why does music not fall into the public domain after a few years of profit for the artist? Why is the copyright on music 99 years? People don't even live that long... Now go tell the government they are stupid, and the copyright law that we use now is used to ensure profits for companies, not artists, and makes no sense.)

EQC

hobobobo

PHJ

Rob C

MrPyro321

pillow

blueninja

Well, except the RIAA.

TommySez

Let's see the RIAA track THAT kind of piracy....

dufus

ARVash

But if the RIAA is getting its panties in a knot because of this, then I guess I'll have to skip the Frikkin' CD altogether since I can't be sure if I'm interested anyome.

Sylveran-01

I love used CDs.

strider_mt2k

After all, your not paying for the art, your paying for the medium it is on.

Oh... Wait.. They ARE paying for the art? Shut up, we got old retarded people to sue. No I don't care if they don't like being called retarded, just garnish their social security checks already.

DorkusMalorkus

My college had a kick-ass record store that I couldn't leave without dropping at least $40 every time I went there.

But then, they were also a place that *GASP* sold USED cds as well as NEW ones.

And the hungry, orphan-like record companies got no money from the used sales.

(The store also sold tickets to local concerts at face value, starving the poor kittens of the TicketMaster overlords, but that's another issue).

Calhoun

Avesar

Someone should make a month of protesting the RIAA or something, get the message out...

The_Maple

bluemonq

F@#$ the RIAA!

ab3