[sdiy] The RIAA Blows.... (fwd)

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Joshua 'n' all.
         Not really wishing to take this any further because, to be honest, 
I don't give a monkey's mister. But I have to wonder...

At 03:16 PM 6/25/02 -0400, Joshua Stephen Landau wrote:

> > >          Certainly I have no love of the RIAA or any of the other REAL
> > > thieves of the music industry but I'm wondering how 'n' hell this relates
> > > to independents? Sure the bill as it stands is retroactive and could 
> cause
> > > problems for any Internet broadcaster who has previously been so short
> > > sighted as to have been playing major record label noise in the past but
> > > the RIAA can't touch anyone who hasn't been sucking it's teet.
>
>Not everything on a major label is bad.  Not everything on an indie is
>good.  However, the assumption that the RIAA can't touch anyone who
>hasn't been playing their music is a false one.  How about the fees they
>chrage on DATs and blank audio CDRs?  Even if you're using the DAT/aCDR
>for your own music, they're sitll jacking you for some cash.  They can and
>will do the same thing to net broadcasters.  You say "I haven't played any
>of your music!"  They say "Prove it."

Leaving your taste in credibility aside and side stepping the issues of 
blank media which doesn't affect me given that I buy all that wholesale as 
an operator, (Not to mention the fact that I haven't needed to buy any 
media for years because of the advent of the CDR which now costs about 30 
cents/unit and who gives a shit.) and not to mention the fact that it 
hasn't got diddly to do with the issue at hand, I'm wondering if you guys 
actually run logging tapes?

Is it now mandatory by law in the US that a broadcaster has to keep a log 
for just this reason? You can't argue with a log. Last year I happened to 
be in a community radio broadcaster's studios doing an interview and I 
noticed that they used a pair of HI-Fi Video machines running slow-mo 
giving at least 8 hours per VHS tape. I don't know if they were auto 
switched but it doesn't matter. That's cheap-as and better quality than the 
usual means.

The ABC runs a pair of 10 track half inch low speed logging machines. The 
same kinda deal they use in airport control towers etc. Each tape lasts 12 
hours and it auto switches to the other one back and fourth. This is real 
Irwin Allen stuff though. You'd think you'd walked onto the set of lost in 
space or something.

The tapes are kept for 3 months before being recycled. Which just happens 
to be the APRA cycle time. In addition, during an APRA period, the DJs 
and/or program directors log everything they play on paper. If APRA want to 
dispute this then they just pull the logging tapes and say, "suck on this 
assholes!"

APRA never dispute!

But the other part of this is where I'm down on the indies too. The fact is 
that all the Independents seem to be running round in their own little 
world and never getting together to fight a common enemy means that it 
doesn't matter what you, or I say, what will be will be. Sure there's one 
big behemoth industry mouthpiece with their armies of attack lawyers and 
other's with a propensity to chase ambulances but there are thousands if 
not tens of thousands of independents out there. All shapes and sizes. And 
all running round like chooks with their heads cut off.

Sure the Recording Industry Ass. of America has won a couple of hollow 
victories in the past 12 months or so but each one has ended up hurting the 
industry more. 2 weeks later there's usually a work-around.

And wouldn't it be funny if everyone just said. "Fuck it!" we're gonna do 
this pirate style from our bedrooms. You'd end up with a situation where 
everyone was a pirate. The laws would be un-enforceable and it would open 
the flood gates that would eventually kill off bullies like that RIAA.

There are probably hundreds of hypotheticals here and I'm not going to even 
suggest I'm plausably right about any of them. However one thing I do know, 
no matter what the RIAA do to prevent it, People are going to do this shit 
anyway.

And to be honest. I just don't care. In 1999 I stood up with the IT 
industry in this country against censorship laws that sort to control the 
internet here. In 2000 I became a target for every political piece of dog 
shit with a vested interest in taking control. At the end of the day the IT 
industry and  concerned individuals weren't actually interested in 
preserving freedom of speech, they were only concerned about their bottom 
line. And when the legislation became law, they either worked around it or 
just plain ignored it because it was unworkable.

I moved my site off shore for as much as a protest against all the 
hypocrisy as to be safe from Australian law. And in the process I ended up 
saving myself around about 700 bux a year in hosting costs to boot.

And sadly, I see the same kind of crap going on here and I don't give a rat's.

It seems to me just two things are going on here.
1) The Recording industry Ass. of America are simply trying to artificially 
prop up a business in the throws of going out of business.
2) None of the independents could be bothered coming together to save their 
own asses much less co-operate long term.

So who gives a shit!

That's it. I rest my case your honor. Think and do what you will and do as 
you must. But it's not worth the effort for me to get remotely frothed up 
about this any longer.

Be absolutely Icebox.

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