Poll: Is the RIAA out of control?

ragingfish · Post by **ragingfish** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 12:13 pm

The RIAA just settled a lawsuit for $2,000. The defendant: a 12-year old girl. That's right. They sued a 12 year old girl. Do you think the RIAA has gone overboard?Here's the article: Girl, 12, Settles Piracy Suit for $2,000

fuel4soul · Post by **fuel4soul** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 1:16 pm

Maybe it's time to move to Canada...J/K but really, C'mon? I thought the McDonald's Obesity Lawsuit was bad....

ragingfish · Post by **ragingfish** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 4:15 pm

I'd sure like to know how many recording artists are 100% genuinely behind the RIAA...how many support lawsuits against their own fans, who trade music not as a malicious act, but as a way of spreading something they truly love...more so, I'd like to know how many artists support taking $2000 from a 12 YEAR OLD GIRL?!?!?I firmly believe the RIAA is acting on its own, and more artists are against what they are doing that not...

scherry2 · Post by **scherry2** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 7:18 pm

if bands or groups put out more than 1 song on a CD that was any good maybe people would buy the CDs.

cibomatto · Post by **cibomatto** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 9:03 pm

I have mixed feeling abouts downloading free/illegal music files. in the past in the napster days... WAY LONGGGGG ago...... I downloaded some mp3s.. Like one or two and ended up buying the album (and of course deleted the mp3 files) infact... Cibo Matto was the band actually.. LOL...if it wasn't for the mp3 file I would of never purchased the album..but seriously speaking I have issue with the idea of fair use. If we purchase a digital music file can we as the owner sell it as if it were a cd?who knows... but bottom line I don't get any warm fuzzies when it comes to the RIAA...

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:24 am

first of all, Metallica sucks now. lars started cry babying about napster to make excuses for almost non-existant record sales. we have him to thank for all of this.none of this makes since. have people not been taping songs off of the radio for 20 years?? do the rappers look like they are suffering in any way from this?? i'm sure the majority of groups that have a problem are rock groups. number 1 reason: rock sucks now! how many times can i hear about how mommy and daddy were mean and how life sucks so bad?? rock is dead.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:40 am

let it be known, i like metallica - garage days through the black album

MonotoneSatellite · Post by **MonotoneSatellite** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:48 am

quote:if bands or groups put out more than 1 song on a CD that was any good maybe people would buy the CDs. Amen brother!

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:54 am

quote:first of all, Metallica sucks now. lars started cry babying about napster to make excuses for almost non-existant record sales. we have him to thank for all of this.The bottom line: places like Napster are giving way someone elses work for free. Period.Would you do your job for free? I don't think so, so why should bands?If you don't like the music, don't buy the album. If you only like one song off the album then buy the single or tape it off the radio like you have been for 20 years.quote:none of this makes since. have people not been taping songs off of the radio for 20 years?? Yes, but the radio station pays rights to the band to play those songs. Nothing is given away for free that way. As long as the bands are paid, there is no problem.

meathead333 · Post by **meathead333** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:55 am

quote:let it be known, i like metallica - garage days through the black albumme too, the newer stuff is ok, but the older stuff is way way way way better

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 2:16 am

quote:If you don't like the music, don't buy the album. If you only like one song off the album then buy the single or tape it off the radio like you have been for 20 years.none of this makes since. have people not been taping songs off of the radio for 20 years?? Yes, but the radio station pays rights to the band to play those songs. Nothing is given away for free that way. As long as the bands are paid, there is no problem.well, if that song was on napster, didn't someone have to buy the cd to put it on there?my original point stands, popular groups aren't having a problem.metallica missed out on probably 6 record sales because of napster

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 2:45 am

quote:well, if that song was on napster, didn't someone have to buy the cd to put it on there?Yes, that one person. The price that person paid was for the right to use it personally. Not make copies and give it away.A radio station pays alot more than what we pay for a CD but that higher price gives the radio station the right to broadcast it.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:06 am

that is besides my point. you can copy songs from the radio. the same ones you get off the internet. you can share the songs you copy for free with people. a free copy is a free copy, wheter or not the radio station paid for it

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:12 am

First, the copy you get off the radio is not an exact duplicate like you get with a digital version. Second, if places like Napster paid the artists in the same way radio stations do, then it would be legal. That will never happen.

fuel4soul · Post by **fuel4soul** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:16 am

(The bottom line: places like Napster are giving way someone elses work for free. Period.Would you do your job for free? I don't think so, so why should bands?)And by suing your fans is going to make your record sales increase? If I got sued by a recording artist I liked, I would certainly stop listening to them and buying their products. I would also advise others not to.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:16 am

whatever, i'm done here

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:20 am

quote:And by suing your fans is going to make your record sales increase?So these artists should just allow people to give away their work for free? Is that what you're saying?

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:21 am

quote:whatever, i'm done hereLet's see, you're mad because you can no longer illegally get music for free like you were and it's the bands fault. That logical.

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:27 am

quote:I can go out and buy a CD. I have the right to make copies of it and give them out to anyone for free, as long as I am not making a profit.No, you have the right to use that CD for your own personal use. It's the same with computer software. Should I be able to make copies of Windows 2000 and give it away to people? Making no profit at all from this. No, that's illegal.

joatmon · Post by **joatmon** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:33 am

The quality of available music is irrelevant. The artist creates a copyrighted piece of intellectual property, and people are accountable to the copyright laws. If an artist decides to make their music freely availble in order to get publicity and develop a fan base, that's fine, but not the norm. Freely distributing someone else's copyrighted music files is the same as pirating software. Seems like an easy thing to do, most everyone does it, but still technically wrong. Doesn't matter whether you like the product or not, or if the creator is already obscenely stinking rich. It's like shoplifting a candy bar from WalMart, or bootlegging a copy of some Microsoft software. One won't hurt the company, it may be overpriced, but it's still wrong. I think that going after a 12 year old girl is probably overkill, but it gets the message in the news that they are going after people, and are willing to be heartless about it. Too bad for the girl and her family, but maybe someone will think twice the next time.A lot of people treat copyright laws the way they treat speed limits. Work in the gray areas, push the enforcement tolerance, know it's technicaly illegal and hope to never get caught, come up with reasons why the rules are unfair and therefore can be overlooked. RIAA has set up a whole bunch of speed traps and is mailing out tickets. Hope your radar detectors are working.

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:46 am

quote:A lot of people treat copyright laws the way they treat speed limits. Work in the gray areas, push the enforcement tolerance, know it's technicaly illegal and hope to never get caught, come up with reasons why the rules are unfair and therefore can be overlooked. RIAA has set up a whole bunch of speed traps and is mailing out tickets. Hope your radar detectors are working.I agree. If you copy a CD to give it to a friend but it stops there, I doubt you'll have a problem. However, you make the copy available to millions of people in a public forum, you're going to invite trouble.

joatmon · Post by **joatmon** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:51 am

quote:If you copy a CD to give it to a friend but it stops there, I doubt you'll have a problem. However, you make the copy available to millions of people in a public forum, you're going to invite trouble.I have a GM Vibe service manual, and it is these same principles that prevent me from scanning in a page and posting it to this web site. Don't ask me to, because I won't.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:57 am

im not mad at all. ive never burned a cd in my entire life, period.i buy every cd i own. i was just presenting the truth on this issue. i could give 2 sh*ts.

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:13 am

quote:i was just presenting the truth on this issue.No, you were presenting your opinion on this issue. There's nothing wrong with your opinion but it's just that, your opinion. It's not the truth. The truth is free music sharing is an infringement of copyright laws and is illegal. Period.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:20 am

the truth is, however, that lars is a crybaby and i'd rather listen to crappy nickleback than hear anymore of the new Metallica crap. never said copyright infringement was legal, just compared cd and radio and tried to prove a point about how it's the same thing when you copy from one.this conversation has made me wanna go and burn my first cd, i think i'll go to my cousins, burn a cd, then sell it and never get caught. sounds fun

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:44 am

quote:the truth is, however, that lars is a crybaby and i'd rather listen to crappy nickleback than hear anymore of the new Metallica crap.Again, you are confusing your opinion with the truth. That are not the same.quote:never said copyright infringement was legalNo, you're saying it should be legal.quote:just compared cd and radio and tried to prove a point about how it's the same thing when you copy from one.And I told you it's not the same thing.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:48 am

whatever man. would you like a copy of the cd im going to burn tonight?

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:49 am

Lets see ...I am pushing almost 5,000 MP3sI would say that I personally own not that many.Although a good half of my music is from soundtracks of Video games from soundtracks that were never released in America, and I'm not sure what Japanese copywrite law is like.My American music? Lot of it downloaded, a lot of it personally paid for. Recently, if I can find a song on the iTunes music store, I buy it. If I cannot find it, I will download it - especially if it is a RIAA supported recording label. Because of the elimination of digital rights that the RIAA is pushing for, I refuse to buy certain CDs themselves, and would much rather download it and send the artist a personal check for their music. (There are websites that give the addresses of these artists, and some even put it on their own websites) I forget how much money from an actual $15 CD album sale goes to the artist, but I believe it's well under a DOLLAR. I believe most artists make most of their money from touring as well as mechandise sales, very little is actually made from album sales themselves. So anything that I can do to help bring down this gestapo-like organization that is called the RIAA, I will happily do.More info here: http://www.boycott-riaa.comSpend some time on slashdot (http://slashdot.org) and you will see a lot of RIAA and digital rights information there, perhaps learn a thing or two about the RIAA as well. This is all I'll contribute for this half hour, as I don't want to get into another flamewar However, I will say that I have personally downloaded every single Metallica song that I could ever find, just out of principle. I listen to perhaps 2 of them, but those two I ripped from a friend's CD. I just downloaded those songs just to spite big-baby-Lars over there

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:57 am

way to go geo, thanks for your input. i got nothin more to say myself(download another round, burn it, then throw it away just for me)

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 4:59 am

quote:I just downloaded those songs just to spite big-baby-Lars over there And who's the big baby?You're just mad because you want someone elses work for free. This is no different than bootleg movies or pirated software.

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:01 am

quote:I just downloaded those songs just to spite big-baby-Lars over there And who's the big baby?It's not like I was ever going to buy them anyways.Is it really hurting the artist if you download a song that you were never going to buy in the first place?Perhaps spite was the wrong word, I think of it more as an act of civil disobedience.Viva la revolution!

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:04 am

What the hell, I am feeling generous! Here's an interesting article from USA Today about the RIAA and file sharing.http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... .htmHere's it copy/pasted for your ease-of-reading :DMusic industry doesn't know what else to do as it lashes out at file-sharingOK, so the music industry is acting with all the clumsy brutality of the British Raj trying to snuff Mohandas Gandhi's civil disobedience in 1930s India. But that's hardly the real problem here.First of all, nobody ever liked music companies anyway. Not the fans, who have long complained that recordings cost too much, whether on vinyl, eight-track tapes, cassettes or CDs. Certainly not the artists. In the 1960s, The Byrds cut So You Want To Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star: "Sell your soul to the company/ Who are waiting there to sell plastic ware." In her 1990s song Right Through You, Alanis Morissette wailed at a record executive who had spurned her: "Now that I'm a zillionaire/ You scan the credits for your name/ And wonder why it's not there." (Background: More music and technology coverage) So the emotional argument du jour â€” that the music industry's file-sharing lawsuits are a huge mistake and will only alienate the public â€” doesn't work. The industry is deaf to such advice. It's like trying to tell a heavy smoker that he should give up his recent doughnut habit lest his health suffer.This week, the music industry â€” as represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) â€” filed lawsuits against 261 individuals who have allegedly illegally downloaded 1,000-plus songs over the Internet. It's the RIAA's latest tactic in a campaign to stop people from getting free music using programs such as KaZaA and Grokster, and the industry promises to file thousands more similar lawsuits in coming months.It might be a malicious, contemptible act, but it's like a 9-year-old who throws a tantrum â€” which, as Dr. Phil would say, is usually about something deeper that the tyke feels powerless to change.The RIAA is lashing out because it has no idea what else to do. And there's a reason for that. Nothing like its situation has existed before.Emerging technology has deeply rattled lots of business models and whole industries over the centuries. Electricity doused a booming kerosene business for lamps. Cars overran the buggy business. Digital cameras are doing the same to film.But rarely, if ever, has the losing industry blamed its customers. The villain was always a competitor â€” some upstart business. Even when a new technology allowed consumers to chip away at a business â€” think of a VCR's ability to copy movies â€” they could never do it on a scale big enough to do real damage. But with music file-sharing, they can.Other twists make the music situation even weirder. Despite having popular sentiment on their side, file-sharers are literally breaking the law. Not only that, but they're stealing money from the very artists they love, and who â€” except for the superstars â€” are not rich enough to miss the income. In the story of the RIAA's lawsuits, there are no good guys.Are there lessons from history? Maybe in Gandhi's India. The British ruled for nearly 100 years before Indians began making their own salt, boycotting imported cloth and otherwise breaking the law. It was a popular uprising that could not be stopped. The Brits threw people in jail, until the jails overflowed. The RIAA is facing similar mass disobedience. In the end, the British lost control over India. Is that the fate of the music industry's control over songs?On a different level, Hollywood faced a similar crisis when television took off in the 1940s. Just like personal computers in the past decade, TV sets whooshed into the market, bringing new, mind-blowing electronic capabilities into homes.Before TV, people had to pay for visual entertainment. As with file-sharing and music, advertising-supported TV allowed people to suddenly see news and entertainment for free. Weekly attendance at movie theaters dived from 80 million in 1946 to 12 million by 1972, according to The American Film Industry, edited by Tino Balio. The number of films made dropped from 445 a year in the 1940s to 150 in the 1970s. The studio system fell apart. The industry slowly reorganized around making blockbusters and niche films instead of a steady stream of mediocre movies. Not until the 1990s â€” and, ironically, the boom in income from video rentals â€” did the movie industry truly recover from the blow of massively free entertainment.In other words, it took Hollywood almost 50 years to figure out how to deal with TV. The music companies have had less than 50 months. There's some perspective for the people who say the music industry has been glacial in its efforts to offer legitimate music on sites such as Apple's iTunes.In the meantime, this could turn into a societal crisis. When TV made entertainment free to consumers, artists still got paid because of advertising. It was just a new business model. When the British left India, the Indians created a new civil model.But if free downloading takes over, there is no new model. The music companies will suffer, but so will the artists â€” and probably anyone who loves music. That's not an apology for the lawsuits. Just a way to say that nobody's happy here, nobody's right, and nobody's behaving very well. Apple might be lighting a pathway out of this mess. Maybe it will take a greater power.Calling Dr. Phil?

NovaResource · Post by **NovaResource** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:13 am

A very interesting article however it doesn't back you position (or mine). In a nutshell is said nobody wins with these lawsuits. And I agree. I never said the lawsuits were a good idea, I just said free trade of music was illegal. The solution isn't lawsuits. The solution is in finding a way to pay the artists for their music being traded on these sites. If that's from ads then so be it but they still deserve the compensation.

Vibe Rater · Post by **Vibe Rater** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:58 am

quote:I just said free trade of music was illegal. Not so fast. Says who? I am of the opinion that it is not illegal.[QUOTE] you're mad because you can no longer illegally get music for free like you were [QUOTE]It has NEVER been easier to get music for free on the internet, and tomorrow it will be easier than it was today. Number one rule of war (and this is war to the RIAA), know the enemy. With Napster, the enemy was clear and present, willing to negotiate and even offered the RIAA a billion dollars and access to the Napster servers, where all the hard work was already done for them. They chose to sue them out of existance. Stupid move. It spawned a growth industry like has never been seen before. The enemy now is unclear and elusive. Always will be. I'm sure even Nova doesn't support the RIAA. Nobody does, not even the artists. The RIAA is completely at fault and fully responsible for this mess. They are a culture of fat @ss hypocrite monopolies. Damn them to heII.BTW, speaking of fat @ss hypocrite monopolies, anybody wanna talk about Ticketmaster?

ragingfish · Post by **ragingfish** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:02 am

?Many valid points are being made here! I, for one, am not an advocate of illegal file sharing. Have I downloaded some tunes in my time? Sure. I bet a lot of us here have. I honestly, am a supporter of the iTunes concept....but it's not available for PC. If I could pay $0.50 or $0.99 for a high quality, legitimate, unedited track. I would. If I hear a song on teh radio I like, I usually download it. Then I'll download a couple more tracks from that artist. If I like them, I go buy the CD!Honestly, I've dished out more money for CDs since the advent of file sharing than I had prior to that...people recommend an artist I check 'em out, I like 'em, I buy em! I use file sharing not for freebies, but for free previews -- and more often than not, I buy the actual CD of stuff I've downloaded...

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:09 am

The article might not totally back either of us, but it does support the original idea of the thread, in that the RIAA is indeed going too far and must be stopped. So instead of doing an argument type thing, I'll consider this as more of a public service announcement I do illegal things every day, and I know it. I jaywalk, go through stop-signs on my bike, speed, and other small infractions that are indeed against the law, but tend to be passed aside.There are over 60,000,000 people in the US alone that have downloaded music according to the RIAA, that's roughly a little over 1/5th of the US Population that is illegally sharing music. The RIAA trying to do these lawsuits is horribly wrong (You don't sue your main customer base and then expect them to support you by buying more CDs!)Before things ilke the iTunes music store, if I wanted to hear new music, I had to listen through the tripe that is on the radio (thanks, ClearChannel), and then buy an album for the 1 or 2 good songs I liked. What I found interesting, is that when Napster was around, CD sales actually went UP for the RIAA. More people were buying music (I did a research paper on the RIAA and File sharing my freshman year for English class) and things seemed to be good. A LOT of people have bought MORE music because of the free-trade of music. People would download songs, like what they hear, and then go out and buy the album. Only more recently has CD sales actually plummeted, because of the strong-arm tactics of the RIAA. There are also a lot of artists who would put their music on these file-sharing services, and encourage people to download them for free. When the band goes touring then, people go to see them live, and they develope a real fan base, and make a lot of more money at the same time. It's my belief that if I download an album or song for free, but end up liking the actual song and go to see the band live, then they have not only broke even, but made a profit off of the free-trading. Sure, it won't be like this for a lot of people, but this is actually how some bands are surviving - through P2P networks. Not to plug Macs so much, but what Apple has going with the iTunes music store is the perfect business model for the music industry today.You have per song OR album choices of downloading, good prices, and you can hear a FREE 30-second sample of EVERY SINGLE SONG IN THE CATALOG should you wish, and you arent limited to how many times you can hear the sample. I have bought MORE music these past few months than I probably have in my highschool years combined. Only trouble, is that it is still through the RIAA's record companies, but at least I am spending $1 for the one song I liked on the album instead of $15-20 for the one song on the album.The RIAA doesn't care about the money so much as it cares about losing control of its industry. How much of this money from the lawsuits do you actually think will be going back to the artists? The RIAA has already said that these first lawsuits are going to just fund the later lawsuits to come, I doubt ANY of this money will go back to compensate the artists. The best way for the artists to receive the money, is for them to take over distribution and market their albums themselves, it will issue in greater diversity in the music we hear (no more "listen to whatever the record companies throw down your throat" style of choice) and it would surely change public view of the whole ideal.Most people who do share music think themselves more of stealing from the record companies moreso than the artists. There are a lot of people who download strictly BECAUSE it hurts the record company CEOs moreso than the artists. ($.10 per CD sale to the artist, while $10+ goes to the pocketbooks of the CEOs... who does this hurt more?) If we eliminate the middleman, then you would indeed be hurting the artist directly because all the CD profit is being stolen, not just a little dime. RIAA is going way to far, and they know it. I just hope they don't take too many of us down with them on their way to extinction.As for illegal file sharing, it's to the point where you can still call it illegal, but in the eye of the public - the group that really counts, and who can decide what is illegal or not through voting power - it is seeming to be less and less of an issue, and with technology being what it is, there is nothing that can stop file sharing, it can be made harder, but anyone with some computer knowledge will be able to do it.Wow, I've hit too many topics... time to take a break, lol

Vibe Rater · Post by **Vibe Rater** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:17 am

quote:(removed)..I have the greatest idea. Lets all go to a Mattress Shop and rip off the tags and then run.. No thanks. I just got outa jail from the last time we did that.

Geo · Post by **Geo** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:19 am

Just found this interesting article as well.If you really want to help the artists, download music, drive the RIAA out of business and then let the artist actually start making money instead of the record companies putting them into debt.http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/ ... x.htmlJune 14, 2000 | Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts. I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math: This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide. What happens to that million dollars? They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager. That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person. That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released. The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.) So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties. The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable. The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records. All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band. Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company. If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record. Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero! How much does the record company make? They grossed $11 million. It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support. The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties. They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry. Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million. So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven. //// So by this logic, one is only HURTING the band by buying their music and keeping the record companies alive. That's f*cked up, isn't it?

rasermon · Post by **rasermon** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 6:55 am

The RIAA been searching our homes. It all started on 12/24/03.Warning! Graphic violence in this short movie. http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg

ragingfish · Post by **ragingfish** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 7:21 am

Yep, that's about right!!!

yank dini · Post by **yank dini** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 2:46 am

who ever voted NO outta be ashamed of your self.

meathead333 · Post by **meathead333** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:22 am

...and to think we supposedly all get along like a happy vibe/matrix community- thats funny

joatmon · Post by **joatmon** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:25 am

I am, often. But, I've been yelled at by people way more important than anyone on this site, so go for it.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:04 am

...one nation under vibe, with liberty and justice for all...

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:14 am

victory is ours!is that commercial real??

Sub-Vibe-R · Post by **Sub-Vibe-R** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:17 am

quote:The RIAA been searching our homes. It all started on 12/24/03.Warning! Graphic violence in this short movie. http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg (removed), it hurts!!!

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:23 am

let's lead an iraqi style revolt against the riaa!! everyone, grab all of the pebbles, rocks, and sticks, you can!! when they come with their guns drawn, pretend to surrender, then, when they least expect it, reach into your pockets and hurl the mighty rocks at the infadels!!

St. Martin · Post by **St. Martin** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:25 am

I personally think it is a good idea that they sued the 12 year old, and I'll tell ya why:If they only sued 20-something computer jocks with 10k or more songs, people still wouldn't be deterred. RIAA definitely is setting an example that it is ILLEGAL for all ages under ALL circumstances. ****, it made me stop downloading. I called everyone in my family and told them to erase the mp3's from their drives. NOBODY IS SAFE FROM THE LAW! oh yeah, and that video is hilarious!

joatmon · Post by **joatmon** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:25 am

quote:Who the hell says anyone is way more important that anyone else here.Every member has the same rights and the others. No matter is they are Nova or wannabe Nova's (joke), Mod's, and the Administrators.Just some us us have access to stuff that others don't (hehe). But we all get yelled at, trust me.. One thing about GenVibe is that there is Equality between all. No slam against yank, who is a true asset to this site, or you silver, zeus among genvibe gods, or anyone else. There may be some very important people who are genvibe members: Presidents, captains of industry, stay at home parents, scientific geniuses, filthy stinkin rich city slickers, whatever. It doesn't matter to me, every one deserves respect.Before anyone reads too much into my comment, let me just say that in my life, there are people that are more important to me, that their opinion is more important to me than what people tell me on this internet forum. # 1 would be my late wife. Now, when she yelled at me, it mattered to me a hell of a lot more than if I catch some grief here at genvibe. By comparison, being told here that I am wrong is so easy to deal with that I really don't care. it wasn't supposed to be any particluar genvibe member, or any slam against people who are genvibe members, or against genvibe, or public internet forums, just a statement of my opinion that in my individual universe, to me, there have been people who have yelled at me and it mattered, while here at genvibe, if someone wants to give me some grief over a personal opinion, that's fine, I can take it, it won't be interpreted as a big deal by me, I don't mind, tell me what you really feel, don't worry about hurting my feelings, bring it on! I think this is the attitude that everyone should have on a site like this.I try to be nice, but sometimes it seems like I have to walk on eggshells here, which is tiresome. Sorry if it bothered you, no offense was intended. Please don't take my opinions so seriously. They should not be very important to you.

drunkenmaxx · Post by **drunkenmaxx** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:40 am

4 posts and 7 threads ago, our forum fathers brought forth upon the internet, a new site. concieved in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all members are created equal...dammit, i have the blue oyster cult stuck in my head thanks to that video