Artists respnd to the RIAA's lawsuit campaign:
- "They're protecting an archaic industry," said the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir.
"They should turn their attention to new models."
"This is not rocket science," said David Draiman of Disturbed, a hard-rock band with a platinum debut album on the charts. "Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet."
...."Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo."
"File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow," said genre- busting DJ Moby in a post on his Web site. "Record companies suing 12-year-old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse-and-buggy operators suing Henry Ford."
....Many artists painted the record industry as a bloated, overstuffed giant with too many mouths to feed and too many middlemen to pay, selling an overpriced, often mediocre product.
"They have all these abnormal practices that keep driving the price up," said Gregg Rollie, founding member of Santana and Journey. "People think musicians make all that money, but it's not true. We make the smallest amount."
The RIAA did not initiate these lawsuits to defend artists' rights, the musicians say, but to protect corporate profits.
"For the artists, my ass," said Draiman. "I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection."
...."Who doesn't want to get paid for their work?" said Wayne Coyne of the indie-rock band Flaming Lips. "But I think it works to musicians' benefit for people to be able to occasionally listen to their music and, if they really like it, go out and buy it."
....All agree that the Internet is here to stay and that downloading files will be an increasingly important delivery system for music, regardless of the music industry's lawsuits. "The focus of the industry needs to shift from Soundscan numbers to downloads," said Draiman. "It's the way of the future. You can smell it coming. Stop fighting it, because you can't." [SF Chronicle]
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
Weir is right, look at what The Dead are doing with the 'instant' cd's from shows.
this is a great idea....but the first reactive from a label exec i ever read expressed concern that these cds would 'compete' with the artists back catalog.
further proof that no music lovers are in positions of power at the biggies.
2 - cjones
Abolutely phenomenal. I have been waiting for this type of movement since I was young. The artist should be the most important point in the consumer chain as far as music distribution. They should determing their own price through companies like ITunes etc. If I am an indie group and just want to get my music out I should be able to distribute it for free or even a few pennies a track if I want to. If someone likes my stuff and purchases the CD they get credit towards a concert ticket of my performance. The music model is definitely changing and definitely for the better. Get the lawyers and the corporations out the way and you will see products (I wouldnt call them artists) like Brittany Spears go the wayside while real groups and performers (not people running around on stage with their pants hanging off yelling) will finally get their full due. Sorry to rant but I am a music lover and I feel horrible over how sex appeal has replaced real talent in the entertainment industry.
3 - Taloran
It's been a long time since I heard anything to entice me to the new pop "artist" of the day. I own well over a thousand albums / cds, all of which I purchased through then-normal channels, but my purchases of recorded music from the industry biggies have dropped way off in the last few years. The latest round of Orwellian spew from the RIAA will not entice me to return to their stores, quite the opposite. Reading the statements in the original post here, I'm more convinced than ever that the RIAA is in it strictly for themselves. Their blather about protecting the artists is simply for PR purposes.
I've become a more and more frequent user of MP3.com, where you can find artists who record music the way they want you to hear it, not the way some schmuck of a producer decides is best for the bankroll.
4 - Ms. Tek
David Bowie had some good things to day about it...
Something like once you start attacking your consumers, you are in real trouble.
5 - pm
Weir is right. The record industry's business model needs to change. Labels fought hard when radio came into effect because it 'gave music away for free.' What it also did was increase exposure and find new fans. The internet is just the next step. If they could find a way to harness it instead of fighting it, they'd do themselves a favor. Suing pre-teens is not the way to attract customers.
6 - Mark Saleski
the funny thing (ok, maybe it ain't that funny) is that this issue not only tracks each new change in media (the last time it was cassette tapes) but started when recorded music first surfaced.
i think it really pissed off musicians back then.
7 - The Theory
why should the artists have a say, in the first place? Most of them don't even hold the copyrights to their own songs... making them a 3rd party.
8 - Eric Olsen
Most retain SOME ownership over their copyrights, and after all, they are the creators, without them there is nothing
9 - Jim Carruthers
Actually, anybody who signs a standard contract with an RIAA affilate publisher gives up their copyright under a work for hire clause. They get an advance which is termed recoupable, needless to say, almost all artists never recoup.
Generally, after three albums, most recording acts are about $1 million in the hole. That's if they're lucky.
Work for hire is the elephant in the room for the RIAA (which is only a government lobby group, not like they actually create or produce anything, they just pimp the b-i-z to the g-o-v).
10 - Eric Olsen
Ah yes, the old "recoupable" ruse.
11 - TDavid
Recording artists need agents that work for them, not against them, to get better contracts. Talk about selling your soul to the devil.
12 - Eric Olsen
That's part of the bigger picture here: people feel much more free to violate copyright because they think they aren't doing it to the artists, but to the labels, whom everyone thinks are ripping off the artists anyway.