More reasons the Riaa needs to be demolished

[gitreel]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/opinion/25MCLE.html?ex=1089203940&ei=1&en=0e1324f0a771423f


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/opinion/25FISH.html?ex=1089203747&ei=1&en=e437a8521e0684a9


These are interesting to say the least. Whadd'ya think?

I think they are greedy criminals who think only about themselves. They do not think much about the general public. They have been ripping off the consumer for years.

[iooi]

They are just pure greedy. Reading the first artical and the birth and florish of radio and how it was tackled with a small fee compared to the latter with streaming and large fee's. This just shows that the industy is thinking purly of itself and the fact it wants big $$ now not looking at the long term picture. Lets face it they screamed blue murder whem vcr's came out but yet make millions out of selling tapes that you play in them. Same with dvd's now....
They are also killing the goose now with the subscription download services by wanting to up their charges as they are so popular. Instead of being happy getting a little and often they want a lot all the time....
I agree that its now come to the point where the only way is to boycott the lables involved for a say a month but go and buy other music etc that arnt involved in the riaa etc.
Its up to Joe public to show these greedy groups that they cant have it all their own way after all they only provide a service to US, they have NO god given right to make billions of $$ profit just because they think they should....

[gitreel]

they have NO god given right to make billions of $$ profit just because they think they should....

Amen. However Joe Q. Public either does not realize what is going on or doesn't care. They think it doesn't affect them.

Only educated people like us realize what freedoms we are losing. We have already said goodbye to the public domain when copyrights were extended.

[Nilfennasion]

And what makes public domain such a great thing?

In Australia, the public domain is raided all the time for films that distributors who shouldn't be in DVD can use to make a few extra bucks. Films like Plan 9 From Outer Space, Death-Race 2000, and Howling III have all been given shoddy transfers that look like the distributor just took the negatives off a garbage-room floor and ran through a one-pass encoding. Australia would kill to have a few distributors like Anchor Bay to keep the majors honest. Instead, it gets the likes of Avenue One or Force Video. Yay public domain.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely despise the monopolistic practices of the RIAA and MPAA, but to pretend that public domain is the solution is very short-sighted indeed. So many artists out there who could use having two cents to rub together are missing out because their big earner is in the public domain and they have no way of getting it back.

As to who is going to educate Joe Public about his rights, well, the age-old question of where the money is going to come from applies.

[gitreel]

And what makes public domain such a great thing?

I wouldn't know. Here in the US, the monopoly industry has all but done away with the public domain. To my knowledge, we have never had the problems with the P.D. that you have had.

[Nilfennasion]

Believe me, I am not saying it is the worst thing in the world. There's plenty of things in the public domain that I am glad are there. Novels like Frankenstein, for example. But when someone owns the rights to a piece of work like a film, it means that the owner has some control over the quality with which it is presented. Studios like Columbia Tristar are a good example of how this is good for the consumer, as they rarely release anything that wasn't mastered from a HD telecine.

The problem is how to balance consumer benefit with corporate greed. I don't think PD alone can do that. Copyrights reverting to the artist(s) after fifty or so years is a reasonable idea, but that's hardly likely to get through a corrupt congress. We're really at a loss at the moment.

[iooi]

Wheter it goes to public domain or stays in the studios hand if not really the point here. The big problem is the prices charged for dvd's etc... Lets face it a new film comes out its around £15 to £20 to buy new, i can get a copy for £4 from various sources looks just the same, feels just the same. Only bit missing is the insert (never look at them anyway). Now if little Joe Blogs is making a profit on £4 how much are the big boys making....
Yes i know they have costs to recoup but they already done that on the cinema release so dvd's etc are all pure profit apart from the miniscule production costs.
They only have to come down to say £10 for a new film and these pirate copies would not be bought in such numbers. I would say that the reduction of £5 would be recouped several times over by the increase in sales.