Got a question for Hilary?

[dubstylee]

Here's the deal. A representative of the RIAA has agreed to take some time out of their hectic court schedule and answer a few of our questions. So here's your big shot, what do you have to ask the RIAA?

Please remember that this is an official interview, so questions like "Why the #$%# are you $#$@! suing $#@%#$ everyone you $#$@#$ $#@$@??!!" Will not be accepted. We will use the questions we feel best represent the community, and are the most eloquently phrased. ;-)

Please leave your questions for the RIAA below.

ok i am not going to comment except direct you to these to links which i already posted what i had to say.

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/read_co...07112002n#lisa

[GPA]

Questions:
0) How do you intend to stop P2P Programs, or will you eventually leave them and try other methods of gaining profit?

1) Is there any hard evidence that P2P is damaging your sales and what it is?

2) How are you going to combat Gnutella if it is a TOTALLY distributed System?

3) Why have you not concidered creating your own program just like KaZaA or Gnucles with Ad's (Not Spyware) which cover your costs instead of just losing money distorying other P2P apps? For this I do not mean limited music choice, or limited downloads, just plain free program with the addition of Ad's.

Comments:
I do not think it is fair that you call P2P programs evil in public as there are some artist who are willing to give away their music, which means you are lie-ing to the public, if you are to say that P2P is illigal, give a note that some files are actaully not illigal.

for question 3, wouldn't it be better to buy out all the P2P apps and make your own one instead of spending all the time in court? If you own them all or most of them you are once again the market leader (Which I think is all you want).

Any I missed Guys?
-GPA

[electrician1232000]

When i buy a cd for 15-20 dollars why you copy-protect it and intentionally show you have no concern for my fair use rights?I paid and bought it with my hard earned money but youre really tellin me i dont own it.If my kids damaged it and i cant make a backup would you give me a new cd?

Or how to start a music service charge me to download music that i dont really own because i cant even burn it to a cd?

Its too bad because you have really given youreself a very bad name and shown people the true beast with youre actions and the laws youve tried to pass to step on us consumers.You will never have any credability with the people anymore and will never be trusted.I just cant believe how you people have become so money hungry.Take a look in the mirror are you proud of what you have become.If i was you i would hang my head in shame.Money made you but greed will end you.

[macazar88]

I was never in my life ganna buy a cd.Yes i am a cheap ass.But when filesharing came and i downloaded one song i remember it was ol dirty bastard baby i got your money.I went and bout the whole album called ***** please.To show you filesharing is good not evil.file sharing is what makes the internet the internet.i would have never ever knew bout artist like korn and lil jay and never would have heard there songs.i am sure many people have done like me.Plus artist get barley any money most of it goes to you guys and the government.

[Deep Thought]

I have only one question, how does the RIAA plan to deal with companies like LimeWire L.L.C and other companies that distribute their own Gnutella clients? If and when gnutella becomes completely distributed and the technology is a little fuzzy to attack, how will you take on the companies trying to profit from it?


:wings

[Ender7]

1. The RIAA is claiming that it has loss millions of dollars because of illegal copying of music. How can the RIAA justify those claims when there is no physical proof? For example, I can claim that you made me loose millions of dollars because I was going to buy the winning lotery ticket, but you interfered with me buying the ticket and someone else got it. How can you prove that you didn't make me loose millions of dollars?

2. Couldn't the financial problems be related too:

A. No variety in the music being played (N'sync, Britney, etc.e.tc)
B. very little music has come out this year
C. all(MOST) of the radio stations play the same songs over, and over, and over till we are sick of hearing them. Why would anybody want to buy something that is constantly played on the air?
D. CD's are too expensive
E. we are in a finincial recession.


3. I must say that I find it disturbing that the RIAA/MPAA is trying to pass laws which would put DRM into all hardware. This is a very bad move and is making a LOT (let me stress A LOT) of people angry and mad. If the RIAA is worried about copying then why doesn't it just invent a new format that isn't supported on computers? or invent a whole new console system? Why must the RIAA pass a law that turns all computers into idiot boxes?

4. The RIAA is getting a money from all tax sales of all blank CDs, with the assumption people are copying music. Yet it claims that copying music on CD's is illegal and throws people in jail for doing it. you can't have it both ways so Which is it? If your are charging people for copying music on CD's then they should have the right to copy it, but if you are throwing people in jail then you should not get a dime. It is little things like this that is giving the RIAA such a bad rep.

5. MP3's sharing is pretty much mainstream(if not everybody, then close enough to not make a difference is doing it). I don't know how many times I have heard "I downloaded this song..." by everyday people(cops, doctors, teens, grandmothers, teachers etc..etc) in passing conversations. The truth is that nobody thinks twice about it anymore so why waste time and money going after people when all it does is hurt your image and doesn't even slow down MP3 sharing?

6. The RIAA is a business, and all businesses must give the people what they want or they don't buy their products. This is basic buisiness practice knowlege, Yet the RIAA has done nothing that anybody wants. In a recent transcript of the Jupiter plugin conference, Hilary Rosen said that people don't understand how much money goes into producing a band. To be fair, she is correct, however that doesn't change the fact that people JUST DON"T CARE and still thinks that CD's are too high. Regardless if the cd cost 5 cents or 5 million dollars, it is what the BUYER thinks its worth that counts, If you don't give what the people wants, then they are not going to buy from you.
Why isn't the RIAA trying to create another buisness model that would give people what they want instead of clinging on too its curent dying model?

[chaser7016]

1. Why is the music industry not trying to work with ISPs to tax on a monthly fee for music downloads? 5 bucks each month times all internet users! Is that not enough money? Would that not create a ton of new technology, accounting and other type jobs?

2. Why does the music industry fight P2P with costly legal battles, when innovation is cheap and the answer!

3. The music industry is trying to gain control on something that is a global issue, do you think you are just doing your job, but truly know in the long run P2P really can never be stopped. Bills and laws can be passed, but innovation will continue to override such things.

Well I personally can see the future and the future is all media industries will finally realize they have been wasting a lot of money. I see downloading TV shows that the broadcasters have made available on the net with special pop up commercials while watching the show. I see watching movies being placed on the net via the studios that have been enhanced with commercials smartly placed right into the movie(and even more blatant, actors saying yum this pepsi is great). I see the music industry making money via consumers' monthly ISP bills, via licensing of the industries better alternative P2P networks(create something better then current P2P people will flock, especially if they are paying via their monthly ISP bill), through a Napster based subscription channel(Interactive TV: watch videos and download), through continual cheap CD sales, through innovative advertising and so on and so on.
Well there is so much opportunity, I just don't understand the industries lack of vision?

Thank you for your attention,
Cheers, Chaser!

[mvoosten]

Not really a question, but more some comments I would like her to respond to:

Music labels are very keen to claim their rights are violated by illegal copies and that it also hurts the artists.
What's always interesting to see is that they put themselves on the foreground? I would ask why.. The artist to my opinion have the rights on their work, not the label companies (ok juristic bull that I'm not an expert in). Maybe it's time to do some investigation on record companies and their monopolistic reasoning.

Ok, now the real stuff..
The industry likes to see file sharing as a bad thing, but the truth is it could have been the best thing that happened to them. However, the industry has been so stupid to look at themselves as superior to which everyone has to bow.
What is the added value of a CD over a downloaded album? At the moment nada, besides the fact that your wallet is lighter then anyhere needed.
The truth is that music is more popular then ever, certain music genres reach people otherwise never reached.
The industry has to see that dilivering added value is the thing they can benefit big time from, rather then sticking the head in the sand and pretent technologie and the world are stuck in time 5 years back.

What about concerts, merchendising, DVD video's, etc... See file sharing as promotion rather then something that must be stopped that can't be stopped.

If you look at DVD's, wow, their florish.. and guess what? Illigal movies are spreading like hell and somehow it has an interesting effect.. Why? DVD's have more added value, cost the same or these days even less then plain music cd's and the quality is superior over what you might be able to download.
If I see a movie on internet and it's good, there is not a big barrier for me to buy the DVD. Why? For the reasons above and the fact you get value for your money.

Just my thoughts, but the main point is, the music industry is a corrupt, monopolistic, arrogant industry that I hope will have a nice investigation ala Microsoft to let them know that consumers are their only reason of existence and they should listen to their voice, rather then dictate their own little laws.

M.

[dr. damn]

There is an RIAA "tax" on audio CD-R media and audio tapes designed to compensate artists for pirated music that is made on them. How is this money divided up to artists?

What percentage of this money actually goes to the artists?

[taylorcomm]

My question is....


What is the difference between me going down to my local library and picking out a cd, ripping it to mp3, and listening to it later on versus me going to a website/filesharing service and getting an mp3 and listening to it?
Both have large collections of music and both have the ability for you to use that music in the way you deem appropriate. The only difference is the scarcity issue in the library. What is your vision of the "library" of the future? Should the public library start charging?

Chris

[mwalimu]

A lot of questions in this thread about file sharing, so I'll throw one up about webcasting...

Why does the RIAA support royalty rates and recordkeeping requirements for webcasters that are steep enough to put most webcasters out of business? Many webcasters, including those who have ceased operation since the CARP rates were announced last month, included features with their webcasting services that enabled listeners to purchase the CDs, and the statistics on the usage of these features indicate that in some cases, the number of CDs purchased using these features numbers in the thousands from just one webcaster (and that's not counting the fans who bought the CDs without using the links provided by the webcaster). There is a plethora of statistical and anecdotal evidence that webcasters support musicians and help sell CDs.

Further, from a listener's choice standpoint, the state of broadcast radio these days is abysmal, where nearly all stations most people can receive are owned by a few major media conglomerates, playing music to short-attention-span lowest-common-denominator tastes. So along comes Internet webcasting, no longer constrained by the limitations of how many broadcasters can fit in the FM spectrum in a region, nor the need to get their critical mass of listeners from a limited geographic area, and suddenly it becomes possible to serve up music to satisfy all the arcane, diverse tastes that broadcast radio could never hope to (e. g. a station of all Mozart, or all Celtic, or all Native American music). Or a couple dozen local bands playing clubs mostly in a small region (say, central Illinois where I live) could pool their resources and create their own webstation to play their own music. Thousands of artists who could never hope to get airplay in the current broadcasting world get exposure via webcasters. Listeners hear of them, buy their CDs, and go to their shows.

So here you've got a new medium that helps sell CDs, gives lesser known artists more exposure. And yet you're trying to impose royalty rates and recordkeeping requirements that would kill this??? WHY??? This could be one of the best things that ever happened to the recording industry, and it absolutely defies logic that the RIAA would want to kill it.

One possible answer I can think of is that the major recording companies and traditional broadcasters are trying to preserve the current state of things where the majority of listeners are only exposed to the limited number of big-name multi-platinum artists whom they choose to promote. This of course serves the interests of those artists and their companies. But what about the thousands of other recording artists, and the music-buying public, whom the RIAA claims to support as well? If the RIAA truly loves and wants to support these groups as they claim to, it's time for them to put their money where their mouth is and support the fledgling webcasting industry.

--
mwalimu, aka Joe McCauley

[mojo-ris-in]

:devil
Ok before I ask my question I just want to make a few comments. This whole debacle about file sharing destroying the music industry has been seen before in a different way. Back in the 1950's, the movie industry was all aflutter about this new form of communication known as television. They feared that people could watch movies at home then why would they ever go out and see a movie. The tried to strong arm the government and the fledgeling T.V. providers in an attempt to basically kill the industry. Fortunately, (or not) the movie industry began to work the new industry to their favor and eventually became more powerful and, yes, richer because of television. It seems that the recording industry could learn something from the movie industry in this case. Let's be honest. Most people know that album sales are only a small percentage of what an artist makes in their career. The majority of artists make their money through touring and public appearances and not as much as the industry would like us to believe. So who is losing money? Record executives who ride around $100,000 dollar limousines sipping champagne while wining and dining some starry-eyed wannabe they hope to exploit-er represent as "the next big thing". I'm sorry but if Tommy Mottola only makes $50,000,000 dollars this year because of those "evil file sharers" who are driving artists to the poorhouse, I will not shed a tear. The basic fact is the record industry rapes their bosses, that being the consumers who pay their checks, each time they force me or any consumer to pay $15-$20 dollars for a product that costs less than a dollar to produce. Now I am aware that there are other costs involved such as engineering, producing, cover design, and promoting the album but let's get real. The recording giants could easily slash their costs and make as much money and give the consumers what they want, that being more affordable CD's. And while we are on the subject of honesty, why can't the record industry get behind a system of file sharing songs over the internet? It seems to me that if the recording industry wants to recoup some of their supposed losses they would embrace a way to make money through a file sharing service that pays royalties yet gives the consumer the songs they want with full rights to burn to a CD or download to their MP3 players. Let's be honest again, does the recording industry really expect a consumer to pay for a downloaded song and not be able to burn it to a CD? It seems to me that the recording industry is saying "it's our way or the highway" and will never let consumers out of their stranglehold. Now, with that being said, my question to Mrs. Rosen is this, what can or will the RIAA do to release music to consumers in a manner where everybody gets what they want (cheaper prices for consumers and royalties for the artists)? What about other ways to generate revenues through filesharing such as banner ads on the download websites or streaming ads while the download is in progress to bolster revenues for the artists and keep prices affordable for the consumer? To me it seems that everyone can win if all parties are willing to set aside differences and come up with a way to deliver music at an affordable price while ensuring that artists get their royalties. One last note, thanks to everyone at Zeropaid for giving me a opportunity to voice my concerns and a soapbox to stand on. The most endearing quality of the Internet is its ability to empower everyone from the man on the street to the movers and shakers of the world.
William Anderson aka mojo-ris-in

[lemoke]

So far when I come across the RIAA in the press, it is a story about how they are trying to shut down filesharing, and/or trying to change existing technology to curb copying of "their" product.
What I would like to know, is what does the RIAA have in store for us. What is their dream of a perfect marketplace, with a satisfactory balance between Them and Us? Is it the status quo? I have seen their reactions, I would like know why they must react in such a way. Do they believe that the music industry will crash and burn in the near future?

I believe that there is no turning back, Pandora's box has been opened. I have been exposed to so much music through webcasters (Soma FM R.I.P.) and apps like Audiogalaxy. I also belive that I am not alone. Why is the RIAA forcing me to listen to the same music day in day out on the radio. Any and all mainstream music source I find provides the same extremely narrow sample of music.
The last couple of years has seen such an increase in knowledgeable music fans. Maybe the death of top40 radio can be a good thing.

[TipYourBartender]

Five question for the RIAA rep. I know its a lot, but all but the last 2 are pretty flaky.

1)What is your position on bands that want to willingly post their music over the Internet in free MP3 format? What, also, is your position on artists who expressly do NOT want their music shared via Musicnet/Pressplay?

Speaking of which...

2) What is your opinion of the 2 file-sharing services? Do you feel they have been successful?

3) Based on the Webcasting decision, what does the RIAA feel is the future of Webcasting?

4) From Napster on, the RIAA has portrayed itself in some sort of life-and-death, good-vs-evil battle, when both sides know that is not the case. Not once, NOT ONCE has the record industry portrayed itself as wanting to work with the services to find some sort of non -litigous solution to whatever problem it is that you claim to be facing (And don't count Napster - that's dancing with a corpse: you can take wherever you want, and just leave her on the floor when she starts to rot). Because of this stance, instead of looking at the RIAA for what it is, it has instead become The Enemy, as you'll probably see from most of the other questions you will recieve. Futhermore, to circumvent your legal battering ram strategy, decentralized alternatives like Gnutella and Freenet were created, or services like Kazaa were created out of the country.

Why, from the start, have the labels been so adversarial towards file-sharing services? And, from the RIAA's perspective, has that backfired?

And the big doozy, one that I've been really itching to hear, so make it good...

5) What justification can you give all the Zeropaid users for the creation of the DMCA?