Notes that during the pre-digital age, when the music industry controlled distribution, it chose to “ream the consumer and fill their pockets” rather than nurture the industry by providing the “highest quality of music to the fans.”
Many are still stunned by the recent verdict in the retrial of suburban mother of two Jammie Thomas. For illegally “making available” 24 songs in her KaZaA shared folder she was ordered to pay $1.92 million USD in damages. At about $80,000 per song, instead of scaring or “educating” file-sharers into halting the illegal practice it has instead illustrated just how out of touch the RIAA really is.
For music artists the verdict has been equally appalling.
Electonica wunderkind Moby wrote on his blog last week about how the verdict was “utter nonsense,” that “punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business.”
Now acclaimed rocker Richard Marx has released a statement about the verdict which has equally choice words for the RIAA.
“As a longtime professional songwriter, I have always objected to the practice of illegal downloading of music. I have also always, however, been sympathetic to the average music fan, who has been consistently financially abused by the greedy actions of major labels,” said Marx. “These labels, until recently, were responsible for the distribution of the majority of recorded music, and instead of nurturing the industry and doing their best to provide the highest quality of music to the fans, they predominantly chose to ream the consumer and fill their pockets.”
Could he be any more correct? Music fans were locked into the RIAA’s distribution system lock, stock, and barrel for years, allowing it to abuse the monopoly by charging $20 or more for albums with 2 or fewer decent songs by mediocre artists at best.
NIN frontman Trent Reznor was still lamenting price gouging just a few years while browsing the aisles of a record store in Australia. He was irate that his record label was selling his latest album at the time, Year Zero, for almost $30 USD.
“As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more,” he said.
On this Marx and Reznor agree, and $80,000 per song only makes their true intentions all the more obvious. The RIAA doesn’t care about music fans or artists, and honestly, it’s our fault for thinking it should.
Why? Because all a record label is concerned with is profits, it’s not there for community service work or to improve music as we know it. They only see an artist as a “means to make revenue.”
The verdict is personal for Marx because his song “Now and Forever” was among the 24 Jammie Thomas was convicted for illegally “making available.”
Marx goes on to say in his statement that he’s outright “ashamed” to be part of the verdict and finds it “misguided” that the RIAA would try to hold her accountable for the “continuing daily actions of hundreds of thousands of people.”
So do we Mr. Marx. So do we.
That’s why the verdict will have little of a deterrent effect. The size of the award is so outlandish they might as well have found her liable for ten or even a hundred million. How they expect to get $1.92 million for a mother of two with a meager income is beyond me, and her pain will ultimately be the RIAA’s pain in the end as the publicity from the verdict makes it look even worse in the eyes of music fans and the artists it claims to represent.
jared@zeropaid.com
Related Posts
- No Deal! Jammie Thomas to Appeal $1.92 Million Fine
- RIAA Loses Ability to Appeal in Jammie Thomas Case
- RIAA to Judge: “No More P2P for Jammie Thomas!”
- Jammie Thomas Challenges “Arbitrary” $80,000 p/song Verdict
- Jammie Thomas Wants a Retrial, Says Damages Unconstitutional
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I’ve been against lawsuits against music fans who share their music on file-sharing networks for free since day one. After becoming an artist myself, I found the lawsuits against people like Jammie Thomas even more outragous. This opinion isn’t even touching on the amount this “reward” has gotten.
I’m not buying another record (physical cd or download) until they stop this nonsense, and i recommend everybody to do the same. Money talks, right?
So the record labels have pissed off artist and consumers. Essentially the only people that still agree with the big 4 are the big 4 and the politicians they pay off.
The RIAA sucks, the lawsuits suck, the big media companies suck for the way they’ve treated people, especially artists.
The thing is, people who steal and publish the music on p2p suck too.
The labels have always raped the artists. Now the fans and consumers are getting in on it too.
That’s quite naughty of you to type lies like that.
I agree. Don’t buy anymore music and see how they like that. Those stupid fucks, retarded old, greedy idiots!
Artists need to just set up a site and offer Digital DL’s so they garner all straight profit and get away from the labels. 200k DL’s at 99 cents is 200k.. for 1 song! If you had a really good “album” with say 8 good songs…. well ya, do the math.. Plus if you tour, have merchandise, do apperances, etc um… that is pretty good.
Only reason labels are still attracting artists is for the connections and the big lump sums they can pay up front and Black listing they can prolly do? Anyways just my take
Oh ya, ofcourse that would be for an artist that is established. If your on the up and up… well try to get with manager(s)/marketing people to get you out there that take a cut, but are not into the whole “master for life” thing like some labels….
GL to all you “starving” artists… don’ forget that your in to making music because you want to… not for the money but if you can get paid, sweet.
That’s a good thought, but that’s also like telling someone who works any job they’re doing it becasue they want to – it’s really hard work, and it’s a job like any other, like any job a lot of it sucks. I know you mean well but it’s easy to say about someone elses job.
“… it’s a job like any other …”
And in a single flash, you lose–wait, what credibility?
It’s not a job now? You have no respect for musicians – first, it was anybody can be an engineer, now it’s musicians can’t be professionals. No wonder you value their work at ‘zero paid’.
I suppose it is no wonder why you have such poor reading comprehension.
“It’s not a job now?”
I wrote
”
“… it’s a job like any other …”
And in a single flash, you lose–wait, what credibility?
”
How the hell does a musician have the same job as an architect?
A few words that you write can demean your own credibilty entirely, malgre (not that you had any left).
“You have no respect for musicians”
Disrespecting you does not imply that I have no respect for musicians.
“first, it was anybody can be an engineer”
This is the transcript, starting from your reply to DrewWilson:
****
mal greenborg: Baloney. You try to get a recording to average -3db without engineering it to do that from the get go and learning from a real professional. There is nothing simple or rote about it. That’s like saying ‘Yeah, Tony Hawk, riding a skateboard is easy, you just point it and go’. Sure. I’d also like to point out that Audacity is a stereo recorder. People haven’t made records like that since the 40’s.
D.AN: You are way off: the learning curve of using any software is less than that of having one’s body adapt to a new set of physical mechanics.
malgreenborg: There’s a lot more to it than using soundforge.
D.AN: Who said anything about using SoundForge at all?
mal greenborg: Okay, there’s a lot more to it than knowing how to use a compressor plugin? I don’t know who you are but there is a reason that real mastering costs what it does, It is not easy to do.
****
How you came to believing that I said anything like
“anybody can be an engineer”
is just more proof of how stupid you are.
“now it’s musicians can’t be professionals”
I neither wrote nor implicated any such thing.
First you can’t read and now you show how incompetent you are at writing, let alone never answering DrewWilson’s simple question about motivation.
“No wonder you value their work at ‘zero paid’.”
I suppose you mean monetary value, since that is all you think about. My comments regarding the articles never once implied me valuing the articles. Or were you actually trying to somehow find a pattern to my commenting patterns?
Just to disappoint you: I don’t write opinion. I’ve already gathered enough information on your writing behaviours long ago to anticipate how you respond to anything on this site.
Oh, whatever. It is actually like being an architect in some ways.
You wish.