RIAA Wants Artist Royalties Lowered 399
laughingcoyote writes "The RIAA has asked the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to lower royalties paid to publishers and songwriters. They're specifically after digital recordings, and uses like cell phone ringtones. They say that the rates (which were placed in 1981) don't apply the same way to new technologies."
From the article: "According to The Hollywood Reporter, the RIAA maintains that in the modern period when piracy began devastating the record industry profits to publishers from sales of ringtones and other 'innovative services' grew dramatically. Record industry executives believe this to be cause to advocate reducing the royalties paid to the artists who wrote the original music."
WTF? (Score:2, Funny)
Even a 10 year old running a lemonade stand could see that this logic doesn't have a hole, because it is a hole.
So, we officially need to find a replacement word for the first A in RIAA, because it doesn't standa for Artists anymore. I suggest something like this:
If this doesn't get the artists' attention, nothing will. I wonder what Lars thinks about it. He managed to sue Napster out of any meaningful existence, maybe he can be of use here. It's not like Metallica is doing much of anything now anyway.
Finally! They are doing something right (possibly) (Score:2, Funny)
Piracy can never be fully eliminated but if you charge a price that the public is willing to pay, then they are significantly less likely to resort to piracy. Reducing royalties paid to publishers and artists, I suppose is one way to achieve this.
However, the RIAA acknowledging of this could just be a publicity stunt to show that they are trying to adapt to piracy when in fact they are only interested in screwing over the smaller independent artists to benefit the larger record companies. It could be that reduced royalties do not result in lower CD/digital music costs in which case I don't believe reducing royalties is useful.
Re:Finally! They are doing something right (possib (Score:2, Funny)
You people misunderstand the RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
But this time, given the popularity of ringtones, they're screwing the artist for the children.
Re:Please refer back to this article (Score:2, Funny)
What the fuck man, have you no compassion? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eh...? (Score:3, Funny)
After all the coke they've done, you expect it to make sense?
Re:Please refer back to this article (Score:2, Funny)
Re:RIAA does *not* represent artists (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What the fuck man, have you no compassion? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RIAA does *not* represent artists (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be a good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What are these people SMOKING?????? (Score:3, Funny)
"In Soviet Russia, the means of production seize you!"
I'm so sorry to have posted that. But you asked for it.