RIAA Arrests Pro Artist for Making Mixtapes 426
Maximum Prophet writes "The RIAA is now going after mixtapes; specifically, the well-known mixtapes of rap artist DJ Drama. From the article: 'On Tuesday night he was arrested with Don Cannon, a protégé. The police, working with the Recording Industry Association of America, raided his office, at 147 Walker Street in Atlanta. The association makes no distinction between counterfeit CDs and unlicensed compilations like those that DJ Drama is known for.' The story goes on to say that many of the artists featured on the mixtapes would never have had the exposure and thus sales they had if DJ Drama had not featured them on a mix. Nowhere is a specific artist mentioned who claims to have been wronged by him. Additionally, the article states that mixtapes such as those made by DJ Drama are an accepted and integral part of rap music culture. His arrest is confusing on several levels."
Re:They used a SWAT team (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Its simpler than all this seems... (Score:5, Informative)
The only people who will continue to lose out in big ways are the content creators who sell their copyrights to big business like the **AAs of the world. Right now, we are seeing the beginning of content creators starting to distribute their products without the help of the **AAs of the world, and its working. The more that happens, and the more that we, the people with a clue, name the companies responsible for bad laws, jacked up prices, market manipulation... the more chance there is of John Q Public understanding what is happening and voting appropriately.
So, who is responsible? Sony? No, there are way more than a few. Here is the RIAA's board of directors:
Polly Anthony Geffen Records
Mitch Bainwol RIAA
Glen Barros Concord Records
Steve Bartels Island Records
Victoria Bassetti EMI Recorded Music
Jose Behar Universal Music Group
Tim Bowen SONY BMG
Bob Cavallo Buena Vista Music
Mike Curb Curb Records
Joe Galante SONY BMG
Ivan Gavin EMI Recorded Music
Charles Goldstuck RCA Music Group
Zach Horowitz Universal Music Group
Dave Johnson Warner Music Group
Craig Kallman The Atlantic Group
Lawrence Kenswil Universal Music Group
Michael Koch Koch Entertainment
Mel Lewinter Universal Music Group
Kevin Liles Warner Music Group
Alan Meltzer Wind-up Records
Deirdre McDonald SONY BMG
David Munns EMI Recorded Music
Jason Flom Virgin Records America
Tom Silverman Tommy Boy Records
Andy Slater Capitol Records
Rob Stringer SONY BMG
Tom Whalley Warner Bros. Records
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/board.asp [riaa.com] [riaa.com] Board of directors
If you want to know if someone's music is safe from **AA, try http://www.riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com] [riaaradar.com]
I am certain that there are plenty of other resource on the Internet as well. So, lets all join together and try to make sure that content creators understand what the **AAs are doing to their business... namely killing it and any chance of real revenue.
RICO and not infringement, this is really serious. (Score:5, Informative)
So this is guy is being held on RICO charges and I am assuming that the RIAA is using the provision that allows private parties to sue. They are saying that there is an enterprise involved in the direct theft of material? This is quite different than them going after grandma and one computer.This is racketeering and a serious federal indictment.
But it will be funny when the defendants get to cross examine and no one will say they have been infringed upon except the RIAA itself. Maybe we might get a Johnny Dangerously quote in the court?
From wikipedia.org:
Re:Confusing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:RICO Charges? (Score:4, Informative)
This case is probably a mistake for the RIAA, but it certainly sounds like legally they are on firm ground. It is unfortunately that given our current copyright status quo, it doesn't seem like there is a good, legal way for him to work, despite the implied positive effect on the artists (and probably record labels) he is accused of ripping off.
The RIAA will likely say that even if artists were not being harmed, they are entiteled to some royalties (possibly correct, though I doubt any legal licensing would lead to that) it is important to not allow a "culture of piracy" to exist.
Interestingly enough, they probably have to push for criminal charges, since civil charges might not stick since the RIAA would have to show actual harm, which there allegedly is not. For the criminal case, you only have to show that the law was broken, which it probably was.
Re:Another example (Score:4, Informative)
The Scoop (Score:5, Informative)
Some people know what's going on but it sounds like most people think he's sampling big chunks of songs or ripping people off by just compiling a bunch of already released tracks (releasing pirated CDs). He's not really. He's sampling small, indecernable parts of a track to construct a new landscape and then having someone emcee on the track -- which is usually exclusive material on these mixtapes (a bit of a misnomer, they're usually CDs but they were once actually tapes).
So he's not compiling tracks he doesn't have a license to. The only thing he might be guilty of is on some of the mixtapes he'll remix a track with the artist (the emcee will appear on the track) and then include the artist he's working on the mixtape with. Also, it's possible, I think as someone mentioned above, that these emcees/artists he works with on the mixtape might need permission from their labels to appear. Yeah, they're doing the job of promotion for the record label but it's still a legal guideline in most recording contracts.
Also, here's a bit of information on the legality of sampling that fits into the context of this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beastie_boys#Samplin
Re:Two wrongs don't make a right (Score:2, Informative)
This is totally wack (Score:5, Informative)
The recording companies would love to think the giant poster of the band is effective advertising, but it is not. New artists and new albums from existing artists are promoted exclusively by DJ's, be it mix tape or live mix. In Hip-Hop, House, Rave and other "underground" music mix tapes are the only valid form of advertisement. They don't make music video's anymore and if they do, please show me a channel that shows them in full length. Nobody listens to the radio, at least not for good hip-hop and other dance genre music. Plus radio typically censors music to the point it completely changes the song.
Now I concede that he may be violating copyrights to make money from copyrighted music. That's just a shame. If he purchased the albums he's mixing he isn't doing anything that should be wrong. The RIAA or RICO should be happy they landed an artist worthy of being on the mixtapes of established DJ's.
The hustle is over for the recording industry and this is another demonstration they are losing ability to continue pimping artists. They had a good 50-70 year run of chewing up artists and spitting them out... they should just give it up. Amnesty is the last option before they totally fold. Most artists are smart enough now to do self-promotion and start their own label. Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) and Sean Combs (Puff Daddy, P-Diddy) proved how much more money is available to artists when it is done through a self label. As a result most "True" hip-hop has gone the way of indie labels such as Definitive Jux (to name one).
Sorry if the post jumps around or is poorly worded but I am at werk and don't have the time to revise my rant. And yes... I spelled werk right.
Re:remember what happened to danger mouse? (Score:2, Informative)
And now, according to riaaradar [riaaradar.com] he has signed with Warner, a big-time member of the RIAA. So it would seem that the RIAA created their own star. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Re:why so onerous, technology, redux (Score:5, Informative)
How do I know this? I was a low level DJ in NY during college created a few of my own mixtapes, mixed in a few clubs, and met a few A&Rs in the process. I was a nobody in the mixtape scene and after only a year I started receiving so many albums from record labels and artists that the post office refused to deliver them to my home address and I had to get a PO Box. When I moved from my apt half of my moving truck was filled with albums.
Anyone who knows anything about hiphop knows a guy like DJ Drama didn't use any material without permission.
Re:Confusing (Score:5, Informative)
I am an artist on a number of recordings published by various RIAA members. I don't hold the copyright on that performance; the publisher does. As part of the deal to distribute my work, I had to sign over my copyright to them. I have no standing to enjoin against illegal use of that recording, nor to license others to use it.
To make matters worse, one of those recordings is a modest artistic success. But the publisher (in his infinite wisdom) has decided that it's no longer financially viable to distribute it. So when people ask where they can get a copy of it, I have to tell them they can't. I can't legally make them a copy of my own performance, and they can't buy it from the publisher.
I have asked the publisher repeatedly to sell me back the rights to my own work so that I can distribute it myself, but so far they have not budged. Needless to say I do not record for them anymore. So much for my big break.
A lot of the proposals for dealing with the RIAA presume that the business model centers largely around selling physical or downloaded copies of the recordings themselves. That's not quite the business model.
Selling discs (or even legal MP3s) requires a capital outlay for production, promotion, and distribution. Those costs are relatively fixed. They vary somewhat depending on the number of items produced, and vary considerably depending on the mode of distribution. But they do represent a substantial, inflexible cost. Retail prices are also relatively fixed by market forces. So you have a relatively inflexible margin. Thus it all depends on whether you sell enough discs to cover your costs. With a fixed capital outlay and unpredictable revenue, you risk losing money.
Instead consider licensing fees. Activity not allowed under Fair Use requires a license from the copyright holder, and there is no limit imposed on how much the copyright holder can charge in licensing fees. He can essentially charge as much as he thinks the licensee is willing to pay. And since granting a license requires almost no actual work and no capital outlay from the copyright holder, a license fee is pure profit. There is essentially no business risk associated with holding on to out-of-print material in hopes of licensing it. Therefore it's considered a valuable revenue stream.
Remixes constitute derived works that are not generally allowed under Fair Use. So in this case the RIAA is likely trying to recover license fees. If the derived work is expected to be successful, the copyright holder will typically charge a higher license fee. So the fact that this particular DJ is very popular actually works against him because the RIAA is missing out on higher license fees. They have a greater incentive to go after him than to let him do his thing in peace. But you can see why the RIAA is not placated by the notion that remixes help sales. They'd much rather have the license fee.
Make no mistake. If you sign over your intellectual property to a distributor, he will treat it simply as a commodity to be bought, sold, and manipulated in any way he can in order to make money, whether or not your side interests are served in the process. The fact that the commodity is something in which you have an intellectual and emotional stake, and which represents something to which you may wish your name to remain attached, does not even enter into their thinking.
Re:why so onerous, technology, redux (Score:3, Informative)
"We think copyright is bad, but since we're stuck with it, we'll use it against itself wherever possible."
Copyleft was always meant to be the opposite of copyright... Of course, sometimes people forget the fundamentals.
Re:why so onerous, technology, redux (Score:3, Informative)
"I'm just saying. If he followed the rules he'd either have a highly negative profit, or he wouldn't be turning out the same tapes he's been turning out."
Sorry, I lost you. There are plenty of purveyors of legitimate, authorized mixtapes and promo CDs. Music licensing is a healthy business and the rules and procedures are pretty straightforward. It takes time and effort to be successful, (as do many, many things) but it's not rocket science. He took the easier and quicker "don't get authorization for content" route which provided short-term gain but he's running into some steep consequences.
If you can't see a way to build a business of producing mixtapes or promo CDs with authorized content -- perhaps you have no idea where to even begin, or you can't fathom doing it without a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, as you put it -- that's fine... the important thing is that there are others who do. The universe sort of balances out; I'm sure there are lots of folks in the music biz who know fuck all about, say, load balancers.