Crazed by the Music

Don’t act too shocked but it turns out your non-friends at the RIAA want you to know that copying any CD’s that you buy to your computer ain’t legal.  While it’s not the focus of their lawsuits, they’re starting to get the word out that you’re engaging in criminal activity whenever you do this, as they spew in this Washington Post article.  Why these scumbags haven’t filed suits against the software companies that make this possible is something to ponder- shouldn’t Microsoft, Winamp, Apple and others be liable or at least be threatened to be dragged into court for making ripping possible?  Don’t bet on it- the RIAA typically act like cowards, going after individuals in their lawsuits rather than large, deep-pocketed companies.  As the article notes “… for those old media to survive, they must adapt, finding new business models and new, compelling content to offer.  The RIAA’s legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed.”

Speaking of new models, Billboard has an interesting article where a group of lawyers evaluate the new 360 contracts that labels have been cooking up to get a piece of the touring and merchandising pie as part of artists’ contacts.  Needless to say, they don’t think that these contacts are all peaches and cream and that artists need to be savvy before they sign away anything.

Just a quick note that my list of best music journalism of ‘07 will appear in PopMatters in a few weeks- I’m makin’ a list, checkin’ it twice, etc..  As for New Year’s resolutions… I want to try to keep concentrating on my writing and editing so that hopefully I’ll become better at each (which means my reissue project work is still on hiatus).  Also, I’ll try to make a better effort not to be too disgusted and snobby about mainstream artists with abhorrent personalities- after all, I do like Amy Winehouse but I draw the line at Britney.  Hopefully, I can also report here about some positive things happening in the biz and some good role models instead of just ranting about the evils of the RIAA or FCC (which should both go to hell and burn).  Have a good holiday and I’ll see you online in ‘08.

With all the top 10 lists I submitted to magazine polls, I never considered those to be my real year-end list. The polls are essentially just looking for some kind of consensus and what individual voters have to say is secondary at best. It makes it look like you only enjoyed ten albums each year and that you didn’t like or care about maybe dozens of others that also came out (even if that’s not really the case). It’s basically an ego thing to be involved in that and I admit that I ain’t above that yet. So on my other blog, I posted what I consider to be my real list of favorite albums of the year. But… even then, we always find out about releases that we missed months later into the next year so this is my definitive list as of December 2007.

Despite the FCC’s sleazy victory in handing more power over to large media conglomerates, you can still work to stop this by having Congress step in to do something.  See info below from stopbigmedia.com:

The Federal Communications Commission approved new rules that will unleash a flood of media consolidation across America. The new rules will further consolidate local media markets—taking
away independent voices in cities already woefully short on local news and investigative journalism.

Congress has the power to throw out these rules—and if 100,000 people demand it, they’ll have to listen. Click on the link below to sign the open letter to Congress urging them to stop the FCC and stand with the public interest.

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter/

http://action.freepress.net/campaign/sbmopenletter?rk=hpsEDbK1uyCvW

In this Wire interview, these two icons discuss the latest Radiohead album of course but what was more interesting to me was their conversation about why albums are still important in a download age. 

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Sad but true.  Thanks to anyone who heeded the call and contacted your member of Congress.  Maybe the courts will put a halt to this the way they did under former FCC scumbag Michael Powell.

Like the headline says… Congress and part of the FCC commission itself wants to halt this but the FCC chairman is trying to ram this through regardless so that he can give media conglomerates an early Christmas present and let them buy up and control more and more media outlets.  If you like the idea of a free, independent press, here’s your chance to speak up and do something.

ADDENDA: If you want to see how badly FCC chair Kevin Martin is handling this, look no further than this Bill Moyers report, which details Martin’s extreme arrogance and willful ignorance.

Yep, they’re trying to push this argument that copying CD’s and turning them into MP3 files on your computer is illegal in a court case right now.  Hopefully, the court will see the lack of wisdom in yet another ridiculous ploy by the RIAA to squeeze money out of consumers and wrestle control away from them.  That would mean that new computers which do this must be taken off the market and maybe recalls of every computer that does that now (i.e. most of them out there now, including yours) plus all software that does this, including iTunes, Napster (the legal one), Winamp and Windows Media Player.  Hope that sits well with Microsoft, Apple, Dell, Gateway et al who would then stand to lose millions of dollars if not more…