Things That Just Piss Me Off

You know it never ceases to amaze me how people in large companies, supposedly very intelligent people, can shoot themselves in the foot so often. Do the record labels think they are winning when they sue people for downloading music?

They are so concerned that someone might hear a song for free, they forget how much money they make from it. It has been proven that cd sales went up at the same time the downloads increased. Yet the record labels and the RIAA claim it is costing them sales. A fact they have never been able to prove.

Sampling the music leads to buying the cds in most cases. The real reason the music industry is scared of downloads is that music artists are no longer chained to the record companies.

The music artists no longer need the approval of record company execs. Through myspace, imdb, and other social networking sites like youtube, new artists can emerge and become popular without the assistance of the record industry.

I really love the fact that the record labels claim they are protecting the artists by bringing the lawsuits when it is the record companies that have raped and pillaged music artists for years. By holding out contracts over musicians hungry for any type of deal and making the record deals benefit the record companies more than the artists they have left many musicians broke and alone while the record companioes are still making money off the artists work.

Labels Win Suit Against Song Sharer
By JEFF LEEDS
Published: October 5, 2007

In a crucial legal victory for record labels and other copyright owners, a federal jury yesterday found a Minnesota woman liable for copyright infringement for sharing music online and imposed a penalty of $222,000 in damages.

A totally ridiculous verdict the judge should have not just put aside, but should have thrown away altogether. Simple legal question. Can the RIAA prove that this one woman cost them $222,000 worth of record sales?

The jury verdict, which called for $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs involved in the trial, came after brief deliberations.

Better than $9,000 per song? Wow, the record companies make more per song in court than they do in record stores. No wonder they are suing as many as 30,000 people.

“Every lawsuit,” the posting said, “makes the recording industry look more and more like King Canute, vainly trying to hold back the tide.”

The lead plaintiff was Capitol Records, a label owned by the EMI Group. The three other major record companies — the Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and the Warner Music Group — also had songs involved in the suit against Ms. Thomas.

Personally, I will not buy any music from any of these labels in the future. It may not be much, but these lawsuits have definitely cost them one customer.

Next they will get bush to label people who do file sharing as terrorists.

Stumble it!