But in Thursday's order, Davis wrote that he found a 1993 ruling from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Minnesota, that infringement requires "an actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords."

Did the parties somehow miss this in all their briefs?

Nestea Plunge: Cripes, we've been having this same damn arguement since the 70s. You want to make bank in the music biz, stop churning out crap.

These new "daguerreotypers" shall inevitably hasten the ruin of the portraiture industries!

/I use Forbes' Insoluble Dry Plates.

Nestea Plunge: ...stop churning out crap.

The problem I see with that is if they stop putting out garbage music and upselling the mass-marketable nonsense.. then the industry stands to lose a lot of money, and they will try in desperate attempts to recoup it. Which makes me think (of course, this is all conjecture and hearsay and I'm stupid).. that the prices for good albums would triple. --a number i pulled out of my hat.

Don't want any more useless, shallow pop rock.. then the next album from (insert cool, underground band here) will be $45 bucks

You guys are largely right. The industry became single-driven as opposed to artist- and album-driven in the 90's, and now it's biting them in the ass, because everyone just downloads the one good song off of the album. And I find it hilarious that the labels and the RIAA are spending all of this time and money and effort condemning external sources and suing soccer moms and college kids when the problem is in the mirror.

The labels no longer care about growing artists, they just care about getting their recoupable debt paid, and moving on to the next dewy-eyed group of cannon fodder kids to rape and pillage with a lopsided contract. I had a record-label contract (from Atlantic) put in front of me and my old band once, and you should have seen their faces when we actually read it. And understood it. And said "no."

Start building career artists again, and maybe we'll start buying records again.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, I've always looked as easy-rip and easy-share digital formats as karma for the labels forcing us to re-buy our whole record collections in a new format once every decade or so. I remember reading somewhere that the industry judges the success of any new format by how high "Dark Side of the Moon" starts creeping up the Billboard chart again. Vinyl was tough to dupe, but tapes were easy. CD's, easier yet.

You reap what you sow, suckers.

Dr.Knockboots: then the next album from (insert cool, underground band here) will be $45

Nah. The cat's already out of the bag. The big record labels are gonna lose a ton of money, but it's their own fault. They deserve it.

In your hypothetical, a band would be insane to sign with a major label, when there are so many small and medium size labels that would give them a better cut of the profits. Also, the more expensive these high-demand albums are, the more likely folks will just steal them.

Technology has been running laps around the the industry for about 20 years now. It took away their monopoly on production in the 80's, when recording became affordable. It took away their monopoly on distribution in the 90's with the rise of the mp3.

Essentially, big labels are now just marketing firms with hugely bloated overhead costs... and more and more new artists are realizing that it's just not worth it for them. They can get better deals with small labels and be more successful in the long term.

... and with the rise of myspace, and whatever the future holds in terms of communication and viral marketing... the next thing you know, they'll lose their grip on the marketing aspect.

You already see this happening with new bands like the Arctic Monkeys, and I think what Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are doing with their pre-existing name recognition will open some doors for mainstream artists to transition out of the grips of the major labels.

/whoa... instant rant... don't get me started!

MaxxLarge: You reap what you sow, suckers.

*high five*

fark yeah!

MaxxLarge: And I find it hilarious that the labels and the RIAA are spending all of this time and money and effort condemning external sources and suing soccer moms and college kids when the problem is in the mirror.

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the greatest pirate of them all?

I like this pic.

/Recorded off the radio when I was still in grade school.

This is the part that has always confused the crap out of me:









They make the music, then sell the means to duplicate and convert the music, then complain that people are duplicating the music they produce, sell, and create the means people use to do so.

Isn't that a little like having a sign on the front of your store that says "EVERYTHING IS FREE!!!", then biatching that no one paid you?

eabod: Dr.Knockboots: then the next album from (insert cool, underground band here) will be $45

Nah. The cat's already out of the bag. The big record labels are gonna lose a ton of money, but it's their own fault. They deserve it.

In your hypothetical, a band would be insane to sign with a major label, when there are so many small and medium size labels that would give them a better cut of the profits. Also, the more expensive these high-demand albums are, the more likely folks will just steal them.

Technology has been running laps around the the industry for about 20 years now. It took away their monopoly on production in the 80's, when recording became affordable. It took away their monopoly on distribution in the 90's with the rise of the mp3.

Essentially, big labels are now just marketing firms with hugely bloated overhead costs... and more and more new artists are realizing that it's just not worth it for them. They can get better deals with small labels and be more successful in the long term.

... and with the rise of myspace, and whatever the future holds in terms of communication and viral marketing... the next thing you know, they'll lose their grip on the marketing aspect.

You already see this happening with new bands like the Arctic Monkeys, and I think what Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are doing with their pre-existing name recognition will open some doors for mainstream artists to transition out of the grips of the major labels.

/whoa... instant rant... don't get me started!

What he said.

I almost exclusively buy used CD and vinyl (garage sales FTW). I get a legit copy of the album and I pay a lot less than retail. I have slowly started ripping my LPs to MP3 (all 1200 of them). So I am just doing a modern version of the article.

Wow - I liked how they busted out the SA-90's. A fine, high-bias cassette back in the day. I still have some laying around that were encoded w/o b or c NR and they sound GREAT.

/used a little eq to sweeten
//had good gear, recording levels, etc...

Wow. Thanks for catching a 25-year-old trend with its pants down, MSM! Next thing you know you'll start talking about BBSs that are offering ripped ROMs from cartridge-based systems and re-recording over previous cartridges with ROM burners!

/You win one coconut... ::fanfare::
//That's obscure.

I remember one musician testifying before congress in the 80's he claimed that had home taping been available back in the day there would never have been the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. It was BS back then and it is BS now. Record executives have some of the smallest brains on the planet. Seriously Bush is probably a deeper thinker than every record company executive.

I almost never buy retail. You would be surprised at what you can find in used records stores and at Goodwill.

i stopped reading at 'tape'

Unprecidented greed and the ridiculous hope that they'll be able to somehow find or create the next Beatles -- that's what brought this industry down.

It's like watching a child throw a temper tantrum in a grocery store when they can't get a candy bar from the check-out isle. Eventually someone's going to drag that kid out kicking and screaming, and all the comotion will have been for nothing.

I thought this argument was over. The artists had acknowledged their music would be ripped off by anyone with the hardware and so could justify charging $100 for a ticket at their concerts. The big labels are changing in order to fit the new situation just as all industries have to. They won't lose a single cent because they run the show.

*Looking at my cd rack with over 100 albums in it, all bought new*

/Listening to one of the 500 albums on my external drive

SynthLord: This is the part that has always confused the crap out of me:

They make the music, then sell the means to duplicate and convert the music, then complain that people are duplicating the music they produce, sell, and create the means people use to do so.

Isn't that a little like having a sign on the front of your store that says "EVERYTHING IS FREE!!!", then biatching that no one paid you?

Some of that is different divisions of the same corporation. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, the right doesn't know what the left is doing, and the gripping hand is completely f'n clueless. The rest can be explained away by a corporation seeking profit from any and all directions.

Jedekai: You win one coconut... ::fanfare::
//That's obscure.

Not even remotely.

MaxxLarge: You guys are largely right. The industry became single-driven as opposed to artist- and album-driven in the 90's, and now it's biting them in the ass, because everyone just downloads the one good song off of the album.

It's funny you say this, as a teenager of the 1990s, we thought the exact same thing of the 1980s - and I still feel there were some amazing albums being done in the mid 1990s - just as there are now!

Don't listen to the radio, and you'll find what is now called 'alternative' (and by that I do not mean generic alt rock) would have been called 'pop' 40 years ago, 'rock' 30 years ago, 'indie' 20 years ago, and er, alt, 10 years ago.

Occam's Chainsaw

I forgot about Monty Python using the line too! Dammit.

/Was thinking more of Wasteland. The CRPG.

Delawheredad

I remember one musician testifying before congress in the 80's he claimed that had home taping been available back in the day there would never have been the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

That guy was talking out of his ass.

This is what home taping looked like in 1955:



And LOTS of folks had them, and made recordings from records and the radio.

There were home tape recorders before that, though. And before that, there were wire recorders, and even machines to make phonograph records in your own home. Home recording has been around in one form or another, since the 1930s.

The record industry has been making the argument for decades that home recording is killing music. Funny after all these years, the moguls are still driving home in their Bentleys to their mega-million dollar estates, boning their hot trophy wives and scarfing down the Beluga.

They're lying. And they're not even good at it.

Occam's Chainsaw: Some of that is different divisions of the same corporation. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, the right doesn't know what the left is doing, and the gripping hand is completely f'n clueless.

I don't buy that argument simply because it would require that no one from the entertainment division - execs and plebes alike - have a clue that the corp. is making that equipment. What do Sony record execs use in their offices? Dells?

Occam's Chainsaw: The rest can be explained away by a corporation seeking profit from any and all directions.

That I can buy. Playing both sides against the middle is a classic scheme, and I'll bet that in private they'll tell you they're making money hand over fist regardless of personal-use duplication, but admitting such publicly would castrate the RIAA that protects their profits in other ways.

BKITU: Nestea Plunge: Cripes, we've been having this same damn arguement since the 70s. You want to make bank in the music biz, stop churning out crap.

These new "daguerreotypers" shall inevitably hasten the ruin of the portraiture industries!

/I use Forbes' Insoluble Dry Plates.

i see what you did there.