p2pnet - rss feed: Record labels’ softer, gentler look
p2pnet news view | Kids & Kartels:- “In recent weeks, Hong Kong’s recording industry has flexed substantial legal muscle in its fight against online music filesharing,” says Hong Kong’s The Standard.
“It has sued an unemployed father of two and driven a 15-year-old girl to depression, vowing to broaden its legal offensive until it has successfully stamped out illicit music downloading.
“But lately, it has also been trying to send a different message: we care about families, too.”
Sure it does. Just ask Patti Santangelo. Or Jim Trojan. Or Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother who’s suing the Big Four under the US RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) act. Or Candy Chan. Or any of the other American parents the Big Four Organized Music gang members are currently terrorizing as part of their appalling international sue ‘em all marketing campaign.
Families make perfect targets. After all, what mother or father wants to see his or her child mugged by a hard-core Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI or Vivendi Universal lawyer?
By, “carefully balancing an unrelenting legal campaign with a calculated public relations appeal aimed at parents and students,” the Big Four have, “so far managed to avoid being painted as a ruthless profit-obsessed machine - a perception that the American experience shows could do the industry more harm than good in the long run,” says the story.
Ruthless profit-obsessed machine? A perception? It’s the reality. And add unprincipled.
The IFPI is one of the dozens of alphabet organizations such as the RIAA owned by Organized Music and dressed up as trade groups.
IFPI is short for the International Federation of Phonographic Industry and more and more, the IFPI is, “seeing the need to take a more sensitive approach, especially since all of the offenders in the first round of litigation were the young children of Internet subscribers, all between 12 and 19 years old - a fact Fung described as ’surprising’,” says The Standard.
Fung is Ricky Fung, ceo of the ‘local’ IFPI branch.
“After announcing its latest legal campaign last week, Fung tried to shed the industry’s bad-guy image by adopting a more comforting voice of concern, educating parents about the perils of Internet downloading,” the story continues. “The work we’re trying to do now is to face Hong Kong parents and tell them to watch their kids and their online behavior,” Fung said.
The Big Four also wheeled out Stephen Selby, the Hong Kong government’s director of intellectual property, to unveil a ‘new’ brochure showcasing the gentler approach.
” ‘There are ways to enjoy downloaded music and still stay safe and legal,’ says a smiling boy in a cartoon on the cover of the brochure,” The Standard emphasises. ‘Get your children to show you how they are using the computer and what they are sharing. Talk about copyright, and who loses out when songs get distributed on the Internet - performing artists? Songwriters?’ ”
It’s complete rubbish. But it isn’t surprising. Hong Kong is the place where the Big Four record label cartel’s like-minded brethren in Hollywood managed to weasel the local scout movement into introducing intellectual property merit badges. And No, we’re not making it up.
Meanwhile, there’s nothing new in either the tone or the approach. In fact, it’s a reprise of a tired dis- and misinformation scam originally introduced in Europe and in which Britain’s The Times played a shameful role.
As a reader says in a post to our first Jim Trojan story, “We have a recently defeated political Party here in Canada who was in power so long they developed a ‘culture of entitlement’. The companies behind RIAA/MPAA were successful in maintaining a grip on distribution and pricing for the longest time until the internet came along.
“They think they can move forward on government favours and lawsuits, but they’ll sink clutching their treasure.”
They will indeed. Thanks to the Net, the critical mass point has almost been reached.
(Thanks, Geoffrey Y)
Also See:
The Standard - New tone in music piracy fight, April 14, 2006
Patti Santangelo - How low can the RIAA go?, April 14, 2006
Jim Trojan - Organized Music strikes again, April 14, 2006
Tanya Andersen - p2pnet talks to Tanya Andersen, March 21, 2006
Candy Chan - The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club, September 17, 2005
not making it up - Scouting with the MPAA: IV, May 5, 2005
shameful role - The Big Lie: Part II, June 8, 2005
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
April 15th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
The record industry is well within its rights to act against transgressors. The trade assocations exist to act for their members and are merely functioning according to their mandates.
It is not pleasant for anyone, but it has to be done.
April 16th, 2006 at 4:33 am
i have alot of money and i will sue u riaa
April 16th, 2006 at 4:34 am
No it (sueing) doesn’t have to be done. Because it makes no sense. Do you think sueing costumers is a good way to impress them and make them want to buy more cds?
April 16th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
The alphabet soup of world organizations that enforce copyright are given their marching orders by the major labels. That the enforcement groups are being told to sound more “agreeable” while preforming their functions means one thing. That the predicted backlash of customer revolt and ill opinion of their actions is being noted and commented on by potential customers and it isn’t favorable.
The enforcement organizatons have earned themselves another set of black eyes in world opinion. We’ve been saying all along that it isn’t wise to sue you best potential customers but in their greed they’re using the heaviest stick they can find for a club. One not suited to the problem. It’s like using a howitzer to hunt ants. Its not applicable to the problem.
The resulting damage financially, to the choices that these enforcement groups are cherry picking for news, is giving them the black eyes they so richly deserve from the public. More and more, less and less of the public wants these poor offerings of entertainment of questionable value. I so dislike them, I haven’t purchased music in years. I couldn’t tell you who is who in present artists as none of them are what I term household names in fame, nor have I heard them, nor am I interested in them. Simply, I have lost touch with the media as it is configured now and is of no interest to me what’s new. They don’t provide me with meaningful entertainment and that’s where the crunch is as I suspect I’m not alone in this.
It doesn’t just end with the music either. I’ve ceased to buy dvds of movies since the sue’em all has started with that. Before that time, I was buying 3-4 a month minimum and thought it a good deal compared with music prices to what was recieved. Still I won’t support financial terrorism and so with the start of the lawsuits, came the stopping of buying for movies. I don’t get PPV as it too is not worth the money to watch over and over meaningless shows with no value in them. I’ve instead turned to the internet for my entertainment, where I can hear, see, and gather news of my own choices that aren’t so one sided in their self-generated bias.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:32 am
“The record industry is well within its rights to act against transgressors.”
But the record industry is the biggest trangressor of all. Songs that belong to my family are featured in about 75 records from about 20 labels currently being sold everywhere and none have valid licenses from un nor are paying any royalties. Sony alone has 16 of these records and have sold millions of copies. Sony even continues to defy the law by continuing selling the records, after being sued by us in 2001.
We have never received a single cent in royalties fronm a record comany since we inherited the rights of our songs over 12 years ago.
That is transgression!!!
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com