The RIAA and Illegal Downloading

 I'm also tremendously impressed when the drummer clanks his drumsticks together because they became cross-wired when he missed the drums altogether. Their music is reminiscent of the nightmares we have when you're trying to run but your feet just seem glued to the ground. Same tempo.

shadow wrote: Thanks! If they are going to pursue this avenue, then yes, you may be able to side step a suit. Personally, I think that this is a lesser evil, although it also opens up another can of worms, ISP snooping.  If this becomes the norm, censorship is a small step away. Having RIAA backing off is a victory for us all. If artisits would just represent themselves, they would make money and be in control of distribution.  I hope the record industry folds and allows artists this freedom.

Some of them are getting wise.  If, like me, you're a fan of NIN, the last album released was released by Trent Reznor on the NIN website for purchase directly from him at a discounted rate.  He cut the RIAA completely out of the equation and they can't touch him since he owns/created the record company and has cut all ties with industry fat cats.  It's a no-brainer...give the people what they want at a price they're willing to pay (and you can even preview the songs so you don't have to get anything you might think sucks) and let the artist benefit drectly without having to give a huge cut to some producer.  He offered several purchase options and I think I paid $10 for Ghosts I - IV.

I was just at the NIN website and the full-length album, The Slip, is available for free download.  Gettin' it now!

gail wrote: you know, the one where Lars has to wake up the drummer to vociferate in that spectacular phraseology of his

Um, Lars is the drummer. Just sayin'.

I was a fan a Metallica back in the day.  But this new speed-metal sh*t they're hawking these days just plain sucks!  I was in the car headed back north to my house from my dad's one Sunday afternoon and they had a Metallica feature on one radio station...I thought, "This should be interesting."  Yep...it was soooooo interesting that 15 seconds into the first song, I had to switch stations.  Sounded like some sort of experimental sh*t.  YICK!

There actually is a decent way to solve these issues. Instead of trying to get involved in every (or lack there of) transaction, the RIAA should concentrate on licensing the distribution. Thus any service who wants to play full length music (Internet radio, Satellite radio, file sharing, youtube, etc) pays an adjusted rate royalty license which in turn would be paid for by subscriptions, advertising, whatever. Then it wouldn't matter what the consumer did with the product as long as they didn't distribute it. The RIAA would only get involved if someone was distributing without a license. With this system the artist would get their due and ordinary people could be left alone.