2008 Woodie Awards
'Middlemen' must be eliminated in industry
viewpoint
Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: Editorials
Students: Steven M. Marks, general counsel to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is disappointed in you. His clients have made available, in Marks' words, "exciting new digital models that offer fans, including college students, their favorite music how they want it and where they want it." Yet still, wayward students, you flout him, resorting to illegal free downloads without stopping for a moment to consider buying the $20 CD. Marks goes on to paint a harrowing portrait of a world free of music, consumed by collegiate greed: "thousands of regular, working class musicians and others out of work, stores shuttered, new bands never signed." Look what you've done, miserly undergraduates.
All this was to be found in the press release on the RIAA Web site announcing the trade organization's eighth "wave" of pre-litigation letters sent to some of American universities' most profligate downloaders (evidently, the first seven waves failed to frighten people off).
This new offensive was followed by a high-profile legal victory over Jammie Thomas, a Native American woman who may have illegally transmitted 24 songs over the peer-to-peer transfer program called Kazaa. The jury that ruled on.
Thomas' case awarded the plaintiffs $9,250 in damages per song, totaling $220,000. Though Thomas could have originally settled for much less, it seems the record companies' strategy in the case of harshly punishing customers who step out of line is representative.
The problem remains that most Americans already know the suffering of the Clive Davises of the world. They simply do not care. The record companies have been pouting for nearly a decade, nervously adjusting their ties in anticipation of a business model rendered rudderless by the advent of the Internet and new media. Most Americans still click "download" without a tinge of sympathy, not out of contempt for their favorite musicians but for the grubby intermediary that skims around 85 percent off each record sale.
All this was to be found in the press release on the RIAA Web site announcing the trade organization's eighth "wave" of pre-litigation letters sent to some of American universities' most profligate downloaders (evidently, the first seven waves failed to frighten people off).
This new offensive was followed by a high-profile legal victory over Jammie Thomas, a Native American woman who may have illegally transmitted 24 songs over the peer-to-peer transfer program called Kazaa. The jury that ruled on.
Thomas' case awarded the plaintiffs $9,250 in damages per song, totaling $220,000. Though Thomas could have originally settled for much less, it seems the record companies' strategy in the case of harshly punishing customers who step out of line is representative.
The problem remains that most Americans already know the suffering of the Clive Davises of the world. They simply do not care. The record companies have been pouting for nearly a decade, nervously adjusting their ties in anticipation of a business model rendered rudderless by the advent of the Internet and new media. Most Americans still click "download" without a tinge of sympathy, not out of contempt for their favorite musicians but for the grubby intermediary that skims around 85 percent off each record sale.
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