E-Dribble » lawsuits

It makes you wonder what dictionary they’re using.

schwim — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:19:03 +0000

Jonathan Lamy, chief spokesperson for the RIAA has chimed in to let us know that DRM is dead, kaput, no more and finally no longer endorsed or condoned by the RIAA.

Which reminded me of when the RIAA stated that lawsuits against the consumer were dead, kaput, no more and finally no longer endorsed or condoned by the RIAA.

You can probably use the same grain of salt for both statements.

Oh, if there were only some way to know where we went wrong!

schwim — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:44:45 +0000

I was utilizing the various tubes of the internet 2.0 to find some new music a few nights ago when I came across “Cage the Elephant”, some Kentuckians that transplanted to the UK. Man, some seriously fantastic music(check out “No Rest for the Wicked“). I knew I needed the album, so I checked to find out who their label was. It’s getting tougher to plow through all of the faux-hip sounding names that the publishers are using to hide the real owner, but eventually I found it to be Sony BMG, so I bought a used copy.

That’s beside the point. During my search, I found this fantastic article. In it, the CEO of EMI Records laments that while he knows that a divide exists between EMI and it’s customers, he’s not sure what he can do to lessen that gap.

You guys remember that about a year and a half ago, EMI was taken over by some hip non-industry types and things were going to change! They stated that they would cut(or altogether end) funding to the RIAA because they didn’t think suing their customers was the way to sell an album. ars technica went so far as to speculate that it might be the end of the RIAA.

So what happened during that time? Well, they sued every entity that they could think of.

Seriously.

I’m not shitting you.

It’s mind boggling really.

But it’s the truth.

It’s really quite impressive that a group of people that foretold the death of the old system ended up not only embracing it, but damned near rewriting the book on it. See, they go after innovators. Entities that are trying to change the face of music delivery. If it’s groundbreaking, you can almost rest assured that EMI is suing the group that brought it to you.

And in spite of all of this, Mr. Leoni-Sceti isn’t sure what he needs to do to to make things right.

I promise not to tell if you don’t.

I’ll write my own damned music, for fear of prosecution.

schwim — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:35:27 +0000

Regardless of who you side with, you can not argue that the music industry’s relationship with their customers is in the crapper. If you’re like me, you view this as a good thing. Even if you’re not though, you can’t really be wondering why, can you? In times when Warner will force the removal of audio in a satirical youtube viral vid, you can be sure that they don’t have much of a sense of humor about anything any more. They’ve run out of things to sue over, so they just throw hail mary’s where ever they can. Lyric and chord/tablature sites, people with radios turned up too loud, parents of kids that might have shared songs, some guy that chose Gn’R of all bands to leak tracks of…. It’s truly comical the lengths to which the whole industry is going to completely decimate their relationship with the people that put them in their Beemers and Versace.

Well, the Pirate Bay is no stranger to being attacked. Christian Engstrom, part of the pirate party decided to sit down and pen a thoughtful piece, concerning what he’s fighting for, why it’s important to everyone and what could turn the train wreck that is copyright and IP around.

Rick Carnes, head of the Songwriter’s Guild, wrote a rebuttal, which is a fantastic read. Not because his points are interesting but because he completely twisted almost every single thing Christian wrote and then addressed the new points, that Christian never made. The fun part is that he did it so transparently that it makes him look like a bit of a tool.

The best part of the piece though? We find out that a man that failed at making a living as a songwriter is the head of the SongWriter’s Guild.

Hi pot, it’s me, kettle!

schwim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:25:22 +0000

vexatious: vex·a·tious

Pronunciation: \-shəs\
Function: adjective
Date: 1534

1 a: causing vexation : distressing
b: intended to harass
2: full of disorder or stress : troubled
- vex·a·tious·ly adverb
- vex·a·tious·ness noun

Are we clear on the definition of vexatious? I’m hoping so, otherwise you won’t know why everyone is laughing so hard.

RIAA Decries Attorney-Blogger as ‘Vexatious’ Litigator

The entity that has sued dead people, pets, infants and those that have never owned a computer are calling Ray Beckerman vexatious because he keeps a blog of his lawsuits involving the RIAA. They feel that the exposure is hurting their public image.

It’s not the 30,000 people they have sued. It’s Ray’s blog.

Metallica; always on the cutting edge

schwim — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:52:48 +0000

Well, when it comes to lawsuits against their fans. When it comes to providing their music in new and innovative ways, they’ll wait until it’s been proven economically feasible before they’ll try it.

You’ll remember that Metallica was one of the main proponents in the initial lawsuits that brought down Napster. Now, they’d like you to know that it was never about downloading music. They just, you know…. didn’t want you to do it then. Now it’s ok of course, because Trent Reznor made an assload of cash doing it.

What really happened is this: Metallica got caught hugging an antiquated music distribution system. When the fear of sales dropping touched their wallets, they lashed out. Over the years, they’ve held their stance, because nobody else broke the mold. Now that bands like Radiohead, Trent Reznor and others have proven that you can sell a lot of music this way, they’re willing to try it. Oh, and hey, let’s just forget about that whole “attack our fans” phase we went through.

Hey, who am I to judge? I’ll download their new album…. If they offer it for free.

Hey, I’m no pirate.