I got this from www.foxnews.com


Friday, August 23, 2002


NEW YORK — A billion-dollar battle waged by the music, movie and software industries to stop consumers from illegally downloading their products from the Internet just got help from the federal government, which announced it is going after so-called peer-to-peer pirates.


"I think the government could have a dramatic effect, but I think that the legislative option is limited. There's a whole lot of opposition on the issue of privacy concern," said Andrew Frank, a technology expert at Viant Consulting.

Frank believes it is going to be hard to stop people from sharing over the Internet. But the Motion Picture Association of America applauds efforts by the Department of Justice to file criminal charges against file-swappers, especially since online piracy is on the rise.

The latest statistics estimate the number of movies downloaded illegally every day is somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000.

At one time, the Web site Napster led the file-swapping party, but last year the music industry ran it out of town and into bankruptcy.

But even with Napster's demise, piracy didn't disappear.

"In the case of today's file-trading networks you don't have centralized servers, so the legal method that was used to implicate Napster no longer applies as easily to these new services," Frank said.

While makers of movies and music claim the peer-to-peer pirates are unfairly stealing their booty, others say let it be.

"The vast majority of Americans ... who download music don't do it to make money, they're not trying to rip off companies ... they just want to do what they've always done and that is enjoy their home recording and fair use rights," said Jeff Joseph of the Consumer Electronics Association.

But the feds say the bottom line is that stealing is stealing, and that those caught swapping files could face at least a year in jail.
[This message was edited Tue Jan 14 22:36:25 PST 2003 by fonkywonder]

fonkywonder said:

I told you; there is an industry tax on cassettes and recorders. The profit from that tax goes to record labels and musicians. Since that's the case it's logical there is a tax on VHS cassettes and VCR's for the movie studios. That, they have covered. That technology benefits the industry.

What they don't have covered is both industries haven't been able to keep up with cyberspace technological advances. So far they haven't figured out how to make money off of the swapping.

There was one major label...I can't remember which one exactly, so I won't guess. But they made a deal with a certain music file sharing site for payments to the label and in turn royalty payments to the recording artists whose copywritten music was being downloaded. The problem was; this major label was getting paid for the downloads - but THEY WERE NOT PAYING THEIR RECORDING ARTISTS the money they were supposed to pay them.

The music industry is in a mess. There's a revolt within, there's a revolt on the outside among music fans. Stay tuned.

Here is some more info
http://www.cnn.com/2002/T...index.html

Music labels drop suit over Chinese site
ISPs were asked to block Web site accused of piracy
August 22, 2002 Posted: 9:32 AM EDT (1332 GMT)

NEW YORK, New York (AP) -- The U.S. recording industry has dropped efforts to compel four Internet service providers to block a Chinese Web site accused of distributing pirated music.

Thirteen record companies had filed suit Friday after failing to persuade the site, Listen4ever.com, to shut down on its own.

But in a surprise move, the companies dropped the lawsuit Wednesday, saying the site is now offline.

The Recording Industry Association of America said it may revive the suit if the site reappears with a new name or location.

Critics had complained that the RIAA was setting a potentially dangerous precedent by trying to force the Internet carriers to function as copyright police.

What happened to the site?
It's unclear what happened to the Listen4ever site, which has been inaccessible since at least Monday.

An e-mail from a representative for the site, identified as Mike Smith, said only, "For some reason, the site is closed and will never come back." The e-mail, sent using a Yahoo! account in response to a reporter's inquiry, did not elaborate.

The federal suit was filed by Arista Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Virgin Records America, Warner Bros. Records and nine other labels.

They said Listen4ever.com offered for illegal download thousands of copyrighted songs from Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera and other popular artists. The suit said some of the recordings had not yet been commercially released.

Defendants in the suit were AT&T Broadband, Cable and Wireless, Sprint Corp. and WorldCom Inc.'s UUNet. Their representatives had no comment on the dismissal. The companies carry much of the Internet's long-haul traffic.

Meanwhile, the RIAA is suing Verizon Communications' Internet unit seeking to identify a customer who is allegedly running a computer "that is a hub for significant music piracy." Tuesday's lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeks enforcement of a July 24 subpoena to Verizon.

Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe questions the subpoena's validity because the files in question are not on the company's network, even if the customer's computer connects to it.

Supernova said:

---

The music industry always claims that they are looking out for the artist royalties however, time and time again we find that they do not pay out the royalties to the artist.

The RIAA is looking out for the industry not the artist.

laurarichardson said:

Precisely.

Here is some more propaganda from the RIAA...don't these fools know that the REAL reason why sales are in decline is because the music that is out there these days is crap that lacks innovation, and people don't want to waste money on a album that has 1 or 2 good
songs on it. Plus in countries like Australia, UK etc your paying $29.99 dollars! Did ya know they are also targeting second hand stores who sell second hand cds? Its just so stupid!

Entertainment - Reuters/Variety Music

Record Labels Say CD Sales Drop 7 Percent, Blame Web
Mon Aug 26, 4:43 PM ET
By Derek Caney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Compact disc shipments fell 7 percent in the
first six months of this year versus last year as growing use of
Internet downloading services undermined sales, the record industry
said on Monday.



The Recording Industry Association of America ( news - web sites)
(RIAA), which represents the world's largest record labels, issued a
study by Peter D. Hart Research Associates indicating that Internet
users who say they are downloading more music also said they were
purchasing fewer albums.

"Among people who said their downloading from file-sharing services
had increased over the past six months, 41 percent reported
purchasing less music now than six months ago, compared to only 19
percent who said they were purchasing more music," the RIAA said in a
statement.

The record industry successfully defeated the first popular file-
serving service Napster ( news - web sites), which a court ruled
violated copyright law by offering the ability to share digital
music. Since then several similar services such as Kazaa and Morpheus
have cropped up.

Earlier this month, Forrester Research issued a study saying piracy
was not to blame for the sharp decline in record sales. Its study
discovered no evidence of decreased CD buying among frequent digital
music consumers, noting that the general economy and competition from
other media were larger factors.

"I would not argue that downloading and copying are the only factors
at work," Geoff Garin, chief executive of Hart Research said. "But we
have clear evidence that downloading and copying do not have a
favorable effect on record sales."

Jonathan Potter, executive director of Digital Media Association, a
lobbying group that represents many music sites trying to promote and
sell music over the Internet, said such surveys were of little value.

"The way to defeat illegal music distribution services is to offer
comprehensive, innovative, fairly priced legal services," Potter
said. "Until the record companies offer their content ubiquitously in
a consumer friendly way, studies like this are useless."

The five major record labels -- Sony Music, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s
Warner Music Group, EMI Group Plc ( news - web sites), Vivendi
Universal's Universal Music Group, Bertelsmann AG ( news - web
sites)'s BMG Entertainment -- and other companies are trying to
trying to win users over to subscription-based services. But none
have reached the mass appeal enjoyed by the unauthorized services.

Garin said the survey tried to get an understanding of what would
inspire consumers to abandon the free file-sharing services, although
the results were not made public.

"We do know that consumers don't have a very high recognition of what
the alternatives to the free services are," Garin said. But he added
that subscription services will find it difficult to compete with
free services.

Potter remained unconvinced. "I'd like to introduce the recording
industry to something called bottled water," he said, referring to an
example of successful retail items that are also easily available for
free.

"The point is if there were a high quality product that was
affordable and available across multiple services, they would be able
to defeat the free services," he said.

The RIAA's survey is based on 860 music consumers with Internet
access between the ages of 12 and 54.

The survey also found that the number pirated compact discs acquired
by Internet users has doubled from a year ago. Asked when they hear a
song they like by an unfamiliar artist, 20 percent of the respondents
said they would download the song for free, while 14 percent said
they would buy the album.

For respondents between 12 and 18 years of age, 35 percent said they
would download the song for free, while 10 percent said they would
buy the album.

---

Here is another article...
I got this from MP3 NewsWire

By Richard Menta 6/16/02

I have come to the conclusion that the music industry must be ruled
by organized crime because everything they do is a shakedown.

One of the most prominent examples is for the industry to distort the
notion that you buy a CD by claiming that all this time you have been
only renting it. That is a lie, but one the lobbyists and lawyers for
the industry will chant in unison as they enter the courts and the
legislature to contort the fair use laws to their fiscal advantage.

The Creative Nomad 3 is available on Amazon


The latest example came across my monitor from the San Diego Union
Tribune. Used CD sales have been skyrocketing over the last few years
and the record industry doesn't like it. The reason is that they
don't get a cut of the action. They shouldn't, they made their money
on the CD already and, once sold, that disc became what the legal
community calls chattel, i.e. a possession that can be re-sold,
traded, lent, or given away by its owner.

According to the Tribune the record industry is considering charging
used CD retailers a royalty for every CD they resell. That falls in
line with the "rent" theory Big Music wishes to push on consumers.
You can't resell that CD because you don't own it. Therefore, they
are entitled to additional rent once it leaves your hand and goes to
another.

As they say in the UK, Bollocks!

There is reason that the used CD market is booming. It is because new
CDs continue to skyrocket in price as the industry uses its
stranglehold on the consumer to push prices up. Consumers, unwilling
or unable to pay these ridiculously expanding prices are doing what
all consumers do when things get too expensive. They look for
alternative ways to spend their money.

Last year I wrote an article called 6 CDs that addresses this issue.
6 CDs constitute the number of new records the average consumer
purchases in a year. Does this mean this is all the music we ever
listen to? Heck no, it just means that new records are too expensive
and so we must be extremely selective over which discs we turn into a
purchase.

We as consumers then supplement our music through various ways. This
includes free sources like the radio, MTV, file trading, & cassette
recording. It also includes paying less through the purchase of used
CDs.

And it is no wonder that used CDs have taken off in the last couple
of years. The industry has forced upon the consumer the introduction
of the $20 CD, one of several price increases in the last several
years. You can do that when you have cartel power. The problem is a
CD was already way too much.

The $20 CD will price only more people out. The industry then has the
gall to scream that because record sales are down a mere 5% in a
recession it must all be because of piracy. Now that they have
targeted the used CD market as a lucrative venue, they are calling
the sale of used records without giving them a taste of the revenue -
yes, you guessed it - piracy.

From the Tribune story "Royalties proposed for booming used market as
new-CD sales stagnate"

The industry worries that the expanding used market is cannibalizing
new-CD sales, as well as promoting piracy by allowing consumers to
buy, record and sell back discs while retaining their own digitally
pristine copies.

One proposed remedy being debated by record label executives is
federal legislation requiring used-CD retailers to pay royalties on
secondary sales of albums.

A cover story in last week's issue of the music trade publication
Billboard quoted several executives who said they favor the
establishment of an agency that would exert a flat royalty rate -
say, 6 percent or so - on retailers' sales of CDs sold over and over
again.

Frankly, it is the record industry itself that is the wearing the eye
patch and parrot on the shoulder.

Personally, I have purchased more CDs in the last couple of years
than ever before despite the raise in prices. That is because my mind
and ears have been opened to a much broader array of music than the
record labels or the radio stations want me to listen to.

The problem is every time I just pick up a CD in the store now I
can't help but feel I am a sucker for doing so. I am a sucker for
supporting an industry that overcharges for their product. I am a
sucker for supporting an industry that bullies their own artists,
record stores, teenagers who trade, libraries, and even the federal
government when their well-funded lobbyists can get away with it.

Most of all - as I hold in my hand that CD of some artist whose music
I really want and whose efforts I truly want to support - that buying
that small silver disc at the record store is simply a bad value.

I wonder how many other record buyers have thought the same thing.

With that thought, what surprises me is that record sales have not
dropped 30% this year based on greedy industry practices alone.

And that is another reason why I think the promotional effects of the
Napster clones have done more help record sales than hurt it.

Hey, what about wife-swapping? They cracking down on that?

Seriously, if you make money selling mp3-sourced boots, you won't for long. That's weak. You'll be exposed by traders who give a damn. Actually, selling any boots is weak.

KEEP BUYING YOUR CDS USED! - remember when that was killing the industry?

Music This stuff is starting to upset me cause its so bias...what about the OTHER reasons for the slump!

Music biz blames piracy on further slump (CNN)
August 27, 2002 Posted: 11:39 AM EDT (1539 GMT)


NEW YORK, New York (Reuters) -- The Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) fired off a fresh round of statistics Monday in its
campaign to prove that digital piracy is to blame for the huge slump
in music sales over the past year.

Biz reps say they may get even tougher on policing pirates, and won't
rule out going after individuals who transfer or download illegally.

The major-label trade organization said unit shipments of music were
down more than 10 percent in the first six months of 2002, compared
to the same period a year earlier. The dollar value of those
shipments slipped just under 7 percent to $5.5 billion.

At the same time, the RIAA released details of a study linking usage
of online music-downloading networks like KaZaA and Morpheus with
decreased record buying. RIAA-commissioned pollster Peter Hart
Associates found that 41 percent of users whose file-swapping
activity has increased over the past year said they are buying less
music, compared to just 22 percent of those with decreased usage.

"The disinclination to buy would clearly seem to be greatest to those
who have increased their downloading," said Peter Hart official Geoff
Garin. "That casts a lot of doubts on any assertion that there is a
positive correlation between downloading tracks and buying more
music."

Garin conceded, however, that the study looked at only "wired" users -
- those connected to the Internet with at least a dial-up connection.
Data on the music-buying habits of non Web-users won't be compiled
until the fall, he said.

Also on the plate at Monday's stat buffet were numbers cataloging a
dramatic increase in siezures of counterfeit material by the RIAA.
The group said pirate CD seizures were up more than 170 percent as of
mid-year, while captured stashes of illicit recordable CD-Rs were up
66 percent.

Claim may build support for filing suit against users
The industry's barrage of piracy data seemed squarely aimed at
discrediting competing studies, including one released earlier this
summer by Jupiter Media Metrix, which indicated that heavy file-
swapping users are actually more likely to buy more music as a result
of their online activities.

But the RIAA may have another motive in mind as well, said P.J.
McNealy, director or research for the tech consultancy GartnerG2.

"This announcement really sets up the second half of the year for the
RIAA to ask Congress for more help fighting piracy," McNealy said.

He cited a bill recently introduced by California Congressman Howard
Berman (D-Mission Hills), which would give the major labels a broad
mandate to combat the peer-to-peer networks through technological
means. The measure was hailed as a crucial step forward by the RIAA,
but has raised the hackles of privacy advocates.

The RIAA may also be looking to build its case for another
controversial anti-piracy measure -- filing suit against the actual
users of file-swapping networks. The group recently took Internet
service provider Verizon to court to get names of high-traffic P2P
users, and an RIAA spokesman said Monday that "nothing's off the
table at this point" in the anti-piracy fight.

Leading the downturn in music shipment numbers by market segment were
CD singles, which tumbled more than 80 percent to just 2.2 million
units in the first half of 2002. Some music insiders have argued that
singles are the first to suffer from digital piracy, since they are
far easier to download than full albums.

Shipments of the industry's flagship product, full-length CD albums,
fell 7.2 percent on a unit basis to 369 million. The dollar value of
those shipments sank 5.1 percent to $5.2 billion. The shipment data
differs from actual sales at retail; the numbers can change based on
returned merchandise and other factors.
biz blames piracy on further slump

Hit Charade
The music industry's self-inflicted wounds.
By Mark Jenkins
Posted Tuesday, August 20, 2002, at 8:19 AM PT


2001 may not be the year the music died, but the pop biz did develop a nagging headache, and it's not going away. The recorded-music industry's first slump in more than two decades continues this year; the number of discs sold is slipping and so is the appeal of last year's stars. Britney Spears' latest album has moved 4 million copies—a big number, but less than half what its predecessor did.


The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the five major labels that dominate CD retailing, would like to blame much of the slide on Internet music-file swapping. Yet there are many other causes, including the fact that the big five are all units of troubled multinationals—AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, BMG, EMI, and Sony—that are focused on short-term gain and have no particular interest in the music biz. There's also been a recession, of course, and resistance to CD prices that have grown much faster than the inflation rate. Perhaps the most important factor, however, is the major labels' very success in dominating the market, which has squelched musical innovation.

In 2001, U.S. CD sales declined 6.4 percent. Sales have continued downward this year, and a Forrester Research study released last week projects a 6 percent decline in 2003 as well. Yet the report disputes the RIAA's assertion that the now-bankrupt Napster and its successors are responsible for the downturn. More than two-thirds of CDs bought in the United States sell to consumers who rarely or never download music files from the Web, Forrester concludes. Another market research company, Ipsos-Reid, reported in June that 81 percent of music downloaders buy as many or more CDs than they did before they started getting tunes from the Internet.

The RIAA, of course, has studies that say otherwise. But anyone who rewinds to the last major music-biz slump will find some interesting parallels. In 1978, record sales began to fall, and the major labels blamed a larcenous new technology: cassette tapes. The international industry even had an outraged official slogan: "Home taping is killing music." The idea was that music fans—ingrates that they are—would rather pirate songs than pay for them, and that sharing favorite songs was a crime against hard-working musicians (rather than great word-of-mouth advertising). Cassettes were so anathema to the biz that Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren could think of no more provocative way to launch his new band, Bow Wow Wow, than with a ode to home taping, "C30, C60, C90, Go!''


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By the time Bow Wow Wow bowed in 1980, however, the crisis was almost over. It turned out that home taping had not killed music. Instead, the central problem was the collapsing popularity of dance-pop—lively, sexy, but personality-free music whose appeal was broad but thin. They called it disco back then, and the name has never recovered from the era's backlash. Although usually termed teen-pop, the music of 'N Sync and Britney Spears is not unlike disco: Both are intellectually underachieving, cookie-cutter styles that have made stars of performers not known primarily for their skills as singers, songwriters, or musicians.

In addition to cassettes, late-'70s industry apologists blamed video games for undercutting record sales. There may have been something to that, and the biz faces even more multimedia rivals today: cable TV, the Internet, and DVDs, as well as much more sophisticated video games. Perhaps more important, younger consumers live in a world where popular music is ubiquitous (and therefore less precious) than in the '60s and '70s, when rock was rationed, semi-subterranean, and generation-specific. Some older music fans may hate hip-hop, nu-metal, or techno, yet in general rock today defines parents as much as (or more than) their kids.

The major labels have snubbed older music fans in recent years, yet over-40s now constitute 44 percent of the CD market, up from 19.6 percent in 1992, according to the RIAA's 2001 annual consumer profile. Unfortunately for the majors, the tastes of graying Beatles and Stones fans have fragmented, making them difficult to reach via mass-marketing. These consumers help support the many smaller labels that market alt-rock, world music, new age, reissues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, post-minimalism, and other niche genres.

Meanwhile, younger fans lose interest quickly and often don't develop strong loyalties. They're less likely to investigate a breakthrough act's previous albums or buy its next one. The genres that appeal to under-25 music fans continue to sell, but individual performers fade quickly.

This is a huge problem for the big labels, who still base their marketing on long-term stars who release multimillion-copy blockbusters. One album that sells 10 million copies is more lucrative than 10 that sell 1 million, because once a CD takes off, the only fixed costs are manufacturing and shipping, which are trivial compared to production and marketing. And long-term careers make each album less of a risk, since the most loyal fans will buy everything an artist releases and profits are high on back catalogs that keep selling.

Yet maintaining superstars is hard and getting harder. They require large advances, high royalty rates, and massive production and marketing money. And they keep demanding such things even when their careers tank (notable recent examples: Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey). The risk that a contemporary superstar's latest album will bomb is high, since attempts to reach the widest possible audience can easily lead to banality and overexposure.

In 1980, when the same sort of listener burnout bedeviled the biz and its superstars, salvation came from an unexpected source: MTV, an upstart cable channel that began broadcasting clips by a new generation of British bands simply because the established U.S. performers weren't yet making video clips. Groups like Culture Club, Duran Duran, and the Clash—whose label didn't even release the original version of its first album in the United States till 2000—broke through to a novelty-starved audience. Suddenly, home taping wasn't an issue anymore.

This is just the sort of shock that the music industry needs—and labors so hard to prevent. Since 1980, the mainstream music industry has only consolidated: Five companies control CD sales, MTV owns a multi-channel music-TV franchise, and a single company, Clear Channel, dominates both the concert business and Top 40 and rock radio. Ironically, if unsurprisingly, the biz has suffered from its near-monopolistic control. Short-sighted labels and tightly programmed radio have bolstered the success of certain styles and performers but prevented anything fresh from breaking through.

In the past, there were many ways to crack the biz: local radio stations, strong indie labels, regional clubs and promoters. Today, there are only a variety of separate-but-unequal circuits (alt-rock being the biggest) whose performers rarely break into the big time. (Of course, many of them don't want to, and some are major-label refugees with no intention of going back.) In erecting bulwarks around their domains, the major music businesses have left no entrance for the serendipity that kept the pop industry lively (and profitable) for decades. Yet the barbarians at those padlocked gates are the only people who can save the major labels' dwindling empires.

Fonkywonder, that's agreat article!

The music industry's self-inflicted wounds pretty much gives you that HISTORY lesson.

I found this response from another thread site, I think from where the article was from:
"However, contrary to popular belief, there ARE more than 5 companies out there distributing music. A lot more. These Labels and mucisians are the folks that will be hurt by the Legislation, and the RIAA knows this. They know that if people find out that there are alternatives to the formulaic Crap on the TOP 40 stations and MTV and VH1 and BET their business will be in jeopardy. Crushing their competition with PAID FOR Congressmen to ensure that their monopoly stays in place, is not only morally wrong, its illegal


Most Independant labels have LEGAL FREE downloads, because they know if someone hears something on the site they LOVE, they WILL pay for it, and more than likely introduce other people to it.

The RIAA's business model on the other hand, tempts you to pay $20 for a cd you *might* like 2 songs on. This is their gamble. this is why they hate MP3s. you can download a couple and realize "THIS MUSIC IS CRAP!!". Not good for CD sales huh?

If you are going to fight the RIAA on this, at least do it for the right reasons. "

The truth is in the details, RIAA want to squeeze out the Indies AND the small record stores.

Ever see those new malls being built in your neighborhoods...yet they are all BIG companies squeezing out the small independant shops?

There are a bunch of them popping up in LA...how about your town...SUPPORT THE INDEPENDANTS!

Technology - MacCentral

Music piracy battle amplifies
Wed Aug 28,11:00 AM ET
By Stephen Chiger PC World.com

Blaming piracy for a continued slouch in sales, the recording
industry has stepped up its mutual drive with law enforcement to
quash commercial copyright infringement.



A report by the Recording Industry Association of America ( news -
web sites) Inc. Monday blames online and physical piracy for dipping
sales and gives a new glimpse into the group's drive against physical
CD piracy.

The numbers come at an auspicious time, as Congress begins
considering a controversial bill to stem illegal peer-to-peer file
trading. Also, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission ( news -
web sites) is beginning discussions of how to protect digital
television content.

"Cumulatively, this data should dispel any notion that illegal file
sharing helps the music industry," said RIAA President Cary Sherman
in a statement. Sherman said online piracy was the main cause of a 7
percent dip in CD shipments this year, a loss of US$284 million at
the suggested list price.

The RIAA paired its data ! with a May survey by Peter D. Hart
Research Associates, which reports that people who are downloading
more than they did six months ago also are purchasing less music.

Dueling Numbers

Graham Spencer, a cofounder of fair-use advocacy group
DigitalConsumer, is skeptical.

"There's a new study every week," Spencer says. "Half of them say
that file sharing hurts the music industry, half of them say it helps
it."

"I'm not sure that these kinds of studies should be used for driving
policy," he adds.

Spencer references a Forrester Research Inc. study from earlier in
August that suggests digital downloads aren't hurting the music
industry. The biggest downloaders tend to be music fans who will
purchase CDs anyway and will only decrease their purchases by 2
percent in the next year, Forrester contends. The study says falling
CD sales have more to do with a down economy, cannibalization from
other media, and a lack of diversity i! n radio playlists.

The Hart study surveyed 860 music consumers ages 12 to 54 who had
ready Internet access to music -- about 66 percent of the Americans
in that age bracket. The study finds 24 percent of these wired users
say they copied 11 or more CDs this year, compared with only 10
percent in 2001.

Mike Godwin, a policy fellow with the Center for Democracy and
Technology, says it's difficult to assess the RIAA study's validity
and significance without being able to read it in its entirety.

The RIAA declines to release the full study, calling the information
proprietary.

Fighting CD Piracy

Meanwhile, data issued by the RIAA reveals the organization's
bolstered push against illegal copying of physical CDs.

The RIAA says the number of arrests and indictments with which it
assisted soared 84 percent during the first half of 2002, to 2305
cases. Similarly, it says it aided 350 search warrants and consent
search! es, an increase of 97 percent.

The number of pirated CDs has skyrocketed in part because they are
easily copied, and because of increasing illicit CD sales at flea
markets and by small-time vendors, the RIAA says. The organization
claims piracy costs its members $1 million each day.

In response, the group marshals a squad of full-time investigators
and lawyers, who package piracy cases and hand them over to law
enforcement agents.

"We try to do as much of the up-front investigation as we can," says
Frank Creighton, RIAA executive vice president, who heads up the
group's efforts. His team provides training, expert testimony, victim
impact statements, and even evidence-storage fees to help law
enforcement officials. "In essence we are there to hold their hand
through the entire process," Creighton says.

Most cases are prosecuted at the state level, where anti-piracy
statues require fewer resources to enforce, Creighton says. The RIAA
pla! ns to expand its network of tipsters through the CrimeStoppers
program, which offers hundreds to thousands of dollars for successful
leads.

Next Efforts

The government is mulling ways to protect digital content, from music
recordings to digital movies. Hearings are expected in September on
the peer-to-peer piracy bill. In July, lawmakers urged Attorney
General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) to boost prosecutions
against copyright infringement over these networks.

A bill that would require digital copy protection is still in the
Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by author Senator Ernest Hollings
(D-South Carolina).

Consumer groups are also getting ready for the hearings, to testify
as consumer advocates and try to preserve fair use policies.

"I think it's definitely the case that the recording industry is
concerned with what it sees as an increase in piracy worldwide
and ... government has been increasingly responsive to that
concern,"! says CDT's Godwin.

RIAA site comes under second attack


By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 28, 2002, 12:45 PM PT


For the second time in a month, the Recording Industry Association of
America's Web site was attacked Wednesday, apparently by opponents of
the industry group's efforts to shut down online music trading.
By midday Wednesday, the trade group's site was unreachable. Earlier
in the day, it had been modified to contain pro-file trading
messages, and even direct links to downloadable music and to file-
swapping service Kazaa.

"RIAA willing to try alternative approach to music-sharing services,"
the defaced site's top headline temporarily read, according to one
screen shot provided by a visitor to the site. Other links
included "Piracy can be beneficial to the music industry" and "Where
can I find information on giant monkeys?"



An RIAA representative said only that there was a problem with the
site and that it would be back up shortly.

The music group, along with the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA), has won many critics online in its quest to shut down popular
file-trading networks such as Napster. The group says Net piracy has
badly cut into legitimate sales, and this week released a report that
said CD sales for the first six months of 2002 were down 7 percent
from 2001. Online music trading was largely responsible for
undermining those sales, the group contended.

Both entertainment industry groups support a bill currently being
considered in Congress that would allow copyright holders to use
their own hackerlike tactics to shut down or impede file-trading
networks where illegal activity was taking place.

The RIAA has previously been less active than the MPAA in pursuing
individuals trading files online, focusing instead on lawsuits
against companies involved. However, the organization has stepped up
its activities in recent weeks, asking Verizon Communications for
personal information about a subscriber who the trade group alleges
has been involved in substantial illegal file distribution.

Verizon initially balked, asking that a court rule on the need to
provide the information.

The trade group also sued a group of Internet backbone providers,
asking that they block U.S. access to a Chinese site,
Listen4ever.com, that was providing access to large amounts of
illegally downloadable music. The site went offline just days after
the suit was filed, and the trade group withdrew its suit.

The RIAA site suffered a malicious denial of service attack a month
ago, knocking it offline for close to four days. Wednesday's more
serious attack is also illegal under federal and state laws, with
penalties of up to five years in prison.

Entertainment - E! Online Music

Record Industry Down on Downloads
Tue Aug 27, 7:00 PM ET
By Bridget Byrne

First question: Have you bought the new Nelly album? Second question:
Have you heard the new Nelly album?

According to the record industry, buying and listening are far from
mutually exclusive actions today--thanks to that darned Internet.

A new survey from the Recording Industry Association of America (
news - web sites) squarely puts the blame on online downloading
services for a 7 percent drop in CD sales for the first six months of
2002, compared to last year's already weak numbers.

The drop in sales accounted for a reported industrywide $284 million
loss.

The survey findings conflict with previous independent studies
showing free Web music is not at fault for declining CD sales. (Can
you say: boy-band bust? Or: lousy economy?)

The record industry's study polled 860 music consumers with Internet
access, ages 12 to 54.

"Among people who said their downloading from file-sharing services
had increased over the past six months, 41 percent reported
purchasing less music now than six months ago, compared to only 19
percent who said they were purchasing more music," the association
says in a statement.

Among those downloading the same amount as the previous six months,
25 percent said they purchased less music, compared with 13 percent
who bought more.

The study says younger listeners are more inclined to download for
free--with 35 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds saying they go that
route when they hear a song by an unfamiliar artist. Overall, 20
percent of those polled said they would download such a song for
free, compared to 14 percent who would buy.

The random telephone poll, conducted in May, with a margin of error
of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, did not survey customers
about other factors viewed as impacting CD sales--such as, you know,
the quality of new releases and the quality of the major labels' own
online services.

That last criticism is seen as particularly key by, well, critics.
While the record industry may have rid itself of Napster, other
online services, such as KaZaA.com and Morpheus.com, are still out
there offering music to "share."

The big six labels--Sony, Warner, Vivendi Universal, EMI and BMG--
have countered with subscription-based online services, but have met
with limited success.

"What the labels need to do to make a successful subscription
service, is make it better than KaZaa, Gnutella ( news - web sites),
WinMX, giFT, and Opennap in terms of catalog, audio quality and
usability," Netizen Stephen Hinkle wrote today in a post on Boycott-
Riaa.com.

A lobbying group, representing music sites trying to promote and sell
music over the Internet, similarly scoffed at how the record industry
has moved into the cyber age.

"The way to defeat illegal music distribution services is to offer
comprehensive, innovative, fairly priced legal services," Jonathan
Potter, executive director of Digital Media Association, tells
Reuters. "Until the record companies offer their content ubiquitously
in a consumer-friendly way, studies like this are useless."

damn, back to newsgroups.