This kind of mismanagement is different.

This is people taking money that creators had already earned and generating massive overhead by squandering and mismanaging its’ use.

It’s the difference between poor sales of DeLoreans, and DeLorean spending the company’s money on a cocaine habit. Which is worse for the health of the business in the long run, you think? Especially if one is a kneejerk reaction to the other, so they both happen at the same time?

Sure, the RIAA is happy to use that fact as an intimidation weapon – it’s an imbalance of justice they rely on to scare people who don’t have their own legal departments into paying up – but it’s also the reason it just doesn’t make sense to make small copyright claims.

My point is: as with so many things, the existing laws actually work OK except that it’s so expensive to get access to them. The problem can’t be solved with different laws, because that’s not where it lies. It would need a different legal system.

Barratry

Spotify (streaming music), iTunes store, and other services have transformed younger peoples usage patterns. Everyone I know uses Spotify AND iTunes.

One problem with these massive legal fees is the question of who foots the bill.
Artists.
This just gets marked as operating costs, with lower profits coming from music sales.

Its not the RIAA who are paying out that $16,000,000 in legal fees.

Its the people who put down their hard earned cash for the CDs and DVDs.

The answer of course is -$15,609,000

As others have said above, there are plenty of people who don’t download music because of moral reasons or because they’re fans.

There is also a huge number of people globally that simply hate the RIAA and the labels they represent; and will avoid paying for anything they believe the majors will make a dime off. This won’t necessarily stop these people from seeing the same artists they represent live, or downloading entire discographies.

Stupid RIAA. We’re not making money out of what we download. Hell, most of it’s not even kept. It’s used for a little while, then deleted.

I just have a real issue with broadcasting laws. Once it’s in the public realm, ie radio, tv etc, then you can’t control it any longer. You have basically thrown it out into the air, and anyone with a radio can listen in on what you’re throwing out there, into the atmosphere. You’ve throw it into the public domain and have forgone any rights as to how the material is reproduced. They’re saying we may not reproduce their music, but, technically, this is what every single radio does. It’s reproducing it every time the radio station plays the damn song.

So why is the internet any different? Why, once it hits the public domain, can’t I then play the song on my mobile? Why can’t I then reproduce the song on my computer, based on what was broadcast out into the public domain? I’m not taking anything away from the artist. I haven’t stolen a damn thing. Technically, I’ve actually added to, rather than taking away, because I’ve created another song. A duplicate of the first song, so I haven’t taken anything off anyone. I’ve copied it. Which infers, ergo, that I am adding to the world. I’ve added another copy of said offending piece of material.

This whole thing is just money grubbing people who can’t get over the fact that they thought they were gonna be permanent billionaires with the advent of cd’s, til someone created MP3′s. God bless your soul whoever you were.

I’d rather pay more to watch a concert live than buy music off the net, or the record companies that is.

..Except radio stations pay a licencing fee.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties7.htm

I love your passionate rant, my friend, but there are a few holes in your logic. Everytime a song is played on radio the artists are attributed a tiny royalty credit. This is the weakest argument for music duplication because what is claimed to be (“hey, we’re just doing what the radio is doing”) is not the case at all.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties7.htm

As for the inventor of the mp3? Thank the Krauts.

# 1987 – The Fraunhofer Institut in Germany began research code-named EUREKA project EU147, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).

# April 1989 – Fraunhofer received a German patent for MP3.

Thank you for you contribution,
–Corporate America

Of the people I know who even realize there are lawsuits on going, most ask me if there has ever been a case won. That doesn’t sound like much of a deterrence to me. Keep in mind, most of that money recovered came from a) one or two high-profile convictions, and b) people paying up in small quantities to avoid a legal battle.

People have a funny view on life. They think, “It will never happen to me,” or, “How could they possibly know what I’m doing?” To some extent, they are right. But in the end, people will do things even if there could be legal consequences, as long as they can convince themselves that it won’t happen to them.

Myself, I continue to download music and movies. For free. I also buy songs online (thanks Jonathon Coulton!), buy CDs and DVDs in stores, go to concerts and movie theaters, and otherwise “support the artists” who I am supposedly stealing from. In the mean time, the RIAA and MPAA insist on convincing artists that I am a thief instead of a customer, lobbying to ban any rights I might still have, blackmailing everyday people into paying hush money, and wasting the money that I paid to the artist to support their work.

And I’m the thief.

I’d laugh too, if I had such a nice racket going – even more profitable than religion.

Can you imagine how much good could be done with $64 million dollars?

Surely the vast majority of music consumers aren’t savvy like us. Instead, they have some anecdotal and vague awareness that lawsuits exist as a real but vague threat – which in turn causes more of them to pay for their music, to the tune of many millions.

Were it not for these lawyers, there would be no such vague threat, and I think it’s safe to assume that much less music would be paid for.

There’s your profitability – not in winning cash, but in keeping the masses uneasy enough to pay.