BUT...and it's a BIG BUT...
Do NOT let ANY bastards win. Some kid swipes a bunch of candy from a blind newsdealer, collar him. If you're cheated on, do you dismiss it because it was just a few hours on a motel? If you find some pick-pocket has your wallet, do you grab it back but say "Oh, wait, let me at least give you a fiver" because you can afford it?
The RIAA and its British cousins BPI and IFPI must spend time with lobbying, and stemming major torrents, but why ignore the drips?
Members of "music rights groups" would not be pleased if the FDA shrugged and said, "Oh, you can have a few extra roach parts in your peanut butter" or "the Health Department will still give the restaurant an A rating even if the basement has rats and the cook was caught picking his nose."
Here's a blogger proud of being untouched in FOURTEEN YEARS/
How PROUD. FOURTEEN years of tossing around everything from the new 4 CD Sgt. Pepper release, to the entire discography of Jethro Tull.
It would be easy for an intern for the RIAA, BPI of IFPI to shut down the Zippyshare links, or contact GOOGLE and tell them to revoke the jerk's gmail account. Instead, this, like several other blogs, is FAMOUS as a place to always get the latest "goodies" and tons of back-catalog items?
RIAA, you PROUD OF THAT?
A defunct blog, which still can be found through a GOOGLE search, mentioned just how notorious THIS asshole is:
It seems the RIAA, BPI, IFPI and other alphabet-soupers have their beaks in the sand and Dr. Dre BEATS headphones on. These blogs have been reported by musicians and fans, and there's NEVER a response. Many rights organizations seem to avoid being contacted by refusing to have a "report piracy" phone number or website link!
Musicians have told me the RIAA is not on their side.
The RIAA and the rest sure act like fat cats. They go to banquets. They talk up how Jay-Z's album went Platinum and how wonderful that is. They'll TWEET the dumbest shit you can think of.
What nerdy-turdy little Intern is TWEETING and RE-TWEETING utter shit, and...NOT paying attention to incoming TWEETS about piracy? Not forwarding them?
Here's an IDIOT TWEET from the BPI.
Nothing better to do than re-TWEET that? Really? No time to knock off some Freakshare links on behalf of your record labels? Really?
Here's some IDIOT TWEETs and re-TWEETS from ASCAP and the RIAA
No wonder nobody follows ASCAP or leaves many comments.
See how few people LIKE the RIAA Tweet, while Kim Dotcom (the richest man in New Zealand, who ripped off the music industry via Megaupload and is STILL not in jail) has A HALF MILLION FOLLOWERS.
He isn't Tweeting silly back-slapping crap.
ASCAP spends a lot of time babbling about "workshop participants" and programs to encourage music, but what do they do to DISCOURAGE music "sharing?"
14 Years of that blog above (and others) taking away royalties, and the buck passes from one "rights" group to another while the bucks go into the pockets of bloggers (via sharing revenue) and the link providers who have banner ads on their sites.
Here's an IDIOT TWEET from the IFPI.
WHAT? Nice, "search engines CAN be compelled to remove illegal sites" but, IFPI, the blog above is easily found through GOOGLE, and it wouldn't be if YOU shut it down by destroying the links and the gmail account, if not the blog itself. What ARE you doing to make politicians take copyright seriously and block torrents and blogs emanating from Communist countries?
Why haven't you gotten together a "No Music Day" boycott to show the world how SILENT it could be without music?
What's that other idiot post, about looking at how "Generation Z" consumers content? We know how. THEY SUCK IT OFF DOWNLOADS because YOU LET THEM.
RIAA, what is the point of quacking about the ZZ WARD album when you aren't making sure BLOGS don't give it away?
There are so-called rights groups and royalty-grabbing groups who will tell you "no, not our job to fight piracy" and won't forward a complaint to the group who IS supposed to fight it. Right, SOUND EXCHANGE?
How many people liked that Tweet?
How is SOUND EXCHANGE getting musicians their digital royalties if they can't or won't deal with the pirates, or pass along, emphatically, to blog URLS to the RIAA or BPI and make sure the blogs are removed?
Why is it these organizations pay themselves far more than most songwriters and working musicians are paid? Why is it so many are now humiliating themselves on Kickstarter asking for money to self-press something to be distributed by CD Baby?
The argument that people involved with musicians' rights are very busy and hardworking, looks like a lie, when you see the utterly pointless, trivial and idiotic TWEETS these groups send out.
CISAC, what busywork idiocy is THIS?
DCMS, why are you babbling about joining the digital "conversation" and crying about "opportunities" for various "cultures?" If you watch a GRAMMY award show, you'll notice hip hop gets so much time, classical and jazz aren't even ON the show anymore. Most of the awards go to Black artists. The rest go to established crap-acts like Adele and Taylor Swift. Thousands of young artists do not even have albums, they just have 100 hits on YouTube and a prayer. PIRACY HURTS. Idiot bloggers need to be slapped down. It's not whack-a-mole.
How do I know? I'm in the VeRO program on eBay and when I get somebody removed for bootlegging a celebrity I know, that stuff does not come back. If it does, I fire again and finish that bootlegger off. It doesn't take a lot of my time, which is why I don't even charge anyone. "Whack-a-mole" is an excuse for "Crapathy."
IMRO is some kind of rights group in Ireland. Their solution? Go sign a petition. What else, a GOFUNDME?
"Make your voice heard." How about heard by IMRO? BPI? IFPI? RIAA?
Eleanor McEvoy, newly crowned head of the IMRO will hopefully not think that Tweeting for a petition signing, like millions of "sign the petition" stuff on Facebook, is the answer.
The answer is get in the game. File takedowns.
Yes, use your letterhead to try and interest a Senator or a Prime Minster or whoever, but understand that whining and begging only goes so far. Don Henley, Prince, Gene Simmons and many others got publicity for their grousing about piracy. Did they sing songs about it? Arrange a big concert? Threaten to stop touring or to have a scheduled NO SHOW day where every venue went dark? A day to tell the world that "pay to play" is not an answer and neither is piracy?
You know how you make the Internet fairer? You prosecute the criminals.
You go after anyone, big or small, who is operating in the open. That would be ON EBAY. That would be using GMAIL. That would be anyone with links that involve companies that DO respond to takedown requests. DO IT.
Even if politicians declare that it's illegal to post files on YouTube and say "I don't own the rights, I just like it," it takes somebody to REPORT IT. "Crapathy" doesn't get it done.
Blogs will not go away unless they are reported. Sellers on eBay will try and sneak counterfeits and forgeries on people I know, and even if eBay is told to monitor their site, I'd STILL have to report violations they "overlooked."
A hopeless fight? Hardly.
Thousands of blogs and forums have withered away, many because rights owners were on their trail, or the links were pulled down faster than they could put them back up. We have seen Rapidshare, Megaupload, Badongo, Hotfile and others file-sharing sites go under.
What is needed are some interns and volunteers (if these organizations are so poor) to file takedowns. Simultaneously, the organizations should continue using their high-priced lawyers to lobby for less hoops to jump through, faster suspensions of pests, and more effective blocking of trouble sites. Yes, we "allow for shrinkage" and know that some clever people will fly under the radar. But a blog up for FOURTEEN YEARS? FOURTEEN YEARS??????
A few interns or volunteers would end this music thief who boasts of 14 years of blood-letting and leeching. No way he can put 'em up faster than they can be taken down. He can die trying.
What in the WORLD is THIS idiot TWEET supposed to do?
JOIN the organization? For what?
If you're an IMRO member, and your music is on a BLOG that's been up for 14 years, what will IMRO tell you? To go file a takedown yourself?
Thats how the writers unions are. That's how SAG and AFTRA are. "Meh, you're the rights owner. YOU do it."
I know piracy. In my business it's also called plagiarism.
Two authors ripped off material from my books. Did my publishers do anything about it? Nope. They did not care that books they published were being ripped off! Too rich?
I was told, "YOU are the copyright owner, so YOU go do something about it."
And I did. I got cash settlements in both instances, and didn't share any of it with the PUBLISHERS.
Hopefully, under new management, IMRO will not just be another stupid "say everyone, music is good" organization, throwing parties for ghetto kids and handing them kazoos. We all know music is good. What some don't know or care about, is that artists deserve compensation.
Too often "organizations" and unions are only concerned with collecting dues and having its officers attend expenses-paid conventions. Doing a press release and saying, "We just gave a thousand dollars to a scholarship" is nice, but is that "scholar" going to grow up and starve and need to keep that day job because he/she isn't getting royalties?
Spend a little less time sending out press releases about how music should be taught more often in schools, and more time defending all the self-taught musicians being stolen from by selfish bloggers.
PIRACY hurts?
PIRACY KILLS.
It killed John Herald. Herald, once of The Greenbriar Boys, and later a solo artist and writer, killed himself. He was living dirt poor, with no help from the RIAA or any of his unions, no money to fix is cracked teeth, no significant royalties from his songs, no CD re-issue company doing well enough to put his items back in print, and nobody giving a damn.
Guys like John may have had other issues, but one of the key qualities of life is money in your pocket. Without it, you starve to death or take yourself out to end your suffering.
Back when I was editing rock mags and interviewing and photographing stars, we all knew the fat cats were doing well. We got the benefit of it: free tickets, free promotional items, etc. Today, there are almost no rock magazines, no radio stations, no record stores, and no "new paradigm" that has effectively taken their place.
The decline in the music world is parallel to the rise of the Internet and blogging/sharing/piracy.
14 years for the blog above. There are others. One stealing (sharing) website closed after ten years, only because the pirate owning it was bored with the "thank you" comments and "keep up the good work" praise, and with so much competition, wasn't making enough money off banner ads or "revenue sharing" with the odious Megaupload-types hosting the files.
It seems that the RIAA, BPI, IFPI and the rest, shrug and figure that laissez faire will take care of it. But the blogger above hasn't gotten bored yet, and does not have cancer. The site will end only if the "Crapathy" does.
The theme song to an old TV show ended with "Car 54, Where Are you?"
RIAA...BPI...RIAA...BRIEN...ASCAP...all the others...WHERE ARE YOU? Having a latte in Starbucks on a two hour lunch while some jerk posts his daily bootlegs and runs a shoutbox for others to post crap or ask "anybody got a SHARE on the entire Beach Boys catalog?"
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