RIAA

Basically, he says that setting up a 'pay to play' situation where people pay per download (iTunes) is too little too late. It will never be 100% viable, because the options to obtain the same thing free are way to easy. Also, the expense of setting up a system of technology that -FORCES- users to either buy the album or pay per download is cost prohibitive. The nature of the Internet as a medium won't allow that to ever fully happen. At the same time, bringing lawsuits to bare against individuals is highly unprofitable. At best the industry will loose hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees as they bring little Timmy Turner up on charges for having his 300 MP3 files of Barney Loves Kids tunes.

The solution is blindingly simple.

A surtax of 0.01% on all music sales. It works out to an average of of 0.3 cents per album sold or something. This is a negligable cost to the consumer, they won't even notice it. But when taken over the total gross sales of albums in North America it represents a whopping amount, I belive it was around 30 million dollars per annum, but I may be wrong on that.

Now, this fellow on the radio thinks that this money should be paid out to musicians who are -NOT-, I repeat -NOT- top 40 musicians. Why? Because the theft of top 40 musicians music is a negligable loss to the industry, the big time musicians are not loosing money due to data theft, and neither is the corporations. Where the biggest impact appears is in non-top 40 musicians who sell less than 50,000 albums per annum. In these smaller classes of musicians having works stolen and dumped to the internet can make a huge impact. It can loose them sales, loose them income, and in really bad cases loose them a record contract because they are not moving enough 'units'.

So this fellow thinks, and I agree, that the surtax should be shunted into a fund where musicians in a given country apply for a grant, which is paid out yearly to the musicians so they can cover cost of production, and parts of cost of living. The taxes collected in a given country stay in that country to pay that countries musical tallents.

I think it is a fantastic solution. Rather than looking to -stop- piracy, and -force- users to comply in expensive legal battles, it circumvents the problems, creating a positive flow situation.

Basically, it lets us have our Cake and eat it too.

And for the life of me I can not remember the persons name, nor find it on google…I'll keep looking and see if I can find it.

A few months I heard David Foster (long time, and wealthy producer [producer a shit load of Celine Dion's most nauseating songs] and now Warner Music Executive) talked about his plans to counteract downloading.  It basically boils down to shift the market focus from teenagers/youth to middle aged people (aka those people who grew up with the: "I like this music, I'm going to the record store to buy it" paradigm).  The majority of current teenagers, have almost "grown up" with the concept that this is how I get music, and it's free.  Very hard to change the status quo.  So what Warner is doing is putting more money into their A/C unit.  If you're unlucky enough, you've heard this shite: Michael Buble and Josh Groban being their top performers.  I worked at a music store when both these albums dropped, and listening to them was almost as torturious as listening to a Bon Jovi power ballad.

It definitely seemed like it was working for Warner, and if other labels take on this business strategy, it could mean that the already tight budget for  signing talented/great artists, that aren't going to go platinum, will get even tighter, and possibly become non-existent.  That's not to say artists in that catagory can't release albums, but it does mean they will have less exposure, and become harder for those that have never heard them, to catch a listen and decide they like them.

The other solution, is trying to get a more "secure" format to become the new standard, which they're trying with SA and DADs.  SA offers a better sampling rate, with better tonal quality (audiophiles are all over it), DAD's, in the audio department, are the same quality, pretty much as CDs, but they offer 5-6 channels of sound.  Even if one of them becomes the standard, someone will, or already has, figured out a way around the security measures.  The only format that's 100% secure is vinyl/records.  And I'm a vinyl junkie that'll always be paying for my next fix (which isn't I bad trade off IMO, as I get my money's worth from the music).

I've seen them live 7 times, and no band could possibly compare.

If I hear one more tirade about how they killed Napster, I'm going to blow my fucking top.

PLEASE, cry me a fucking river you group of girlscouts. Seriously.

If you listen to a band/album obsessively. Buy their music. It's common courtesy to the artist.  If you don't want to spend money at HMV/MEGACDsRUS/amazon or  the mall, order it in through your local indy/small time music stores. If there are none around you or they gouge you because they need to pay their rent then you can order directly from the label. Many labels smalltime and not so small time have a nifty little "PLEASE WE BEG YOU, ORDER MUSIC HERE NOW!" button on their sites and most will deliver to other countries and they tend not to murder you with shipping, unlike ebay.

When the tax on recordable media hit around here. Future Shop and smaller stores were carrying petitions about how it hurts the starting up artists trying to get their name out. As well as those who use recordable media for none piracy related burning. It doesn�t really stop piracy, the tax money is being shunted towards the wrong end of the stick and you can just backup all your evil pirated data on a spare, one time purchased 250Gig harddrive, or two. Which, in my opinion, is a hell of a lot more convenient then a binder of CD's, though a wee bit more pricey.

Now, THE METTALICA HOCKEY SHOWDOWN! Watch the boys strap on their hockey gear; skate out to center ice and THROW DOWN WITH A POLITE VENGANCE. In this corner we have Murphy �White Leather� Crusher and in that corner we have Lotus �Mac Addict� Lineman. Watch this pay per view, no holds barred frozen fisticuffs LIVE LIVE LIVE in Halifax! No refunds if we get raided by the police.

Tonight�s guest referee will be Adam Ant.

Does this apply to all rock type Genre's? Cuase Avril is so like, Hardcore.

I'm not even going to try and respond…it'd be like trying to explain to a blind man what blue looks like

Thanks so much, have a nice day.

Ummm…. Metalica killed Napster.

*Waits for flying brain matter*