>>>I believe those with good products, ideas, or inventions will be rewarded >>>regardless of copyright laws (or Kazaa) if what they offer is truly >>>unique and superior. >> >>I agree to some extent. The market likes good stuff and votes with >>dollars. >> >> >>>I think society evolves how it wishes, and >>>regardless of what the RIAA wants, they will have to evolve too if they >>>wish to survive. >> > I'm finding this discussion fascinating and elucidating. It's making me think > of how the Dave Matthews Band has set up its' business model from its' > inception. This is a little OT, but demonstrates what you're talking about. > > DMB does things very differently from most bands, and are consequently far > more successful than most bands. They've always allowed fans in the audience > to tape their live performances and distribute those recordings free of > charge. They used to let tapers to plug into their soundboard, but stopped > that when people started selling those recordings. The band asks that people > not sell their live shows, but always give them away. They don't like > filesharing, but prefer people actually mail the disks to each other to keep > it personal. They ask that people BUY their studio-recordings, and not make > copies of those to give away. > > The fans spread the free music around and it increases their fan base. Because > people like what they hear, they're more likely to buy tickets to shows and > buy their albums when they get released. > > When they were negotiating their first recording contract with RCA, RCA wanted > to put a stop to the live taping. The band refused and RCA gave in. They've > continued to allow taping and are consistently one of the top three grossing > bands in the world (with U2 and the Stones.) > > This year, they started making some of their best shows available for download > for a price. These are soundboard recordings which are better quality than > most tapers can pull. They're marketing these shows directly, bypassing the > recording company. > > Basically, fans respond to the band's talent and generosity by generously > giving money back to the band. Some people cheat and sell the live shows over > Ebay, or distribute them as MP3s over the net, but overall it's a hugely > successful business model. If a lot of artists adopt this model, it will > force a change in the recording industry. > > Sorry if I've bored anyone with this. The interesting thing is, live recordings are not currently covered under copyright law due to a recent court ruling. The reason is, under the law as it stood, copyright for live recordings was an indefinite period of time (as in forever) and that violates the Constitution which stipulates that Congress can make copyright laws that have a limited lifetime (forever is definitely not limited and a number of groups, the EFF among them, are trying to shoot down the current laws which put copyright at 90 years for Corporations, Life + 70 for an individual which would mean that if you wrote something at 20 and lived to be 70, a total of 120 years would go by while it was under your control or the control of your estate). IIRC Copyright was originally about as long as a patent, around 14 years or so. That to me sounds a lot more like what it should have been left at. You come up with an idea and for the next decade and a half it is yours to control and then it enters the public domain. Trademarks have no true lifetime, they can be controlled for as long as the holder is willing to fight for it. I think this is the reason why Disney and other companies have been buying off Congressmen to increase the length of copyright, since copyright does not require them to show due diligence to keep the copyright and they can get the government to spend money defending their copyrights for them. --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss