The 1.5 Million Dollar Album

Yeah, like any album made in the last 10 years is worth that much. Give me a break.

The amount that the RIAA gets in statutory damages in filesharing lawsuits is already completely bananas, but they still aren't happy. The problem? Compilation CDs. A rascally pirate could rip 10 tracks from 10 CDs, say they came from a compilation and then only be culpable for one album. That's not right! The RIAA would then be cheated out of money they could use to polish the rubies on the ends of their walking sticks!

So what are they doing? Pushing the PRO-IP Act through Congress that'll increase the statutory damages for compilation albums to a whopping $1.5 million. Yes, if you get busted sharing a soundtrack or compilation album with multiple artists on it, the RIAA wants to count each track as its own album. You know, just for the heck of it.

With statutory damages already so out of the league of the rational and the justifiable, increasing the damages this much might actually happen. I mean, if they could justify $150,000 an album before, is it really such a leap to make that $1.5 million?

The moral of the story? Be careful and don't get busted. That and the RIAA makes Mr. Burns look more like Mr. Rogers

[Gizmodo via Ars Technica]

U2 manager blames ISPs for Internet piracy

Internet service providers should be the focus of blame for continuing music piracy, says the manager for the internationally famous rock band U2. Paul McGuinness, speaking at the current MIDEM conference in Cannes, France, has argued that ISPs should be disconnecting those who download tracks illegally. ISPs have "been at our trough for too long," McGuinness says, and a part of the "shoddy, careless and downright dishonest way" in which artists have been treated in the era of digital music.
Governments and record labels are not without fault though, McGuinness believes. He accuses the institutions for creating a "thieves' charter" by suggesting that ISPs are not responsible by what passes through their networks. "If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door," he claims. BBC News notes that McGuinness' view is at odds with groups like the Internet Service Providers Association, which contends that ISPs are "merely a conduit" for peer-to-peer file sharing. Of greater concern may be the US' Federal Communications Commission, which maintains a net neutrality policy, under which ISPs are not allowed to dictate how customers use their bandwidth.

[via Electronista]

I guess this is the point where we should cue the Orwellian 'Big Brother' Music Overture. Shouldn't these ass clowns think before they say that government and big business should dictate what goes on with the internet. Let's just say that he gets his way about this, where does it stop? Is the music industry only to be protected? Does then not AT&T reserve the right to then not allow you to use things they deem offensive? Would that then carry over to competetiors products and such?