grodscorp@grods.comMuxplanation
 | Posted by Scott on Friday 26 September 2008, 1:23 pm Categories: Music, The Internet Tags: Muxtape, RIAA |
A fascinating insight into the workings of major record labels and the RIAA over at the now-defunct (in its traditional form) Muxtape.
…on August 15th, I received notice from Amazon Web Services (the platform that hosts Muxtape’s servers and files) that they had received a complaint from the RIAA. Per Amazon’s terms, I had one business day to remove an incredibly long list of songs or face having my servers shut down and data deleted. This came as a big surprise to me, as I’d been thinking that I hadn’t heard from the RIAA in a long time because I had an understanding with the labels. I had a panicked exchange of emails with Amazon, trying to explain that I was in the middle of a licensing deal, that I suspected it was a clerical error, and that I was doing everything I could to get someone to vouch for me on a summer Friday afternoon. My one business day extended over the weekend, and on Monday when I wasn’t able to produce the documentation Amazon wanted (or even get someone from the RIAA on the phone), the servers were shut down and I was locked out of the account. I moved the domain name to a new server with a short message and the very real expectation that I could get it sorted out. I still thought it was all just a big mistake. I was wrong.
Over the next week I learned a little more, mainly that the RIAA moves quite autonomously from their label parents and that the understanding I had with them didn’t necessarily carry over. I also learned that none of the labels were especially interested in helping me out, and from their perspective it had no bearing on the negotiations. I disagreed. The deals were still weeks or months away (an eternity on the internet) meaning that at best, Muxtape was going to be down until the end of year. There was also still the matter of how to pay for it; getting investment is hard enough in this volatile space even with a wildly successful and growing web site, it became an entirely different proposition with no web site at all.
Friday 26 September 2008, 1:49 pm #Bridgit Gread
I still remember the RIAA’s campaign of sabotaging audio files on P2P networks by deliberately uploading song segments full of white noise. I wasn’t sure if I should have been impressed at their initiative or disgusted at their fuckery, given the moral high ground they had previously taken.
Friday 26 September 2008, 1:50 pm #Jason
Chart me up as the (perhaps lone) lefty who thinks what the RIAA is doing in enforcing their intellectual property is perfectly morally justified. But in any case, it is certainly justified legally. I always find it bizarre to read the rationalizations of the file-traders. He was “in the middle” of licensing negotiations? He had an “understanding?” Either you’ve properly licensed your content or you haven’t, and if you haven’t, and you’re posting or allowing other people to post copyrighted songs on your site, you know, as a 12 year old child knows, that you’re breaking the law. Why should you be surprised if you get a cease-and-desist or a DMCA notice?
Friday 26 September 2008, 1:52 pm #The Editor
Actually, I agree with you, Jason (even though I happily used the site.) What I found interesting was the complete disconnect between the RIAA and the organisations it is supposed to represent.
Friday 26 September 2008, 1:58 pm #Jeremy
What I find interesting is that this was a site that didn’t allow people to download unlicensed music - it just effectively advertised for it, and directed people where to buy it.
In other words, its only effect on the labels’ bottom line would have been a positive one. But they didn’t have the brains to see it, so they cut off their nose to spite their face.
They’re an idiotic industry of dinosaurs that deserves to collapse and fade away. Their constant refrain of “pirates are killing the music industry” (by which they mean the labels)? Bullshit - they’re killing themselves.
And good riddance when they go.
Friday 26 September 2008, 3:15 pm #silpheed
boooooooring. make with the photoshopped bong session with turnbull, gillard, abbott, garrett and anyone else on the record of ‘having a puff but not liking it’.
Friday 26 September 2008, 5:04 pm #Spock...
I came across a “Home Taping is killing music” website the other day…
It just seems to keep going around and around. Everything is going to kill music. But it never does. Music only needs two things, people who want to make it, and people who want to listen to it. These two things will exists forever.
I do believe that you should pay for music, and I don’t like having huge chunks of downloaded music on my computer for too long if I listen regularly. So I buy the CD. I might download parts of the album, or burn it from a friend first, but if it’s an album worth paying for, I’ll pay for it. And I think that a lot of people do this.
The only difference with this round of ” killing music” is that this time, record labels are finding that they are redundant. As are all the other middle-men leaches in the industry. With home recording and internet distribution networks, artists don’t NEED labels any more. I’ve recorded an album for $50, and that includes the money we spent on beer and pizza! And we can sell it on the net…
All money to us! No label, no publishers, no promoters, no managers!
Of course the album has no commercial appeal… But if it did, you can see how this example works…
Friday 26 September 2008, 5:06 pm #Jason
Hey now there are two Jasons as well as two Daves. It’s getting rooly confusing.
Friday 26 September 2008, 5:52 pm #Keri
As long as you know which Jason you are, you should be right.
Friday 26 September 2008, 5:58 pm #Zombie Mao
There is only ONE Zombie mao
huzzah!
Saturday 27 September 2008, 12:12 am #Bron
Oh yeah, I thought that was THE Jason.
Saturday 27 September 2008, 12:35 am #caoin
I think people forget that the whole recorded-music-as-consumer-item business is really, really recent. For the majority of human musical history it hasn’t worked this way. I wonder if it will just turn out to be a historical anomaly in the long run.
RIAA don’t seem to care about the actual business value of a site like Muxtape (as Jeremy points out), they only care about protecting their ideology of ownership, which with a bit of perspective, looks like an extremely radical one.
But whatever view you take of the legalities involved, the reality is that they’re never going to get that genie back in the bottle. They need join the 21st century and come up with a business model that will work with the new environment rather than just expecting the old one to magically keep working just because they want it to.
Sunday 28 September 2008, 1:56 pm #John Surname
I can see both sides of the argument, but in the end the RIAA have a right to protect their intellectual property. It’s a lot more complicated than the big, bad record companies ripping everyone off.
It’s so cheap to record an album these days, that a lot of bands do it themselves, and lease the music out to the record companies to release and distribute. It means they directly make a lot of money, and by uploading their music online for free, you could be hurting a small band to quite a degree.
You can make the case that MuxTape directed you to buy it, but did any of you do that? Of course not. That feature was only added to try and circumvent the law, and it failed.
I don’t buy the arguments against record companies, because they’re usually from people who can afford to buy the music but don’t want to because downloading is easier, and then try to look for ways to justify it.