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As we've said so many times before, if the major labels stopped payola, started paying artists fairly, gave up on DRM, and worked on a filesharing licensing system, then they could win back public support and we'd all be on the same page. But it would mean giving up their monopoly and decentralizing the industry. That's no good for record execs making millions of dollars a year, so they'd rather bet it all on a scorched earth strategy: crush a few thousand families with lawsuits, squeeze out a couple more years of personal enrichment, and then bail out to a top job in another industry while blaming their failure on pirates. If you pretend for a moment that you don't give a damn about musicians or culture, their strategy starts to make a lot more sense.
"So the idea that somebody in wherever, whether they're in a small town somewhere in the middle of america or in Pakistan or whatever, if they're interested, and they want to check out Fugazi, I want it out there. I don't want them to have to pay some service to get to it and listen to it and hopefully that would compel them to do further research. I mean, how cool would it be to know that there's some kid in Pakistan who downloaded all our records and listens to them all the time-- I'm happy, I don't give a damn. I mean the argument against it is always just monetary, and again, that's the least interesting aspect of music for me."
We are very excited about this interview, and we've even put up audio clips so you can listen to some of the best parts. If you don't know who Ian MacKaye is, we really recommend checking it out. The interview.We've written some PSAs (public service announcements) for independent radio, so if you work at a college or non-commercial station, you can print them out and get them read on the air. And, of course, if there's some aspect of this issue that you'd like to highlight, feel free to improvise. Downhill Battle PSAs.
UPDATE: We've started posting audio files of the PSAs being read.
Downhill Battle Contacts is a new section that makes it easy to tell us what city you live in, what skills you have, and what you kinds of things you might want to do. When a project or event comes up we'll let you know, and if you're interested, we can work on it. So, if you want to get involved with this fun, worthwhile, and very winnable fight, then do it.
Songwriters have been getting screwed by the major labels forever (just like everyone else) so they're jumping on this chance to get back at the big five. The major labels, on the other hand, are desperate to stop filesharing and assumed there would be some unity on that... They must have forgot how much everyone in the music business hates their guts. It's all just a wonderful example of what ends up happening when people, a. think about music in exclusively monetary terms and, b. try to lock it down. Here's an article.
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Sometimes people tell us that pay-for-play radio was outlawed and doesn't happen anymore. The law changed, but not how mainstream radio works. Now that we've found this link, we'll be sending people to howstuffworks.com: Independent Promoters and Radio Play. Related, of course, is payola in print media, which Greg Ross discussed in our interview with him a couple months ago. We've just updated that page to match our new interview style. Interview with Greg Ross. (by the way, we'll get the Ian MacKaye interview up as soon as we get a photo from him, so cool your jets!)
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Our beloved RIAA Radar has just added a mobile version that you can access from your cellphone while shopping. If you shop at Wal-mart or Best Buy, you're going to get pretty frustrated typing in all those UPC codes into your phone and seeing "WARNING!" come up for every single one. RIAA Radar is the perfect tool for fighting the major label monopoly and Magnetbox Ben, who runs the site, keeps on making it sharper. Now we need programmers to start incorporating RIAA Radar into filesharing programs and mp3 players.
OUR BUDDY JASON Rohrer (who programmed the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund) has just released version 0.2 of MUTE, a new filesharing program that is extremely resistant to spying by the RIAA or anyone else. This is real privacy, not the psuedo-security that a lot of other programs brag about: no one on the network can tell what anyone else is downloading or sharing.
The corporate record industry is banking its future on a risky two-part attack: lock down music with DRM, and use lawsuits to scare people away from the troves of unlocked music on p2p networks. In this context MUTE could be a very very big deal. Once filesharing becomes safe and anonymous again, the DRM music peddled by the labels will be more inconvenient than the free alternative, and the labels are back where they started.
The program is still in beta, so it can be a little shaky at times, but it's getting better quickly. You can download it for Mac, PC, or Linux on the MUTE website, which also has some interesting info about how it works (ants! ants!!!). When you get the program running, let it sit for a couple minutes to establish some connections and then search for "mp3" and see what you can find. Thanks to the recent slashdotting, there's plenty of anime and Weird Al Yankovic mp3s. We're counting on Downhill Battle readers to, um, diversify the musical offerings. You can share your whole music library 24/7--there's no way the monopolists can find out who you are.
And you can help the cause by giving Jason a couple bucks to keep on working.
....Downhill Battle switched webhosts last week. We're now using Crisis Host which has been very fast and reliable. Best of all, their prices are almost unbelievably low.
....Today we talked with Ian MacKaye, who's in the band Fugazi and runs the label Dischord Records. We'll post the interview shortly.
"PROJECT HUDSON" IS a plan being hatched by the major record labels and some electronic makers to lock down music with a new universal DRM system (the New York Times broke the story yesterday). Details are lacking right now, but if these corporations get their way then all commercial music will be required to use a single proprietary encryption standard. Apple devotees take note-- with iTunes dominating pay-for-download services and iPod dominating mp3 players, Apple may be the only thing that can stop this. We'll be writing more on this topic as information becomes available.
.....Richard and Danielle from Kansas City ordered a bunch of major label warning stickers from us and went to the mall for some adventure:
Take a look at their handiwork.
In other stickering news, we've sold out of our second batch of stickers (6,000 out the door so far) and a third batch of 11,000 just arrived today. Every time we get a bigger batch they're cheaper, so now we can send you 100 stickers for only $10! Order some or print your own.
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We've posted several times about the damaging effect that the major record labels have on artistic freedom, both by manipulating the work of their artists and by using copyright as a bludgeon to prevent sample-based music and mix tapes from ever being created or heard. These copyright issues should be a concern to anyone who cares about music, whether you're a post-modern theorist glorifying pastiche or a bat mitzvah DJ trying to warm it up (most of us are either one or the other). Hip-hop-- much of which is built on samples and spread through mix tapes-- dominates youth culture, tops sales charts, and is finally being recognized as the most creative pop music (by far). Copyright was designed to encourage innovation, so why is it being used to stifle innovation in the most popular and the most innovative music form? Simply because the goals of individual corporations have no relationship to the public good, and a handful companies have been behind legislation that turns copyright laws into property laws (for more, watch this Lawrence Lessig flash presentation). But we still have parody, protected by the first amendment, and this week there was a big victory for the public. Last year, Mattel sued an artist for making sculptures and photographs of Barbie in a blender in and tortilla and other places. They claimed that he was infringing their copyright and damaging their brand, despite the fact that the art was clearly commentary. This time at least, art won.
##Wednesday December 31 9:04PM
IT'S THE END of the year, so we thought we'd issue a fourth quarter report on what we've accomplished since launching Downhill Battle at the end of August. Among the highlights of this quarter was having RIAA spokesperson Jonathan Lamy say about us, "It's an uphill battle for these folks to offer anything worthwhile." Is this really the best they can do? Seriously Jonathan, you're getting paid for this, put some heart into it. We do better PR than that for free. Anyway, take a look at our quarterly report:
Downhill Battle Quarterly Report, Fourth Quarter 2003
THE RIAA GOT a Christmas present last week: on Tuesday the Department
of Justice stopped an investigation into anti-competitive practices
by the major labels (specifically, favoring label-affiliated online music
services over others when it came to licensing music). Slashdot has a
good thread on it here.
It's clear that the decision to end the investigation isn't the
result of some conspiracy, or corruption in the halls of justice; it's
just that by the time the DOJ investigation really got rolling, the
"pay-for-downloads" market had changed so radically that the whole thing
had ceased to make sense.
Of course the monstrous oligopoly still exists: 5 companies control 85%
of the market and, with very few exceptions, nobody else can get their
music on the radio. But the corporations move fast and
the monopoly-cops move slow. By the time the DOJ arrives on the scene, the
damage has already been done and the real problem is someplace else.
Payola was made illegal, so the majors now do it through independent
promoters. They got busted for price fixing, paid a fine (the fine was big but less than they made from elevated prices) and, still, price fixing continued. But where the DOJ will always fail,
the public is succeeding. Every kid on Kazaa is a trust-buster, every time someone
burns a major label CD for a friend, they help bring more competition,
fairness, and artistic freedom to the music business. And whether or not you personally support filesharing or CD burning, it's never been more clear that paying for major label music is unethical. We can all help fight the monopoly by closing our wallets to the major labels and opening them to independent music.
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Flyer items:
-Almost ten years ago, Maximum Rock and Roll devoted an entire epic issue to the ways that the major labels were manipulating bands and assimilating punk rock. Holmes just made a new flyer based on the cover of that issue, but carrying an important update: now we can do something about the problem.
-We also have a new half-page handout (it's half-page, the l-o-n-g way) that's good for shows, outside stores, and any other gatherings.
-Aross sent in a flyer photo from Bangkok: tuk-tuk. As always, all the Downhill Battle flyers can be found at and printed from the flyer page, where you can also check out photos of the flyers in exotic locations.
##Saturday December 20 12:22PM
THE RULING YESTERDAY against the RIAA is a big victory for online privacy. The major record labels (EMI, Sony, Warner, Universal, BMG) say that they'll continue the lawsuits, but it will be more difficult and much more costly. Specifically, the ruling means that they need to go through a judge to obtain someone's identity, instead of running their own law enforcement operation. Shockingly, the major labels have yet to take us up on our demand that they give the ill-gotten money back to families-- we suspect that they're waiting to make that announcement on Christmas morning in a heartwarming reconciliation with their former customers (the major labels are renown for their gentle touch).
A series of updates:
-News site p2pnet.net was hit yesterday in part of a large scale hacker attack that apparently affected a number of other websites, including NASA. All the p2pnet web files and archives were deleted, but they should be back up and running very soon. More here.
-Nice flyer photo from RT in Burlington, Ontario (Canada). I can't decide what I like best about this picture: the flames, the slogan above the flyer, or the horse in the corner. RT makes a good point that, "even those of us who live outside the jurisdiction of the RIAA are affected by the greed of huge record companies." He's right: the major record labels use the RIAA as a front for their dirty tricks, but it's the major labels themselves that are the real problem.
-A clever video that details the record industry's fiendish behavior is now circulating on filesharing networks. It's called "RIAAmafia" -- try searching for it.
-There's an interesting interview with the Goo-Goo Dolls on fansforpeace.org. Myshele Goldberg was nice enough to edit it for Downhill Battle readers to focus more on music industry issues. Read the interview.
-As we've noted before, Downhill Battle now has a friendster account, so if you use it, why not be our friend and make us friends with your friends. The email is: friendster|at|downhillbattle.org.
THIS COULD BE ENDGAME. A federal appeals court has just ruled that the RIAA can't force internet service providers to turn over the names of suspected filesharers (NYTimes article). And if the RIAA can't get the names, they can't file suits.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of people who have already fallen victim to these illegal subpoenas. They've had to pay thousands of dollars each to settle suits or to avoid having a suit filed against them. Downhill Battle is starting a campaign today to demand that the major record labels return all of the money that they have extorted from families and individuals.
UPDATE: We have just issued a press release calling for the RIAA to return all settlement money. Read the release (pdf).
##Wednesday December 17 7:23PM
SADDLE CREEK RECORDS out of Omaha Nebraska is everything an independent label should be, period.
Robb Nansel runs it:
"Resisting corporate radio, media, and record labels has always been important to Saddle Creek. The way those entities work is fundamentally flawed - it doesn't promote art, creativity, or anything promising to culture as it should exist."
Our interview with Robb is the second in a series of conversations about filesharing and the future of music with big-deal independent musicians and labels. Read it now.
You can also listen to songs from all the Saddle Creek artists in our music player:
IF YOU WANT TO WIN, you gotta hit them from all sides at once. With that in mind, here's a warm holiday message from Downhill Battle: whatacrappypresent.com
(big shout out to josh at crisishost.com for saving us at the last minute when we were trying to get this up)
p.s. we've been getting so many hits on that site that we've had some flakiness on the images, but things are working again for the moment.
OUR FRIEND DAVE ALLEN from OEbase.com has just set us up with this great music player, the perfect thing to listen to while you're checking out our site, plotting the destruction of the major label monopoly, or sitting around reading a book.
We're super-psyched about the player. Take it for a spin:
Dave was in the band Gang of Four (a big deal, check out the song "Damaged Goods"), and he got in touch with us a couple months ago. Holmes got to meet up with him when he was out in Portland, OR. OEbase looks like a classy online music store, but it's much cooler than that: if you're an unsigned band you can send them your material and if they like it they'll sell it on consignment. They've got good taste, which makes the site a whole lot more useful-- you can find good stuff just browsing around, which usually isn't the case online.
All the music in the Downhill Battle player is from independent-label or unsigned bands. So if you hear something you like, you can buy it right in the player (just to be clear: Downhill Battle does not make any money off this, but we're always looking for ways to support independent music and cool business models). We haven't got to whittling down the "Downhill Battle Picks" yet, but we'll be working on that over the next few days.
IN LESS THAN A WEEK, we've sent out our entire batch of major label warning stickers, and even more people are printing out their own. Don't worry about supply, we have more labels arriving in a couple days and this time we placed a bigger order so now they're cheaper too.
We've also heard from two separate people that are doing their own runs of thousands of labels— awesome. If you've been out stickering, drop us a line and tell us how it's going. If you don't have any labels yet, get some.
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Today, we have a new feature called "The Reasons". It's a rundown of why it's so important to get rid of the major record labels and what can change when they're gone. The most important thing to remember is that these aren't far-off, lofty dreams— the major labels are already on the brink. Hopefully this provides some motivation to push them over the edge. Take a look.
IT'S SHOWTIME. Thanks to RIAA Radar, anyone who's thinking of buying music can do a simple search to see whether their money goes. But it's more than just a handy tool: RIAA radar invites the question "Why should I care where my music money goes?" And the more people learn about the music industry, the more obvious the need for fundamental change.
Now Downhill Battle is taking this consumer awareness campaign off the internet and into the record stores. We've teamed up with RIAA Radar to make two awesome stickers. Here's one:
We're taking them into stores and plastering major label CDs you can get some of your own. Hit the "big box" stores, Walmart, Target, Best Buy--mom and pop record stores don't matter much to the major labels, and there are other good reasons to keep them around. Go for the season's top releases (that's where the majors make their money). Bring some friends-- these guerilla labeling missions are fun and they're a good way to get other people interested in issue. And as always, if you want to take pictures, we'll post them here.
Get some stickers and check out the photo log of our own post-Thanksgiving labeling adventure. We call this project RIAA Information Awareness Activism (RIAA). (note the pseudo-recursive acronym appropriation)
WE'RE BACK FROM MIAMI. The protest was positive in that we talked to a lot of people about Downhill Battle, the music industry, and the FTAA and there was a good turnout in general. We brought down a batch of CD-Rs that we made which were full of articles and info about this site (sort of a super flyer). We handed them out to 100 lucky folks and we also had a bunch of regular flyers for backup. The downside of the protest was that the police were in typical over-reaction mode, pepper spraying protestors, hitting them with sticks, and shooting them with plastic and rubber bullets (often in the face). The police actions were entirely unprovoked; very unnecessary and very frustrating.
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After Thanksgiving, it's officially the start of the holiday shopping season. As we've noted before, this is a crucial time for the major labels to try to bounce back and a crucial time for us to get the word out about why buying major label music is bad for artists, music, and the public. We got things off to a good start on Friday; we'll be telling you all about tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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By the way, Downhill Battle is now on Friendster, so if you are too, then you should make us your friendster. You can also help spread the word by introducing us to your friends. Our email there is friendster|at|downhillbattle.org.
TOMORROW WE'LL BE DRIVING from Worcester to Miami to represent
Downhill
Battle in this week's actions
against the Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA). Trade arrangements like NAFTA, the FTAA, and the WTO have the
long term goal of removing trade barriers like tariffs and subsidies.
That's reasonable: tariffs and subsidies are often just a huge waste of
everybody's money (see Bush's
steel tariff). Most importantly, developing countries desperately
need access to American and European agricultural markets.
The problem is that rich countries know poor countries need trade
agreements more than they do, and so they cash in. To the U.S. and
Europe,
"negotiation" means ignoring poor countries' priorities (like phasing out
American and European farm subsidies) and forcing their own priorities
(like intellectual property and government procurement) down poor
countries' throats. This is pretty much what they did at the last WTO
ministerial in Cancun, except developing countries weren't havin' it. (read
more).
The other problem is that, because nobody working on trade negotiation is
actually elected or subject to any meaningful public scrutiny, these
treaties quickly become a grab bag of assorted industry wet dreams. Like
this one:
"One option proposed for Article 4.1 of the intellectual property rights chapter in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Treaty would mandate that countries must send noncommercial infringers such as Peer2-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison."According to this report by IP Justice, an intellectual property watchdog group, all signatory countries would have to make p2p filesharing a felony by 2005. And that's not all: here's a Top Ten of restrictive, pro-monopoly provisions that the FTAA would force on America and every country in the hemisphere except Cuba. "Free trade" or industry free-for-all?
You decide.
And to put things in perspective: while the FTAA's IP provisions mean jail sentences for filesharers, they could literally be death sentences for millions of HIV positive men and women around the world. Brazil is under lots of pressure to sign the FTAA. Brazil is also the leading manufacturer of generic AIDS drugs. They have a strong pharmacutical industry, and they've taken the reasonable position that the health of their people is more important than staying buddies with the parmacutical lobby (must be because they're not getting campaign contributions). To simplify things a bit, Brazil is the reason why many very poor countries are able to afford AIDS drugs, and if they sign the FTAA, this will no longer be the case (lite, more depth). Provisions in the FTAA might even make it harder to legally produce generic drugs after the name-brand patents expire. The income stream from sales in America, Europe, and Japan is more than enough to sustain R&D into new and better drugs, but the drug companies, like every other corporation, prefers less competition and more money.
So, if millions of babies are going to be born HIV positive because we recognize corporations' "right" to "own" an idea regardless of implications to the public good, you might ask what the hell we're doing trying to take down Ja Rule and Brittney Spears. Well read this comment from a PhrMA (the drug industry lobby) representative quoted in the Miami Herald article referenced above:
Basically, they [Doctors Without Borders, an international medical society that has won the Nobel Peace Prize] don't want intellectual property,'' says Grayson, who works for the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "But intellectual property, whether it's music or drugs or movies, recognizes the rights of the ones who created the property."Music, drugs, and movies.
There are those who see "intellectual property" as a conditional and temporary monopoly intended to support the arts and create incentives for scientists and inventors. Then there are those who see "intellectual property" as a sacred right to control ideas and information as if it was gold or oil, and they should be allowed to control it even if it means millions of kids will be born with AIDS, for example. PhrMA, the MPAA, and the RIAA know which side they're on. Do you?
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On the college action front, kids at Penn State are already raising hell about how their college is forcing them all to pay for Napster subscriptions. We helped them get some press for it: check out this article in CNET. Look for more news on this soon. If anybody wants help organizing on their campus against out of control intellectual property laws, let us know. Also, p2pnet is back up.
AS THE BIG FIVE RECORDS LABELS lose money, they're cutting jobs and cutting acts instead of restructuring their bloated business models. Seeing this, many observers are concerned that we're in for even less mainstream music diversity (if that seems possible) as the major labels focus exclusively on the big hit-makers that generate most of their income. People who genuinely care about music and culture are urgently asking "How can we save the music industry??" But this question overlooks the root of the diversity problem and how close we are to a solution...read our quick essay.
FROM OUR NEW INTERVIEW with Greg Ross, the head of Go-Kart Records, an independent punk label. On how the major labels control access to new music:
"Radio is controlled through payola (known in its modern form as "consultants"), the print media is controlled through quid-pro-quo agreements (advertisements bought in exchange for coverage and vice-versa), retail is controlled by co-op dollars (which also includes in-store play for videos), and they even buy their artists way on to opening slots on tours. In large part, the major labels (as well as indie labels that aspire to be just like the majors) have even co-opted the traditionally "DIY" network and infrastructure that is the backbone of punk rock and independent music as we know it. So, with very few exceptions, the five major labels control the fans' access to new music. No one can control what people download, though! All they can try to do is control the fans' access to downloadable music, or scare them outright."
This guy is on point. And how could we not interview a label that's giving away music and publicly criticizing the RIAA? Read the interview.
Anyway, last time we were at the mall (handing out boycott flyers, of course) we noticed that the DVD aisles of Best Buy were packed with people. So were the video games aisles, computers, electronics, and just about everything else...except CDs. It actually was pretty remarkable and rather satisfying to see the CD section almost completely abandoned. Needless to say, Downhill Battle is going to be launching some campaigns for the holiday season to help people to do the right thing by continuing to not buy major label music. Besides, you know the last thing their kids want this year is CDs, so it's a service to parents as well as the public good.
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Jon Newton and Bill Evans have launched the new site that we mentioned last week: the International Music Industry Reform Association, IMIRA.org. Bill Evans previously founded boycott-RIAA.com and with this new site he's pointing to the need for positive change in the industry as well as work to break the current RIAA monopoly.
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New flyer from Ad-kress exposes the corporate music industry's central fallacy: buying major label CDs is good for music and musicians. In fact, buying major label music is the only way to ensure that the music industry continues to exploit musicians and erode the public domain.
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p2pnet.net's Jon Newton has moved the site to a new host and says "it's still not quite Business as Usual" but he expects everything will be back to normal in a few days. He's also hinting at a new site that he's going to be bringing on line within the week that he says "should interest everyone involved in this battle." Stay posted.
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We've got a new handout from Eberks on the flyer page, which she distributed at different CMJ events in New York this weekend. Bring a stack of them to the next show you get to (perfect for any event with sleazy record industry wannabes).
But according to one of the lawyers who is defending several people who've been sued, the RIAA was actually just sloppy in gathering evidence. Apparently, the RIAA is singling out people who have over 1,000 files of any kind in their shared folder, even when they aren't all songs. One guy who had about 500 songs in his shared folder was using Windows Media Player to listen to his mp3s. The software automatically downloaded cover art for each song and saved it in the same folder. When the RIAA went looking for people to attack, they saw 1,000 total files and put him on the hit list. The take home lesson: never rule out incompetency when trying to understand the behavior of the record labels.
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This was a great article 10 days ago in the Philadelphia Enquirer about what happens to art when the idea of copyright expands way beyond it's original goal of encouraging innovation and starts to impede it:
"Artists in all fields are asking, 'Is this going to get me sued?'," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. "When that is the first question the artist is asking about a work, we've already retarded the creative process." Read it.
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Holmes is going out to Portland, Oregon on Monday to visit Trish. If anyone who lives out there would like to go out and wheatpaste some flyers or just meet up, email him.
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Ben at Magnetbox wants to enter his brilliant RIAA Radar in the Webby Awards. RIAA Radar tells you whether an album was released by an RIAA record label which helps you avoid funding the music industry's dirty deeds. It's a crucial tool for fighting the major labels and it's a perfect example of how the internet can be used to get information to consumers that they couldn't find anywhere else. The entrance fee for the awards is $120 and Ben is asking for donations. Give him a couple bucks, winning would give a real boost to RIAA opposition. And look for a hot RIAA Radar / Downhill Battle collaboration in the next couple weeks.
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Rest in peace, Elliot Smith. Fan site memorial.
Mainstream hip-hop is also showing that alternatives to the bloated major label artist development track are more effective. The biggest new rap acts (Eminem, 50 Cent) are being signed by other rappers, not by A&R guys taking a shot in the dark. Rappers are establishing reputations with underground mixtapes and shows; the best can filter up through clubs and radio DJs until they catch the ear of a successful artist. A big part of why major label musicians get such a tiny cut from record sales is that the labels spend millions of dollars finding, signing, and 'developing' new acts only to drop a majority of them within a year. The labels are so inefficient that anything less than half a million CDs sold is considered a loss. At a time when it's never been easier to make money from small CD runs, major labels continue to rely on an outdated, top-heavy approach.
And always on the lookout for ways to squash creativity and innovation, the major labels have started launching raids on stores that carry mixtapes. Not only does this crackdown cripple small hip-hop record stores and crush an art form (look at what the label cartel has already done to choke sample based music), but shutting down a free pipeline to popular new acts is business idiocy. The only silver lining is that this idiocy might be what finally brings down the majors and saves music. Don't worry, we'll be doing our part too.
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Folk-pop musician Scott Andrew and the Walkingbirds has teamed up with Downhill Battle to support the victims of the RIAA lawsuits. When someone buys a copy of his new CD "Where I've Been", they can choose to pay extra above the $5 cost to be donated to the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund. Many people are giving double the asking price and Scott has already raised almost $300 for the fund. This is a great example of what happens when musicians have a real connection to their fans-- support flows.
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As you can see, we've started expanding the site (horizontally, for now). Forums will be added soon, we've been tinkering away. By the way, is anyone interested in doing some outreach at the CMJ music festival in New York? Drop us a line.
The new Napster has nothing to do with the old Napster. The original Napster was free, peer-to-peer music downloads. The new Napster is pay, centralized music downloads. Roxio simply bought the Napster name after the company collapsed and slapped the logo on an iTunes style pay-for-download service. They hope the Napster name will get them some attention and that maybe all those former Napster users will have some weird brand loyalty. Of course, what bothers us is that, like iTunes, Napster helps the major labels continue to exploit artists and rip off fans. You pay for music that you could find for free and 90-100% of what you pay is siphoned off to middlemen. It's ridiculous. So we figure, if Roxio can slap the Napster logo on top of iTunes, we can too. After minutes of effort, we give you the iTunes iSbogus: Napster Sucks Edition.
Our other new project is a coalition of websites that will be calling for a one week boycott of RIAA music when the next round of lawsuits are filed. Of course, at Downhill Battle the major label boycott lasts all year long, but we think that having a one week boycott can bring together a lot of different websites that oppose the suits. If you have a website or blog, you should sign on-- when the press reports that a new round of lawsuits has been filed we want them to hear that a chorus of websites is calling for a boycott. Take a look at stopRIAAlawsuits.com and join us.
Still the most important thing going on is the Defense Fund. If you haven't visited it yet, take a look at the quotes from people being sued and consider making a donation.
Go to the Defense Fund
Thank you for visiting Downhill Battle. Our website is about music, politics, and how we can work to change the music business for the better. Like most people, we were shocked when we heard that the record companies were going to start suing music fans. And after talking with many of the families that are being sued, we worked to create the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund to help them defend themselves and get on with their lives.
The record industry's lawsuits aren't just another business strategy, they're hurting real people and undermining families' financial security during what are already tough times. Here's a message we received two days ago from a mother who's family is being sued:
"My husband and I both work full time to make ends meet. We have 4 children: one in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in grade school. We are middle class and live from paycheck to paycheck. We are good, honest people. This lawsuit has devastated us."
This is just one of the many stories we've heard of people who are reeling from these suits. We see the Defense Fund as a real opportunity for people to rally around everyone who's been sued and help end the record industry's campaign of intimidation and bullying. We hope you will join in opposing these lawsuits and make a donation to one of the families or individuals that are being targeted. Go to the Defense Fund.Downhill Battle is very proud to announce the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund. The fund was created to support the families and individuals that have been sued by the record companies and to help fight the RIAA suits. The Defense Fund's contribution system runs on a peer-to-peer model: rather than collecting contributions centrally and later distributing them, donors give directly to a family or individual that's been sued. Our open source software tracks donations and rotates the name that appears in the contribution box so that the person with the lowest contributions so far is presented to potential donors. Over time, contributions are distributed evenly without the need for a middleman.
We hope you'll join the fight against the RIAA lawsuits by making a contribution to one of the people who's been sued.
Here's a quote from a message we received this morning. It illustrates once again how difficult these suits are for the people that have been targeted.
"My husband and I both work full time to make ends meet. We have 4 children: one in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in grade school. We are middle class and live from paycheck to paycheck. We are good, honest people. This lawsuit has devastated us. We have had to hire a lawyer to answer this lawsuit. We do not have the financial or emotional resources to fight this, and we can only hope that we settle this quickly and not too painfully."
Remember, the lawsuits are the bad news, but music is always the good news. Fujichia Records, our favorite label, is still making beautiful websites, music, and more: Cool Breeze MP3 and Jacob Berendes MP3p.s. If anyone would like to make a flyer for the Defense Fund, that would be great. We're thinking of a quarter-pager that people could hand out a concerts and other events. Don't forget to remind people not to buy major label CDs!
THE MAJOR LABELS ARE running a tactical scare campaign: they want everyone to hear about the lawsuits, but they don't want anyone to hear how the suits are really affecting families. One mother wrote to us, "We are hardly in a position to pay the price to the recording industry as their sacrificial lamb...We feel victimized and angry, but mostly we feel hurt. We are good, honest, hardworking people (my husband works 2 jobs, I work 1) who have never stolen anything, and to be touted as thieves is the ultimate insult."
Most people who were sued can't afford to go to court to defend themselves and many are afraid to talk openly about how terrible the suits have been because the RIAA could up their settlement costs at any time. For there to be real opposition, the millions of us who oppose the RIAA lawsuits will have to stop being spectators and step into the ring. If we make noise for all those who've been sued and give the people who want to fight in court the resources to do so, we can make these lawsuits fail. Now if only there was a way to get support directly to the people who've been targeted...
In unrelated news, expect a big announcement from Downhill Battle on Monday morning.
##Wednesday September 17 3:37AM
NICHOLAS AND I SPENT the past two days talking to people who've been sued by the record labels. Each conversation was a glimpse into the exact dimensions of the wound that the filesharing lawsuits are leaving in someone's life. As we listened to each story, we got progressively more and more angry. The RIAA is using lawsuits to "shift public views on intellectual property," or to "teach a lesson." But the people being sued are not just units of some amorphous public opinion that the record companies can push in a certain direction. They're real people with real lives and now they're being stomped on by corporate giants.
Today I talked to a woman, my age, who is single and has two daughters. She does not have money to spare so that the major labels can make their political point and now suddenly, out of the blue, she's facing thousands of dollars in legal costs. I talked to a couple who are going through a divorce, and, as if they didn't have enough burdens already, there's the weight of a million-dollar lawsuit. Another woman who lost her job this month told an RIAA lawyer that she didn't have any money. The lawyer responded snidely, "Well you could afford your broadband account..." Who the hell says something like that? Who are these people?
Somewhere, in the board rooms of these entertainment behemoths, men making
7-figure salaries are looking at these lawsuits in cold, strategic
terms. All of the people we talked to today are just moves in a
chess game to them. This arrogance is appalling and we have to combat
it head on. The record companies are playing a public
opinion game. That means that we, the public, have the power to make
sure indiscriminate scare-suits are a strategy that fails.
-HW
IF YOU'VE BEEN SUED: Do not negotiate directly with the RIAA or the record companies, even though they list that lawyer's name and number to call. You need your own lawyer to assess the situation. Contact the EFF at 415-436-9333 to get referred to a lawyer, and also feel free to contact us (we are not lawyers but may be able to help in other ways).
THERE ARE MANY
REASONS
not to buy major label music. This week, the major labels gave us one
more: when you buy a CD, or download a song from iTunes, you're
supporting an industry that's suing 12-year-olds. The lawsuits threaten
families with wildly inflated damages--up to $150,000 per song. Any
household that decides to fight risks losing their hopes of a college
education, their home. Then the RIAA's lawyers offer a $3,000 settlement.
It might be more than 3 months' rent, or a winters' heating bill, and they
might prepare a humiliating written statement for you to
recite to the
press, but at least you don't lose everything. It is very unlikely that
any of these cases will be tried.
A consortium of p2p software companies has given 12-year-old Brianna
Lahara from Brooklyn $2,000. But more than 200 other students, families,
and senior citizens still face similar suits. Downhill Battle has looked
into the possibility of creating a defense fund, and we've think we've
worked it out. It's Paypal-based, transparent, and "peer-to-peer," so
none of the money will go through us. We're looking into some legal
details and we hope to make an announcement about it by Monday. If you or
anyone you know has been targeted, please contact us.
Many major-label musicians have come out in opposition to the lawsuits,
according to an article
in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle. Everyone should read it; musicians
and music fans are really on the same side.
TODAY THE MAJOR LABELS formally announced the filing of 261 lawsuits against music fans. While suing customers may be a new low, the record industry is really just following its standard operating procedure: coerce musicians and music fans into participating in a system that no one likes or needs.
Consumers are just starting to realize how ruthless the major labels are, but musicians have known it for years. The average band on a major label receives only $0.80 on each CD sold, and they don't even get that money until they "recoup" inflated recording and promotion costs--many musicians never see their first 80 cents. But because major labels pay radio stations to play songs, musicians can't reach a large audience without accepting a crappy contract. "Pay-for-play" is a coercive, anti-competitive practice that keeps independent bands off the radio (you can read more about the record industry on our resources page).
When artists are getting less than a dollar from each $16 CD and the record labels are suing families, people just can't feel good about buying music. But instead of working to change their corrupt industry and win back the support of fans and musicians, the major labels are further alienating both groups and hastening their own collapse. Since the industry first threatened lawsuits, the decline in CD sales has actually accelerated-- the industry might stop some filesharing, but it won't win back any customers.
Every time someone buys a major label CD, they fund the record industry's attack on music fans and independent musicians. But if we just stop buying, we can break the major label's grip on music and build a new music business that lets fans support artists directly.
SONY MUSIC PRESIDENT ANDREW LACK and the RIAA have a new strategy: they're trying to smear filesharing by saying it spreads pornography. Sudden hypocritical moralizing from the record industry might come as a surprise to anyone who doesn't know just how desperate the major labels are for someone to defend them. If they can get a near hysterical anti-porn advocate to accuse Kazaa of "attacking children" "just like Joe Camel", then they'll take it, 'cause really they don't have much else. You can read the New York Times article here.
Since the only counter-point in the article is a self-interested Kazaa lobbyist, we felt compelled to respond. We've issued a press release and we made a web page which outlines Sony's hypocrisy and lists examples of pornographic lyrics in Sony Music recordings: SONY PORN.
(We put the page up on a separate site so that Sony's lyrics don't get downhillbattle.org blocked by filtering software.)
Also take a look at this really good article/commentary from a parent and filesharing advocate at p2pnet.
LAST THURSDAY, the Webcaster Alliance filed a lawsuit against the five major labels, and their mouthpiece the RIAA, for anti-competitive royalty pricing that might destroy web radio. Everyone should show support and, if you can, give some money. They need it, they're going up against a monopoly.
Monopolies are bad for markets and bad for the common good: they distort prices and incentives, suppress new ideas, and manipulate everyone they do business with. That's the point of having a monopoly, or in the record companies' case a cartel-- everyone is forced to play by your rules and you can take as big a cut as you want. People keep pointing out to us that Apple couldn't have started a music service without the major labels. They're right: Apple wanted to sell music online, so they had to accept the record cartel's terms. But by accepting their terms, Apple became complicit in their system.
This isn't the first time the major labels have been sued. But lawsuits can't always break up entrenched monopolies (remember when the Justice Department broke up Microsoft's monopoly?)-- sometimes the only way to kill a monopoly is to stop buying their stuff. But the public is usually powerless in these situations; we depend on the monopoly's product and don't have other options. It was always that way for the music industry, but it just changed. Filesharing and CD burning actually give us a way to end the major label monopoly. This never happens! That's what's so exciting: if we stop buying their CDs for just a few years, the cartel will vanish and the music business can grow into a real economy where musicians are in control.
.................A LOT OF PEOPLE have been telling us that they're already putting up flyers, which is awesome-- we got this from the Assistant Director of a major American art museum(!!)
"printing flyers as I write. Jeepers, I probably shouldn't be doing this from work."
That got us psyched and this week we want to go big with the flyers. Cities, small towns, America, other countries, streets, dorms, jobs. And definitely send a picture of your handiwork. Also, if you use wheatpaste, your flyer will stay up til next summer.
Updates:
Barcode flyer - from DX. Hot.
Resources Page - the music industry's ugly past and beautiful future.
Great new flyers - from Goofy and MCW.
-DB
THE RECORD INDUSTRY IS a joke. We've gotten a lot of comments about the site in the past 2 days; most people are really enthusiastic, some disagree with our criticism of Apple or with our pro-filesharing stance, but almost no one disagreed that the major labels need to go. So let's find the way to get rid of them.
The decentralizing power that the internet has already demonstrated can make it seem like the demise of the major labels is inevitable. A lot of people who would like to see a more open and fair music industry believe that the very nature of the internet will quickly make the major labels obsolete. But large corporations can be very good at keeping themselves alive long after they stop being necessary; we shouldn't underestimate.
Nobody's happy with what the major labels do to music. But it's not one particular strategy or approach that's going to save music-- Lord knows we don't want our musical lives to end up revolving around crap like Kazaa. So if we want a fairer, funner music culture we really have to figure out what our options are, pick the best ones, and get to work before we miss our chance. And at any move we make towards change-- no matter what it is-- the record companies will be clawing back.
Updates:
-We added a "To sum up" paragraph to the iTunes piece to try to clarify some of our points.
-MSmittys suggested we make a responses page. It's email comments we've gotten in the past couple days and our replies.
-Check out our new flyers, courtesy of TYC. Sweeeet.
-HW, NR, TC
THE BIG 5 RECORD LABELS are not good for music. They built their cartel on a morass of exploitative record deals, pay for play radio, and album price fixing. They lock out any artist that rejects their terms and use their monopoly power to keep independent labels small and marginalized. Even musicians that succeed with major labels resent the unfair contracts they're forced to sign and the creative control they have to sacrifice. It's just as bad for fans: every year radio gets worse, CDs cost more, and now they're monitoring your home computer. It's way past time to end the major label death grip on radio, musicians, and everyone who likes music.
Filesharing and CD burning make getting rid of the music industry possible, and they provide the foundation for a new system that directly connects musicians and their audience. Everybody wins when the middlemen are gone. If someone can download music and give a $2 donation to the band, that's 1/8 the price for them and twice as much for artists.
The major label system has failed and it's time to build something better. We shouldn't be defensive about filesharing, and we can't be cautious about proposing new ideas. Music is screaming for us to do something. -DB