Thursday, December 03, 2009

South by Southwest announces first group of music panels: I will be one of the speakers #sxsw

The South by Southwest festival for 2010 has announced its first group of music panels, and my panel -- "Recording Industry vs. The People" -- was among those selected:

"Freshly Picked Music Panels"

Should be a lot of fun. Looking forward to it.

Should be a good opportunity to learn more about what the music industry will look like without record companies whose only business plan is to bring extortionate lawsuits against defenseless people.



Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have Fun with this Ray! Let the folks know how the RIAA is killing music, as we know it. Buying congress, bullying the courts, and screwing the musicians and fans.

Jonathon said...

Funny how 12/4 Anon mentions nothing about the detrimental effect of parasitic P2P users who have somehow come into a misguided realization that they're entitled to free media without paying for it.

Justin Olbrantz (Quantam) said...

"Funny how 12/4 Anon mentions nothing about the detrimental effect of parasitic P2P users who have somehow come into a misguided realization that they're entitled to free media without paying for it."

I think it's more funny that you don't mention the empirical detrimental effects of P2P users in the same post as complaining that somebody else didn't.

Anonymous said...

Congrats Ray! Give 'em what for.

derivative said...

Jonathon:

Copyright is an artificial concept of law. Its existence in modern history has taken various forms all the way from no copyright protection to quite arbitrary copyright protection from the king.

Many economists and academics have spent years trying to calculate the "optimum" parameters for copyright law -- the set of equations to give the most benefit to society.

The current copyright regime which still has Mickey Mouse under copyright is nowhere near optimum by any experts' standard. The content creators have spent way too much money on lawyers and lobbyists, arguably (from an economic perspective) money they shouldn't have really had in the first place.

The draconian penalties imposed on the two defendants who actually made it to trial are completely out of whack with the harms those individuals allegedly caused the industry. Things have to change, and probably not in the way you are thinking, although I would not be at all surprised if things get much worse before they get better.

In my opinion, your one-dimensional view of the situation adds nothing useful to any discussion of the subject.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan: You are a careless troll. If the media is in fact free as you say it is, then by definition they are entitled to it without paying.

-lmao

Jonathon said...

Derivative -

With IP comprising double digit percentages of the US GDP, any assertion that protections will decrease is out touch with economic and practical realities.

Justin Olbrantz -

Do I need to mention the detrimental effects on the industry? Perhaps you could enlighten us as to businesses that have managed to prosper despite the wholesale pilfering of their inventory by the self-entitled who simply believe they don't have to pay for products that they consume?

Anonymous said...

To: Jonathon December 8, 2009 1:24:00 AM EST -

I can't speak for anyone else, but I for one am disgusted by the tactics used by the content industries in order to "protect" their "produkt". Just look at some of the cases: against dead people, improper joinder, tanya anderson, etc.

Plus all of their shenanigans in order to further put a strangle hold on copyright.

Getting something for nothing is obviously wrong, but a greater wrong in my opinion is the bullying, badgering, outright seemingly contemptuous legal behavior (IANAL) that seem to be the "shining hallmark" of their legal sue 'em all and screw the dolphins campaign.

-Me

Justin Olbrantz (Quantam) said...

"Do I need to mention the detrimental effects on the industry?"

If you don't need to, then why should the anon you attacked? Non-sequitur much?

But putting aside your reasoning processes and moving on to my own, you might notice the word "empirical" in my post; this was not an idle word choice. To answer your question less ambiguously, yes, giving some examples of industries that are failing to prosper due to file sharing, as well as providing the empirical, actual-numbers proof that file sharing is the primary cause, is exactly what you need to do.

derivative said...

Jonathon said:

"With IP comprising double digit percentages of the US GDP, any assertion that protections will decrease is out touch with economic and practical realities."

in response to:

"Things have to change, and probably not in the way you are thinking, although I would not be at all surprised if things get much worse before they get better."

indicating that the last half of that sentence was completely ignored. In fact, my original post explained that there are good reasons to believe that the current price of IP is artificially high. This will eventually correct itself, in the world if not in the US. Our ability to treat the rest of the world as banana republics who have to fall in line when we try to prescribe a human-rights-violating three-strikes-and-you're out copyright scheme across the globe will be severely tested over the coming months.

The USA became an economic powerhouse by ignoring other country's IP and by having a lot of raw materials. There is no moral reason why other countries should follow our dictates at this moment, and the economic incentives for doing so are rapidly diminishing as well.

So while our lawmakers will help the IP robber-barons to abuse us here at home until the next uprising, I think their ability to do so globally will dramatically decrease over the next few years.