RIAA Hires Artists, Then Sends In the SWAT team 420
cancan writes "The NY times is carrying an article about how the RIAA is hiring hip hop artists to make mix tapes, and then
helping the police raid their studios. In the case of DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, they were raided by SWAT teams with their guns drawn. The local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'. Just the same, 'Record labels regularly hire mixtape D.J.'s to produce CDs featuring a specific artist. In many cases, these arrangements are conducted with a wink and a nod rather than with a contract; the label doesn't officially grant the D.J. the right to distribute the artist's songs or formally allow the artist to record work outside of his contract.' " This is more of the shenanigans that we've previously discussed on the site.
Zappa (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who would have thought? (Score:5, Informative)
Seems to me they had been hired once, but that wasn't anything to do with the raid.
Mind you, the raid itself seemed a bit extreme.
They found none of the stuff that made them think they should go in armed. Still, I don't know what percentage of raids of this type do turn up arms/drugs, or how many they have to do, the gun toting could simply be policy.
The suppresion of semi ligitimate music outlets is all part of the RIAAs remit, so this shouldn't be surprising. They aren't defenders of law, they are defenders of a business model, and have worked to change laws to protect that business model.
Hollywood Accounting (Score:3, Informative)
It reminds me of something....
Seems they also use Hollywood Accounting [wikipedia.org].
Be carefull, next time it's gonna be a MPAA bust, afterall DJ's are using hollywood's trade secret !
Will Someone Please Shut Down the RIAA! NOW! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Zappa (Score:4, Informative)
RIAA flips out (Score:5, Informative)
As something of a fan of hip hop, it's kind of scary to see that the RIAA is going to clamp down on mixtapes. mixtapes are where trends start. It's a vital part of the cycle of hip hop production.
If producers, rappers and DJs don't have the freedom of the mixtape to test-market beats or styles or even simply as a means to promote themselves or their labels, this is going to hurt hip hop on the national level. And it will drive money away from the RIAA, which is the opposite goal of the RIAA (at least, I think it is- it's hard to tell these days).
Re:Zappa (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Zappa (Score:5, Informative)
Special interest groups participating in law enforcement activities is not limited to the RIAA.
As Radley Balko [slashdot.org] pointed out in a column on Mothers Against Drunk Driving [cato.org] (emphasis added):
Re:I support the RIAA this time (Score:2, Informative)
<zeep> rapc?
<Batty>
<Batty> Crap you idiot. you put the c on the other end
<zeep> oic
<Batty> Though you could also say it's missing an e
<zeep> wtf is erap?
* Batty bangs his head repeatedly against a wall
http://bash.org/?329292
I'm SO sick of hearing.... (Score:5, Informative)
To be entrapment, two important things must be true:
1. You must be "convinced" to do something that you normally would _never_ do. (And it's your burden to prove this)
2. The person doing the convincing must be an agent of the State.
That is what "entrapment" means.
Other laws? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'm SO sick of hearing.... (Score:4, Informative)
Co-operating with the government doesn't make you an agent of the state.
It's really a legal gray area, but it's still legal.
Another example of this is employer drug testing. In Ohio where I live, the state government gives a kickback to companies that drug screen their employees, in the form of reduced Workmans Comp premiums. Often DRAMATICALLY reduced. In this particular case, the State could never drug test people. So they enlist a willing partner.
In this particular case, the police aren't working for the RIAA, as you claim. They are merely doing their job. A crime has been reported by a reputable investigator (yes, reputable could be argued, especially here, but work with me..) and the state is right to respond.
Consider the scenario where a shoplifter is detained by store security (a reputable investigator) and when the police arrive, they take them into custody. Very similar.
The sneaky part is that the RIAA is hiring these guys to break the law. Yes, that's sneaky, but it's entirely legal.
And I contend that it only looks as bad as it does because it's the RIAA doing it. An infamous villan.
Consider this: What if, say, Apple (cause everyone LOVES apple) discovered a factory in the US that would make counterfeits. So they represent themselves as "investors" and contact this factory and ask them to make a counterfeit iPod. The company agrees. During production, Apple contacts the authorities, and has the plant shut down. I doubt many slashdotters would be crying about such a scenario, and it's very analogous to what's happening here.
Re:Zappa (Score:3, Informative)
Everyone who is harassed by the RIAA should counter-sue them for $100M for being an illegal price-fixing monopoly. They have already been convicted of this.
Re:Zappa (Score:2, Informative)
> of ALL **AA related products. Perhaps that would get
> someone's attention.
Well... I think this project is a good start:
http://www.riaaradar.com/ [riaaradar.com]
(http://www.buyblue.org/ is another good example of using information to speak in a language corporations understand.)
Perhaps in the future the majority of people buying on the Net will use some sort of autonomous agent to help them avoid products/companies that violate their personal ethics.
Re:Not buying music is not enough! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200009/file-sharin
Unless you are Cher or Elton John, you are not going to do well with the current copyright situation. You'll see your music sell a million albums and yet make a mysteriously small amount of money.
This is the meat but it goes into quite a bit of detail.
From the article:
Last year the worldwide sales of all 600 or so members of the Recording Industry Association of America totaled $14.5 billion--a bit less than, say, the annual revenues of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance. As for the tiny labels at South by Southwest, many of the dot-coms in attendance could have bought them outright for petty cash.
After the show I asked Cleaver if he was concerned about the fate of the music industry in the Internet age. "You must be kidding," he said. With some resignation he recounted the sneaky methods by which three record labels had ripped off the band or consigned its music to oblivion, a subject to which he has devoted several chapters of an unpublished autobiography he offered to send me.
(He had nicer things to say about his current label, Checkered Past.) Later I asked one of the music critics if Cleaver's tales of corporate malfeasance were true. More than true, I was told--they were typical. Not only is the total income from music copyright small, but individual musicians receive even less of the total than one would imagine. "It's relatively mild," Cleaver said later, "the screwing by Napster compared with the regular screwing."
Although many musicians resent it when people download their music free, most of them don't lose much money from the practice, because they earn so little from copyright. "Clearly, copyright can generate a huge amount of money for those people who write songs that become mass sellers," says Simon Frith, a rock scholar in the film-and-media department at the University of Stirling, in Scotland, and the editor of Music and Copyright (1993). But most musicians don't write multimillion-sellers. Last year, according to the survey firm Soundscan, just eighty-eight recordings--only
Re:Zappa (Score:2, Informative)
Why are we talking about speed cameras?
Re:Zappa (Score:3, Informative)
No -- you don't have a clue.
You have no understanding how local gov works. You have no understanding of human factors engineering. You have no understanding of minima functions and loss functions. What's worse, you're a statist because you think pen-pushers should have the authority to release draconian systems like this on the public. Maybe you should learn a little about the freedom your military service was defending?
Let me clue you in.
On how local gov works: the red light cameras ARE revenue generators. As with all revenue generators, the are set to maximize revenue and this includes tweaking the lights to cause violations. Please see related scandals in San Diego, LA and other major metropolitan areas where the caution light was shortened to let the cameras trip more frequently and raise revenue. Don't believe me -- here are the vultures fighting over the money in public:
[Begin Quote] # New Mexico state Sen. William Payne, who calls Albuquerque's 15 cameras a "money-generating trap," introduced a bill this month that would require communities using the devices to install warning signs and beacons on streets leading to intersections where they are positioned.
He says Albuquerque has issued 80,000 $100 citations in the past 18 months. Those fines went directly to the city as civil fees rather than to the state as motor vehicle violations, he says. [End Quote]
On human factors: The existence of a speed camera impairs the function of the caution light by raising the penalty arbitrarily - an extra loss function has been introduced. Humans avoid loss functions, imaginary or real, with a passion. So people now rush the orange or stop short. In high traffic situations both of these choices result in increased accidents, mostly rear-end stop-short collisions.
On minima: The frequency of red light running is a direct function of traffic engineering and caution yellow times and is a minimum which is almost a constant across the whole United States and can be driven down by proper light timing, including an increase in all-red time. When you perturb the system with arbitrary untested ideas (speed camera) you move away from the minima and simply trade one flavor of accident for another. The jury is still out whether deadly side-impact collisions go up or down. What certainly happens is that rear-end stop-short or rear-end speed-into collisions go up.
Please don't quote me studies now. I'm a scientist, and the only reputable study to date is an Australian one, which throws doubt on every premise behind speed cameras. Everything else I'm saying is old hat in my profession.
The reality is that the two flavors of red light running -- speeding with inability to stop in time and impaired driver are non-engineering problems. E.g. you can't solve either by installing a speed camera. Having said that we have had a surprisingly effective technique since folks started driving to Vegas in the night. Rumble strips. Both flavors of driver will start pressing on the brakes when they hit rumble strips.
Now that you have a clue, I suggest again -- learn about how freedom works, learn about non-punitive, non-legal ways, and drop the statist attitude that the lord and masters of City Hall know best. They don't.
better link (Score:3, Informative)