Another
Apple Antitrust Case
May 10, 2012 — by George Ziemann
This one came in my e-mail. Since I once bought an iPod, I am
a party to this class-action suit. From what was sent to me, it's
pretty clear that this falls under the classification of gross
stupidity.
"The lawsuit claims that Apple violated federal and state
laws by issuing
software
updates
in
2006 for
its iPod
that
prevented
iPods from playing songs not purchased on iTunes."
If true, this would be very similar to being forced to buy HP
printer cartridges for HP printers at a price of about $5000 a
gallon for ink. Except that songs from iTunes are only a buck and
last a helluva lot longer than an HP printer cartridge.
No one forced anyone to buy an iPod. Or an HP printer. In both
cases, there are other options. The real problem is that the lawsuit's stated claim is blatantly
false. iPods have always played plain vanilla mp3s, no
matter where
they
came
from.
I filled
mine
up
with tunes
ripped
from CDs that I already owned.
A more accurate assessment (the basis of a French antitrust lawsuit
which is apparently NOT being alleged here) is that Apple's FairPlay
software
prevented
songs
purchased
from
iTunes
from being
played
on other
devices, which was a condition forced upon them by the RIAA to
gain licenses to sell the tunes.
Since the RIAA is, by definition, a collusion between
the major record
labels which controls the distribution of music (and had previously
been nailed for controlling
the minimum advertised price of recordings),
who was
really the
anti-competitive force at work in that deal? Furthermore, Apple complied with this condition, but refused to
let the cartel dictate the prices of songs, which provided a benefit
to
the consumers
by the amount of how many songs iTunes sold (more than 10 billion
by the beginning of 2010) times
the difference between 99 cents and what the RIAA labels wanted
($2.49 at the outset).
Assuming the RIAA would have never raised prices (unlikely), Apple
saved consumers at least $15 billion.
"The lawsuit
claims that the software updates caused iPod prices to be higher
than
they otherwise would have been."
Manufacturers
are free to set the prices for their products at whatever they
desire. It's not even necessary to argue that the fees paid to
programmers add to the cost of the product because that doesn't
matter unless you're trying to figure out the profit margin. If
it cost Apple $5 to make an iPod, they could still sell it for
$200. I believe that the controlling premise is "whatever the market
will
bear."
No one forced anyone to buy an iPod. No one forced anyone to buy
a song from iTunes.
It was the RIAA who decided not to let anyone else sell music
online, not Apple. Antitrust
Perspective
March 28, 2012 — by George Ziemann
There's an interesting story at Wired.com (The
Case Against Apple and Publishers) outlining problems Apple
may be running into with the Dept. of Justice and antitrust over
the way they've been negotiating with the book publishers and e-book
titles.
As I read the article, I couldn't help but see how closely all
of the allegations seemed to describe the process that took place
when Apple was getting the iTunes Music Store up and running. This
led me to wonder why no one (except possibly me) was asking about
antitrust when the major record labels all got together, stopped
competing, agreed on the same wholesale price, and engaged in "collusive
behavior at the highest levels of companies."
But there is a difference, and probably a key one. What's happening
with the e-book agreements has raised the price to consumers; Apple's
agreements with the RIAA actually kept prices down.
April 11, 2012 -- DOJ
files antitrust charges against Apple and
book publishers.
February 14, 2012 — Apple took the initial
heat for this, but Sony is the guilty party. It took them less
than a half-hour after the singer's demise to raise wholesale prices.
And the RIAA wonders why we think their members are heartless
bastards.
February 2, 2012 — Link goes to story at
ARSTechnica. It is well worth reading just because of the immense
overload of WTF quotes. I couldn't help but notice that the arguments
they raise in opposition to this bill distinctly echo the arguments
everyone else raised when the RIAA was busy suing college kids.
My favorite -- "The RIAA also warns that the need to
hire an attorney to navigate the ITC's arcane legal process will
'put justice out of reach for small business American victims
of IP theft.'"
...the need to hire an attorney...will put justice out of reach
for small...victims...
Runner-up -- "RIAA also says it's 'virtually impossible'
to prove that a site infringed willfully, as OPEN requires."
Now they're worried about actual proof? Like I said, an immense
overload of WTF quotes.
MPAA
Fails To Grasp the Obvious
January 31, 2012 — Over at the Hollywood
Reporter is an excellent summary of what went down as SOPA's
crash and burn took place (The
SOPA War). It also illustrates that the MPAA
is still severely confused about several key points.
The MPAA thinks that Google is "the enemy" because "Google's real
agenda was protecting revenue from advertising on illegal sites."
They also seem to believe that Google controls the internet, which
is why SOPA failed.
The RIAA also thought (maybe still thinks) that Apple was their
enemy while they were selling billions of songs, so this
logic disconnect in their fellow lobbyists' minds shouldn't surprise
us
too much.
But still... How did the MPAA achieve this level of misconception?
Did they simply make it up and can't figure out who else
to personify as "the enemy"? Even if that's the case (there has
to be a bad guy to fight, after all), how large a mountain of actual
facts did they have to completely ignore in the process of making
a dangerously bad law concerning "a platform we're not at this
point comfortable with"? Did they not ask anyone with a clue, or
did they simply ignore any and all criticism or advice which was
contrary to what they wanted to hear?
Or did they just think they could buy any kind of law they asked
for, considering that they have been doing it successfully for
such a long time?
MegaUpload
-- The Flip Side
January 24, 2012 — There's a part of the
MegaUpload story that I missed because I hadn't been paying attention.
In a
story on Digital Music News from mid-December, here are a
few of the things MegaUpload announced just before they got shut
down:
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our
own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon
allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while
allowing
artists to keep 90 percent of earnings."
"...exclusive deals with artists who are eager to depart
from outdated business models."
While these are things we've heard a lot of hype about in the
past, especially from services like Tunecore, I'd say the reason
they were shut down so rapidly after their announcement has a lot
more to do with the next point than anything else they were doing,
as well as going toward the accusations that they were paying people
to provide content.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow
artists to earn income from users who download music for free."
Obviously, this was something that had to be stopped immediately. SOPA/PIPA
'Postponed Indefinitely'
January 20, 2012 — In the last week, the
public outcry over the anti-piracy acts being considered in Congress
escalated so fast and furiously that both
the House and the Senate finally realized they need to re-think
the entire venture, despite the large amounts of money
they had already received to push these bills through.
The opening act was at the 2012
CES in Las Vegas, as all the people
that were not allowed to testify in front of Congress about what
was wrong with SOPA (and its ugly cousin, PIPA) got together and
started talking about what was wrong with SOPA. Someone from the
RIAA stumbled through and said, "It
sure seems like the deck is stacked to ensure no meaningful or
balanced
debate
occurs on an issue that is very important to American jobs and
our economy."
Ironically, that's exactly the same thing everyone at CES was
complaining about.
The next significant event came when the White
House released a response to the online petitions on its
own website. In addition to indicating that messing with the
DNS system was a no-can-do
item, the response acknowledged a few other general problems with
the bills, such as the lack of due process and censorship.
My summary of the White House response in a nutshell was, "Yeah,
we heard you all and we know this law has a lot of problems, so
we're not going to approve it unless they change it. One the other
hand, we still have to deal with the whole piracy thing, especially
foreign websites. So if anyone has any positive ideas going forward,
we'd really like to hear about them."
Wednesday brought the blackout of several major sites (Google,
Wikipedia being the most prominent), which replaced their standard
front pages with anti-SOPA messages, warnings
about
what could happen if this legislation passes. This generated
a lot of press, which is pretty much the first time both sides
of the story started coming out in the mainstream media. It prompted
the MPAA to start whining about being bullied by the tech crowd,
another exercise in irony from those who helped craft the laws.
On Thursday, the U.S. Dept of Justice somehow convinced New Zealand
authorities to shut
down MegaUpload, a site with "lockers" that
enable users to share large files. The DOJ says this is a criminal
enterprise (details in linked story), but it is just one of many
similar sites (like DropBox) that let professional musicians move
large files to send high-quality music files to music directors
and things like that. Also, MegaUpload has had the support of acts
like Kanye West, Will.i.am and P. Diddy.
And
one
of the major players at MegaUpload is married to Alicia Keyes.
So this move by the DOJ was not taken lightly by the internet
community. In fact, it inspired the group Anonymous to go into
a virtual shitstorm of activity. Over the course of the day, the
group used DOS (Denial of Service) attacks to shut down the DOJ,
RIAA, MPAA, Universal Music, BMI, copyright.gov, the FBI, and harrass
the White House. That seemed to get their attention.
By Friday morning, both the House and the Senate suddenly had
new reservations about SOPA and PIPA, which is when it was announced
that both versions of the law were on hold. Senators that were
sponsors of SOPA officially changed their stance. The House realized
they could no longer reasonably expect the 60 votes they needed
to pass PIPA.
This prompted Chris Dodd, the head of the MPAA, to show up on
Fox News today and issue this warning to the lawmakers he had already
paid to pass the laws he asked for: "“Those
who count on Hollywood for support need to understand this industry
is watching very carefully. Don’t ask me to write a check
for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t
pay attention to me when my job is at risk.”
Not much for subtlety, is he? The MPAA doesn't care about how
bad the law is written, they just know that they paid for it and
they still expect to recieve the goods they paid for.
What Dodd
seems to overlook is that the laws he paid for now threaten to
put the
jobs
of the
lawmakers he paid at risk. They finally got the message that
the general public is pretty pissed off about all of this. And
it's
an election year.
The
SOPA/PIPA Problem
January 13, 2012 — So I've been reading
a lot about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP
Act) and had come to a few conclusions about them, but Comcast
thoughtfully provided the public facts which prove my hypothesis.
I will admit upfront that I haven't read the
actual proposed laws. While this is something I certainly would have
done in the past, I didn't intended to write about it, leaving
no solid reason to get overly informed. I have evaluated SOPA/PIPA
based on the second hand and news reports as well as a set of "the
way things are" assumptions that
have held steady through the years.
Let's walk through the obvious...
For
some strange reason, the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act),
which was supposed to make the world a safe place from IP pirates,
somehow did not solve their problem, so the MPAA and RIAA have
written a new law that they are certain will fix everything. After
passing out enough cash to both almost every member of the Senate
and the House of Representatives, they're pretty sure they can
get
it passed,
no
matter what it says.
The obvious problem is that neither Congress, the RIAA nor the
MPAA have the keenest grasp on technology. They just want to make
people stop "stealing" the RIAA and MPAA's stuff.
The most vocal
critics are yelling about privacy, freedom of speech, that the
law is going
to "break
the
internet"
and other
such apocalyptic
things. My take on all of this criticism has been that while
all these things are probably true, the reason is that the RIAA
and MPAA have a fixed train of thought -- there is only one problem
and nothing else enters into their consideration.
They don't bother
to worry about the implications because they simply don't even
think of them. Which is the first reason that this law, even
if enacted, won't work.
Reason number two, and more pertinent, is that the RIAA and MPAA
are still vainly shooting at a moving target. They're like Wile
E. Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner. The internet community
will do an end-around and bypass whatever restrictions
the law
outlines, making the law outdated before it does any good.
This led me to believe this law has a shelf life of about three
days (if that), which is how long it would take for all the actual
pirates to work around it, leaving the majority of the world with
a tangled mess of all the problems that the RIAA/MPAA failed
to consider when putting this law together and the legislators
didn't want to listen to.
Ironically, it was Comcast, one of SOPA's proponents, who this
week announced that it
already can't be compliant with the law if it
gets passed because they just upgraded their technology.
So the proposed law is already outdated. Meep, meep!
Rockin'
In a New Year
January 8, 2012— The band seems to be coming
along, so things are finally looking up. I rehearsed with them
three times on a 40-song list of cover tunes, most of which I had
never played before. Then we played out three times.
There were
a couple
of
songs on the list that I never actually rehearsed with them until
we played them on stage (which is always interesting). We hadn't
gone through any of them more than twice. There were also a couple
that I didn't start throwing
parts in until the 2nd and third night out, mostly guitar songs
that I needed more practice on. I seem to be playing more rhythm
guitar than normal.
Surprisingly enough, the shows still went pretty well. That's
a good sign right there. Bonus was that my daughter, MacKenzie
was in the audience twice. We passed her approval (and she's kind
of picky) so we must not be too bad.
Now we seem
to be re-evaluating what the band
is and
may
be making
a change
in
singers,
which is going to shuffle around the song list again. More stuff
to learn -- good brain activity for an old dude. It'll be nice
when I get into a better comfort zone about the material, but it's
coming together pretty fast.
Now if I can just find a job that includes brain activity, I'd
be all set.
Time
Has Come Again
December 13, 2011— My life turned to shit
in the summer of 2010 and seemed to just get worse every step of
the way since then. It's a long story, but not something I have
wanted to delve into, nor anything that anyone wants to hear about,
which is one major reason I stopped writing (although the
whole "clean and sober" thing is a definite contributing
factor).
To make things worse, I've been working as
a security guard for almost a year and it's been like mental
poison. I was supposed to go to Australia and be sound engineer/road
manager for a band there at the beginning of this year. The security
guard gig was just supposed to be a temporary thing until I left
the
country,
but
Australia
never happened and I found myself stuck in a terrible, terrible
job.
Some people seem to like security work, but most of
them seem
to either be looking for an excuse to kick someone's ass, have
aspirations to be a cop, think it's fun to harass people who
are just having a good time, or (on the flip side) like a job
that sometimes involves doing absolutely nothing for 9 to 12 hours
in
a row. I found that to be excruciating — way too much time
to think about how pointless the job was. As an extra bonus mental ordeal, the 12-hour "do nothing" shift
required a two page report about what didn't happen, which is more
or less
an
abomination
to anyone who has ever taken journalism seriously.
First, there was a couple of months working at spring training.
This was okay, because we got to watch the baseball games,
and also because I was still expecting Australia to come through,
so I was just biding a little time. Kept telling myself that
this was only temporary and it would all be over soon.
About the time it became evident Australia wasn't going to
happen, the job entered the
"concert security" phase, which involved going to shows and
not being allowed to ever look
at the
stage.
For a musician, this is like torture.
Phase three involved breaking up college kids'
parties, having people arrested for smoking
pot, arguing with drunks, and being insulted on an almost nightly
basis. The 12-hour dusk-to-dawn shifts (and never seeing the sun)
didn't help much either.
To say that none of these activities appealed to me is to
put it mildly. It was making me crazy, and not in a good way.
Every day was antithetical to what I had been in the past,
there was far too much time to think about how much I hated
it, and it all seemed like such a pointless waste of time which,
at best, accomplished absolutely nothing.
Doing
it for a year was turning me into an angry, anti-social asshole.
I was going to bed every morning hoping to die before I awoke,
and waking up pissed off because I didn't. It was sucking the life
out of me. Serious depression that lasted for months.
Getting assaulted
by a drunk
one night
was the
rock-bottom point, for which I'm going to ruin a med student's
life by pursuing felony assault charges against him. That event
was a turning point because I decided that the next person
that fucked with me was going to get their face bashed in.
In my few moments of daily clarity,
I could
tell
was
a
very bad
thing. Then I'd go to work and be right back in that evil mind-set.
All of this
finally made me turn
the corner and decide that it was time to get out
before I snapped and did something truly irrational that I would
regret. Still, it took me a few more
weeks before the taste of the poison overruled
the
fact
that
I was earning an income. On December 2, I had enough and finally
called it quits.
Not a moment too soon.
Walking away was somewhat of a relief, but
I didn't start feeling better for almost a week, which is how long
it took to find the antidote -- join
a band and get in a couple of rehearsals, or as I call it, group
therapy.
It's
been
about
18 months since I played music with other people and it has made
all the difference.
Two rehearsals have required more mental exercise than a year
of being a security guard.
So
I'm unemployed (not a good thing) but playing music again has finally
ended the
deep, dark depression — and that's a very
good thing.
I'm starting to remember who I am.
The
Down Side of 'Clean and Sober'
October 16, 2011— A couple of months ago,
MP3NewsWire posted an article about the fact that I have stopped
writing ("Key
Digital Music Scribe Quieted"), wherein they surmised that
my spirit had been broken. The real reason for my silence is probably
just because I stopped getting high. (More)
In
Security
July 21, 2011— Been working security for
special events this year, which means going to places where hordes
of people are having fun and not having any yourself. Spring Training,
celebrity events, the All Star Game, concerts by Lady Gaga, some
country acts whose name I don't remember, New York Dolls, Poison,
Motley Crue, Machine Head, Megadeth, Godsmack, Disturbed. Heard
them all, but we're not allowed to look at the stage, so I didn't
actually see a single show.
Also tried to get into a few bands with no luck.
I never imagined that almost 40 years of pursuing music was going
to end up being not allowed to even watch anymore.
March 6, 2011— Several of my friends have
written to ask what's up because I haven't updated the site for
a couple of months or posted anything on Facebook. So I thought
that I'd explain
December 30, 2010 — The first decade of
the 21st century has been rather rocky for the record industry.
Can't help but wonder what is on the horizon that might turn things
around for the future
December 22, 2010 -- The four major labels have
a new plan to make income from mobile devices. Well, it's the same
old plan they've had for years, but someone finally decided to
buy into it.
The
Transformation of the Music Industry in the 21st Century
Updated September, 20, 2010 -- You can study
all the available industry reports, digest all the data, chew them
up and spit them back out again, but you still won't know a damned
thing about what's
really going on in the music business.
December 15, 2010 — When the software you
installed last week already wants to be upgraded, is that a sign
of rapid
improvement, a failure to be
thorough before product release, or a bad purchase? Technology
is good, but instant obsolescence seems more than a little counter-productive.
November 28, 2010 -- Has the time come to introduce
rational thought into the copyright conversation? Or is it even
worth the effort?
EMI's Death Slightly
Exaggerated
November 21, 2010 — Saw a headline last
week saying that "The
Music Biz Shrinks Yet Again, as Courts Close EMI." But
that's not what happened at all. The courts have NOT closed EMI. (More...)
October 17, 2010 — This week, Tunecore
co-founder Jeff Price is using Nielsen SoundScan statistics exactly
the same
way Nielsen does — to manipulate
the truth and misrepresent facts. My criticism at the page on which
the offense occurred has been erased, so it's time to shine a brighter
light.
October 13, 2010 — People turn me on to
indie bands all the time. Once in a while, something special shows
up. The
Kicks are one of the special ones.
October 7, 2010 — My first reaction to the
story of Converse entering the music business was one of
dismay. Do we really need more corporate interference with art?
The more I think about it, though, the answer is that it's certainly
better for artists than America's Got Talent.
September 30, 2010 — Recording industry
lapdog Orrin Hatch has introduced a Senate bill designed to give
the RIAA
even more power for abuse than they
have already achieved through President Obama's appointment of
several RIAA attorneys to run the Dept. of Justice. The music industry
is already out in force to support this act. It is up to independents
to take a stand against this abuse.
Music's Weakest Link
September 29, 2010 — Of all the things
that are wrong with the music business, the saddest realization
is that
the greatest threat to the future of
music is not bad contracts, the internet, laws that punish the
fans, or even the shrinking number of places to perform. The thing
that is doing the most damage is the attitude of musicians. (More...)
Supreme Court Takes
Interest in Music Case
Sept. 24, 2010 — Earlier this week, the
Supreme Court asked Maverick Records (Madonna's record label) to
respond to a case in which the 5th District Court previously had
found that there was no such thing as an "innocent infringement" defense
for downloading if the material in question was available for sale
in record stores and the product carried a copyright notice, whether
or not the accused party had ever seen it. Apparently, the District
Court knows of a record store that is still doing business.
This story emanates from BLT
(Blog of Legal Times), which notes that "the Court's
request for a response significantly increases the chances the
Court will ultimately grant review – which could turn into
a major contest for the music industry."
Ray Beckerman of Recording
Industry vs The People notes that "The 5th Circuit's
ruling was ludicrous, and deserves to be unceremoniously reversed.
The Supreme Court's request for a response from the RIAA at this
juncture suggests that the high court has picked up on the 5th
Circuit's flagrant mistake." Judge Denies Bob
Marley's Family
Sept. 20, 2010 — There's a thing in standard
record contracts that the major artists are now very aware of called "work
for hire." What this does is remove the rights an artist would
normally acquire under copyright law and hand them to the record
labels. There was a
big discussion about this back in 1999, after a Senate aide
(who later became an RIAA lobbyist) made a middle-of-the-night "technical
correction" which attempted to "reclassify under the
nation's copyright laws all sound recordings, like cassettes and
CDs, as 'work made for hire.'"
The recording artists fought back and had that "technical
correction" revoked, but it didn't help Bob Marley's family
last week when a judge ruled that Universal
Music had legally taken all of Marley's copyrights under the "work
for hire" clause in his contracts back in the 1970s.
Missed this last week, so a big thanks to J. Saxton for bringing
it to my attention Music, Journalism,
Emotion and Perspective
September 5, 2010 -- Journalistic integrity requires
keeping yourself at a distance from what you're writing about to
remain objective, something I
complain that the news media seems incapable of remembering. Then
I look at my own writing of late and see that I've lost some of
the fire that used to make my examination of the music industry
interesting. Which is worse? (More...)
No News is Good News
September 4, 2010 -- I stopped watching television
in the first week of June. This wasn't a conscious choice, it just
kind of happened. Haven't seen a news broadcast in months, and
I'm kind of liking it. (More...)
Album
Sales Fall Below 1991 Levels
August 23, 2010 -- According to Nielsen/SoundScan,
the week ending August 15 was the first time since they started
keeping track in 1991 that less
than 5 million albums were sold. While this comes as no great surprise,
what I find interesting is the general logic that tries to explain
it. (More...)
NAB,
RIAA Try to Force Radio into iPods
August 18, 2010 -- "Radio broadcasters and
music labels are seeking to legally mandate FM radio reception
as a feature
in all consumer mobile
devices in an effort to expand the market for radio." Why the
hell would the RIAA want to do that? (More...)
Creativity
and Cash Flow
August 13, 2010 -- I've had a web site since
about 1998. Lately, I'm getting approached to monetize the site
by isolating some content off behind a pay wall. Am I the only
one in the country that finds this idea disgusting? I guess I see
the greater question to be: How did everyone manage to forget the
original purpose of the internet? (More...)
Social Networking
August 12, 2010 -- Found a page of social networking
stats in an e-mail. No link source, but I thought I'd share it
anyway. (More...)
What
the "Bleep" Do We Know?
August 6, 2010 -- I'm not a big movie person,
so I am shocked to find myself reviewing a second film in a week.
But this one can change your life. Forever. I do not say this lightly.
(More...)
Ghetto Physics
July 31, 2010 -- As the cosmos continues its mission
to point me to a wiser direction in life, this afternoon I was
lucky enough to catch an advance screening of Ghetto
Physics -- Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up.
(More...)
Random Notes
July 29, 2010 -- Got an e-mail from Derek Sivers
yesterday, the founder and former owner of CDBaby. He sold CDBaby
two years ago, but this is the first time I read the story of why
he sold it and what happened to the money from the sale.
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