2008 Year in Review by George Ziemann -- December 25, 2008 Like most years, it started right after New Year's Eve, in... January My friends and I began the year doing what musicians do -- by playing a gig and recording a bunch of cover songs to exploit a loophole and fatten up our online playlist. At the end of the month, the weasels emerge from hiding. RIAA acknowledges existence of the other 3 million of us. ASCAP reminds us that war is peace and the RIAA has always been the enemy. Writers Guild gives the Grammys a waiver. U2's manager whines about the Internet. The first free and legal ad-supported P2P service to include major label music emerges, except for the major label music and the ad support. February The RIAA pitched their long-running sob story to the California State Legislature, voicing their concern for "the songwriters who pen the music and lyrics; the background musicians who perform it; the engineers who texture, layer and refine it; the artists who make it soar"? Meanwhile, on the East Coast, they were arguing that songwriters and publishers are ruining the music business. A week later, Neil Young laments that music doesn't have the power to change the world anymore. The RIAA is pushing a magic filter for your PC. Greg Sandoval at CNet reports, "The U.S. Department of Justice has requested information from Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group about Total Music, an iTunes competitor that plans to offer music from all the majors for a $5-per-month subscription fee." March Out of nowhere, record label guy Jim Griffin stumbles upon the idea of "Music from all the majors for a $5-per-month subscription fee." Before the end of the month, Warner Music starts a new company to "develop a model that would create a pool of money from user fees." Griffin will run the company. The DOJ adds him to the list. I noted that perhaps there was a better way to approach this, one that didn't involve an RIAA member being the scorekeeper. The Internet Archive volunteered to host the files and offer accurate tracking, but then we're back to the whole $5 a month thing. The DOJ still doesn't bother adding me to the list. April In 2007, there was a lot of discussion in the media about the resurgence of the vinyl format. In April, the RIAA's 2007 numbers (finally) came out to show us that in reality, not so much. May At this point, Time magazine has already run an article indicating that the RIAA had filed 40,000 lawsuits. This rapidly changes downward everywhere else to 35,000. By the end of the year, Wired will have it back down to 30,000 again. BusinessWeek reported in May that only about 100 people had contested the charges. I don't remember if they bothered to report that of those who contested, most of the contested cases against people still living were dropped by the RIAA on the eve of a trial. I do know that they missed pointing out the obvious -- No one has asked the Sony-Betamax question yet. Meanwhile, we learn that RIAA has a Tech Unit. I laughed at the mere idea. They still think DRM is the way to go. I laughed some more. A rumor emerges involving a bill that passed the US House of Representatives (HR4279) which several sources (some of them otherwise credible) are warning means that if the RIAA finds an "illegal" mp3 on your hard drive, they can take your computer, your house, your dog and naming rights to your first-born male child. Not exactly. June The RIAA starts pissing off more judges by playing games with the legal system. The MPAA starts the summer by accusing three laser printers of downloading movies. Before the month is over, they will develop the joke that they don't need any evidence in infringement cases. It's not like they'd abuse that to sue your printer or anything... Not to be outdone, the RIAA accuses radio of piracy. Because radio doesn't pay royalties to the record labels, who were paying the radio stations for airplay forever until 2006 or 2007. But radio can't use that as an argument because everyone settle without admitting guilt. So the RIAA can cry because the radio doesn't pay them. Never has. And they cry one little tear. Karma calls, and a judge decides that the RIAA is going to pay Tanya Anderson the sum of $107,834 because, yes, you morons, you DO need evidence. Being morons, however, they were compelled to go out and try that same routine again almost immediately. July In July, we studied a 1995 report that said the economy was due to go to hell any minute, which I viewed as an opportunity for music. While we pondered that, our attention is drawn to Central Park, where Bon Jovi puts on a free concert. Previous concerts at this venue have shown a steady climb in attendance over the years: 1979 -- James Taylor, 250,000 people; 1980 -- Elton John, 300,000; 1981 -- Simon and Garfunkel, 400,000; 1991 -- Paul Simon, 600,000; 1997 -- Garth Brooks, 750,000. For some strange, unknown reason, NYC decided to do something unheard of at the Bon Jovi show -- they had city employees stand at the entrance gates with clickers and actually counted how many people showed up. We discover that Central Park's capacity is a little less than 50,000 people (48,538) and get a clue of the music industry's capacity to just make shit up and pretend it's the truth. Yahoo announces that it is tired of dealing with DRM and will be turning off its DRM servers in September. The RIAA Tech Unit whistles and backs slowly out of the picture. August I missed part of August with a migraine that tried to do me in but failed, about the same time that Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, was predicting that webcasting might not be so lucky. "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for webcasting." And then I got invited into retail by Musician's Friend and, for the first time ever, it wasn't as a bonus extra that they'd do if you buy something else, like 1,000 CDs. September Having finally got rid of the radio version, some nitwit suddenly thinks that internet payola is a good idea. The RIAA decides that their life would be easier if the Dept. of Justice did their work for them. While the DOJ is busy considering that, the RIAA's "Big Four" all get together for a joint venture, creating MySpace Music, an iTunes competitor that plans to offer music from all the majors. A week later, independent labels find themselves locked out. SanDisk Corp, BestBuy, Walmart, and all four major record labels entered into another joint venture to introduce a new format called "slotMusic," which has no discernable advantage over the CD format other than the fact that owning the format allows them to profit from 100% of the market for slotMusic. For the first time in history, songwriters come in second in consideration for royalty payments. They'll get paid if there's any left over after the RIAA takes their "share." A new lobbying group is been formed with the goal of Internet filtering, just in time to make themselves ineligible to lobby to the upcoming administration, although no one knows this at the time. I don't think filtering is possible, but I'm all for anything that blocks the RIAA's illegal music from being shared. But the month ends with hope. The RIAA's only trial victory is overturned as "an error of law." The error was that the judge believed the RIAA; they lied to him; he figured it out, but not until after the fact. When he did, he was a tad annoyed. October According to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the level of "intellectual property theft" in the United States has remained unchanged for 22 years. We've ALWAYS lost 750,000 jobs a year and somewhere in the $200-$250 billion range. At least every year since 1986. Whitney Harper, a 20-year-old at Texas Tech, was sued by the RIAA and demands a trial instead of paying the settlement. No Harvard students have ever been sued by the RIAA, mostly because the RIAA is afraid of Harvard's law professors. Apparently for sport, Prof. Charles Neeson went out and found someone to defend, Joel Tenenbaum, accused of sharing seven songs. Neeson says that the RIAA's tactics are an abuse of federal process and that the law on which the litgation rests is unconstitutional." The judge went one better: "Counsel representing the record companies have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers, to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it." The month ends with the tale of Josiah Leming, who lost at American Idol, but discovered that Sony owns him anyway. November "This logo will not only help give consumers confidence that the music files they are buying will play on a wide range of devices, but will also help them know that they are legal and that artists are getting paid." This will be good news for Limewire. Obama gets elected, announces that anyone who has lobbied in the previous 12 months, can't lobby to him or his team for a year. Like the group pushing internet filtering. And the RIAA. December Jim Griffin returns, to neither confirm nor deny any specific details of plans to offer music from all the majors to colleges for a $5-per-month subscription fee. And he had nothing to do with the video that went to all the schools. Sony gets caught violating child privacy laws by sharing minors' user information across their 1,100 music sites. The case of Joel Tenenbaum returns to the fore, as the RIAA reveals their intent to make an example of him and asks for $1 million in damages for the sharing of seven songs. Of course, they have to beat Neeson first. He's going to be tougher than the soccer moms that kicked the RIAA's ass already. The RIAA announces Choruss, a joint effort between 3 of the 4 major labels with plans to offer music from all the majors to colleges for a $5-per-month subscription fee and the promise not to sue them anymore if they buy it. This is followed by the almost immediate announcement that the RIAA will stop filing new lawsuits, making the Choruss sales pitch suddenly rather pointless. Somewhere in there, Congress passed laws that did, indeed, put the DOJ at the service of the RIAA (and MPAA) and created a "copyright czar." As far as I can tell, now they're going to stop filing lawsuits, skip that annoying "evidence" concept and start pushing a wider variety of people around, this time with no legal record to scrutinize, which will allow them to make up numbers out of the air, like they do for piracy or concert attendance at Central Park. The RIAA will now work with the ISPs, and shut down your Internet connection if your printers start downloading movies. When they've thoroughly annoyed every major business in the country, they'll be forced to make a peace offering. Perhaps music from all the majors for a $5-per-month subscription fee. If 100 million people are pressured into signing up, that's $6 billion a year without making a single new record. Or competing with those pesky independents.