From the Inbox...

April 6, 2009

To George Ziemann:

Have you considered writing a book detailing the shenanigans of the RIAA, MPAA and their associates, and how the music and media industry are basically committing suicide (or have already done so) by suing its own customers, among a host of other dirty deeds for which they have now proceeded to twisting the minds of the Obama administration into supporting?

Needless to say, with music sales perhaps 1/3 of what it was in 2000, I think the RIAA and/or MPAA will become so desperate, that they will go so far as to beg Congress to pass legislation to place ALL music and media, whether physical or downloadable, in the same category as a CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE, whether the artists, record labels or record companies out there are RIAA members or not. They will enslave the independent music industry in order to control ALL of it, by forcing EVERYONE AND EVERY LABEL to register with the RIAA as if the music were a narcotic.

Worse yet, companies that sell CD/DVD printing machines and duplicators, like Disc Makers (www.discmakers.com) and Primera Techologies (www.primera.com), will have to get a license from the RIAA/MPAA (for which they will of course have to pay to acquire and renew) to stay in business and sell their products. Companies that sell studio and recording equipment will have to get licenses as well. Even independent artists who play in small clubs will be forced to register with the RIAA and get licenses themselves, before they can put their own material on the Web or perform them live. Record stores, especially independent mom-and-pop stores, will have to get licenses to sell music. An artist who gets dropped by a label and is not picked up by another will never be able to make music or perform again because the industry is so tightly controlled, as if it were a drug.

In other words, they'll make it so that whatever is yours belongs to them, even if you recorded it on a desktop computer and $500 worth of recording and mixing equipment in your basement.

I have been reading and hearing stories about some first-rate, 5-star recording artists considering leaving their major labels to either start or join an independent label that has no ties to the RIAA; Metallica, for one. Funny that I mentioned them, given that they screamed the loudest about the
rise of the MP3 download.

But they're not the only ones who might go independent. There are many others threatening to go independent (I think 50 Cent among them), who are not nearly as concerned with how the rise of the MP3 is having an impact on the industry, as they are with how close the RIAA is to insisting on turning the music industry into their own totalitarian dictatorship.

The totalitarian society the RIAA seeks will undoubtedly put many musicians out of business. It is not lost on many of us that the RIAA and their associates want to kill the independent industry, and leave only the major labels as the only means for the artists to be heard. They'll even attempt a hostile takeover of all the music at sites like Beatmaka.com, GarageBand.com, DMusic.com, if not a takeover of the sites themselves. Whatever they can't control, they'll try and force off the Web, and have the administrator and the artists brought up on charges of DISTRIBUTING MUSIC ILLEGALLY, DISTRIBUTING UNLICENSED MUSIC and OPERATING AN MP3 SITE WITHOUT AN RIAA LICENSE!

If the RIAA or the government even considers such a proposal to gain complete control of ALL the music in this country, the music will really die. It will look like the 1760s and 1770s all over again (the American revolution against their British masters), when the indies stage a massive revolution to bring the RIAA down; while at the same time, customers boycott RIAA-member music in massive droves.

The Virgin Megastores in the U.S., the last of the major media megastores, are closing before the summer is over. There will be nothing but mid-sized and small media outlets, like FYE. There's a good chance they will eventually close, but if the RIAA is given complete dominion over the entire music industry, even Web sites like Amazon.com will stop selling music because nobody will want to support a music cartel gone way out of control.

In the end, try as they may to control the music industry, the RIAA will kill it. All of it. And themselves along with it.

I know you have more to add on what Steve Knopper presented, in his book 'Appetite for Self-Destruction'. You should put a book out. Who else, besides you, knows more about how corrupt the music and media industry has become, even to the point where some of its victims and advocates want them charged under state and/or federal racketeering guidelines?

Sincerely,
Sean B.

Well, I had a book started, at least a logical beginning, but then I caught up to real time and had to put it away for a while to see how things turned out, some of which I may have been wrong about earlier. For one thing, I thought the government would stop the RIAA for violating traditional anti-trust laws. Instead, the RIAA now runs the Dept. of Justice.

I posted a first draft, with the advisory that one day it would disappear (which it did), only to come back later with better research and information, which it did not. This is primarily due to spending my creative time on recording projects rather than worrying about the RIAA and my personal responsibility to annoy them. I didn't stop collecting data, though, and it's much better organized now. If I had the slightest clue how to go about getting a book deal, I could definitely put together something.

So... if someone has other options (or an agent), send me an e-mail (wizard (at) azoz (dot)com).

Otherwise, I'm going to keep working on the music for a while. I know where to sell music.

In my response to Sean, I also noted that, while I am always thankful when people acknowledge my awesomeness, there were actually a lot of people who know more about how the business works because they are, unfortunately, stuck there. Or have been.

The contract signing is the exact point in time when stupid happens and I've never been there.

Here's a quote that popped up yesterday at ContactMusic from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails:

"One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the fk made that rule?"

He signed it anyway**. Everybody does. Well, everybody did, anyway.