It’s no secret that Rights Boy believes in strong property rights. A recent opinion by his good friend Mike Burgher in the Des Moines Register drew a lot of discussion by online readers. You can read that article here:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080306/OPINION04/803060354There is clearly a huge misunderstanding by a few people on real property rights in America, the concept of Eminent Domain, and what ownership means. One young reader went so far as to proclaim, “The government owns all the land, it ‘grants’ who can occupy it, and it can take it ‘back’ whenever and for whatever purpose is deemed necessary.”
That idea isn’t capitalism or even socialism; it is a clear, succinct definition of
Communism. It makes Rights Boy just shake his head, beat it against the wall, and wonder what kind of drivel is being taught in civics class today. John Locke, who coined the phrase “life, liberty and property,” would have pulled out his sword and poked our young reader pretty hard. Fortunately, many people do understand, and did poke him with their comments, some not very politely.
But today, Rights Boy wants to talk about
intellectual property – who owns an idea, a concept, a process or a song. There is a huge difference between real property and intellectual property. But due to an ongoing campaign - by the Record Industry Association of America (
RIAA,) book publishers, and the major movie studios in Hollywood (
MPAA,) particularly
Disney - this is also misunderstood by many people.
America’s Founders drew a clear distinction between real property and intellectual property. Real property was owned and could only be taken away through
Eminent Domain. Intellectual property included no such protection. If someone came up with a good idea, he or she was granted a short time period to exclusively use, control and copy the idea. This is the definition of
copyright. The person with the idea got a head start to make some money and profit from his or her concept and the intention was to spur on capitalism. After that short period, ideas went into the ‘public domain,’ after which anyone could use, copy or modify it however he or she wished.
The original period set by the founders was 14 years; 28 years in some limited cases. Today, copyright is granted for over 100 years, due to a lobbying effort and some large contributions from the RIAA to the back pocket of selected U.S. legislators. The length of a copyright has been increased over 20 times in the last 30 years. It is virtually perpetual now and soon nothing will ever again go into the public domain.
The RIAA has whined and cried for years that it has lost market share because its customers ‘steal’ the product. It has managed to convince its customers and the courts that theft of real property and copyright infringement is the same thing. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA,)
originally intended to punish satellite dish customers from decrypting copyrighted broadcast material, has been abused and turned upside down onto its head.
The RIAA and MPAA have become nothing more than a litigation
machine, lashing out and harassing and bullying their own customer base. Disney sends out thugs to daycare centers that have a hand-drawn picture of Mickey Mouse on the wall, threatening to sue somebody if it’s not removed or painted over. The Girl Scouts of America are harassed when a child dances the Macarena. Cab drivers can no longer play the radio because, God forbid, someone in the back
seat will hear the music and not pay the RIAA a fee.
Today, the RIAA’s position is that one can be sued to the tune of several hundreds of thousands of dollars for taking music YOU OWN and simply copying it to your
MP3 player or computer. It always settles for $3,000 to ‘teach us a lesson.’ It doesn’t want things to go to court because it becomes publically obvious how many innocent people get caught up in its John Doe, shot gun style of litigation.
The RIAA likens a CD to a piece of Waterford Chrystal, and has no respect for making a backup copy or any fair use. If your CD breaks, too bad; buy another one. The RIAA has kicked and screamed with every advancement of technology. It would prefer that you purchase the exact same music over and over; first on a vinyl record, then on eight-track, then on cassette, then on a CD. And now you get to pay to download a digital version of a song that you already own and paid for several times; complete with embedded ‘digital rights management’ that restricts what you can do with it.
Isn’t it sort of odd that the companies that make MP-3 players are the same ones that want to sue you for loading your music onto them?
The RIAA doesn’t discriminate who it rips-off. It takes advantage of the artists that turn over their copyrights to the industry as well as the customers that attempt to listen to the music.
The artist once known as “Prince” - then renamed an
unpronounceable androgynous symbol, then “the artist formerly known as Prince,” and now “Prince” once again - in the midst of his identity crisis, puts it well. When he was part of the RIAA, his records had to go platinum before he saw a dime. Now that he is independent, his breakeven point is about 1,500 CDs and he starts making some money much earlier. This is as it should be. The RIAA adds very little value anymore.
Back in the day, when everyone listened to analog radio, the RIAA paid off radio stations with cash and drugs to influence the playlists. Now it punishes and sues those radio stations for playing the same music and not paying homage to the industry association.
As vinyl records became popular, there were often two outstanding songs on the record and the rest were crap. There was no way to sample music and simply purchase the cuts that you liked. Eventually, along comes Steve Jobs who negotiated with the RIAA to allow purchase and download of individual songs. But what a price! A $1.49 for a song is outrageous! Rights Boy believes in the free market and all, but there is NO competition in the record industry and they have us all by the gonads. It’s no wonder that kids download music and don’t care if it’s legal or not.
So what can you do about it?
Rights Boys does NOT encourage anyone to download copyrighted material that that you don’t already own on a CD or DVD. That is clearly illegal. There is no anonymity on the Internet anymore and you will eventually get caught and pay the consequences. Is it really worth the risk of paying $3,000 to listen to Madonna sing about being a Material Girl?
Don’t support the Record Industry by buying CDs with the RIAA symbol. Buy CDs from independent labels. Go to local concerts and buy CDs directly from the artists.
Rights Boy will never buy a CD again, nor purchase a song from iTunes. In his opinion, all the good music ended in the late 1970s anyway, when the disco era got us all bumping and grinding and shaking our grove thing.
Rights Boy has amassed a modest collection of music over the years, and a good friend left his CD collection at the Fortress of Rightitude while he’s taking a sabbatical on the west coast.
Guess what Rights Boy is doing with all that music? ;-)
He bought the fattest hard drive he could find and has spent the last three years ripping all of it to the drive. He has more unrestricted MP3 music than he can possibly listen to for the rest of time. Life is good. …And the RIAA sucks. …Someday it will be looked upon like a dinosaur hit by the meteor.
Until that day comes, just remember that a string of 1s and 0s has greater property rights protection than your own backyard. It is a crazy mixed up world…What do think about the RIAA? Vote on the survey to the right, send me an email, or click on the little underlined comment thingy below.
Rights Boy's good friend Mr. Clean has announced his candidacy for President of the United States in 2012 - from the Basket party, the new inclusive third party alternative. Mr. Clean wants President Obama to be successful and all. But just in case, he's waiting in the wings and getting in the queue right now.
