The RIAA showed up on Capitol Hill the other day to demand more tax dollars to protect music.

A great idea. Musicians can't make ends meet by working live gigs. Record money trickles in even to the select few who have hits. Almost nobody, including many who have record deals with major labels, has health insurance or a decent pension plan. Indeed, according to a multibillion-dollar RICO suit creeping through the federal court system, the record companies have colluded with one major trade union, AFTRA, to defraud singers of any hope of a decent pension. Music education in America isn't even haphazard; it approaches nonexistence.

Tax dollars could and should cure all this. American musicians, like all other Americans, deserve Social Security pensions that provide a genuine living (which could easily be achieved by removing the cap that limits rich people's contributions). Our musicians, like everybody else, deserve nationalized health care, like the inhabitants of every other rich nation on Earth. Reassembling our education system demands massive reinvestment that probably can come only from federal tax monies. Music education would be a centerpiece of that restoration-and we could do it right this time, honoring all traditions rather than using the most elitist European ones to cudgel kids out of pride in their own.

Somehow, none of this came up in RIAA chieftain Hilary Rosen's testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee. All she wanted to talk about was more money for CHIP.

Chip isn't a hot new band. It's the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property unit of the Justice Department, which means the FBI. Like other FBI units designed to protect intellectual property, its priorities are set by private industry -- the record labels are the small fry amongst a group that includes the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA), which represents the movie cartel, and the software giants.

Last year, the FBI and the feds seized 2.8 million CD-Rs, up from 1.6million in 2000. Arrests and indictments are up 113 percent, with guilty pleas and convictions up 203 percent and "sight seizures" -- that's where the record labels and their pet cops show up at a record store (an independent store, natch) and seize everything they don't think is making enough money for the cartel, whether it's illegal or not -- are up 170 percent. Of course, by the RIAA's terms, we commit piracy every time we share files on the Internet. That's what the RIAA wants a bigger CHIP to deal with.

In reality, the RIAA pirated almost all the 400 million CDs sold in America last year, since the people who made the music didn't get paid for them. But that logic would be lost on the subcommittee, since so few artists make huge campaign contributions and provide tickets to hot shows to the legislators.

This amounts to taxing us to make music more expensive. If there has been an upsurge in piracy (the RIAA's only rivals in unreliable statistics are the owners of major league baseball) the main blame goes to exorbitant album prices and the elimination of cheaper alternatives like singles. But the RIAA never takes any blame.

ZDNet's quote from Rosen's testimony is ominous: "Piracy is not a private offense. It hurts everyone by diminishing the incentive to invest in the creation of music. It should not, therefore, be viewed as a crime only against [the industry]...but against each of us."

The most reasonable construction of this statement is that file exchanging is not just a violation of the law but a crime deserving significant punishment. It's another step on the road to sending people to jail for sharing music. When they've locked up all the music fans, who will the RIAA blame their slumping sales upon?

The artists, probably.

Deskscan (What's playing at my desk):
1. 1000 Kisses, Patty Griffin (ATO)
2. Become You, The Indigo Girls (Epic)
3. The Complete 1964 Recordings, John Lee Hooker (RPM UK)
4. Sidetracks, Steve Earle (E-Squared)
5. Delayed But Not Denied, The Bonner Brothers (Malaco)
6. The Righteous Ones, Toshi Reagon (Razor and Tie)
7. Arise Black Man, Peter Tosh (Trojan)
8. This World Just Won't Leave You Alone, Star Room Boys (Slewfoot
9. The Soul and the Edge: The Best of Johnny Paycheck (Epic Legacy)
10. A Magical Gathering: The Clannad Anthology (Rhino)

(c) Copyright 2002 Dave Marsh -- Syndicated by Paradigm News, Inc.

This is quite possibly the best article I've ever read by Dave Marsh. ...and I've been reading his stuff for 30 years, since he left Creem to write for Newsday (my local paper, early to mid 70's).

This is quite possibly one of the best articles I've ever read on Dmusic...and is definitely the best I've read by Marsh. Wow...

Well, aside from the socialist rantings regarding social security (Democrat tax), it's a decent take on the CHIPs deal. It's obvious the RIAA only wants more money for their pocketbooks and not for the artists. For example, they keep raising the price of albums (to account for lost sales due to piracy, of course) but also want to tax CDR and recordable media (for lost sales due to piracy) but the ALSO want to make CD's copy-protected. Huh? That's the definition of having your cake and eating it, too, if I've ever heard it.

P.S. - I agree with placing 1000 Kisses at number one on your listening queue; wonderful album!

Exactly. Yet more proof that the Record Industry Politburo (R.I.P., a.k.a. RIAA) is 1000% (again, not a typo) against the consumer -- and 500% against the artist. Check Martin Niemoller's remarks about the Nazi steamroller in Germany in the '30's for a comparison ("First they came for the unions . . . " etc.).

It is definitely obvious that what the RIAA, MPAA et al. is really out for is to disenfranchise and criminalize the consumer, their theory being that everything in life should have a price tag, the more exorbitant the better. That, and this whole "expiration date" business on their online "services," not unlike perishable foodstuffs such as meat and vegetables.

And as for the amount they claim to be "losing" due to "piracy": I wonder if that amount is roughly parallel to the amount the record companies have been shelling out for payola bribes viz radio airplay. And as for the "lost sales" claims: This, after forcing empty-headed bubblegum pap, er pop down everyone's throats, and avoiding more substantive music (and acts) like the plague. But remember, the industry also had significant "lost sales" upon the downfall of disco in '79 -- and they were REALLY on the disco bandwagon then. As they say, the more things change . . .

And as for Rosen's remarks: Could it be she and her ilk are coercing so-called "artists" to withhold any and all creative endeavors until such time as their "Communist-Bolshevik Digital Television Politburo Act" were to pass and be enacted?

This is quite possibly the best post I've ever read by W-B. ...and I've been reading his stuff for over 4 weeks.

Very well said.

very nice read

isn't there something we can do to stop this other than comment on dave's nice article??

umm files sharing is not a crime... how do they expect us to get our files... make the magically appear!!! dang!!!

hehe, i think from now on nobody should be able to play music for someone else, cause that's like stealing from them. if anybody wants to play the guitar or hum a song, everybody else in the room has to plug their ears or else they get sued. sound fair eh?

Actually, no. Everyone in the room listening to you play the guitar has to pay a tax to make up for the CD's they are not buying as a result of listening to live music. Follows the model.

hahaha

**gets arrested playing that new Nas single out loud where everyone near me can hear it and doesn't have to buy the song or album since they heard it already from me DON'T THROW ME IN THERE WIT BIG BUBBA.. PLEEEEEEASE!!

"Tax dollars could and should cure all this."

Yep, just like it's 'cured' all other aspects of our lives. TAXATION is real theft -- not file sharing.

Isn't it ironic that Hilary & the RIAA want the guns of government to steal from us even more while accusing us of being thieves?

Okay, what's this bullshit? Taxation w/o representation was one of the reasons the founding fathers started this whole country. Where is the representation? I'm not represented in any of these stupid ass meetings, I can assure you. I wonder if there could be a "union" of consumers?
Where the f*** is Ralph Nader when you need him? Oh yeah, he's hugging trees.. sorry. I have to ask.. does anyone know what the nugget of causation was that started this whole thing? I mean, there's ALWAYS a specific point in time.. where someone says "I think....." and starts to f*** things up.
I thought taxes were supposed to be used for things like SS, healthcare, defense and stuff like that.. things that really benefit the nation as a whole. Never did I realise that taxation would be used as a way to subsidize a major _private_ (read not government) corporation. I'd actually be trying at least to understand if it WAS a gov't thing, but it's not. It's a few companies that are privately held, and using my tax dollars to pay them back because *I* don't want to put up with their bullshit is just... well.. wrong.
btw.. great article. Thanks as always for the eye openers....

That's the same question I was gonna' ask: where's Nader? And also, where's Rick Boucher and/or Chris Cannon, whose proposed MOCA was essentially killed off by the same forces pushing (forcing, actually) CBDTPA (also available in a House version) down everyone's throats?

no taxation without representation. if they are to tas us, I want to physically see what we are being taxed for. "Protection of their Music" what a load of shiz. If i was an artist i would want people to cheat the system to get my music, I could careless as long as people liked my music and listened to it let them download share, and steal it. Im all up for sharing of music. Hell make one CD and pass it around the world like a massive chain email and let everyone rip mp3s off it. Oh well RIAA is another branch off of goverment offcials and goverment is hell, anarchy should be carried out on all the mindless twits.

I agree with that last statement completely. When I make a cd, I want everyone to hear it, make copies, give them to everyone they know. It's exposure. I could care less how it's done. And truthfully, it's all dependant on demand anyway. If enough people were interested, of course I'd start selling albums, at about $5 a piece. Because it only costs me about $2.50 for the entire production. I feel very sorry for people who have become locked into unwieldy contracts with these industries. The deck is stacked against them from the beginning. But I suppose I shouldn't worry too much. Consumers will always find ways around stupid regulations, and someday we'll all get to see this dated dinosaur of a business model choke on it's own excesses. And I too wish Nader was involved with this. But anyone who knows his history knows that he's so much of a threat to modern political corruption that he is all but shut out of everything going on.