RIAA Denies Hypocrisy in Royalties Dustup

Hairless ape writes "The RIAA is reacting to a story pointing out the group's hypocrisy in its attempts to have songwriter royalties lowered. The issue stems from attempts to get webcasters to pay fixed royalty rates. 'In short, the contention was that the RIAA wanted to pay a percentage of its revenue to songwriters as its profits have fallen, but pushed for a fixed per-stream when it came to earning money from webcasters.' The RIAA says that's not so, and that SoundExchange offered a similar model to webcasters. Either way, the rates sought by the two groups would have bankrupted many webcasters. 'Now you know; it wasn't about hypocrisy, but one of the seven deadly sins may still have been involved.'"

Presumably one of the Vatican's new deadly sins

Polluting of the environment, genetic modification, carrying out experiments on humans, causing social injustice, causing poverty, becoming obscenely wealthy and taking drugs all constitute mortal sins, according to Girotti.

Vatican dusts down deadly sin list [businessgreen.com]

Actually at least six of these new seven deadly sins apply to the RIAA, starting with "polluting the environment".

Re:

Actually at least six of these new seven deadly sins apply to the RIAA, starting with "polluting the environment".

A little off topic, but why am I suddenly reminded of all those AOL CD's? :P

Payola?

Sounds like Payola all over. Maybe we'll get Eliot Spitzer to prosecute RIAA again ... Oh, wait!

Re:Payola?

Maybe we'll get Eliot Spitzer to prosecute RIAA again

He's too busy working up his bid to run for president.

Hey! It worked for Bill.

Re:Payola?

That was captured in "Oh, wait!"

I thought there was 14 now?

Perhaps the new deadly sin of "excessive wealth" would cover this as well.

News?

Unscrupulous organization denies blatant hypocrisy. Details at 11.

Re:

Oh, it's newsworthy. How else are people supposed to know that this unscrupulous organization exists and to steer clear of it if we don't hear about it every day?

At least it is legal

Even if it isn't fair - at least it is legal. The RIAA sometimes has problems with that, too.

Why the painfully inane comments today?

I came into this thread with 10 shiny new mod points hoping to find someone insightful, but found not a single comment in the entire thread worth promotion. What's happened to slashdot? A story on a hot subject, and I see nothing but off-topic trolls and insipid banter about deadly sins taken out of context from the description at the top of the page. Not a single comment on the actual article.

Anyway, the RIAA's attempt to dodge the charge of hypocrisy is equally lame. First the new deal gives ridiculous profit to SoundExchange (30% of gross). And even though they do have a 'plan' to share with artists (an inequitable one, albeit), the lack of expediency is directly adding to the profit of the RIAA through this process. The artists are clearly an afterthought. The RIAA can't come close to hiding their real motivation: profit for its members at all costs, regardless of artists rights/needs.

Re:Why the painfully inane comments today?

If you outlaw copyrighted webcasting by making it cost prohibitive, only outlaws who don't care about cost prohibitive copyrighted webcasting will webcast.

Re:Why the painfully inane comments today?

I see nothing but off-topic trolls and insipid banter about deadly sins taken out of context from the description at the top of the page. Not a single comment on the actual article.

I hate to say this since you have a lower UID than I do but, You must be new here.

Seven

1. Envy- of the artists and their fame.
2. Greed- self explanatory.
3. Gluttony- eating and boozing it up with all that cash from those royalties.
4. Lust- for control and power over the music industry.
5. Pride- in their "holier than thou" facade as guardians of truth and justice.
6. Rage- hm, I guess that one is just reserved for everyone who hates the living hell out of the RIAA.

Re:Seven

What? No Sloth? (you lazy bastard)

Re:

I think he is referring to - gluttony.

Re:

I would think greed would be more fitting. Glutteny has to do with overconsuming food and drink.

Re:

True.. but gluttony fits there "smorgashboard-all-you-can-eat" mentality when it comes to ways of skimming off the top.....

Re:

I think slashdot needs a new positive (+1) rating.. Pedantic. Because.. here, it really is raised to an artform. :)

Re:

Stupidity, alas, is too often a virtue, and not a sin.

Re:Fourteen deadly sins

Hear me! Oh, Hear me! All pay heed! The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen (crash)...Oy! ten-- ten commandments, for all to obey!

Re:

#1, genetic modification. We will jail all who grow roses and all who have fruit orchards?
#2, human experimentation. What's wrong with medical research, psychological research, etc.?
#3, #4, #5 need definition
#6, punish success and all suffer
#7, only the

Re:

So, let's see. The RIAA is certainly guilty of the new 4, 5, and 6

Nothing new here... just because these sins were just recently listed didn't mean that the riaa execs weren't going to hell anyway: They were accusing innocents of "stealing" their "property

Re:Fourteen deadly sins

In that case everyone's going to hell!

Well, that's the whole point, isn't it? No one is without sin, so everyone must ask for God's forgiveness. Vendor lock-in.

I wonder if the alcohol that Christ made out of water counts as drugs or not? If not, I'd like to hear why alcohol is not a drug.

Re:

Because it's legal and the government gets their cut?

Re:

Ayn Rand was a hack and a plagiarist.
The whole idea of atlas shrugged was taken from the idea of using guilt as leverage in religion. Here's an oft quoted part changed to fit a religious context:

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power the Ch