Killing music? Really?

As a musician's union member, I am quite concerned about the music industry's recent endeavours towards a police state, in the hope that this is a magic pill for all their woes. I really thought it would go nowhere, but it seems that they are actually being fairly successful in wooing government into creating a bigger stick. Something needs to change.. so, the question is what?

Killing Music

For a quick run down on recent idiocy..

Lily Allen who is publicly declaring copyright infringers evil, happened by accident to copy and paste a journalist's work into her rant, without a polite credit or link to his work. The said journalist was not too happy.. Oh.. the irony, of publicly decrying breach of copyright, while actually doing it in the same fucking post..
Lily Allen, Don't Apologize To Me, Apologize To Everyone Else | Techdirt

Heres a telegraph commentary of the whole saga.. She has now abondoned her uninformed war luckily..
Lily Allen drops fight against filesharing after Techdirt spat - Telegraph

That seems insane and maybe a one off, but I came across another muso big wig today, Mark Ronson decrying the same thing on his blog, while having at the same moment on his home page a copy right stolen video! These idiots, don't even know they are copying.. it's totally insane.. They are just spouting what they are told..

It's humorous, however they don't actually care about the artist or the consumer at all. They simply seek to control and profit from the market. They will do whatever they want to maintain their dominant position in the market even if it makes the rest of us suffer.

I thought that this was interesting as well:




Sony seeks musician domain names for life - CNET News

"A controversial provision in Sony Music contracts is effectively asking artists to sign away control of their official Web sites for life. Sony Music has added language to its standard contracts that gives the company ownership over an artist's name--as well as any variation of it--for use as a domain name. Moreover, the clause is written as a lifetime provision that would apply even if the artist and Sony part ways.
"Sony and its licensees shall have the exclusive right, throughout the world, and shall have the exclusive right to authorize other persons, to create, maintain, and host any and all Web sites relating to the artist and to register and use the name '[artist name].com' and any variations thereof which embody the artist's name as Uniform Resource Locators (or 'URLs'), addresses, or domain names for each Web site created by Sony in respect of the artist," according to a copy of a Sony Music contract obtained by CNET News.com.
In addition, the contract states: "All such Web sites and all rights thereto and derived therefrom shall be Sony's property throughout the territory and in perpetuity."
A Sony Music spokeswoman said the company does not comment on artist contracts.
The unusual clause runs counter to recent high-profile deals indicating that the "Big Five" record companies--Sony Music, Universal Music, BMG, Warner Music, and EMI--are beginning to embrace the openness of the Internet and relative freedoms the medium accords their artists. The contract appears to reflect a fear at Sony that it may lose control over its artists through the Web, according to lawyers and managers. ..."

Sony has the most amazing reputation for introducing the worst ideas imaginable at the worst moment imaginable... these were the jokers who tried to smuggle a "rootkit" copy protection scheme without informing the user...

"On Oct. 31, Mark Russinovich broke the story in his blog: Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers. This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent -- if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it.
The Sony code modifies Windows so you can't tell it's there, a process called "cloaking" in the hacker world. It acts as spyware, surreptitiously sending information about you to Sony. And it can't be removed; trying to get rid of it damages Windows."

They have a corporate cultural genius for alienating EVERYBODY...