Fanlib and RIAA

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Ok, so it's been discovered that Fanlib has connections with the RIAA.

I ask the questions on behalf of all the little Fanlib users to delusioned by the validation of TPTB to actually research and think.

Who exactly is the RIAA?

Why does Fanlib's connection with them matter?

Comments

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the RIAA?

[lavenderfrost.livejournal.com]

RIAA = Recording Industry Association Of America.

Basically? Record companies. The great multi-corporate monster that's been trying to crack down on mp3's and file sharing since the dawn of Napster. They have no qualms about targetting people who can't afford lawyers to take their cases - even college students.

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

Can you give us some sources? Please know that I'm not trying to cast doubts... I have no plans on ever, EVER posting anything on FanLib... I just want to be fully informed.

What do you think the RIAA is planning? How would fanfic have anything to do with them? Or do you think they're trying to track down vidders for unauthorized use of songs?

Man, I'm really regretting that I even made the decision to namesquat over there... although it's not as if TPTB couldn't track me down, anyway.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

Beyond what folks have said above, the fact that FanLib's fandom-taming services were engaged by a big media company that's set up a fan site headed by the former president of the RIAA suggests that they're misleading us, at best, with their claims of championing fanfic and their assurances that the entertainment companies are "coming around." Which their TOS demonstrates, as angiepen laid out so well.

In the U.S., the explicit purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity and innovation by allowing creators to profit exclusively from their work for a limited period of time, after which anyone is free to incorporate it into new forms (after the copyright expires, the work is considered "public domain"). The founders thought it important enough that it's written into the U.S. constitution.

There are certain exceptions to the grant of monopoly, though, one of which is traditionally called Fair Use. It broadly, but apparently without much case-law to contextualize it, covers the not-for-profit use/distribution of copyrighted material.

The RIAA has led the well-funded and ongoing attack by big media on Fair Use on a huge number of fronts, many of them legislative, in the U.S. They've succeeded in almost every case in hamstringing new technology and establishing case-law in their favor and at the consumer's expense.

They are also pursuing additional "copy protection" licensing restrictions in the EU. Hilary Rosen, who led the RIAA for over a decade and who is now the president of the CBS/Showtime fan site OurChart.org, is also a founder of the consultancy BermanRosen LLC (I am purposely not linking), "a universally recognized leader in the expansion of international markets for recorded music and in successfully incorporating copyright enforcement into trade agreements."

And yeah, the RIAA is famous for suing grandmothers and college students, and lately they've even pioneered the idea of the pre-emptive money-grab. Their lawyers send out a bunch of threatening letters to individuals and direct the recipients to a website where they can agree to pay a hefty fine rather than going to court, which basically relieves the big media corporations of actually proving each case.

The RIAA is one of the reasons why, in the U.S., the issue known as Net Neutrality (http://mydd.com/story/2006/4/20/161813/254) is so important.

Disclaimer: I'm neither an intellectual property lawyer nor a communications scholar. Good sources for a basic understanding of these issues are:

• Copyfight (http://copyfight.corante.com/)
  
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/)
  
• Lawrence Lessig's blog (http://www.lessig.org/blog/) (He's both a lawyer and a scholar (Stanford U.) and the originator of the Creative Commons licensing system) and
  
• Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/), above noted.

More teal deer; sorry, but it's indicative of the part we play, whether we know it or not, in the fight over Fair Use and electronic access and distribution.

[meoinya.livejournal.com]

It might be a good idea to post, somewhere easily accessible, a complete description and explanation of 'Fair Use'.

Sounds like this might be the start of a media crackdown where the fans are going to need to know, and use, that term.