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Reviewers hate the RIAA
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 17th January 2008
Review copies of Steve Lukather's latest album are known to be infected with the voice-overs.
Like the film equivalent the MPAA, the RIAA is concerned about pre-release copies of popular albums being made available before the official commercial launch by naughty reviewer types. It's a fair point: fans will likely download the leaked copy simply to get a head-start on enjoying the music, and a fair few will probably think twice about then paying good money for something they already own.
Rather than trusting the reviewers---the people who are basically advertising the product to the masses and ensuring people will bother to buy it at all, piracy or no piracy---the RIAA has come up with what must be the most hair-brained scheme in the history of piracy: voice overs.
Anyone who has seen a pre-release 'screener' of a major film will be familiar with the scrolling text that crops up at varying points of the film, warning you that if you're watching this and you're not a reviewer then you're killing Jesus' puppy (or something). The RIAA decided that these were a good idea, and set about inserting a similar concept into pre-release music.
But how to replicate the non-intrusive scrolly text in a purely auditory environment? Meh, why bother: they'll put up with the music fading out occasionally to be replaced with a voice---for some reason with an Italian accent---telling you how naughty it would be to steal the broken copy they've provided you with.
Many reviewers are up in arms about such an intrusive system of basically telling them they're criminal scum who are not to be trusted, and at least one is making his feelings known in a very public way. TheSpunkyLobster, a contributor to music site Komodo Rock, has published a review of one such album featuring this 'protection' that is extremely scathing of the 'technology'.
Describing the CD as “an album that can best be described as perhaps the Mona Lisa after a two year old covered in chocolate has crawled all over it”, the reviewer claims that the extremely low score of 22 percent is due to the fact that “as a reviewer I have to review what is put in front of me, what my ears hear, [not] what I want them to hear.”
So, it looks like it's another own-goal for the RIAA. Way to go, guys.
Are you a music reviewer hit by these wonderful new CDs, or should the reviewers just suck it up and pay the price for listening to pre-release music for free? Let us know your thoughts over in the forums.
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Comments (24)
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As said before -- nothing we need to do anymore -- just sit back and let them kill themselves! :)
that or something similar must have gone through the riaa's distorted minds when they came up with that complete bs idea.
You are kidding right ?
"itsa me mario!!!!!"
The reviewers needs to review music, thats their job, if they refuse to review music because it's got Italian voice overs then the publication (whether website or magazine) will find other reviewers who will review the music because they need the reviews to sell. I'm sure that most reviewers will scream, cry and shout and then 99% of them will continue to review what ever the music industry sends them. One thing is for sure, music with voice overs will be a lot less attractive to pirate than movies with a bit of scrolling text.
So all in all, however much we hate the RIAA this might not be the dumbest thing they have done to date, from a "stop the piracy"-point of view.
lol i agree. What are they thinking? ... but we dont know what kind of pressures are coming from distributors to have the problem 'fixed'. The RIAA are probably scrambling around like a bunch of pikeys fighting for a new caravan to find something to enforce to show the world that it is doing something. All in all i find it quite ammusing to see what they are going to do next.
peace
Well now i want to pirate this album, just to hear the Italien voiceover :D
This RIAA scheme is a new high in low.
Blaming every stupid thing any record label does on the evil ol' RIAA is dubious anyway. The RIAA is a lobbying organization, not a governing body. But when the label in question is not, and cannot be, an RIAA member, it's just plain idiotic.
And I might point out that the reviewer linked to in this article did not make this error and doesn't even mention the RIAA. Sometimes it's better to find out what you're talking about.
Not that pointing this out will make the slightest difference, of course.
:(
If a studio wants to add protection to a review album, I don't have a problem with that.
-monkey
Though I will go against what you say about lobbying - the RIAA is a lobbying body, but it is also the key governing body of the industry. It started out its life much like JEDIC - it devised technical standards for recording methods and frequencies. Then it expanded...and more... and more...
EDIT:
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=aboutus_members
Nope, not a member in proper sense. However, worth noting that the RIAA is the 'managing body' for the collection of royalty fees for foreign labels in the US. But I wonder how that works if the label were to choose not to be a part of it?
The labels may decide -- as they have in the case of the P2P lawsuits -- to voluntarily and as a group (or a mob) follow through with RIAA recommendations in certain areas, but they are not required to do anything the RIAA says, or even to fund it. If the four majors stopped paying for it, it would go away tomorrow. An organization in which membership is voluntary, which exists only at its members' pleasure, and -- the biggest factor -- which has no enforcement authority is not a governing body. All it could do to a recalcitrant member is throw it out. And that label would, as many labels do, go cheerfully on producing and selling records without the RIAA imprimatur.
With regard to this issue, the RIAA has no stated policy on DRM or watermarking or just messing with music, and it couldn't enforce it if it did (as the labels' attempts at DRM on CDs, which have ranged from nonexistent to the rootkit fiasco, should show). DRM is a business decision at the label level -- and right at the moment, they're backing away from it, rather than stepping it up.
This item is, quite simply, based on a mistaken premise.
It's a simple yet effective solution.