Take that Hilary!!

[allenb1963]

According to this article in The Register the RIAA has for 2 years been supressing figures which EXPLAIN the drop in sales that are so zealously blamed on the P2P industry.

Research by George Zieman gives the true reason for falling CD sales: the major labels have slashed production by 25 per cent in the past two years, he argues.

Increasingly hysterical comments from RIAA chairperson and chief random-number-generator Hilary Rosen suggest that many billions of potential sales have been lost.

So why isn't the RIAA trumpeting this affirmation in music sales, and something of a renaissance in its business efficiency?

Perhaps because the RIAA's version of the truth doesn't fit with the facts. Zieman points out that only 3,000 sales of each of the missing 12,000 titles would have been enough to see overall growth continue to grow.

I have to say I agree with the authors summation that the RIAA is doing an excellent job of imploding on its own, without any help from us. However, I prefer to err on the side of caution, so I'll still do anything I can to help make the RIAA go away.

[Mahakaal]

Hehe, now the RIAA is going after gas-stations, convenience and grocery stores, and small record stores.

[JP]

Greetings All:

Personally, I think that the RIAA and Trent Lott should join forces to open up a public relations company. They both do such a good job at getting people to love them....

[DennyL]

I think I have found the reason for sagging CD sales. After going shopping for CD's for my 13 year ols daughter I have found you cannot buy any CD's that are not explict versions. I personally don't like rap music but then my parents didn't like Styx, so I am willing to live with it, but I will not buy my kids music with the kind of lyrics that are in the CD's. I went looking for some thinking there would have to be an edited version, but to my surprise Best Buy, Target all of them ony sell the explict version's of the albums. I understand the artists wanting to express their views and thats great, but the record company should understand that parents buy alot of the Cd's for their kids.

[|The|Specialist]

Actually censoreship is a problem where I live because many stores here will refuse to sell CDs without changing the cover or some lirics. All the stores sell now are small pop labels and movie soundtracks that my female friends will listen to and then get bored with in about a week.

About music/piracy, the way I see it is....
They have no right to sell other peaples' work but at the same time nobody should have the right to tell others what they are supposed to do with something that they already have legally bought and owned.

I see all of this as just a more modern day version of 60z movements
c'mon its silly.....

You have to buy the CDs before you burn them right?
If you gave a friend something that you bought should you all be sued?

[redthefed]

<soapbox>

In my opinion, censorship is a controlling tool of The Man. Just because a bunch of rich people a long time ago said that a certain combination of letters were bad. Now the mass media is completely obsessed with protecting the innocent children from evil words. Madonna's new video, Die Another Day, shows a woman killing another with a crossbow, yet the same channel (MTV) edits words like 'pills'. The Corporations are taking control of what should be a parents responsibility, and because of it, parents will buy any cd, movie, or game for their kids because they believe The System has desensitized it for them. If you are a parent, please, PLEASE know what your children are seeing/hearing/doing. I do not believe in ratings, they do not work. After all, one of the goriest, (though coolest) movies I've seen in a while, Starship Troopers, was rated PG-13.

</soapbox>

[Terr]

And don't forget some more extremely weird number crunching... I'm feeling happy that the founding incompetence is now rising to the forefront