Indie Music Trade Group A2IM Offers Different View Of Anti-SOPA Protests
It's not just the RIAA and big music companies that support SOPA. In another example of the divisions within the music and media industries over proposed anti-piracy legislation and today's anti-SOPA protests, the American Association Of Independent Music (A2IM) today offered this statement:
"Today a number of websites are shutting down in protest of proposed anti-piracy legislation. They are taking a unilateral action to make their content unavailable. However, under current law, A2IM members whose copyrights are infringed upon cannot take similar action. Our independent labels and their artists have no practical way of taking down illegal links to their music from rogue foreign websites accessed via U.S. search engines.
We urge these search engines to support U.S. content creators by working toward anti-piracy legislation acceptable to all. Let's have a debate that genuinely acknowledges that the voices within our joint communities are deep, broad and diverse and let's all agree that doing nothing is not an option.
The media has portrayed the issue as that of two giant industries (movies & music and technology) in conflict, as though this was a battle solely between very rich businesses. In fact, our members are small and medium sized independent businesses that invest in the creation of music and whose very existence is being threatened by the availability of illegal content online. We look forward to solution-oriented discussions among all parties."
“Our independent labels and their artists have no practical way of taking down illegal links to their music from rogue foreign websites accessed via U.S. search engines.”
What about the DMCA? They can easily request content be removed by simply sending a DMCA notice.
If you think DMCA is practical you clearly have never done it. You must manually submit for every infringing use. I represent a catalog of over 10,000 songs. I have to browse the web for 10,000 songs and almost a thousand records and submit take downs for every link. Thats every time its reposted which is hundreds of times per track/album on mediafire alone. There are over 100 “mediafire-esk” sites let along torrents and other sites that DONT take down files (which is what SOPA is in reference to, FOREIGN sites not covered by DMCA).
Its IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to manage file sharing with DMCA which is why sites like Grooveshark can continue to exist.
Precisely! The DMCA is a weapon against indie labels and artists more than it is an effective tool to takedown unlicensed content. BTW – keep in mind that all the same voices opposed to SOPA/PIPA today were equally up in arms when the DMCA was being written/passed.
DMCA is a US law. Many other countries have enacted similar legislation, but DMCA does not cover sites ex-US.
Heck we know of Indie artists are having a harding time figuring out how their songs got on itunes and who is getting paid if activity is happening. #justsayin
don’t you think the indie music industry would be adversely affected by this bill. Many small artists use the internet to promote themselves, piracy is a big problem but I don’t think the new bill will fix that.
Sounds like objective thinking to me. SOPA may be too heavy handed in its current form, but at least the issue is now center stage.