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RIAA listens to Negativland, changes the rules



>From the SonicNet "music news of the world" website today
(http://www.addict.com/MNOTW/hifi/) comes this interesting article on the
Negativland/RIAA dispute. Since reprinting the entire article here would be
violating Addicted to Noise copyrights, I'll just use some excerpts. :-)

The whole article should be available at this link:

http://rl.sonicnet.com/news/article3.jhtml;$sessionid$VKFA1CYAABS23UID1AKCFE
Q?index=1

(hopefully this won't start the whole debate all over again. :-)

*********************************************
 09/02/98 03:09 
   SonicNet Music News reports: In a surprising response to a furor raised
by underground collage band Negativland, the group's fans and its
supporters, the Recording Industry Association of America announced on
Tuesday that it had agreed to amend its CD Plant Guidelines to account for
the existence of "fair use" material on CDs. 

[snip]

 The decision to amend the plant guidelines was an about-face for the
R.I.A.A., which had previously criticized Negativland for questioning the
original guidelines. 

[snip]

 "Unfortunately, Negativland, and many of you, believe that our CD Plant
Good Business Practices -- formalized earlier this year into specific
guidelines for CD plants to recognize pirated product -- has had the
unintended effect of prejudicing the group's ability to get their album
pressed," the release continued. 

 "As an organization that has worked tirelessly to protect freedom of
expression, we are gravely concerned about this perception. Our objective 
in
issuing the CD Plant Guidelines has been to stop piracy, not artistic
expression. Accordingly, the R.I.A.A. has amended its CD Plant Guidelines 
in
response to your concerns." 

 As a result, for the first time in nearly a month, Negativland's co-leader
Mark Hosler had nothing negative to say about the R.I.A.A. "I'm amazed. 
It's
a really incredible thing," Hosler said Tuesday night of the memo, issued
after the music industry trade organization received an unspecified amount
of e-mail and letters from irate Negativland fans.

[snip]

 "This is really the first time they've acknowledged that 'fair use' is a
gray area in the copyright law," said a giddy Hosler in response to the
R.I.A.A. amendment. Negativland have long professed their belief that their
collage-like appropriation of copyright-protected material is covered under
a 'fair use' provision of copyright law that protects their 
"transformative"
works of art.

 "The fact that an organization that represents the major labels is coming
out and saying it's not a black-and-white issue, as far as Negativland is
concerned, is unprecedented," added Hosler. 

 According to the amended R.I.A.A. guidelines, "some recordings presented
for manufacture may contain -- as part of an artist's work -- identifiable
'samples' or small pieces of other artists' well-known songs. In some
instances, this sampling may qualify as 'fair use' under copyright law, and
in other instances, it may constitute copyright infringement. There are no
hard and fast rules in this area and judgments on both 'fair use' and
indemnification must be made on a case-by-case basis."

[snip]

******************************************
________________________________________________________
Kim Flint, MTS                 408-752-9284
Chromatic Research             kflint@chromatic.com
http://www.chromatic.com