Q&A with the RIANZ CEO Campbell Smith

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freitasm

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#30765 20-Feb-2009 14:14

Hello folks... Seeing there's a healthy discussion going on about the upcoming S92a of the New Zealand Copyright Act and its possible impact in our everyday life I though it would be good to have the word from the RIANZ (Recording Industry Association of New Zealand).

As usual, please post your questions in this thread or send to me in private and I will forward these to RIANZ next Wednesday 25th February.

Here's an introduction for our guest Campbell Smith, one of the most experienced international music business practitioners working from New Zealand in the artist management field, a leading entertainment law specialist, a promoter and the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand.

Campbell has a wide network of close contacts within the international music business developed through a fifteen year career guiding some of the country’s most successful artists including Bic Runga, Scribe and Brooke Fraser to local and international success. His artists’ local achievements in this period include three APRA Silver Scrolls and more than twenty Tui Awards. Internationally, Bic Runga has seen chart and critical success in the UK, Ireland, Europe and Japan, while Scribe has dominated the Australian charts with his Platinum debut album and in recent times Brooke Fraser has received a Gold Album in Australia and featured in the Top10 of the Itunes chart in the USA and the Billboard Hot 100.

As the CEO of RIANZ since 2005, Campbell has worked to protect and enhance the rights of recording artists and labels in New Zealand as well as overseeing the annual New Zealand Music Awards. And as the concert promoter responsible for the Auckland Big Day Out since 2004, Campbell has hosted the country’s largest annual new music festival.

The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand Inc (RIANZ) is a non-profit organisation representing major and independent record producers, distributors and recording artists throughout New Zealand.

RIANZ works to protect the rights and interests of a broad spectrum of creative people involved in the New Zealand recording industry, currently with 60 full and affiliate members.

RIANZ is the New Zealand International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) national agency, and allocates the Country and registrant codes to members for encoding on all audio and audio-visual recordings, as a method of identification.

UPDATE: I have now posted Campbell's answers.

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#196927 20-Feb-2009 14:33

Why is a performance licence is required for a business areas to have the radio playing in the background ?

What percentage of the royalties collected by the PPNZ is returned to the artists ?

(edit: removed ranting and toned it down a little. Sorry - got carried away)

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mushion22

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#196934 20-Feb-2009 15:11

What efforts are RIANZ putting into making it easier for people to purchase content legally, eg through online stores?

In your view, what are the main causes of piracy in New Zealand?

RIANZ and other copyright holder organisations appear to have taken the position that ISP customer disconnections after infringment notice issuance is the appropriate interpreation of what S92A requires in terms of a "reasonably implemented" policy for disconnection. This interpretation is similar to requirements of the law in the USA and Australia.

What is the basis for this interpretation (ie, NZ piracy behavioural patterns, availability of alternatives to piracy, cultural factors, legal and ethical principles, impacts, laws in other countries)? Please be as specific as possible as to the factors that have lead to the RIANZ asserting that this approach to S92A is correct and appropriate for New Zealand.

What action will RIANZ take if ISPs do not adopt a policy that involves their users being disconnected upon receipt of infringement notices?

Do you believe the infringement notice generation mechanisms are reliable enough to be accepted by a court?

What alternatives has RIANZ considered other than S92A and the Code of Conduct negotiated with the TCF?

Do you believe that S92A and the proposed Code of Conduct will significantly reduce the amount of piracy in New Zealand in the long term? Please take into account the mechanisms users can use to circumvent infringement detection.

richgamer

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#196939 20-Feb-2009 15:24

to rianz ceo,

what i don't understand is why is rianz supporting s92a of the new zealand copyright act when internet connections will be terminated without knowing who actually downloaded the copyright material, because net connections will be terminated by ip address.
here is an example campbell. i come to your house and you let me use your computer, i go onto the internet and downloaed copyrighted material, your isp receives an accussation from a copyright holder saying you downloaded copyrighted material, so your internet connection is terminated, even though i downloaded the illegal material using your computer.
ip addresses can tell what computer it is, but it can't tell who was actually using that computer.
another example. if someone breaks into your house, uses your computer to download illegal copyrighted material, your net connection will be terminated even though it wasn't you on your computer, but there'd be no way to prove who was using your computer.
what the act should say is 'internet connections will be terminated if it can be proven the person paying the net bill downloaded illegal copyrighted material or if the bill payer knowingly lets another person use his/her net connection for illegal copyrighted downloading and ip addresses cannot be used as proof because an ip address is not a human'.

mushion22

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#196946 20-Feb-2009 15:59

richgamer:
to rianz ceo,

what i don't understand is why is rianz supporting s92a of the new zealand copyright act when internet connections will be terminated without knowing who actually downloaded the copyright material, because net c......

Using proper english and punctuation will probably get you a better response. Having a rant with bad language will not get far.
S92A does not specify anything about infringement notices. Focus on the interpretation and proposed implementation and whether or not this is right/wrong.

PDAMan

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#196951 20-Feb-2009 16:13

According to the IFPI 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal. If this Act is enforced, all ISP's would be left with 5% of their customer base and ISP's would cease eo exist, this includes Vodafone and Telecom who supply modems for people to access the net on their networks.

I am all for artists, performers and songwriters (like myself) to be fairly recompensed for our work. The fact that the industry is changing and CD sales volumes are down is causing a lot of pain to the music industry and while some people say they are greedy, they also incur many losses for taking risks on up and coming artists who come and go or don't come at all, if you get what I mean.

There is no doubt that a solution is necessary because people in the music and entertainment industry still have to make a living and are entitled to a return on their investment. To me a performer, songwriter, composer etc have worked long and hard in an industry that only pays the stars well. A large percentage of the names that RIANZ counts as its members, who are considered highly successful, still have to have day jobs in order to pay their bills. It costs a fortune for a musician to have the instruments, PA Systems and other gear in order to play their music and a life time of learning and practice to hone their craft. When people download their IP (you folk in the software industry must appreciate this, even when you support Open Source, which is paralleled in the music industry, you still need to make a living) they are in fact stealing from them, unless the music was offered free of charge, which lots of artists including myself often do in order to generate a potential market for live performance or to sell songs in my case for other artists to perform and record.

There is certainly a problem here and we need a solution which is NOT S92,

APRA, AMCOS and BMI amongst others last year appealed to the ISP's to charge a nominal amount to every Internet user which would go into the pot for dsitribution in the same way that RIANZ, APRA etc collect for artists, songwriters etc. This appeared to fall on deaf ears, but in my opinion would have been a fair and equitable solution and wouldn't make criminals out of 95% of the population. This request appeared to fall on deaf ears and we are now left with S92 and equivalent acts around the world.

Over the weekend, have a think about the music you have on your iPod, iPhone, MP3 device etc and enjoy listening to, that you didn't pay for. Listen to the music and try to identify all the players in the band, the instruments they play, the recording studio, the sound engineers, the production people and all the other costs involved in creating a 2 minute 43 second track. Not to mention all the years of training and practice, all the songs that got rejected before they came up with the hit and the songwriter who came up with the concept and created it, just for you to take it for nothing. If you enjoy it so much, maybe you could give them a couple of dollars on iTunes or one of the other legal download sites. Some artists will let you pay them a donation with PayPal.

Or maybe we could all just pay an extra dollar a week, to our ISP to Share between RIANZ and APRA. Nice and clean. Where would we be without quality music?

Luigi
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Talkiet

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#196955 20-Feb-2009 16:26

PDAMan: According to the IFPI 95% of music downloads in 2008 were illegal. If this Act is enforced, all ISP's would be left with 5% of their customer base and ISP's would cease eo exist, this includes Vodafone and Telecom who supply modems for people to access the net on their networks.

Wrong. For a start, I dispute 95% as a metric, and secondly, I dispute that whatever the percentage, it is divided evenly across all users. You may find (for example) that 80% of downloaded music is illegally downloaded, but that 15% of internet users are responsible for this... I made up those numbers, but it's illogical to assume that all Internet Users are exactly homogenous.

APRA, AMCOS and BMI amongst others last year appealed to the ISP's to charge a nominal amount to every Internet user which would go into the pot for dsitribution in the same way that RIANZ, APRA etc collect for artists, songwriters etc. This appeared to fall on deaf ears, but in my opinion would have been a fair and equitable solution and wouldn't make criminals out of 95% of the population. This request appeared to fall on deaf ears and we are now left with S92 and equivalent acts around the world.

Terrible idea... That would be equivalent to a tax - like the govt charging taxes to maintain essential services like health and roading.

EXCEPT that it would be a tax forced on all Internet users (including those who don't engage in copyright infringement), to recompense private companies for alleged lost revenue.

Explain why the innocent users should be subsidising the copyright infringers please.

Cheers - Neil G

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#196956 20-Feb-2009 16:27

unless the music was offered free of charge, which lots of artists including myself often do in order to generate a potential market for live performance or to sell songs in my case for other artists to perform and record.

My question is:

There are artists who have explicitly encouraged the sharing of recordings of their shows. The Grateful Dead, The White Stripes and Wilco are prime examples that I am aware of. How will you differentiate between downloading of this material and the downloading of "pirated" material?

I would welcome your thoughts on this article from the LA Times:
http://babellist.xnet2.com/0508/msg00052.html

And this offers some good ideas for the digital age (especially the second page):
http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/marketing/manners/112904.html?page=0%2C0

freitasm

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#196960 20-Feb-2009 16:34

Folks please keep this thread for questions only, not for discussion - not at least we have the answers posted.

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rossmnz

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#196963 20-Feb-2009 16:42

1. Why are the RIANZ insisting on cracking down on copyright infringers via section 92a, as a pose to giving them cheap,ready access to music online using existing methodology such as bitTorrent?

2. Does he have any teenage children? What would his reaction be if his internet connection was cut off as a result of their illegal downloading?

3. What methodology will the RIAA use to determine who exactly is a copyright infringer? Is he confident that it is foolproof?

I could think of several more insulting questions but at the end of the day he didnt draft the law. He does work for a pack of vultures, but he is just one guy doing his job to take home his (probably massive) salary.

Try and remember this guys, and keep the dialogue respectful and appropriate.

The force is strong with this one!

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#196966 20-Feb-2009 17:00

1) How does RIANZ detect copyright infringement before sending a notice to an ISP? What verification process if used?

2) How do you envisage an ISP will determine the merits of a copyright infringment accusation? What would be the process be normally?

3) RIANZ won't be the only company making accusations under s92, how can we prevent other rights holders from using section 92 malciously?

4) The USA's RIAA has made numerous false accusations, and cases that don't stand up in court - what assurances can you give that RIANZ's processes will not have the same error rates?

5) What's your take on remixing?

6) Do you fear the next generation will have very little or any for copyright as a result of being labelled criminals for activities like copying music videos to their ipods or remixing their favourite songs?

7) If numerous accusations from RIANZ are shown to be false, will you eat your hat?

pistolpower

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#196979 20-Feb-2009 17:41

Hello I am concerned about Section92a and was wondering what makes you think this is going to increase your sales and or have a positive impact on the reputation of the RIAA and their members. Because to me disconnecting your target audience from the internet is only going to alienate them and at the very least take their ability to download and buy music/movies etc from places like itunes?

At the moment you are currently not alowed to format shift things of cds onto pcs or mp3 players. However if doing this is just as illegal as file sharing then why would someone buy a cd if they where just going to be breaking the law considering that the options are pay to break the law or break the law without paying?

As you may or may not know the consumers are the ones who decide if they will buy stuff like music at any given price. And if your products are not good then you won't get sales. However in my opinion your products are no good, the dirstribution network is horible and the prices are unfair. I say this because if I buy a cd I can't put it on my pc, it costs alot for a cd that costs like $0.04 to make, they can have drm on them, sometimes they have spyware like the sony cds and normally they come in user unfriendly formats. And buying the cds digitally over the internet normally requires installation of software and comes with drm. Besides that the prices are rediculous as they can be digitaly reproduced billions of times for next to no cost. Because of this I do not buy your products. I like listening to the radio (online) though. Do you nopt think that these issues may play a huge role in why you don't sell more than you do? And what are you going to try and do to improve this?

The RIAA represents most of the major recording industys and calls themselfs a non-profit-organisation. The RIAA claims to stand up for right holders rights and claim that they are good and piracy is bad. However RIAA in america has been for a long time sueing poor college kids in america for silly ammounts of money that they will never be able to pay off. Now how can the RIAA and other anti-piracy groups justify recking peoples lifes and puting them in debt forever. However this does not seem like what the good guys would do. What is the RIAA view on this and do you plan to do the same things here?

Since reproducing music is free (except for cost of servers, power, cooling, staff, bandwidth room that the servers go in and the land the rooms on) and there is no supply limit other than what the RIAA members decide to put on music, why are prices of music so high?

And if I where to start a company and owned rights to stuff that I had a monopoly on and sold them for thousands times more than it costs me to produce them some may say it is price fixing. However if I where to start a organistation with all other people with similar products to me. And all the members of this group of mine sold their products for 1000s of times more than they cost to make. But at the same time their was no limit that stoped their being enough supply for everyone. Some may think that doing so would be price fixing. However since your music doesnt really seem to follow the laws of demmand and supply like most other buisnesses although you have no scarcity and very low cost. Could you please help me understand how the RIAA and members have not been pricefixing please? It would be apreciated thnx.

Why is their a need for this law. Because either piracy is a problem for you and everyones doing it or people do not like piracy and everyone buys your stuff. Since you lobied for it we must be at the point where most people dont care and pirate stuff anyways. But in new zealand we live in a democracy. And that means that the majority get what they want idealy. So if everyones pirating your stuff and not buying it then democracy means that they should get it. And if its your happiness over the majority then you are just being selfious trying to benefit at the expense of the majority of the people. And if the majority buy your stuff then you have nothing to gain from doing this. However if their was a need for this then it would go against what the majority of people want (being undemocratic) and would just be innevitable as you are outnumbered and you can not force people to buy your stuff. But this law means that you skip the justice system (yes the system of justice where justice is served in a fair, just and eqaul way) which just seems wrong. What makes you think you have the right to order someones internet to be disconnected on an proofless accusation (because you could be wrong, mistakes are made, the person doesnt get to deffend themselfs, and all we have is your word)? Why do we need this? How will this help us and not you? If you really wanted to help rightholders then why don't you give more money back on each sale of music instead of keeping the majority of it for yourselfs?

Do you plan to use extortion like practices and send out messages to people telling them that you have proof that they broke the law but you will forgive them if they pay a fee and they can keep their internet?

You say you support right owner's rights but so far you seem to have no respect or concern for my rights. Like my rights to (analogy ->) not be instantly labeled as a murderer and put into a private jail on an acusation made by a private jail. Because I have a right to a fair trial in a legal new zealand court wherbye the judge gives me a just trial and listens to both sides (requiring the prosecution to have evidence that stands up in court) before anyone can take any rights away from me or force me to do anything. But by lobbying for and geting a bill passed that circumvents our rights you essentailly go against your own motto of "we protect(ing) right holder's rights". So I was wondering whos rights are you protecting? Is it our rights, the rights of content makers, the rights of the distributors/publishers/directors (and other non-content making for profit groups) which are given to them when they (content makers)are forced to either sighn the contract and have a distributor or not sigh, not have a distributor, not get any sales, make no money?

What do you say to all the many content makers who say they dislike this law?

What do you say to all the high profile music makers who go on places like youtube and say just download my stuff, I got lots of money and I do not care, the riaa just rip me off and I get hardly any of the sales money so just donwload them?

Why is their no alternative to piracy offered by the RIAA that lets me listen to all the music I like. Because I would only buy so much music a year so why is their no shcemes where the more you buy the more the song prices decreases. So that the price could be based on the qauntity of songs you have goten over a certain period of time (like 1yr, 6mths or whatever). Because if I where to go buy 20 cds and fill your pockets with my cash, is it that unreasonable to say comeon give me some more music'; Because if I allready have given you lots of cash I would not consume anymore and therefore you have no sales to lose. And since you do not do this I can only see you as being excesively greedy and uncarring. Even if I where to give you all the money I have you would deprive me off stuff at no cost to you. So why is it that you do this?

You say youre against piracy but if you really are then why don't you do something and offer alternatives?

You work for rich companies who make money of selling these songs and not the artists. Is that correct?

If your against piracy why not eliminate the reasons why people are turning to piracy?

Why are you so oppoed to fines for wrongfull accusations under this new law, given that if you are confident in this new law you would have nothing to worry about as their would be no false accusations?

If you are worried about fines for wrongfull accusations under this new law due to a high number of wrongfully disconnected internet users then what have you got to say to the people who's internet you wrongfully got terminated?

If someone is disconnected for copyright infringement that must mean they broke the copyright law. But in order to break the copyright law you must have been trialed and found guilty. Does this mean that you will be sending bills to people for breaching copyright laws? Will you just skip courts and say their allready guilty?

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#197007 20-Feb-2009 19:22

Why does the record industry prevent us from downloading legal content from the likes of Amazon and iTunes?? I see way more music on US iTunes than I see on the NZ one??

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#197021 20-Feb-2009 20:27

I as a content creator do not agree to abide to the RIAA CoP, or the TCF CoP.

And if I happen to embed an image on a page which logs back to my server so I gather your IP address you happen to download then I will complaint to your ISP as your have illegally downloaded my copyright content.

I can see the above happening often, it may be happening as you read this....

This law allows for Cyber Bullying and jilted ex-lovers to make it personal and get people kicked off the net. Interesting to see how long it takes for the RIAA's IP Address and APRA's IP address to be published.

Since at the end of the day, anyone can fabricate logs, and you don't need to stand up in court and prove it and have no financial penality if you illegitmatly accuse someone. But then again IANAL ;)

and

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#197023 20-Feb-2009 20:35

So who is going to be monitoring everyone on the net to see what sites people are on?

Does this act support the invasion of privacy of citizens?

Can they monitor people's data traffic without a warrant?

They can then perhaps monitor people visiting porn sites and look for pedaphiles once they have a precedent and then they will look for other crminals, what will be next after that?

Do you think you will antagonise people and have more people not buying your CD's?

Do you think you will get away with this? Did you see what happened with Facebook? They changed their tune very quickly.

Do you think sales of CD's will suffer as a result of the industry making consumers angry? Can the industry handle an angry world of consumers who vote with their feet and their modems?

Couldn't you come up with a less punative solution?

Luigi
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Screeb

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#197024 20-Feb-2009 20:36

Why do you think it should be reasonable that an internet subscriber has their account disconnected on (unproven) allegations of copyright infringement, when it would take a court order (after proof of wrongdoing has been presented and debated over in a court) to have one's account disconnected in any other case of illegal activity (aside from the ISP voluntarily inforcing their TOC)?

Why should ISPs bear the burden of S92a when the RIANZ is not prepared to bear the burden of protecting their copyrights just as any other civil issue is enforced by the affected parties?

Why should the New Zealand public trust RIANZ to be the judge, jury, and executioner, where in all other cases that job is for the courts?

Why are artists, such as those who support Creative Freedom NZ, against the new law, when your argument is that they will be better off with it?

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