Recording Industry Association of America

Clogging the Courts With Technological Nonsense

Let's take a quick romp through a few recent examples of tech jackassery in the legal system: First, the Supreme Court has declined to review the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Brainerd, Minn., woman who is one of the more notable victims of the Recording Industry Association of America's insane ... More >>

What Are the Best-Selling Bay Area Singles of the Last 25 Years?

Compared to the relatively few big-selling Bay Area albums of the last quarter-century, there's a plethora of singles that have sold at least a half-million copies since 1987. Can you guess the Bay Area singles that have sold the most in the last 25 years? Here are the surprising answers: See Also: ... More >>

The Copyright Standoff: Technology Pits Bad Rules vs. No Rules

The RIAA Responds Lamely to Claims of Piracy Advocates

​TorrentFreak, a news site that basically supports illicit downloading, last week used a half-assed ISP-lookup service to conclude that employees of both the Recording Industry Association of America and the Department of Homeland Security had downloaded illicit copies of various copyrighted works ... More >>

The Recording Industry Makes Itself Look Stupid Yet Again While Battling Piracy

​Over at Dan Mitchell's Digital Tremors column on our news blog, the Snitch, there's an interesting debate brewing over the recording industry's response to some piracy advocates' claims that its employees downloaded music and other files illegally. Mitchell's take is that while disputing thes ... More >>

Google, Facebook, Others Fight Legislation to Stop Online Content Piracy

​A veritable who's who of major tech firms in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley are fighting federal legislation aimed at putting a stop to theft of original content online.The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would allow content creators to seek court orders barring internet service providers, se ... More >>

A Postcard from the Future

Or, how 2011 was the year everything changed in music.

Broadcasters and the RIAA Want to Force FM Radio into Smartphones

​In today's news from Planet Too Dumb To Exist, Ars Technica and others are reporting that the broadcast radio industry and the Recording Industry Association of America are working on proposed national legislation that would, among other things, require that all portable electronics like smartpho ... More >>

Judge (Sort of) Realizes Absurdity in Slapping Music-Sharing Students with Huge Fines

Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net​Strike one up for common sense -- and another one down for the Recording Industry Association of America.Earlier today, a federal judge cut the penalty against convicted music file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum by a factor of 10 -- from $675,000 to $67,500 -- after ... More >>

Local tech companies remove the music middleman

Microcaster DJs get screwed under new licensing fees

RIAA attempts to shake $3000 from UCSC student

Net Radio Royalty EXTRA -- UPDATES: David Byrne, Cover feature

Dark Payola Emerges

“Direct licensing” is the new threat to Webcasting´s meritocracy of music

The Day the Music Dies

Internet radio stations like SomaFM have launched bands and influenced what mainstream DJs play. On July 15, they could be gone forever

Mixtape Shmixtape

Wherein we review Yay Area mixes of the day

Owen Maigret's Conquering Label

S.F. export digging for reggaeton gold in Panama

Music News

Important stories about important shit. This week: Train workers in a wreck over latest from Train.

Still They Ride

A newly minted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame offers an occasion to look back on the career of Journey. That's right, Journey.

Polishing the Brass

Judging from last week's Music Law Summit West, the future of the music biz is unclear – but that's not what the RIAA wants you to think

Letters to the Editor

Week of November 5, 2003

Raw Sue-age

Let us not squander the gift of mass lawsuits against average Joes: Fuck the RIAA!

Download or Die

The RIAA's war on the consumer

All quiet on the Webcaster front

Congress and the music industry fight over Internet radio

Paying through the nose -- and the ears

Noncommercial radio versus the capitalist urge

Ransom Notes

Can one man convince millions of people to pay for their "free" music?

Dead Set on Deconstruction

On what may or may not be its farewell tour, Negativland makes the most of an age of uncertainty

Music.competition

With MP3s under attack and major labels designing new standards, three Bay Area firms try to corner the market on online music

Riff Raff

Riff Raff

The Men of la Mantra

San Francisco's OM Records foretells the future of enhanced CDs

Samples