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Well to me personally the difference is that the library has temporarily transferred the rights of listening to the music to the borrower. It can be clearly defined that when one person or entity has paid for the use of the music, and only one person or entity is using that music at any given time.

Software companies, even Microsoft, used to state in their standard EULA's that you were allowed to make several copies of their software as long as it was only being used in one location at any time. These allowances (which imho should be declared as implicit anyway) have now dissapeared from the EULA's -- possibly because the companies believe it's too hard or inefficient for them to enforce. Instead "independent" organisations like the BSA, the MPAA and the RIAA have been formed by the corporate cartels to crack down on and frighten by legal threats anyone doing what the company decides it doesn't like, under the guise of IP law and in a way that they hope will never be decided on at a court that actually matters.

A peer-to-peer information sharing network doesn't naturally have this transferral of rights, because the information isn't moved. It's copied. Letting someone else use it doesn't prevent you from using it at the same time. If you look at a typical peer-to-peer music sharing network, this is exactly what happens. A few people buy something, and their versions of it are duplicated and shared many times between many thousands of people, all of whom are using it simultaneously and independently when often very few people have actually paid for it. Irrespective of how right or wrong anyone might believe it to be, this is nothing like how a library works.

Copyrights are handled by the Libary of Congress.


Really? I would have sworn they were handled by the Copyright Interests through their agents - the congress, the house, and the president.

Now excuse me. I have to clean my computer after checking those links. Where did I put the hydrochloric?

Besides, why would you install from the CD:s if you can get it on a DVD?

Because I am a student, and I don't have the funds right now to afford a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive to replace my Plextor CD-RW drive. I would also rather not shut down and open my computer to swap drives every time I want to read a DVD vs. burn a CD for backup.

You -DO- support your Linux-distribution of choice, don't you?

Yes, and that's why I said "DVD-ROM" instead of "DVD-R" or "DVD+RW". However, I do not support the practices of Motion Picture Association members.

Inspector Carla Valenti and her team-mate agent Tyler Miles are in charge of the investigation.

In this game, the cops are the bad guys. Carla Valenti is one of the cops.

In the real world, Jack Valenti is the head of the MPAAfia.

So he is immune- he can still DoS them. Hey man - lets post the MPAA and RIAA main sites on slashdot daily so we can slashdot them daily. If we use all their bandwidth for a slashdot style DOS then they cant for their own sinister purposes...

www.riaa.org
www.mpaa.org

The logic of the MPAA is succinctly summarized in the caption to their copyright information page: "Copyright: The Engine of America's Economic Growth." That sort of logic is difficult to battle - it was used to justify slavery, among other things, and is successfully used to justify continued environmental degradation. "What's good for GM is what's good for America" has underlied a lot of policy in the past century - it's why we bail-out financial institutions and airlines, why white collar criminals who have reduced thousands of people to poverty still get smaller sentences - if any - than people who shoplift a bicycle or sell a few joints.

The MPAA would hire a couple of "consulting" companies to carry out these acts.

These consulting firms would attack and disable some script kiddies computer who is serving MP3s.

So, what does the script kiddie do? He and his bunch of script kiddies go and shut down the offending consulting firms internet connection(s) with a DoS that's about 100 times more massive (because they can use everyone elses poorly protected servers to do it). And that's just if they pick on a teenager in the US.

Say they try and shut down some actual knowledgable hacker in, say, Russia. Wait a second... why are the bank account numbers, credit card numbers, home address and telephone for the head of the MPAA up on MPAA.com? Weird.

My question is, how does this web site even stay up?

I'm sure the script kiddies internet provider will just be pleased as punch that the MPAA just hacked one of it's customers and possibly used a DoS attack to do it (there by degrading the quality of service for all their clients)

Sounds great to me. It'll work like a charm this new law (if passed).

And why does the MPAA sound like a police orginization to me?
From their website:
To battle the problem, in 2000, the MPA launched over 60,000 investigations into suspected pirate activities, and more than 18,000 raids against pirate operations in coordination with local authorities around the world.

The MPAA/MPA directs its worldwide anti-piracy activities from headquarters in Encino, California. Regional offices are also located in Brussels (Europe, Middle and Africa), Mexico (Latin America) Canada and Hong Kong (Asia/Pacific).

Uhmm... that scares me

since we are all twisted pedophile pirates, here's some links to mp3s.

-- p

p.z. made you look!

I have notified the police!

Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen are crying ...

1. The MPAA is a non-profit organization that represents the common interests of the studios. It handles anti-piracy efforts, title and trademark registration, ratings, etc., as these are common among all studios. It does not have a 'business model,' per se. The studios do. The studios produce the products and reap the financial rewards. The MPA/A covers overhead and salary. About the MPAA
2. The MPA/A does not do anything the studios don't want done. The studios control funding, approve new positions / departments, etc. If you want to blame somebody for something, blame the source. Jack Valenti and the MPA/A are the voice of the studios. Anything they say comes originally from MGM, Disney, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and AOL/Time Warner.
3. The studios are working on putting out an "Internet rental" site. MovieLink.

Some comparisons in his rhetoric and how it has (not) changed...

"I am just a simple caveman..."

Valenti, 1982 - I am not a lawyer; I beg to ask the forgiveness of all of you in the UCLA Law School. If I was smart enough maybe I would have been a lawyer and then I would feel more comfortable about presenting this case. "

Valenti, 2000 - "I am not a lawyer. I wanted to be one; go to Harvard Law School. Ended up at Harvard Business School - if I am arrogant, that's what they taught me - haha. "

"We are a poor industry..."

Valenti, 1982 - "Now, let me tell you something about the high-risk business that we are in. This may be one of the most precarious business enterprises which a man or a woman can enter. Movie making is a high-risk business. Let me cite you some examples. The average film costs $20 million...And 6 out of 10 films do not retrieve their total investment period. Now, what are you going to do right on top of that? There is going to be a VCR avalanche."

Valenti, 2000 - "For the movie business in the Internet era, a threat on opening nights is someone copying the new movie and sending it out over the Internet. An average movie costs $52 million to make. Only two in ten ever profit from theatre sales."

Demonizing the perceived Enemy as "deadly", "pirates", "stranglers", "terrorists", etc.

Valenti, 1982 - "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Valenti, 1982 - "The public interest is at stake here. It is the public interest that you have by solemn oath sworn to serve because what I am talking about and what the rest of these witnesses are talking about is making it possible for a steady stream of quality entertainment to reach people through their television sets....

Valenti, 1997 - "It was a historic meeting...a first-time commitment of full government support at the highest level of the Russian leadership to a long-term plan to decrease surely and radically the deadly hold of pirates on the intellectual property community

Valenti 2002 - "There are more than nine and a half million broadband subscribers now. Once those large pipes and high-speed access subscribers begin to increase, we can be terrorized by what's going on."

Valenti 2002 - "We're fighting our own terrorist war."

But some things have changed...or have they?

Valenti, 1982 - "Now, these machines are advertised for one purpose in life. Their only single mission, their primary mission is to copy coyrighted material that belongs to other people..."

Valenti, 2000 - " Look at Sony-Betamax. The VCR had substantial non-infringing use. For example if you time-shift (tape now and playback later). But the court in Sony-Betamax did not rule on shifting to ten million people. So watch how you cite Sony-Betamax. Napster is not time-shifting - but sharing with anonymous millions."

Interesting.

W

This is actually kinda sad...

This repeat of history made me wonder about the story behind Jack Valenti. According to the MPAA web site, Jack is (or was) actually a truly remarkable man. He was a war hero and had an impressive career before becoming only the third President of the MPAA. Unfortunately that happened back in 1966. This is often the problem with having one person in power for so long.

The MPAA site seems to be as much about him as it is about the industry, with the press release page actually titled "Jack". The funniest thing is from this intro to his bio [my emphasis]:

"In his current role as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti has presided over a world wide sea change in the industry. New magical technology, the rise of importance of international markets, the tyranny of piracy have radically changed the landscape of the American film and television industry."

ACC quotes aside, technology does not equal magic. Jack, thanks, I'm sure that at one time you did a real bang up job but please step aside for someone who can understand and appreciate the direction and impact of new technology on our culture, and perhaps someone who's bio starts off with an appreciation of the majesty of the film industry, rather than fear mongering about issues you clearly can't handle.

This is actually kinda sad...

This repeat of history made me wonder about the story behind Jack Valenti. According to the MPAA web site, Jack is (or was) actually a truly remarkable man. He was a war hero and had an impressive career before becoming only the third President of the MPAA. Unfortunately that happened back in 1966. This is often the problem with having one person in power for so long.

The MPAA site seems to be as much about him as it is about the industry, with the press release page actually titled "Jack". The funniest thing is from this intro to his bio [my emphasis]:

"In his current role as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti has presided over a world wide sea change in the industry. New magical technology, the rise of importance of international markets, the tyranny of piracy have radically changed the landscape of the American film and television industry."

ACC quotes aside, technology does not equal magic. Jack, thanks, I'm sure that at one time you did a real bang up job but please step aside for someone who can understand and appreciate the direction and impact of new technology on our culture, and perhaps someone who's bio starts off with an appreciation of the majesty of the film industry, rather than fear mongering about issues you clearly can't handle.

This is actually kinda sad...

This repeat of history made me wonder about the story behind Jack Valenti. According to the MPAA web site, Jack is (or was) actually a truly remarkable man. He was a war hero and had an impressive career before becoming only the third President of the MPAA. Unfortunately that happened back in 1966. This is often the problem with having one person in power for so long.

The MPAA site seems to be as much about him as it is about the industry, with the press release page actually titled "Jack". The funniest thing is from this intro to his bio [my emphasis]:

"In his current role as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti has presided over a world wide sea change in the industry. New magical technology, the rise of importance of international markets, the tyranny of piracy have radically changed the landscape of the American film and television industry."

ACC quotes aside, technology does not equal magic. Jack, thanks, I'm sure that at one time you did a real bang up job but please step aside for someone who can understand and appreciate the direction and impact of new technology on our culture, and perhaps someone who's bio starts off with an appreciation of the majesty of the film industry, rather than fear mongering about issues you clearly can't handle.

You're using https, I hope.

Why?

So you're sure that the program your client receives is the same as the program your server sends, not a trojaned version which turns off encryption, for example.

...and how does that trojaned version get onto the server? If salfter.dyndns.org is 0wn3d, I have bigger problems to deal with than a corrupt SSH client. I suppose someone could clone my website, hack dyndns.org to get the DNS entry for salfter.dyndns.org to point to the cloned site, and put a trojaned PuTTY on the cloned site that would know the IP address of the real salfter.dyndns.org...but who the hell's going to go to that kind of bother? Mine is just a personal website of maybe average quality (depending on whose opinion of it you seek). There are plenty of other targets that would be much more attractive for someone to take over.

(Now that I've thought about it a bit, though, I suppose an end-run around such an attack would be to use the IP address instead of the name. It's easy enough to remember. Someone who's determined could crack these guys and reassign my IP address to another system...but then that basically knocks my machine off the net (so no harm will come to it), and (again) who would care enough to want to bother doing that?)

FWIW, the PuTTY download page isn't running on a secure server. It supplies various checksums for the files which you can use for verification, but (as Simon Tatham points out) the programs that do that verification aren't themselves verifiable. There is a point beyond which an eye for security turns into paranoia...nothing is ever 100% secure. At some point, you need to weigh the odds of something bad happening against the measures needed to protect against that something.

One final note: Keeping a copy of PuTTY on a secure site would entail getting a certificate from someone like Verisign, and they don't exactly have the best reputation in the world.

As for the possibility that the DVD will be region-free, I was at the screening in Pasadena three weeks ago. J.T.S. Moore did a little Q&A at the end of the film; in response to a question, he did mention that a region-free, CSS-free release is a possibility that's being considered. From what I gathered, the decision isn't yet final. I also gathered that he doesn't have much love for the movie cartel. Neither the movie site nor iFilm mentioned specific release dates or prices.

(If it becomes available, I'd buy it. I liked it, and I'm not the open-source zealot that some people around here are (I tend to use whatever's appropriate for the task at hand). If a large enough number of copies get sold and it doesn't turn up on Gnutella, maybe it'll be a small lesson to the movie cartel about treating your customers right.)

Well, he probably looked the same, because that was the same man, according do this

If I produced any non-essential in such an environment, I would expect sales to be somewhat depressed. Sorry guys, Cinema isn't an essential. Produce a good movie, such as Spidey then we will probably go and see it. Unfortunate the industry distrubutes a lot of rubbish. I say distributes advisedly because some good stuff is produced (even ocassionally inside the studio system). However, it often doesn't get out unless it fits the business model of the season.

I want more creatives like this guy to stand up and say where the MPAA is getting things wrong when it tries for ever more content protection.

Some people may have heard about the much trumpeted Spidey raid in the UK. What was being (expensively) copied onto DVD? The only version I have seen listed would fit into a small part of a CD and as someone else commented who has seen it, the quality was barely worth the effort of watching. Maybe the industry itself has problems with higher quality masters escaping?

Last point in this ramble, the Gruniad article made the very good point that having a secure digital chain between distributor and projector is a great way of locking other content producers out of the theatre.

Now can we make a genetically-altered weapon that eats Hilary Rosen, Jack Valenti, and copy-protected CDs?

• Gang0x01
• Gang0x02
• Gang0x03
• Gang0x04
• Gang0x05
• Gang0x06.

I'd hate to think such innovations are right around the corner, only to find they haven't been approved.

How would you revise or restructure IP and copyright law to make both sides of the fence happy?

No way Jose. Some people will only be happy when everybody in the world owns them aleph-infinite dollars.

I did but you beat me to it - it should've read major media companies

....that the link above points to Management Partners and Associates and not The Motion Picture Association of America

mpaa.com that is link to in the header seems to be a legitimate business, but mpaa.org is the cartel we seem to be concerned with.

So much for the internic's rule of .com and .org domain rules where .org's are supposed to be "non-profit!"

That's the kind of argument DOJ was trying to make and the MPAA ate up: "DeCSS is a digital crowbar."

In that case, I propose that we apply the exact same restrictions to DeCSS that we apply to crowbars.

It's bad because there really isn't much difference between copywritten material in 1790 and copywritten material in 2002. There are some organizations whose financial status is dependent on ever-increasing copyright extention, but it's always a bad deal to trade rights for all to benefit a small group.

As to the link above, the second amendment has (probably) been curtailed sharply, but I've no idea how you think the third amendment has been abridged at all.

Yeah, and to just name a few: MPAA, RIAA, and WIPO.

That's all you can be doing. Valenti has been lobbying, with cash money, for over 100 years (or at least he looks like it). To think that something will change without consistent concerted action is the dream of a junkie. Stay firm, keep working, and never, ever, ever give up.

It's the only way to win.

In the US of A, it is perfectly legal for any American to purchase any politician. You don't need to be from Virgina to contribute to Mr. Boucher's reelection efforts. I'm sure certain nefarious organizations will fund his opponents. Do your part and keep this guy from getting crushed for standing up to legalized racketeering.

Last time I checked, Warner Brothers is part of the MPAA. Source: MPAA's About MPA, MPAA web page

Me, I'd rather be an honest and ethical person, rather than a rich one. At least I enjoy whatever little money I have!

Are you really so naive as to believe that unethical people who have a lot of money don't enjoy it? That sounds to me like something that people without money tell themselves to console themselves, sort of like telling your kid that the school bully is actually miserable, when in fact he's probably having a great time picking on other people.

Well, enjoy it while you can, because the people with money and power are looking to make sure you have even less money to enjoy than you have now, so that they will have even more money and power to enjoy.

Feel free to bury your head in the sand and tell yourself that it's okay, while legislation like the DMCA and SSSCA gets passed and enforced. Yes, it'll all be okay, even if you no longer have any money and are living in a corporate run police state. Because at least you'll still have your ethics!

(And yes, I despise those people without ethics and am sickened at how they seem to be able to do so much better than people with ethics, but I'm not naive enough to believe that the fact that I have any ethics makes one damned bit of difference in the real world. In fact, I know it puts me at a significant disadvantage, and sometimes wish I didn't have these ethical beliefs that prevent me from doing something about that).

It's a Sony Pictures movie. Sony's a member of the MPAA, who love the DMCA. Sony Pictures has been cited as a supporter of Fritz Holling's Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) bill. We're talking about the kind of folks that hire lawyers to sue teenage hackers for writing unauthorized DVD playback software for GNU/Linux systems. Sure, it might be a great movie, but at least stop a minute to think where your money's going, what it will be used for down the road.

Anybody who says one vote doesn't matter must've missed the last US elections.

It's a Sony Pictures movie. Sony's a member of the MPAA, who love the DMCA. Sony Pictures has been cited as a supporter of Fritz Holling's Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) bill. We're talking about the kind of folks that hire lawyers to sue teenage hackers for writing unauthorized DVD playback software for GNU/Linux systems. Sure, it might be a great movie, but at least stop a minute to think where your money's going, what it will be used for down the road.

Anybody who says one vote doesn't matter must've missed the last US elections.

It's a Sony Pictures movie. Sony's a member of the MPAA, who love the DMCA. Sony Pictures has been cited as a supporter of Fritz Holling's Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) bill. We're talking about the kind of folks that hire lawyers to sue teenage hackers for writing unauthorized DVD playback software for GNU/Linux systems. Sure, it might be a great movie, but at least stop a minute to think where your money's going, what it will be used for down the road.

Anybody who says one vote doesn't matter must've missed the last US elections.

Bad service is the one thing that will drive me away from a company, even if the product/service they are selling is good.

Exhibit A: RIAA
Exhibit B: MPAA

We could start with the companies listed at the MPAA:

Walt Disney Company;
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.;
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.;
Paramount Pictures Corporation;
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.;
Universal Studios, Inc.; and
Warner Bros.

...and the huge list of companies at the RIAA.

Posted by Michael Fraase, 3/23/02 at 9:54:46 PM.

When elephants dance, its best to get out of the way. Thats exactly whats happening now as the entertainment industrythe recording, publishing, and motion picture industries, mainlyattempts a worldwide intellectual property power grab with two distinct targets. Think of it: a coup and a lock on all published content in the same year, amazing isnt it?

Target number 1 is the average customer: anyone who purchases software, an audio CD, an electronic book, or a movie on DVD. The entertainment industry sees customers as pirates, plain and simple. In their collective minds eye, we all have a wooden leg, eye patch, and a filthy talking parrot on our shoulder. While the Constitution grants customers certain rights with regard to copyrighted material, the entertainment industry very much wants to separate us from those rights.

Target number 2 in the sights of the entertainment industry are technology behemoths like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Apple. These companies, in the perverse worldview of the entertainment industry, make the toolscomputers mostlythat allow customers to practice their piracy.

Let me point out that I am a copyright owner, as is everyone else who has ever created a work in tangible form. Thats all authors, for short. Authors are almost never members of the entertainment industry club. The entertainment industry hates authors almost as much as they hate customers. Sometimes, especially when authors get uppity, the entertainment industry hates authors much more than customers. Until recently, authors have always been seen to be at least a marginal threat while customers were seen as merely necessary annoyances.

To complicate matters by at least an order of magnitude, the consumer electronics manufacturersthe companies that make stereos, VCRs, and DVD playershave aligned with the entertainment industry. At least some of them, and at least to some extent.

Unfortunately for usboth authors and customerswere likely to get squished as these elephants dance. The intent of the entertainment industry, believe it or not, is to outlaw personal computers. As security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier explains it to Mike Godwin: If you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; theyre too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.

Copy-protected CDs

The recording industry is selling shiny plastic discs that contain music that cant be copied to or even played on some customers equipment. Philips, the owner of the CD format says these discs cannot be called CDs because they do not meet the standard of what a CD is. Sony, one of those weird hybrid companies that, as a member in good standing of both the technology and entertainment industries, finds itself on both sides of this issue says it cant guarantee the audio quality of these discs. The technology used to protect these discs sometimes prevents the discs from playing on computer CD-ROM drives, DVD players, and other devices specifically designed to play standard audio CDs.

Sales of recorded music are down 10% in the United States over the last year. The recording industry blames this downturn not on the economic recession, not on the crappy music that theyve released in the past few years, but on Internet piracy.

And its only going to get worse. Hilary B. Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) told Congress on 28 February 2001 that the practice of copy-protecting audio CDs would expand in the United States. If technology can be used to pirate copyrighted content, Rosen wrote in her response to a Congressional query, shouldnt technology likewise be used to protect copyrighted content? Surely, no one can expect copyright owners to ignore what is happening in the marketplace and fail to protect their creative works because some people engage in copying just for their personal use. Her pal, Michael Eisner, head of Disney, said he was tired of being finessed by the technology industry, whatever that means.

Unfortunately for Eisner, Rosen, Disney, and the RIAA, personal useand more importantly the rights associated with that use of copyrighted materialis exactly why copying of copyrighted material is not just allowed, but mandated by the Constitution. That some individuals illegally sell copied CDs or distribute copies of the music on the Internet is immaterial. In fact, fairly casual observation indicates that if customers are treated like criminals they will indeed begin to behave like criminals.

It has become common practice for music-loving computer owners to legally transfer audio CDs they purchase to .mp3 format files on their computers. The copy protection technology employed by the recording industry prevents such transfers by adding distortions to the music of the recordings. The industry insists that these distortions are inaudible when the disc is played on a standard CD player but result in pops when the music is transferred to a computer. In any case, its usually impossible to tell whether or not a disc includes the copy protection technology; in general, the copy-protected discs are not labeled.

Ironically, or probably not, .mp3 player manufacturers could easily defeat the copy protection technology, but they fear doing so would risk prosecution under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which prohibits the bypassing of copy protection systems. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that .mp3 players did not violate copyright law because customers have the right to space shift music they have purchased.

Moral rights

Interestingly, the act of using the copy protection technology is much more prevalent in Europe. Most European countries, unlike the United States, recognize an artists moral rights in the work they create.

Moral rights are a package of intellectual property rights granted to the original creator of a work, and include:

• The right of integrity;
• The right of attribution;
• The right of disclosure;
• The right to withdraw or retract; and
• The right to reply to criticism.

These moral rights are separate from the economic copyright that these days generally transfers from an author to a publisher and they can survive the author. The idea originated with the French, who believe that any creative work, by definition, includes the personality and character of the author. Where copyright is a property right that can be transferred, moral rights are part of the authors personality and character and non-transferable.

The first two moral rightsthe right of integrity and the right of attributionare especially important because they are codified as international law in the Berne Convention. The United States claims its intellectual property law complies with the Berne Convention, but this is just two instances where it doesnt.

The most important of these rights is the first, the right of integrity. Basically it prohibits an authors work from being distorted in any way that would harm the authors reputation and dates to the 1957 French law of droit au respect de l'oeuvre. Its a safe bet that a cross-reference over which the author had no control would be seen as a distortion of the work.

Seemingly, in Europe at least, an artist could make an argument against the production of a copy-protected version of her work on the sole basis of moral rights. Especially in the case of an audio CD to which distortion is intentionally added by the publisher.

In the United States, Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) appears to be taking the point position in questioning the behavior of the entertainment industry. He believes that instead of using copyright to obtain fair compensation for the works theyve licensed, the copyright owner industryincluding the recording industryis attempting to exercise complete dominance and total control of the copyrighted work.

And just how much money does an artist receive in the form of royalties? Use Moses Avalons royalty calculator to figure it out.

A DMCA rewrite?

Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) plans to introduce legislation that would regulateand maybe outright bancopy-protected compact discs. Boucher reportedly has concerns about customers buying copy-protected discs without knowing it and the compatibility problems inherent with the copy protection mechanism. In an interview with Wired News, Boucher said, The big problem initially is that consumers have no information that is complete and reliable about the disabilities which attend copy-protected CDs. These CDs will not play in DVD players, not play on personal computers (and) not even play on all CD players.

Boucher isnt talking about what kind of legislation he might introduce to accomplish his goal of protecting audio CD customers, and the possibilities are intriguing. At the simplest level, legislation may require copy-protected CDs to carry a warning label. At a more interesting level, Boucher may try to rewrite the DMCA. In fact, Boucher announced that he would introduce such legislation last July and reiterated his commitment to that approach in early March of this year.

Internet radio

Under the U.S. Copyright Offices interpretation of the DMCA, Internet radio may be a thing of the past. KFJC, KPIG, and RadioParadise may all be goners. Why is this tragic? Because any of these stations are orders of magnitude better than the sorry excuse for radio available on the traditional dial.

Internet radio is routing around an obsolete and unaccountable industrys safely padded environs and making a difference. Corporate radio sounds exactly the same from coast to coast because it is exactly the same. Sit and watch that website for a few minutes; if it doesnt nauseate you, itll damn sure hypnotize you.

Adding to the arsenal of tools deployed by big media is the Copyright Arbitration and Royalty Panel (CARP). CARP met secretly for the past several months and issued the CARP Report in late February. The keystone of this report is steep licensing fees for webcast music. Lets be clear: compulsory licensing is a good idea, consistent with the intent of copyright law. Usury licensing fees for small webcasters is not.

KPIG responded almost immediately with a plea to save the Pig from the digital slaughterhouse:

Independent webcasters such as KPIG are facing a grave threat to our existence. It may be an evil conspiracy on the part of the big record companies and corporate webcasters, ormore likelyits just a dumb mistake. In either case, KPIG could soon be liable for huge music usage fees ($5,000 - $10,000 per month) that would make it impossible for us to stay online. For background on the issue, see The Death of Web Radio? below and the SaveInternetRadio.org website.

Doc Searls, in his article Bizarre vs. Bazaar, eloquently sums up the combination of DMCA and CARP as the destruction of the Net as a commons and its replacement with a plumbing system for the distribution of content (a word hardly used in a shipping context before Big Media got all drooly over The Promise of The Net).

A brief history of copyright

Copyright, until this recent entertainment industry power-grab, has always been a delicatemaybe even precariousbalance between the rights of the author to benefit from his or her work for a short period of time and the rights of the rest of us to innovate and benefit from those works when they fall into the public domain.

The Constitution granted Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. Originally, the Copyright Act of 1790 established the limited times of copyright protection of 14 years with an option for the author to renew the copyright for an additional 14 years if he or she were still alive. That copyright term was good enough for the first 100 years of intellectual property in the United States. During the next 100 years, Congress extended the copyright term 11 times.

Certain uses of a protected work that would ordinarily be seen as infringing are specifically allowed for education, criticism, etc. These uses are allowed under the fair use provision. The core concept of fair use is that, in general, any use that does not exploit the commercial value of the original is permissible.

The fair use statute recognizes four criteria by which a use can be determined to be fair or unfair:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted wok as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

William S. Strong, in The Copyright Book: A Practical Guide , provides an interpretation for working writers:

As a general rule a critic or reporter should not quote at any one point more than two or three paragraphs of a book or journal article, a stanza of a poem, or a solitary chart or graph from a technical treatise.

The Net allows ordinary citizens to exercise their fair use rights in ways never imagined by the entertainment industry. Subsequently, the reaction is to pressure innovation by extending the copyright term for any given work. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that will likely determine the legitimacy of the most recent copyright term extension, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. This law extends the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years. In the case of works made for hire in which a corporation owns the copyright, the copyright term is now 95 years.

While one side of the entertainment industry was pushing, an activity that eventually became the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the other side was pulling. That activity eventually resulted in the DMCA. Designed specifically to control the uses that can be made of published works, the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copyright-protection technology. The result: the entertainment industry controls not only what you see and hear but the methods and devices with which you see and hear it. Even if the copy-protection is circumvented to enable the fair use of a published work, it is prohibited and deemed to be a criminal act.

Digital TV

According to Mike Godwin, digital television is the tipping point in the war between the entertainment and technology industries. Never mind that every time the entertainment industry shoots itself in the foot, the technology industry comes to its rescue. Remember in the 1970s when the movie industry was in a deep funk and that vampire Jack Valenti said that VCRs would kill it for good? As it turns out, the VCR revived the film industry. The film industry was failing not because of customer VCR usage but because they were putting out epically craptacular films. Just like the recording industry todaywhen in doubt blame those dang customers.

Anyway, Godwin says digital television is the flashpoint because its quality (technical, not artistic) is way too good and unlike DVDs, its unencrypted and has to stay unencrypted to be useful. Oh, and the pesky FCC regulations say that broadcast television signals must be sent unencrypted.

The purveyors of digital television think they have the answer: digital watermarks. They think thats the answer for the online distribution of music, and any other digital content as well. Unfortunately for them, in order for a watermark to be used to restrict copying of digital content, consumer devices used to play the content will have to have technology included thats capable of receiving those watermarks. That would require the cooperation of the technology industry, and that cooperation has not been forthcoming.

Godwin cites the theory of Edward Felten, a computer scientist at Princeton, holding that any sort of tagging system that is undetectable by the user will likely be easy to remove.

Digital rights management

Perhaps the weirdest part of all of this is that the technology industry is just as enamored of protecting intellectual property. Theyre just going about it in a minimally different way. Digital rights management (DRM) is the battle cry of the techheads. And where they differ from their entertainment industry brethren is the question of government mandates. The technology industry wants to lock up published content just as badly as the entertainment industry; they just dont want the government (or anyone else) telling them that they have to. Remember that the entertainment and technology industries both lobbied heavily in favor of the DMCA.

And then there are the schizoids, the companieslike AOL Time Warner and Sonythat are so large that they find themselves on both sides of the fence depending which way the wind blows.

SSSCA > CBDTPA

The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA), kept on a leash but regularly trotted out by Senator Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, can best be thought of as a sort of appendix to the DCMA. It is clearly designed to further extend legal protections for digital content owned or licensed by enormous media conglomerates.

According to the draft language of the bill, it would be illegal to create or distribute any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies approved by the Commerce Department. Even though MIT professor and RSA Data Security co-founder Ron Rivest has referred to the proposed legislation as the Digital Rectal Thermometer Security Act its really just mandatory corporate welfare for media conglomerates subsidized by the actual creators and consumers of intellectual property.

Felony penalties for distributing copyrighted material without the certified security technologies fully enabled or using a computer that circumvents those technologies are up to five years in prison and fines up to US$500,000.

Even worse, the proposed legislation calls for manufacturers of digital devices and the media conglomerates to collaboratively develop a copy protection system. If, after two years, they cant come up with a mechanism both industries can live with, the federal government will specify a standard. Hollings bill fails to include the actual creators or users of content in any of the machinations.

Should we be surprised that four of Hollings top campaign donors are media conglomerates?

Predictably, the politicians split along party lines over the SSSCA. Or, more accurately, the split is along the lines of entertainment industry campaign contributions. Democrats, who received US$24.2 million in contributions from the entertainment industry tend to support the idea of legislating the protection of copyrighted material in digital form. Republicans, who received a relatively paltry US$13.3 million in entertainment industry contributions usually oppose the SSSCA, claiming it is too interventionist.

In mid-March 2002, the other shoe dropped. Senator Hollings, better known as the Senator from Disney, transformed the SSSCA into the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) and ceased his tip-toeing around. The CBDTPA is real legislation, and enjoys the support of five other co-authors: Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), John Breaux (D-Louisiana), Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California). Just think, one more author and they could have been the seven dwarves. The CBDTPA would require all digital deviceseverything from fax machines to MP3 players and computers (as well as the software that runs on them)to be equipped with embedded copy protection schemes, approved by the federal government.

Whats most disturbing about this is relatively paltry sum it took to buy this legislation. During the 2002 election cycle, only two of the dirty half-dozen were in the top 20 recipients of soft money from the entertainment industry. So far in the 2002 election cycle, Hollings has received only US$19,000 and Stevens has taken only US$39,621. To get the real story, we have to look back several election cycles:

Senator

2002

2000

1998

1996

Total

Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina)

$19,000

$32,750

$215,284

$43,300

$310,334

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)

$39,621

$69,900

$109,521

Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)

$49,852

$49,852

John Breaux (D-Louisiana)

$120,920

$120,920

Bill Nelson (D-Florida)

$47,550

N/A

N/A

$47,550

Dianne Feinstein (D-California)

$211,638

$211,638

$849,815

Theres no question why Fritz Hollings carried the water for this puppy, is there? But check those senatorial links in the table carefully because they tell the even bigger story of who the top contributing industries were for each politician. In every case, the entertainment industry scored big in the top 20 contributors for every Senator. And remember the 2002 campaign cycle isnt over yet. Not hardly.

So, how much does it cost to get your bill through the Senate? Looks to me like itll come in right around US$1 million.

Enter DigitalConsumer.org

The technology industry was quick to respond to the CBDTPA threat by launching DigitalConsumer.org and its attendant Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. Launched by two of the co-founders of Excite, DigitalConsumer.org is basically trying to protect the fair use rights of customers in digital media. The groups principles, outlined in the Bill of Rights are deceptively simple:

1. Users have the right to time-shift content that they have legally acquired.
2. Users have the right to space-shift content that they have legally acquired.
3. Users have the right to make backup copies of their content.
4. Users have the right to use legally acquired content on the platform of their choice.
5. Users have the right to translate legally acquired content into comparable formats.
6. Users have the right to use technology in order to achieve the rights previously mentioned.

The depth and breadth of support this lobbying group will receive remains to be seen. Some of the precepts are in direct conflict with the interests of some of the largest technology industry members. Microsoft, for example, almost certainly wants to be the digital rights management company of record and is none too keen on, say, items 2, 3, 4, and 5.

A solution

The solution is actually quite simple and requires only three steps:

1. Revert the term of copyright to 14 years, immediately and retroactive to all existing works.
2. Recognize moral rights in the works authors create, like every other civilized country on the planet. Make it immediate and retroactive to all existing works.
3. Prohibit any corporation from owning a copyright. Corporations create nothing; theyre consensual hallucinations and exist at our pleasure. I dont know about you, but Im not much pleased any more.

The basis of the problem is found in a single court ruling: Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. In this 1886 dispute, the U.S. Supreme Court found that a private corporation was a natural person under the Constitution and enjoyed the same protections as a citizen under the Bill of Rights. Corporations from that point forward were granted all of the rights and freedoms of a private citizen, yet none of the responsibilities. We made a mistake; hey, shit happens. Its not too late to fix it.

The Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) NOT the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Unlike the Grammy's where we got rewarded for watching the music industries love-fest with a harangue about piracy, the only appearance by MPAA President Jack Valenti was him talking about his favourite film during one of the documentary clips at the beginning of the show.

AMPAS is made up not just of studio executives but also of the artists (actors directors cinematographers, makeup, etc.) themselves. If you think that the rantings on SlashDot against the RIAA and MPAA are meant to imply that artists don't deserve recognition or compensation for their work, then you haven't been paying attention. The MPAA and RIAA like to imply that they are standing up for the rights of artists by crushing fair-use rights, when in actuallity they have traditionally fought against artists rights since payments to artists are just another drain on their profits.

I'm sure some manufacturer out there would want the Linux/*BSD market enough to build stuff that enabled open software to use the device as the law intended while preventing illegal use. If only one did it, they'd capture 100% of that market! As I see it, they want DRM built into the DVD-RW drives, not Windows, just so they can prevent software (like Linux) from getting around DRM the way DeCSS does.

This case might make industry think twice about the DMCA if the copyright work in question were owned by, say, Bertelsmann or another AOL-Time-Warner competitor. But as the suit was brought by some puny individual (no offense, Mr. Ellison, but you're not a mega-media conglomerate) and the Right Side won, this won't change the opinions of Anyone That Matters.

And the MPAA is sucking the RIAA's nipples. Watch out for the old coot Jack-em-high Valenti as he rides on his high horse attacking customers of the movie industry. Maybe these idiot savants *want* us to boycott their "entertainment" products.

proprietary extensions/applets/applications built around the .net framework.

Isn't the .net framework an ECMA standard now?
Isn't someone working on a free implementation of that standard?
Are you calling it proprietary just because it comes from billy boy?

No longer will new features be added directly to office, but will be available on the web - provided the user has Windows and is using IE...

That sounds to me like it would primarily affect office users, not web surfers, and considering office's main platform is windows, so what if they use windows/ie for web-based updates/upgrades?

Heck, MS execs are even talking about how http's days are coming to an end...

You got a link to back that up?

I'm not necessarily defending microsoft[1], just questioning the statements you present as fact.

C-X C-S
[1] Although I don't think they're any more evil than any other money-grubbing corporation.
Media conglomerates and trade groups, now those scare me - they have hundreds of times more governmental influence than billy and friends will ever have.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? Guess we can just sell the industries to pay the taxes, then.

Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate.

Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? Guess we can just sell the industries to pay the taxes, then.

OK. I am usually not this mean about things, but this whole MPAA/DCMA crap is driving me nuts! Everyone: Visit http://www.mpaa.org/