Slashdot Mirror

http://www.riaa.org/admin/add_press.cfm

Well, that is your position anyway. If you look at the Audio Home Recording Act ("AHRA"), you'll see that there is an immunity to making some types of recordings. One cannot be prosecuted for making those types of recordings. However, the RIAA's position (as seen here) is that CD-R drives on computers are not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act:

Multipurpose devices, such as a general computer or a CD-ROM drive, are not covered by the AHRA. This means that they are not required to pay royalties or incorporate SCMS protections. It also means, however, that neither manufacturers of the devices, nor the consumers who use them, receive immunity from suit for copyright infringement.

To the leader of the Internet Villian of the Year, H i l l a r y!

Permission to cite or copy these statistics is hereby granted as long as proper attribution is given to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Which the author did.

From the Cost of a CD from the RIAA web site:

"While the RIAA does not collect information on the specific costs that make up the price of a CD, there are many factors that go into the overall cost of a CD -- and the plastic it's pressed on, is among the least significant."

They admit they don't really know the costs. They don't have the data so they speak from ignorance. Or, they do have the data but don't want to admit what they know.

No black flags with skull and crossbones, no cutlasses, cannons, or daggers identify today's pirates. You can't see them coming; there's no warning shot across your bow. Yet rest assured the pirates are out there because today there is plenty of gold (and platinum and diamonds) to be had. Today's pirates operate not on the high seas but on the Internet, in illegal CD factories, distribution centers, and on the street. The pirate's credo is still the same--why pay for it when it's so easy to steal? The credo is as wrong as it ever was. Stealing is still illegal, unethical, and all too frequent in today's digital age. That is why RIAA continues to fight music piracy.

Well shiver me timbers :). Such quotes and more can be found on the The Funnest Place on the Net

Similarly, lobby artists. Lobby major-label shareholders. Lobby elected officials.

For that matter, remember that the RIAA doesn't represent all labels. Remind your elected officials that there are plenty of other labels and artists out there, labels and artists who are actually hurt when the RIAA is allowed to dictate public policy. Sure the major labels have money to buy politicians, but it's still the people who actually vote.

1. the RIAA is alleging that CDRs are responsible for loss in revenue, thus using CDRs is morally wrong.
2. the RIAA is lumping counterfeiters into the same group as the file swappers. the real world is far from this black and white; here we have two shades of gray, one significantly darker than the other.

The RIAA are looking for your feedback! Let them know how much you support them in their times of need! You too can congratulate them on their enlightend actions and opinions on their feedback page

The more I read about RIAA and their flawed logic used in arguments, the more I see parallels between them and Scientology. Both of them really are insane... http://xenu.net ... http://riaa.org

The **AA doesn't give a damn what the general public thinks--this is all PR for bought-and-paid-for politicians. The lobbyists will show up, wave around these silly statistics, flash some money and boom! suddenly there will be more laws/levies/taxes on recordable media faster than you can type 'cdrecord'

Hmm... Now let's try this: *clickety-click* c-d-r-c-^H-e-c-o... d'oh!

According to the RIAA press release - in the footnote:

"The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry."

Indeed. Well, their supporting facts to indicate that they represent the entirety of the recording industry includes this:

"RIAA® members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States."

So, you've heard it here, folks. 90% = 100%.

The proof of the corollary theorem, 1 = 2, is left as an exercise to the reader.

Click Here and let the Slashdotting Commence. Honestly, they should be Slashdotted every time we have to read their propaganda in a /. headline...

Because all that the RIAA is protecting is their money.
Remember this? or this ? or this ? or this ? oops, I've run out of emphases to use.

Then again, some of you might want something from the RIAA's side of the argument (or maybe you just want to help /. them. >D).

I don't really like cinemas, and its just giving money to a cartel. I'll wait for the the DVD. I think in the meantime I'll just get the soundtrack, and make do with the book. Is it available in Adobe E-book format?

I would consider the NRA's possition extreme because they are unwilling to compromise.

As one gunmaker says in its ads, "in a world of compromise, some don't." Would you compromise your free-speech rights (say, the ability to write whatever software you want) in order to improve some group's security (such as the Media Mafia)? I didn't think so.

With the sniper stuff in Washington D.C. they were talking about taking 'barrel prints' of guns out of the factory, and the NRA opposed. Why, because they thought it was one step closer to taking the guns away!

That was a factor (and an important one), but there's also the consideration that so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" is nearly completely useless for tracking a gun from its manufacture to its possible use in a crime. Ordinary wear and tear will change the breech and barrel over time...and if a criminal wanted to accelerate the process somewhat, a few minutes with a Swiss file would make even more drastic changes.

Whats the purpose of digital out then?

Digital output is for local bands. Digital out is for open or half-open formats like Ogg and MP3.

If i had some high quality tunes on my machine

WMA files, which are most likely to require a Secure Audio Path, are typically supplied in too low a data rate to be considered "high quality" among music enthusiasts. Don't be fooled by the 3 dB boost that some have claimed that the WMA encoder provides by default.

I would certainly like to use my digital out to send it to my high end stereo system, most likely over the digital output

If you can afford high-end audio equipment, you can certainly afford a collection of Compact Discs from which to produce high-quality Ogg files. The music on the discs that aren't Compact Discs probably isn't worth your money.

seriously, what kindof genius came up with this idea?

Bill and Hilary. The ones who didn't live in the White House.

There are a quite a few Hollywood moguls who should become waiters. Maybe they would learn a little humility.

Be sure to take this list with you the next time you shop for music.

RIAA says they don't know, but its a really good deal for us:

http://www.riaa.org/MD-US-7.cfm

The "National Socialist" name was propagandistic, dumbass. The Nazis needed all the political leverage they could get in the twenties. Hitler figured people would be dumb enough to fall for this, and he was right. In fact people still fall for it even today.

It's like the "Recording Industry Artists of America". Don't believe everything you read.

If you're going to flame somebody, get your own facts straight first. The first A in RIAA is "Association," not "Artists."

However, it's not the RIAA we all love...it's the Rural Internet Access Authority. Oh, the irony! I love it.

I was thinking more of the McCarthy eraHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) , or the FBI's COINTELPRO
Of course the entertainment industry selling out it's artists, to gain favors from the government and the government breaking the law to in order to uphold the law is realy a 50's and 60's thing, and went out with the Nixon administration, right ?

by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

Much has been written about what's wrong with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). After all, it's been used to jail programmers, threaten professors, and censor publications, and because of it, foreign scientists have avoided traveling to the U.S. and prominent researchers have withheld their work. In a white paper about the unintended consequences of the DMCA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the DMCA chills free expression and scientific research, jeopardizes fair use, and impedes competition and innovation. In short, this is a law that only the companies who paid for it could love.

<http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_conseq uences.html >
<http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html>
<http://anti-dmca.org/>

Just who are we talking about here? Primarily the large movie studios and record labels, who own the copyrights on vast quantities of content and who have been working with one another and via their industry associations, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to control how we are allowed to interact with that content. Their unity of purpose and storm-trooper tactics have led some to dub them the Content Cartel.

<http://www.riaa.org/>
<http://www.mpaa.org/>

However, the DMCA is merely one link in a chain that's being used by the Content Cartel and many others to restrict access to the shared cultural heritage of the world, and in the process, extract money from our pockets, stifle innovation and competition, and protect entrenched interests.

DMCA and Trusted Systems -- I recently attended a talk by Professor Tarleton Gillespie <tlg28@cornell.edu> of Cornell University in which he made a compelling argument for how the Content Cartel is using the legal force of the DMCA to direct us down a path where content cannot exist outside of a trusted system, which is a set of hardware, software, and file formats that all agree on what the user is allowed to do with a piece of content. (The trust here is between the pieces of the system, because the content owners don't trust their customers at all.) The trusted system's goals are simple - to eliminate all unauthorized uses and create a situation where we pay more for the content we consume.

A trusted system could prevent you not only from copying a CD or DVD, but also from listening to the CD more than a certain number of times in a day or skipping commercials on a DVD or on broadcast television. Along with requiring us to buy new hardware to play such content and buy new protected versions of the content we already own, a trusted system could have another ill effect. That's because it could prevent us from working with content we would create, using tools such as those Apple kindly provides in iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, and iPhoto. In the worst case scenario, Apple could lose not just the Mac's current digital media advantage in the marketplace, but the ability to work with digital media at all. See Cory Doctorow's article on the broadcast flag in TidBITS-642 for more on this disturbing possibility.

< http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901>

Professor Gillespie illustrated how this could happen with a discussion of the awkwardly named Content Scramble System (CSS), used to prevent people from copying DVDs, and the DeCSS software created by a Norwegian teenager with help from others on the Internet to build a Linux DVD player.

(A brief aside: DeCSS violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, which ban devices or services that are designed primarily to circumvent copy prevention technologies, that have only limited commercially significant purpose other than circumvention, or that are marketed for circumvention. The DMCA was signed into law in large part to bring the U.S. into compliance with a pair of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties that require anti-circumvention protections in the copyright law of signatory nations. You might think Norway would be included among the nations signing these WIPO treaties, but in fact, only 37 countries have signed on, including the U.S. and Japan, along with the likes of Kyrgyzstan, Gabon, and Paraguay. We're not talking about full international support here, especially in contrast to the 149 signatories to the more general and long-standing Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.)

<http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/wct/>
<http://www.wipo.int/treaties/ip/berne/>

In particular, Professor Gillespie focused on three defenses used in the court case filed against Eric Corley, publisher of the hacker magazine 2600, by eight movie studios to prevent 2600 from publishing the DeCSS software. Although Eric Corley didn't create DeCSS, he made it available on the 2600 Web site. His lawyers' defenses focused on ways DeCSS might escape the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA, which was the law under which the case was being tried.

Let's look at these defenses, all of which the court eventually dismissed in ruling for the movie studios and enjoining 2600 magazine from posting the DeCSS code. A subsequent appeal also failed, and the defendants chose not to appeal again to the Supreme Court (probably a wise move - this particular case struck me as fairly weak).

<http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/2000 0830_ny_amended_opinion.pdf>
<http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/MPAA_DVD_cases/200111 28_ny_appeal_decision.html>

Create a Linux Player -- The primary defense that Eric Corley's legal team, funded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), advanced was that CSS was reverse engineered and DeCSS written to further the development of a DVD player for Linux, which allegedly had no way of playing DVDs at the time (four players are available now; see the Linux Journal review linked below for details). Unfortunately, the judge deemed the defense utterly irrelevant because the DMCA offers no relief based on motivation. In short, if a technology violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, the purpose for which that technology was created simply doesn't matter. The judge also wasn't impressed with the fact that DeCSS is actually a Windows program, so although it could be argued that it was a necessary step in the creation of a Linux DVD player, it's a weak argument.

<http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=564 4>

The obstacle that actually lies in the way of creating a DVD player is the lack of a key to decrypt the CSS encryption used on DVDs. The only way to come by such a key is to sign a contract licensing CSS from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA), a group made up of companies representing the movie studios, consumer electronics companies, and the computer industry. At $15,500, the licensing cost is not usurious, but the contract effectively prevents individuals and small organizations from licensing CSS. For instance, in the event of a material breach of contract, the licensee is liable for $1 million, and damages can grow to a maximum of $8 million. In addition, the contract prevents licensees from reverse engineering CSS or working in any way counter to the goal of CSS's protection of DVDs.

Put simply, the CSS license is the sort of thing only large companies can reasonably sign, so it's clear that the effect of the DVD CCA contract is to keep newcomers out of the cozy little club. Perhaps that wasn't a likely concern before the age of the Internet, but the rise of Linux and the open source movement shows that small, informal groups organized over the Internet can produce software that threatens the largest of companies.

The end result here is that innovation is stifled. Companies that license CSS cannot, even if they wanted to, produce products that consumers might like to buy, such as DVD recorders that could copy a DVD. That keeps new companies, niche players, or even independent programmers from competing with the consumer electronics giants with innovative features that in any way run afoul of CSS. So although the consumer electronics companies might not have minded consumers copying DVDs, since they would sell the equipment to make that happen, it's worthwhile for them to abide by CSS to eliminates potential competition.

Equally as problematic is that the CSS license's numerous requirements force the consumer electronics firms to be technologically responsible for regulating our movie viewing and copying behaviors for the studios. Signing this draconian contract is an all-or-nothing deal, so the movie studios have cleverly managed to pass off the dirty work of technological regulation on everyone else (they just produce the content; the DVD and player manufacturers must implement CSS). It's a big step toward a trusted system in which all the parties are bound by the CSS contract.

(As an aside, another effect of the CSS contracts is also to move the entire issue from the world of copyright law, where there is at least some presumption of needing to benefit the public, into the world of contract law, which doesn't give a damn about the public good. If this continues to the logical extreme, the concept of copyright, and unauthorized access to any content, could be locked up forever in simple contracts that lie underneath a trusted system's technologies, all backed up by the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.)

Perform Encryption Research -- Another defense that Eric Corley's lawyers put forth was that DeCSS was created as research into the CSS encryption method, since the DMCA does allow copy-prevention technologies to be circumvented for encryption research. However, the DMCA specifically requires that the encrypted copy be obtained lawfully and that the person performing the research make a good faith effort to obtain authorization in advance. In addition, the decryption tools from such research may be shared only with collaborators for good faith research purposes - in other words, distributing these tools publicly isn't kosher.

Note the words good faith above. In determining whether encryption research is good faith, the judge said the court must determine whether the results are disseminated in a way that advances the state of knowledge of encryption technology, whether the person is engaged in legitimate study of work in encryption, and whether the results are communicated to the copyright owner in a timely fashion. Deciding that none of these tests were true of Eric Corley, the judge dismissed out of hand the claims that DeCSS had protection under the encryption research exception to the DMCA.

Looking past the specifics of this case, consider the ways in which encryption research is considered to be in good faith. You must be a legitimate researcher, have a goal of advancing the state of knowledge, and have at least made an effort to get authorization from the copyright owner. Now think about how these requirements completely disenfranchise the interested individuals and the Internet technical geek community. What does it take to be considered a legitimate researcher - a white coat, thick glasses, and a job with a university, corporation, or government body?

What we're seeing here is how the DMCA in essence props up the status quo, denying that legitimate research could be done outside the halls of academia or a company's R&D department. Left on the outside are the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers... oh hell, go read the rest of Here's to the crazy ones from Apple's Think Different ad campaign for yourself. Whether we're talking about Apple's target audience or the open source community that has had Microsoft running scared is immaterial. The point is that the DMCA, supported by this court ruling, prevents that sort of person from doing anything that's not sanctioned.

<http://www.apple.com/thinkdifferent/>

Report as a Journalist -- A third defense that Eric Corley's lawyers offered was that posting DeCSS was protected by the First Amendment's protection of the press, and by the First Amendment in general. It took the judge significantly longer to dispose of this defense, since free speech issues are notoriously tricky, but in the end, he concluded that the speech in this case is content-neutral due to the functional nature of the DeCSS code. He then went on to note that regulation of content-neutral speech is acceptable if it advances the government's interests and that preventing the copying of digital works is a government interest due to the existence of the Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution and the importance to the U.S. economy of exporting copyrighted materials.

If you haven't looked at the Constitution recently, the Copyright Clause reads, 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. Personally, I come down on the side of copyright existing to benefit society through the progress of science and the useful arts, and only secondarily to give authors and inventors exclusive rights. By my reading, the government interest thus lies in promoting the progress of science and the useful arts, and there's no question that the DMCA eliminates progress.

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constit ution.articlei.html>

But I digress. The final result of the case was that Eric Corley and 2600 may not post DeCSS on their Web site or knowingly link their Web site to any other site on which DeCSS is posted. The decision was worded carefully so that linking in general would not be affected by the DMCA, but only in cases where those responsible for the link (a) know at the relevant time that the offending material is on the linked-to site, (b) know that it is circumvention technology that may not lawfully be offered, and (c) create or maintain the link for the purpose of disseminating that technology.

In other words, it's acceptable to link to DeCSS if your intent is not to disseminate DeCSS, but merely to report on its availability, a fact I proved to my satisfaction with a trivial Google search on download DeCSS that provided over 17,000 hits, many of them still functional. You can verify this for yourself; just remember that DeCSS is only for Windows.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=download+DeCSS>

Here's where Professor Gillespie's argument becomes a bit more speculative. Although the court went no further in this case, he suggested that in any future cases in which the legitimacy of linking was called into question, he felt that the court would include in its deliberation the nature of the publication in question. For example, if the New York Times chose to link to DeCSS or some other technology that violated the DMCA (as in fact the San Jose Mercury News and Wired News have, in making the point that a ban on linking is seriously problematic), he felt that the court would have little trouble accepting the journalistic intent of the link. On the other hand, if some silly little electronic newsletter aimed at Macintosh and Internet users were to perform the same action, he was concerned that it would be more difficult to make the same defense. And if TidBITS wouldn't match up to the journalistic level of the New York Times in the eyes of a theoretical court, what about a blogger?

The end result would be that this court's interpretation of the DMCA could have the same effect of stabilizing the large news organizations in favor of the small newsletters and bloggers who are redefining what journalism means in today's Internet-enabled world. Speaking as someone who has done some of that redefining over the last 12 years, that worries me.

Regime of Arrangement -- In the end, Professor Gillespie argues that the true power of the DMCA is not so much related to its effect on copyright but these ways it weaves established organizations like large manufacturing corporations, research universities, and media conglomerates into what Professor Gillespie calls a regime of arrangement.

Don't assume that these established institutions are necessarily being co-opted against their will. Apple's Think Different campaign reads like a manifesto for the very people who are disenfranchised under this regime of arrangement, and yet Apple is a member of the DVD CCA, and, obviously, a licensee of CSS for the DVD hardware and software that comes with the Mac. The open source community has proved the power of teams of independent programmers as an alternative to the traditional software development model, not to mention the ivory towers of research institutions. Distance education hints at the decline of the traditional university, and entrenched media organizations have struggled for years with the way the Internet lets anyone be a publisher.

If there's one theme we take into the 21st century, it's decentralization, and you can see it everywhere. The PC overtaking the mainframe, Napster changing the face of music distribution despite the recording industry's best efforts, DeCSS causing the movie studios conniptions, Linux successfully challenging the mighty Microsoft's server operating systems, even the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - all are examples of the power of decentralization and the ever-increasing clash between these forces of decentralization and the centralized power structures that control everything about our world. I have no answers here, but I'd note that despite the awesome power of both systems, I'm seeing the forces of decentralization making significant inroads.

What Can We Do? I've been attending a number of talks on copyright and intellectual property issues at Cornell over the last year. Almost without exception, the talks are warnings of dark times ahead (obviously, most are slanted toward the academic and library worlds), but at the same time, none have offered any suggestions for how we can work to reverse the efforts on the part of the Content Cartel to lock up our cultural heritage and stifle innovation for the future.

At a recent talk by Alan Davidson of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), I chatted with Alan afterwards about this problem, and he agreed it was a concern, but had no silver bullet to prevent the hordes of well-funded Content Cartel lobbyists from having their way with our elected representatives. I, too, have trouble knowing what will be effective, but I offer these possibilities.

<http://www.cdt.org/>

• Spread the word to everyone you know. In most cases, the best argument is probably that the entire situation is a move on the part of big business to make everyone buy new consumer electronics and new copies of all of their content. If the Content Cartel gets their way, it will cost you. In some situations, making the intellectual commons argument - that our culture needs access to its cultural heritage to grow - can be effective, though it's generally too abstract. Try to avoid sounding like a zealot (I know it's hard: every time I hear of the latest attempt on the part of these companies to criminalize their customers, it makes me want to spit.)

• Support civil liberties organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and CDT that are working to protect our rights. As you'll see in the PayBITS block at the end of this article, I plan to donate all the proceeds from this article to the EFF to help do my part.

<http://www.eff.org/>

• Between 19-Nov-02 and 18-Dec-02, write to the Library of Congress with any evidence you can provide on whether non-infringing uses of certain types of copyrighted materials are likely to be adversely affected by the DMCA's anti-circumvention mechanisms. To get an idea of what they're looking for, I highly recommend reading Dan Bricklin's Copy Protection Robs the Future essay, in which he talks about his efforts to post an original copy of VisiCalc, the ground-breaking spreadsheet program he created.

<http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comment_forms/>
<http://www.bricklin.com/robfuture.htm>

• Express your concerns to your elected representatives whenever appropriate. EFF maintains an action center that makes it extremely easy to write your appropriate representatives. While you're at it, you might ask how it is that an entire industry is allowed to create a restrictive technology like CSS, require highly limiting contracts, and influence legislation (the DMCA). One of the industry witnesses in the Corley case testified that this three-pronged approach was exactly what the movie studios aimed at creating. Ironically, given that the end goal is a trusted system, this sounds a whole lot like the legal definition of a trust, which is a combination of corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout an industry.

<http://action.eff.org/>

I have to admit, I'm worried that none of this will be enough. The Content Cartel has the aura of celebrity on their side - they're protecting the rock stars and movie stars who sit at the pinnacle of today's society. They're the cool kids, whereas the people who campaign for civil liberties are often considered dull and overly earnest. My main ray of hope is that the reason most of the software industry voluntarily gave up copy protection technologies - primarily that consumers hated copy protection - will rise again, but unless we speak out now, all of our content may be locked up in a trusted system protected by the DMCA.

From the article: After a 5% decline in the sales of recorded music in 2001, the first fall in living memory,.

That statement would be correct if nobody could remember way back to 1997. In those heady days of the Clinton presidency and the dot com boom, the folks at the RIAA reported a 6.5% decrease in annual sales. Back then they didn't have the p2p bogeyman to blame so they laid the blame on retailers streamlining their inventories.

On the whole 'who to blame' angle, I'm amazed that nobody is talking about the role of Clearchannel's radio monopoly on decreased music sales. Before one company dictated that there would be only a handful of radio formats across most major cities, stations were more likely to expand their playlists to include local acts, independent musicians, and songs that local programming personnel liked. Now, playlists are sent down from the home office, and there is more homogeneity among playlists. What does that mean? Fewer new songs get any real airplay, thus giving the listeners of Big Radio fewer unique albums to consider buying...

Back to EMI: The description of their system has so many vague statements that I seriously doubt that this will take off (and we know that EMI never tries to mislead listeners). What listeners want is ease and freedom.

Here's what needs to happen for online music to be profitable for the labels:

1. Record companies have to realize that consumers really don't care who produces or distributes an album. When I go to a record store to by an album, I don't have to know whether it's a BMG or Sony album, I just go to the store and buy it. With these disperate online music services, each with their own catalogs, consumers are supposed to care about these things.

2. Give me the freedom to listen to my music how I want and when I want. Too many of these services offer limited ability to burn CDs or copy to mp3 players. Stop that. I bought the damn music, let me listen to it the way I want. Stop treating your customers like crooks.

It's not that hard. Record executives have a hard time realizing that the music industry is about the artists. Yes, Mr. Exec I'm sure you're a really neat guy, and I know you spend a lot of time doing important things like Bribing radio stations to play your music and engaging in $480,000,000 in price fixing, and I can only imagine how difficult it is to threaten academic researchers. But seriously, you may be getting just a teansy bit greedy and irrational.

Man, I need some sleep...

This may be true of some genres, but it's absolutely not true for electronic music. I would say at least half of music I listen to is on relatively small labels. Though it's also not uncommon for larger labels to pick up the distribution for some albums they think are going to be good - but they certainly don't own the rights. (For instance: Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children has logos for the labels Skam (tiny), Warp (medium), and Matador (medium) on it. According to the internet none of these are riaa members.) In a lot of these cases it's not so much that their lack of overwhelming commercial success is because if their lack of technical skill or creativity, but because they're styles don't happen to coincide with what the masses want.

There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for.

Let's take a look at those numbers. I'll use US sales figures, supplied by the RIAA (The European data, provided by IFPI are not freely available to the public).

If we look at US sales in 1998, we see that CD sales had just increased to 847 million units. The folks at EMI claim that this number is 90% of all audio media paid for, so there were 941 million CDs listened to (941=847/.9).

Now, lets look at the numbers for 2002. In the first half of 2002, there have been 398.1 Million units sold (which is down 10% from last year). Let's assume that Christina Agulara and Eminem's new albums do well, and that the second half of 2002 is as good as the first half. This gives us a total of 796.2 million units for 2002. Now, if we assume that these represent only 46% of all purchased audio media, that means that music fans are listening to 1.73 Billion CDs worth of music (1731=796.2/.46).

So, to sum up,according to EMI, music demand has skyrocketed 183% over the last three years (183=1731/941*100).

Who is making all this great music? All I hear is crap on the radio. Why is everyone complaining about the quality of music these days when in fact the public demand for music has nearly doubled in just a few years?

No wonder I'm swarmed by homeless record executives trying to wash my windshield at every intersection. Won't someone think of the Record Executives?!?

There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. For a comparison: In 1998 almost 90% of all audio media was paid for.

Let's take a look at those numbers. I'll use US sales figures, supplied by the RIAA (The European data, provided by IFPI are not freely available to the public).

If we look at US sales in 1998, we see that CD sales had just increased to 847 million units. The folks at EMI claim that this number is 90% of all audio media paid for, so there were 941 million CDs listened to (941=847/.9).

Now, lets look at the numbers for 2002. In the first half of 2002, there have been 398.1 Million units sold (which is down 10% from last year). Let's assume that Christina Agulara and Eminem's new albums do well, and that the second half of 2002 is as good as the first half. This gives us a total of 796.2 million units for 2002. Now, if we assume that these represent only 46% of all purchased audio media, that means that music fans are listening to 1.73 Billion CDs worth of music (1731=796.2/.46).

So, to sum up,according to EMI, music demand has skyrocketed 183% over the last three years (183=1731/941*100).

Who is making all this great music? All I hear is crap on the radio. Why is everyone complaining about the quality of music these days when in fact the public demand for music has nearly doubled in just a few years?

No wonder I'm swarmed by homeless record executives trying to wash my windshield at every intersection. Won't someone think of the Record Executives?!?

After fuming about this as we all probably did, I thought about it and came to this conclusion: EMI's math is inaccurate, and more insidiously, they are hiding some very important facts.

Here's what was said:

"There are 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes bought and used this year for copying music in comparison to 213 Million prerecorded audio media. This means the owners are only being paid for 46 per cent of the musical content. "

This assumes that either; A) all CDRs are used to pirate music or; B) EMI has some magic tracer on blank CDRs that returns which of them was used for illegal purposes. Since neither is true, the EMI statement is rubbish. CDRs are used just as much for backups, non-MP3 warez and coasters as much as they are used for infinging music and film files.

But they mention tapes as well. Ah HA! Now here comes the reall bullshit.

Know what the AHRA is? Well the Audio Home Recording act was enacted to make sure people paid for music they taped. IOW, when you bought a blank TDK cassette, the RIAA and labels assumed you were going to use it to copy music, so they wanted a cut. The therefore dreamed up the "blank royalty" which meant that $3 of the $5.99 you paid for that TDK cassette went to publishers, labels and artists (cough). In return you were given THE RIGHT to make copies.

According to the RIAA:

"This legislation exempts consumers from lawsuits for copyright violations when they record music for private, noncommercial use; eases access to advanced digital audio recording technologies; provides for the payment of modest royalties to songwriters and recording artists and companies; and mandates the inclusion of serial copying management technology in all consumer digital audio recorders to limit multi-generation audio copying (i.e., making copies of copies). "

They get paid for device sales as well. There are similar laws in every First World country, in particular, the UK and Germany.

So Herr EMI, in claiming that ".. 250 Million blank CDRs and tapes [are] bought and used this year for copying music .." well, you're getting PAID for them dude.

What's core? That EMI.de is complaining that people are buying media (for which EMI.de is generously paid) to make copies of music that they are entitled to copy BY LAW. The EMI.de guy is complaining that people are buying media that generates MILLIONS per year for EMI!

When EMI, Warner Music, BMG, UMG and Sony Music offer to give back the blank royalty, then we can begin to discuss what percentage of CDRs are actually put to infringing use.

Check out the RIAA's official line on CD costs. There's a lot of overhead, much of it advertising. Like many other products, the consumer pays for a lot in products that don't at all improve the product, but make it popular (which ironically makes it cheaper).

The costs of producing the music are nearly beside the point, as are the media costs. The other stuff sets the price.

Emphatically, I think a more efficient model can be created, but as with books the transition to the internet has been slow. But eventually I am certain will be plenty of $1 songs, and that the artists will be better off -- esp. the small-market ones not blessed by the marketing focus of a major label. In fact, it may be the big names that produce mediocre music who suffer.

Today I received my periodic package from Alta Mira, and the labels were: Locomotive Music (x2), Heavy Metal Records Ltd, Limb Music Productions, Arise Records, Megahard Records, Iron Glory Records. grip/cdparanoia will read 'em all, because those companies haven't gone out of their way to become part of the problem.

It's a huge world, and the companies that want to opt out of the market are just a tiny slice of it.

If you don't limit your selection to just the heavily advertised/pushed stuff and retail stores, chances are that an arbitrary band is not affiliated with the "war" in any way.

... we have a special interview guest: Attorney Lawrence E. (Larry) Rosen ...

You're going to interview Hillary Rosen on Slashdot???

Oh, wait...

(Although just the thought of /. interviewing the passionate defender of the arts made my day)

heres that list

List of affiliated labels is here.

RIAA replied to Janis Ian's article.

Their stance against people uploading songs against the copyright is a valid concern.

They want to "advance a thoughtful dialogue about how to address these serious issues" but their singleminded mantra against file sharing shows when they argue that the CD sales decline is caused by file sharing. Im sure the RIAA is rich enough to hire competent economists who know that the real reason for the decline of CD sales is the foundering economy.

They say "Stealing is wrong, no matter how you try and justify by painting the victim as the bad guy." Maybe the RIAA should get off their moral high-horse and evaluate how their price fixing and distribution practices steal from the people.

Its refreshing to hear an artist stand up to the RIAA bullying tatics. Like the RIAA says about Janis Ian, "more power to her."

Actually, Metallica didn't start to go artistically bankrupt until the infamous Black album.

Infamous in what sense? Just curious. I mean, it's not my favorite Metallica album, but God knows the thing sold. Someone liked it.

Interestingly, if you look at the RIAA website you'll notice that the band hasn't received any gold or platinum awards since January 2000, which is shortly before they started taking on Napster (around March or April of '00, I think). Now, of course, there could be perfectly good reasons for that; that the records are selling as well as ever and the band's management asked the RIAA to hold off on future awards until they have something new to promote. But you've gotta admit that a 2 1/2 year stretch of *no* gold or platinum awards for a band that was regularly collecting RIAA certifications in each year between 1986 and 2000 (look it up here) looks pretty odd.

On top of that, the last RIAA certification for "Load" (1996) was for 4 million copies in November 1997, and the last certification for "Re-Load" ("Load" outtakes; 1997) was for 3 million copies; also in November 1997. In other words, you're looking at the sales of the band's two most recent studio albums levelling off nearly *five* years ago. In the meantime, the band's earlier records continued to pick up awards for more than another year before mysteriously stopping altogether around the time of the Napster controversy. Now I don't know about you, but that sure spells "commercial decline" to me: The old stuff continues selling and the new stuff stalls out at a level well below the old stuff.

Reggae pioneer and Grammy award winner Jimmy Cliff, famous for his starring role in cult movie classic The Harder They Come and several hit songs, has recently released his entire newest album online for free download at his website. You can listen to the music by downloading People Music Media from the site, a P2P application that streams the music to you. It's great that famous artists are finally developing new music distribution schemes and revenue making models for the Information Age! Perhaps the RIAA could take a few notes from him...

And I just downloaded the album last night, it is amazing. (-:

Good for Lobao! Wish I could read Portugese...

This is what needs to happen elsewhere! This is where artists need to go - direct to thier listeners.

If I had the business smarts/time/money, I think I'd start a company that did one thing only - helped artists go direct to the public like this guy did. Help them set up a web site that provided thier listeners with such services as:

- buy pre-made CD
- burn tracks direct
- special recordings (my wife would flip if I got Creed to sing a song just for her - worth mucho $ to me)
- lots of other cool stuff
(Sorry - I have to...
- ????
- Profit!!!!)

I'd also provide the promotion needed to get people to the site. You would then be certain that your money is going to the artist in question, not some (In My Humble Opinion)looney executive's pocket.

There are other hurdles to clear - radio play being a major obstacle - but I bet it would work.

Soko

1) Fill fish tank with water.
2) Put rosen on the surface of the tank.

The surface? Screw that! If I ever get Rosen near a fish tank full of water, I'm submerging her head completely and keeping it under until she stops struggling!

There are some people who value "DIY" over mass-market acceptance.

Get it from Amazon for [$3.99 cheaper]

And fund enforcement of a patent that should never have been granted. If you want to preserve balance in the Force, you have to give to EFF every time you give to a company that employs "evil" practices with respect to statutory monopolies. That's why I don't buy more than $65 a year from Disney, Time Warner, Universal, or the other big nine copyright companies, and that's also why I don't buy from Amazon or use Unisys products.

Was it really free trade that caused the collapse of the old Soviet Union? Or was it economic brinksmanship on the part of the Reagan administration?

They're the same thing; the capitalist economy made it possible for the West to force the Soviets into a spending competition that a communist economy simply couldn't win. Their political system collapsed without a fight, infinitely preferable to a military confrontation.

Economic Brinksmanship == free trade? Hmmm.

Your view, that free trade represents the pinnacle of human acheivement is a depressingly widely held one. And, in my opinion, one based on faith and wishful thinking. As you have observed, there is a vast gap between the ideal of free trade, and the corporate cronyism practiced in the first world. It seems to me that the gap is so vast it could as easily be cited to prove the exact opposite of your belief.

If you can believe things on no evidence, then so can I. I predict a day will come when the current faith in free trade will be seen as a quaint superstition.

About the Reagan administration's brinksmanship? They were lucky. They gambled with our lives. Was it a safe bet? That doesn't matter. Because they deceived the public.

The USA had bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union. Including the ABM treaty. SDI would have violated the ABM treaty. If one believed the hype about SDI its completion would have been indistinguishable from preparing for a first strike. It would have been a far more blatant real example of what the Bush junior adminstration is accusing Saddam.

That SDI would have been in violation of the ABM was pointed out repeatedly. And this is the lie -- Reagan administration officials kept saying, "that is only true if you use a strict interpretation of the ABM treaty."

It still makes me mad to think of it. A bilateral treaty is not like a civil contract. There is no higher authority to whom you can appeal if you think the other party is cheating. It only works to the extent the two parties trust one another. Changing the rules in mid-play is a real trust destructor.

Okay, there is a big gap between the ideal of "free trade" and the reality found in the First World. Consider this example. If you have been following slashdot you have had an opportunity to learn about the Recording Industry's attempts to retain the status quo, where the middlemen who stand between artists and the public collect all the loot. How do they do that? Do they get Alicia Keys to appear before Congress? Yes they do.

Do they have her sit and answer questions before a Congressional Committee. No, they host a private concert for congress critters!

Most recently, one of the giants of the recording industry, Clive Davis, came to Washington DC to give Capitol Hill with rising star Alicia Keys to give a crash-course in the intricate and complex process of identifying, nurturing, and developing a star. Clive Davis, the music mogul behind the success of such legends as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, and Santana, offered Members of Congress and staffers a behind-the-scenes look at this process, and introduced a special private performance by his latest new discovery, Alicia Keys. The night club-style event was presented by the RIAA.

Look at this picture of your congress-critters rooting at the trough. Hands up if you think they paid for those drinks you see them imbibing at this "night club style event".

Is it fair or equitable that congress-critters get offered and accept freebies from special interests like the RIAA?

This is my opinion of why the old Soviet Union collapsed. In theory, in the old Soviet Union, everyone was supposed to be really equal. But, from my reading, I gather that Communist Party members were extremely privileged.

The Party members rooted at the trough, just like First World politicians who accept gifts from special interests. Only more so. Other institutions, like organized religion, which could have helped balance were destroyed.

The rationalizations that allow someone in power to accept corrupting freebies is clearly not a quality unique to either Capitalism or Socialism. There are forces fighting this kind of corruption. All of you Americans who think this is wrong should write a letter to your congress-critter telling them so. Explain that you think they should ignore the blandishments of the RIAA. Tell them you support the efforts of guys like John McCain.

Let me say something, in this final paragraph, in favour of Socialism. When I was a kid I was fascinated by cavemen. I read about the Neanderthal people, and Peking man. And I remember reading about the discovery of earlier hominids who buried their dead. I read about how early Anthropologist found these graves contained individuals whose bones showed they had recovered from crippling wounds. They had been cared for when they were no longer able to fully contribute to their group's economy. I read how these graves contained gifts, and flowers, showing that they had been loved. I read the interpretation that showing love and concern for others illustrated a leap of culture from barbarism to full humanity. And I was convinced. In this interpretation the naked greed, power-mongering, opportunism and deceit that come with free trade represent a slide back into barbarism.

Was it really free trade that caused the collapse of the old Soviet Union? Or was it economic brinksmanship on the part of the Reagan administration?

They're the same thing; the capitalist economy made it possible for the West to force the Soviets into a spending competition that a communist economy simply couldn't win. Their political system collapsed without a fight, infinitely preferable to a military confrontation.

Economic Brinksmanship == free trade? Hmmm.

Your view, that free trade represents the pinnacle of human acheivement is a depressingly widely held one. And, in my opinion, one based on faith and wishful thinking. As you have observed, there is a vast gap between the ideal of free trade, and the corporate cronyism practiced in the first world. It seems to me that the gap is so vast it could as easily be cited to prove the exact opposite of your belief.

If you can believe things on no evidence, then so can I. I predict a day will come when the current faith in free trade will be seen as a quaint superstition.

About the Reagan administration's brinksmanship? They were lucky. They gambled with our lives. Was it a safe bet? That doesn't matter. Because they deceived the public.

The USA had bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union. Including the ABM treaty. SDI would have violated the ABM treaty. If one believed the hype about SDI its completion would have been indistinguishable from preparing for a first strike. It would have been a far more blatant real example of what the Bush junior adminstration is accusing Saddam.

That SDI would have been in violation of the ABM was pointed out repeatedly. And this is the lie -- Reagan administration officials kept saying, "that is only true if you use a strict interpretation of the ABM treaty."

It still makes me mad to think of it. A bilateral treaty is not like a civil contract. There is no higher authority to whom you can appeal if you think the other party is cheating. It only works to the extent the two parties trust one another. Changing the rules in mid-play is a real trust destructor.

Okay, there is a big gap between the ideal of "free trade" and the reality found in the First World. Consider this example. If you have been following slashdot you have had an opportunity to learn about the Recording Industry's attempts to retain the status quo, where the middlemen who stand between artists and the public collect all the loot. How do they do that? Do they get Alicia Keys to appear before Congress? Yes they do.

Do they have her sit and answer questions before a Congressional Committee. No, they host a private concert for congress critters!

Most recently, one of the giants of the recording industry, Clive Davis, came to Washington DC to give Capitol Hill with rising star Alicia Keys to give a crash-course in the intricate and complex process of identifying, nurturing, and developing a star. Clive Davis, the music mogul behind the success of such legends as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, and Santana, offered Members of Congress and staffers a behind-the-scenes look at this process, and introduced a special private performance by his latest new discovery, Alicia Keys. The night club-style event was presented by the RIAA.

Look at this picture of your congress-critters rooting at the trough. Hands up if you think they paid for those drinks you see them imbibing at this "night club style event".

Is it fair or equitable that congress-critters get offered and accept freebies from special interests like the RIAA?

This is my opinion of why the old Soviet Union collapsed. In theory, in the old Soviet Union, everyone was supposed to be really equal. But, from my reading, I gather that Communist Party members were extremely privileged.

The Party members rooted at the trough, just like First World politicians who accept gifts from special interests. Only more so. Other institutions, like organized religion, which could have helped balance were destroyed.

The rationalizations that allow someone in power to accept corrupting freebies is clearly not a quality unique to either Capitalism or Socialism. There are forces fighting this kind of corruption. All of you Americans who think this is wrong should write a letter to your congress-critter telling them so. Explain that you think they should ignore the blandishments of the RIAA. Tell them you support the efforts of guys like John McCain.

Let me say something, in this final paragraph, in favour of Socialism. When I was a kid I was fascinated by cavemen. I read about the Neanderthal people, and Peking man. And I remember reading about the discovery of earlier hominids who buried their dead. I read about how early Anthropologist found these graves contained individuals whose bones showed they had recovered from crippling wounds. They had been cared for when they were no longer able to fully contribute to their group's economy. I read how these graves contained gifts, and flowers, showing that they had been loved. I read the interpretation that showing love and concern for others illustrated a leap of culture from barbarism to full humanity. And I was convinced. In this interpretation the naked greed, power-mongering, opportunism and deceit that come with free trade represent a slide back into barbarism.

I wish I could tell you that there is a silver bullet that could resolve this very serious problem. There is not.

Why no links to riaa.org? Did they complain about the slashdot effect or something?

Although the author makes a compelling point in his article, I fear his ideas are as naive as they are unworkable. Cringley, like so many other well meaning, misguided souls, fails to address the root of the issue. Opposition to the DMCA is not a great moral cause. It not an issue of freedom, liberty, or privacy. It is an issue of money. Hilary Rosen and the rest of the RIAA could care less about the contents of individual hard drives or the actions of geeks hiding in their parent's basements. These people are simply businessmen and business women who are trying to defend their source of income. We can not demonize these people for their actions, for they are no different than Napster, Ford, McDonalds, or any individual who has a job to pay his/her bills.

There are many obvious problems with Cringley's point of view. There are not enough geeks to engage in a form of civil disobedience like Cringely suggests. And unfortunatly, the majority of the population outside the tech community could care less about the issue. To make matters worse, those who are opposed to the DMCA are disorganized and do not have the finances to lobby the nation's leaders like the RIAA and other organizations. However, we have one weapon that we have failed to utilize effectively.

In order to ultimately defeat the DMCA, those who oppose it must learn to target the root of the problem. The system must be used against itself. The music industry is not independently wealthy. Their finaces come from a massive consumer base. Everytime someone buys a cd, turns on their radio, or buys a set of sheet music the music industry gets the royalties. The general public will not boycott the music industry, therefore the finances of the RIAA can not be targeted directly. However, their consumer base can. Regulations like the DMCA are influenced by market forces. To this end, the tech community needs to make the issue important to the general public. This is best achieved through the talents we have and the products we make. We must release multimedia software that even the most illiterate of people can use. We must create hardware that is just as easy to use. We should strive to have inexpensive cd burners and dvd burners in every PC in the country. We need free DVD ripping software that doesn't require a Computer Science degree to use. By doing this, we will create a demand for the products that the RIAA opposes. As other companies race to meet the demands, they too will try to protect their source of income. Ultimately, it will be business like Memorex, Fuji Film, and TEAC that defeat the DMCA. Only they have the money to lobby our leaders, and only the general public has the numbers to supply the demand for their products.

This is not true more people download their music now than they did with napster. This is because Kazaa is actually superior to napster. It is easier to download songs because one gets files from multiple sources. I find all popular stuff on Kazaa with great ease, and I find obscure stuff, too. The RIAA admits all of this in this brief. (It's 67 pages, a long download.)

Feel good, we're winning. The RIAA doesn't know what to do. They need to appear to be fighting piracy to their shareholders, but any move they make is a bad one. Each time they shut down a network it allows one based on superior technology to flourish. Going after individuals demonizes them way too much.

Well, We only probe(d) the ports on your computer that you have made public.. .i.e, port 80.

Okay, you can mod me down now.

Actually, according to the RIAA's database, their albums are still generating multi-platinum sales.

How will anti-spam legislation defeat all the Asian and African and European spam that dwarfs most of our email boxes? What, sue the ISP demanding that they stop this "allowal of spam transfer?" Oh wait, that sounds familiar.