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What Does the Audio Home Recording Act Really Allow?
festers asks: "With all the legal action being taken by the MPAA and RIAA, I decided to check out their Web sites for a closer look at what they are saying. While I was on riaa.org I came across this: What You Can't Copy They cite the Audio Home Recording Act. Basically what I came away with was that I am not allowed to make any recordings of copyrighted music onto my computer. I can't make mix CDs, or sound clips, or even MP3s for my own use. Can this really be?? Is this what the Home Recording Act is all about? If this is the case, then MP3.com seems to have no ground to stand on when it comes to the Beam-It software."
Here's a very real case where, a creative interpretation of an obscure law can suddenly have the FBI kicking down my office door, pointing guns at me, siezing all my computer hardware, and even if I "win" my trial, I get no equipment back or lost $$$$ because I had no business for x weeks/months.
USENET. Any news admin will tell you it's easily a few GB of articles PER DAY going in and out of the news server at any major internet node. It is IM-POSS-I-BLE to check all that data for illegal content in real time. Now suppose someone posts kiddie pr0n to comp.os.linix.misc and someone tips off feds to this and say it's here at my ISP. Well, yeah, lo and behold there's the pr0n on my hardware. I didn't put it there. Yes, I forwarded it. I forward everything coming in.
Now if I fully understand the law, I take it to mean that only common carriers are exempt from watching the content they carry and making sure it's legal. An ISP is not a common carrier. Are all ISPs therefore supposed to shutdown usenet? This is obviously not the intent of the law. But it is the letter. What lawyer will tell me what is the right thing for me to do?
After Federal laws with such impressive titles as the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act get passed and signed into law, the good folk in our benign and wondrous government reconcile and merge the new law with the body of the existing old law, which is divided up into . The civil law related to copyright is all of a section called Title 17. (The criminal bits of copyright law are off in a seperate section, over in the criminal code). When a new law gets reconciled and merged with the old, it can be much like the application of a diff patch, lots of little changes all over to hell and gone. However, in the case of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), it resulted in a new chapter 10 of Title 17 (PDF), so you can read it for yourself (or try).
In a nutshell, the AHRA:
- defines a bunch of terms, primarily a class of "digital audio recording devices" (section 1001)
- mandates that any device in that class incorporate a Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) or similar copy management technology and prohibits "inaccurately" setting the bits of any SCMS-managed recording (section 1002),
- that anyone manufacturing such a device or media for such a device pay a royalty (section 1003),
- the mechanism for the big copyright owners to divide up their new revenue stream (sections 1004-1007),
- most important!! "No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings." (entire text of section 1008)
- and finally, what people can sue for, what the damage limits are, and how certain disputes can be arbitrated (sections 1009 and 1010).
The law does not put computers with digital recording capabilities in the defined class of digital audio recording devices (this interpretation was confirmed when the RIAA lost RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia , see section III B 2 ), and the law does not require that digital sound recordings be made with an SCMS device nor that digital sound recordings incorporate SCMS controls (see footnote 7 of RIAA vs. Diamond).In examining the AHRA in RIAA vs. Diamond, the court states:
The AHRA does have that section 1008 language (quoted above) that makes it explicit that using a digital device in the defined class, or any analog device, for non-commercial consumer is not a copyright violation, but the AHRA is silent about other digital devices or non-SCMS digital recordings. To know whether those are permitted or not, we have to look to the rest of copyright law, in the other chapters of Title 17. The RIAA, in their rant , seem to be arguing that whatever is not expressly permitted by the AHRA is prohibited, but that's simply not the case; they're just blowing smoke.There's a lot of stuff in the rest of copyright law, but basically the law gives the copyright owner exclusive control of the copyrighted work with several exceptions. The AHRA in chapter 10 above defines one exception, the other exceptions significant for our puposes are:
- Chapter 1 (PDF): section 107: Fair Use
- Chapter 1: section 108: reproduction by libraries and archives
The full text of the "Fair use" section is: Courts have found in SONY CORP. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS that it is a "fair use" to record any broadcast for later viewing - "time shifting" - and the RIAA vs. Diamond established that it "fair use" to "space shift" - to transfer digital music from your CDs to your Rio. Until a court decides a "fair use" issue there's always some uncertainty about where the boundaries are, but the trend seems clear to me that "format shifting" (migrating vinyl and CDs to MP3) and backup/archiving would be likely to be declared "fair use" if it ever gets to court. It probably won't because the big publishers have been losing pretty steadily over the years and seem to be trying to get what they want through FUD and propaganda - people tend to self-limit more than they have to in uncertain conditions, to "be safe", then publishers get to argue that anyone approaching the line has really gone past it because it's "not normal". Feh!The other significant exception to the copyright owner's exclusive use is section 108. It's a bit convoluted, but the meat is that public libraries and archives can make backup and replacement copies of stuff for themselves under certain circumstances, can make copies of small sections of works in print for patrons, and can make whole copies of out-of-print works for patrons to take home and keep, under the condition that "the library or archives has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that a copy or phonorecord of the copyrighted work cannot be obtained at a fair price". And while someone claiming to be a Real Lawyer® in Usenet has said otherwise, I have always thought that if it's legal for a library to do it for you, it's just got to be "fair use" for you to do it for yourself. (But then again, IANAL.)
In summation, when the RIAA writes:
they're full of self-serving crap, and have already been contradicted by an appeals court.Then the RIAA tried arguing that because hard disks are exempt from SCMS, it is illegal to copy music onto them.
The court also ruled against the RIAA here. The court said that just because the AHRA applied to one class of devices, that did not mean that Fair Use was null and void with regards to others.
Note that the AHRA, according to the RIAA, does not grant you any recording rights! It merely grants you protection from their lawsuits (like that stopped the Rio lawsuit) if you use analog recorders or crippled/taxed "consumer" equipment.
Your actual recording rights come from the Fair Use clause (which isn't "subject" to copyright law -- it's PART of copyright law and it limits exclusive rights, not the other way around) and the First Sale doctrine. You had these rights before the AHRA passed, even if they were never written down in the form of an exact set of rules as to what was OK and what was not.
Considering that the Betamax decision threw out the theory that you could outlaw new technology with significant legitimate uses on the basis of contributory infringement, the AHRA didn't really give honest consumers much of anything valuable. It just burdened them with extra copy protection and with recorder/media tax.
And we all know about the torrent of pre-recorded DAT tapes that become available once the record industry got its way with the AHRA. :-)
IANAL, but neither you are
YOU aren't purchasing a perpetual right to the music. You're purchasing the right to listen to the music on the media you purchased it on.
Nope. "Purchasing" a copyrighted creative work on the medum (all creative works are copyrighted) is buying a medum plus a license to use the creative work (listen/view/use in derived works within the restriction of fair use... -- for example I have a right to look at the oscilloscope with music on its input even though it was not intended to be used that way -- however I can't use that as a public performance). If the medium is destroyed, license remains -- if you have a copy you can use it instead of the original, and formally you will not be guilty in any crime if you will buy a bootleg of the same.
f your CD shatters or gets stuck in a microwave or somehting, you're not entitled to a new one.
No one has an obligation to replace you your medium (free, for a price of medium, or higher), but your license remains forever. No one but the Congress can revoke it. You may have trouble using that license if you can't find a copy (say, all copies of the work are destroyed), but if you will find another copy, and duplicate it, duplicate will be yours.
Likewise, if you bought MS Word 5.1 for the Mac on floppies, that doesn't mean that you should be entitled to MS Word 2000 on CD due to the G4's lack of a floppy drive.
He is not entitled to physical replacement, but he can borrow a CD with MS Word 5.1 and install it on new Mac, as long as the old one is erased or otherwise destroyed.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I think a lot of the paranoia comes from people who do things that, while technically legal, catch the attention of the local politicions/law officials/men in black. Maybe it is an unpopular political viewpoint, maybe some sort of religious issue, if they can't put you in jail for the rest of your life simply because it is unconstitutional, then they just need to catch you doing something that you didn't even know was a crime. Maybe you spit on the sidewalk or walk backwards or something and they pull up some law from 1722 that calls for 20 years in jail that nobody has enforced in years. Of course this example doesn't really do justice to the situitation, since most juries would acquit you faster than you could say unfair enforcement.
I read the internet for the articles.
You don't have to. All it takes is the little © on the disc to put copying, redistribution, and "fair use" under the jurisdiction of (US) federal law. You bought the disc, but not the right to copy it. It's taken for granted thet you can't go buy a book, Xerox it's contents and hand it out on the street corner, why should music be different?
I agree absolutely.
I am all for companies rigorously defending their rights granted under copyright law (I even respect said rights). What I don't like is erosion of fair-use doctrine (in terms of my interpretation of digital eqivilents to analog rights), and interpretation of that doctrine in such a way as that it restricts my use.
The current burr in my saddle is the trend that I am seeing for "licenses" to explicitely (or implicitely in the case of DVDR) forbid me from excercising freedoms which I was guarenteed under previous law.
Pax -- Ob
Technically, this is correct. However, any claim that a recording company has to their "ownership" of their ability to enforce how I can use the music is entirely mythical. It may well be that we consent to go along with this myth, but for all intents and purposes, the "licensing agreement" in unenforceable, and the value of the "distribution service" that the media companies provide by distributing the media has become essentially worthless.
So you're right that we only have a license to play a CD on a CD player and not to copy the digital data into another format, but the technical realities of the situation reduce such a license to a quaint joke. If you simply choose to "disbelieve" the license in this case, it ceases to exist. So my advice is to decide not to going along with the "myth" of the company's ownership and copy the contents of the CD onto your hard drive.
-Dean
As a consumer, I have a problem with cd's: they are not very portable when I go jogging and my vehicles do not have cd players, but do have line input jack. I have a mp3 player which makes up for all three. If the RIAA had its way, they insist that I do something about my technology or listen to no music at all or the crappy radio stations here. I've ripped a great many for my use. So if its not allowed, why don't they come on over and sue me?
The fuzzy part as I understand it, which works to promote your argument is that without explicit agreement to the terms, you cannot be bound to laws more restrictive than copyright laws.
The GPL is powerful because without the GPL, the software distributor is bound to copyright law. Meaning that he can make personal copies, but he cannot distribute the copies at all without the author's permission. In the case of Linux, all thousands of authors.
The authors have permitted the software to be redistributed under the terms of the GPL.
On the other hand, Windows requires you to adhere to regulations more stringent than copyright laws, (IIRC use on a single system, cannot resell the product used, etc). Thus you have to "agree" to the terms by breaking the seal on the product and not returning the software in 30 days.
Music has neither method, so I would assume, just as you do, that it is guided by copyright law. Copy it for personal use, keep it, sell it used (destroying all copies), and all the other fun things you can do with books, videos and the like.
If the music industry were to lock us into some kind of license agreement restricting copies for personal use, or resale, I would hope that they would provide replacement media should theirs get damaged. After all, you're buying a personal use license and not a CD anymore.
Anything less is hypocrasy.
In detail, it says:
However, the act says earlier:
The RIAA page in question seems to be asserting that a computer isn't a "digital audio recording device". One could, perhaps, argue that the computer isn't the "digital audio recording device", the program that's reading the CD and writing to a file is, and that it "is designed or marketed for the primary purpose of, and that is capable of, making a digital audio copied recording for private use".
But I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know whether
...but doing so might bring such programs under Subchapter B, Copying Controls:
You know, with all the legal sidestepping that everyone does these days (thanks to the US legal system), it seems like we need some sort of "reasonable person" clause. Something to the effect that any language used by a company in an official legal manner is only acceptable if a reasonable person would be able to read it, and be able to comprehend it.
This would certainly do away with the twenty pages of text that scroll by at the end of any commercial for a contest, if a reasonable person couldn't read it...
This would also help the average joe in understanding just how he is being screwed by a number of companies. If the company has to print out in clear language just exactly how they are going to stick it to you...
Casca
When I buy a CD I instantly transfer it to my hard drive and MP3 it. I never listen to the audio CD ever. I've got several dozen CDs I've never heard from the plastic. So would this be legal, the CD considered to be the backup or something like that?
Disclaimer: IANAL
Yes, it would be legal. Basically, under the current copyright and home recording laws, you have the right to make a backup (namely the mp3s) for your own personal use (this is considered a "fair use" under copyright law).
You may further transfer those onto a Rio for road listening (there was a case, RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia, in the 9th Circuit ruling on the Rio issue that says that's legal. This in turn was built on a case back in the days of Betamax that established the right to record TV shows for later viewing, which became known as a "time shifting". The 9th Circuit in the Rio case held that there is a similar right of "spatial shifting" that applies to consumers using Rios and the like).
Naturally, you may not then give or sell the CD to someone else without destroying your mp3s.
If you want more detail, there's some good information from the Home Recording Rights Coalition summarizing the laws. In particular,Summary of the Audio Home Recording Act.
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act does complicate things some, but as I understand it there is still a provision for fair use.
-Stradivarius
>I have a Windows 98 CD here. Does this mean I OWN >Windows and can do
> whatever I want with it? I bet the law would
>disagree if I started burning
> copies and handing 'em out on the street corner
When did "handing [th]em out on the street corner"
come into the discussion?
If I copy my windows CD and lock it up in the file cabinet, it's not anyone's business but mine. If I have a copy in my laptop bag and another copy in the CD case, that's a good and necessary, and legal, thing.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The interesting questin here is what happens when Congress passes two obviously contradictory pieces of legislation. The DMCA has specific exemptions that permit copying to and from computer hard drives. What happens when two laws of equal priority (ie, neither is a constitutional amendment or whatever) are in obvious conflict? If you sue me under AHRA, can I defend myself using the provisions from DMCA?
Not that I'm saying DMCA and AHRA are necessarily contradictory; I don't know a thing about what AHRA says.
-Graham
I, for one, would have absolutely NO objections to an arbitrary form of languange construct that defines a law, as long as the definition made sense and was itself rigidly defined.
Hell, yes. Then, when people needed a lawyer, they'd have to hire a programmer instead. (Ka-chinggg!!)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
In the RIAA text they said that the law was passed in 1992, correct me if I am wrong, but .mp3 technology wasn't even created yet, or at least not very popular.
Yep. The RIAA made a huge mistake and completely misjudged the future of digital recording when they pushed for the law.
If they had taken the opposite approach, and imposed the kickback payment and SCMS requirements on computer peripherals that can record audio data, and at the same time flooded the market with cheap, standalone digital audio recorders, then MP3 would be irrelevant because most people would be too busy messing around with their standalone, non-networked, non-computer connected equipment to think about attempting to connect their digital recording deck to their computer.
Instead, they took the exact opposite approach, and it completely backfired on them. Now the market is flooded with computer-based recorders, and dirt cheap CDR media the sells by the 50 pack, neither of which are subject to the law-mandated industry kickback payoff, have no copy controls whatsoever, and are conveniently connected directly to the internet, where users can download their free MP3 encoders and players.
- John
These and other errors in this piece are not the result of stupidity. This is a concerted campaign of disinformation aimed at altering public perception of the scope of copyright with the long term goal of abolishing fair use.
Absolutely.
You'll notice that the recording industry has substituted the phrase "copyright protection" for the phrase "copy protection", with the same aim. Their real target is fair use. They don't think we should have it, and since the courts don't agree with them, they are taking their misinformation campaign directly to the people.
You'll hear a lot more about this in October when the DMCA takes effect.
Don't think of it as a "tax." The fee does not go to the government. The fee is paid directly by the manufacturers of the recorders/media into an industry-controlled account, to be distributed to the RIAA's client companies.
The correct term for such a fee is a "kickback."
Less confusing now?
Congress, with the help of record company lobbyists, has determined that lossless digital copying is not the same as lossy, hiss inducing, analog copying. It has therefore placed restrictions (the SCMS and the above-mentioned royalty) on digital copying.
Actually, the restrictions are placed on the manufacturers and importers of equipment that is designed and marketed for the primary purpose of making digital audio recordings. Section 1008, as you pointed out, explicitly specifies that this law does not place restrictions on digital copying. This is a crucial difference.
The general copyright laws place restrictions on copying of digital information, and provide fair use exceptions, but not this law. This law creates a kickback scheme where money is paid by equipment and media manufacturers directly to the recording industry, for the "privilege" of not being sued. It does not provide rights to, or place restrictions on the non-commercial end use of such equipment by consumers.
- John
By no means do I endorse these rediculous restrictions, but to stop the commercialization of pirated software, they have to do something.
Something, yes. "Something, anything!" no.
If the intention of the law is to criminalize commercial piracy (turning a profit from someone else's work or intellectual property), then the law should be worded to do just that.
If the intention of the law is to criminalize consumers sharing a product they have purchased with their friends and family (as current copyright law in the US and elsewhere does), then it should be targeted to do just that, and we should not try to pretend it is doing anything different.
The DMCA, and the RIAA's efforts to get similar draconian legislation pushed through (which kills nearly all of the "fair use" rights we as consumers enjoy under current copyright law) to gut consumer rights for their products, should be recognized for what they are: legislation enacted to protect existing corporate oligarchies (primarilly but not exclusively The American Hegemony) at the expense of the consumer and the individual. We should not be forgiving of this behavior simply because such draconian, shot-gun-blast legislation happens to take down a few unscrupulous poeple along with the millinos of innocents.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
> The RIAA page in question seems to be asserting that a computer isn't a "digital audio recording device"
In that case, Audio Home Recording Act simply doesn't apply *at all*. The Act doesn't say anything about devices that it doesn't define, so anything that is not a "digital audio recording device" falls under the older Title 17 regulations, which have always allowed for personal copies.
The whole point of defining devices based on their primary market was to only require *those* devices to implement SCMS and make royalty payments and to leave other devices alone.
Before the settlement of the RIO case, the judge had stated that the RIO was not a "digital audio recording device" and, therefore, not subject the AHRA and did not have to make royalty payments or implement SCMS.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
> Unfortunately, it does appear to do what the RIAA says.
Except for section 1008, which says noncommercial use is exempt from the Act.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The FCC has explicitly refrained from classifying ISPs as common carriers. See OPP Working Paper No. 31, The FCC and the Unregulation of the Internet.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If the Campus Crusade for Hitler wants telephone service, and can pay for it, the telephone company must provide them service.
An ISP can refuse to sell them Internet access and can terminate any existing business relationship without giving cause.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If that reading is correct, the opposite of what the RIAA claims is true: in fact, within the bounds of existing copyright law and fair use, you can do whatever you want to with digital recordings. You are only restricted if you use one of the formats or devices that are actually covered by the act.
So, you're down on MP3's because some people are pirates? I have a better idea, why don't you "turn against" the people who are pirating the music? Although you may have a hard time believing it, many people make very good legitimate use of MP3s. Saying that you are down on MP3's because of pirates is like saying that you are down on computers because of script-kiddies, or that you're down on TV's because of "Who Want's To Marry a Millionare". It just doesn't make any sense. Well, maybe being down on TV does. But you get my point ;-)>
What's happened is that you have bought the RIAA propaganda that is trying to equate MP3's with piracy, when in fact there is no such equality. Don't blame the tool for the use that some people make of it.
MP3.com is not distributing recordings owned by record companies. In fact, the mp3.com artists retain the rights to their recordings. I know this because my band is on the site. When you sign up at mp3.com, IIRC, you are entering a contract (which you can terminate at any time), whereby MP3.com distributes your music, and sells CDs for you. They keep 50% of the CD price, you get the other half. That's a damned good deal, considering that they manufacture the discs for you.
Right, and don't forget: the American legal system is not static. Laws get passed, then modified either by the same bodies that passed the original laws or by judicial actions and precedent.
I'll make the same disclaimer, I'm no lawyer. However, I seriously doubt that the RIAA will ever include the whole story on their propaganda page -- e.g. "Yeah, this Home Recording Act prohibits this action, but then such-and-such Superior or Federal court later effectively reversed this part of it, ruling that hard-drive copies are legal..."
Of course the RIAA would rather you not make computer / MP3 copies of your music, even for personal use: the potential is too great for you to share copies. Napster is out there, still. They're scared.
Take their page for what it is, one-sided.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
I basically concur, but with one major complaint: English is a piss poor language for any rigid, structured rules system. It is very good for conveying human concepts, emotions, and constructs (hey, go read Steven Pinker's new book, Words and Rules, it is simply OUTSTANDING).
If lawyers were serious about making law accessible, precise, and intelligible, they should take a hint from computer science...
I, for one, would have absolutely NO objections to an arbitrary form of languange construct that defines a law, as long as the definition made sense and was itself rigidly defined.
I've always been of the opinion that laws should have an expiration date. This, over time, would cull out the "nuisance" laws, and laws that really mattered to a society would be kept. It might also force the government to think carefully before inflicting a new law on the populace in order to please a special interest group.
This is from US CODE - Title 17: Copyrights, Sec. 1008. You will note that it specifically *bars* suing under this title in the case of "the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium [i.e. "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium"] for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings". This law does not further specify any attributes of "a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium". Nothing here makes an exception for computers. Therefore, making a non-commercial copy (i.e. not intended for resale) of either digital or analog recordings utilizing your computer appears to be PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Very likely not. You've gone and changed the music, thereby making a derivative work because the MP3 encoding is not a 100% pure reformatting due to MP3's lossiness. Just taking a CDDA/WAV and making something else out of it would likely be legal as long as (1) you didn't use both of them simultaneously, and (b) the transformation was lossless. "Item changes fundamentally in transformation" is the key here IMO.
OTOH, if you didn't put it on the net, The Man is never going to know, so who cares. If they can't catch you it's irrelevant as to whether it's illegal or not.
"...The exclusive right of the owner of copyright in a sound recording under clause (2) of section 106 is limited to the right to prepare a derivative work in which the actual sounds fixed in the sound recording are rearranged, remixed, or otherwise altered in sequence or quality...."
which means that the RIAA is correct.
HOWEVER...
I think it's safe to say that an mp3 falls under "otherwise altered in ... quality", due to the lossy compression. Therefore, I think it's legal to have digital duplicates as long as they are mp3s or some other format involving lossy compression (this would also apply to digital copies that were played and re-digitized, like if you were to play a CD in your CDROM drive and record it back to a WAV).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I might be wrong :)
It seems to me that the fair use provision here would, in following with the tradition of copyright law, permit personal archival copying as "fair use."
How about a "People" power?
;)
The people have ultimate control over the laws they live by. We are in touch with the culture. We do everything. We all do the work. We are the counrty. We have ultimate power. I think history would hold this to be true, at least so far.
How about this...
A certain (25% ?) of people by population signs a petition to remove a law, it gets put on the ballot. This is on ANY level of government. Once on the ballot, in the next election if it receives 50%+ vote, that law is removed from the record. In as ethnically & behaviourally diverse culture as we have in this country, this could allow for extreme local variations under an unbrella that we all (basically) have to live under and agree upon.
I know there are procedures for this (at least I assume so), but perhaps it could be part of the Constitution? We have a much better informed public 200 years later. Things have changed. (.sig excused
--
+&x
Incidentally, the german computer magazine c't has a long and very interesting article on precisely this matter in their current edition. Check out the online version here if you speak german (I dare not imagine what garbage babelfish would spit out ;)
There also is an interview with the author of the article (a lawyer) and a representative of the IFPI ("Internationale Föderation der Phonographischen Industrie") on the same page.
Here's a brief interpretation of the linked article (as usual, IANAL etc.): there is no unanimous position on that matter, but traditionnaly, it has been considered legal to create any kind of copy of copyrighted work for oneself. It even seems that you are allowed to give those copies to people you have a personal relationship with (no more than 7, according to the lawyer... don't know where this comes from).
Altough they refer to german law, it corresponds well whith the situation in Switzerland (where I live), as a law student explained to me.
Now, I have no idea what it is like in the US, but judging from the previous posts it seems that either you have stricter laws on copying, or the record companies are trying to convince people that it's forbidden to do ANY kind of copying.
I suspect that what we are seeing here is an attempt to seriously limit the concept of fair use. This is very disturbing...
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
In both the MP3 case and the MPEG2 video encoding commented on, it's not the fact that it's a lossy compression that matters. You can effectively set the quality that you desire (and with MPEG2 you can use a bandwidth substantially higher than the amount used to broadcast TV and cable [ 40 Mbps vs. 6 Mhz ]). Then you can make successive identical copies of your copy with zero loss if you so desire. If each time you wanted to copy an MP3 you had to reencode it, you'd probably not run afoul of any legal entanglements because in three of four generations the signal is going to be more noise than music. It just wouldn't be worth it for the RIAA to come after you.
But it still sucks that they think they can dictate what kinds and ways we can use materials for which we have paid the asking price.
Dunno about everywhere, but in all the places I've lived you have two choices for televsion: air broadcast with about four network channels or one cable company. The single cable company was given a government monopoly to develop a particular area because they are using a limited resource (the ability to haul cable all over town and dig up the roads for maintainence and such.) Part of that agreement is that they maintain certain community standards and keep control of the costs to the consumer.
(Oh yeah, in recent years satellite has become an afforable option.)
I mean, I think you all could afford it.
/.?
Especially now that they seem to have enough money to remove the banner ads, anyone else notice that there are no more banner ads on
-- iCEBaLM
Though I'm a student, I work as a free-lance graphic designer. Right now I'm doing a bit of work on spec, meaning I get paid only if the client accepts the work, mainly to pad my portfolio and generally spread good karma because the client is a good guy.
Conveniently, he happens to be an independent musician in Austin Texas. (Guy by the name of Phil Pritchett. Check his web site out. It's cool -- and there are MP3s.) The company that is actually pressing the packaging and making and pressing the CD itself is DiscMakers a national company which does a lot of work for indie artists.
Just so happens that I've got a copy of their catalog sitting across my lap, open to page 5... and hey! There's a price listing here!
For CDs in Jewel boxes, the pricing is as follows:
(All prices US$. Subtract $200 if submitting your own, press ready art.)
The above includes:
Now for 10k pieces, the price-per-piece is US$1.04. Labels run more than that and own their presses and mastering equipment, meaning that they pay cost-only (film, plates, paper, ink) for their runs. So you can safely drop that per piece cost down to less than $.25/piece.
Now where is the rest of your $17 going? A bit to the artist, a bit for studio costs (mixing, recording time, etc.), a bit for marketing... and the rest is profit and corporate lawyer money.
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I would have to agree with you. What the RIAA declares the law to mean is irrelevent. Court rulings will determine what the law means.
Perhaps this document should be taken as an indication for actions that the RIAA will attempt to bring before the courts.
I really have to wonder about the "copy of a copy" issue. What happens when my primary copy is destroyed (by those UN Black Helicopters). Now, I'm not able to create another backup? What if they (UNBH) come back? I won't be able to listen to my New Kids on the Block, oh no!
Furthermore, what happens when I'm playing my _William Shattner Sings_ on my computer and it copies portions of the CD to memory which could be swap space on my hard-drive?
Finally, to bunk (or is it debunk?) the final paragraph: I believe it has been documented (though on Slashdot, by Slashdotters) that Artists don't make much money from recordings (rather through concerts and merchandise such as t-shirts).
Cheers,
Slak
Record companies are going to have to learn that days for milking licences is over. The days of throwing a cd that probably costs 75 cents at us and charging $15 is over. I have a feeling that some industry people think that this whole liquid audio charging over the internet for audio files that expire thing is the next big cash cow but they are wrong because hacking the format is trival.. Others are attempting to increase their stranglehold on the recording artists by incorperating patented 'encryption' into audio dvd which will mean that any artist that wants to release dvd audio will either have to sell their soul to a record company or pay a (probably) what will be a huge licencing fee to release material independantly. All the while it's clear that record companies are seemingly unconcerned about pirating on a practical level.. The easily found liquifier pro demo which uses the AAC encoding and can create transparent copies at 128kb.. (Using the Fraunhofer codec.. the only one that works properly dispite efforts to release a free one based on the ISO code which was sabatoged on purpose, but thats a whole other story).. Even if the (again trivally cracked) time limit is applied to the compressed files it's still seems to be engineered to violate this copyright law. In fact the program even encludes a cd ripper... Why isn't the whoever association sueing the pants off these guys? Because they don't care. They say they care but they don't. I think the reason for this is that there are certain technological hurdles that one must go over before you can really pirate to the extent that it makes any difference to the industry. 90% of people still use regular cd player to play cds and would know how or could be bothered to pirate the music. Second of all, X number of pirated copies does not equal X times the cost of cd in money lost because you can't assume that every time that a person makes a copy that that person would have otherwise gone out and bought the cd.
When audio dvds make their appearence the pirating will not slow down regardless of the encryption because if you're hearing it through your speakers then you can rip it. That's just a simple fact. I would assume that they have realized this and that they don't care and that's not the purpose to encryption. The purpose of encryption is the same as with movie dvds: control of the format. We have to realize that the whole pirating fiasco is just a smoke screen to leave the control of distribution of _any_ media in the hands of a few rich corperations.
Ah, you've discovered the inner truth of what lawyers spend most of their time doing. They present an interpretation of the law, which favors their position, as if it were fact. It may be, it may not.
If there were a trial, each set of lawyers would present their arguments, attempt to poke holes in the other side's presentation, and a judge would rule based upon which presentation most closely matched the law. Some judges will interpret the same presentation in a different way - there are many conflicting preceding rulings and many conflicting laws.
The Recording Act is not fully tested by the Supreme Court, it has had certain portions tested in District Courts and the Court of Appeals.
So take what the RIIA says with a grain of salt.
Will in Seattle
As I see it, there are two main problems with their methods for pursuing their anti-piracy goal. First, they don't care if consumers' fair use rights become collateral damage in the battle against piracy, and, second, they are not above FUD-mongering to get their way. Again, I don't think their motives are necessarily bad, but clearly they don't care who besides pirates gets hurt by their stand.
Voting with our feet is one option, and a good one for the time being, as long as alternatives are available, but I worry about whether it will be effective if and when alternatives are outlawed. Can a person live a normal life without using any copyrighted material, ever? In the end we have to rely upon our legislators to do the right thing (with suitable encouragement thorough letters and phone calls, of course) by not just failing to kill fair use rights in any new legislation, but also by guaranteeing that distributors cannot circumvent those rights using nonnegotiable click-through or shrink-wrap licenses.
-rpl
But we can stop this, if we put our minds to it. Remember DiVX? That evil little play-for-play disk that Circuit City and (Sony? refresh my memory....) tried to foist on us? Did we not squash it like a bug? can we not do it again? Are we men, or are we Logitech?
I had a funny idea about this. People could print up SDMI Warning stickers and go put them on SDMI compliant players in the stores. I guess it would say soemthing like "Warning: This product uses SDMI which means it limit your ability to play music you obtain from the internet or purchas independantly on CDs. SDMI products have been known to force you to waist disk space, prevent you from letting friends lissen to your music, degrade the sound quality of music obtained on the internet, and you may loose all the music that you store on your computer if you loose the player. We recommend that you consider buying a true MP3 player without SDMI support."
The whole thing is fscked up anyway; bands spend 2-300 days a year on the road promoting their latest blood, sweat and tears giving concerts at $50 a pop, and who gets rich? Some fat cat in an ivory tower who can't carry a tune in a bucket. Two things are trying to solve that. One is the fact that pressing CD's is so cheap any two-bit outfit can hit the club circuit and hawk their own, and the other is the pay-for-download MP3 sites, where small-time artists can get the dough for good jam with no media costs involved. Neither involves signing your life away to some fat cat.
You know what? RIAA HATES that. We should love it. We should support it. See that it thrives. Make the old adage true: Money talks, bullshit walks.
Amen! They make you sign your life away because they control the promotion channels.. but MP3s will change this. I keep waiting to see some guy who collects pirate site upload URLs and charges artists to upload their promotional material to all these sites. I would be a kick ass way to get yourself in the ears of a lot of people with very little effort.
I mean lets face it you won't see any money or promotion from mp3.com so you may as well try and go directly to the consumer.. maybe the consumer will like it.
Also, lets not forget that there are better ways to make a buck off of the music you produce then just charging for every song. You can give away a lot of songs just to get people to come buy CDs, shirts, hats, some other songs on MP3, etc.
Actually, if you are a really good musician who produces a lot of jam sessions and practices which are of reasonable quality then you can provide your fans with this stuff too. I would suggest putting up a song of the week for free and running a pay for access fan club where members can download past songs odf the week. Also, tell them how to set up their mp3 player to play random songs from the members only area. Once fans get addicted to lissening to diffrent versions of the same song every time there will be no going back to bland old CDs which are the same song every time you play it.. and the fans will happily fork over $20-30 a year for access to this archive.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Anyway, mp3 does provide a new distribution method, but how it's going to re-write the rules in the music industry is awfully shaky.
Unfortunatly, I must partially agree with your points, but I would like to point out that there are a lot of things we can do to help them. The first thing is to turn the pirate sites into an actuall promotion system instead of just a distribution system. This is what I mean by having people submit upload URLs for sites to some promotional outfit (or to the band directly) and the bands would upload their promotional material to thse sites.
This would bve a more valuble form of promotion if we added support for HTML in mp3 comments to the major mp3 players, i.e. click a button on the player to open a web page in a browser which included art, lyrics, advertisments, links to go buy CDs, etc. This is somehting programmers would do that could really help the independant artists and would make it much more effective to distribute free music. I'd say artists need to actually verbally give their web address in a promotional song now since the players do not support this.
Consider how many people you know that trade mp3s that actually go out to buy CDs of the bands they already have mp3'ed songs of (Among my friends, I can say exactly 0 have done this).
I do not personally buy CDs of bands which are booked by major record labels (protest), but I do have a LOT of friends whose buying habbits are significantly influenced bit by mp3s. Techno bands especially can do really well by distributing free music since there are a lot of techno bands and it can be hard to find ones you like without first having the mp3s.. and many people want records and not just CDs. Once a DJ friend of mine pointed at a box of records and said "That box probable cost me $10,000, not because the record in it are expencive, but because I had to buy those 20 boxes worth of records to get these good ones."
Actually, I would not be surprised to see mp3 promotion surpass radio promotion really soon for things like Techno, but remember puttingyour shit on mp3.com dose not count as promotion. You need to really have an agressing campaign of uploading and pushing it on people in IRC.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
How are techno bands any different than any other sort of band?
I do not know how much you are into Techno, but I have experenced a LOT of going to the record store and buying Techno CDs just in the hopes that they are good.
I said that people very rarely buy CDs which they already have (pirated) mp3 versions of. Friends of mine may buy OTHER cds of the same band because they liked the one they pirated, but they don't buy the ones they've already pirated.
I know people who actually pirate the songs first, then buy the same album. I have goten the impression this is not uncommon. It's partially wanting to play the songs in a car and wanting the CD it's self.
Now, I would not recommend for the bands to depend on these people. I'd suggest that they upload diffrent mixes to the pirate sites. Plus, this makes it hard for pirates to get exactly the same stuff as on the album.
I guess I'm not understanding you, because I don't see how this changes much. If you upload your music to a pirate FTP, you're simply opening up another distribution door.
Yes and no. I definitly have used pirate sites as a form of radio when I had time to browse them and I know lots of other people (with fast dorm internet access) who do the same thing. Plus, you should remember that many bandz have essentially no chance of getting airplay, so mass uploadings are much better then nothing.
If every band in the world begins trying to "aggresively" upload their song(s) to every FTP site in the universe, the situation is no different than looking at mp3.com - tons of songs and bands you've never heard of, and won't download and listen to by random chance.
True, but the bands that get there first will still get some valuble publicity. By the time that all the bands figure out that it is better to be agressive then just post it on mp3.com then we will probable have real mp3 based radio which will manage the mess.
I do not expect the pirate scene to realy live that long once the bands figure out how to take advnatage of it, but I do expect it to be an importent stepping stone towards a better system.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
You're also missing a distinction, and the above is not quite accurate. Although you *physically* own the painting, the creator of the work still owns the rights to it (at least this is true in many jurisdictions). So while you control who sees it if it is for instance in your home or place of business, the moment that it is part of a formal exhibition (as in a museum) where the creator would normally reasonably be expected to collect a fee, you are into the copyright-protected realm. You also can't take a picture of the work and then sell postcard with the picture on it, regardless of whether you own the painting or not.
Some galleries and museums have taken to asking for a nearly unconditional signover of rights when they purchase a work for their collection. Some visual artists are follish enough to agree to it.
The act defines the terms "digital audio recording device" and "digital audio interface device" to only include devices "designed or marketed for the primary purpose of" or "designed specifically" for digital audio recording or interfacing.
General-purpose computers fall under neither category, and are therefore exempt from the SCMS requirement.
Those guys need to get a new marketting department though, because their ads are really boring.
The cake is a pie
Bad bad bad..
Selective enforcement of a law is a bad problem, because it keeps the public from being outraged at the law, while still letting them use it as tool to silence whatever critics they want. If the public really understood DMCA, if it was actually applied fairly to everyone. There would be outrage in the streets. The law would be repealed immediately. But because of the 'selective enforcement', this isn't happening.
``But sir, 80% of our constituents are in violation of your proposed law.''
``Don't worry, we'll only prosecute those who do it excessively.''
Of course, make a copy to tape, to play in the car. Make MP3 to play on your computer(s). As long as YOU are the person using.
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Now, this ruling (or whatever) is a little silly in this respect. But the whole point is that they don't want you to make a copy to your computer if you intend to give it to somebody else.
When you buy a CD, you buy ONE copy of the contents, you can lend it (for free) to other people, you can even sell it, when you're bored with it. You CANNOT profit in anyway from it. Giving away copies to whoever counts as profit, as they now have a copy of the song.
This is what the idea, if not the wording of this all means.
Mong.
* Paul Madley
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
Unfortunately, not all cases can be tried or investigated. We would have to spend several times as much on law enforcement as we do now.
The FBI, for example, doesn't necessarily investigate every case brought to it's attention. It mostly does the ones that will have the most affect or get the most publicity (don't think they shy away from many kidnapping cases). Sort of law enforcement triage. They have too many cases and too much paperwork to really investigate a majority of them properly.
And, selective enforcement is what brought down al capone (tax evasion).
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Make the law so Joe Citizen can understand it... otherwise, your law is poorly written and needs to be rewritten until it is understandable to the layman.
I think this misses the reason laws are written the way they are. Laws are written so that logically they cannot be overbroad, or misleading in their intentions. This specificity of laws do make them hard to read, but making them easy to understand by a layman would almost definitely leave them open to interpretation (something far worse than a few people not understanding every intricate detail of the law).
Part of the reason so many laws are broken is that they are confusing, contradictory, or just plain unknown to the citizen.
Not to belittle your point, and I understand what you're trying to say, but I think it's painfully obvious that most people convicted of crimes in a court of law are not convicted because they didn't understand the law fully. Perhaps they serve a little more or a little less jail time unjustly (and that is wrong, I aggree with you). But I don't think there is any example you can give where someone not understanding the law suddenly put him unjustly at the will of the government. Or at least theres no example I can give.
One law I don't understand is how it is illegal to tape a conversation with someone, unless you didn't know at the time it was illegal. What's with that one?
When you buy a CD, you buy ONE copy of the contents, you can lend it (for free) to other people, you can even sell it, when you're bored with it. You CANNOT profit in anyway from it. Giving away copies to whoever counts as
profit, as they now have a copy of the song.
Well what if I get a CD from a store for a really good price (discounted crappy country music CD or something like that) then I turn around and sell it for a small price hike say if the original CD cost $10.00 and I sell it for $10.01 then I have made profit not a hell of a lot but enough to make it really count.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
To "own" something is not to possess something. When I say, "I own this", I do not mean that I have physical possession of it. What I mean is that I have certain rights pertaining to it. Because a bunch of these rights are often bundled together, we have a shorthand term for them, "to own".
I own a Bic ballpoint pen. Several, in fact. What I mean when I say, "I own a bic ballpoint pen" is that there's this thing, which I'm calling "a bic ballpoint pen", and I have certain rights with respect to this thing. Like, I have the right to have it in my physical possession, if I so choose. I have the right to destroy it if I so choose. I have the right to take it apart, or to give it to someone else. I have the right to write with it, or clean my fingernails with the pocket clip.
This is the collection of rights I get when I purchase a ball point pen. I do not bother to enquire about what exact set of rights I am buying when I go to the store and buy a pen. Long experience has taught me that the rights will be exactly what I expect them to be. Now Bic comes along and said, we have changed the bundle of rights which we sell with our pens. You are now required to return them to us when they are empty. I, of course, tell Bic to get lost, because based on common practice, and based on their failure to indicate that the sale did not include everything you normally expect, they sold me *all* the rights normally associated with purchase.
The analogy for music is that there is a long history (however old the cassette is) of duplicating music purchased in one format in order to use it in another. Now, when I go in to Rasputin's, and buy some music, I'm implicitely agreeing to a contract, which says, "I'll give you the price indicated on this, in return for the standard rights that come with buying music." That is, when I "own" an album, I have all those rights normally associated with the album. This is to differentiate with other cases, like a DJ who may have been given demos on the condition that he can't sell them.
Now, when the RIAA comes along and says, "now you can't copy it", they are trying to take away rights after the sale. I already bought the music. I bought the right to listen to it, the right to destroy the media, and by standard practice, the right to make copies for personal use. If the artists don't want to sell the right to make copies for personal use, this has to be indicated BEFORE the sale is made.
That's my position. A lawyer would say it's rambling gibberish, so don't try to use it in court. But, that's what I think the law should say.
--Kevin
I realize that the majority of people interested in this issue are rampant, unashamed music thieves who use scenarios like I'm about to propose to protect their ability to steal, but I assure you it is genuine.
When I buy a CD I instantly transfer it to my hard drive and MP3 it. I never listen to the audio CD ever. I've got several dozen CDs I've never heard from the plastic. So would this be legal, the CD considered to be the backup or something like that? I also copy the MP3s to a Rio and listen to it on the road which has been deemed legal, so I'm not really seeing where the line begins and end about music transference...
Esperandi
I've seen and read several articles on this at this point. In each case where some case the RIAA has pursued actually entered a courtroom, it was not the act of copying that they had a problem with, it is distribution.
... the better, imho. Is this a problem technically with the current laws? Yes. Is it something they'd ever prosecute me for? No. Is it a problem when I connect to napster and suddenly am offering up over 1200 songs to the general public? Oh yeah, you bet.
I think they realize quite clearly at this point that the currently existing laws, acts and framework for legal positions are outdated; however, they are still trying to get at the piece that really hurts them (or at least, they would like us to believe it does).
Obviously, their recently released numbers about last year's sales don't seem to support that argument, but I digress.
From a personal perspective though, do I want to use CDs as my primary media anymore? No. Every CD I purchase now I immediately rip down to mp3. Why? Hell, that's easy. I love the idea of setting up 76 hours of shuffle play music for my home audio. The sooner I can rip the some 600 CDs I own to disk (damn, I need to go buy more drives *grin*)
In summary, I think that we will definitely see changes in the way media is even defined in the near future. More and more artists are going to be moving their media to digital formats first, circumventing the traditional distribution methods for more modern methods (where they don't get screwed and still own their own music). The laws are going to need to change to support whatever the artists push for. They finally have leverage!! I'll support the artists in this one. They've been screwed for too long.</rant>
- Geo.
: "I abort and kill -9 him in my caffeine dream" - fridge code
Second, for those too lazy to read it, the act deals with distribution, not personal recordings. If you legally own the media you are recording from and do not give or sell your copies, you are covered, according to this Act.
-------------------------
-------------------------
As easy as herding cats!
Though those might be the actual terms of the law, I relate it to this situation: You are in California, sitting around a table with your buddies playing poker for money...now, is it illegal? Technically it is, but I doubt there is one case on the books where it has actually been inforced. By no means do I endorse these rediculous restrictions, but to stop the commercialization of pirated software, they have to do something. Much like the gambling laws are to restrict large scale casino action or underground poker halls, these audio reproduction laws are to try and lower the distribution of pirated software... Just a thought... Dan
It's totally disigenuous of the RIAA to say that since the Audio Home Recording Act doesn't cover computers, then all copying of music with computers is illegal. To the contrary: since the Audio Home Recording Act doesn't cover computers, copying of music with computers is much less restricted by law than copying it in other ways.
The way I read it, it does cover computers, but to a much more ridiculous extent. The act says
No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any digital audio recording device or digital audio interface device that does not conform to--
(1) the Serial Copy Management System;
(2) a system that has the same functional characteristics as the Serial Copy Management System and requires that copyright and generation status information be accurately sent, received, and acted upon between devices using the system's method of serial copying regulation and devices using the Serial Copy Management System; or
(3) any other system certified by the Secretary of Commerce as prohibiting unauthorized serial copying.
Seems to me like no one can even sell computers anymore.
As a note...in one of the appendixes of pihkal
(the latter sections are available online at
the www.lycaeum.org) Shulgin recounted something
that he had been told...
He was asked if he could read "War and Peace"
in a week. A question that he answered yes to
after the apropriate amount of wincing at the
thought (for those who have never seen it on the
shelf, it is a LONG book)
At this point it was stated that a person would
need to read at that same pace (fast enough to
read war and peace in a week) for 25,000 years
to read ALL of the laws that are in effect today
in the US.
Now, when I was in high school, I looked high up
on the shelves, and I saw a valume labeled
"Massachuessets General Laws" (yes I live in MA)
It was a very thick book. Them I looked to the
right and noticed that there was a Volume 2...then
I noticed that there were enough volumes to it
to FILL the ENTIRE shelf....and this was a fairly
dusty volume quite a few years old.
How can a person be reasonably expected to comply
with this many laws?
Then again..the discordians among us would point
out that we are in the age of Beuracracy....
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well since the paper shortage has not come and
end the age of beuracracy...that would mean that
we are still in the age of beauracracy.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> Actually, that's TIHKAL, not PIHKAL. It's the
> introduction to appendix B (page 592).
Actually...I thought it was in both,....
in any case I don't keep a copy of either
of them at work (though I did once bring my copy
of pihkal....and 2 of my co-workers recognized the
book)
> Hail Eris!
:)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I've been reading through the (admittedly dense) text of the law itself (Public Law 102-563. Read it yourself at the Library of Congress). I can't find anywhere where it says that individuals are not allowed to make copies for their own use, despite what the RIAA says. The law seems to deal only with making manufacturers, importers, and distributors pay royalties. The only section that gives me pause is subchapter D, Sec. 1008, mainly because it's a huge run-on sentence. I don't understand what it says. Since IANAL, could someone a little more knowledgeable take a look?
--Ford Prefect
There should be no cause for the computer to second guess my intent; If there is an exception to the general rule, I should have stated that clearly in my code.
A good law should be written so that a judge, using nothing but the constitution and applicable law, can give intended ruling for every possible situation.
There should be no need for a judge (or jury) to second guess the "intent" or "spirit" of the law; If there is an exception, it should be clearly stated in the law.
Of course one must remember that laws deal with human beings instead of bits, but the likeness in criteria still stands.
And I hear that bad data gets sent to dev/null in Texas...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Is everyone here just going to take the RIAA at their word. That would be a little like asking someone from microsoft about linux. I saw the same legal statement on the site the first time I went there too. The RIAA take one interpretation of the home recording act that is not supported by judicial precedence and everyone takes up arm.
If you own music you have the right to listen to it in any way that you like. That includes copying you cd's to mp3 to listen to on your computer or on you mp3 player. IANAL, but all the large web news sites have lawers and every single one of them say that it is totally legal to copy your own music to a new format. You have that right under fair use. That's why mp3.com is ok in doing their new beam it program. They may be on somewhat new ground because, they, not the people who own the cd's ripped them but only people that bought rights to listen to the cd's can use the new program.
What would you expect the RIAA to say. Sure, go ahead a copy your stuff to mp3 just be sure not to let anyone else have it. The RIAA is taking an incorrect interpretation of a law and is trying to get gullible people to beleive that it is correct. What they are doing is legal because it is a valid interpretation of the law. The courts have decided that it is not the correct on though and that's what counts.
Let them blow smoke up your ass if you want but don't act stupid.
Now can we get on to more productive matters.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
It's getting deep! The part where RIAA says
Computers and general-purpose computer peripheral devices are not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act. This means they do not pay royalties and they do not incorporate technology to prevent serial copying. As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted.
looks like a bunch of FUD to me. I read the Audio Home Recording Act at Cornell's online law library and it specifically says that it has NOTHING to do with anything
that is primarily marketed and most commonly used by consumers either for the purpose of making copies of motion pictures or other audiovisual works or for the purpose of making copies of nonmusical literary works, including computer programs or data bases.
It doesn't say anything about disallowing fair-use copies for personal use using computer equipment instead of a minidisc recorder. It just says that manufacturers of multi-purpose recording equipment don't have to pay royalties. The only activity labeled as illegal by the act is the manufacture or import of a "music recording device" (which by definition contained in the act _excludes_ computer equipment) without making royalty payments. I say that they're full of it. If any of you get a different reading out of the actual text of the act, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I say RIAA can just stuff it.
YOU aren't purchasing a perpetual right to the music. You're purchasing the right to listen to the music on the media you purchased it on. If your CD shatters or gets stuck in a microwave or somehting, you're not entitled to a new one.
Likewise, if you bought MS Word 5.1 for the Mac on floppies, that doesn't mean that you should be entitled to MS Word 2000 on CD due to the G4's lack of a floppy drive.
There's a subtler distinction to be made here. I may not be entitled to Word 2000 on CD... but I *might* be entitled to Word 5.1 on CD, if it still exists (depending on the nature of the EULA I agreed to when I open the software package).
When the iMac first came out, lots of buyers needed to re-install older software from floppy. Some companies *did* agree to ship software on CD to registered users who had bought it originally on floppy, and some did so for free.
Sure, if I microwave the media, that's my fault, and I'll probably be charged some kind of nominal fee for replacement media. But that's not the same situation as a format being made obsolete by technical advances.
But there's an even finer distinction to be made here. Audiophiles who prefer finely-balanced tone-arm turntables and vacuum-tube amplifiers notwithstanding, I think most people would agree that the CD format had certain inherent technical advantages (size, durability, sound quality that doesn't degrade like LP or cassette) and it is this increase in quality that made a distinction between what legal rights you purchased with your LP or cassette and those you purchased when you bought your CDs.
This legal distinction was enforced by the fact that at the time, CD was a read-only format, so there was no feasible way to transfer audio from LPs or cassettes to CDs, even assuming you'd wish to do so.
However, this same distinction really doesn't hold for MP3. MP3 files are *not* of higher quality than CD recordings. They *can* be freely copies from other media.
If you approach it from the perspective that what I've bought is a right to listen to a given recording *at CD quality* then of course I should be allowed to make MP3s of music I legally own rights to so that I can take them with me on my laptop or portable MP3 player.
This legal right *has* been upheld in the past. You're not legally required to purchase commercial cassette tapes of music you already own LPs of just because you want to play them in your car.
The relative difficulty and limited distribution of such copies were enough to counter the industry's arguments the possibility for "piracy" represented a threat to their legal rights.
This is where the argument for MP3 is weak; the ease of recording and the possibility for cheap and widespread distribution is a credible threat to the music sales, either on CD or in MP3 format, in a way that no previous format has been.
To whom it may concern:
I was recently made aware of the text of your website at the address:
http://www.riaa.com/tech/tech_ht.htm
In it, you make some statements and recommendations to consumers about the legality of copying analog and digital music, telling us what we can and can't copy, in reference to the Audio Home Recording Act:
Computers and general-purpose computer peripheral devices are not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act. This means they do not pay royalties and they do not incorporate technology to prevent serial copying. As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted. It is copyright infringement, and a violation of federal law. This is true whether the source being copied is analog or digital; whether you are copying an entire album or just one song or even part of a song; or whether you are making a compilation of songs from albums you already own. The same holds true for copying music off the Internet. While MP3s may be popular, if the artist and record company have not specifically authorized the music to be freely traded on the Net, then posting MP3s to an Internet site or downloading them to your computer hard drive is copyright infringement.
The bottom line: the only digital copying of music that is allowed is with digital recorders that are covered by and comply with the Audio Home Recording Act.
This information is misleading at best, and seems to me to be blatantly fallacious and intentional untruthful. Text from the actual act indicates that any personal or non-commercial use of digital or analog recording technologies are explicitly exempted from the act:
Sec. 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
Also, the general interpretation of US law indicates that only those things specifically placed under the jurisdiction of law are subject to its consequences, and those not (for example, computers/hard drives/MP3s in the Audio Home Recording Act) are not affected. The old "implied powers" argument has been defeated for centuries in court, and your attempt to resurrect it in an "informational" web page for the public seems to me an intentionally underhanded method to deter the proliferation of digital copies of music that individuals own without paying royalties to record companies. US courts have echoed the consumer's right to make digital copies in recent court cases, including the one the RIAA brought against Diamond Multimedia. The resulting decision stated that consumers have a right to space-shift and time-shift their content--consumers can make copiesof music thy own to hard drives/MP3s/etc all they like.
Pleaseeither remove the fallacious information from this website or clarify that it reflects the wishes of the RIAA, and not US law. Also, I would appreciate a response indicating the plan of action regarding the website.
Bryan Klingner, MCSE, MCP+I
After reading the "rules" I went and took a look at the real Audio Home Recording Act. This is what I found:
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
For those of you interested in seeing for yourselves, here is the web site: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ 17/1008.html
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
The RIAA is quick to point out that computer compaines do not pay them any royalties. They neglect however to mention that under the Audio Home Recording Act there is a royalty payment for the medium used to make digital copies, which in my understanding includes CDR's. This means that you can make digital recordings of your music using your computer onto a CDR as you have already paid the royalty. And did anyone else notice that the RIAA never directly referred to the Act in question, or gave anyone directions on where they can find a copy of it? What do they have to be afraid of?
Regardless of what the Recording industry says, the songs on CD are in a DIGITAL format, and as such, (if memory serves me correctly), we are purchasing the DIGITAL CONTENT, not a physical product. If I purchase software, I am legally allowed to make a working copy, regardless of whether it is in CD format or floppy disk. Why is music any different? If I purchase a CD, I am going to make a working copy of that CD, in a format that is convenient for me (in my case, MP3).
Lawyers be damned.....
Jailbrekr.
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Being a publisher of my own music and being in a band for 10 years, I just have to say that the last parafraph in the RIAA statement is bullshit, artist don't get shit from their CD sales. The record companies do. On a normal contract, if the band is lucky, on a $17 CD at Camelot Music the artist will get about $1.00 of that CD. If a band sells more than 100,000 CD's that is $100,000 for the band. Then you have to pay for the production of the CD ( last time i looked Sony's studio was $130,000 a day ), then pay your manager ( they take 30% ), and all the other expenses ( equipement mostly ). After all the bills are paid the average musician makes about $20,000 from the sales of CD's. I'm pretty sure the snail mail man makes more. That is why you pay $35.00 for a t-shirt at a concert. All the money is made from touring, record companies pay for some of the initial amount to start the tour, but it all get's paid back to the company. By the looks of the article the RIAA makes it sound like MP3's and shit like that is hurting the artists but it's not the companies are taking a very small hit.
AK
Did you see that the RIAA has an MP3 for free.... Here
AK
As I understand, it was debated in the early days of the formation of the U.S. govt. to have another house of congress devoted to removing laws. Too bad they didn't go through with it.
That's why we have three branches of government. The legislative branch can pass all the laws they want to pass, but A) the President can always veto them or B) the Supreme Court can always declare them unconstitutional. We were talking about this exact thing recently in my poli-sci class, and it was brought up that Congress considers an average of over fourteen thousand bills (proposed laws) every session, only a very small portion of which get passed.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
If I cannot port music into other forms for my own personal enjoyment, then the RIAA is in effect selling me less product for more money. This personally makes me more inclined to listen to the radio and less likely to buy a CD. If the large recording studios won't service my needs who will ? I envision a scenario where people buy "uncontrolled" digital media for a fee on the web directly from its creators, eliminating the recording industry all together. Perhaps this would even increase value for the consumer and profit for the artist as an expensive layer would not be chewing the profits. Just imagine a sign at your favorite venue: "Did you enjoy tonight's performance ? Download it for $3.99 when you get home at http:...." Maybe it would even be an included option when you buy tickets for large shows.
Lurking in the desert
I didn't sign any contract.
You don't have to. All it takes is the little © on the disc to put copying, redistribution, and "fair use" under the jurisdiction of (US) federal law. You bought the disc, but not the right to copy it. It's taken for granted thet you can't go buy a book, Xerox it's contents and hand it out on the street corner, why should music be different?
feel confident that if the MPAA took me to court concerning my CDs which have been MP3ed
It would probably be the RIAA, not the MPAA, they want your DVDs. However, you are probably right, as a previous poster quoted, non-commercial recordings are specifically exempted from this act.
0 1 - just my two bits
They are spreading misinformation because they want you to be ignorant of your rights.
Once you purchase a copy of an album, it is perfectly legal for you to transfer it to your computer.
They wish it was illegal.
There's nothing to prevent them from putting up a web site with misinformation in order to attempt to mislead the public, which is exactly what they have done.
For what it's worth, artists generally make $1-3 bucks/CD... The artists may be getting screwed by the recording industry, but it doesn't make it any better when you (not personally) turn around and screw them a little more. Besides that, artists did unfortunately sign into a contract with a record company, saying they AGREE to receive as little as they get. They have not signed a contract with anyone else saying that they can redistribute their music for free...
I think i'm turning against MP3's... IT's cool that bands exist on mp3.com and otherwise that say it's okay to download their music as an MP3, but too many people are abusing the fact that they're easily downloadable and amassing huge collections of mp3 which they don't own, don't plan on owning, and aren't deleting. They are, you know, thieves. Let it be up to the musician to decide what happens to their recordings, not the poor college studnent that can't afford their cds.
On comparing the complexity of software with the complexity of the law:
joker05> How ridiculous does that sound?
Except that software and law are fundamentally different. Software does not
claim an comprehensive, involuntary jurisdiction. One is free to ignore badly
designed software. However, one would ignore a badly designed law at one's
peril. If something is to be imposed on a set of individuals without their
explicit consent justice demands that those individuals be capable of
understanding it and be informed of its requirements. A body of law that
exceeds the understanding of those held competent under it is morally without
foundation. Whether the body of law currently in use throughout these United
States meets this simple requirement is left as an exercise for the reader.
If you were to look at Nintendo's IP page, you would find that Emulation is illigal. Yet, this is completly false. Big companies seem to have 'interesting' ideas about what is and is not legal.
Computers and general-purpose computer peripheral devices are not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act. This means they do not pay royalties and they do not incorporate technology to prevent serial copying. As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted.
There not coverd by the law, but that dosn't mean that they you arn't allowed to record onto them. All it means is that the RIAA dosn't make money for every hard disk. The law dosn't say what you can and can't do with your own equipment, all it says is that for every peice of recording media (analog or digital) that some of the money from the sale goes to the RIAA, beacuse it's posible to use it to pirate music. What the RIAA put on there web page is just a fanticy.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
That the RIAA makes money everytime you buy a blank audio tape, or Music only CD. But they don't make money of hard drives.
[ c h a d o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Do you really think so? Then please consider the following scenarios:
1. The government defines the LPL (Law Programming Language). They describe it in a way normal laws are described nowadays. The definitions of the language become unwieldy, thus the language itself becomes unwieldy. Net result: lawyers won't touch it, because it deals with matters programmers are supposed to understand. Programmers won't touch it for it's written in legalese, and there's lawyers to deal with that. IMHO, anything the government gives out, with supposedly good intentions, is overly complex and/or not thought about well enough.
2. Third parties define LPL's (Law Programming Languages). Imagine that. A clever bureau comes with LPL1.0. Then MS comes with MS-LPL (buys LPL1.0). Borland-LPL is issued. All with their own little design flaws, so v1.1, v1.2 , v2.0 and v2.51 are soon issued. Laws are issued under every brand and version of these LPL's. Imagine that in court. You need a lawyer who understands all these LPL's on top of the already complex laws. You need every judge to understand them. This, to me, doesn't seen feasible.
Plus, in both cases, normal citizens will hardly be able to understand the law. No matter how clearly and rigid you define your language.
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the pun is mightier than the sword
They might as well just say "If there's possibility of the music getting onto a computer, then you can't do it," because that's what they're trying to do. Instead of saying that, they're blocking every means they can think of to achieve it in an ass-backwards kind of way.
Ok, if it's legal to copy a TV broadcast onto a VHS tape, then is it not legal to copy a music video off MTV, even for my own personal use? And then what if I had a digital recorder such as TIVO? Would this be different still? Is TIVO legal?
Obviously, the RIAA is mostly concerned about scaring people at this point. If they can make people think that they will actually get in trouble for making MP3's of any type, it will scare people away from the technology. Isn't that essentially FUD?
Discl. Abbrs.: IANL, IMHO
The annoying thing about the AHRA is that the RIAA likes to claim it gives consumers rights they would not otherwise have. But, because of the case law from the betamax case, it's pretty firmly established that a) manufacturers can't be charged with contributory infringement by producing a device that has one or more legitimate uses, and b) copying of content for "time-shifting" purposes is a fair use. And, as demonstrated in the eventually settled diamond rio case, courts seem inclined to feel similarly about "location-shifting". However, SCMS still prevents users from recording when it would not infringe, and the AHRA prevents manufacturers from producing devices which would otherwise be legal. This annoys me almost to death... =) As a non-US-citizen, I find it a little annoying that wierd US laws effectively enforce feature taboos on the world.
[It's just life, they say. =)]
To those who care about such things: Can the AHRA be considered a prior restraint on speech? e.g. Would banning or requiring licenses for all printing presses violate the first amendment to the US constitution?
>If I OWN the music
This is incorrect.
Unless you are the copyright holder, you do NOT own the music. You own the media the music is on, and you have a license to play the music. Very similar to a software license.
I have a Windows 98 CD here. Does this mean I OWN Windows and can do whatever I want with it? I bet the law would disagree if I started burning copies and handing 'em out on the street corner.
I have a Redhat CD here. Does this mean I OWN Linux and can do whatever I want with it, licenses be damned?
-LjM
... but that wouldn't allow everyone to build up the proper righteous indignation. Geez, don't try to bring facts into the debate. This is slashdot!
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Make the law so Joe Citizen can understand it... otherwise, your law is poorly written and needs to be rewritten until it is understandable to the layman. Part of the reason so many laws are broken is that they are confusing,
contradictory, or just plain unknown to the citizen. Even the cops who will arrest you don't know the law until they're told by others to arrest you for whatever. Go to a police station and ask then to appraise you of all new laws
passed this year so you can stay up to date. They'll laugh you out of the office.
These are good points but you fail to realize that even though they are hard to understand you still have to understand them because ignorance of the law is no excuse for a violation of the law. Today I have probably done some small infraction of the law that no one would even know about unless someone were to actually get me for violating.
When the laws are all secret and no one will tell you what they are, how can one be expected to follow them?
You literally live in constant fear unless you want to accept a small risk. Like I have said you most likely violate a whole slew of laws every day and don't realize it. If you did know all the laws you would have a mighty long list and not a whole lot of sanity left.
Even more to the point. There are so many laws today with so many new ones coming on the books constantly, that I do not believe it is humanly possible for a single person to know them all. If so, how *can* one
ever hope to comply?
Well I don't know how exactly lawyers do it but I would imagine that since laws are divided into classes and such. Laws for murder, rape, speeding, etc. You just look at the laws covering the class of something that you do. When you get your driver's liscence you are looking at a class of laws that are made for driving. Now I don't know exactly how close I can park to a railroad track anymore (never had to do it) but I can pretty much look at the big ones and follow them.
Gee... if I take this little gun and shot him I can be tried for murder and potentially spend the rest of my life in jail. Usually you go from the most obvious to the specific. Look at the facts and then act on those facts.
Unfortunately this makes law one of those professions that is usually concerned with after the fact matters.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
So what are people buying instead of standalone audio CD recorders and DAT decks? Super cheap computer-based 8x CDR recorders and dirt cheap CDRs by the 50 pack. Of course, it never occurred to the RIAA that by suppressing the market for standalone digital audio recording devices, they were pushing the development of home digital recording technology towards the ONLY device in the house with a direct connection to the internet. Now they are totally screwed. Stupid strategy, stupid tactics.
This is one of Life's little engineering principles:
When you build a better mousetrap, you breed a smarter mouse.
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
"There is no basis in any law, statute, regulation, or court decision that says you cannot copy your own music discs on a computer recorder," maintained CD-Page (www.cdpage.com), a Web site devoted to CD news. I queried a number of lawyers specializing in copyright law, and they backed CD-Page's position.
AHRA regulates the makers of electronic equipment but contains no provisions for prosecuting individual consumers, according to Denise Mroz, an associate attorney for Woodcock, Washburn, Kurtz, Mackiewicz & Norris, a Philadelphia law firm. What this means is that the law itself doesn't prohibit home recording. Copyright issues may come into play, but Mroz said re-recording albums or making compilations for personal use may fall under the "fair use" exemption to copyright law.
However, Mroz said, recording CDs for commercial gain is undoubtedly illegal. This is the real problem for the recording industry.
First, for your personal use, you can make analog copies of music. For instance, you can make analog cassette tape recordings of music from another analog cassette, or from a CD or from the radio, or basically from any source. Essentially, all copying onto analog media is generally allowed.
Ask them if you can copy tapes 10 years ago and they'll chew your ear off. They're only allowing this because analog recording decreases quality.
As a result, this also means that copying music onto a computer hard drive is not permitted.
This is an EXACT QUOTE. They're saying that you cannot copy music onto your hard-drive, ever, for any reason. This, ladies and gents, is bullshit. If I OWN the music, I should be able to put it onto my hard drive as a means of backing up, right? What if the CD gets broken? Or a million other reasons?
Artists and songwriters don't collect royalties, which affects their ability to make a living; record companies don't recoup their investments, and that makes it more difficult for them to invest in new artists and new music.
Wait, didn't the recording industry make more money this year than before? Isn't MP3 helping more artists because it allows for increased exposure?
This document tries to say "you're hurting the artists" when all it really says is "we want more of your money".
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"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
Hilary Rosen's bio notes that she is a "veteran lobbyist on Capitol Hill." Interesting that the RIAA is based in Washington DC and not in L.A. where most of the labels are.
Of course, the RIAA will probably send its goons to seize your hard drive if you send them email. But, hey, nobody misses democracy, right?
bun-fhuinneog agam!
To answer a few things at once here:
1. The poster who clarified that the AHRA applies to manufacturers, distributers, importers and the like and not to consumers is absolutely right, except that I believe there is a private right of action against individuals who deliberately circumvent the SCMS required by the Act.
2. To the poster who asked about the decision in RIAA v. Diamond, please note that the Court didn't address CD-R's, it limited its holding to the specific case of the RIO which can only download information from an attached computer, it cannot itself convert WAVs to MP3s or rip WAVs or MP3s from CDs. Because the primary pupose of a computer is not to record music, and because the Rio itself can only copy from the computer, the Court held that the RIO is not a digital recording device under the act. (This is an oversimplification, but it's close enough for government work.) In short, RIAA v. Diamond says nothing about the applicability of the AHRA to other kinds of digital devices, Napster clients, or anything else -- it should be interpreted as strictly limited to its facts. You can bet the RIAA sees it that way.
3. To the poster who wrote: "So, thus, the RIAA is basically wrong in their claim that digital recording to computers and the like is illegal?" No! The original poster said that RIAA was claiming that the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 prevents certain kinds of copying. If they are claiming this, they are wrong. But, and I cannot stress this enough, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the plain old Federal Copyright Law (as of at least 1976) certainly do bar certain kinds of copying. The exceptions for fair use (established by statute) and "time shifting" (established by the Supreme Court in the Betamax case) should apply to digital recording in most contexts, so ripping your own CDs should be fine, but that does not mean you can copy other people's CDs with abandon.
WARNING -- OBSCURE AND BORING LEGAL POINT COMING
An intersting (?) aside here: The Ninth Circuit in RIAA v. Diamond ruled that the primary purpose of the Rio is "space shifting" -- that is, copying music that you own for listening to in other places or on the go. The Court held that such "space shifting" was analagous to "time shifting" which the Supreme Court had found, in Betamax was not a violation of the Copyright law. Thus, the Court held that copying to the Rio is a fair use.
This decision is probably a little bit wrong. The Court probably meant to say that copying to the Rio does not violate the copyright law, not that it is a fair use. The distinction is a subtle one that only a copyright practitioner would think of, but the copyright bar has made much of it. Essentially, if a certain use is a "fair use" then there is no restriction on that use, regardless of the source of the original material. For example, parody is the classic fair use. I can copy Mickey Mouse and make a parody of him all I want, regardless of whether or not I own any rights whatsoever in the original image. Thus, if "space shifting" really is a "fair use" it should be legal to copy any material -- regardless of whether I own the original or not. This is almost certainly not what the Court meant, but a lot copyright lawyers who are much smarter than me have argued that that may be the result of the decision as a technical matter. Of course, if that is the case, the Supremes will probably close that loophole eventually.
In this case, of course, even more disclaimers apply. Do not take anything in this posting as legal advice. It is, at best, theory and at worst it could be a dangerous misstatement of the law, depending on who you believe. But if you get sued by the RIAA give me a call.
"The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government." - George Washington
When the laws are all secret and no one will tell you what they are, how can one be expected to follow them?
Even more to the point. There are so many laws today with so many new ones coming on the books constantly, that I do not believe it is humanly possible for a single person to know them all. If so, how *can* one ever hope to comply?
So the short of it is yes, you're allowed to make tape copies, CD-R burns, MP3 uploads into private lockers, copies from your CD to your hard drive, etc. -- just make sure that it doesn't get passed around too much. (Too much being defined as more than ~$1000 worth of goods in a year as per the Net Copy Act.)
Most relevantly, the RIAA has made public statements that they are not going to after individual consumers who copy their own music for personal use. So regardless of what you think about its actual legality, you will not get in trouble for it.
IANAL, but I have been in this industry for 3 years.
David E. Weekly
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
All this talk of the audio home recording act is just an attempt to make a big loss from the RIAA's perspective sound like a win. The audio home recording act places big restrictions on the kind of copying you can do with certain kinds of components -- stereo system CD recorders, etc. -- These are required to pay royalties on blank media and incorporate "serial copy managment."
The act has NOTHING to say about what you can copy with computers; it specifically EXEMPTS them from the restrictions of the act. What's left covering computers is the traditional copyright act with traditional fair exemptions, which have been interpreted by the courts (e.g. in the RIAA vs. Diamond Rio case) as allowing quite extensive copying of music you own.
It's totally disigenuous of the RIAA to say that since the Audio Home Recording Act doesn't cover computers, then all copying of music with computers is illegal. To the contrary: since the Audio Home Recording Act doesn't cover computers, copying of music with computers is much less restricted by law than copying it in other ways.
The RIAA is lying in order to try to misinform you of your rights. From their web page:
... it's already firmly on our side.
The bottom line: the only digital copying of music that is allowed is with digital recorders that are covered by and comply with the Audio Home Recording Act.
The law they are referring to is the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. They are lying. It's written right into the law that the law does NOT apply to end users.
Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions [meaning things they can't sue you over, because they aren't illegal]
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
In other words, the law specifically says that the law does NOT apply to end users making non-commercial recordings.
In fact, the law only applies to persons who manufacture or import digital recording devices and media. Since you are not doing either, the law does not apply to you.
What does apply to you is the general law regarding copyright, which incorporate fair use. Under fair use, you are not infringing on copyright if you make personal copies of copyrighted materials, without distributing them, for your own use. This was decided by the courts, and is the reason why VCRs are legal to buy, sell, and use.
We don't need to get THIS law changed
Once again, the RIAA does not want you to know your rights. They want you to be misinformed and believe that you are breaking the law when you engage in legal fair use practices. That is the purpose of the false, deliberately misleading statements on this web page.
- John
The relevant part seems to be section 1008, which says "...No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on... the noncommercial use by a consumer..."
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Instead of just throwing this out here for a bunch of people who really don't have a clue about what they are talking about to argue about? All I can see is this article generating more heat than light.
I mean, I think you all could afford it.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
the act is right here! go ahead and read!
"Make the law so Joe Citizen can understand it... otherwise, your law is poorly written and needs to be rewritten until it is understandable to the layman. Part of the reason so many laws are broken is that they are confusing, contradictory, or just plain unknown to the citizen. Even the cops who will arrest you don't know the law until they're told by others to arrest you for whatever. Go to a police station and ask then to appraise you of all new laws passed this year so you can stay up to date. They'll laugh you out of the office."
/. the other day that developers don't much care for the end user, because developers basically design for other developers. This seemed to be a prevalent view, and no one saw a problem with it.
;)
Or, only slightly offtopic, but something interesting to consider...Joker's corollary of computer programming to the legal profession:
Make computers and their systems work so Joe Citizen can understand them...otherwise your programs are poorly written, and need to be rewritten until they are understandable/usable to the layman. Even the admins who are there to help you don't know how the software works until they're told by tech support. Go to your local computer store and ask them to appraise you of all new upgrades released this year so you can stay up to date. They'll laugh you out of the office.
How ridiculous does that sound?
The closer we get to software, the harder it is to place it in the context of everyday users. I saw someone say on
Law works a lot the same way, if you think about it. The closer you get to the atomic detail involved, the more complicated it gets, and the harder it gets to explain. Remember, the only true answer to any legal question is, "it depends." Legal questions, or need for expertise, keep lawyers in business, on any side of any issue. Why make laws easier to understand, and risk your own business? By making your laws for lawyers, you leave the citizen out of the experience -- so when they have trouble, they need you to bail them out.
Technical issues, or expertise, keep developers in business, on any side. Why make computers and programs easier to understand, and risk your own business? By making your code for developers, you leave the everyday user out of the experience -- thus you'll never rule the desktop, or the world.
Think about it. Just an idea.....
Spoken by a law-school dropout geek.
A human being is the best computer available...the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. - Wernher v
Having said that, let's start with the law. Section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 says:
What that means, in English, is that individuals cannot be sued (or prosecuted) under the AHRA for making recordings, analog or digital, for non-commercial use.
The act is not designed to prevent people from making recordings (or MP3s or anything else) of their records. What the act does require is that the manufacturers of devices capable of making digital recordings (and also manufacturers of digital recording media) pay the record companies certain royalties for each such device (or unit of media) they sell and, more importantly, that they implement a system called the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) on every such device. SCMS is designed to prevent people from making multiple generation digital copies from a single original - something that the record companies figure only pirates would want to do. SCMS has been around for 8 years now on every DAT and similar device sold to the public and its not going anywhere.
To answer the "how come I can freely tape my records or TV onto analog media" question, the answer is simple: Congress, with the help of record company lobbyists, has determined that lossless digital copying is not the same as lossy, hiss inducing, analog copying. It has therefore placed restrictions (the SCMS and the above-mentioned royalty) on digital copying. It's not a matter of teaching the "Courts" anything - it's a matter of telling Congress you disagree (if you do).
In fact, for a change, pretty much get it. When the RIAA sued Diamond, they claimed that the Rio MP3 player was a "digital recording device" subject to the terms of the AHRA and attempted to keep it off the market as it did not implement (back then) SCMS or any similar copy-protection scheme. The Court rejected that theory, finding that the Rio was not a digital recording device for the purposes of the Act. An in depth discussion of that case is beyond the scope of this already long-winded post, but if people want it I'll be happy to put it in a separate post.
Summary: The AHRA doesn't prevent you from recording anything. Go ahead. Go nuts. The DMCA is another matter, but that'll wait.
"The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government." - George Washington