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Sen. Hatch Warns Labels: Don't Make Me Come Spank You
TonyPyGarthno writes "Facing a veritable who's who of the music-copyright wars, Chairman Hatch threatened -- in surprisingly direct terms -- to force the music labels and publishers, by legislation, to make their content digitally available for a standard fee if the record business continued to ensnarl e-music with lawsuits. As a capper, Hatch suggested that Congress might even go so far as to offer its own comprehensive definition of 'fair use' to hasten the arrival of paid digital music -- an action that would have implications far beyond music.
The full story."
I called you a troll because you're claiming your misconceptions are fact.
When a person listens to the radio, the music is occasionally broken up by... COMMERCIALS! And THAT is how you are "paying" to listen to it. The radio station pays to be able to broadcast it, and you pay by listening to the commercials that they have been paid to broadcast. If they didn't have commercials, they sure as hell wouldn't be broadcasting music, as they couldn't afford to pay for the rights to do so.
Just because you don't pay money directly to listen to broadcasts of music doesn't mean it isn't being paid for in some way. And once again, it doesn't matter whether I feel what the RIAA does is wrong. That doesn't make stealing right.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
We have to worry about meeting bills under the current system anyway.
Only a VERY, VERY small minority of musicians (and to a lesser extend writers) can live off of royalties.
If I could get paid for my work so that I didn't have to worry about royalties (which you can't really predict in advance), that'd be great.
DNA just wants to be free...
The CD does not need to be in the drive if you're playing online. Also, two systems masq'ed behind a firewall can join at the same time. I don't know if it works if those two mathines have different public IP addresses.
Many of you seem to be supprised by Hatch's position on this issue. I suppose it's because most of the folks on slashdot tend to be more leftwing/democrat (correct me if you disagree). I realize that many republicans have taken the "we must save the children even if it means infringing on basic rights" attitude because its a popular stance to take.
But you must realize that at the heart of most rightwing/republican views is about the government having less control and people having more personal rights (such as being able to copy music you own). Many republicans are actually on our side when it comes to issues like this one and censorship and the like.
my other penis is a vagina
Obviously, Senator Hatch has been seriously exposed to all the GNU rays coming from Caldera!
I want to go back and see if the version of DMCA that Senator Hatch supported was the same as the version that passed. Sometimes they slip a fast one in, and maybe that's why he's so pissed.
Battle On, Hatch!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I (and many others, of course) have thought a lot about how it's going to shake out. I think music will end up classified as a service rather than a product, but I could be wrong, and I'm sure I don't know the details.
The one thing we can be sure digital music will not do is kill music. It might kill the music industry, but when there are no more commercial labels or professional artists anymore, whence Napster? In the very worst case, no one can make a living off of performance. But people will continue making music. Probably, they will distribute their music online. I expect they will find others with like interests and form bands and the like. And if they develop a following, they'll find some way to make money on it -- there's always money in an audience.
phil
But a lot of smart lawyers and historians have looked at the current situation, and I have yet to hear a proposal that can guarantee artists are compensated.
Did you mean "still compensated hugely for minimal effort?" Life is not fair. There is no guarantee that what made you rich last year will make you rich next year. Consider the poor wheat farmer. Twenty acres can produce enough wheat to feed a whole town for a year; that's a HUGE amount of wealth...in a subsistence economy. But the economy has changed, and now it's barely worth it to farm a single field. The music industry, whether it realizes it or not, has changed. Mass production of music has arrived (near-infinite perfect copies at zero marginal cost) and NOTHING can change that (cue Jon Katz - "Look what we geeks have done to the recording industry!") The question now is who will cling to the old business model until it dies (taking them with it), and who will work to develop new models.
But a lot of smart lawyers and historians have looked at the current situation, and I have yet to hear a proposal that can guarantee artists are compensated.
That's funny...I can. "Don't perform or record unless you're paid!" BTW, Phish seems to do fairly well, in spite of their policy of permitting ANYONE to record them, make copies of the recordings, and distribute them. I suspect that the advent of MP3s has affected them not at all.
The really interesting thing to consider is what will happen when we all have 1GB/s connections and 50TB hard drives at home, and we start trading DVDs? Will Tom Cruise and his crowd start suing us?
Congress critters tend to jump up and notice numbers this big for different reasons, and it was even mentioned in the article. Piss off several million Napster users, you may not get re-elected.
First rule of government is self-survival. Doing the "right thing" ranks around n-1 on their list.
So, let your voice be heard, fire up your copy of Napster today and be counted. Never before has it been so easy to become part of a political movement! :-)
Why is MP3 the most popular format? Because you can get copyrighted songs for free. The other formats have copyright protection, so they aren't as popular because people will have to actually pay for the music. If I started scanning books and putting them online for free, my format would easily beat any other format where you had to pay for the book. Does that make it okay that people are getting books from me instead of paying for them? Stealing doesn't become right when it becomes popular.
That the RIAA and its members have chosen not to participate in this market, which is satisfying millions of users daily, is their own damn fault. Now that the market has passed them by, they're trying to get in the way.
And how are they supposed to participate in this market? By selling MP3s which one person buys and then distributes to everyone else? How do you make money doing that? Everyone says they want digital music, but they only want it in MP3 format. Why? Because what they really want is FREE digital music. As everyone's mother used to say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"
Everyone talks about how if music was available for download for "reasonable" prices they would pay for it. Yet it IS available at places like emusic.com, and they don't seem to be making the money they should. If everyone was willing to pay for all the new, smaller, non-major label musicians they find and "sample" over Napster, then I could buy into this theory, but as it is, people just want free music, and they have deluded themselves into thinking they have a right to take other people's hard work at no charge.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
I've yet to see anyone sue Honda for the cars they produce. After all criminals can use cars to make a getaway, so Honda must be at fault!
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Sure its refreshing but I think that this is just revenge for a major record label not signing his band and promoting him like they do Britney Spears. (aagghh, bad picture of Orrin Hatch in school girl uniform get out of my head, bad bad bad)
That and the fact that he doesn't want to be ostricized by his fellow congressmen when 200,000 (~1% of the 20 million) Napster users complain to their congressmen when (if, now) it gets shutdown.
[For those of you with a different sense of humor, or none at all, this is a joke]
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
OK, I'm biting at this troll, though I shouldn't.
The reason that radio stations, VH1, MTV, etc can play songs for us to listen that "we don't own" is that the stations pay royalties to the record companies. These royalties are paid for the right to broadcast the songs. When you download a song you don't own from the net, nobody has paid royalties. You are getting the music, and the record companies aren't getting paid for what is theirs.
Of course, I'm assuming you know this, and are just trying to start an argument for no reason.
And I personally find the RIAA to be scum. However, that doesn't make it right to rip them off. If I decide I don't like the business practices of BMW, that doesn't make it right to go start stealing cars from their dealers. The same is true for this. Two wrongs don't make a right.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
Actually, it is not illegal for you to install two copies of Quake. It works fine also. You and your "wife" could play online quake together.
Here's the deal though;
Yes, we all "know" it's wrong. It's part of being a human, I guess, right? Knowing right from wrong? So if a person feels it is wrong, then they should go out and buy the CD, or otherwise compensate the artist. There's no need for this destructive and wasteful pinching down on our rights to make fair use copies, and that includes sharing with friends. If a person feels bad about getting a free copy of something that's truly worthy of compensation, then that person will compensate. Duh!
But nobody is being hurt by the copies of every Metallica MP3 I have sitting on my HD. I wasn't going to buy their shit before, and I'm still not going to buy their shit.
But as for the Stevie Ray Vaughn MP3's I do feel that, even though he's dead, his music should be paid for. So I bought two of his CD's.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Transcript of Senate Hearing:
Record Industry Exec I'm sorry, Senator Hatch, I'll get right on that electronic distribution thing. Just don't spank me!
Senator Hatch Bend over, baby, it's judgement day!
Senator Lott Give it to 'im good, Orinn. They've been REALLY bad!
Record Industry Exec Ouch! I'll never do that again.
Senator Hatch Bring me Bill Gates. He needs a serious ass whupping.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
But would a court (the Consitutionally-mandated interpreters of the law, according to my high school government class) agree with this? If a public school, a government entity, taught people how to download MP3s, would that be fair use? I don't think so. The owner of a a copyright has ABSOLUTE CONTROL over their work. For a member of Congress to make a copy of that work is to deprive them of their intellectual property rights. Note that phrase - "property rights." As in the government may not deprive you of your property without due process of law. As in eminent domain - the government can not take your property without compensating you. The congress-critters in question were not merely violating the law; they were violating the Constitution.
So what does that tell you about the screwed-up state of copyright law?
(1) The RIAA does not control the record industry. There are over 1463 record labels in business in the world, and a small fraction belong to the RIAA.
(2) The RIAA is a non-profit organization. It is inherently better than the government, and different from the government, because it cannot use physhical force.
the canonical example of making a copy and giving it away would be of a teacher who makes copies of material and hands it out to the students in the class. That's fair use. :)
Wish I'd known that five years ago when I was teaching; I could have cut several hundred dollars of textbook fees out of my budget by simply making copies
In fact ONLY when a copy is distributed to someone is there even the possibility of it not being fair use. Your own personal copies are always fair use.
Not...entirely correct. I make a copy of a CD, keep it, give you the original...not fair use.
Making a big deal about what the artist wants after the fact is nonsense. Once I buy/obtain it, it is my wishes that I will be concerned about. If the artist wants something different, let him create the different thing and listen/look at it all day. I don't buy a CD so a musician can be happy.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
OUCH! You've got pigs in your OWWWW!! office? Kwitcher whinin' boy OW!OW!OW! That's nothing compared to OUCH! ARGH! OUCH! monkeys flying out of your ass. (SOMEBODY GET ME A PROCTOLOGIST, DAMMIT!)
From the New York Times, Dec 00:
ORRIN HATCH FINDS CURE FOR AIDS
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) shocked the entire medical community today after announcing he and Congress had found a cure for the AIDS virus. This shocking revelation comes only weeks after Hatch raided several major Chinese prisons, freeing political dissidents from torture. In addition, on the way back Hatch discovered El Dorado, the legendary City of Gold. After narrowly escaping from a rival German archaeologist, he returned with enough funds to ensure Social Security will run for decades. "This is a great victory for America," Hatch was quoted as saying. "With this out of the way, we can finally get down to solving this whole digital music problem." Hatch is expected to stop whale hunting by the end of the year.
If Sen. Hatch really wants something to be fair use, it will be. The Senate is a paleocracy, and he's been there since about the time the reptiles learned the "lay eggs on land" trick. He's on pretty much every comittee there is. Unless the President (doesn't matter who) is absolutely opposed, he'll sign whatever Sen. Hatch asks him to. You just don't mess with the guy.
I don't like him. But this makes me smile:
So (and I didn't know this about him) he's a recording artist, as well as a Senator, and he's on the digital side.Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
As you pointed out, the government is already involved. They've been involved since the beginning. If they were to uninvolve themselves now, we'd all get screwed over by the RIAA in the courts because Congress passed some bad legislation. It's much too late for them to get uninvolved now.
If you want less government, the first thing that would have to be done is repeal mountains of innappropriate and/or generally crappy legislation and prevent the government from passing anymore like it. I would say this should include taking away most of the protections that the government offers corporations just as it would take away many protections from consumers. In the end, I doubt we'd be any better off though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Let's see, four guys, musicians, call themselves artists, claim that what they do is art, spend lots of time together, travel together, sleep in close proximity, make sure that EVERYONE knows that they are wildly and promiscuously hetero...yup, they're definitely pansies :)
They force people to obey the law all the time. They also create or change laws when they aren't working properly, in their opinion. The only reason that the RIAA is in the position it's in now is due to government legislation. If the government didn't grant copyright protections, then they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. However, the government did grant these protections (although IMO, they've been seriously abused through extensions and such), but with strings attached. The biggie for consumers is the "fair use" clause and the interpretations of it by the courts. The RIAA is trying to take away the protections that the government included for consumers and expand the control that corporations have over the copyrighted works they own.
It is well within the government's rights to pass legislation expanding fair use rights for consumers if they feel that the current law isn't clear or is no longer workable. When you consider that they are responsible for copyright in this country in the first place, it seems like they should be the ones to make sure that it keeps working in a way that it accomplishes its goals. The goal of copyright was not to give corporations absolute control over what we do with copyrighted works that we purchase. I think it makes perfect sense for him to remind them that the government giveth and the government can taketh away if they don't knock off their power trip.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You know, I didn't come away with this impression at all. My impression was that Senator Hatch was warning captains of an industry becoming dependent on legislative fiat (copyright laws) as opposed to the principles of scarcity that support within the government for the protection racket the RIAA enjoys is not absolute. Further, that an artificially created market (as any market not dependent on scarcity must be) may have rules which preclude the RIAA from leveraging their current near-monopoly in physical distribution into a total monopoly on distribution over digital networks (by refusing all licensing agreements except among RIAA members).
That Orrin Hatch, small-time songwriter, understands the value in preventing the RIAA from further limiting the availabilty of music produced outside the RIAA, is not especially surprising to me. I think his comments are pretty reasonable; hopefully the rest of congress won't completely sell the listening public up the river in exchange for campaign contributions.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Sift through a few of the older Slashdot articles on SDMI. There are some real gems in there that point to the SDMI format providing a technical "fix" to fair use that the courts refuse to change. One specific example is the dislike the RIAA has for the public's right to make a tape copy of a CD to play in their car stereo.
At one point, RIAA's home page had a FAQ that stated any form of music copying with a home computer was illeagal. That would make MP3 recordings of copyrighted music illeagal whether you distributed them or made them for personal use. Interestingly, I wasn't able to find the link after a quick scan through the RIAA's site - either I didn't look hard enough or the RIAA is taking on a different tone.
What's even more interesting is Hatch asking specific questions of fair use that the RIAA has used as examples of illegal activity or specifically faught against in the past.
Person=People
People=Sheep
Corporation=$$$
$$$=TV ads
TV ads="Hey sheep, do this!" (they do)
Don't get all prissy and individualistic about this, BTW. A person is smart. People are dumb. A person cannot be manipulated through the media. People can be. Odd paradox that, rather like the tragedy of the commons.
That the RIAA and its members have chosen not to participate in this market, which is satisfying millions of users daily, is their own damn fault. Now that the market has passed them by, they're trying to get in the way.
I know it's more complex than this, but choosing to prohibit others from participating sounds severely anticompetitive to me. Where's Joel Klein when you need him?
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Copies for the wife (but not your friend, unless he's a "special" one) falls under the umbrella of community property law.
:-)
You might have purchased the CD, but you both own it. You both have equal rights to it. Nobody can come in and force you to buy a second copy of the disk. Do I really have to point out the utter silliness of claiming that houses are community property, cars are community property, but a $20 CD isn't?!
Obviously, this argument doesn't extend to friends. And I don't burn and share tapes or discs with friends, with the sole exception of _Daria_ tapes I pass to a friend without cable TV. But I make him watch the commercials.
However, I'm getting *very* tired of people claiming that if I like an album I need to buy three copies of it - one for enjoyment at home, one for enjoyment at work, and a third copy to enjoy in the car while commuting between home and work. And if the wife also likes the album we need *five* copies. Yeah, right.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Dear Senator Hatch,
Thank you very much for your excellently conducted hearing about mp3 and fair use. I read a detailed article about it on-line. The evening news is pitifully lacking in actual content and quotes.
I firmly agree personal copies should be allowed or for sharing a file over a network. Mp3.com's "Beam-It" software ought to be legal for those who own the CD they want to remotely listen to.
The technology and alternative formats to mp3 exist for music companies to take advantage of. Instead they are trying to put so many restrictions on copying and use that I fear no one will ever pay for it or tolerate the inconvinences. RIAA may well try to use this as justification when their attempts fail.
I encourage you to sponsor legislation which helps define fair use, and helps music artists receive the revenue they deserve through rationally protected file formats.
Sincerely,
Are you not thinking straight?
This is obviously a case where 'free trade' isn't, and a 'competitive system' is just really a monopoly, or partnered monopoly.
The big five should be blasted all to hell just for the havoc they create with the devilish contracts they make with artists, not to mention the horrid way they force-feed overpriced slop down the consumer's throat.
But then, I'm just an arrogant American, I probably don't spend nearly as much time helping the needy as you do.
semantics are everything!
1) Repeal the DMCA.
2) Reduce the length of a copyright back to 14 years (plus a 14 year extension if the artist is still alive.)
If the record industry dies as a result of this, bummer.  But at least it will be because consumers killed it by not purchasing products (or record companies did not offer compelling enough content for consumers to buy at a reasonable price.)
More government is not the answer no matter what the question is...
antitrust investigation and that the entities
in the industry haven't found a way to give
consumers digital music suggests exactly the
opposite conclusion: that we have had too
little government involvement!
It's called corrective action. The same thing
that the gov't does when it raises interest rates or
litigates against a company like Microsoft.
Amazing magic tricks
I'm surprised Hatch didn't, in the interest of full disclosure, provide a little background to his diatribe...
... erm ... unique brand of music with the world. Hooray!
You see, once upon a time, Orrin Hatch recorded a CD full of music. Not just music, but folk music. Not just folk music, but Christian folk music. And it was bad - reeeaal bad. Bad enough to make William Shatner sound like Luciano Pavarotti. Really. Don't believe me?
Now, legend has it that old "Orrie" got spurned completely on his ass when he tried to sell his 74-minute croonfest to the major record labels. So it's obvious why he wants to screw them over now - as an independent artist, he has no way of circumventing the system! Digital distribution allows him to share his
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Do remember that just because the RIAA web site says that ripping a CD that you own for personal use is not fair use doesn't make it so. At least some of the information on their web site about the legality of making copies for personal use was not simply a misinterpretation of the relevant statute but was actually 180 degrees wrong. They're apparently perfectly happy to lie through their teeth on their web site if it helps to convince people not to do things that might cost them money.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Man, the world must really be coming to an end. I never thought I'd see the day that *Orrin Hatch* was on the side of good! Confusing though, he helped build and pass DMCA, one of the worst offenders in copyright use and abuse, but now champions the fair use clause? Was there a large letting writing campaign about this that I didn't hear about? Has his office released any press releases about this? I'm really, really stumped here...
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
Here is a good guide to "fair use" for the uninformed.
Is it just me or does Senator Hatch tend to get things moving in congress alot? I admire his ability to cut through the crap and get things accomplished. It would seem as if the obvious solution for the music industry would be to adapt to changing times more quickly by offerring digital downloads for a small fee, I don't know why they just don't go ahead and do it. Mp3.com is a prime example of how easily it could work, just imagine mp3.com with a shopping cart.
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|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
In comparision, Lars Ulrich seems meek when tells Hatch...
:)
I've always felt that Metallica's "kill em all" attitude, shouting, and metal thrashing was just a cover. These guys are all probably a bunch of pansies in real life
Finkployd
Form your own opinion! Watch it.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
It should be refreshing to the slashdot audience to see that people in government are taking a a sound and sane look at these laws. It is a rather interesting way to put it, but finally someone who makes a difference in all of this has said, "Look RIAA, you're using extremely bad business practices and abusing positions that you pretty much illegally set up for yourselves in the first place, this just isn't practical or right or even really sane."
Don't make me come and spank you!
Eh...
You don't have to buy something to be bound by a copyright. If I am walking by someone's house, and they are blaring music through the front door, the government says I cannot use the material I just heard. I consider that a good thing, because I think it benefits me in the long run, but don't you think it is a contract for a minute. I can't just go out and remake Brittney Spears' hits for nothing, even though I have never bought any of her stuff, or even sought to listen to it. I hear it just going about my business on a day to day basis. If you can get compulsory licenses there (with a remake), what's the big deal in extending it to reprints?
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
If it would result in more works being freely enjoyable and distributable by more people than the present system, then I think your sarcasm has backfired.
If there must be a few arbiters of taste, the general public may as well take the path which grants more freedom (and I don't just mean free beer, but freedom to distribute/modify works you acquire to your hearts content b/c the artist has already been recognized and paid).
Just MHO,
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Now that I've said that, what Sen. Hatch was saying was that if there is no digital content distrobution by any major record label, there might be antitrust proceedings (he said in a thinly veiled threat). This is a good thing - the industry should not be allowed to conspire to keep major artists off of digital content distrobution.
Looks like the entertainment industry should have shifted their campaign contributions a little more to the Republicans than the Democrats. Seriously, I'm not generally in favor of more government intervention, but it's not necessarily bad to threaten to get involved to blast some recalcitrant group off of dead center. Hatch must be getting tired of hearing the RIAA, Metallica, and everyone else bitch and clog up the courts.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
orrin hatch for president.
he is a republican, i am not.
he is christian, i am not.
he gets it, so do it.
funny, how little it takes to make a politician look good these days.
don't forget that he's also the man who more-or-less led the charge against M$. he did it, of course, for political reasons - Novell, a constituent of his, got hammered into oblivion by M$, but, whatever. right thing, wrong reasons, yadda yadda.
--
blue
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
I don't like the government set rate. Anyone is free to remake anything with a compulsory license, and I think this is one of the things that makes the music industry work as well as it does. I would prefer industry standard percentages, but since the government is the one saying that ideas are property, it will probably be the government saying what the standard rate will be.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Anyone who's seem the userfriendly comic strip lately knows why pay-per-use is a stupid idea. I believe that musicians ought to get paid for doing actual work... sorry soundwaves are free in my mind...
-- Phenym
It might be nice, it might be advantageous, but it is not necessary. Most artists, true artists, create because they have no choice -- there is something inside them that must burst free and be shared. They are driven. Kudos to the copyright laws when they foster an environment wherein an artist can give birth to art without having to starve. Humbug to them when, as now, those copyright laws serve to hinder and impede artistic expression.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I find it a bit strange to be defending both Hatch and the DMCA, but it sounds as though Hatch has his heart in the right place and is upset because the DMCA isn't turning out the way that he intended. The goal of the DMCA was worthy enough; it was intended to encourage the distribution of information in digital format by providing some additional protections to counteract the easier copying of digital information. That it has failed to live up to its goals is an indication that it was poorly written, not poorly conceived.
In this case, Hatch is particularly upset because the RIAA seems to be trying to turn the purpose of the DMCA on its head. Rather than encouraging digital distribution, they're trying to use it to prevent digital distribution. At the same time they're trying to stamp on illicit distribution, they're absolutely refusing to initiate any sort of licit distribution. If I were in Hatch's position, I'd be pretty inclined to take the same stance.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Ok, I've got one:
You buy a CD/get one for Christmas. You like it. You carry it around with you to some places. One day, said CD is stolen, you won't get it back because even if you reported it, no one would come forward seeing as this is a high school. Fast-forward several years, you realize you can download MP3s of the songs stolen from you years ago.
Now, keep in mind, the CD was taken from you without your permission. You never transferred rights to that music to the person who swiped it. You (or the person who bought the CD to give to you) already paid the full price to listen to the music. Was your downloading of the MP3s still illegal? Can the RIAA/CRIA still have the balls to tell you "too bad, you need to buy a new copy anyway, thanks for your previous purchase!"?
(to anyone who will say "nice hypothetical/straw man", don't bother; this is the situation I'm in with a Pearl Jam CD stolen from me back in gr. 10.)
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Hatch wants to legislate 'fair use' to include giving tapes of albums to spouses and friends?
Is this a sign from God?
Do Orin Hatch and Jello Biafra actually agree on something?
What are those pigs doing flying by my office?
The Second Amendment Sisters
Finding God in a Dog
Metallica's latest efforts to eliminate Napster...
This whole MP3 deal has me shaking my head. Clearly, it's wrong to obtain a copy of a song without paying for it. We all know it's wrong!
No, I don't think it's wrong. If you do then maybe you need to stop listening to the radio and quit watching VH1.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with ripping my CD collection and playing it back for my own use. I'm not too sure if it's legal, but I'm still gonna do it. What is wrong is when I start sharing the songs with other people that don't own the original CD.
Ripping your own CD's is quite legal, it's called "fair use". Sharing with friends might not be legal, but that doesn't make it wrong. In some ass backwards town in new brunswick it's illegal to paint a wooden ladder, however, that is simply not wrong. We've been tought from childhood to share, and now all of a sudden it's wrong? I don't think so.
Now, we have Senator Hatch telling a private citizen, no, an entire industry how they must distribute their music! Hopefully the rest of congress will be able to moderate his views.
Screw moderation, that's how this problem got started in the FIRST place, we let it happen. No, now is a time of change, and the Music industry, because of its illegal practices, its price gouging, its raping of artists, and its stomping on peoples rights needs to be regulated.
-- iCEBaLM
Politicians do not run the government. They are merely caretakers for a set of largely absentee landlords known as the public. Congress normally runs things as they like (which is usually as they are bribed). However if the public appears to care, the rules change without warning.
Therefore the most important line in that to my reading is this:
Up until 2 years the average citizen was not going to directly run afoul of intellectual property laws. Today that has changed. Congress is painfully aware of several items:
That is why you have the two politicians who have arguably been the best friends that copyright has seen standing there and telling the record company that the rules have changed. In a big way.
Coincidentally over the last few days I have been doing some thinking on copyright and intellectual property. IANAL, I may be naive, etc. But I see this as a sign that the rules may be about to change in a big way.
We are living in interesting times, and I for one am fascinated with what may happen next.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Although it's sort of true that between the courts and Congress, the courts "win" (in that they have final say on legality), the purview of the courts is significantly bounded. They cannot simply rule the way they like, and one of their criteria is Congressional intent.
Yet another testament to the sheer genius of checks and balances...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Here's a good quote -
-------
THE DMCA -- INTENDED TO CREATE what he called ''a stable, predictable legal environment'' that would boost the availability of intellectual property on the Internet -- had ''sadly'' failed for music, Hatch said. Instead of licensing their music to new e-businesses, the senator explained, the labels had kept it locked up in their vaults, cutting deals only to entities they control. Then, dropping the first of several warnings to the industry, Hatch argued that ''a policy of merely cross-licensing among major-label related entities might raise some competition concerns that this committee would have to consider'' -- in other words, an antitrust inquiry.
-------
basically, I think that Orrin thought he was helping an industry and giving them twhat they wanted and needed. Now they are clearly abusing his good will and making him look like a fool.
THe way that the recording industry is acting is extremely childish, amoral, and probably illegal. The tactics they are using could very well be considered "Racketeering", and Orrin probably doesnt want to contribute to that.
I also dont think that Orrin is a dumb man. He has some views and ideas that I strongly disagree with, but I think that he can see when an industry is acting a bunch of toddlers.
He can also see when they are abusing they're positions.
... hi bingo
This is wonderful news!
The government is not trying to "legislate Digital Music". It's warning the traditional record industry that there will be penalties (ironic ones, yes) for them if they continue to use their corporate lawyers to beat down the "e-music" industry!
This is brilliant for the online music people, as it might give them some hope that the old-school music fraternity will stop suing them every time they try to do something new.
It's also brilliant for the artists that rely on the distribution power of online music. As soon as they're free to use the net to get their music out there, without the fear of some contrived lawsuit the better for all of us!
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
who exactly enacts those bits of legislation? who enforces and judges compliance with the 14 year monopoly? who creates the monopoly in the first place?
gee, that's a lot of government...
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
One of the things that really raised my bile is when Hilary Rosen replied to Orrin Hatch's questions on whether several fair use actions like ripping a CD and using it in a care was indeed fair use.
In comparision, Lars Ulrich seems meek when tells Hatch that ''Legislation is going to have to straighten this out.'' At least he is more respectful towards the lawmakers.
Every time that cow has expressed an opinion on *any* issue related to the internet, she's been on the wrong side. She's an embarassment to California.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And an idiot too...
Before you write this off as flamebait, consider: Sen. Hatch asked her, among other questions if fair use included ripping a CD for personal use, and making a copy for use in the car (essentially the same act... technically, one is making a perfect copy, the other a lossy copy). She answered that neither fell within fair use.
I guess no one has clued her in on the legal judgement from the early 80s that said both time and phase shifting were, in fact, covered by the fair use clause of the copyright acts.
How else do you think we are able to buy VCRs? There was a big push to have these outlawed, because we could make copies of copyrighted material for use at our convenience. The courts said: 'Big deal, it's fair use!'
I have to argue that copying a CD falls more squarely under fair use than does copying a movie from television. In the former case, you have paid The Evil Bastards (TM) for a copy of the CD. In the latter, you are copying a 'free broadcast'.
I seriously doubt that I share ANY demographic category with Sen. Hatch, but I am glad he has seen the evils perpetrated under the name of the DMCA and is actively trying to do something about it.
Eric
(plus a 14 year extension if the artist is still alive.)
I think it should only be extended if the artist is still alive and still owns and controls the copyrighted work.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This quote is taken from a soon-to-be-posted copy of an email I'll be posting elsewhere.
Thus, NO DVD movie will ever enter the public domain, nor will any CD. The last CD and the last DVD will have moldered away decades before they leave copyright. This is not encouraging the creation of knowledge in the public domain.
Copying a song from a friend's CD is not allowed by Fair Use Law. Fair Use Law (US Code: Title 17, Section 107) specifically covers for the most part excerpting for the purposes of criticism, and classroom use. To wit:
However, the Audio Home Recording Act (of, I believe, 1991) guarantees you the right to make audio copies of things you own for your own use. It does NOT grant you the right to make copies of music that your friends have purchased.
According to this article there were some significant changes made in 1998. Notably, "Rrestaurants and bars under 3,750 square feet or retail establishments under 2,000 square feet who play the radio or television in their establishments won't have to pay [royalty] fees." (Brackets and contents are mine.) That doesn't affect you as much as Title III of the DMCA which says that you can run code on someone else's computer, even if it is not in their posession at the time, with their permission, regardless of any licensing agreements. However, the article (URL above) doesn't say anything about the copying of audio at all.
Finally, see this excerpt from yet another article on www.nolo.com:
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When even CNN was unable to make the proceedings out to be a triumphant parade of copyright absolutists, I knew things had gone poorly for the RIAA.
I do wish I had a recording of the full proceedings from CSPAN to make my own judgement; the streams were useless to me, being a RealNetworks-hating linux user.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Here's an email I sent to Hatch. Here's a quote from near the end:
No DVD movie will ever enter the public domain, nor will any CD. The last CD and the last DVD will have moldered away decades before they leave copyright. This is not encouraging the creation of knowledge in the public domain.
--
Hi.. I'm a fresh college graduate; I am an artist, instead of movies or art or music, I write code and come up with ideas. I'm in computer science, so my whole life will be creating what's commonly called 'intellecual property'.
As you are one of the initial creators of the DMCA, I would like to state my opinions on the topic after giving a short quotation:
--
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all." -- Robert A. Heinlein ("Life-Line")
--
I feel that copyright is untenable in the long term. Computers are too fast and can move duplicate information too easily. The current mass of human creativity is only 10^18 bytes. Everything. Film. Satelite pictures. Music. Science. Knowledge.
Last year, 10^17 bytes of storage was sold, so, easily, in under 10 years we'll have enough storage to store all of humanity digitally. Right now, >10^12 bytes are moved per second within the US, and that's doubling every year. That means that the equivalent of the entire body of human creativity gets moved every 3 months. In ten years 10^18 bytes will move every day. That flood of data can be controlled, but only at extreme effort and require the censorship infrastructure of 1984.
Within the bill, there are two specific clauses which stick out. The first is the term extension. The second is the anticircumvention provisions.
Copyright was intended as a limited term. I enjoy the cartoon strip Dilbert. As it is, it won't leave copyright till my great grandkids are born. Did you enjoy Santa Clause as a child? Santa was created by Thomas Nast who died in 1902. With a 70 year copyright term, Santa Clause would not have left copyright until 1972. His great grandchildren would have had the power of controlling if or when you saw Santa. For example, the Salvation Army couldn't have used his likeness. Copyright terms were shorter then, Santa entered the public domain and our culture is far richer for it.
No modern icon of our culture has entered the public domain. No icon that's newer than the TV set, newer than Rock&Roll, or newer than I Love Lucy have entered the public domain. How might those icons have affected our childhood if they were freely usable. Many of these icons are held by immortal corporations, who have no desire to see copyrights ever end.
Licensed use does not mean that it is freely usable. Licenses are revokable and can have their terms changed.
Copyright was intended to increase the number of icons in the public domain. It has failed. That is why the term should have never have increased.
The other part are the anticircumvention provisions. If I purchase a device, why do I not have a legitimate right to open it up and see how it works? If that device is my DVD player, or an SDMI player, and I engage my desire to see how it works, I am infringing on the anticircumvention provision. Similarily, if I purchase a device, I may wish to put my DVD player in a car, but as they do not sell DVD players designed for that use, I might need to reverse-engineer the player to adapt my own. I've broken no copyright-related law except for the DMCA anticircumvention.
This is the endemic problem with the anticircumvention provision is that one can insert many technological provisions into a device to prevent one from doing things that are legal under fair use. Things like making a backup copy for archival purposes. Make a copy of a CD of children's music so they can't scratch the origional.
Such technological measures may make it difficult for the amateur to violate copyright, but they make it equally difficult for them to do legitimate actions like make archival backups, or to use extracts for the purposes of critiquing or intellectual discourse. Or to convert their thousand-dollar CD collection into DVD-audio.
Such technological measures are useless against any well-supported adversary.
Do you have any friends who have hundreds of LP's? Fair use dictates that they should be able to convert their collection into CD's before they molder. If a technological provision prevented that, they cannot. If they violate the technological provision, they're in violation of the DMCA! There's no way to win!
Iron bars all around a bank prevent customers from stealing the furniture, but they also make it impossible to make a withdraw on their money. Determined bank robbers will get in regardless of the bars.
CD's, DVD's, or MP3's aren't the end of progress. Unless our cultural icons are continously replenished onto modern media, they will molder with the media they're stored on. This is already happening. Master's recorded in the 60's, or film from a decade earlier are already in danger of being lost forever. Even people who care can do nothing without violating copyright law, pre-DMCA. By the time they enter the public domain in 30-50 and something can be done, they'll be unreadable!
Is this the heritage we want to leave for our children.
When the last DVD player dies, whether that be in 30 years or 50 years, there will be no way to see a DVD movie. As there is a technological protection measure on DVD's and violating that is illegal, those movies won't be saved and are lost forever. If the DMCA stands, soon, all media will have such measures and will also be lost forever.
Thus, NO DVD movie will ever enter the public domain, nor will any CD. The last CD and the last DVD will have moldered away decades before they leave copyright. This is not encouraging the creation of knowledge in the public domain.
My personal preference is either to do away with copyright altogether, or to restrict copyright to a reasonable term, 20 years, renewable for an extra 20 years. 20 years suited the country for it's first 150 years. It suited Thomas Nast, the creator of Santa Clause and Uncle Sam. In this modern hectic world, it is more than enough.
Thanks for your time..
Scott A. Crosby
crosby@qwes.math.cmu.edu
:: Duplicate unchanged all ya want, (please send email), but you must attribute it.
Well, not exactly... Orin got caught listening to some illegal mp3's of Lard songs.
Woo...Jabber, my new Karma Pimp Daddy, that one's for you.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Fair use does not include the right to give other people copies of something in a way that competes with the market for the original. That is what copyright protects--the right to publish. (Whether this protection is a reasonable idea, or still enforceable, is a separate question.)
However, duplicating or ripping a CD is perfectly legal. Translating a work, or making archival copies, has never been a violation of copyright. What is disturbing about the entire "battle over digital music" is that most of the solutions proposed by recording industry aim to restrict those rights, as well as to inhibit republishing.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
Hello, and welcome! You must be new to life.
But honestly, do you actually live by this logic? How many times have you gone out to an expensive restaurant, when that money could have been used towards feeding starving kids in whatever god-forsaken nation needs it most right now? How can you pay for computer components and internet access when you could be using that money to help plant trees in your area? How many hours have you squandered on Slashdot when you could have been out building homes for those less fortunate?
"High priority" does not mean "only priority". There's an awful lot of stuff out there that needs to be addressed, and very little of it can wait for us to finish curing cancer, AIDS, and world hunger.
Remember, kids, it's only premarital if you plan on getting married.
This whole MP3 deal has me shaking my head. Clearly, it's wrong to obtain a copy of a song without paying for it. We all know it's wrong! Personally, I see nothing wrong with ripping my CD collection and playing it back for my own use. I'm not too sure if it's legal, but I'm still gonna do it. What is wrong is when I start sharing the songs with other people that don't own the original CD.
Again, I'm not too sure if it's legal if I share an MP3 with someone that does own the CD, but I don't really make a distinction between that and this second person making their own MP3. It may not be legal, but I'll still probably do it. And I'm pretty sure that Lars isn't gonna kick my ass in either of these two scenarios.
But I keep reading about people who say that it's OK to download songs from Napster because they already own the CD. I can't prove that this isn't always the case, but I'm convinced that it is. Or they justify blatant theft because the recording industry makes too much profit on CD's. Hmmm... This just doesn't make sense to me.
Now, we have Senator Hatch telling a private citizen, no, an entire industry how they must distribute their music! Hopefully the rest of congress will be able to moderate his views.
However, I'm still waiting for one single, sensible argument that justifies trading MP3's on the scale that Napster allows. I don't know if Napster is committing any crime, but I certainly believe that they make it much easier for two people to commit a crime.
I remember his presence as a "talking head" on a lot of the news shows in the early days of the Clinton scandal. He was calmly repeating, over and over, "this is not so bad... a sincere apology would be more than enough for me". After Clinton's famous non-apology on the night of his Grand Jury testimony, you could count the veins behind Hatch's eyes. He was using words like "disapointed" and "inadequate", but you could tell what he really wanted to do was jump up and down shouting "BULLSH?T" at the top of his lungs.
It was also very entertaining when he was in the GOP primary debates. Al Gore would do well to study the video tapes of the verbal flogging that Hatch dispatched against Bush.
I really hate the way he has voted on a few issues (cough DMCA cough), but it's hard not to like his "damn the torpedos" aproach to politics.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
As long as you're not charging your friends, the AHRA still seems to allow trading:
No action may be brought under this title ... based on the noncommercial use by a consumer...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
The biggest mistake that can be made logically here, is the same one you just made. That is, to asssume that the rules are all going to be used in the same way. ie, Copyright and Patents protecting the process of innovation, and not the actual innovation itself. In this case the DMCA being used, not as an assistance to the creation an enviroment of new and undreamt of tehcnological advancement, but as a deterant. However, I feel that I can assume that just about everybody reading this already knows this.
With that said, props must be given to those who are looking beyond the abuse of the rules and are trying to make corrections. These hearing have pointed out that not everybody has had their head stuck in the sand pretending that nothing wrong is going on. And new rules for this game, if you will, are being created as we speak. While I cannot feel completely satified with an actual, written, legal document outlining what-is and what-is-not fair use (for obvious reasons) it is a step in the right direction. The idea that the market will determine what-is and what-is-not as per the RIAA and Sony reps put forth, is lost upon the factual friction that economics and all postulates there to is not the business (pun intended) of giving people rules to use ideas by.
What happens to the legal status of copyright once music is broadcast over the radio? What would prevent someone rigging a radio tuner onto their system as an audio input, and ripping CD's or mp3's from that???
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Your pigs are still airborne? The pigs over here all died from hypothermia when Hell flash-froze this afternoon.
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with Orrin Hatch. Yes, he's sponsored some boneheaded legislation, the DMCA being the most recent major example, but he's also been a strong critic of Microsoft and now, holy of holies, the RIAA.
If nothing else, Hatch does appear to at least think about what he does, and he's plainly open to reason instead of blindly following the party line.
OTOH, he could have actually meant what he said about millions of voters running Napster, and maybe he's just making a cynical play for the Metallica fan vote. God knows Metallica hasn't been doing too much of that lately.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Okay, to simplify things - the term Monopoly has been misused in this case. If the "Big Five" as you say, have been colluding, as has been alleged, and even proven in court by the FTC, then it stands to reason that the RIAA is the mouthpiece of this collusion. Doesn't make it so, but they represent the colluding parties. They are a convenient entity to refer to when discussing the "collusion". Their stated policies DO tend to support record label collusion - do they not?
The oligopoly they command, may not be the market for music you see in the record stores. (though it can easily be argued that the promotional networks and distribution channels are pretty much blockaded).
The place where choice is truly limited, is when an Artist decides to become a professional, and tries to find an outlet for their product - the RIAA companies are the only viable choices for them. For now.
I believe that Napster is pretty much a dead-end as far as that goes. I believe that Napster's business model is to ally itself with the "big five" and be part of their closed distribution network. I believe that is their goal. This won't offer artists a choice. However, there ARE internet music outlets out there who are signing bands and distributing their music, and there are more established artists who are experimenting with a DIY approach (which I think is doomed to failure in the long run, once a certain volume of internet promotion develops).
I wonder why the market can't or won't settle this, because the RIAA does NOT have control over internet distribution. They ARE working on it, but they don't have it by a long shot - so I'm wondering why competitors have not sprung up to give artists a choice. Maybe there's something we're all missing - or maybe there's an opportunity for some "sucka VC's" out there.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Careful with your wording, there; connotations can be tricky things.
I think you meant something more like:
"I believe that musicians ought to actually get paid for doing their work[, rather than being forced to live off of royalties]"
Is that the case? If so, yes, I'd agree.
DNA just wants to be free...
Some people may suggest that the record companies have significant barriers to entry for new record labels: limiting radio play time, shelf space at the local CD warehouse, etc... The government should lower barriers to entry and allow more independent record companies to experiment with mp3 download - free or not. That is real competition! If you want free music, start a record company and get artists with the same vision to join!
...'cause someday, when you become Speaker of the House o' Representatives, some CBS reporter is gonna dig that post up ;-)
-JD
will someone with any of Orrin G. Hatch's albums please put them on napster quick? then every /.er should go download. if his albums which usually receive "2000 sales" all of a sudden got 10000 downloads on napster... look out lars.
He gets the right channel, she gets the left . . .
:)
btw, while Hatch *is* from a community property state (Utah), 43 of the United States are *not*
The states that were once spanish (CA, UT, AZ, NM, CO) or french (LA) use CP, as does Wisconsin (for no apparent reason; they suddenly switched [Yes, CP makes more sense, but the gains don't begin to cover transition costs])
While I'm at it, how often to policians from that far right get this positive of responses around here?
Orrin Hatch is the man! (Pause. Tremble. Resume.) Let's make sure he knows that we like what he's doing:
Office of Senator Orrin Hatch
131 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5251
senator_hatch@hatch.senate.gov
Would you please take a few moments to explain what you mean and why you feel this way? If you're serious, I'm curious. Political statistics show that "minorities" tend to favor the Democratic party to the Republican party because of the former's stance on various social issues and programs.
I personally don't much go for the whole "minority" crap because I've been in enough different areas to realize that the exact definition of the term greatly depends on where you are.. Where I currently live, I would say more than half of the people in this particular area are Hispanic or Portugese at a guess (I've not seen data to back that up.) The point is neither of those overly broad and stereotyped groups are minorities right here where I am. Sure there are minority groups here - but those two certainly don't count. At the national level, discrimination based on culture is IMO a political game.
But then, my experience is limited. I'd welcome well-reasoned dissenting opinions.
Air travel engineers (aerospace engineers?) umm, do it with a Saturn V? No, that's not it either.
Sigh. Off to the library.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
"What Rosen (Heidi Rosen, RIAA head bitch) indicates that one would have to buy two copies of a CD in order to fairly loan one to someone else. Okay. Why isn't that fair use?"
How can you make that conclusion from Hatch's original question:
"Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?"
Hatch's quetion is whether or not it's fair use to copy a CD and give the copy away--not whether you can loan your original CD to someone--and frankly, I can't see why one *should* be allowed to copy a CD and give it away, regardless of the relation of the recipient.
Why in the world should copyright law allow us to copy a piece of intellectual property and then give that copy to a relative? Do we justify this by saying that "its fair use because the recipient of the copy is related to the copier"?
Translate the problem domain to the printed text world: Is it--or has it ever been--"fair use" to copy a book and give that copy away? If two people want to read said book at the same time, then two copies of the book should be purchased! If however, you're done with the book, and you want to give the book away, or resell the book, or loan the book out, you're allowed.
Loaning isn't the problem--copying is.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?