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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."
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
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! :-)
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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
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!)
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...
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?
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
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
Here's a good quote -
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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.
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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
The ONLY way online music purchases will be welcomed is if it doesn't require a credit card EVERY time for that minisucle fee (.20 - $5).
There is also the spam problem that accompanies registering for anything, and the general hassle. It really needs to be as easy as it is to throw a quarter in a guitar box on the street. I haven't followed that tech for a bit, but is anyone working on/using a <$1 quick pay for the Internet? Virtual tip jars for a virtual audience? I know there are some ideas but are there any good implementations?
--
+&x
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.