Slashdot Mirror
Sony VP On Stopping Napster
akira-x writes "I spotted a link to an interesting (and disturbing) article on Gnutella News regarding some comments that were made by Steve Heckler, senior vice president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. According to him, Napster WILL lose, because "The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what." The disturbing part is what Heckler says Sony will attempt to do to help them win: "Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this," Heckler told the Summer Forty-Niner. "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC." "
If they intend to target MP3 itself- ouch. Modified ouch... after all, mp3 is a painfully encumbered format and there is every reason to believe the patent holders will start putting the screws to ME the musician just as soon as they are ready to. This kind of lessens my willingness to madly defend the format- defend for whom? But all the same I _really_ don't like the idea of a world-controlling corporation shutting off entire forms of media, encumbered or non-encumbered.
If they intend to target ALL forms of media, current and future, being used to exchange Sony music for no money- *tweet* outta the pool! The towering, unavoidable problem with this is that it outlaws non-corporate media. I as a non-corporate musician wouldn't be allowed to function if every time I found a new digital format I could distribute on, Sony pulled strings to get it banned from all ISPs- particularly ugly is the fact that, unlike music-exchangers, I wouldn't find it so convenient to be anonymous or to conceal the filetypes or whatever.
Currently, I put out mp3s (see URL link, as ever) quite openly. If a Sony manages to make it impossible to traffic in mp3 files at all, I'm hosed. (If the patent holders start demanding $30,000 to use the format I'm also hosed- and this is beginning to happen already.) So I move to Ogg Vorbis *tadah* just as soon as I get my hands on the MacHack hack that ported the codec to MacOS (yes, turns out such a hack does actually exist- I want!). This time there is no patent holder, but there's Sony again, trying to get Vorbis outlawed- and that is the problem.
It's really not acceptable, in this day and age, for the individual to be forbidden to produce and distribute media. What Sony _wants_ is for anything that might ever get in their way to be made illegal and ferociously punished. They may not get what they want, but people must remain aware of the overwhelming importance of placing the tools for this media in people's hands. To legally support the position that the common man is fit only for mindless consumption is a despicable point of view- and it doesn't even matter that the common man's art or music may suck compared to a handpicked Sony artist with a million dollar (all out of royalties...) bankroll. That's irrelevant- the fact is, that ordinary person MUST NOT be legally forbidden to create. To forbid this is a shocking development that speaks volumes about the perspective and motivation of the corporate entity in society...
One would hope that the common man doesn't get forbidden IN PRACTICE from creating, either. "Oh, go ahead! That'll be thirty thousand dollars. ...so incorporate and do an IPO why don't you? Stop being a human being and become, legally, one of US..."
As was said so eloquently (I forget by who):
The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
and we should all tell them this, too. via fax and physical mail (somehow, I don't think they "get" the internet thing...)
I can see their point; like Big Tobacco, they're running scared. times have changed yet they refuse to adapt to them; instead acting like the 100 pound gorilla who thinks he can control everything in sight.
well maybe they can control quite a bit; but The Net is quite QUITE bigger than sony - hate to break it to you, sony. if you alienate your consumers, they'll go elsewhere and there goes your brand loyalty that you so cherish and fought YEARS to promote. something about pennwise and pound foolish comes to mind..
anyway, I love a good challenge as much as the next man. I'd like to see sony firewall my box from sending any damned [properly formatted] IP packets I want.
in short, this whole tirade from sony reminds me of the scene in the Python movie, "monty python and the holy grail", where arthur is whacking the arms and legs off that Black Knight and even though he's being rendered more and more helpless with each blow, he still barks as tough as a fully armed/legged man. of course no one is scared of these idle threats from sony; we all know sony will soon be missing more and more limbs as music if freed and their "continual profit stream" is severely reduced.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Idiots.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
And I will firewall Sony at my wallet.
'nuff said.
I think not...(*poof*)
If we were still using analog, that is, LPs, cassettes, and maybe even 8-tracks, and MP3 came along with the Internet, I believe it would be substantially more popular than it is now. It would in such a case be the ONLY medium that does NOT introduce significant wear per use and the ONLY medium that does not degrade in quality per copy (not counting the first transcription into MP3).
The higher quality of CDs has reduced much of the need for copying. I used to copy LPs to cassette because the cassette format had less wear than LP did. The reason I now copy CDs to MP3 is because it is more convenient. The loss in audio quality is there, but it is one we accept in most cases, and many people can't even hear it at all.
If it becomes impossible to extract raw digital data from CDs and DVDs, people will just digitize the analog form. That's way easier to do today than a couple decades ago when analog ruled. But once the initial loss of quality is done, there is no more loss as the digitized bits are now copied further perfectly.
Will most people know how to digitize analog? NO! But they won't need to. Music/movie piracy is about a few people making originals and a distribution of perfect digital copies.
Then there's the issue of whether the guy who has 30 gigs of MP3's on a $200 harddrive downloaded with $200 worth of DSL time would have been willing to ever pay $5000 for that same music. I believe most of those "stolen" MP3s are things he never would have purchased at the rate the music industry rips people and artists off.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Lets face it. Sony can't buy the internet. They can't firewall our individual PC's. But Heckler is right - they WILL DO ANYTHING to protect their revenue stream. Here are some hypothetical situations to be aware of:
Everyone, eventually, buys new hardware. It doesn't happen too often.. but it does happen. Everyone upgrades. What is to stop Sony and/or other manufacturers from selling us hardware that is based on censoring or encrypting data? Suppose they DO come up with a scheme to encrypt music and video all the way to the electron gun or the D/A convertor, and suppose further that they intentionally price these products substantially lower than competition (because they can afford to). Then what? Even though you and I know better than to buy these things, Joe Blow America doesn't, and its only a matter of time before it becomes impossible or extremely cost-inefficient to purchase "open" hardware.
Encrypted processing:
Its also only a matter of time before company X develops a consumer-level processor that executes encrypted code. Imagine a public key / private key setup (lengthy private key stored inside the processor, *NOT* accessible). This architecture could be used to encrypt downloadable software: The website dynamically creates encrypted exe's from the public key you submit when you buy it. Instructions are decrypted and executed in CPU memory (*NOT* accessible) - imagine trying to hack CSS without being able to read the code. To saturate the market with these things, all company X has to do is price their processor lower than everyone elses (and what software and/or IP-oriented company wouldn't be willing to subsidize such a scheme if it meant guaranteed protection of their data?).
So -- don't think that just because everything is open now, it can't be closed later. Just about anything is possible, period. Never forget that. Its up to us to make sure that the "right" things happen. Corporations can do everything in the world to protect their revenue stream - but they can't survive if we don't buy from them.
DO NOT SUPPORT COMPANIES WHOSE GOALS ARE TO CENSOR, BLOCK, OR RESTRICT ACCESS TO INFORMATION. If you do that, you open the censorship door just a smidgen. If we all do that, we fuck ourselves. It might cost you more to buy the "right" products. Don't let that stop you.
How eager will Sony be to include censoring / blocking hardware in the US PSX2 or PSX3 if millions of geeks undertake the fairly simple task of NOT buying it. In the end, no company can dictate what their customers will and won't buy - as consumers we have to be aware of who tries to take advantage of us, and not give them our money.
(vote for Nader)
trey
www.treyharrison.com
"Yes, but it does a lousy job of avoiding eavesdropping. If you've got anything that speaks its protocol (like, say, a PCS phone) then that
device will pick up those frequency change instructions and follow them. It only prevents really easy eavesdropping via normal radios."
Depends on how the frequency hop info is encoded.
If it's on an open stream, then yeah, if you catch the conversation on the right frequency, you can follow the hops.
If it's encrypted (which, not surprisingly, the PCS companies can do (the phones can support triple DES encryption)- they just don't because of stupid laws against the same...), then only the parties that were in on the initial handshake (public key authenticated and encrypted, btw...) will be able to follow the hops. This, by the way, is how the US military forces secure their spread spectrum communications from tracking and snooping.
It can be done such that only someone like the NSA would stand any more than a snowball's chances in hell of snooping a conversation of any kind (I think that's the real reason behind the laws against encrypting the digital PCS phone connects...)
Port hopping is analogous to spread spectrum communications. Since the above is, in fact, possible- it's not hard to extrapolate that port hopping could also work to some degree. Why? Because while you could know the source and destination of a packet, there's absolutely nothing that says that the packet is meaningful data- you can encrypt and then steganograph via blowfish and chaffing. The object here is to not be easily monitored, not to breach blocked ports (though it'd work nicely for finding good ports...).
As for blocking everything but a specific port (Port 80, as in your example) opens up enough of a pathway for someone to up and totally bypass the stupid firewall. All it'd take is for someone on the outside to run a server instance of httptunnel on their machine and someone on the inside to run a client instance of the same. It'd be clumsy and slow, but it'd bypass any scheme they'd come up with. Only normal access methods? httptunnel already uses nothing BUT those. Only "valid" content? What determines "valid"- magic numbers which can be faked? Blocking access to the server site? The site moves to another machine. And so forth.
And that's just with port 80. Do they have an e-mail system that PC's can acces or do they open the mail ports? That too is a pathway- the same individual that came up with httptunnel came up with mailtunnel. Same with any port you open. It all boils down to how hard you want to bypass the controls, how clever you really are, and how much resources you have at your disposal.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
There is supposed to be an escalating mechanism to prevent this happening, but there's no enforcement, and if you pay your lawyers enough, they can threaten every connectivity provider. Now, as an ICP, do you cut a feed - especially to a site that's in legal trouble, and unlikely to take action against you - or face Sony in court?
This has happened to me.
A certain nameless California law firm, likely representing a certain nameless cult based mainly in California and Clearwater, FL, has had my ICP cut routing to my site using a DMCA threat. Because they totally skipped the part about requesting that I take down a particular page (which would have given the site's owner the right to file a counter-notification) and skipped the part about informing my ISP, they gave me no chance to resolve the problem. Instead, they threatened my ICP, who immediately buckled and turned my IP off in their router. Which, of course, killed not only the site in question, but all other sites hosted at the same IP (likely part of their reason, since another site was more topical, more embarrassing, and less easy to attack with DMCA)*.
Obviously the DMCA mechanism was violated. But as long as the nameless law firm claimed to have filed in good faith**, the ICP has little choice. In my case, when they realized the law firm was not acting in good faith, they developed some backbone. But if the law firm had chosen to divert a tiny percentage of the group's resources at them, they'd have been in trouble, and even though I would have had legal redress, it would have been damned expensive for me and for the ICP.
Who, in a similar situation, is likely to go up against Sony?
You are more right than you know: Corporations are persons, at least in the eyes of the law (which is where it counts). The horrible consequences of this are that they get equal protection under the law. This means that they have an unbelievably disproportionate amount of power in comparison to ordinary, everyday people like you and I.
So just what can be done about this? Corporations should no longer enjoy the privilege of personhood and be able to have their charters revoked. Get the full scoop over at Adbusters.
MP3 is a proprietary format. They buy the rights to the MP3 format, and charge any site that distributes MP3's a "license fee" similar to the one that Unisys tried to levy against websites that use GIF's. Remember, this is the company that threw mad cash at ZZ Top just so that their label would appear "more American" a couple of years back. (I think it was 10 mil or so...)
The truth is that the music industry will protect its buisness. If someone kept breaking into your house, you'd get a burgular alarm, and the record companies see themselves in that same situation right now. (Whether they are or not is another question entirely and beyond the scope of what I am trying to present.)
Furthermore, they could change the format of the music they sell, making piracy (can't really think of a better word) more difficult at least or impossible at best. (Impossible is not possible. The music will eventually be converted to an analog signal where it could be converted to something digital.) If we were still using LP's, I'm sure that the MP3 thing would not have taken off. Most people out there can't figure out how to get AOL working, I can't see them figuring out how to hook up analog inputs to their sound card and record an MP3. By reducing the number of people that can produce digital copies they create better targets for the law to go after.
Remember, Napster's defense is that they do not pirate the music themselves, they only provide a service for sharing the files. In scenario #2, the actual producers of digital copies can be made liable.
So long as Napster and related services remain (in their eyes) a threat to their revenue, the industry will do whatever it takes to stop them. This is called survival. If the record companies think they're going to lose a billion dollars because of this, they will spend a billion to stop it. "Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day..."
~Hammy
"You're listening to American Bandstand and who gives a shi*" ~Casey Kasem
Head Office Sony of Canada Ltd. 115 Gordon Baker Road Toronto, Ontario M2H 3R6 Main Telephone: (416) 499-1414 Main Fax: (416) 497-1774 E-mail: general_enquiries@sony.ca
I was in #yourmom today
So run it over ssh. There's always a technical solution to whatever Sony or the music industry manages to accomplish. Besides, they don't own the infrastructure and their pockets are not deep enough to buy it.
They don't realize that they've already lost. If they block napster (unlikely), something else will popup. They'll probably succeed in destroying the company napster. That will be the music industries defeat because then everybody will switch to distributed solutions like gnutella or freenet (which will have matured by then).
The music industry is not moving or thinking in internet speed. It took them months to realize napster was bad for revenue. By the time they took action it had millions of users already.
So here's what they should do: make sure that napster stays the no1 source of illegal mp3s. This way it is controlled since the users all go to central servers. They can insert adds, encrypted mp3, etc and make some money.
Jilles
"Doctor, wait, their corporate prospectus, It's a cookbook!" (evil music as the door closes...)
~Hammy (Outer limits rules!)
Sony's behaviour is amazing.
It makes me so sick - it actually makes me want to buy an X-box.
:-(
you think the unwashed masses would rebel against an internet where the only thing you could read or see or listen to or watch would be what had been approved by a large multinational corporation?
ever heard of AOL?
if it really does come down to this: corporations vs. consumers, we better all get down on our knees and pray for salvation from a hell worse than Orwell's 1984
A lot of stupid laws restricting technology have been passed, both here and in Europe. For example, in the US, you cannot buy a receiver that covers the analog cell phone bands anymore (although it's easy for a criminal to put one together). Why? Because rather than holding the cellular companies responsible for their appalling lack of security, the cellular companies prevailed on congress to simply outlaw the production of receivers. It didn't make the world much safer, but it removed the responsibility from them and put the burden on the tax payer and consumer.
Or consider that in Europe, people pay a tax on blank tapes, money that is then shipped directly to the music industry. The presumption is that you use tapes for illegal copying, so you might as well pay the "legitimate artists" for that.
And, of course, in the US, the industry already succeeded in getting cumbersome copy protection devices into digital audio systems.
Don't take the current situation for granted, where computer hardware is reasonably open, well documented, and programmable. We may well end up with a situation where most people use proprietary, limited hardware (like a future PlayStation) with tightly controlled interfaces and software, and in which other people have to pay a steep premium for "professional" equipment that is programmable; and even that kind of "professional equipment" may be tightly controlled.
It's pretty clear that Sony and other content providers are going to fight tooth and nail to protect their obsolete business models. We need to be vigilant to keep them from succeeding. Sony needs to figure out how to make money in a world of open hardware and cheap distribution; if they can't do that, they should go out of business. As a society, we have no obligation to protect companies that can't adapt to new technological realities.
translation: our law-buying department has an unlimited budget to defeat this napster thingy.
Be very afraid, people. But more importantly, write to your congressfolk (on paper and fax! email doesn't work!) about it. Don't assume the good guys will win. We won't unless we fight.
Let's do our fighting in a way it counts: lobby the right people the right way and educate the public.
This is the beginnings of the old argument: if it wasn't free, would you buy it?
I think you will find that most people who pirate music, software, video, etc. wouldn't buy those items even if the only way to get those items was to buy them.
How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet?
Radio was once thought to be a potential loss of revenue to the recording industry. ASCAP charged outrageous radioplay license fees because of this fear, uncertainy, and doubt. BMI came along and offered substantially cheaper radioplay license fees: crowning Elvis as the King, selling millions of albums because of his exposure to the radio audiences, and pushing many ASCAP artists into obscurity.
The questions are, who is going to be the next BMI, who gets to be the King because of that company, and how many artists is the RIAA screwing out of exposure (like ASCAP did) which could have catapaulted them to King status.
In the words of Purdue University's Professor Steven Robb: "The problem with you kids is you don't bring enough history with you to the table." Mr. Vice President Heckler would probably get the same lecture.
We are (i think) beginning to see the evil empire to end all evil empires (Microsoft of course) use it's influence to try and sway the decision away from splitting Microsoft up. On top of the legal battles we all know about M$ is also reving up it's propaganda machine to sway public opinion. I also saw on CNN that they have made significant contributions to BOTH the Democratic and Republican parties in hopes to buy more influence. There are probably more things that M$ is doing that that others have heard about, and there are probably still more that NONE of us know about. Just how much influence does M$ have? We'll find out if/when this case gets resolved i guess.
Of course we are talking about large music companies who have resources that probably can rival Microsoft's and then some. How much influence do THEY have then? We already know that they managed to push the DMCA quitely through without many knowing about it until it was law. If we know that the recording/movie industry has the power to make a law that they seem to be basing many of their significant legal proccedings on (DeCSS and Napster?) then i would assume it is possible for them to change the rules on everyone again.
We all thought it ridiculous that they could prosecute Napster at all since it was supposed to be treated as an ISP rather than a content provider... we were wrong.
We laughed when we heard the first news of the MPAA taking a creator of DeCSS to court and thought it would never stand up legally... we were wrong again.
Now we laugh at this idiot who thinks he's going to firewall our PC's... With all that is happening around us, it wouldn't really suprise me if they eventually found a way to do what they say.
Basically all i am saying is that we have to stay on our guard for any more erosion to our privacy and our rights and when we see it kick and scream and fight for what is ours. If we lay back and say "naww... this guy is wacko.. it'll never happen" then we will find ourselves cornered sooner than we think.
Ceres
I would like for them to shut down the internet, and just see what happens. It could lead to a great awakening to the fact that corporations are not your cuddly friend. It would be quite ironic, that shutting down a medium that inspires free thought would in its death inspire even more free thought in others who never had it.
Why would Project Gutenburg, a not for profit project that makes available public domain (due to copyright expiration in the most part) texts available to the world, want to help out a comcercial entity whose business is to help music pirates?
Its just too funny watching you guys, who would foam at the mouth about the violation of a GPL'd copyright, well, foam at the mouth when these other guys try to protect their copyright.
This press release isn't about MP3 or digital music. Its about stopping a major source of piracy. That is all.
And for all the talk of using other distributed file copying systems, I seem to remember that before Napster dominated the scene there was another that was much harder to shut down. FTP. Thousands of site all over the world, thousands of people to be tracked down to put a stop to it, and hence too much work for anyone to stop it. Just a bit less convenient. So really, has the beloved Napster done the world a favour? Or has it just blurred in many peoples minds what piracy is? "Hey, these guys are a company, it must be alright to download this from them..."
when they pry my linux box from my cold, dead hands.
So if the content providers have this level of control, then they can do they same as they do on game consoles?
Subsidise the hardware and make the profits back on the software?
Then just to push the paranoia up that touch further seeing as they seem to think they can licence everything to us rather than sell it to us the next step is to provide licences with the hardware (probably on the grounds that they've got software written onto the hardware.) then if we use 'unaproved' software (read open source) then they won't be getting their dollar here and there through our using their net based software so they can come and take our hardware back for breaking their licence conditions?
Is it me or am I just being driven to paranoia by these people?
This is a plea for people to wake up. "Citizens" have rights and responsibilities, minds and talents and souls. "Consumers" have disposable income and a valuable database of spending preferences.
By transforming citizens into consumers, we have laid the foundation for a new government based entirely on money. It's becoming more apparent every day. The frightening part is that we see it coming, but we feel we have no way to stop it, perhaps even no right to stop it.
From what divine or constitutional source did Sony get the right to an uninterrupted "revenue stream"? Where did we as a society come up with the vocabulary that says a corporation has a "right" to anything at all? Particularly since the largest of them don't seem to have very many accompanying responsibilities.
Remember, Napster's defense is that they do not pirate the music themselves, they only provide a service for sharing the files.
Actually, no. If you read Napster's legal filings you will find that this is not their defense. Nor can it be. They are being sued for contributory copyright infringment, not actual copyright infringement, and contributory copyright infringement is an uncontroversial part of copyright law.
Instead, Napster's first line of defense is quite a bit more simple: the sharing of files on Napster is not illegal. No one is breaking the law on Napster, and thus neither is Napster. The basis for this shocking (well, shocking if you get your news from large corporations as most of us do) argument is quite simple: the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act, which quite plainly makes all noncommercial copying of recorded music legal. Since no one is making any money or getting any commercial benefit for sharing their music on Napster, there is no copyright infringement going on, and thus no contributory infringement.
The RIAA is arguing that when the bought and paid for the AHRA in 1992, that wasn't what they meant for it to say. What they meant for it to say was that noncommercial copying was ok only if it was done on DAT, because the other part of the AHRA allowed the RIAA to charge ridiculous royalties on every DAT tape sold to compensate for the loss of royalties due to copying. This isn't what the AHRA actually says, but the recording industry hopes the judge doesn't notice (so far it looks as if she hasn't).
Now, Napster's second line of defense, if the above fails, is to note that a significant portion of the uses of Napster are fair uses. According to the standard set by the Supreme Court in the MPAA vs Sony Betamax case, this is all that is necessary for a provider to be absolved of contributory infringement. (Actually, according to the Betamax case, it is only necessary that the system be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.) There is little doubt that this is true. A surprisingly large portion of Napster traffic is that of unsigned artists/artists who have explicitly allowed their material to be traded. Indeed, there are several times more artists in Napster's "New Artists" program than there are signed by the major labels--and all of them allow trading of their music. Furthermore, many copies of RIAA-copyrighted songs are made for protected fair use purposes, like sampling and space-shifting.
Amazingly enough, Judge Patel managed to get around this point by insisting that it doesn't matter that Napster is capable of substantial noninfringing uses, or even used for substantial noninfringing uses, it only matters that its "primary" use is infringing. No matter that this test was explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court. No mention of how she even figured out that Napster's "primary" use was infringing, except that Napster's internal memos alluded to it. Well, Sony's advertising for the Betamax played up its infringing uses and didn't mention its fair uses, but the Supreme Court ruled that it doesn't matter what the company says, only if the product is also capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Judge Patel doesn't seem to care.
But Judge Patel is going to get overturned on appeal, and that will be sustained by the Supreme Court. Without a new law to replace the AHRA and change the Betamax standard, the RIAA doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Indeed, they're pushing for such a law now; they held hearings on it a couple months ago, although the Senate wasn't too impressed by the RIAA's whining this time around.
But just so you know, the defense of "it's not us, it's the people using our system" doesn't legally hold water. Luckily all of Napster's other defenses are pretty watertight.
Funny that I was just looking at that Sony music Clip that plays mp3 and ATRAC3
As much as Sony can complain about loosing IP and that Napster serves just to steal etc. they have absolutely no right to interfere with my personal software, hardware, make business contracts with my ISP, my ISP's ISP, phone companies, etc. They think that they are above the law which is exactally what they are saying Napster thinks. IMHO this proves that the big 8 are nothing more than monopolies that will stop at *nothing* to make sure that I do not do something that the exec. staff of RIAA say I can do.
The problem is that no matter how much money they throw into killing Napster and similar programs, there will always be some people who are both very devoted to making anything free and very talented. Napster has become almost as common as ICQ or Winzip( or their equivalent on *nix and Macs), yet it wasn't started to make any money. I remember the guy who wroted saying that he did so to see if he could find a better way to do things.
If Sony were to manage to get Napster blocked at the source (technologically, not legally), then this could be done with anything. Politically unpopular speech, Financially threatening free software, whatever. But someone is going to want to get around it, and actually wanting to see a project through to completion can be more important than the skills of the programmer. It's hard to get interested in doing something, much more difficult than learning to do something that interests you.
Legal issues would be trickier, if for example ISPs were successfully sued(read: easier to cancel customer account than to go to court) everytime a napster server was run, then the technology would most eventually die.
treke
Well there you have it the powers that be starting to show their true colors as their power and financial base becomes threatened. Lets face it, if and when peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a dominant paradigm of the internet, all traditional ways of doing business will be fundamentally altered. The vacuous rhetoric that the internet would usher in a world of global grassroots democracy and the end to centralized power structures could actually happen if P2P becomes reality. In fact P2P was supposed to be the operating paradigm of the internet in the first place until corporate interests have co-opted it.
Until the ridiculous Napster decision came down, I hadn't given IP much thought. But as I've watched the rhetoric fly both ways in the Napster and DeCSS trials, I began to see that it has nothing to do with IP in the end, but the beginning of a global war between corporate interests and the forces of democracy. Although the corps make a good argument about compensating intellectual creators, does this justify the complete elimination of freedom online? Already the MPAA is calling its initial victory in the DeCSS case a warning to all Silicon Valley types, that if they keep it up they will shut the whole internet down if it facilitates piracy! Such a statement is completely insane, yet Jack Valenti, president of MPAA actually said it. And since he and the majority of corporate interests agree with that sentiment, their wishes could become reality. This despite the fact that there are already 25 million people and growing who feel otherwise.
If the courts and politicians decide to ignore their constituents and pander as usual to their corporate backers, it could mean a complete re-engineering of the infrastructure to prevent so-called piracy in the future. The nature of the internet is so dynamic, that to accomplish such a monumental task would effectively mean squelching any remaining freedom left on the internet. We'll be left with some draconian super-surveillance network, where all communications will be monitored and censored, and all communication will be increasingly centrally channeled. That is the only system I can imagine that could possible have any chance of stopping piracy. Since such a system is completely repugnant to most people, rather than stop piracy, the nature of business and society should accept it for the prosperity that it really is. Prosperity for the people that is. Imagine that - a society based on individual rather than corporate profits!
Regardless of how anyone feels on this issue, they need to ask themselves do they want a society based on consumer power or corporate power? When corporations start telling its customers what to do, rather than vica versa, then we can start saying good bye to a democratic society. If only the Democratic and Republican Parties, both supporters of stronger IP laws, got a clue. But since when did they give a hoot about the people anyway?
www.enthea.org
We shall fight at the cable companies, we shall fight at the phone company, we shall fight at the ISPs and in the PCs, we shall fight in music stores; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
(Woops - drifting off-topic there - sorry)
..when you let people like senior vice presidents talk to the press without being kept on a leash.
These sound to me like, ah, technically ill-informed comments - I'll bet you he's got no idea how they're going to go about all this firewalling in reality, and it's quite likely he hasn't spoken to anyone with half a clue about the technical viability of it. Sounds like he just came out with this rant rather than actually, well, thinking first.
I predict a rush of conciliatory noises and, er, "clarifications" from Sony Music's PR folks to smooth these comments over once it's realised that what they're talking about is, well, pretty close to technically impossible on today's Internet.
"If we lose our precious revenue, we will take out the Internet with small tactical nukes placed on all the major carriers."
I'm currently reading Terry Pratchett's "Equal Rites", and to quote a paragraph:
--
Pokéthulhu
Gotta catch you all!
And then, our l33t HaX0rz will convert all of your VHS tapes to Betamax!!!
"Blue Elf shot the food!"
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/c onsumer/ss5/feedback.shtml
to tell Sony that you won't be buying any more of their products.
"We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Do they control the horizontal and the vertical as well? Should I not be adjusting my TV?
I have an idea. Have Project Gutenberg distribute their official archives on Gnutella. Trying to censor audio and video is one thing, but try censoring harmless, useful, and loved books. Even the common joe should take offense to that.
"Big Brother, Inc. tries to stop 1984 from begin read" is alot worse for PR than "[Insert beloved band here] tries to prevent teenagers from stealing its livelyhood."
Sony - Electronics and Communications
Products include:
compact disk players
mini disc players
Walkman
WEB TV
Digital Video Discs (DVD)
camcorders
televisions
radios
video cassette recorder (VCR)
phones
Digital Satellite Systems (DSS)
Computers
digital imaging
CD-ROM
CD-ROM storage products
business communication systems
audio and video tapes
data storage
batteries
Wireless Telecommunications
JumboTron
Sony - Movies & Theaters
Columbia Tri-Star
Columbia Pictures
Tri-Star Pictures
Jim Henson Productions (partial interest)
Mandalay Entertainment (partial interest)
Phoenix Pictures (partial interest)
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Columbia-Tri Star Home Video
Theaters
Sony/Lowes Theaters
Sony - IMAX Theater
Magic Johnson Theaters
Loews - Star Theaters
Sony - Merchandise & Finance
Merchandise
Sony Signatures - (entertainment related clothes and merchandise)
Insurance and Financing
Sony Life Insurance Company
Sony Finance International
Sony - Games & Interactive
Games
Sony Play Station - machine and games
Psygnosis Limited - video game developer
Interactive
Sony Online
TheStation@sony.com - online entertainment network
Jeopardy Online, Wheel of Fortune Online
Columbia - Tri-Star Interactive
Sony - Music
Labels
Sony Music
Legacy
Sony Music Nashville
Sony Wonder (children's music)
Sony Music Products (promotional music for business)
Sony Music Soundtrak
Tri-Star Music
WORK
Crave
57 Records
550 Music
Columbia Records
Epic Records
Epic Soundtrak
Shotput Records
Relatively Entertainment
RED Distribution
Relatively Records
Harmony Records
Sony Music International
Soho Square
Dance Pool
Mambo
Rubenstein
Squatt
Sony Classical
Arc of Light
Masterworks
Sony Broadway
SEON
Vivarte
Sony Music Publishing (copyright owners, joint venture with Michael Jackson)
Columbia House (50% venture with Time - Warner)
Music Choice (with Time - Warner, EMI, General Instrument - digital stereo for cable TV)
Music Choice Europe
Sony - Television
Production & Distribution
Columbia -Tri Star Television (programming)
Columbia -Tri Star Television Distribution
Columbia -Tri Star Television International Television
The Game Show Network
International Television Ventures
Cinemax Latin America
E! - Latin America
HBO Ole
HBO Brasil
Mundo Ole
Warner Channel - Latin America
Showtime - Australia
Encore - Australia
TVI - Australia
Channel V - Asia
Cinemax Asia
HBO Asia
Beijing Television Arts Center
Viva 1 - Germany
Viva 2 - Germany
Carlton Productions (U.K.)
Golden Square Productions (U.K.)
Frensch Productions (Germany)
HBO Poland
Sony has licensing arrangements and interest in:
Kirch Group (Germany)
FORTA (Spain)
BSkyB (U.K.)
JSkyB (Japan)
Telemundo Group Inc. (formed venture with Apollo Management, Bastion Capital Fund, and Liberty Media. Sony is managing partner of group and will oversee programming and marketing.)
While this may seem like a heavily Draconian method, the question is: what else can they realistcally do to curb piracy?
They can do nothing, wipe foam from their faces and start thinking, what model they can use to still benefit from that even if it will drastically reduce their profits. And if they will find none they can just leave music alone and let other, more smart people, get into that field.
There is nothing in the nature of music that gives them right to make their current amount of profit from it, and even IP laws are not cast in stone, and must be adapted to changing situation in technology and society. They were lucky that they were able to profit from it, but luck ran out, and their privilege will be taken away -- just like it happened thousands of time in history. Magical word "property" doesn't matter -- slaves were "property", too, yet social progress made slavery obsolete, and more advanced relationships between employer and employees taken its place, and now no sane person would justify restoration of slavery by applying the idea of "property rights" that former slave owners had over slaves and their families. The same thing will happen with intellectual property -- when existing model stops working new one takes its places, regardless of old laws, dogmas, threats and propaganda.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
we will block it at your phone company,
we will block it at your [Internet-service provider].
We will firewall it at your PC.
-Steve Heckler
- No you fucking won't.
Fine.-Me
Kill Napster in court.
Firewall them ports.
We have, uh I forget - is it 2^16?, more ports to choose from.
Go ahead and have your fun. .html files), or we will keep producing new varients of file sharing programs.
Kill Napster and we will replace it with a new way of sharing files 5 minutes later. Either you must ban the whole class of programs to share files of the Internet (ftp & web browsers included, after all web pages are just
So long as I have the right to swap .zip files with other people over the Internet, how can he know if I am swapping .mp3's in them?
And as for his last sentence - if he thinks he can do a damn thing to our PCs, then please would someone explain this whole open-source thing that has been going on around him. It makes controlling people that bit more difficult.
Final Thought:
-
"The [music] industry," Heckler said, "will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
Sorry, was that protect 'musicians rights to have a say in what is done with their art', or protect 'that revenue stream' - I couldn't quite hear.G
For example: The Right to Read: A Dystopian Short Story
DNA just wants to be free...
anyone try to install napster on a vaio yet?
hehe.
i guess sony can't even firewall their own products against it.
What is really interesting is that at VP at Sony has essentially just pledged that the company will be seeking vigilante justice. He didn't mention anything about waiting for the court's decision, he simply states that they are going to take matters into their own hands, and bring the 'rogue' company to justice as Sony sees it.
Vigilante justace was both illegal and looked down upon in the old west. The same is true today. If Sony really does take to this course of action, it will most likely come back to haunt them, either legally, or through public relations.
Most people on this thread are talking about this being an issue of corporate vs. individual rights. While this may be true on a broad sense, I think that the most important point is that Sony has decided that the law doesn't work for it, and that in order to best protect themselves they need to work outside (or at least on the boundary) or the law. I'm sure that Sony won't explicitly violate any laws in getting their firewalls up. I'm pretty sure that it will be through strongarm tactics against large providers like AOL, @home, SBC, Verizon and others. Perhaps they will also call in some political favors, and get some laws passed to allow them to do what they want. The end result though is that Sony has decided that living in a democratic society does not suit it, and so it will attempt to force society to it's will.
Only time will tell what this will do to society, but I believe that if Sony does attempt this, this is going to be one of those little tests that our country has from time to time to see how much it really wants to maintain a democratic society. If we rise to the occasion and show Sony that it must play nicely and by our rule system, then I believe that it will be a big step for America. If we allow them to trample about, then we have taken one more step towards relinquishing the rights of a democratic society.
Impossible = A fun challenge
Prepare to witness the most concerted and massive engineering effort -- both social and technical -- ever undertaken by mankind: The digital equivalent of damming the ocean.
I wrote about this on Slashdot almost a year ago, in the vague hope it might become a featured article: The music and movie industies are working very hard to prevent you from using your lawfully-obtained material in any way they don't want. To that end, they have formed the Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), which is working hand-in-hand with a ton of high-tech companies to bring pervasive copy protection measures to your PC.
I saved my original screed on the subject, and it's reproduced below, with appropriate updates. Bottom Line: Do not let them sneak this garbage past you or your friends. If you find that a product contains copy protection, don't buy it, and encourage others to do likewise.
____________________
Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.
I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.
I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]
Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.
One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:
The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. It costs $100 to attend. According to the site, their last meeting was on 11 April 2000. It's not clear if additional meetings have been held at regular intervals.
The attendance roster from the April meeting (RTF file) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:
If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.
If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.
What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.
Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.
Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:
The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).
Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)
Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.
Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.
In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).
This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.
The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.
Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.
The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.
We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Look around you. Your computer probably has an "Intel Inside" sticker. You probably have a magazine laying on your desk face down, so there is an ad blasting at you. You probably have Nike sneakers.
Go to the grocery store. Everywhere in there are ads. You can't even go to the checkout counter and use one of those bars to separate your food from the guy in front of you without seeing an ad. Go to the movies. Instead of seeing "coming attractions" you get commercials for websites, Coke, and cars.
You drive down the road and every 1000 feet there is a billboard of some sort blasting some product at you (here in Kansas City, they are closer than 1000').
Hell, you can't even visit a website without getting blasted by ads.
But you can do something about it. I have Junkbuster running (no ads!). I don't buy Nike (they make my feet hurt). I don't wear Levis (because their jeans fall apart 3 months after I get them).
Hell, I don't buy Microsoft products and I am surviving just fine, thank you very much. Why? Because I don't let advertising rule my life. I do something about it. I get very little junk mail. All it took was $3 worth of stamps and about an hour of my time to send off the already made letters they have on Junkbuster. It's simple, and amazingly effective.
"And we will bury you!"
I don't find this scary at all -- it's just a litany of 1950s solutions to 21st century problems, none of which will work. I don't have stock in Sony, so why should I care that the people in charge of the company don't have a clue?
This is emblematic of the whole Napster/DeCSS/DMCA battle that's going on now. The status quo has changed fairly radically and the institutions that profited from that status quo are begging any authority they can think of to shove the djinni back in the bottle. The authorities, who are lovers of the status quo themselves, will try to comply, but this djinni isn't going anywhere.
Sony and the like can bang their shoes on the table all the live-long day, or they can go look for other models to make money from music. If they don't, they will be replaced by others who do.
This is the beauty of the free market, da?
-
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
Do they realize that they have just totally screwed themselves? I never liked sony anyway, but now I'll never buy anything from them again.
From now on, I'll check the labels of CDs. If it comes from those bastards, I won't buy it. I'll download it even if I wouldn't have otherwise.
Doesn't the idiot realize that he is representing a large company that does more things than publish music? They'll never sell me another walkman. Stupid arrogant jerks.
So, how would they propose to block napster access at my computer? Hack into it? Change my netfilter rules? Good luck. How are they going to stop OpenNAP, Gnutella or freenet? There is no conceivable way to do so. You'd have to shut down all traffic on the internet. AT&T, Sprint, MCI and all of the other carriers might have something to say about that. They're quite a lot more important to the economy than sony.
This is so far out of line that I have to wonder if it's a hoax. No one in their right minds would make statements amounting to 'we'll hack the computers of all of the people in the world to protect our corporate interests'. This Heckler jackass has just gotten his company in a lot of trouble.
"We will get you Napster users! We will develop something that blocks anything we don't like. We'll use a moat around Napster. No, a wall of fire. A firewall! And the DMZ will be filled with charred cookies when we empty the packets and blockade the ports!"
Looks like Mr. Heckler had trouble finding the right buzzword to make it on Slashdot. After a few attempts, he finally managed to come out with 'firewall' and stopped using 'blocking'. I wouldn't worry about what this guys says. I'm not sure what he's responsible for as VP, but I'll bet he has trouble getting his Viao to connect to his AOL account.
Viv
-----------
Viv
Gmail invites for ip