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Shielding MP3 Databases From Copyright Violations
Lost Soul writes: "Wired has an article on a
new law being proposed in the United States House of Representatives to immunize databases of songs a la mp3.com from copyright violations that are now plaguing the company and giving recording companies licensing fees they don't deserve. Please signal your support for this bill to your local representatives." It would protect databases that people could get access to if they had already purchased the CDs, as my.mp3.com was set up to do.
Brilliant, fantastic, amazing idea, I bet mp3.com has it's legal people on this right now.
;-)
the only problem is that they didn't invent the idea - like everything on their site they copied it from another 'innovative' site.
Stilll prior art doesn't seem to have stopped the patent office in the past - so maybe there's still hope for tecyhnology plagiarists like mp3.com
I guess I just don't get your analogy. Why do we keep trying to create analogies between physical property and digital property? Why don't we just accept that they are two different things that need to be dealt with differently? Prohibiting a company from making a database of music in order to allow people (who have legally purchased the right to listen to that music) to listen to the music they have purchased wherever they like, after they have proven that they have purchased that right, is asinine. It's just the record companies throwing their weight around and trying to further limit how we can make use of the music that we purchase, as well as extorting money which they are not due. Yes, it's often good that the law is slow to change, but when we see that it needs to change, we should certainly encourage it. That's why I'm sending a similar letter to my congresscritters.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
edged out, and made noncompetitive by the court decision and royalty agreement. Meanwhile, the industry-backed ventures go ahead without that little boat anchor.
So the new guy on the block, who found the path and showed the way, gets the shaft. The establishment who fought it every step of the way follows the formula and gets the money.
On the side, a little note in Courtney Love's diatribe seemed to indicate that artists don't get any royalties from "clubs". She stated that she feared that artists would get no royalties from the Napster suits, because the industry would consider Napster a "club". Is this true? By participating in a "CD-club" are we depriving the artists of income, and sending ALL of the money to the poor, starving recording houses?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Let's see... how is it theft to compile a database (presumably from purchased CDs), and then allow people to stream that music wherever they happen to be, but only after they have proven that they have purchased the right to listen to the music. Sounds to me like something that should be perfectly legal, but that the record industry doesn't like, and they are, once again, trying to control what people do with the music they purchase after the sale. If you and I both buy the same CD, and then we meet and I hand you my copy and you give me your copy, have we broken the law? That's essentially what my.mp3.com was doing. I think the RIAA's argument is ridiculous.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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To : jmoakley@mail.house.gov
Cc :
Attchmnt:
Subject : Music Owners Listening Rights Act of 2000
----- Message Text -----
Dear Honorable John Joseph Moakley,
I am writing to you in support of the proposed Music Owners Listening Rights Act of 2000.
You have have heard about MP3.com recently losing a lawsuit to the RIAA. The practice in question was MP3.com members scanning in their legally-purchased discs (to prove ownership) and MP3.com would then allow that particular member to listen to their songs wherevery they wish. I would like to emphasize that MP3.com required that you prove you owned the original. Unfortunately, MP3.com lost because MP3.com's copy is not the same physical copy as the customer's copy and is therefore illegal.
If this is difficult to fathom it is because it doesn't really make any sense.
The Music Owners Listening Rights Act of 2000 would allow a company to legally create a musical database:
""Simply stated, a consumer who lawfully owns a work of music, such as a CD, will be able to store it on the Internet and then downstream it for personal use at a time and place of his choosing," Boucher said in his floor statement introducing the new legislation." - Wired.com
I encourage you to support this bill and bring legislation up to speed with the technical capabilities of the internet.
Thank you,
Jason Desjardins
----[%snip]----
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
CDs need a Burst Cutting Area (BCA) number. This is something that can be burnt into DVDs at the moment (which I guess includes DVD-Audio). Every DVD can be given a unique BCA#. This approach would stop people lending their CDs to friends for the sole purpose of allowing them to register to hear it from an online DB. Of course, you would need a mechanism to unregister too in the event of selling the CD, or for the registration to be time-limited.
If the recording companies don't deserve money for promoting and selling recording than who does.?
The music studios don't deserve royalties in the my.mp3.com case. In case you didn't know Mp3.com debuted a free service called Beam-It at my.mp3.com. This service enabled people to play CDs from an online collection if they had previously proved that they own the CDs by having the CD in the CD-ROM drive and registering it.
Somehow the record labels felt that MP3.com owed them money for broadcasting music on the net without paying them licence fees similar to what Radio stations pay. This ignores the fact that all the people listening to the music already own the CDs being played. Of course all the members of the RIAA filed suit and MP3.com settled with most of them for about $20 million a piece except for Universal that pressed on with a lawsuit and won over $100 million.
The my.mp3.com will return but will be a pay service to offset the damage from the lawsuits. During Napster hearings certain Senators including Orrin Hatch realized that the RIAA was abusing copyright laws in an attempt to maintain a monopoly on legitimate means of digital distribution of music. The new laws that are pending indicate that Congress feels that the RIAA did not and does not deserve payment when people are accessing music they already own from an online site.
Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
I don't see anything specific on his website, but I recall reading elsewhere that Boucher was instrumental in the legislation that allowed the Internet to legally be used for non-research purposes. So he's at least partially responsible for the commercialized Internet of today, as opposed to the elite academic community of ten years ago. Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion, I guess.
where there's fish, there's cats
I bet that right now some RIAA people are accusing MP3.com of paying off a congressman to get this bill into the books.
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I believe that is intended to be vague so it could be interpreted by the courts, probably purposely so.
As for how? Well, click-wrap licenses seem to work for software, so why not for a digital music locker...
Personally, I feel the technologically sound process that My.MP3.com used would be sufficient.
"...is to have all kinds of databases centrally registered by government agencies such as the NSA, CIA and FBI."
What the fuck are you smoking anyway?
If the NSA wants to know who I am, they're going to want more than my goddamned CD LIST! Do you think "Big Brother" cares if I listen to Metallica or Dr. Dre or Yanni or any other suckfest of a CD?
My advice to you is to go take all your little guns, and go into a cave somewhere in the Ozarks with all the other radical right-wing crackheads. Or you can lay off the crack and get your conspiracy theories out of your head.
It had to be said.
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Could the sneaky members of club-RIAA have planned it so they'd destory MP3.com while it was illegal, then make it legal and make money on the exact same idea?
Multitrack recording:
- 70s- open-reel tape consoles, $50,000 (?) for 16-24 tracks 30 ips
- 90s- ditto at more like $20,000, first digital multitrack but _seriously_ inadequate $50,000 again.
- Now- 20-24 bit minimum, ADAT available in this class for under $3000, nonlinear DAW recording in a similar pricerange not counting the computer and disk costs. That's for something like Digi Pro Tools: ask the GIS crew about that.
Mixing- 70s- mixing console $10,000? Less tendency for hugeness and a zillion busses.
- 90s- mixing console $10-50,000. This is where huge consoles really took off- also, lower end consoles developed a terrible cheapness and noisiness, moving into the consumer zone. At this time digital consoles were useless even though they cost the earth- early digital consoles featured 16 bit busses and NO dithering. Any home PC can do better these days with the proper software.
- Now- analog consoles same as 90s unless you build your own and know your way around audiophile design- low end's a third as cheap as it used to be, but still very cheesy. Digital consoles becoming available with 24, 36 or even higher bit depths on the busses. DAW a mixed bag- you can do work with deep busses and good software for under $10,000, you can kluge the same thing for under $1000 if you know what you're doing, if you can build circuitry you can get in there with analog gear and match the fluidity but _not_ the noise floor (never underestimate the 'bit depth' of analog- no rounding errors at all, and dithering becomes unnecessary- dithering is actually a type of noise at about -110db!). More than ever it's WHAT you know not what you SPEND- demand is turning back towards high end audio characteristics, and industry standards are slipping. Which brings us to-
Mastering and Release- 70s- ouch! Good luck getting anywhere _near_ this stage. Disc mastering equipment in the millions of dollars, owned only by mastering houses- you simply could not play in this area, not even the recording studios did. There was never a consumer market for vinyl disc mastering.
- 90s- even more ouch! While older equipment would pass into the hands of semipros and rich amateurs for mere hundreds of thousands of dollars (perhaps less), while the Philips cassette became widely available, the top end continued to skyrocket, developing techniques like multiband compression to saturate the tonality of the music while suppressing unruly peaks. The first CD mastering equipment was staggeringly expensive as well. It was an era where there was a huge gap between 'bedroom recording and mastering' and the commercial stuff- you simply couldn't get anywhere near the commercial quality on cassette 4-tracks and 'mastering' to a dubbing cassette deck. For the first time you could do it all yourself, but the technology just wasn't there for other than hobbyist use or demos.
- Now- it gets _interesting_. People are used to assuming that you _must_ be able to spend millions to get state of the art sound- but, $200 CD-R burners? Free or shareware software that mixes and edits in 24 bit depths? You can get software for _free_ today, right now, that substantially beats what was the state of the art in the mid-90s. The technology is there- intensely there. Processes like multiband compression can be replicated in software... everything that used to take $50,000 mastering house equipment is becoming available in software. There's one major exception- monitoring- you _cannot_ do professional mastering work over Yamaha NS-10s, much less PC multimedia speakers or headphones. By the same token, amplification has to be terrific. And even HERE it's becoming accessible! If you aren't fussy, you could get one of the high-end multimedia systems- for instance, the Klipsch Promedia, which can handle substantial monitoring volumes without distorting- and that would be good enough to work with, at under $1000.
Summary Obviously, there's a need for more information out there- at this point it's not money that limits a home-recording musician (if you can get a few thousand dollars over the course of a few years you can assemble the required tools), it's information. You could say, 'get a 20-bit ADAT or a computer-based DAW with at least 24 bit mix busses and a CD burner' but that's like saying 'download EGCS, download the kernel sources- great, now write clustering software for i-openers over infrared ports!'. Mixing is as much a craft as an art and treating it like Jackson Pollock treated a canvas WILL result in dodgy mixes that are obviously not professional- and mastering has long been considered a black art, just as much as writing tricky device drivers! The information also tends to be hoarded, but with the Internet this breaks down a bit- for instance, I've read numerous rants by mastering engineers on how the major labels are getting into an arms race with compression and loudness, which is ruining the enjoyable quality of the sound (think later Britney Spears, and listen to the actual sounds being used- that's ruthlessly overcompressed).So the final answer would be somewhere between two and twenty thousand dollars for the equipment required to produce the high quality recording (some of which you may already have, like a computer and CD burner), BUT it will either cost you a couple years of determined study or another two to twenty thousand dollars to hire someone who can use that gear properly. It's quite like having precision parts machined with a large and powerful machine shop, routers and lathes and stuff- sure if you have the gear you _could_ do it, the question to ask is if you know what you're doing with machine tools. With studios it's 'do you know what you're doing with recording/mastering tools'. The tools themselves are more and more affordable, and even the information is becoming more accessible, but you have to be willing to learn- it's a discipline as demanding as programming, in its own way.
Does that answer the question? *creak of dead-from-boredom people falling over in a shower of dust* ;)
That's just like handing out condoms in high schools. It doesn't make the problem any better.
I think you may be confusing what's moral with what's theologically popular. Teenage sex isn't a problem. It's a reality. Disease and teen pregnancy are health problems, which condom use could go a long way towards solving.
So how does your analogy fit with what he said? I mean, unless you think both Napster and condoms keep kids from using the black tar heroin or smoking the crack or something. Then I guess you have a point. Sort of. Or not.
When was there honesty, again? I keep looking for it in theology and history books and I'm coming up empty...
-jpowers
-jpowers
You show me where in the judge's ruling he says any of the things you claim.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Having worked on the Hill over the summer, here's some advice for those of you planning on contacting your elected official:
a) Write them a snail-mail letter. There's a sneaking suspicion that one person is sending them all those form emails.
b) If you do want to write an email, include your NAME and ADDRESS. Without your NAME and ADDRESS, you might not be a constituent, they don't really waste the time to figure out the difference.
To contact your representative: Write-rep
To contact your senator: It's not as easy, go find their e-mail address.Your rights as a music buying consumer are at stake. If you think the recording industry has entirely too much power, tell Congress! If you think Hemos should be banned from the internet, tell Congress!
Most issues before congress are decided by members voting in the way they think will get them re-elected, without any input from the constituency. The saddest thing about this is how easy it is to let your views be known.
People all over the world participate in their own governments at levels we in the U.S. are privileged to but don't. Participation in the governing process is a privilege. Failure to use it could be failure to keep it.
If you think G.W. is the greatest thing since sliced bread, register to vote before October 8 and vote in November. Similarly, if you think G.W. is a cocaine snorting, S&L crashing, frat boy weasel, register and vote. If you don't vote you have no right to complain when the candidate you loathe most gets elected.
Code commentary is like sex.
If it's good, it's VERY good.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
You do read the news right? Even on places like /. we see the trends which are leading towards government oppression and the loss of all of our freedoms.
If information wants to be free, power wants to grow. Certainly, there are trends to increased government control. Some of this is driven by finances. UCITA, DMCA, etc. aren't so much concerned with power as they are with money. Some of it is driven by the best of intentions. Pat Bradey truly believes that banning guns would make the US a better place. Recognizing the creeping erosion of our rights is one thing. Creating a sinister conspiracy where every new law, no matter how innocent seeming, has an ulterior motive designed to advance the cause of government oppression is something else entirely. That IS paranoid.
The government exists to protect.. The way it is done leaves a great deal to be desired.. but thats the main idea.
No, the government exists to govern a political unit, usually a country. Protecting its assets is merely good sense for such a body and means no more than me defending my home against a burglar.
That depends upon your definition of exists. The US government was created by the US Constitution. It was created by the founding fathers with the purpose of protecting the rights of the new nation. Over time, it has drifted far from its original purpose. The checks and ballances have been only partially successful. We in the US still enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom compared. But that freedom IS threatened, and the powers of the government have been hugely expanded.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your juridiction.
:)
:)
Also, I've never heard an MP#, nor do I have an interest in having them streamed to me.
A quick note: the ban in the Constitution on "ex post facto" laws--those passed after the fact--only applies to criminal cases. If the law were passed quickly, and written to do so, it *could* apply to pending litigation.
Whether or not that would be a good idea in this case is left as an excercise for the reader
A Haiku for you: with rocks in each hand I beat scissor not paper I'll be back, paper
b) No artist is REQUIRED to deal with the RIAA. They can't force you...
For that matter, nobody is REQUIRED to buy pasteurized, homogenized milk. But just try to buy any other kind. You can't.
Yes, an artist can try and distribute music on a minor label, or by him/her self. But by that path the artist is also guaranteed to remain small-time. If you want ANY chance at wide distribution or airplay, you MUST sign with an RIAA member.
There's even less choice than trying to buy a PC without Windows.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
...if it passes.
FWIW, this is H,R. 5275, submitted 25-Sep-2000 it seems to the Committee on the Judiciary. (from the Congressional Record.
But why, one must ask, does it only cover music? The same logic theoretically should apply to all dual-media creative works, such as books (at least for methods that preserve exact formatting, like PDF and PS, in constrast to ASCII text), visual arts (paintings as JPEGs, and so forth), and likewise.
We may not have book-digitizing services now (to my knowledge, but I haven't been looking), but when PDAs or other devices are developed that ARE pleasing for books, or if good-enough laptops become common -- then there may be a potential market.
This seems overly... tailored, shall we say.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I wonder if a digitally signed affidavit, if it were strongly linked to a verified, actual, physical, real-world identity, plus a Beam-It-style series of random spot checks on a CD would suffice to absolve them of liability.
Otherwise, it would seem to be an impossible problem.
A has a valid, legitimate CD bought from, say, Tower Records or a NRM.
B can, among a nearly infinite variety of possible actions,
1) buy the CD from A online, perhaps even pseudo-anonymously;
2) buy the CD in person, using cash rather than credit or something else that generates a trail,
3) buy the CD from A, who surreptiously burned a copy (which he kept and uses) and duplicated anything else that came with it
4) break into A's apartment and steal the CD and all associated materials,
In case 1, the only copy is legal, but it wasn't noted in any registry (of which I doubt any exists...). Electronic payment probably generated a trail, 'tho.
In case 2, ditto, minus trail but plus probable memories of faces.
In case 3, A and B *both* have copies, plus all the materials that may be needed to "authenticate" legal ownership. Thing is, at most one of them IS legal. So who's MPPP or its ilk going to trust?
In case 4, B now has everything required to authenticate and there are no other identical CDs running around to cause (in theory) serial number problems, yet it's an illegal copy. Unless A recorded all such unique IDs, reported them to police as stolen, and then this information is made available to MPPP or its ilk... Hm.
And we don't, say, have stores custom-burning CDs tied to one's retinal scan or other biometrics (which admittedly would make this verification problem a LOT easier, but cripple end-user sales).
So one hopes that "proof" would be interpreted a bit less rigorously than *absolute incontrovertible proof*.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
1) This has been stated, I cannot stress this strongly enough - Send a letter, and send it by snail mail. You can thank a whole industry that used to specialize in spamming Congress by snail mail, and has now moved to e-mail, for this.
;) reflection. If this moves, it will likely move in Feb-March of next year - however, you letters now will make a difference in that move.
/. - it is extraordinarily irritating to see parinoid people attacking it - hell you just might have given the RIAA lobbyists an idea - go back the the Congressmens districts and tell their constituents that the congressmen supports tracking all of the music you listen to in a top secret database. The bill would die a quick and painful death.
2) Include your full home mailing address - you will only be logged ("Senator, we've gotten 1,200 letters this month encouraging you to support the MP3 bill") and receive a reply if they are sure you are a constituent.
3) This bill will not pass this session (which is supposed to end in a week, but will likely last a few weeks longer.) It just doesn't work that way - If Hatch or Wyden had introduced a Senate bill at the same time there might have been a chance, but it still would have been unlikely. The legislative process is meant to encourage sober
4) To all those who seem to think this is part of some NSA conspiracy, I think you may have left your aluminum foil hat at (the) home today
sorry, but this is a fairly well written first step toward the kind of public policy that has been advocated on
5) Laws are written in a generally vague way - open to courts interpretation - because if you write them very specifically, there will be loopholes - it is almost impossible when dealing with a human based system, to write iron rules. Human beings are flexible and creative - either way we will have court interpretation, be being vague we insure deference to "legislative intent" (in this case, to allow MP3.com and its' followers to keep doing what they do).
6)
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Musicbank.com whole business model right now depends on this kind of legislation - because, lets face it - there's no way they could become profitable with the current record deals.
Myplay.com of course are the innovators on the whole online storage (beating mp3.com by 6 months). I guess that if this kind of legislation goes through this makes them even more legal in the eyes of the Music Industry.
Personally.... mp3.com can go the way pof the dodo for all I care - I've never liked them.
The same site MrP- links to has an article on the bill being introduced:
Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Here's their page on their anti-MP3 service. Hopefully someone out there will send them some nasty emails and a lot of extra packets.
www.netrecoverysolutions.com/mp3.ht ml
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He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Yes, finaly, the political system is getting caught up to the rest of the world.
Record companies have no right to tell thier customers how and when/why/where to use the music they purchased.
Once anything I paid for enters my house, its MINE
Just like the electricity I pay for, PGE doesnt say "your a mad scientist, dont use our electricity to make evil experiments", they just charge me more =)
If this bill passes it will be one step forward to getting the rest of the political system caught up int he digital world.
Next step, get the patenting office caught up as well and ban patents of frivelous things such as One Clock Shopping and shit like that.
Only one question, are there any websites set up that have forms, and send the form out to the state represetitive of our choosing? If not, who wants to help me set one up?
If you want to help me set up a form for theis MP3 Bill thatll have a premade, or variable form field that lets you choose what state your in, then send your plea to your corrosponding state representetive, mail me, brentj@servuhome.net
I think that would be a real effective way of getting people easier access to thier state officials, and will probably get a bigger show!
Just my 2 cents though.
Systems Administrator
Servu Networks
http://www.servuhome.net
Brent Jones
PS. did you know that smashin pumpkins have released their final album free on the internet? You can get it at : http://www.billy-corgan.net/downloads/mp3/machina2 /index.html
Cool eh?
How does one transmit "proof" of "lawful possession," and what proof is sufficient? Clearly, proof of possession is understandable, but "lawful possession?"
I had to register my MP3 database with the Government! And now my FTP logs show 8000 hits a day in my Metallica directory from NSA.gov! An 10000 hits a day in my Live_Goat_Porn/Sounds directory from whitehouse.gov! The bastards!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can see then now where those damn lobbiest. This is one bill I need to see how its handled.
If a huge portion of the actricles on Slashdot link to Wired, why the hell don't we all just read Wired?
Last time I checked (60 seconds ago), Wired didn't have threaded discussions.
<O
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XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
- - - - - - - -
"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem."
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Mandrake: Aye, no, no. I don't Jack.
Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? Its incredibly obvious isn't it. A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first...become...well, develop this theory?
Ripper: Well, I, uh...I...I...first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Mandrake: Hmm.
Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue...a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I...I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Mandrake: Hmm.
Ripper: I can assure you that it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh...women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Mandrake: No.
Ripper: But I...I do deny them my essence.
"I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence"
Ok, it sounds great at first. MP3.com can still have its jukebox, and other companies can come forward with similar services.
But what happens in a few years when I want a similar service for my DVD's? When I'm travelling it'd be nice to have my whole DVD collection availiable to me on airplanes or at hotels.
Really, the law should have been aimed at any digital copy of a work you own. Artwork, music, movies, sculpture (captured in 3D of course), scents, software.
Perhaps that is too much for the government to handle for now. With any luck this bill will set a precedent enabling bills with more vision to come forth - I just hope I get to see it pass before I have a longing for My.DVD.com.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know this would open a whole new can of worms, but....
what would happen if we had to register our music in a way similar to the way we're supposed to register our software?
If there were some easy way to register, such as an automatic registration with credit card purchases, maybe something like this could work.
But I suppose somebody would have to handle the owner database (Record labels perhaps).... and it would probably make it a pain in the ass to purchase/sell used music.
Exactly. There is no reasonable way to determine whether the owner(s) of an .mp3 database actually own the tapes/CDs that the music files were originally from. Unless the RIAA is going door-to-door (not that I'd let them in) to check ownership, there is no way to enforce this law. You know, innocent until proven guilty and all...
.mp3s. The RIAA is sure that at least some of them are pirated, and jump the gun, only to find out that this guy owns a lot of music CDs. It only needs to happen once for them to be hit with counter-suits.
Actually I kind of like this idea now. I can just see someone with thousands of
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Other Companies did it before mp3.com.
I mean mp3.com even copied their catchphrase from myplay.com
Is Owned by Myplay.com
It more than suffices to prove that they have the possession, and it's unhackable (unless the client stores an entire copy of the CD, which makes the whole thing pointless anyway). But what werdna called attention to is that it doesn't just say "possession", it says "lawful possession". How do you know the CD wasn't borrowed from a friend, or stolen?
It's going to have to involve some sort of transmission of a sales receipt, (or a history of receipts and transfers in the case of a used CD). That's the only way anyone would be able to tell if the possession was lawful or not.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The Digital Media Association has been working on getting all sorts of laws changed for a long time - this is exactly the sort fo thing they would like to do so I wouldn't be surpised if ultimately this turned out th be their idea.
I see a few people suggestin ghte mp3.com hired some lobbyinst to get this bill, but somehow I think DiMA is more likely to be responsible.
And you know what?
mp3.com aren't a member of this digital media lobbying group, so they probably had nothing to do with it. I'm not sure if this is because mp3.com don't want to be a member of an association dedicated to the legal side of things... or whether DiMA just won't let a company like mp3.com join for fear of damaging it's reputation - note that their memebers (www.digimedia.org/members/index.cfm) don't include other controvesial companies like Napster.
So my guess is that they are probably the ones which may ultimately save mp3.com (ironic since the my.mp3.com concept was stolen from DiMA members....)
Hey, let's build a giant communication conduit! And then after we are rolling in a fancy, kick-ass economy, created by brilliant independent individuals, we can take credit for it. And then, all who have refined and CAPITALIZED on it can be hung out to dry. We can do this because the old-time money holders, special-interest groups and politicians on the take say we should. Golly that's a great idea. Can anyone say "Coup d'etat" ? Why not just barcode everyone, stick a CueCat in one hand and a PalmPilot in the other and get on with the Borgification of mankind. I can't wait to rule the world after the Politicrats and Technonazis get done illegalizing it. Rage Against My Machine!
"Normal is a cycle on a washing machine" -John P. McAfee