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MP3s In Foreign Countries
KirTakat writes: "We see lots of links to information about MP3s in America (by this I mean most English speaking countries, which seems to be the major readership on Slashdot), and how they are being handled legally and the such, but how are they affecting other countries? Are they even mentioned in the news, or is the legal aspect of MP3s pretty much an American thing?" Maybe some readers can describe how the "music on the internet" debate has gone in other areas of the world.
I know for a fact, that 3fm (and other radiostations in holland) use MP2+3 formats, they have servers with TB capacity...way cool!
I thought this was the internet. As far as a lot of readers are concerned, the US is the foreign country.
How about this for a subject - "MP3s outside the US"?
Okay, i don't want to stir up andy trouble, but to say that music piracy is only an American problem is a falicy. There are other agencies like the RIAA around the world that have the responsibility of keeping piracy in check, the only problem is that other countries have much bigger issues to deal with other than Internet piracy. For example, there is a large amount of piracy in Europe which is the responsibility of the IFPI. The biggest problem that they face is the fact that the governments of the various countries lack the ability to enforce the laws. Another major point to look at is that the American media have this habit of blowing things way out of proportion. So, saying that MP3's is only an american problem is like saying that only women in america have gender inequality... Just my 2 cents...
MP3s in Germany are more an more becoming an issue. Since most people here still have to pay for internet access by the minute (flatrates are still around $45) it isn't much fun to download whole albums.
The Napster case however gets quite a bit of attention, not only in the computing press but also in regular newspapers an on TV.
The GEMA (the association that collects all the fees for copying copyrighted material) is currently trying to get the federal government to introduce a fee on all computer devices that can be used to copy things such as CD Recorders and Scanners...There is no copyright law in Thailand. Huge shopping malls containing literally hundreds of shops are selling countless CD's packed with MP3's. No need to waste your bandwidth... Just go there and for $3 you get a CD packed with 12 MP3-encoded CD's. Makes the whole American debate looks like a joke... PS The same thing goes with commercial software and movies.
I'm an American exchange student studying in France, and there seems to be a large amount of trading. What most folks do is download songs onto their accounts (I should point out that I'm at an engineering school with a nice connection to the Net -- not necessarily common here), and then transfer them to home using Zip disks. Most folks here also have CDRs which makes distributing them to friends easy. Smacks of the USA a bit.. However, most people here don't seem to care too much about the legal aspect..
Here's a story that may give some insight into the situation.
I was with some buddies at a pub (a real one, not the typical souvenir decorated yuppie hovel so common in the states), and we started talking about the music they were playing. I was wondering what CD it was - sounded like a compilation - and my co-worker bet me that they were playing MP3s.
Considering the legal ramifications of broadcasting Mp3 songs in a public place, not to mention the low likelyhood of a pub owner being net savvy enough to do something like that (this is a small town with ISPs you can count on one hand, no DSL or cable), I bet him a pint of guinness that it wasn't MP3.
Needless to say, the bartender informed us it was and poured out that pint. They had set up some proggie with a playlist so nobody would need to bother with it much, and hooked up the PC to an amp.
It was really a bit of a surprise for me, because Australia in general is quite behind on the net, both in terms of bandwidth and a crushing regulatory framework that ensures companies can't compete in the world market.
So there you go, MP3s playing in pubs. Can't get any more into the public mainstream than that.
Digital copying of copyrighted works for personal use is forbidden, and our constitutional protection of religious freedom is limited to worshipping _God_ in any way, i.e. monotheism.
then this would be modded +2 Funny :)
In Thailand, everything is nice and open. Major web portals do feature mp3 search engines, and it is the norm. Napster hasn't caught up because the Thai character set is incompatible, you try searching Napster for, example, à àÃÔ and you get everything but that.
:-)
Still, there is no need for napster, you can get CD's full of MP3's of different artists and genre from New Age, to Venga boyz to some good Underground for just $2.5 (and getting less and less as the currency slips away) as well as VCD/CD/MP3 players for about $50-$60. (I just got a portable one for $150!!)
Here, the main philosophy is "sabai sabai" or, translated roughly "take it easy". Anything goes
As of this particular point in time, it's legal to download MP3s from the Internet. More significantly, it's also legal to share your MPs as well.
The situation arose because the Government attached digital media copyright legislation to a bill which contained a number of unrelated provisions which the Australian Democrats, who hold the balance of power in the Senate, weren't prepared to vote for. And, rather than separate the digital media copyright legislation from the bill and send it to the Senate separately (which would have resulted in Digital Media Copyright passing and the other stuff which the Government wanted being voted down), the Government gambled that the Dems would vote for the whole package because they wouldn't want to vote against digital copyright.
The Democrats examined the situation, and concluded that if they voted for the package, they'd end up with a whole lot of legislation they weren't prepared to support, whereas if they voted against it they'd end up with the status quo being preserved: The country has survived without digital media copyright for this long, it can survive for a few more months until the Government tries the Bill again without the bits the Dems object to.
So, we're left with a new Copyright Act which passed last year, which carries a clause which specifically states that it's not intended to apply to digital media, because other legislation will deal with that -- But the proposed legislation has never materialized because the Democrats voted against it.
As a result, Australia is probably one of the most MP3-friendly countries in the world at the moment. Everyone thinks it's illegal, because it probably was under the old Copyright Act, but it isn't under the new Act. Share and enjoy!
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I tried an internal modem, but it hurt when I walked.
can you post a link?
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
is so much cheaper, AIUI, in the US that it is much more of an issue over there. IMO. And the DMCA and such general corporacrat tendencies probably make it easier for the corps to pressure universities, Napstoids, etc.
Not to mention Roxette, Aha, Abba, well you get the idea... I fully agree, Swedish pop sucks!
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Make that Judeo-Christio-Islamic, please.
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
You also have AKG (something like RIAA) but it seems that they are more focused on live-events than on mp3.
The main reason, why napster is not very popular in university-network-administration is the bandwith it consumes.
Gery
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The answer is yes, me.
Actually, the situation is even worse: it is forbidden to make any digital copies. There is no such thing as a fair use clause in the Danish law.
AFAIK, this even was valid at some stage for taping (you know, these cassette type thingies you could put into thingies that used to be called Walkman) from the radio. I'm not sure what the situation is on that now.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
yeah and there's always the Cardigans (pop played with heavy metal sensibilities)
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
> America(by this I mean most english speaking countries...
Since when does America mean the English-speaking world. Is it the same reasoning that induces people to refer to Bill Clinton as the President of the Free World? Or whatever the title is.
There have been quite a lot of mainstream articles telling what Napster is and how it works, some of them even mentioned Gnutella and Freenet.
Legal situation?
It's legal to download, but serving requires a permit. The legality of linking to mp3's abroad has not been solved in court, but the local RIAA, Teosto, is bullying people and ISPs to remove links.
Karma: Good! Napster: Baad!
Maybe, but some of their rock/metal crushes; Entombed, The Haunted, At the Gates and Arch Enemy r00l.
Carleton University in Ottawa blocks Napster and Scour. I don't think it was as much for piracy, but instead because it was taking up 80% of the university bandwidth. If they really wanted to kill piracy on campus, they'd block "Network Neighbourhood" where people regularily spend an evening watching pirated copies of entire movies.
I have been out of Japan for a long time, so I cannot tell how exactly it is like there. However, a friend of mine who visited the US in May had a G-Shock with MP3 player built in.
She also said that everyone knows what MP3 is these days, and there is no trouble getting MP3 files of the most recent hits from the Internet. The said G-Shock model apparently was the most popular model at that time.
> Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue. Actually, you'll find that there is a higher percentage of the population owning computers in Scandinavia than in USA. We just don't have as fast and cheap Internet access as you people.
Actually, you'll find that there is a higher percentage of the population owning computers in Scandinavia than in USA. We just don't have as fast and cheap Internet access as you people.
copyright exists to ensure musicians get paid. the other side is that
/ Steiner-Social.html
once an artist produces something - it goes beyond them and many
benefit.
between consumers and producers now stands record companies - but paying
artists is only a step on the way to gaining profit. in practice, many
musicians (who play instruments) starve, while marketing bimbos (spice
girls) thrive - this is wrong.
a fundemental qualitative difference between physical and electronic
goods is - if i have an apple and give you an apple, i no longer have an
apple; but if i have an idea and give you an idea, we BOTH have an idea.
therefore you cannot treat electronic things as if they were actually
physical goods, because they aren't! still, you must compensate
producers of the original bits - so what to do?
MUSICIANS ASSOCIATIONS:
- the physical distributors and merchandisers pay into the musician's pool that pays and feeds the musicians.
- the musicians pool distributes it equitably among its active producers.
- from the pool comes more new music. which is given away for free. unlimited digital copies for everyone, never again a dime paid for anything that's just DATA.
- distributors get fresh music, and sell and package more STUFF.
- distributors pay back a percentage of sales back into the pool.
- so it comes back and feeds itelf (the most important part).
so all software is free - you get mindshare from it. but if you make a
physical whose value lies on the free music on it, then a percentage
goes back. but the artist is not paid direct - it goes to the musician's
pool, which doles out shares each month by percentage of overall
downloads from Napster.
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
Your statments are a textbook example of closed-mindedness.
Uh. You obviously didn't get the joke. The music he listed was bad.
I know you Giant Canadian Crack Rabbits don't have a sense of humor up there (it froze, I suppose), but at least TRY to keep up.
Here in Argentina everybody is trading MP3 at work, and you can buy almost anywhere CDs with all the MP3 of any given music band.
Most rock bands from here are posting their latest jobs on their web pages.
You're only dealing with Napster at University. MP3s themselves are actually accepted by the recording industry here. DJs are allowed to make MP3s of the CDs they have and use the MP3s in their performances.
When I was a kid I used to droll over stories of mass piriacy like this. Then I got broadband and my dreams came true. :-P
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I've got to say that I take extreme offense from having my country (Britain) called "America" because we speak the same language. We are not like you, you are not like us, we are not the same. We don't even speak the same dialects.
/. is American!
Remember that not everybody that reads
Wow! Are other countries as strict as this? anyone?
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Since version 3.70 (or so) LAME is entirely free. Besides, since about the same version LAME is BETTER than frauenhoffer and all the other encoders. Encode all you music at 128 vbs (variable bit stream), and you'll have the most perfect mp3's you can get.
Johan V.
I have heard of pages where you can get some MP3 with your portable phone by using web-like services such as i-mode or Jphone. You can already download new music for your portable phone (multi-voice, not a buzzer!), which is now in proprietary format, but it wouldn't surprise me if phone makers made it possible to upload MP3 music as well.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
(emphasis added)
That is HILARIOUS!
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
>>It is illegal to make digital copies og digital
:) Damn UNIX, nothing works :)
>>products, which is hard not to do
>No, that law has been changed, you may now make a digital copy(providing youre not breaking any copyright law of course).
No, not yet. That law won't go into effect until jan 1st 2001, sorry.
>Press [ALT][F4] for IQ test
Hm, funny, nothing happens...
I wasn't aware that the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand etc were part of "America" either...
The conclusion of your syllogism, I said lightly, is fallacious, being based on licensed premises
Maybe some readers can describe how the "music on the internet" debate has gone in other areas of the world.
But all but one of the big five record companies is foreign. So the debate has been international since the big record companies began opposing it.
Australia seems to follow the US fairly closely when it comes to technology issues (encryption etc). I'm not sure why (probably some treaty)
This is the stuff I've learn all year in my Year 12 International Stuides class (Exam in 9 days). Generally, since WWII, we have been VERY nice to the USA, and followed them almost totally (Vote the same in UN, participation in Korean and Vietnam wars, let then set up bases such as Pine Gap....) up until the early 1970's, with the return of Labor to power for the first time in over 30 years, and the Nixson doctrine both pushing us up the path towards more independence. As as we stand now, we still sometimes unfortunatly look towards the USA, not because we NEED to follow them, but because "they said such-and-such is bad, so it must be." However, defence-wise, we are fairly independant (we should be able to hold back any resonable threat in our reagon as it stands), and out independance was shown in the East Timor operation of last year.
Anyway, I'm ranting offtopic, so I'll stop now... ;)
Oh, and Triple J is the best radio station in the country, as we all know....
It would be perfectly legal to make mp3s of your own CDs in the UK, provided you do not distribute them. This comes under the same exemption as making tape copies of CDs - namely transferring to a different media for time-shifted use.
As for patents, it really depends on which software you use. The frauenhoffer (sp?) stuff is still valid in the UK, but as long as you use a mainstream licensed ripper there's no problem at all.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
In one of the main technical universities in Italy they set up a firewall denying access to the whole napster.com domain.
The worse aspect in this fact is that no communication was issued by the network managers or anybody else: we just found it didn't work anymore.
I don't know what's the policy of other italian universities.
Nice eh?!
According to the media, many artists see Napster/MP3 as only a tool for pirating their music. There are exceptions, however. In one interview, an Italian rock-star of 80s (I believe) said that the only way he found to publish his new pieces was Internet. While he is still famous, all the companies he contacted requested him to go throu all the media show ( radiso, tv's and such ) before publishing, while he just wanted to publish his music.
Italian 'anty-piracy' regulations have just been strengthened, making them too much similar to the ones in US and in other countries ( now for instance also to publish free software CD you need a special permission from SIAE ).
Ciao
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FB
The DJ reported this fact as a proof that MP3s are not only evil, while talking with a local(?) rock star (which knew nothing about).
Sorry but I can't remeber the names - for me music is just something I occasionally hear while driving.
Ciao
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FB
Friday (Nov 3), An organisation called BREIN (acronym which translates to Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands) issued a cease-and-desist to the dutch website www.napster.nl for linking to illegal music. They have 48 hours (not including the weekend) to remove all links.
The website's creator, Johan van Vliet, refuses to remove these links. He is referring to a recent deep-linking case in the Netherlands in which deep linking to newspaper articles was deemed legal.
Although newspaper articles are copyrighted material, they are published on the web freely, which seems an entirely different case to me. (On a related note, Brad Templeton has a very interesting article on linking rights.)
The other stance is the one of Rusia, Ukraine, Belorus, and other countries of Soviet Union. Most of them have none legislative or do not have institutions to enforce their laws.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
MP3's are handled the same way, though the music industry won't ever tell you this here. They just call all copying piracy as usual.
It is however illegal to publicaly offer and distribute them. It is not illegal to download them however. I reckon the same applies to Divx stuff, but I'm not too shure about that. If you rent a DVD, you'r ok to copy the thing, but I don't know about circumvention of copyprotection.
Tony
Our copyright organization, while bearing much resemblance to the US copyright system has a few differences. Copying for backup purposes (IE: you own the original) is by and large legal. Don't quote me on that though. Copying to tape is legal (copyright fee paid with purchase of tape). The laws I saw said nothing about mp3s or CD's though. ./ at one point.
This is over and above DJ license.
The real big difference is actually with broadcast rights. DJ's can license a hard drive full of mp3's for $200 (per hard drive). Yes this was on
On the flip side I really doubt that Canada would ever sign on to that 'universal' copyright thingy the RIAA/MPAA/USA are trying to put out. It violates several sections of our constitution...
In the end I suspect the laws here will change in a different direction.
But unless some way gets proven to make money from the distribution of mp3's, I don't think Canada by and large will be interested. Canada -loves- taxes.
Too bad you can only understand English :p
, So for that matter we have very little legislation on the subject... private copying is OK, selling the stuff is not... blabla Since Bertelsmann bought napster, we got even more stakes in the game..
this message printed on 100% reusable electrons
the best pop music comes from indonesia anyway
Since about one third of the population here has internet access at home, use of MP3 and Napster are wide-spread. I think people were fed up with paying A$30 per CD (about US$15). Whatever the decision is over in the good ol' US of A, the effect will be adverse and wide-reaching here.
Any comments?
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
I hate the levy ("it's not a tax, it's a levy," as a friend who wrote Shelia Copps about this was told..ha) but as I pay cents per CD-R (yeah, it's for computer equipment, not audio, you know) it's not much of an issue.
However, in exchange for the tax, you can make legal private copies of copyrighted works, according to this site:
"Until Parliament enacted An Act to amend the Copyright Act (Bill C-32), individuals who made copies of sound recordings of musical works for private use were liable to be found to have infringed copyright. Studies showed that the private copying of sound recordings was a widespread practice resulting in losses to copyright holders (composers, authors, performers and producers) in terms of lost sales of such sound recordings. The private copying provisions of Bill C-32, adopted in April 1997, changed this. The provisions, brought into force on March 19, 1998, essentially legalize the copying of sound recordings by individuals for private use, but in return establish a levy to compensate copyright holders."
So burn away, but remember that the levy applies to all CD-R media, and the money is doled out based on who makes the most in record sales (it is NOT split evenly amongst all artists). As as a friend of mine once pointed out, for every Linux distro that you burn, Celine Dion gets a penny.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
The local version of RIAA ran an and campaign last year, witj slogans like: "How many lawyers can fit it to your child's bedroom."
As the law is now. It is illegal to make digital copies og digita products, which is hard not to do. But you can't make mp3s out of cd you own. Even if you only want to play it on you portable mp3 player.
MP3 is pretty big here, and I think probably more teenagers know about it than legislators.
'Most men would sooner die than think, and most men do.'
Here in Austria, there's no general discussion in the mass media, but the University of Linz blocks all attempts to connect to napster and gnutella servers, and can take away lan connections in the dorms if such use is detected. The main concern is the bandwith, though, not the legality ;) (around our University, 7 dorms (=3000 students) are connected to aconet via a 4 mbit line)
Yes.
Quick summary:
Mitocondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed unchanged (except for slow random mutations) down the female side of your family tree. (i.e. you have the same mtDNA as your mother and grandmother on your mother's side. If you are male you will not pass mtDNA onto your children). It is possible to track the mutations back through time and arrive at a female who was the first to have the mtDNA which all humans mtDNA has mutated from, so called Mitocondrial Eve. When she lived depends on the mutation rate, which is up for some debate.
Your statments are a textbook example of closed-mindedness.
If you actually left the U.S. (doubt that you have), you'd realize that all over the world there is truly good original music that has nothing to do with the U.S. Sure, you see U.S. cultural influences, everywhere, but you also see good, if not great, local music that we in the U.S. will never see because of Americans with your attitude. On a recent trip to Vietnam, Thailand, & Hong Kong, I was blown away by Thai and HK music that was in no way derivative of any U.S. music -- it was great in its own right (sorry, Vietnam, because of your repression your best music is coming out of California). I'm still driving here in the the SF Bay Area every day listening to the great music I picked up on my trip -- and because of limited international music availability here in the U.S., Napster is sometimes the *only* way for me to get a great song. (realistically, I can pick up some HK stuff in asian shopping centers here, but the rest is nearly impossible to find)
Anyway, I sincerely hope Americans like you go the way of the dinosaur real damn soon because I'm getting tired of this closed-minded crap. No one country (sorry, U.K., I've been there this year, too) has a lock on good or great music. Everyone just needs to get over this nationalistic crap!
> 25squid a month
25 squid ?!?! Are they alive? That's a whole lot of Calamari! Should we inform PETA?
It's a joke, relax already
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
I assume you mean debt, if not then ignore the rest of my comment. In America, economic strength != national debt. In a mercantile (sp?) economy there is that relationship, but not in the U.S. In the U.S. (and similar countries) economic strength is based more on market strength (which in turn is effected by productivity, employment, interest rates, ect.). It is possible that an excessive (sp?) national debt could impact the economy by forcing the government to increase taxes therfore taking away money that would otherwise be spent on goods & services or reinvested into the market. Then again, IANAE, and could be completely wrong.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
Id like some updating. when i was there last year, theyd had almost zero penetration. Id have to get a sales clerk to go into the back room to find the one Rio they had after explaining what it was in my broken Japanese, only sometimes successfully. amazing really since the size of handheld mp3 players is a huge plus. of course the problem is lack of home internet presence and especially broadband, but there seemed such a huge push to catch up there even last year that i wonder how things have changed in a year...
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my other post is +5 insightful
oftel today announced that ADSL should aim to be priced at £10 per month.
I pay £5.99 per month, 3 in Advance to BT on the phonebill for FreeserveTime Off Peak Unmetered access.
In UK a linux pc mp3 player is being manufactured, there looking for more capacity, -its expensive now, about £800 plays 500 hour hours and, the best bit:
It Looks like a CAR Stereo and fits in the car!
Since they are not able to produce a secure distibution channel over the internet they are thinking about demanding a fee for every soundcard or other music-related equipment.
KirTakat writes: "We see lots of links to information about MP3s in America (by this I mean most English speaking countries...
(not allowed to use obcenities am I)
Drat you Yank, drat you to heck. You can take your "English speaking world equals America" attitude and perform a painful and possibly imposible physical act with it. I hope the EU tips all your filthy bananas into the ocean. I hope that Texis suceeds from the Union. I hope that the Canadians invade and burn your capital to the ground again. I hope you get Bill Gates as your next president. I hope that the hormones and genetic agents in your argricultural and horticultural products make you all grow inappropriate sexual characteristics. [expletive which refers to archaic term for sharpening a scythe].
And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I was looking for the song that Shakira sang at the Latin Grammys to confirm that I had identified the right song from the right album (Amazon's and CDNOW's previews didn't include samples of the song at all). Talk about creating a customer "barrier to purchase"! While looking for the song, I discovered that MP3 swapping in the US are a drop in the bucket compared to Spanish language music MP3 swapping. I even found a site that was selling entire bootleg albums complete with online credit card ordering. I'd love to see the RIAA go after them down south! They have a different way of dealing with things than up here. (BTW the song was "Oso asi" from "Donde Estan Los Ladrones?". It's got an awesome Spanish+Arabic sound with a killer beat: natch, she's Lebanese-Columbian, what lovely mixture! yum!)
that otherwise useless poll square on my screen could be used to collect info about the comunity like country,age,sex basic stuff, in a public,anonymous survey. Internet comunities have the problem that they don't know these basic facts about themselves. Sure they are probably irrelevant most of the time, but I think it would be useful to better who we're hanging arround with.
< after a while, I'd think that
< people outside the USA would get sick of
< little things like this!
Yes, and probably it's been a while already! I'm from Costa Rica, we're kind of used to it in a "again those idi*ts, oh well" kind of way. I didn't even notice this time, but sure it would be nice if US people would see that we ARE HERE. Just look at the voting polls, there are lots of "foreigners" out there. That's why I'm suggesting a survey of the slashdot community.
Well here in Israel, the land of milk, honey, and only one legal installation CD per 5 million people NOBODY gives a damm! We got our music for years now via irc's ftp's and now napster/gnutella and we will keep getting it via whatever technology happens to pop up in the future.
Ok, maybe I'm being a little oversensitive here, (heck, I'm a U.S. Citizen, I shouldn't even care about this!) but the fact that the headline for this discussion topic says "Foreign" instead of "Non-U.S." says a lot, I think, about how USA-Centric things are... are we supposed to assume that Foreign always implies Foreign to the United States? I admit it, I'm whining, but c'mon... after a while, I'd think that people outside the USA would get sick of little things like this!
Here
Unfortunatelly all mp3s supposed to be on this server, but this server gives 403 forbidden access thing even from the main site. I think they'll resolve that shortly.
Good luck.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
I'd like to hear about how it goes in HK and Japan and Korea. I'm asking because, well, we all know how piracy is "common" in HK, although they are trying (hard?) to stop it (twice at the cinema there i saw campaigns about anti-vcd-piracy during the previews). But that's a bit offtopic.
I'm just amazed to see how long those web sites in HK (not necessarily physically in HK) manage to keep mp3s and whole MPEGs (especially MPEGs, so easy to find) online for many months without being harassed or sued by distributors.
Of course we're talking mostly about C/J/Kpop here. This kind of music is not very popular outside those respective countries, yet those distributors must be making a profit since they don't (seem to) try very hard to shut those sites down.
Do they have an equivalent of the RIAA? Can someone comment on that?
Here in Canada, it's not making much of the news, just the international news like when the RIAA announces it is sueing Napster. Oh, one interesting thing: the radio station I listen to sometimes (located in Vermont), apparently runs everything off mp3s. Of course, they must have the original CDs. But still. Just the idea...
Wow... I don't think much will get done in Italy. I've been there many a time and people sell pirated music CDs as well as Game CDs all over the street, any time of the day. It's widespread.
Yes, I agree that the "stronger economy" argument is out of place, most western european contries sport as good or better an economy as the US does, I also don't think the average number of computers per head of the population differs that much.
---- Stage 5 of drinking : Politics begin to appeal
Countries can jump high and they can jump low, but unless they find a more effective way of stopping the spreading of MP3's that taking individual companies/ people to court it WILL NOT MATTER, not ONE bit, if Napster goes, something else will take its place, it's that simple.
---- Stage 5 of drinking : Politics begin to appeal
In the UK too, I reckon. See this story
I can't really imagine a world in which one pays by the minute to read Jon Katz articles. It makes me shudder.
I do any large scale downloading at work which solves the problems really. But non metered dialup would be nice. I don't really care how fast it is because its its unmetered I can do night time transfers. Phil
Or even looking at them, seeing that most of them are in languages other than English, which a rather large portion of English native speakers can't be bothered to learn sufficiently to be able to read an online news site. Among computer enthusiasts, the portion is even larger, probably.
You can try the often-mentioned, often-flamed-against-because-it's-in-German Heise Newsletter, for example, where you'll find links to the legal situation in the European Union fairly often, or the online version of the Spiegel magazine that has its own Net Culture section. For a left-wing perspective, try reading the taz online.
All of this is in German, because I read news mainly in German and English. (I occasionally read things in Arabic and Finnish as well, but there I'm not as qualified as in the other two)
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
"A common user of the internet" probably uses a 56K modem and pays per minute in Finland, but broadband connections are also widely available and widely used.
I live in an apartment where I could basically choose from 4 different broadband connections: student housing LAN, DSL, cable and wireless WLAN. I'm using the first one of these..
The university has blocked Napster usage, so I can't use it here. It doesn't bother me much, though.. I have other means of getting music..
Napster has been somewhat widely covered in the Finnish media. However, sometimes press oversimplifies things, or even misinforms..
This is how it basically should be. Everywhere.
Napster isn't guilty for anything.. Some of its users are.
No, silly. The rule is that for every English song you download, you must download the same song in French as well.
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
On the other hand that might just be the level of undesirable attention that would lead to an invasion of SeaLand.
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True, coverage of the Napster thing is very low key, 90% of the people I talk to don't know about napster, and probably only about 5% actually have any idea of the trouble surrounding it. As for paying by the minute, strangely, the amount of mp3's I download has more than halved since I signed up to BT's 24/7 thing. Maybe its cos of the crap service they're giving, or it could just be my crappy little 56k modem. But back to napster, the only stuff I ever see about it is on slashdot itself.
I noticed that on the side of the box for my Diamond Rio it said something along the lines of "Under UK law, it is illegal to make copies of CDs, even for personal use."
I'm sure we're allowed some copying under vague "fair dealing" provisions, I think there is a bit of a grey area here.
I was trying to be too special with my first ever post on /.
Here are the links from my above post that will work without you having to monkey about with them:
MCPS
PRS
PRS - music on the web
Copyright Licensing Agency
"1) Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue."
Not true for northern Europe, especially not for Scandinavia.
"2) Most other countries don't seem to have flat rate plans for internet access as is common (even expected) in the US. Furthermore, local calls in the US are free (modulo your monthly bill). Downloading MP3s is thus more expensive, and hence less commonplace (and less of an issue)."
Especially in Sweden, broadband (although via cable-modem) is quite commonplace nowadays.
"3) Piracy is more commonplace in many other countries, since the US economy is comparatively strong. Thus it's less of an issue."
Strength of economy has nothing to do with it.
Exchange rates and taxes does.
Please read something lame and go to sleep.
We mentioned the Fraunhofer license fees and he apparently told the owner of this site who didn't know and just about wet his pants.
Personally I've switched to OGG Vorbis now that it is supported in XMMS and in WinAmp. Good to see that streaming in Ogg is now working, and IceCast supports that too.
In most (all?) countries, DVD region codes are not backed up by any single law, it's just some technical limitation put on purpose into the player for marketting reasons. :Cue Cat.
So, dezoning your player is not illegal. It's just like hacking an i-opener or a
____________________
Ni!
HA! here nobody cares about trivial things like "copyright" ® or "patents" hahaha, and if you ever come here you will be amazed at the things we have for sale even in the mainstream malls (not the selazy underground ones). here the unauthorized copy of VCD and software is a BIG industry
I have seen some radio stations use MP3 for broadcasts. Let's hope they have the originals. I can see why this is an advantage no need for searching through a database to find a song and then go and find the actual CD.
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'tis, but when I e-mailed your addy, I got a returned: user unknown. Please repeat addy:
"gerbil.gerbil@hotmail.com"?
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
But that's exactly what's happening-- events in the US are "crossing borders" and "removing international boundaries," having more impact overseas than they normally would--homogenizing the world to create the Ultimate Global Monoculture. (seen any Coca-Cola ads in the past year? That shit's scary.)
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
We don't have such a thing as internet. doh.
The Napster case has been carefully followed... As usual, Italians expect to see what Uncle Sam does before taking any decisions. By the way, the local RIAA (called SIAE) is being completely restructured...
Anyhow, Napster is hardly a problem since most of the country rolls on dialup (56.6)... ISDN and ADSL are arriving just now. Yuck. It's actually much cheaper for the average user to buy a CD than to download it from Napster. Of course, lots of cheaper illegal CDs are on sale in the street.
so you know, hong kong is the piracy capital of the world--those of you who think you're all l33t and with it when you download Blair Witch 2 Cam 0day, just know that half the population of hong kong has probably seen that movie off their $1.40 VCD screener which they bought at the corner of watsons.
okay, it is illegal to pirate software, movies, games, music. but it is done, and youll find it in every corner of every street in hong kong.
the mp3 scene here has become HUGE. companies advertise their mp3 players on buses, DSL isps offer free mp3 players after 9 months of stickin with their shit slow DSL--come on, an isp offering their customers a free mp3 player, it couldn't possibly be to playback music downloaded off napster now could it? its obvious what theyre trying to appeal to, and get this: this particular DSL provider is the BIGGEST in hong kong, and just happens to be Cable & Wireless HKT--by far the biggest phone company in hong kong, and the sole provider of land lines.
the govt however, has tried to stop this. 2 16-year-old kids were arrested and sentenced to 2 years for running 10-hit-a-day 5-song mp3 websites, in an attempt to scare the public. too bad the public heard about it, and i believe started some sort of demonstration, it is my understanding that the kids were released and their records wiped clean. some govt.
computers are common in hong kong, probably 99% of the urban population have had at least 2 computers thus far, and a good 70% of them, at a minimum, with internet access (check the exact stats here. every person i know not only has napster installed, but a quite substantial mp3 collection, and probably half of them have bought burners as a result.
a personal friend of mine was charged with some sort of hacking, which i wont go into, and his computer was confiscated, with his binder of burned cds, which included about 50 mp3 cds, plus what was on his hds. they were returned to him, fully intact.
but hk, in which only 50% of microsoft software users are actually using their software legally licensed, isn't quite as bad as some parts of china, where only 5% of their ms software is licensed (this figure is NOT an estimate... any admins feel like checking the logs, in particular the origin of this post?), the situation is MUCH worse, and the govt couldnt care less. govt officials, even higher up in the hierarchy, use pirated ms software. i found a .gov.cn website which included links to mp3 albums, and i will be sure to post it if i find the url again.
i really cant remember the topic of this post, oh well. its almost like MP3 is fully legal in hong kong. ive seen raids where cops would take away the vcd vendor, but not the guy with a bigger stall selling mp3 cds.
Some additional information - flat rate access is now available here either via cable or a form or DSL.
Cable companies in bigger cities offer Internet access for some time now (example) - rates vary, but it is quite inexpensive even by local standards - no more than $25 a month and a reasonable installation fee. Disadvantages: you don't get real IP addresses (clients are behind an IP masquerading router), quality of service varies (mostly 2 MB within the cable company network which in turn has 2 MB to a backbone operator) and it is available only in limited areas.
Other form of access is Home Internet Solution (based on Ericson's hardware) which is sold by TP S.A. (local telco monopolist) as SDI for $225 installation and $35 monthly fee. It is available in all bigger cities and is becoming quite popular despite being expensive initially. Advantages: you get real IP address (just one, but it's possible to set up a server on this kind of connection), speed - 128 kbps.
Simply no one cares here. For the record companies pirate CD's are a bigger problem than MP3s - those CDs are mass produced in former USSR countries, brought here and sold on the flea markets for $2 - $3. However, mp3s are getting more and more popular and we might see some moves from the record companies soon. There are some MP3 portals (example) and some quite huge FTP servers with music. Also napster and gnutella are quite popular.
On the other hand legal CDs with music are sold for around $10 - $20 - and this is very expensive, especially for young people. Average monthly income here is (according to official government data) $415 and minimal wage is $156. That puts those prices into prospective.
Well, it has been just recently that MP3 became a common ground in Cyprus - in the past, just a few people here and there knew what an MP3 is - let alone software piracy (and I'm talking about home users). It's really based on ignorance - I've lived here for a long time and have not seen any serious improvement on the attack of software piracy... I heard of a couple of cases of which people got caught fined and jailed within' a few months - and that was the end of it. "The MP3 awareness" in Cyprus will only become as great as in the US - or more like in the UK once they solve and show interest in reducing software piracy in the country - and I bet more than 50% of the PC's in this country have pirated software and are loaded with illegal MP3s.
BTW - there was a reply that said that the best music comes from the US - I do hate to argue but that's false logic.
Great ideas happen at 4am. Bad career moves happen at 4pm...
Apart from the differences in legal situations between countries, I'd be interested to know what the differences are in each country's media's treatment of MP3 audio, Napster et cetera. Napster almost always gets a very bad press in our newspapers, even the more enlightened ones. I think almost all of our ISPs (dial-up or otherwise) now have clauses in their contracts forbidding you from downloading or making available material copyrighted to other people, separate from clauses which forbid you from using their service for illegal purposes, so they can pull the plug on you for downloading an MP3 file at any time they like.
An Ask Slashdot posted under YRO in the "Music" category. Intriguing.
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Moderators: I've got tons of accounts, do your worst.
Is there really no copyright law or are they just not enforced?
Also the only statistics (Acrobat document) I found give a number of 100,000 people with Internet access for Nigeria, 10,000 would be for Mali
As one of the signatories to the International Copyright Convention or whatever the hell that's called, Canada has laws against unauthorized copying of music. On the other hand, with cheap and need I say, broadband, access available in almost every Canadian city, everyone and their mother downloads MP3s.
Practically all of our music either comes from American music companies or their American-owned subsidiraries, so the legality of Napster will probably determine what happens in here
Also, it's important to note that Canadian law doesn't allow for such a favourable climate for lawsuits as the U.S.
To complement the earlier posting on Russian bands distributing their MP3s: This is the case not only for music. Russian online libraires (the biggest one is lib.ru) host tons of fiction and nonfiction books of all sorts. What is interesting, it's not only pre-19 century classics with expired copyright, as on Project Gutenberg. The big majority of Russian literature online is modern, highly popular books - sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, detectives, etc. And what is even more interesting, ALMOST ALL of these books are online with full consent of their authors (when the authors are alive). Many modern Russian writers have their own sites where they post MOST of their works in entirety, usually with the exception of one or two latest books which are being currently actively sold on paper (for these, you can usually read online excerpts). If you don't want to buy, no problem, wait a year or two and this latest book will get online by then. Truth is, online books PROMOTE paper books, and many Russian writers understand this and use this promotion actively. My humble opinion is that, even though Russians don't have so many fancy copyright laws, there are some things about online content that America should probably learn from them.
I could imagine that the African continent, for the most part, has virtually no policies or regulation concerning MP3 technology except through its former European imperialist 'connections'. I believe the country of Namibia only has *four* IP address (all of which where hacked by young Neo-Nazi hackers in Denmark and Sweden).
Off-topic, it has been a leisure sport for young teenagers in Europe, Israel, and America to hack African web-sites and deface them with copulating hyeenas.
But South Africa may definitely be an exception, as there have been increasing problem of electronic music bootlegging.
But then again, technology is not their primary concern. If Tux the penguin could be deep-fried and lightly salted, that would bring a smile to the faces of some!
Cheers
You know something. I still haven't found a half-decent Polka MP3 on the Internet or Napster!! The closest they have to BagPipe music is Enya, but she doesn't count ;)
Cheers
This refers to the fact that the latest Rio software carries a CD-burning option. In other words, even Joe Schmoe can drag-n-drop his freshly "napstered" MP3's to the cute little window on the right and BURN!!! And this, as we all know, is illegal, which is what makes it fun...guess how many calls I get about this:-(
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Slightly, no, completely offtopic...but, as far as the government is concerned, the Netherlands strictly follow the USA. Aside from the "liberal" drugs-policies that made us "famous" or at least well-known, we're hard on our way to be Americanized, so to speak. The record companies over here are exactly the same companies as in the US ergo the battle is fought over there, not here. The media coverage over the last 6 months in the whole country about equals the number of Jon Katz articles the last week...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Same thing here in the Netherlands, cable modems are available for a few months and still in the process of getting connected. If you want one, you have to wait for at least a month. Good thing the boss thought we needed a T1 :-)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Everybody is talking about how their country is putting up a fight (or not) against the illegal distribution of mp3 filez. Maybe the next discussion should be what efforts are beeing done to distribute them legaly (like internet sales).
Mark
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
It's funny, whereever you go, whoever you talk to,
:)
all have mp3 files.
I get that feeling.
From normal people that aren't very interested in
computers to sysadmins for large systems. All have
mp3s. The only difference is that the later never
have such things official
I actually think that the network should be broken up so that regional areas can do their own thing but still have the resources of a national network.
The network would be similar to a TV network, a central broadcaster does a main feed with all the national stuff and stuff that is expensive to produce, the regionals are then free to jump in and out when they want to provide local content.
Bad news on the frequencies...
I can't remember the frequency for RRR, don't spend enough time in melbourne.
FBI is off the air at the moment, their web site is here. They are trying to get the upcomming community licence, I'm not sure if they'll do any more test broadcasts, they usually put posters around town when they are. FBI is competing against 2 queer stations, an aboriginal station and one other one I can't remember. Hopefully they'll get it.
When it absolutely positively has to be there.
I tried not to respond to this but just couldn't help myself.
JJJ was once a great radio station, back when it was Sydney's community station, before it went national and they sacked all the good DJ's (they never did give us another licence to replace it, do you remember the protests).
Today it is pretty much a tool of the major labels, I have friends in the industry and they treat it the same as any other commercial station. High rotation on JJJ means sales, being national they have a HUGE listenership.
Ever wonder why the reveiwser sometimes sound like their reading a press release (did you hear the review of Madonna's last single?).
Ask yourself how often they play independant bands that they didn't "unearth". The record companies love Unearthed because it saves them $$$ on A&R. And why does JJJ need to have a special segment just to play unsigned bands?
If you have ever listened to RRR in Melbourne or FBI in Sydeny (when it's on) you would see JJJ is nothing special, it just doesn't suck as much as the commercial stations.
I know that I'm just bitter because I live in Sydney and when FBI isn't on air JJJ is all there is. (I do listen to 2SER sometimes but it's so diverse you can't leave it on permanently).
Oh, and when reporting the MS breakup the Morning Show incredibly Pro-MS for an "alternative station" (read: MS just getting picked on by companies that can't compete).
Sorry for the -1: Flaimbait but JJJ is one of my pet peeves, I'm not saying it shouldn't exist just that it's no where near the nirvana or radio that a lot of people to think it is :-)
When it absolutely positively has to be there.
US economy stronger than european? Yeah right, thats why America has 140% more depts than most EU coutry's, BTW I'm using cable connection and currently share 1006 songs on napster.
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Oh yeah,, installation happened the same week I ordered it.
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Yeah ... but my point being there's loads of unlimited services, BT were wholly against any sort of unmetered service what so ever ... so when BT are forced to offer their own unmetered service it shows you what the market is like.
... and that's saying something.
Even AOL offer an unlimited package £15
I'm surprised the British Phonographic Indusitry isn't shitting bricks about Napster, they do have piracy info on their site, but I think their main objective is to concentrate on dodgy CD manufacturers that pump out illegal CD's en mass.
Since 25% of the worlds music comes from the UK, they probably are shitting bricks, but maybe they're just too nice to say anything about it and are plotting like a bunch of cads behind closed doors? I can remember a few artists went to Brussels to pledge their support for some European legislation to counteract mp3 (because legislation will work, right?), they seem to forget it stamps on all the 'fair use' terms out there. I doubt they're ignoring what's going on though, they obviously have links with RIAA and are supporting their actions.
They have a digital archive system that is maintained at radio house in london, it isn't mp3 however, more like a pure PCM/DAT audio quality.
... but they should of always used DAT anyway.
If you try and broadcast compressed audio like mp3 on the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) it produces awful quality since the audio is being decoded then re-encoded into mpeg2 for the digital stream, it makes a £500 DAB tuner sound like a cheapo AM receiver.
The BBC mainly faced this problem with MiniDisc's since they're used quite frequenly in radio stations now apparently, however the ATRAC compression MD uses caused the forementioned problems, so no more MD
Az.
On the patent side of things, the patent office doesn't let you patent algorithms, since RSA could never be patented over here, why would frauenhoffer be any different?
I dunno why you're bitchin about phone charges for, have you been walking round with your eyes closed for the last year? ;) Even BT offer unmetered dialup access, and starting December they're offering unlimited local calls from your BT line for ~ £15.
The cable companies like ntl; Telewest, C&W etc have been offering unmetered access since the start of the year, and the first two have cable modems available.
Az.
Yeah, I love the irony/hypocrasy too, remember NSI have disabled the domain record for vote-auction.com? It was originally registered at an European registry, and site was also hosted in Europe. They haven't deleted the nic record, since somebody could reregister it, but they've made the dns void, hence the site is down for all intensive purposes (but obviously the ip works, whatever that is).
Is that legit you may ask? Hmm, well at the moment there's a trial going on in France, where the state wants Yahoo to take down content related to the Nazi era, etc. There's a lot of synergies between these cases, but obviously the French government couldn't just contact NSI or a cosy (US) government picked group like ICANN and persuade them to take a dns record out. As for ICANN's elections and the new 'hacker' member from Germany's CCC, it's just a token election, the 'right' people are put into place without question.
It's just a matter of who's interests are at heart, all the "freedom" sentiment goes out the window.
IANABrit, but I was under the impression that even though there might be unmetered ISPs, aren't the phone lines still metered?
We're going to see e.g. .ru become just as important in the distribution of pirated music as we have in the past with juarez. Your interpretation of "important" may vary.
As you said so rightly: "as a tourist..." Of course you get only the trashy open copies and betas of stuff. If you are local and know your way around, then you get copies of the 'factory master disks' at about US$10.00 a piece. Those are the copies that the copyright owners receive as samples, before confirming production orders. Neat stuff - Charlie's Angels VCD anyone? Just kidding... But I watched it last week - not a big deal, the movie that is.
It's illegally to possess pirate copy said in law, they should catch all those possessing mp3 players.
Come get me hon
I heard about MP3-format audio from people here long before i heard a peep from American media. MP3 is as big in Canada as in the US. Every 11-year-old and up with a computer has a hard-drive full of the same pop-crap, with Napster and SX to go along with it. Heck, they don't know that you can't play mp3's without napster. Basically, its the same here as in the US, except the copyright laws are probably slightly different, and we don't directly have the DMCA.
-MR
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
But many student apartments do have a fast network connection: 10Mbps ethernet, some even 100Mbps (and some unfortunate only 512kbps) with FUNET (Finnish University and Research Network) in the process upgrading their backbone from 155Mbps to 2Gbps or so. At my university, there's been discussion about blocking napster because "it is taking all the bandwidth" and the student housing organization is quite unwilling to pay for it.
As for MP3's, only distributing illegal copies is illegal, not owning even if you don't have the CDs. The same does not apply to software. IANAL, though.
Actually, here in Ontario a court ruled that our laws prohibiting marijuana use are against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However the judge suspended his judgement for 1 year to let the federal government rethink the law. So hopefully in 200-and-some-odd days we will be able to smoke freely =) It's the same sort of deal as when an Ontario court ruled it was unlawfull to tell women they can't go topless...
Wow, that's a great one! was this an official poster or was it just made up as a joke?
Well copying is OK if you own an original CD. If you do, you may create copies for personal use. You may even give one or two copies of the original recording to friends of yours - as long as you don't sell them or produce large ammounts of burned CDs. The same thing goes for MP3s or videotapes. Here in germany the price for every CD or CD-R (or blank tape) includes a fee that is given to an organization called "GEMA". GEMA then splits up the proceeds sdo that every artist recieves his share of the media sold through GEMA. lodger
Anti-german comments don't fit into my view on the internet as the international network. This no not much different from racist or facist behaviour on the web. lodger
Strudel Bean Revenge!
Boing.
of course i like turkey!
Very much like here (I mean in Poland). Although we have a pretty good Intelectual Propoerty law an a new Telecommunications Act (coming to life 1st of Jan. 2001) that describes mp3 andl like legal status, record industry does not seem to care. They have to cope with what they say is the real issue - pirated cd's. Both international and local stuff is available this way often days before official release, also on the net. As elsewhere, Napster has been covered widely by media, although I haven't read anything with local focus (mostly it was the case with RIA and musicians, so our press simply followed international news). Officially Napster's media relations does not give details about their users counted by country of origin, still they have such data. So nobody here is to tell, how many Poles use it. I have seen a research showing that downloading files is very popular (about twice as much as it is in the UK). Even given lower penetration and usage, higher access costs (Poland coems just short of Japan, where accessing the net proves to be most expensive in the world) and poor infrastructure (no. of phone lines, dial-up as domminant access mode etc., Napster and like services are very popular. 8 out 10 people I know using internet have them installed.
We have been recieving all the information about mp3, and we don't like either. But as the laws here are weaker, it seems like the government is not going to do a thing (thank god).
There have never been any copyright laws. The television stations broadcast pirated movies.
So I guess the 10,000 or so people who have internet access don't have any problems with downloading or using mp3s.
-J.
If you believe the Judeo-Christian creation myth (Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve, etc) then surely we are all related.
Now I can give a copy of any CD to anyone, because we share great-to-the-nth grandparents.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
Every album that comes out in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the PRC is available on mp3, and most music videos are available as realmedia files.
Most interesting about the Chinas is that they use websites to distribute mp3s and don't need to rely on things like napster. Good sites are mirrored in their entirety in several places, a lot like sunsite.
Their governments appear to leave them alone, so there is none of the direct linking and voting popup rubbish that we have here in the English speaking world.
cdjmp3 is a good example of a popular mainland mp3 site with many mirrors. (GB encoded)
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0011 /mp 3/
:)
I have the communism one hanging over my bed
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
I live in Reykjavik, Iceland, and it has become very popular for Icelandic musical artists to have websites that contain the most popular songs on their CD releases...this has been done by several prominent local artists such as Quarashi, Bubbi Morthens and many others. I think this is a very clever move that actually boosts local sales.
What? how can you possibly compete with the quality of the Spice Girls, 5ive, West Life or Steps? Admit it, when it comes to music the UK leads the world.
How do they know, for the sake of argument, whether you downloaded copyrighted music, as opposed to public domain music or music that has been authorized for free distribution by the copyright holder?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'd be very interested to know the legal situation regarding MP3 encoders etc. in the UK (and other countries). In which countries are various patents valid?
I'm not interested in stealing music, but I would like to encode MP3s of music I own (is that legal in the UK?) on my PC to produce a random access jukebox.
Gerv
Hey now.. that's only in British Columbia. :)
Hah! Always read the small print.
15 pounds gets you unlimited local calls OFFPEAK (6pm-8am, and all weekend).
But. After 60 minutes of the call, it starts charging. (You're "free" to hang up and dial again, says the literature, but that's no good if you're in the middle of downloading Mozilla).
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
SVM Macintosh did an article this month.
Legal if you own the source CD and you use the MP3 in the familly circle (guess that if you can prove you are someones 42 cousin by marrage it's OK...).
Else illegal under copyright law.
realkiwi
hosting music without paying off the record companies (which may or may not actually pay the people whose music is being distributed an approriate amount of money, or at all) is illegal, and the temporary arrangement seems to have been suspended. I use the word 'paying off' judiciously; it's obviously a bribe to get them off your back -- if you host anything other than top-40 MP3s the artists are unlikely to actually get paid for what is know in Dutch as 'author's rights' (as opposed to copyright).
Recently VPRO radio had to pull all the Sony owned music from their programming since they store all of their programs, available for streaming, on their website (weeding out Sony songs and edit them out of the streams was just too much work).
The other big 4 (soon to be 3) record companies are, of course, following suit.
--
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Well I know that Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario couldn't care less about MP3 trading, since I haven't heard a single peep in the 3 years I was there... of course, since most people are using cable modems and not the internal network (which sucks), then that might account for something...
Also, Carleton University in Ottawa seems to have not said anything (at least publicly) for the year I've been there. *shrug* Ditto for my friend in University of Waterloo (although they cut down bandwith allowance quite a bit recently, so that may mean something).
In Norway it is permitted to make copies of copyrighted works for personal use (Exceptions exist for computer software and databases). Personal use means copies for yourself and/or friends and family. Practically this means you can make copies of your music and hand out to a few friends. You can _not_ put up an mp3 on an open web-server (unless you own it's contents).
As for enfocement. TONO (our equivalent to RIAA) haven't been to active in the media (possibly because they are currently more occupied by infighting and accusations of corruption of their execs). However mp3 servers operating too openly will likely recieve a ceace and desist fairly soon.
buma is complaining currently about napster.nl offering links to mp3s. send email to
pieter.haringsma@buma.nl to tell him what you think.. (politely).
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
You must realize that most of this mind set is due to the limited worldwide knowledge of events in the American Culture. This can be attributed to a centrifical media mind set driven to "make the buck". Most public television stations (and newspapers too) rarely cover international subjects. The fact that we have to pay for programs such as CNN is only indicative of the segragative system instore in this culture.
This trend has been transversing into the WWW medium as big advertising and marketing companies have been taking notice it. Unfortunately those ad companies mistake this medium as a national one instead of what is really is: a global communications tool.
There are few or no laws regarding anything that is digital. The Telecomunication act treats data networks as phone networks. Computers, internet and mp3's are NOT covered by any law. You can buy mp3 and DivX:-) cd's at the corner of the street. (and also loads of pirated software) as long as they are not music cd's which must have some glowing sticker - no problemo with the police :)
:)
The MS-BSA guys are going only after big companies and the cover strictly MS products.
Ph33r the 34573rN 3ur0p3 w4r3z d00d2 !!!
--
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
Swedish Court Clears Teen for Linking to MP3s
Swedish Supreme Court MP3 Ruling
All opinions are my own - until criticized
1) Most other countries have a smaller percentage of the population owning computers. Thus it's a smaller issue.
2) Most other countries don't seem to have flat rate plans for internet access as is common (even expected) in the US. Furthermore, local calls in the US are free (modulo your monthly bill). Downloading MP3s is thus more expensive, and hence less commonplace (and less of an issue).
3) Piracy is more commonplace in many other countries, since the US economy is comparatively
strong. Thus it's less of an issue.
--
Chris Long, Departments of Mathematics & Statistics, Rutgers University
San Diego Padres, 100 Park Blvd, San Diego CA 92101
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by
I really think they are waiting to see what happens to the RIAA before making noise. Australia seems to follow the US fairly closely when it comes to technology issues (encryption etc). I'm not sure why (probably some treaty), and I can tell you I get *very* frustrated that we aren't more proactive in these things.
Better stop before I start ranting :)
Can you post a frequency for these two stations? I live in sydney and would love to here FBI (I'm guessing that they don't have full licences?)
I'm not saying it shouldn't exist just that it's no where near the nirvana or radio that a lot of people to think it is :-)
I can see your point, but they do a lot of counrty broadcasting which is great for people in remote areas (and why they get my loyalty (and I hate commercial advertising)). Before I moved to sydney I lived in a couple different country towns, and all you get is AM talkback, AM "great hits from the '60s '70 and '80s" and ABC clasical. If I was lucky, I could get triple j, and then none of the dials on my radios would move :)
mp3's are alive and well in South Africa
As for the issues, yes, they exist, radio stations have mentioned them, they've been on TV, people who have access to the net download them.
We have extensive piracy over here, but from a population point of view, it's no biggy when compared to say, eastern european / asian countries.
Put it this way, no one is getting arrested for storing or making mp3 files available - I've found tons of them on some of main ISP's ftp servers !
I think we've got a little more to worry about than that - education for one !
There's an estimated 2.5 million web users in the Whole of Africa - that's a tiny figure
I'd say South Africa probably has about 1.5 million of those users, yet our population is around 45 million, IOW, less than 3% of our population is aware/has access to the internet, so mp3 files are hardly an issue over here !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
First off I'll correct the type, it's Kosheen, and is Decoder & Substance's vocal side project, you can find their releases on the Moksha label if I'm not mistaken. A full album is either already out now or due out soon, I forget exactly, but I've seen mp3's of it floating around already. Secondly, 100 to 1 the word promo is involved. Promo CD. Promo vinyl. Test press vinyl. DJ got friendly and lent a dubplate they ripped to mp3. It could be an mp3 from say.. sour (an mp3 ripping group specializing in drum'n'bass) I suppose, but I'm just saying it's far more likely that it's the radio station getting a promo to build up more hype for the track (that thing really did blow up). Happens all the time. It's sort of sad to say this, but all too often tracks blow up and get real popular WAAAAAY before they are available due to the dubplate way of life. Like.. Konflict - Messiah. Or... anything from the Cybotron 2000 album. Just my 2 cents.
On the other hand, we're paying a CD-R tax to give to Canadian recording artists.
... but not ONE SINGLE SONG EVER has been by a Canadian recording artist signed to a label, who are the only people getting any.
Now, that REALLY frosts my ass. Sure, 95% of my CD-Rs are for pirating music
These stations are mainly spoken word or specialist music, but they do play music. They appear to have some form of MP3 system, as they are able to play songs by request if they are in their on-line library of around 1000 tracks. I may be able to visit the studio in the future to see how this works in practice.
This being the BBC, everything is 100% legal. The BBC have always adapted to new technology. They used to store their old vinyl collection on DAT, and broadcast a lot of their in-house recordings from MD (as opposed to proper tape a few years ago.).
There is a Russian band called "Neschastniy Sluchai" which is really kewl. They got a website, and you can listen/download all their songs for all the alboms in .ra or .mp3 formats. Quality is good as well.
As you can see, some people don't rely that much on the laws, but give you the choice. If I were still living in Russia I would go and buy their alboms, not burn them.
This practice is not uncommon, many famous Russian bands have mp3s available for downloads on their website. There is a great deal of piracy in Russia, if you go and try to buy an albom, there is a 50% chance that that albom is not original. So I guess they just think that giving people the mp3s would not hurt more.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Over here it's not particularly a worry, ofcourse, the association of record companies is slightly pissed as you'll understand, but media attention is limited to a couple of small comments on page 30+ of papers once every couple of weeks.
The internet as a whole isn't subject to much scrutiny in Holland actually, Holland as most people will know is a very liberal country, and unless you do something absolutely disgusting noone really minds.
I firmly believe that the internet should stay uncensored, the reason the internet has gotten this big and thios popular is because you can access ANY piece of information you want, without having to ask anyone or having to do a lot of work to get it.
Censorship in general keeps people stupid, the more you limit the informationflow and manipulate it, the more you go towards creating unthinking zombies who live, eat, sleep and breathe with the ideas that the ruling bodies want them to have.
---- Stage 5 of drinking : Politics begin to appeal
In the UK there are essentially two bodies who goven music licencing. They are the MCPS and the PRS. They will both charge UK music users if they publish audio on the web that requires a licence (for eg, music not owned by the publisher although there are other exceptions) however the PRS state on their website that software such as Napster is not to blame because they are not the content providers..
Where there is broadband available in the UK the amount of mp3 swapping between individuals can be very high. Take the University that I attend as an example. On the residential network (the network running around student halls of residence) the number of people sharing mp3's via Microsoft Networking is very high indeed and that doesn't take into account those people who set up their own FTP servers and alike. Software like Napster and websites that publish links to mp3 files just make it easier for people to share and download music whether it has been authorised by the copyright holder or not. If these services did not exist then the semi-underground movement of sharing mp3's (or bootleg tapes, or CD's, or any other form of music carrying media) would continue.
Another good website which deals with copyright issues within the UK is run by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Although it is a bit backward with regards to specific information on digital and Internet copyright issues it does give the raw facts.
--Dan.
>I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.
In much the same way that our response to Marijauna and other mild narcotics has been much less heavy-handed than our good neighbours to the south, eh?
(For those not schooled in Canadian politics, there is about a 50/50 chance that Marijauna will be legalized in Canada within the next federal term, which becomes significantly greater for the one thereafter. It is already to the point where somebody can be stopped by a cop with 30g of the stuff, and get off with a warning, provided it isn't divided into portions.)
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I'd echo those comments for Australia. It's a bit annoying when some case in the US affects what you can do here...sort of ironic that a medium supposed to cross borders and remove international boundaries has had the opposite effect in this case(or at least the potential to). Then again, if those servers were in Aus and the parent company was here..... our artists are busy fighting 'grey import' laws for cd's so I'm sure they'd have some say. The biggest problem we'd face down here is whatever Murdoch and Packer's opinion on the subject was would form itself into a federal law to protect their interests..the price you pay for idiotic media ownership laws that let rich media barons run the place.
I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.
Isn't it like a law or something that one out of every four songs traded on Napster in Canada has to be by a Canadian artist?
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
.. any kind of copying of copyright material is illegal. You may buy a CD but under no circumstances may you copy it. This is for any kind of copying, not just digital copies.
As the law stands nobody gives a sh*t, we rip CDs for all we got and participate actively in the former Napster, as a test I had only one MP3 in my Napster a few months back, a rare track from a famous brazilian artist - in 2 days I had more than 50 downloads (tracked and identified, of course) to, at least, 40 brazilians.
Oh, there's an HP commercial that airs with some girl walking in New York listening to some music then burning a CD with the tunes - I bet most of you have seen it. Well, at the end of the commercial, in TINY letters is written something like "it's illegal to copy"... Well, I guess that kinda kills the whole campaign - "Look but don't touch"...
Some artists allow their music to be played on half-assed internet "radio stations" using, exclusively, WMA and/or RA for streaming.
---
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All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Check out FairTunes for an example of how some Canadians are rewarding artists without stifling the free music scene.
:-)
I can't say the response in Canada to MP3s has been too much different in nature than the US, although it's probably less heavy-handed.
At the University of British Columbia (yes, that's in Canada, in Vancouver), Napster is officially persona non grata, but it's not actually blocked, and they don't seem to care unless you're pigging bandwidth. The University of Victoria has been less lenient, and has forced some students to uninstall Napster while campus security watched, with the threat of suspension if caught using Napster again. I'm not too sure about other universities in Canada, but I suspect they're somewhere between UBC and UVic.
Remember, Canada doesn't have the DMCA, or UCITA, and the MPAA and RIAA aren't based here. That's got to count for something, too
AFAIK all the records you hear on 3FM are being played/started from the computer and are probably in MP3 format. They must have a huge collection of MP3's over there.
A little while back there was a hit by Kosheem (Hide you) which was played a lot on 3FM, but which you couldn't buy anywhere. The station obviously got it from Napster and advertised it a lot.
3FM has been the #1 popradiostation in the Netherlands for years, non-commercial, sponsored by the government.
Thimo
--
Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux!
We get the same concerns as you seem to have in the US.
;-)
We also had coverage of Napster, but the coverage was very low-key. There's been lots of "debate" in the computing press, but less in the mass media - this is probably because we don't have the cheap access that the US seems to have.
Without wishing to whinge, when you're paying per minute for your connection to your ISP, downloading entire albums does not become a hobby.
When we start getting better penetration in the broadband market, we'll start seeing all the articles you've had being recycled into our mass media. But until then, I don't expect it'll fuss us much.
Check out producer/songwriter etc for Britney, N'Sync, Backstreet boys, Celine Dion, etc.
Max Martin and Cheirion studios all over the place.
Yes the country that brought you ABBA and Roxette is now haunting you with worse music than ever.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
It is done the other way around. ;p.
Marcel Heymans (Director of the IFPI Belgium) goes online on Napster and tries to find music of Belgian artists. If he can download such music from your computer (and thus you are offering music to the community) then you get a warning.....and you go into his favorites
Next weeks he tries again and if he finds your computer offering again, you lose your account!
And yes, he likes it even more when it's a student. An example
It's that simple.
... the local variant of the RIAA has been actively monitoring which people from Belgium download songs via Napster and sending letters to their ISP's to shut down their internet access... And ISP's do comply (most of the time the firt time you get a warning, the second time you loose your access).
--
Donate free food here
Napster has had some coverage in the technical press over here, but nothing mainstream. With bandwidth so low over here (dial-up and a bit of ISDN) and call charges so high it's not made much of an impact. Like most countries, it's legal to make MP3's for your own use from music you own. We don't have much in the way of pirated music (online or offline) and with one of the highest violent crime rates in the world, MP3 pirates are not on the "10 most wanted" list.
Deja moo - The feeling you've heard all this bull before.
Firstly a correction: THERE *ARE* copyright laws in Thailand - it's just that they are not much enforced and for open pirates it's easy to pay off cops, buy courts, etc. when Thai authorities are busy bettering their image and raid the public areas where priated material is sold openly.
The cops usually bring the press along, make three token arrests and that's that. Apart from that, all shops suddenly close down shortly before the cops arrive.
Malaysia is slightly more civilized. While you can still find everything pretty much out in the open [music, movies, software] the government is doing slightly more to fix it's image. But then, one has to consider that most of those Thai pirated CDs are made in Malaysia in the first place. It is a bit tougher to enforce the laws here [although they try harder than the Thais], because Malaysia also produces about 60% of all legal CDs sold world-wide.
As to MP3, Napster, etc. The Malaysian press openly condemns the use of pirated material, but tongue in cheek, publishes all relevant links to sources of such bad bad sites in the same article.
On the higher level of understanding, copyright is well and truely not part of the mass psyche here. People happily sacrifice quality in return for cheaper prices [and it is a turn-on to watch a blockbuster movie on VCD a week before the official release in the U.S.].
As to software piracy, if it wasn't for that, the Internet would have not spread that fast and would still be very much a western thing.
Consider this, a good PC is available for about $1,500 while a decent PC clone with not too many gadgets costs from about $500 in Malaysia.
With an original M$ WIN O/S the box would cost around $800.00. Add office and you look at $1,400.00
Yes original software is dearer here than in the U.S.
[It is not an issue here to discuss that they don't have to use M$ and stuff; we are looking at the broad masses that have no idea - just like you didn't when you were born].
So, at an average monthly wage of about $300 for a factory worker and $500 for middle admin, most people could never afford to really buy their kids computers - if it wasn't for software piracy.
Governments know that, but can't really admit it openly...
And as they don't enforce software, they can't really enforce movies and music either - they are all pirated in the same factories after all.
IANAL, but I think the legal situation doesn't differ much from other western European countries. It's no problem to make mp3s of your own CDs (or friend's), neither downloading. Serving is illegal, but AFAIK there haven't been any lawsuits yet. The sites just get kicked by the ISPs. In real life MP3s are not a very hot topic, probably due to limited bandwidth for most users, but this is going to change. People heard of Napster, but usual Mr. Swiss does not exactly know, what it means. Mass media and government care more for other unwelcome stuff like racist or pornographic content. There are attempts for filter software or sueing ISPs (just loud thinking, not much happening yet), but this might as well have an influence on mp3s, warez; and politics as well. This is an International problem, in the name of copyright and other blah blah freedom of speech is cut down in little slices, so no one will notice its disappearance until it's too late.
Posters? You mean ones like this?
__
VPRO not only took all sony stuff offline, they took it off the air, and do not play ANY sony music anymore. They want to put their radio-programmes online in its entirety, not with parts cut out.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Napster says that they have all right to deep link to MP3, BUMA says that there is enough international jurisprudence to get the site shut.
A national dutch Media (not commercial) union called VPRO put their radio shows onto the internet after broadcast. Sony got a bit pissed and said that music fans should not be able to hear their favourite music for free, they should sit next to the radio and wait patiently until their favourite song would be played. The VPRO took all Sony content offline. Nowadays other record companies are getting pissed as well, we still don't know what the VPRO is going to do.
A little offtopic (not mp3) but interesting: The union of consumers, biggest organization for protecting consumers rights, published an article this month on the quality of DVD players. They also wrote about the region code. According to the article, it is not illegal to modify the player into a region free player, they even published adresses and prices for player modification.
I just love this counry (Holland).
Bizar technology?
Although Denmark is a member of the EU, Danish music industry took initiative to hit hard on illegal mp3 downloading and CD copying about one and a half year ago.
This lead to a couple of cases in which residents at Danish university dorms were brought to court and charged ridiculus high sums of money for allowing public access to mp3's on the university's networks.
Shortly after that followed a couple of cases against private collections of mp3's and again the sums sued for by the music industry was incredibly high for Danish standards. Normally in a lawsuit no one gets compensated over $100,000 but in the cases the demand was closer to $200,000. The cases were rejected by court, and the music industry's crusade against illegal copying fizzled. A lot of money was spent on advertising the campaign but not a lot came out of it. About a year or two ago, some danish musicians started making some of their tracks available of th web, thus forcing the industry to relate to the new media. However, there are (to the best of my knowledge) no commercial mp3-sites in Denmark today.
-.sig sauer-
In the Netherlands, I dont think there has been much discussion yet although its clear that the industry and the BUMA/STEMRA organisation (who get money from airplay, cd sales and blank tapes/CD-R sales) are watching the developments closely. The BUMA/STEMRA organisation (http://www.buma.nl click on the UK flag for English) have made a temporary arrangement where webmasters can pay a sum of money to legally put online some music. There has also been a campaign (i.e. posters, commercials)against illegal copying of music.
Some time ago the Napster case was on national news and especially the djs of the Dutch public pop/rock radio station 3FM (http://www.3fm.nl) formed opionions. Some djs are clearly supporting mp3s.
There has been quite a lot of talking about mp3 here. The napster-trial is on the news and most record-companies here are screaming bloody murder about the net-distribution of music.
The most interesting point as I see it was a Recordlabel CEO that pointed out that what the recording industry was most afraid of was what he called "The lost generation" meaning that there is quite a large group of young kids who think that music is free. Us older geezers are used to paying for our music and use mp3 mostly for screening what we like and whats worth buying. The young don't have this behaviour and that could become a great problem for the industry.
So a lot of programs on radio and TV discuss this topic and so far noone has a solution.
/OSH
Swedish government has finally figured out that the "opt-out" scheme for spam is worthless. It's better than never I suppose.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Britney Spears, N' Sync, Vanilla Ice.. All the greats are from America.