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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 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
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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).
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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?
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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.