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Do Media Companies Have Copyright Wrong?
Microsift asks: "I own the Beatles White Album on vinyl, but I don't have a record player. If I want to buy the CD new, I have to pay full price. This begs the question, when I buy an album, what am I buying. I don't own the music, I just own the right to listen to it, so why do I have to pay the same for the CD as someone who doesn't own the album? As media become obsolete (Records, videotapes, CDs?). Media companies receive a windfall from people double paying for access to the company's intellectual property. Of course, obsolete media is not the only issue, there are several movies that have been released in multiple versions (Director's Cuts and the like). Someone who bought the first version would have to pay for the original content twice to get access to the added content in the newer version (which is clearly wrong). Compare this to a software model. If you own a version of Microsoft Office, Microsoft will sell you a copy of the latest version for a reduced price. So who has it right us or them?"
In the United States, copyright is based on the reward system for artists/authors/etc in order to increase the pool of creations for the public good. European copyright is based on the 'Natural Right' of the author. Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively on this - ideas cannot be owned and every creative work are only ideas presented in different ways. The only reason the author gets anything at all more than the satisfaction of having done the creating is so that they will be encouraged to create more. Modern copyright law has gone far astray of the original ideals in this respect. Content owners do not, according to the Constitution, have the Rights they are currently awarded. Your two questions then, should both be answered 'no.' The artist should not have control of their work - only whether or not copies will be sold. And only the author/artist should have any of the exclusive rights awarded through copyright law. They were not intended to be transferable to any except the public domain. On the original question - no the content owners should not be responsible for replacing your old media with new. You purchased a vinyl record and that's what you own from the transaction, that copy of the work. Content owners have never guaranteed the longevity of the copies purchased.
I bought over 150 VSH tapes in the last 6 months alone, there is no way I would pay more over again for 150 DVDs. There is a market of people like me who would upgrade to DVD for a _reasonable_ price.
I hope you realize that MS is under no obligation to sell you an upgrade at reduced cost. If you want the extra content from a DVD (if you say, own the VHS of it) then you should pay for it. After all, the company who made the DVD had to pay to produce that extra content and they have to pay the actors, etc for every copy of the movie that is sold, wether in DVD, VHS, cable, or the movie theater. It may cost the company $0.0005 to make each disc or tape, but that isn't the only cost. Movie companies are in business for the movie, and they get their money from selling DVD's. That is called capitalism. If you don't like it, then start your own movie company and give away as many DVD's as you can/want until you go broke (which you eventually will).
-TG
The record company is acting perfectly within its legal rights, and though Cliff has raised what at first appears to be an apparent contradiction, there is none.
Vinyl and cd representations of the same song are NOT the same item. If they were, people who owned the cd version of the song would never need/want to purchase the lp version. That is obviously not the case. Lps and cds are NOT interchangeable.
The only way by which the company is charging twice for the same product is if they actually ARE the same product and completely interchangeable. If this were the case, a consumer purchasing two of the same product is just being dumb and is not being wronged by the media companies.
One may say, "but they're charging for PART of the same product twice." That may be true, but it is entirely within their right to do so. If a person owns a paperback version of a book and they want to buy the hardcover, they aren't legally entitled to only pay for the increased cost of the cover.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with a company charging a certain amount of money for a product. If you disagree with that statement, I advise moving to North Korea, Cuba, or some other nation that holds free markets in a high regard. Likewise, there is NO legal reason that a company has to offer a discount on product A because you own product B. If you bought a CD from company A, company A owes you nothing. You have a CD and that's it. Deal with it.
As stated in numerous posts so far, software companies offer discounts on upgrades for purely monetary reasons. It is not related in any fashion to fair use laws allowing a end user to make backup copies of software. It is a patently false argument to say that because I can legally back up my music, I am entitled to discounts when I buy vinyl. There is NO logical progression from statement A to statement B. Absoultely none.
A better comparison than software in my opinion would be a comparison to books. Hardback and paperback versions all contain the same words, but they are different products. For many older works, there are many different editions, etc... etc..., all with different prices. Are they the same product? If you buy one does that mean that you are entitled to other editions or formats? NO
Also, if this argument were valid, one can reach all kinds of absurd scenarios.
If I buy this paper, I should get tommorrow's paper at a discount.
If I buy this hardcover book, I should get the book on tape and the paperback for a super low fee.
one can go on forever..................
It would be NICE for me as a consumer if certain things worked that way, but I am certainly not ENTITLED to it.
And on a more general note, I believe that there is a dangerous proliferation of perceived rights in our current society. For example, people are falsely seeing software and music as rights. People feel they are ENTITLED to be GIVEN software and music by OTHER people.
I at least live in a free society where people are able to choose what to do with their time, what to produce, what to buy, and how to live, and I greatly fear attacks on this freedom masquerading as supporters of it.
Turning analog tape - especially *old* tape - into a good sounding CD isn't as simple as ripping a CD onto your hard drive.
Fine, I don't NEED to buy the CD. But I own the rights to listen to the music. And if my media (record) wears out (not to mention general scratching), then I should be able to get a replacement record/tape/CD/8-track, for only a replacement cost. What's this, the White album on vinyl is out of print? Now what?
Free software works fine when there's someone who wants work done on it (extension, bugfixing, whatever) enough to pay for it -- in short, a small number of people who are willing to pay for the service, rather than a large number of people who are willing to pay for a single copy. Whether things like music work in this manner is up to question.
An example re software: I work for MontaVista Software, a company which supports linux on embedded platforms. Our customers pay us to make linux (and software for it) work on their boards/chips/whatnot, and the business is quite profitable. After we've done a port, though, anyone can make as many copies of our work as they want, resell it, etc. and we have no additional control. This works well for us. The question is whether it works for music.
The closest analogy I can think of in the music world is being paid not per copy of music performed, but per actual performance. Artists would be rewarded for live performances and individual recording sessions, but they wouldn't recieve royalties off the recording sessions, resampling, etc. On the other hand, the record companies wouldn't have monopolies on the sale of the music -- they'd simply need to be able compete on the basis of price, efficient distribution channels, etc.
It's an interesting idea; I'm not so sure it wouldn't work, though I wouldn't place a bet either way.
But when you buy a car you're buying a piece of property -- a car.
When you buy a song, you're buying the right to use a piece of intellectual property. You also get some media. If the media is totalled or stolen, you need to pay to replace it -- but you still have the right to use the property.
Having the right-to-use a piece of property twice doesn't do you any good unless you can legally transfer it. If when I buy my replacement copy of some CD (which happens to come with a new right-to-use) I can sell my old right-to-use to some other guy so he can legally get the music with Napster, I'd be fine with paying full price.
Otherwise, when I bought the CD the 2nd time I recieved less value than the first -- since the 2nd right-to-use creates no difference in my legal position (no additional rights or responsabilities), I didn't legally recieve the right-to-use I paid for. I only recieved a piece of media, when I paid for both a piece of media and a right-to-use. See the difference?
You are not mistaken. "Begging the question" is a category of fallacy. What they mean is that it "raises an issue", which is an entirely different meaning, despite having a similar ring.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
The media companies have it wrong by not rewarding past customers who have already bought similar music/videos/you name it
At Best Buy today, I saw a Pocohantas DVD with a $7 discount for anyone who sent in the proof of purchase from their VHS version. (I think the DVD itself was $20.)
It's quite a smart decision on Disney's part. Most people won't by the DVD for something they already have the tape for, but some of those who wouldn't, would feel justified in making a VCD or (once it is possible) making a DVD-R copy.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It's really very easy. Just have them bring in their old copy to the store, and trade it in. For $4 and the non-director's cut version, you can walk out of the store with the Director's Cut of whatever movie they just released on DVD.
After that, the store could always resell the pre-watched version at a heavy discount (and marked that it had been used as a trade-in already, of course) to make back any money lost due to the extra effort they'd have to put into such a system.
No, it makes perfect sense in the topic of this discussion: That the majority of the money you pay is for rights to view the music/movie, and that a new medium/version should not cost someone who already owns it the same amount as someone buying for the first time.
This question was to IF they were using a "already-own-then-upgrade" model, then how could you make sure someone owned before they upgraded. That was the question I was answering, not one comparing the finer points of business models.
Even if we weren't talking about this theoretical situation, my proposal does not make "extremely poor business sense" as you say. It makes perfect business sense - people who already own the music/DVD are less likely to buy the new version at the full price. Giving them a trade-in option gives you the following:
1. More money than you would have if they DIDN'T buy the new version. (If you already own the DVD/CD, you're MUCH less likely to pay for it again.)
2. These numbers will result in an increase in sales. Increased sales = higher spot on "top 10" lists. Higher spot = even more sales.
Your argument that selling the upgrade for $4 will result in a loss fails to take these two major factors into account.
I know this was a comment in passing...
I really don't see the point of sticking to LPs. I know there are some people that swear by them, but I don't see the point of getting a new LP. For the titles that haven't been properly remastered or never made it to CD, I can see getting an LP. While LPs may have a slightly higher bandwitdh, which degrades slightly after every playback, the dynamic range is quite small comparitively.
I have a small Laserdisc collection, I don't see a need to upgrade some of them, and several others I couldn't yet (Star Wars Trilogy anyone?). There are several cases where the Laserdisc video looks better than the DVD, usually they are the early ones where the producers didn't know how to properly master a DVD.
IMO the media size in both cases is too cumbersone and the player size dictated is too large. They are just formats, and they have been superceeded by newer ones, clinging to a format for the format's sake doesn't seem right to me, especially with newer formats that are much more convenient.
The answer to your question is inthe second paragraph of the original message - only the owner can create and distribute new copies. By downloading an MP3, you are creating a new copy illegally.
However, you can make copies if you own the original for personal use/back-up.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
You bought the car, and you own it. Increasingly with digital (or old analog) media, the notion is one of licensing, rather than ownership. Sorry, you can't play that DVD on your Linux box because that would break your *license*. You own the disk, but that's not what you care about. You care about the content it stores, which is intellectual property that is licensed to you.
The point of the article is that if the Powers That Be want to move to a licensing model (and they do), it seems fair that we should only have to license a product once. This *is* reasonable, but RIAA et al don't want to be reasonable. They want to limit you as much as possible, and drain as much money from you as possible.
My answer to the poster about his tape is that fair use allows personal copying, so he should feel no remorse about getting an mp3 of a song he already has. It is only questionably legal, but it is spiritually similar to making an archival back up at purchase time. Archival backups are perfectly legal.
In my case, I have no problem burning a copy of a CD that I already own. All too often CD's (even new ones) are improperly pressed and start skipping horribly on me. It's ridiculous that the CD companies' QA isn't better. They are selling inferior goods. But since I've already licensed the music, I just press my *own* damn CD and use that. The music companies don't like it, but it's legal.
--Lenny
But that would mean that I am allowed to copy a CD so that I can listen to it at home, at work, whatever, or rip the CD -- something the record companies say I am not allowed to do...
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Actually, it is a very interesting discussion, even though it is off topic.
Who would you rather your daughter have her first experiences with: Some horny teenage boy who will do anything he can to get into her pants, or an adult who you know and trust to respect her and not pressure her?
Yeah, some horny 40-year old guy is better... But jokes aside, I have a problem with that statement. Why would an adult be more responsible than a horny teenage boy, as you put it?
I did not choose my sexual orientation, and even though many people say it's a sickness or a disease, it's just as valid as homosexuality, bisexuality, and many other orientations whose members were once persecuted as we are, but are now seen as being normal.
Well, no not really. Homosexuals are not seen as normal, don't kid yourself (no pun intended). Homosexuality *is* perceived as sickness (just ask Dr. Laura).
Anyway, regardless of my and your opinion, I do think it's an interesting discussion and I invite others to join in.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
beeeecause ... radio *pays* a fee to the owner (or manager or agent etc) of a songs IP to broadcast a song, something which individual peers on a p2p network do not. Unless Napster wants to pay on behalf of its users?
Napster is more like pirate radio.
I am not judging here, just saying.
I have made CDR copies of new unplayed vinyl on a Linn turntable running through a DC tube amp to a pro CDR deck all on class A power. A $3500.00 setup, but these CDs sound way better than any that you'd buy in the store. If you are using the line-in on your soundcard to make a CDR from your Fisher-Price recordplayer, of course it will suck. There is way too much noise inside the PC.
pronoblem
Guess what? ...the CD I made sounds better - richer sound, deeper bass. My advice would be, if you own the vinyl and it's in good condition then get a friend with good equipment to make a CD for you.
It's no surprise that the CD you made sounds different. The fact that it sounds better to you is completely subjective. The fact that you're used to the one you made probably has something to do with it. Someone who was used to the commercial CD would probably think your CD would sound weird and muffled.
To beg a question (or issue, etc.) is to avoid addressing it when it should be addressed, or to incorrectly assume the issue to have been properly addressed. For a more authoritative account, you can look up "beg" at Merriam-Webster's online dictionary.
I'm not supporting this, merely wondering about the law behind it.
:) But this is a hypothetical question.
What happens if my backup copy becomes so damaged that it's unsuitable to be a backup anymore? My backup copy is now gone.
Your "backup" copy contains the same songs. What makes your backup copy any different from mine? Both were pressed onto CD's, mine was sourced from vinyl, yours from cd. Same music.
And let's assume I kept my vinyl in perfect condition with no scratches, so my backup copy was on par with a "Cd quality" backup.
What specific laws prevent me from doing this? If my backup copy made from vinyl is going to sound the same as your backup copy made from CD, then where is the logic or law behind this?
I don't actually do this. And my cheapie vinyl would never be flawless enough
> Have you ever had the experience of trying to reinstall the latest version of Office when you're running an upgrade of an upgrade of an upgrade...? What a nightmare. You've got to install all the old stuff, first, THEN upgrade them all...
Actually usually you can just supply the CD-ROM of the previous version. At least in Office 2000 you can (I'm pretty sure).
Not that it's really relevent, but in fact, I've encountered an Office 2000 Upgrade CD, where when it requests the location of a previous version of office, it will proceed with the install if you provide the location of the CD you're installing from. I don't know if this is the same with all Office 2000 Upgrade CDs, as I've only installed 1.
This makes absolutely no sense. If it's a piece of plastic that I'm buying, and I have no more rights to listen to the music than before I had the CD, then why is it not legal (in the U.S.) to download and listen to a song that I did not buy the piece of plastic it's most commonly on? Or is it legal, and I'm just very confused?
The the extent that Mac and PC office are different products, so are the vinyl, cassette and CD releases of music. They all have different part numbers, upc numbers, etc...
The vinyl version of the white album is the version of the white album meant to be played on record players. The compact disc version of the album is the release meant for cd players. Just as the release of Office 97 is the release of office meant for PC's, where as Office 98 is the release of office meant to be ran on Macintoshes.
A distinction without a difference. The vinyl, CD and cassette products are different. The intellectual content is exactly the same on each product. The intellectual content in PC office and Mac Office are demonstrably different. Not only is it different at the byte level, it took a seperate act of creative effort to make it. The Beatles only recorded the White Album once, and record companies have reproduced on different media.
The only argument that makes sense for claiming a difference between an LP and CD version of an album are "deluxe remastered versions" and so on where an extra measure of effort has gone into making the CD version somehow "better" than the original recording or when there's extra content. Just claiming a vanilla album is different because its on different media is wrong.
The CD recording is at least subtly different (from being remastered) than the original, and remastering is itself a copyrightable act.
How much rmastering are we talking about? My understanding of the process is that a master tape (ie, a copy of the final mixdown of the album) is generated once. This master is used as the source for pressings. My understanding is that some technical filtering or other kinds of adjustments may be made to fit a particular medium's production needs but it's not a wholesale "re-mastering" effort when taking an older set of masters and using them to make a CD.
Bigger name bands, higher profile albums, etc may get this treatment to a greater or lesser extent (with the CD price reflecting it) and its probably become a more common activity now that the record companies are used to it and have taken heat for the no-effort trasfers that first appeared when CDs were new. But the basic CD mastering engineering process I don't think is a signficant enough change in the intellectual content to warrant paying full price for a CD of an LP that you own.
1. Nah in my experience Microsoft doesn't make you install old version after old version... etc.. You only have to put in the cd of any prior version you own (within reason), and the install for the current version scans the cd and ok's it.
2. Yeah you might say you don't own the cd version, but the difference isn't between 'versions'. You don't buy a high quality cd for $20 and a lower quality version for 10 bucks. It has to do with the advancement of technology, and the recording you get is the best 'quality' that current technology supports.
3. Listen to all the copies at once ? So.. what if I was in the office listening to a song and the stereo at home was left on, and I had a microphone so I was listening to it two instances at once? How about multiple instances of Winamp with a SB Live! ?
Lets get complicated, how about this: a whole ton a friends into the same genre (say a few THOUSAND friends maybe to make it significant?) well they all buy CD's in the genre that other's don't have. Then they all make mp3's of them and destroy the original cd, so they still have rights to the mp3, and they have a right to transfer those right just like they could sell the CD if it still existed. Well lets say they all put them online, and 'share' them in such a way that no two people can listen to the same album at the same time, and everytime you want to hear an album someone else 'has' you buy it off them for $1, the money is virtually transfered and the MP3's automatically transfered to your possession. Then when you are done they seller automatically 'buys' the rights and mp3s back. Thus no one has pirated anything because it is all being sold and bought back, so in actuallity no physical money ever moves, only virtual. But nonetheless virtual money is legal so no piracy happens yet everyone can hear anything they want!
BWahahahah what'cha think of that ?
The way I see it, controlling the creation is *not* in any way a "natural rigth" of the artist. Rather it is an artificial rigth that society choose to grant under certain circumstances, because it benefits society.
This also explains why copyrigth are time-limited. The plus side of allowing copyrigths is that they may stimulate creativity, since you've got a bigger chanse of getting rewarded for your work. The minus side, is ofcourse that a work covered by copyrigth is less valuable to the public than one which is not.
In the digital realm this minus side is a lot bigger than with physical objects. A book does not fall very much in price, nor become much more widely available once copyrigth expires. (because the majority of the costs are not the royalties, but the physical production distribution and selling of the book)
Software, and music, and other forms of creative works that can be transferred as pure information, on the other hand, become *hugely* more useful and cheaper once copyrigth no longer hampers their spread. To witness this you need only compare the price of a MS-office CD with the price of a CheapBytes Linux-CD. Here the majority of the cost is in the royalties.
OK, where do I buy the 15-ips reel-to-reel versions of my favorite artists' albums?
Hmmm?
Exactly. Nowhere, because they don't make them.
At least not any more. 40 years ago, things were different. I actually have a reel-to-reel tape but no player. Not that I would want to listen to the contents though.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
People need to learn how to use words and phrases correctly.
You stole my sig! ;-)
(Of course it's just a copy -- for a modest fee I might be willing to license the original to you
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
You are buying the music, and the packaging. Or did you keep the record and through out the cover?
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
.. which means that you should not have to pay for the composition copyright twice, which means that um...Lucas' point was irrelevant.
On the other hand, you have, as you mentioned, copyright on the remastering, and payment for everyone else in the CD creation process, from brochure and plastic case to CD pressing. Perhaps the compositional copyright isn't the biggest cost at all.
There's no easy way to verify that you have bought the original record. I think the system that the record companies have implemented right now is the only way to do it unless they start putting serial numbers on every cd and having you register your copy as soon as you get it. I think it would be too much of a hassle. I don't buy the same albums on a million different mediums. I just buy a cd, and maybe rip it to mp3s and if I want, copy it to tape. It's easier and quicker to just copy it yourself instead of having the companies send out the update through the mail (which I think is the only way it can be implemented as of right now)
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
I think you're misinterpreting the way that open source software can work. Here's a better way to do "open source music":
Open the source (ie, the sheet music) to everyone.
If you actually want me to *play* the music or *sing* the song for you, you have to pay me for it. If you want to hear a recording of me doing that, ditto. If you don't want to pay, do it yourself.
The reason software companies that sell open source software don't do this is that your C compiler will make the exact same thing as my C compiler and so there is no reason for you to buy the binaries from them. In the case of "my" music, the fact is that my voice and lute playing ability may be far better than yours so there is in fact a reason to buy my recordings.
Software companies have to find other ways to add value, like offering support and customization. Performing artists have it easier, because the simple fact that they themselves perform the art makes it have more value.
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
The copyrights on the composition, given to the author, and which is a very 'abstract' copyright, and the copyright on the recording, which is what you are really acquiring when you are buying a cd. (of course its the label who owns the 'recording')
So each different recording is considered separatly. In your case, a new high quality recording is a different work. As a musician, I could (if the labels' contract didn't forbid it) release the same tune through different labels as different recordings. (of course the recording/composition differentiation gets awfully blurred in electronic music)
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may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
The only reason I haven't converted my entire vinyl collection to CD is that I'm hoping to get ALL of it onto a device about the size of a pack of cigarettes withing the decade.
At the same time, this whole thing clearly shows that when it's convenient for the record companies, you are licensing the right to listen to something, and when it's convenient to them, you are paying for a slab o' wax. There is no consistency or honesty to their positions, except "Gimme gimme gimme." No wonder consumers and bands alike hate them. There's precious little that separates record execs from freak show operators, except for the music itself.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Most of the earyly CDs were 14 bit or worse. While most of them had the "16 bit" flag set on the packets, they didn't the last bits.
The raw CD format has some interesting things. It can go down to about 10 bits (if I remember correctly) as well as more than 16 bits (22?) and a number of channles. What it means is you should be able to burn an audio mono cd with several hours worth of voice on one CD.
Just be careful about the 1 click discount, might be patented...
Wouldn't that be a bitch: having methods of breaking the law covered by Intellectual Property law...
-=Canar=-
Well it's not that easy for new artists :
- sign the contract being offered (and you get the label whore)
- don't sign or try to negociate, but then chances are you'll never have another contract offered and can just try to look for a "real job" and forget about being a pro-musician
The way CDs are made and sold, you need the backing of a label to get a chance to success and fame. Only the advent of things like MP3 can make music distribution accessible to small budget, and hence, free artists from slaving for the big 5.
The version of the white album that you have on LP is, well, licensed to you. No, you don't own the IP, but then you own the album with the IP on it.
This seems to make sense, until you get to other forms of IP.
To muddy the waters a bit. I own a copy of the song "Smells like teen spirit" by Nirvana. Does that give me the right to own a copy of the cover of that song done by Tori Amos? I mean, afterall your IP is my IP, right? Do I get free access to the sheet music for that song?
So, yes you own the white album LP, so you can listen to all the beatles songs on the LP to your hearts content, and you can do so for as long as you own the album. But if you want to listen to those same songs digitally remastered on CD, then yes, you need to buy them on CD.
There's no real magic here.
Reciting a poem or singing a song in public is considered public performance, which is protected by copyright.
So the answer is no, you may not, and yes, it is infringement.
anyone who bought NKOTB 5 years ago can upgrade to a Hanson cd for free..
//rdj
Hmmmmbop, the sound of a testicle descending
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
According to a Disney videotaping ruling from the 80s, your ownership of The White Album gives you the right to burn a CD, for your own use, of your own vinyl copy of the White Album.
You can also, without even owning the White Album, tape its songs off the radio and burn a CD of your tapes.
Since you want a fresh CD produced direct from the master tapes, you are buying a new product that you don't yet own. The record company has the right to charge whatever the market will bear, in this case, about 20 dollars.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
"Copyright today means exactly what the sum of its parts mean: The right to copy. It's that simple. When you buy a cd you have licensed it and have the ability to copy it for your own personal use." The important part of this quote is "personal use". You can purchase a CD and make 100 copies of it if you like;however, you MAY NOT distribute those copies. If you purchase a CD you can rip it into MP3 format 100 times as well, but you MAY NOT redistribute those MP3s. These is nothing evil or wrong about this at all, because the copyright holders are the only ones who are allowed to copy and DISTRIBUTE. Perhaps they should change the term from copyright to copyanddistributeright. Although it was convenient, mp3.com was in the wrong with their service. They had absolutley no right to copy and distribute copyrighted material. What's even worse is they were making money off of it. I realize most of my post is reduntant, but I felt I needed to clarify INMCM's excellent post for stupid people like myself, and for the "communistI want everything to be free(gratis)" types.
You are right, but I don't think any official from record company or the like would agree. They are glad that you already own that album, because they *know* you will buy the CD eventually. And they won't be so stupid as to offer you any kind of discount. /. will change anything.
This is simply about money, not about logic or about protecting the artist (or whatever they claim they're doing this week). And, frankly, I don't think bitching about it on
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
I own the Beatles White Album on vinyl, but I don't have a record player. If I want to buy the CD new, I have to pay full price.
When you buy the Beatles White Album on vinyl, you own the Beatles White Album on vinyl. When you purchased it, you weren't promised lifetime upgrades. Why would anyone give you anything other than what you purchased? It's not like you paid your money and received nothing for it. You now have an album. What is wrong with that?
I don't own the music, I just own the right to listen to it
Of course you don't own the rights to the music. If you by a car, do you own the rights to the blueprints? If you by an Intel CPU, do you own the rights to their patents? Of course not. You own the object you paid for. You are purchasing the right to use the object you just purchased.
so why do I have to pay the same for the CD as someone who doesn't own the album?
Again, you don't own the IP to the album - you own the object that you just purchased. Just because software companies sell upgrades for less than the cost of purchasing the same item for the first time doesn't mean everyone has to comply with this. If Microsoft chooses to do this, that's their decision. The "media" companies don't choose to do this; that's their decision. If you don't like it, don't buy the album in the first place.
I have been having on-going debates about this style of use for 'begs the question' for quite sometime. I'm a big believer in the 'prompts the question' meaning rather than the 'assuming the conclusion' meaning. It serves a definite need, even if it is technically 'wrong'.
Language is constructed by consensus, and it evolves with time. Who can truly say what the 'proper' meaning for a word or idiom is? As long as the speaker manages to communicate his thought, it works.
So beware, oh ye members of the verbal amish. This speaker's use of 'begs the question' may seem an insolated incident. it is not... We who share his use are out there, walking among you. We could be your friends, your neighbors. We grow in strength with time-- ye, we do not die, we multiply...
Uh, look for a piece by recording engineer Steve Albini, entitled "The Problem With Music," and revel in your newfound understanding of the recording industry. Courtney Love tried to rip it off a few months ago with a speech republished in Salon, but like everything else she's done, it was a joke.
When you buy the vinyl record, and you buy the CD of the same album, you are not getting the same thing. The CD is of a much higher quality. When you buy a DVD versus a VHS tape, the same analysis applies. You are not buying the rights to listen to that song, in any medium, you are buying the rights to listen to the song on the medium you paid for. If a DVD Audio disc comes out of an album comes out for a song with 5.1 audio, you will be buying it all over again, and now you can enjoy your 5.1 medium.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
If you take the current situation as static, sure your response is quite reasonable. Fortuantely our current state is hardly static, i assert that we are in the midst of a revolution. Several points influencing the entual outcome:
a. Consumers have fair-use rights that include "space-shifting"! (covers translating formats for personal convenience, CD->mp3, etc.).
b. Media is information: bits, not atoms. Physical media is a doomed commodity (music first, then the rest). Welcome to the network.
c. The intent of U.S. copyright law is and (imo) will continue to be valid and important. The letter of the law on the other hand, is archaic and in severe need of explicit re-interpretation.
Add it all up and what do you have?
Big media companies kicking, screaming, and tripping into the digital world. Those who take off their blinders and "get it right" will be rewarded; those who attempt to re-implement the old paradigms in the new world will suffer.
No one yet knows what models will prosper.
Mp3.com has paid out nearly 200 million in settlement bucks to the big 5 labels for their jukebox in the sky implementation (merely streams music back to those who can verify posession of the CD!). Well, actually, they were penalized for creating a database of music with the aforementioned intent... a real technicality based on an inflexible interpretation of CR law. I think that this in itself demonstrates that we have a long way to go and a fight on our hands just to retain our reasonable fair-use rights in the digital age. I can't imagine losing though, holding back this revolution is like holding back the ocean.
keep on rockin in the freak world,
stu.
While it may be true for Microsoft there are software companies that will sell you cross platform upgrades at a reduced price. I believe that both Adobe and Macromedia do this on some of their products.
DB
It's funny that the White Album is used as the example by many participants. It was, of course, the classic line in "Men In Black" where Tommy Lee Jones laments that the new, alien sound tech the MIB were going to sell would mean he had to buy the White Album ... again.
And that's the line that a very morally upright friend tossed at me when asking sternly if all the MP3s in my new Yepp player were legit. I admitted a few were copies from friends, but pointed out that in many cases, I still had dusty cassettes or vinyl for them, if not the CD. He shook his head and said, "No Good. You gotta buy the White Album again, like the guy in MIB."
Well, he's wrong. I don't use Napster, but I do accept MP3s directly from friends. My legal justification is the 1992 Home Recording Act: all are friend-to-friend, non-commercial copies, exactly within its definition.
And my moral justification is two-fold. One, I still buy CDs, attend concerts, and support artists - more so than ever because of the "free" music I now get. Second, because I've been forced to buy nearly all my pre-1985 favourites twice. Or more.
Sure, they had the *legal* right to do it, but the karmic cost is now I don't feel *guilty* about getting - or giving - MP3s.
I figure it'll be about 2008 I get guilty about lack of moral right to do this, given the extra grand I spent on duplicate purchases.
bah... 5 finger discount baby.. 5 finger discount... these days though. its more like 2 click discount.. the drag and drop discount even.
I have one thing to say...
:-)
:-)
Labels suck
CD-R's kick ass
http://fearofzero.20m.com/ -- email root@irix.penguinpowered.com to order....
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Back in the golden, good-old-days, the business model of selling albums worked great. However, things have changed. A lot. Nowadays, record companies have to rely on their clients to be honest. And let's be honest, clients, that's a dangerous thing to rely on. Not only that, but in order to protect their product, the companies are all set to SUE the same people that want the product.
So, there's no real way to protect your product from thievery, no good way to even know if your product has been stolen, and you have to beat the money out of your own potential clients.
Bad business model! Bad!
For the record, I still buy CDs - and at a rate of a few a week. So don't come bustin' down MY door. I'm all paid up, man.
Who's right, us or them, is the wrong question.
It's apples and oranges, for this simple reason:
Software companies sell upgrades at a reduced price to achieve customer lock-in. They want to keep you from switching to a competing product. If upgrading and switching cost the same, there's nothing stopping you from switching. That's why upgrades are cheap.
On the other hand, most people listen to more than one band, and getting cheap music "upgrades" will not keep you loyal to your first band, because bands are not mutually exclusive.
I really get the feeling we're just arguing the case for the plaintiffs free of charge. LET THEM FUCKING STATE THE TERMS THEMSELVES ALREADY IN BIG FUCKING LETTERS THAT'S WHAT FIGLET IS FOR.
Questions:
Can I copy a recording?
Do I have to pay for a new recording of something I already own if I no longer have the performance equipment or it isn't manufactured anymore?
Can I play a recording over the PA system of the whole school?
Can I play a recording over the whole networked audio environment in my house?
Can I play something over the net to friends?
Can i make compilations?
Can I play songs made by others?
Can I change those songs?
Can I arrange music written by others (think anime videos aoundtracked with songs like Du Hast)
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
A lot of software companies are starting to sell you a license only, no media. If you want the media (or additional media) you need to pay a nominal fee. We bought a Symantec product like this recently, and more than a few independant programmers are following this model.
We own a program or two that we don't have any media for at all, we just download the install files.
forge
Wow, two separate misuses of "begging the question" on the same day... please follow that link and get it straight once and for all. Thank you.
As to the software example: I don't believe companies are giving version upgrades because they feel compelled by intellectual property law; it's a marketing decision. Think about competitive upgrades - you haven't bought Company A's product yet, but they'll give you the new one at a reduced price to get you to switch from Company B's brand so that they can make more money off you later.
So, I don't think the law gets us anywhere in this case. I think it's more a marketing thing... it does make you wonder why record company marketing execs never came out with "Own this LP? upgrade to CD!" Or maybe they did and I missed it, or maybe they were just too arrogant (surprise) and decided they could get away with getting everyone to buy things twice.
But obviously, as we move away from physical media as the means of distribution, things change. Think of the MP3.com situation/court-case, in which you have to insert the CD as a "dongle" to prove ownership, and then you can listen to it as data anyplace. Legally, the RIAA and MPAA can run these things through courts forever; even if a court case finishes, a new one will start over a different variant. The change, I think, will finally occur when the RIAA/MPAA marketing people get their heads around the idea that this can be used to their advantage, and they simply aren't going to survive in the digital age expecting consumers to buy recordings in the form of physical objects multiple times.
IANAL, but, I believe that's not really consistent with the Home Recording Act, at least in the US. The Home Recording Act, as I understand it, authorizes you to make copies of media you have purchased for personal use, for backup, etc. Things like taping a CD to play in your car are allowed. True, you can't redistribute the copies you make, but that wasn't the issue being discussed in the article.
While I agree with some of your statements, let's drop the Red Baiting act, shall we?
As far as this article goes, I agree with you that media companies are under no obligation (and shouldn't be) to give you a discount on a copy on different media. That said, however, it should be, and I believe is, perfectly legal for me to run a service whereby someone could bring in an old vinyl LP and I could digitize it and burn it to CD (or vice-versa, I suppose, but I don't know anyone with LP cutting equipment, or why anyone would want to make a record from a CD ;-) for them.
So, the solution is just to transfer the IP from one media to another yourself, or hire someone to do it for you.
I must say, at that point Napster seemed pretty fair to me.
Neat, revolutionary stuff. Hopefully something comes of them.
When you "buy" a record, tape, CD, etc., you do not have to pay for new media when the old media becomes obsolete. Take for instance, DVD-A, the new DVD-based audio format that hopefully will obsolete CDs. If I payed for a Beatles CD, I am allowed to create my own DVD-A from the CD under law. Therefore, I don't have to pay anything to Apple Corps Ltd., the Beatles' record label. But I will have to pay the expense of the software and hardware required to transfer the music to DVD-A. I just can't make copies for other people. (Though there is some precedent for legally giving friends copies.) Likewise, you are allowed to transfer CD-based music to MP3 format - at least for you own listening. What's being dealt with in the courts right now is whether you are allowed to distribute your MP3 files to other people who haven't payed a license fee. The current court action does *not* apply to things you do for yourself.
Even if your phonograph isn't sounding good anymore, you can probably just replace the cartridge (which is the only real electronic part of it anyway). I just got one of the cheaper Grado's from an Internet supplier for around $40, which is less than I paid for my previous cartridge over 10 years ago. Sounds really nice, too.
Your purchase price covers the content and the media it's on. Presumably, the intellectual value of the product is the total price minus cost of media. As I understand it, once you purchase it once, you own it forever. So why can't you obtain another copy of a CD you once owned from a friend, Napster, or wherever? Didn't you purchase the right to use that content once already? I see no difference between that and making copies of media you're currently in posession of for your own use, which is most certainly legal.
--
That doesn't make sense. Assume the two versions both cost $20. If you offered the second one for $4 + a used copy of the other one, you would lose money unless you sold the other for at least $16 (which is only a 20% discount - not 'heavily'). You proposal makes extremely poor business sense.
Metallica IS their record company. They own part of their label. So do many other artists.
Musicians have been around for how many thousand years ? And they have traditionally been payed to show up at your castle or event and play. Only in this century have musicians actually made money (???) off their "art" by actually selling their (souls) music.
Incorrect. Beethoven was the first composer to 'break free' from the court and to make a living off music independently. All of the Romantic composers made money off of music (which wasn't funded by the court). There were battles between publishers and composers of this era for who would get royalties from published sheet music.
Furthermore, several other nineneeth century technologies had the ability to sell music itself as a commodity: such as music boxes, and player-piano rolls.
Also, sheet music for songs had been commodified around this point as well.
The intellectual content is exactly the same on each product.
No, it's not. I think you are confusing the two copyrights on the recording. There is the copyright on the composition (which you did indeed pay the royalties for in the original purchase), but there is also the copyright for the recording, that you did NOT pay for in the original. The CD recording is at least subtly different (from being remastered) than the original, and remastering is itself a copyrightable act.
You are incorrect. The RIAA does not get $13.25 for a Britney Spears CD. The RIAA is a non-profit organization which represents record companies.
You also have failed to account for the non-negligible cost of the CD which is absorbed by the record stores, manufacturers of the physical packaging, and the delivery and distribution process.
Finally, and most importantly, you have fallen, hook, line, and sinker, for the 'Britney Spears Accounting Myth'. You assume that each dollar made off of Britney Spears is profit. However, Britney Spears is a one in 10,000 occurrence. Only 3 of the 30,000 CD titles released in 1999 sold as many copies of Britney Spears. For every 10,000 CD's, there is one Britney Spears, one 9,000 which lose money, and 999 which break even or make some money. The Britney Spears covers the cost of the rest - very, very little of that is profit.
In fact, no industry in the world has a 90% gross margin as you allege. The highest margins of any industry are companies like Intel and Microsoft which top off at about 50%. Record companies are considerably lower. Look into their financials some time (although it is not possible to separate music from the rest of their business).
Whilst I agree that there is a subjective element (that's the whole point of music!!) it's not a case of me being 'used to' a particular sound; there is a common thread due to the poor remastering mentioned in the other reply to my original post. The only quality I dislike about older vinyl is the tendancy for high pitched sounds to be distorted, although I believe this is probably due to my deck and stylus.
As a rule, I now tend to buy vinyl for pre-90s recordings which were likely to have been remastered in the 80s or 90s, and buy CD for later recordings.
That hits it - it's hard to tell how good a format can be until a very, very good example of what can be done is demonstrated. A few weeks ago I happened to be in a PC shop with a friend of mine who's a hi-fi newbie; I'd been trying to convince her, for ages, that different components really sounded different (or better/worse) and that most "real" hi-fi would sound better than a midi system. There happened to be a load of PC sound systems linked to the same system with a selector switch - she was amazed that the same piece of music sounded completely different as I changed the switch! Slightly OT, but I think it demonstrates the point...
plus the covers are bigger and nicer
Definitely. :-)
Gigs, baby, gigs!
I would happily pay GBP 50 to go see a band I really liked, and happily pay it again six months later if they wrote some more songs :-) I pay GBP10 for a CD and don't buy anymore until they record a new album...
I really do think that bands could make a living by giving their music away. There's a parallel with OSS:
Of course, you could get someone else to support your Redhat Linux, but it wouldn't be Redhat and you could get a cover band to play the songs (no copyright issues), but it wouldn't be the band. By attending more gigs, cover bands would get better at playing the songs, and would therefore be able to charge more when performing.
Good record players can be found for cheap these days. I've got myself a Sony linear tracker for free from a friend. It had corrosion contact resistance problems at the cartridge and old belts. This was easily fixed. Record players are mechanical and can be fixed most of the time.
A CD writer was more expensive and the software is elusive for a casual user. I bought a fancy new brand name writer for speed and new software, but I imagine you can find a cheaper one on pricewatch or at your your local computer recycler. The software to run it is a typical Windows nightmare and I've been too lazy to look for Free goodies. Though you'd imagine that converting formats is trivial once you have device drivers, the greedheads want your money for any real functionality. The software I got with my CD recorder does not automaticaly devide albums into their songs, nor does it directly read and convert autio CD's to wav files. Instead it goes through a clumsy D/A then A/D conversion for CD's and records. Let me tell you what a pain it is to have to jump up and down to start and stop recording that record. WavGold takes care of some these problems, but it's beg ware and becomes so anoying that I quit using it. So there you have it, bare bones software where a full featured package should exist because some greedhead wants to make some extra bucks off a few extra chucks of code. One day, I'll have the time to record again, get or make some decent Freeware, and my last excuse to have Windows on any machine will go away. Oh, back to topic.
I have to agree with you that the record companies are under no obligation to provide new media. Software companies do this to engender goodwill. Of course, evil companies like MS break their formats on purpose and the "upgrade" gets you little more than the ability to continue using the software that you already own. After all there has been no real functionality added to any MS work since windows 3.11, and anyone can that their "upgrade price" is just a software tax that engeners no goodwill at all. But that's different from audio recordings. No one expected records to last forever so the deal was fair. Publishers are not obligated to publish things forever. They would be foolish to sit on top of things people will pay for, but oh well, such are the failings of the racket RIAA and the five big music publishers. It was nice enough of them to line their pockets promoting ordinary work to begin with. We would not be able to get together and sign if it were not for the Beatles, right? One day, the market for such things will shrink and the record companies will be forced into a low production, high cost mode. The Beatles will have to be labled as a golden classic and become very expensive. How else will they be able to make money forever off their good sense of promotion? It would be foolish to expect such stuff to pass into the public domain in any reasonable amount of time (75 years in the US), just as it would be foolish to expect the artists to actually profit from their work. Still, no one else is obligated to continue to publish things in perpetuity.
Go on and transfer to CD's yourself, before your record player really gives out. Electrolitic capacitors do die, and the result will be degraded sound quality. My CD's sound just as good as my records ever sounded. With a little work, I can take the pop and hiss out of my CD recordings later and make better coppies.
Man, you people keep on getting this completely wrong.
Expensive things are completely worthless. That is the reason WHY they are expensive in the first place. If something was important, culturally valuable, or truly fun and great for people, it would simply be passed around like good jokes and sung as songs around campfires.
Why complain that crap is expensive? Being expensive is what make it crap.
Yeah, losers, keep on complaining that Britany spears records cost 16 bucks.
Take this personaility test.
But every form of music you list is at a different quality. Why should the music company suddenly be forced to give you a better quality recording of the music when they introduce a new form of it, tape -> cd for instance? I can agree with allowing you to make a copy of your music in a different form but forcing a company to make the new form free, or even to offer a discount, is in the realm of marketing, not ethics or law.
The book on the recent history of the music industry "Off the Charts" has a chapter about how the CD format was largely forced onto the public in the 80's. (With many early CD releases, only a much smaller number of vinyl copies were presssed despite a great demand still for vinyl early on.) The music companies realized quite correctly that people would have to buy much of their music all over again and indeed, what started out as a slow decade ended up with huge profits.
Also, does anyone now recall the general promises from those first few years that someday CD's would be cheaper once the initial costs to set up manufacturing facilities had been recouped? I'm still waiting...
As I have posted here before, it seems clear to me that the music industry is eager to have people buy their music yet again, this time in a "secure" digital format. So I would expect to see some sort of new playing device (perhaps a chip or software) that can only play back "secure" music but not music ripped from current CD's. This would also allow them to get rid of the problem of used CD's - I'm sure whatever music you download (at least at first) will be non-transferrable.
But IMO if they actually do this, it will be a boon for fringe or independent artists. They may not get rich, but many of them will be able to pursue careers via downloaded or homemade CD's the way a variety of people are starting to today. I mean, if you have a choice of paying maybe $10 for a plain old CD that you can play anywhere or later sell to someone else, or else $15 to download some files with a bunch of restrictions on them so you can only play them on your own registered devices or whatever, it seems like a no brainer to me.
There is good independent music out there - the problem is trying to get it onto the increasingly corporatized radio playlists.
TWR, Torrance, CA
If one sells CDs like one sells fries, then I find it hard to appreciate how one can claim to have sold the rights to the customer. WHO did you just sell to and how did you ensure that you did not sell the same thing twice, since rights can only be granted once?
I would love to see companies actually start living up to their obligation as the licensors to the rights. If they actually did this, then one can actually see if their business model works.
IMO, it's not a business model if fraud and misrepresentation is involved.
To write a software upgrade you are looking at 1 year to 2 years of hard work by 50 to 1000 or more people depending on the product.
To upgrade analog to digital recording you use the same machine you did for every other "upgrade" of the music you did. Maybe you hire a tech for a couple days to clean up the music and "remaster" it. You hire artists for a month or two to come up with a clever jacket design and some logo stuff and bam send it to print where it costs you $.25 a copy (I don't really know the price but it can't be much) and ship it to the stores.
The reason that software companies sell the upgrades at a discounted price for people that own the products already and the media companies do not is that the media companies get away with charging full price to everyone.
Think about it, how many people have gone "I'll just keep Office 95 cause it does everything I want and Office 2000 doesn't do anything extra that I like." Also notice that the discounts are all in product areas where there is little difference between the products. Think of games, a place where you rarely get a discount for owning a previous version, they are all fully different in each version and make you want the new version.
In media the same thing goes. Usually the new versions are on media that is vastly superior in quality (DVD or CD) or its some sort of collectors edition that gets you some extra footage or sound clips that you wouldn't get any other way.
So it has very little to do with the price to produce the new version and everything to do with demand in the market.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
So who has it right us or them?
:)
whoever makes the most money
"So who has it right us or them?"
Perhaps no one has it right. Or maybe everyone does. Who is us and who is them? Is someone who subscribes to a different copyright model one of "them" even though it isn't the same model "they" use?
The joys of philosophy and binary abstraction.
Annnyyway, perhaps one reason that software companies offer upgrades at reduced prices and "they" don't is because there is competition among software. Or maybe it's just to get people who otherwise wouldn't upgrade to do so?
USA is like this too. Check into Fair Use laws. Actually, they may be called something else, but, yes, it is perfectly legal to make copies of stuff as long as you are not proffiting off of it.
Yeah, very good observation. See my post in the other article where they used it. Begging the question strictly speaking is assuming something that you can't logically assume and then using that assumption to arrive at the conclusion (which is more often than not the original assumption).
"Pay to play" - Sounds simular to what M$ are trying to do with their .net stuff. Yeah moderate this down for being off-topic or trolling.
-Jasa -- Linux - The SOURCE will be with you, ALWAYS
My point is, all intellectual property laws are so fuzzy and full of loopholes that it's no crime to break them. I can't see anything morally wrong in many acts of so-called "copyright violations", only take care that your legal bills don't get too high.
Firstly, you are not "Buying the right to listen". You are buying a copy. Lets get this right. The media companies don't seem to be able to grasp this concept but perhaps we can.
But when you buy 2 copies, you ARE getting the same thing! Copyright exists because development costs are considerably greater than manufacturing costs. Since they have already sold a vinyl record they have presumably recouped the development cost. Logically they have no further need for copyright protection. Logocally they should give it away at cost of media (plus a 50% markup for profit) to anyone who has already bought it. Will they? What and make less profit?
Well, my brother's not a lawyer, but he owns a computer store, and he said that when I bought a game for one platform, I could play _that specific_ game on any platform it had been released for. Case in point: I bought Colonization for PC and he let me copy his Colonization for Amiga (and he's _not_ pro-software-piracy), since I would never play the game at a PC and an Amiga at the same time ...
One of your postulates is that when you buy a CD, for example, you are either buying the music, or buying the right to listen to it. In fact, you are buying neither.
You already know that you are not buying the music itself because that would mean a transfer of copyright. That does not take place at all in the cases you mention. You conclude that you are in fact buying the right to listen to the music. That is false. The right to listen to any music is something you already have. Music and written works are so far only protected by copyright laws, which, as we know, only cover copying, modification and distribution. Use is not covered.
Did you really think that it was illegal for you to listen to the radio just because you have not bought all the CDs played there? What about at a bar, or at a friend's place? Do you think laws expect us to walk around covering our ears for fear of committing a crime? The right to listen to music is something you already have. You can listen to any music you want, read any book you want... As long as you can obtain a medium on which it appears.
So... What do you get when you buy a CD? Neither the music in its abstract form, nor the right to listen to is. What you buy is simply a round object with a hole in it, and which presumably contains non-empty music tracks. What you buy is the medium itself. That pretty much explains why most of the time, buying a book twice costs twice as much as buying it once. There is no overlap in what is bought.
To sum up: When you buy software, what you actually get is a EULA. When you buy a music CD, all you get is a music CD.
In fact, the law actually says we don't need to own the music in the first place. That is, it is perfectly legal to copy music from, say, the radio.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Thanks for bringing out these important points -- but Jefferson alone was not the author nor the only source of authority.
Since much of the precedent is from European law and practice, it's useful to recall that the concept of intellectual property and copyright arose when publication -- that is, the separation of art and object -- came about, especially through printing.
Previously, each copy was in effect an original, copied by hand and differently illuminated, set out, and even changed. The idea of clarifying and enforcing what could be done by the purchasers of the object made it possible for commercial publishing to succeed. Artists applauded that trend because -- and this is important to remember in the case of writing and composition -- the object is not the art, it is only a set of instructions (even, now, digital ones) for presenting a version of that art.
So the Constitution's granted right may appear more restrictive than Europe's, but it's also crucial to realize that this is so important that it is the only right granted in the body of the Constitution itself, and not in the later amendments.
DennisIt used to be 28 years, renewable.
The 75-year change was pushed for by media companies, and traded for the loss of rights to incidental restaurant play that that industry had lobbied for.
The composers (like me) were, as usual, pushed to the back of the discussion.
But hey, the media companies are certainly enjoying the smokescreen that discussions like this on /. provide. It takes the focus away from the WTO, the media companies, and other large-scale organizations who are re-thinking and re-writing laws of all sorts to the advantage of large corporations, with the enthusiastic assistance of governments falling all over themselves to make their nations "competitive" in a capitalism-driven world.
Do you think they care if you copy a buddy's CD? Of course not. Ultimately, the corporate influence and technology will be so pervasive that the hardware and software needed to copy whatever you want to copy will be locked up. Distribution will move away from the plastic object as soon as secure methods start working for 99% of the population, and the rest of you be damned. (A friend I hadn't heard from in 20 years called last night, having found my name on the web. He wanted to know how he could listen to my "station", having no clue how to use anything but AOL. Old paradigms in new technologies. It works for them.)
Anyway -- sorry to rant here -- all they have to do is keep all of us arguing long enough to have an easy, secure method in place before we do. And it's working! We're just arguing instead of building an alternative method to deconstruct protection, clickwrap, EULAs, etc., en masse.
And furthermore, like Bertelsmann and Napster, the industry can provide a large enough bribe to shut up any threats, or fight anyone else to a legal draw and drain their resources, such as MP3.com.
The best news for the industry? Discussions like this one, which quickly devolve into "hey, what if I want to copy my old vinyl?"
DennisI think this guy has it right on, you should pay your $10 to have the rights to an album and then you can listen to it or own it in any medium that you want, and with the internet becoming whatever its becoming I think its becoming easier and easier to implement something like this. If a cd was $5 and I got to legally copy it into different mediums I would actually purchase a lot more cds.
You've shattered my Heinlenesque view of a future America. Shame on you.
"Blow up your TV/Throw away your paper/
Move to the country/Build you a home"
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
... is that this is the point of such companies existing. Companies, in the "old" days, held the original master recordings or, in the case of movies, the master prints. They then leased out the right to make copies of these to companies set up expressly for that purpose (and often existing as subsidiaries of the production house). However, as technology expanded and the populus got the ability to do this copying itself, laws were created to suddenly prevent you from protecting yourself if you were caught with what was (and still is) considered the property of the corp. The other option is to *not* release the tech to the people, but that looks pretty bad to most folks (ie solar power not really getting a foothold in America due to corporate interests).
BUT... This is what happens when people live in a mindset that money is everything. It is *not*. You can't eat it, you can't build a house out of it. Set it aside.
"Blow up your TV/Throw away your paper/
Move to the country/Build you a home"
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
You bring up a very good point. Obviously, you really are not paying for the right to listen to the IP. You are paying for the media, mass-production costs, distribution costs, storage costs, warehouse overhead, sales-rep salaries/commissions, and taxes. IP is only what you think you are paying for. That is why royalties on music/television are only a few cents per song/episode.
it seems that most slashdotters have forgotten the world outside software, I/T, etc. As one person pointed out, you are confusing copyrights with EULA. There's no EULA involved when you purchase music. EULA agreements are stricter than copyright laws, otherwise there wouldn't be a need for them. So why would you want to take music and other media and reduce the amount of freedom that you have with it? If media were more like software, everybody sitting in your room listen to your copy would have to purchase there own license to listen to it. With music you are simply buying a "copy" of something. It's similar with movies, but there is some additional restrictions - the license to broadcast isn't inherent. With software you are buying a license to use the product. Unlike a "copy" of something, it's often a violation of a EULA to resale the license. Futhermore, the Home Recording Act (U.S.) grants you ability to make copies for personal use, so you don't _have_ to purchase other copies. You could copy from one format to another for personal use. It's advised that we all learn more about the HRA and other copyright laws and understand the difference between rights to copy and rights to use. The HRA is the kind of things being brought up in the appeals around 2600 making copies of DeCSS.
The major protections granted via copyright are: Reproduction rights - the right to control copying of your works Public Performance and Display Rights - the right to prevent display of your work to large groups or for profit Distribution Rights - The right to control transfer of your work Derivitive work rights - the right to exclusively use ideas that are "spin offs" or modifications of your original work. The major exception, of course, is fair use. Thus, if you want to make a digital recording of your old record and then burn a CD for use in your car CD player, your fine. But when you buy a new CD, you are paying the copyright holder to waive his reproduction, distribution, and possibly (in the case of a remastered album, directors cut, or software upgrade) derivitive work right. Bottom line - copyrights are intended to foster innovation in writing, performance, art, etc. by granting authors (of books, software, whatever) a monopoly over their work product. You can make legitimate arguments that monopolies don't foster innovation, or that the costs of limiting access to particular works outweighs the benefits of the monopoly. But you can't argue that the album you purchased 30 years ago gives you the legal right to a shiny new CD.
nuff said
But since then I I've recollected those Albums, well the songs on them using Napster. Seeing when one purchases an album one also receives the right to copy that album for ones own personal use, then that means I still have a license to copy those songs. The receipts I have (I always keep receipts) are my proof, they are in fact my license to copy those songs off the net. Anyway its not as if Radio Birdman, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground or the Joy Division are going to sue me - as I work in a cash industry & all my assets are in assumed names or the names of relatives.
The extra content its because they want to add features to dvds so people will buy more dvds than vhs, its marketing, like bonus tracks on cds a couple of years ago, BUT if you own buy a license for a tape, you should be able to return the tape, pay the dollar that costs the cd/dvd or whatever and have it, after all, the price its for the copyright, the right to use it or listen to it or whatever, and not for the tape/cd or whatever media its on.
Isn't this really what's at the heart of the battle over Napster (gnutella, etc.)? ;)
(Might as well work this into the discussion
The media companies have it wrong by not rewarding past customers who have already bought similar music/videos/you name it.
But then again, we have it wrong by assuming that once you buy a copy of something it should last forever. Houses need maintainance, food goes moldy over time, and yes, music needs a record company to keep the music in a high fidelity format so that it can be released later when new media formats are introduced.
Don't forget the cost of shipping/packaging/etc too!
-bboy doodles
"C is for Cookie"
If you own a version of Microsoft Office, Microsoft will sell you a copy of the latest version for a reduced price. So who has it right us or them?"
When I read to that part of the article, milk came out of my nose, I could just imagine MS execs sitting around:
-----
Exec1: "Hmm, we aren't selling as many copies of Office as we used to, and our revenue slipped from $500B to $499B, what should we do?"
[dramatic music, dun dun dun]
Exec2: "I know! We can just charge more for the same product when they upgrade!"
All: "Hurraaaay!!!"
[happy music, birds singing, all that crap]
-----
Does anyone question whether this is going on or not? Personally I wouldn't be surprised.
Hammer of Truth
I agree - very good idea. Seperate the media from the IP. Only probelem is: how do you prove that you own the IP? The record companies may require you to send in a registration card, then guess what! Only RIAA authorised outlets with access to the database that tells them which IP's you own will be able to sell you replacement CD's so small record shops suddenly have no business. Wouldn't this make second hand record shops dodgy as you would have to sign away your IP rights as well as the media just my 0.02 gbp
That $1.50 is more than the artist gets if I just get free CDRs from my friend. When I buy CDs I tend to immediately rip them and record it on my MD player and let the CDs sit in a big pile in my room, where it's hard for them to get scratched.
-antipop
the container ITSELF is part of the product.
This is a good point. I have mounds of CDRs people have burned me, but I still continue to buy CDs, many of which I already have on CDR. Why? I want liner notes, lyrics, art, and the warm-fuzzy feeling that I gave money back to the band. The record industry isn't just selling CDs, they're selling a packaged product and that packaging is just as much a part of the product as the music.
I remember reading an interview a few months ago with the metal band Finger Eleven. The reporter asked them how they felt that their new album had been leaked to Napster two months before it had hit stores. They told the reporter they didn't care about people passing their music around, what they didn't like about Napster was that their music wasn't presented to the listener the way that they had originally intended it to be. They wanted the listener to see the art they had made and everything else because it was just as much a part of their CD as the music.
Anyways, that's what I think. The music is important, but so is the rest of it.
BTW, Finger Eleven's album "The Greyest of Blue Skies" is awesome =).
-antipop
If I don't have the right to share it, does that mean I have to shut the music off when a friend drops by? Does that mean that I must play the music at a volume low enough to keep others from hearing it outside my car or home? And if I suddenly play my CD at the same time I'm playing the music on my computer and on my Rio, (no matter how bad that all might sound together) am I headed for 30 years behind bars? I still don't think these are the answers. I resent the idea that I've bought the music with only the right to play it on the media that the music is currently on. I have some nice vinyl, but now that my record player is long gone and more convenient formats have come along, I feel it's perfectly legitimate for me to own a digital copy, no matter whether it came off my vinyl or someone else's CD. Not owning the music is a completely different matter.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
You don't own the bits. That's RIAA's position, and that's the reason MP3.Com's MyMP3 service got sued. If you owned the bits, then it would have been perfectly legal.
The following is from a conversation I had with a RIAA rep:
Needless to say, I did not receive a response to my final email message. Of course with MyMP3 shutdown, I had to give up on that. Instead I ripped all my CDs myself and now anyone can listen to them via Live365. How this was a win for the record company, I have no idea. http://www.somewhere.com/radio.pls"
considering the date.. it's unlikely that anyone's going to be back here to read this.. but if you do, then please invest in a sense of humor, it'll do wonders.
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
Just remembered this old maxim :)
How very true it is in the digital world. Once you've got your hands on some music or software, legit or not, you've already won the game.
Software patents delenda est.
My point is, all intellectual property laws are so fuzzy and full of loopholes that it's no crime to break them. I can't see anything morally wrong in many acts of so-called "copyright violations", only take care that your legal bills don't get too high. It seems to me that intellectual property law is necessary for a capitalist information economy to function. There are heaps of laws inflicted upon us in order to let capitalism work. Basically, we give exclusive ownership and control of a physical or intellectual "thing" to one party at the expense of the rest of society. The law governing physical property has had more time to mature to a semblance of fairness, not to mention that many generations of use have made it "right". The law governing intellectual property is a bit different. It hasn't influenced the majority long enough to become "right", and it's been drafted by power elites and hence unfairly favours these elites. The point is, IP law has no credibility. That's why you don't see anything morally wrong in breaking it. As industrial economies become information economies, we're going to need credible information laws, otherwise the bubble will burst, and we'll get another great depression. The law needs to be changed to fit reality. People copy. Music, software, ideas, you name it, we'll copy it. People don't see any harm in copying. You can brainwash them, or you can change the law, or you can have a lawless society. Brainwashing hasn't worked. The status quo is civil disobedience. Not the best situation. I think most people will try to uphold those laws which they see as legitimate. If I saw a mugging in progress and the attacker looked manageable, I would intervene. Otherwise I'd at least identify them to police. I think mugging is wrong and I want to do my bit against it. Consider IP law. Would you dob in a friend for IP law violations? How about a stranger? How about somebody you really hate, like the employer who just fired you? Getting close to my point. IP law sucks. Fix it.
Software patents delenda est.
There is no way for the media companies to determine if you actually own another copy.
Huh? Music is software, just like applications. Application software companies require proof of ownership before giving you a discounted upgrade or replacement. A very similar model could work for music. That is, assuming music publishers actually want to participate in the new distribution channels available to them.
I make slip cast ceramics (and sell them on eBay)when I buy a mold i have the right to use it for as long as I want, but they wear out and eventually, usually less than a year, they have to be replaced. And the more finely detailed it is the faster it becomes unusable.
and at least with music you do have the right to make another copy for your own use, I can't (legally, hehehe) make a copy of my molds.
Some may look at the external packaging as advertising, but it is also art, just as the music itself is art. I don't see how any of the internal pictures, lyric sheets, etc. could be construed as advertising, since you can't even see them until after you've purchased and opened the packaging.
Conversely, the music itself is advertising, when it is played for free on the radio. A single played on the air serves as an advertisement for listeners to buy the single or the album it came from.
I point this out to show that whether something is art or advertising is dependent upon the context of the situation, and the two are not mutually exclusive qualities, just as a ball may be both round and red at the same time.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The reason for releasing director's cuts, or re-releasing old vinyl recordings on cd, is so that you will buy them again. It is strictly a marketing issue. The reason Microsoft offers upgrades at a discount, is also a marketing issue. People with a working OS, are not as willing or likely to pay top dollar for a new OS with marginal improvements, as people with no OS are. As to the copyright issue, it has been decided by our benevolent government, that when you purchase copyrighted materials, that you have limited rights to transfer those materials to different medias for convenience of personal use, but to distribute copies to other persons is a clear violation of copyright. As to pricing, that is strictly up to the copyright holder and is not covered under copyright law. If you buy a book, and decide you want another copy of that book, there is no onus or benefit for the publisher to give a discount on the second book.
i have a cd that is scratched, will the record company please send me a free replacement for my "liscensed media?"
No.
In any case, if you did, it would be a copy for your personal use only.
Idiot.
Are you adequate?
A CD reissue of an old LP is typically not a reproduction of an old recording-- it is a remastered interpretation of the original recording, in a different format. And mastering is certainly creative work.
Are you adequate?
this guy has it all wrong. Copyright today means exactly what the sum of its parts mean: The right to copy. It's that simple. When you buy a cd you have licensed it and have the ability to copy it for your own personal use. But these copies are second hand and are not perfect from the original, which the record company owns. They make money by making copies from the original and selling those. It's their right alone to do that. As technology progresses, new formats will come out that contain better and better sound quality which the record companies will exercise their right to make music in. This same music that you may already have will be charged for two reasons: 1. It's of better quality and format. 2. (The point I'm going for) It's ANOTHER COPY. It's the record companies right to charge for addition copies. That's how they make money after all. If we go on the assumption that once you pay for music that all copies there after are free then stupidity would rule. People would pay once and then demand 800 free copies for their friends or the music companies would have to charge millions for music in order to turn a profit. So in Summary, suck it up and pay again for that Beetles album. Life's a bitch like that.
Caffeine Good
This is a problem that dates back when the first vinyl record was released. It's a flawed system that started on the wrong foot, and not it seems it's too late to change things, since the majority of the people think it's a good concept.
This is what the whole Napster thing is revolving around. Lars Ulrich thinks he should be rewarded for his work. Work that he did 10 years ago. (?!?!) That's bullshit! I'm not going to pay $16 for a mere copy of an album he recorded 10 years ago! Give me his original studio recording, and I will gladly pay you. If Ulrich performed for every single CD recording, then Yes, he would have a point.
The point here is that the music and software industry get away with a lot of crap because of this flaw. Just think about it for a second: Why would you pay $40 for a CD that had a copy of a game on it, and took an average of 80 cents to make? That's $39.20 profit for the software company. I don't buy CD's or games, just because I would feel like a stupid idiot moron, for paying for Dr Dre's weed and Madonna's rent, when they had absolutely nothing to do with the CD I just bought.
Just take a second and think about this people. You take all these copyright laws for granted, when the Hollywood and software giants are praying that people don't figure out the trick to this banal process that pays for their 20 lbs gold necklaces.
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
WOW! You are so off the subject here...
You are not entitled an upgrade price in a fridge, because the company chose not to charge people for their inellectual property. They charge for the physical property.
When you buy another fridge, you pay for physical materials, and the labor it took for the fridge to work. You should not be entitled to an upgrade price.
CD's and software are in a totally different spectrum. If you buy a CD and scratch it beyond recognition, you have to re-pay the original price if you want another one. THat's WRONG! You'd already paid for the intellectual property part of that CD when you first bought it. You should now pay what that physical CD is worth. Which is $0.80.
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
[snip] All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited.
That seems to make it pretty clear that you don't have the right to: copy it for a friend, to tape, to mp3, have the bit code printed on a t-shirt or tatoo'd on to your body, or any other form of copying or reproduction without the record company's authorisation.
Just like your last copy of Office, there's a license agreement printed on the packaging and, if you don't like it, you don't have to buy it.
Sorry, it's not clear to me they don't make much money from their albums, I've never seen their accounts. Using gross figures is a ridiculous way to measure the money the performers actually made. I've also not seen the Grateful Dead live, but then they didn't play Scotland that much. I _have_ seen their albums in many, many retail outlets. I presume that the shops have the CD's in stock because they can sell them. So I would have thought that global album sales might themselves bring in a bit of cash.
You also say they "subsist" on playing live, and many a musician can tell you that constant touring can play havoc with your personal life, especially if you want to raise a family. And this for a band with world-wide recognition. If you can reach the top of your game and still have to work constantly at what you imply is the _most_ profitable part of the business, then that would suggest to me that you are rather selfish in not being willing to pay for their official products.
As for the Dave Matthews Band, I know that at least the drummer, Carter Beaufort, makes money out of instructional videos and sponsorship by some pretty major companies. Most tours also get sponsored, otherwise most tours would lose money. And don't forget all the merchandise etc.
But what if you were a new, little known artist? Noone wants to buy your merchandis, the money you make from a gig will barely pay for the hotel fees, fuel bills, equipment costs and so on. Maybe there's several bands on in a night, you're not headlining, maybe even less money to be had. You're new, so Budwiser and Coke ain't exactly beating a path to your door with a sponsorship deal. Meanwhile, all the cash you put into recording an album (which maybe you earned waiting tables between practising, recording and promotional work), you can't get that back because, hey, music is supposed to be free.
Bands like the Dead and (one of my favourites) Widespread Panic might encourage bootlegs, but they also derive significant income from album sales. If they make so much money that this is only a small proportion of their income, great. But there have always been more people struggling to make a living out of music, film or whatever than there are superstars. Maybe people should give these people a break and try to find a new business model where they can get paid. For the few who get rich, all the best to 'em, hope they enjoy it. Just don't use them as a typical example of an artist.
You can't copy books. It's against the law. You can lend CDs to a friend. Even if you're perhaps not allowed to do that legally (IANAL), that would probably be the case for books too. They suffer from the same laws. Books are also intellectual property, it's just that it's not that that big an industry and therefore people don't care as much.
You can remix your CD tracks all you want same as you can scrible in a book. As long as you don't play it in public (you can't copy books to the public either).
The record companies and artists have been pushing a model that while serving there own purposes, has a few inherent flaws as far as we, the consumers are concerned and they are gonna bite them in the ass. We're made to buy whole albums when sometimes all we're interested in is the one decent tune. They sometimes selectively present us with the option to buy a single, usually at an inflated unit price, usually we have to buy the whole CD album. This system could be dictated to us because bootlegging from friends and making home-made compilation tapes were an arduous process resulting in a sub-par quality product. Gnutella and Napster changed all that. we became empowered. Now I'm more than willing to pay something, maybe even up to a dollar or so to license the listening rights to a particular song, provided I could stick it on some digital format. This would lead me to buy many more songs I hear on the radio and on TV that I would never buy if I needed to put the whole album for $10 or $20. Artists will no longer have to wait until ten or twelve songs are available to release them and this would help many newer groups. Self-indulgent artists will also have to accept the fact that some of the works they hold so dear (the B-sides and non-singles) will not be downloaded and therefore financially recognized as often as they would like. If people want CDs replete with liner notes, they have to buy them. I liken this to theater programs (which we pay for in Europe) or concert programs, which some people like to keep as a souvenir. Remixes should be paid for like new releases, which isn't too bad if it only costs a buck a download. The current system reminds me in a way of a restaurant that only has set menus with no substitutions or changes. The sensitive little chef believes that his way is the only way to serve food. Well, give artists that choice. Sometimes albums are made to listen to in their entirety and not a collection of singles. But in that case, let artists face the market.
I don't know about everyone else, but I have recieved ports from software companies as well. My original copy of Windows95 was on abou 20 floppies and did not have all of the functions that came on the CD copy. When I got the upgrade to Windows98 from M$ it came on a CD and had all of the extra functions and tools that were not available to me originally.
I think this is the kind of thing the original message was asking about. Not only did I get more functionality, but it was also ported to a new media. And all of this for a nominal fee (when compared to going out and buying a brand new copy of Windows98). I think what we're looking for is why we cannot do the same, trade in our VHS copy of a movie and get the DVD (which has more functions and is on a new media) for a cheaper price?
I forget how (you can probably find directions somewhere), but there are ways to hook up a record player (borrow someone's) to your computer. You can probably find directions at some handy dandy howto site.
Either rip mp3's to your hard drive (I think you have to specify times to separate tracks) or make .wav files and burn those (borrow someone's if you don't have one) directly to a CD. Be sure to separate tracks. The only thing you have to buy is a blank CD and perhaps owing a favor to your friends.
The fact that nobody is forcing you to buy the CD version of that old vinyl record doesn't mean that the record companies are in their right. Of course you are legally entiteled to make a tape or MP3 copy of your vinyl record for your own enjoyment, i.e. as long as you do not distribute it.
The question is then why the record companies don't sell us that copy at a reduced price, covering manufacturing and distribution costs plus a small profit. We all know the answer of course: they believe they make more money keeping things as they are.
Same goes for movies. You bought the regular version. No one is forcing your hand to buy the directors cut, that's a choice that you're making. You need responsibly weigh the merits of buying something you already own versus the benefits of seeing a couple editted out scenes or maybe some interviews. If you decide that $19.99 is cheap enough to justify the purchase, that's your decision.
I think we need to say this again. Since you are only buying the RIGHT to LISTEN to the music you are actually buying NOTHING the second time around. Of course it is your choice to pay for nothing.
We can illustrate it lke this: GNU/Linux is a free OS. I think we all agree on that. You have the right to use, modify and redistribute the software without paying any fees provided you comply with the GPL. You can get a distribution free from any number of sites on the net. Still, if you choose to get a hard copy from a distributor you will have to pay a small price to cover the expenses and hopefully give the company a small profit. This does not mean that you have paid anything for the right to use, modify and redistribute that free software. Same goes for music (in principle). When you buy a record in a store that price includes a licensing fee, that gives you the right to listen to the music, and charges to cover the cost of distributing the music. Of course there is a small(?) profit for the store as well. If you already have the right to listen to the music (in the same manner as you have the right to use, modify and redistribute GNU software) why should you have to pay for that right again?
I think software is the only industry that has an "upgrade" price as the defacto standard. Some car dealers will accept trade in's, while others won't. If you buy a refridgerator and a few years later the manufacturer updates the model with a differently shaped ice cube maker, you're not automatically entitled to that since you own the first version of the refridgerator.
Comparing car trade in deals with copyright does not make sense. They are in priciple very different because when you are buying a car you are paying for the actual metal, glass, textiles and other stuff, not the right to drive around in it.
Past that... Stick to your vinyl. Get a new record player and fight the disappearance of records... Plenty of bands still release on vinyl, and more probably would if they saw compelling reasons to do so...
Finally something I can agree upon. As much as I enjoy the wonders of MP3s I still like to bring out my old records (be they CD tape or vinyl) and listen to them.
1 You own the physical media and the right to use that media under specific circumstances.
2 That's not right. You own the physical media and the right to do anything the hell you want with that media, except for a few little things, like sell copies of the IP contained on that media.
Uh, that's redundant. You're just reiterating what the original poster said. You have limited rights to do what you want with it.
But how about this for some examples. I buy FF9 for PSX, and I want the PC version
They are separate programs. Deveopers spend a lot of time and money to do a port. If they couldn't charge separately for it, they wouldn't do it and you wouldn't get a PC version.
- CD players have unmeasurably small wow and flutter (pitch fluctuations due to small speed fluctuations of the platter). In CD players, the decoded data is buffered in memory and clocked out out at a constant speed regulated with a quartz crystal.
- CD players have higher bandwidth, e.g. more high-frequency content. (20 kHz as opposed to approx. 15 kHz) I am aware of the fact that the increase in bandwidth leads to an decrease in SNR, but it can be alleviated by the propor use of high-quality quality equipment.
- Your PinArt analoqy is flawed. A theorem in Digital Signal Processing (Nyquist) states that if you sample an input signal at more than twice its highest frequency component, you dont lose any detail. (Quatizataion effects disregarded for now)
To use the PinArt analogy again: It means that with CD players, the pins are so close together tha it captures every detial of the bre..
,er signal. AS smoothing filter smoothes out the result.
- The SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of record players are lower (about 50 dB) than that of CD players (About 90 dB)
This is probably OT, but the PinArt anogly is exposing a common misconception about digital audio. I also used to have that opinion, until I asked my professor. (Dave Weber).Let's just ask the already over-rich media companies to stop making a killing every time we have to switch formats (BETA>>VHS), etc. - PLUS do something logical. You ask too much.
My opinion? Buy a record player, a used one if necessary, and listen to the vinyl copy the way it was meant to be heard.
"Benefitting" from the label generally means getting somebody else to pay the whopping bills involved in making a professional recording and distributing your cd. While it's becoming increasingly cheaper to record a high quality product on your own and on the cheap (eg. Primus) distribution is still a major factor. Even after Zappa fought with every label in existence in the 70's he still needed on to distribute his product as the logistics of same preclude your general Joe from doing so.
Home recording is getting cheaper and better and the internet is the ultimate distribution mechanism.
But there are always those with starts in their eyes . . .
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Also, see the article by Steve Albini in my original /. post about being "screwed over" - he worked directly with Nirvana and a bunch of other bands - he knows what he's talking about . . .
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
I've bought Black Sabbath Vol. 4 no less than 4 times in my life. At least 3 on LP (cause they wear out) and once on CD. I used to think this was OK because Sabbath (in whatever lineup) was getting the cash. As I've gotten older I've learned that they are getting much less, actually nothing from resale on their music (see the article by Steve Albini that was posted on /. here )
This is the same for all the Zappa and other music I've re-bought on CD. What to do ?
Would you rather spring the cash for re-buys or have your name/id/muscial prefs tracked by a record company ? BTW - if you think M$ is evil (and I agree) ask any entertainment lawyer (who you're sure will be honest with you) how thoroughly, completely and consistently record labels rape 9999 out of 10000 bands they work with. I know, I was in the biz for a while. Get a turntable and record from LP to CD. That's what I do. I do it for my own use and I don't redistribute. Screw record companies and copyright. The bands don't get anything out of it anyway. And especially screw Metallicorp !
just my 2 pfennig
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
You of course can't copy it for use in two places at the same time - that's not fair (as in "fair use").
So, you are quite entitled to copy your LPs onto CD and then MP3. Legally entitled to, despite what record companies tell you.
Gary
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
I used to have a friend called Ian (an aussie) who always claimed that his "English" was correct since English is defined by it's use, and he's using it, therefore it's correct by definition.
Crap.
People who use this as an argument ARE WRONG!
BTW - "Begging the question" is NOT the same as "begs the question" - the former is "raises an issue", the second is a self supporting argument.
Gary
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
Your 2nd point is true
And your 3rd point is mostly true
However, the licence to USE linux is free, it may cost whoever gives you that licence money to do so, but to the end user, that doesnt make the prouduct any less free
The opinions in this post are ficticious. Any similarity to actual opinions, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
You should own a right to use the content, not the media it is on. Of course, that is the debate, how to sell a right of use, and how to track an verify it. Music (usually) cost much less than software, and home users aren't going to bothered with registering music when you buy it. So how do you effectivly track and verify what a user has, so they could "upgrade" to a directors cut, remix, or whatever.
I think that you and your Mi...*ding*
Oh shoot. Microwave is done. Gotta go!
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs."
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Free Software(Open Source, whatever) was not originally conceived as a business model. If you want to make tons of money(as the FSF song goes), don't do Open Source. If you want to make a little less money yet help your neighbor(again as the FSF song goes), develop Free Software
In my experience, Free Software has been developed by the people that use it. If it is their job to use or create it for someone else that uses it, then they will make money. No- they won't make piles of cash, but they'll have a lot more fun doing it.
How would your local Tower Records know whether you own the White Album or not? Why assume that your "right to listen" extends to listening on any platform (and future platform) you want? In my opinion, as long as it's physical media we're talking about, you're going to have to pay the full price. There is no lawing saying that companies MUST provide you with upgrades and such, but maybe that would benefit one that tried it out. I, for one, think something like a discount for buying multiple albums of the same artist would be pretty beneficial to record companies.
---
Ben Garvey
Ben Garvey
"Life is too short to get on the good rides"
In Australia it is legal to make a copy if the purpose is to change media type, BUT you must own and retain the original.
The laws were set up on the assumption that the costs of copying a book or a record or a public episode was high, and this high cost would deter most people form copying these.
So I want a copy of your book, or your record, then I'd pay huge costs to get it, or a cheaper cost to acquire it retail. If I want to snoop on you, then I pay a lot for the detective works.
Under computers, the copying fees are next to zilch, and with most detective work, you can use other people's computers [isn't that what bots are about?].
Since there is no cost effect on the cost of duplication, this is why we're seeing things like the Napster legal issues, and privacy breaches, and so forth. Not because the legal issues have changed, but because the balancing costs of copying have disappeared.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Who has the right to "information"?
Who should the laws protect, the producer(publisher) or the user ?
Everyone has an opinion. Check out the Free software foundation for some very good bedtime reading on these important questions.
One is legally entitled to make a backup recording of the music; burning an LP to a CD would fall within those boundaries, I'd imagine. Just put the vinyl in a box and listen to your CD...as long as you only use one at a time, you should be okay...
--
reverendrich.com
I agree with what is being said here, and have so for some time.
Of course, there is a cost involved to the record companies in manufacturing, and they should profit off of duplicate copies.
Though, the user should be allowed to make their own personal copies however they see fit.
Is there a possible loophole for the record companies?
What if they take this approach:
Buy this piece of physical media (the actual CD, and not the music), and recieve the rights to the music for personal consumption for free!
That way, they do not have to send duplicates for free or reduced price, since the physical media would cost 14.99.
This, to me would seem sneaky and fairly absurd.
But would it hold?
I hope not, but it is all about money, isn't it?
Just an idea..
:).
Recording companies make exclusive contracts with artists--they get a monopoly on the artist's music. What if the government required that artists be allowed to sign with multiple recording studios?
Each studio would then have reasons to lower production costs and improve quality at the same time. I know, hard to swallow but I figured I'd mention it
Just an idea..
:).
Recording companies make exclusive contracts with artists--they get a monopoly on the artist's music. What if the government required that artists be allowed to sign with multiple recording studios?
Each studio would then have reasons to lower production costs and improve quality at the same time. I know, hard to swallow but I figured I'd mention it
Copyrights protect people's ability to make money. What's the definition of wrong in this context?
To the writer of this letter concerning the "great moral injustice" which is forcing you into bankrupcty.. Do you really think your situation is cause for them to set up a discount type service which allows you, once you've bought a certain piece of music, to have access to unlimited copies of the music at the distributors expense? Please think of what your suggesting as an alternative before flaming these "big evil corporations" which are so obviously trying to screw you out of every penny.
Making private copies to whatever medium is fair use, not unauthorised copying as many other contributors to this thread have correctly stated.
The record companies would like to change this but the market (we!) will not accept it.
This is NOT like Microsoft selling you the latest copy at a reduced price. This is like you having an ancient copy of Microsoft Office 1.0 on a 5-1/4" floppy, and expecting to get the latest copy of Office 2000 on DVD for half-price. Just try it. They only extend that grace to a very recent, almost equivalent version. It is NOT clearly wrong to have to pay for the original content twice in order to get the content in the newer version. When will these ninnies understand that IT IS A COPYRIGHT. That means, you get ONE copy, and you CAN'T COPY IT. You can't run off Xerox copies of War and Peace and hand them around to your friends, and you can't make cassette copies of your Vinyl albums and pass them around either. In spite of that, the record companies have for years looked the other way when people make convenience cassette copies for their own use under a term they call "fair use". So go find somebody who has turntable, make a copy of your vinyl album into a computer, and burn yourself a CD. The record company shouldn't have to do this for you for free, or for half-price, or anything else. Consider how rediculous this model sounds: Whooops! I gained a few pounds, can I get a new suit that fits me for half-price since I already own one just like it that's 2 sizes smaller? I can't find my electric drill, but I know I've got one around here somewhere. Can't you just give me another one at half-price if I show you a receipt to prove I bought one 2 years ago? Look, I ate a steak yesterday, and it was good, and now I want another one. So can I get that one for half-price, since part of the old one is still laying around in my stomach somewhere? A record or a CD is property, just like any other property. You can make all the copies you want for your own convenience, and probably no one will care. But don't expect anybody else to do that for you for free.
About MS benevolently selling you upgrades at reduced cost... When Word 6.0 for Mac came out, it was a DOG (slow to load, crashed a lot), and most people I knew opted to go back to previous version 5.1a...so many people opted for this, in fact, that MS saw an opportunity, and for awhile you could actually shell out a benevolently small sum to buy the downgrade to version 6.0! Now, how many people do you think were buying it again?
Regarding the CD issue, this is quite well understood by this point. You might be interested to know that this recent re-release of a bunch of Beatles songs (CD with a big '1' on the cover, naturally not a scrap of material that hasn't been released 6,000 times) obviously made use of _really_ modern technology to the point that it sounds like the CD you made.
To be specific, a lot of these CDs were made off poor masters or treated with markedly inferior 80s/90s era digital processing in the belief that this would make them sound better. That gear was miserable by current standards- 16 bit mix busses, poor understanding of the algorithms, nothing a professional would use in this day and age.
When the sound engineers of the current day got a hold of this stuff (and made this re-release) they did it right- modern 64-bit mix busses, high quality dithering algorithms etc- and I can confirm that their results are quite similar to the original vinyl played over a _good_ system. In particular, the sound was a lot less shrill than most CDs, and the bass was exceptionally good and powerful. Nobody would call it 'muffled', either.
I'd hate for anybody to go off buying this silly rerelease just because I talked about its sonics *g* I think people should _boycott_ the majors. However, I wanted to make the observation because I know lots of people will jump about going 'the CDs are much better sounding!' which is not true. This _recent_ remastering is very good sounding. A lot of the CDs out there are _far_ from that quality level, and in general the vinyl does sound better. This Beatles reissue just happens to do a very nice job of illustrating _how_ the vinyl was sounding better all these years, and gets the 'feel' of the music much better than previous CDs in general.
It's nice that people didn't just sit around assuming CDs were better, because now we can do musical work and have the CDs roughly equivalent to the vinyl- CDs tend to win in noise floor, easy access and pitch stability, vinyl tends to win in warmth, spaciousness, tonality and the ability to convincingly present _loud_ tones, plus the covers are bigger and nicer :) frankly, the CDs used to be _so_ much worse, it's really nice to see them finally coming into their own.
Not around a campfire. ASCAP'll come gitcha! ;)
Please, it would be better if you would not bring up such delicate issues involving intellectual property. I am hoping to get out of any future English classes I may have to take on the grounds that I may mistakenly recall a poem or two and violate the intellectual property rights of the author and publisher.
Books and maps and other physical items have always been treated differently than electronic "intellectual property." I can loan a book to a friend. I can write all over that book. I can burn it to ashes if I want. I've bought the book and am entitled to the physical item. They don't claim that I bought a license to read the book. I bought THE BOOK. With CDs and DVDs and other Digital media, they claim that we're just buying the right to listen to the music. They said this because it allowed them to slap all sorts of restrictions on digital media that copyright doesn't normally allow. Now, it seems that it's coming back to bite them in the ass. People don't want them to have their cake and eat it too. My.MP3.com was the first major challenge to their claims. They won that one on a technicality, and there is now a bill in Congress to remedy that situation. People are slowly starting to wake up to the scam that the IP owners are trying to pull.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The point was that when you bought the record, you paid for 2 things: 1) the media that the music came on, i.e. the 12" vinyl album itself, and 2) the right to listen to the music recorded on that medium.
The cost of the media itself is about $2 these days, including packaging. Give that about 100% markup and a bit more for distribution costs. That comes to $5 for the media, and about $7-$12 for the right to listen to the contents.
But if you have already paid for the right to listen to the contents on a copy you previously bought, why do you have to pay full price to receive a second copy of the media?
The conclusion that you could draw is that since the second copy that you purchase for yourself costs the same as the first, then the record companies are charging 100% of the price for the media and that the right to listen to it is 0% of the price. Therefore, if I copy the music and give it to someone else, I have cost the music company $0. So if I were to make a copy and distribute it on Napster, the record company would be able to sue me for that $0, and nothing more.
QED.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
i can see two answers to this. the second is a bit more pragmatic.
the sensible version, to me, is that people should buy the right to experience something. the storage and distribution mechanisms are not relevant. If you lose your copy, or want to upgrade to a better storage medium, then you can do it at cost plus handling, as long as your right-to-experience can be verified. This only really works for digitable media, but old models are perfectly fine for books and vinyl anyway.
probably depends on watermarking, though. uh oh.
the other version - what actually happens - is very simple. whatever they can get away with. You agreed to it when you bought the white album under a license that said you were buying a piece of plastic that happened to have a spiral groove on it.
the record companies have something you want. they didn't assemble it with your happiness in mind and they'll wring out of you whatever they can for as long as you consent. in that it seems to have worked out rather well for them, i'd say that they do have it right, yes.
Additionally, we are not limiting ourselves to descriptions of the law when we broach this topic. Often the law is at profound variance with common sense. At times it is simply wrong. "The law" can even be contradictory, or pending a test case, or waiting to be found (in the US) unconstitutional. Many of us feel that most enforcements of intellectual property that content owners are trying to muster encroach against common sense, normal healthy human behaviour, and the best interests of intellectual and cultural discourse, whatever their legal standing happens to be.
>use record companies in particular are so inefficient, a big chunk of the cost of the CD is in manufacturing and distribution
I believe you are incorrect. The most widely cited figure is $1.00 for pressing and printing a commercial CD in the quantities we are talking about here. This is how BMG and Colombia House can afford the 12 CD's for a penny promotions.
They could charge somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.00 for new media in a case like this and still make money.
Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
I bought a whole bunch of vinyl records at flea markets and yard sales over the past 4 years. I've worked up my collection to about 100 albums on Vinyl of good old Classic Rock. The thought occured to me, do I actually have any sort of right to this music at all? I mean, law permits me to make a "backup copy" of the music. What if I make a "backup copy" onto a cd using your CD of the album I borrowed? This is similar to me copying my vinyl onto a CD. Same music, same backup media, different source.
..
Yet another gray area of law
this laser vinyl player. No contact, no wear, but yes it is sensitive to every spec of dust and dirt (not to mention quite expensive). That's the solution with lots of techs appeal.
As for the original question, not until the public starts demanding a LICENSE of rights to enjoy a work instead of a physical artifiact, and fat chance of that ever happening. Music is sold on the premise that the end user knows diddly squat about copyrights, licenses, and the little bastards will give away and sell copies and derivitive works at every opportunity, and must have technological handcuffs placed on each unit to everyone's detriment (which appears to be a valid assumption).
As a matter of fact, the recording industry beginning with Edison was pretty paranoid, restrictive and fascist, obsessed and fearful of losing control. I happen to have a genuine Edison blue amberol cylinder from around 100 years ago that reads:
"This record is sold upon the condition that it shall not be re-sold to or by any unauthorized dealer or used for duplication, and that it shall not be sold, or offered for sale, by the original, or any subsequent purchaser (except by an authorized jobber or factor to an authorized retail dealer) for less than 35 cents in the Untied States, nor in other countries for less than the price given in the current Edison catalogues of the country in which it is sold."
of course that scarecrow of a boilerplate never stopped anyone with the means to dup and distribute their favorite artists work.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The only way to get rid of these parasites is to listen different, see different and think different (and not just about buying a Mac.)
Just develop a taste for life outside the stream and innure yourself to the noise. If you don't spend, its so much easier to tune out the ads. Think of the time you have left to think and enjoy life if you unplug from the acquisition mill.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Media companies, in fact compaines in general, will sell you what you are willing to buy.
When a media company has bought the rights to a piece, they have the right to control every copy of that piece that was not created through fair use.
If they do not want to grant you any discount based on what you have already bought, they do not have to.
The implicit questions in all of these discussions are:
1. Does an artist have a right to control copies of his work?
2. Does an artist have a right to sell right 1. to annother party?
If you believe that both of these are natural rights, (and I do) then it follows that artists, and by extention the companies that purchase their copyrights, can place any restrictions they want (outside fair use) on those copies.
Thank you for not thinking.
Just an afterthought... Since my examples were physical property versus intellectual property... When you buy a map and they add streets, you aren't entitled to a new map. Nor if you buy a hard cover book and later decide that you'd like the paper pack edition. Or if you buy a dictionary one year, you don't qualify for an upgrade price when they release a new one a few years later.
<I>The problem with your analogy is that Mac Office and PC Office are seperate things. The original poster wasn't asking for a copy of Abbey Road, he wanted the same intellectual property that he had on vinyl on CD media.</i>
The the extent that Mac and PC office are different products, so are the vinyl, cassette and CD releases of music. They all have different part numbers, upc numbers, etc...
The vinyl version of the white album is the version of the white album meant to be played on record players. The compact disc version of the album is the release meant for cd players. Just as the release of Office 97 is the release of office meant for PC's, where as Office 98 is the release of office meant to be ran on Macintoshes.
<I> While it's true we do pay a nominal fee for the replacement media, relative to the price of the software its trivial.</I>
I'm betting that your media cost is still higher than the cost of most music CD's, though... As much as a rip off music might seem to be, it's nothing compared to what most software companies get away with, yet there isn't nearly as much noise made about that anywhere.
To add an analogy to the mix, let's consider another of the IP Rights granted creators - Patents.
Now, avoiding the debate of application and longevity of Patents, and acknowledging that Patens are not exactly the same as Copyrights, consider the following:
Company Y has engineered a particular automobile, which compared to other cars produced, drastically lowers harmful emmissions. This is accomplished by use of their Propriatery Intellectual Property, which has of course been awarded the requisite Patent(s). They then begin mass-production and sales to drivers in Europe, with plans to sell them globally in the coming 2 years.
Now along comes Company T, another automobile manufacturer. It takes a "Y car" and duplicates the engine design for their "T car" and begins sales to North American drivers.
Although the "Y car" and the "T car" do not necessarily look the same, although they may. They are a violation of Company Y's Patents because they incorperate Company Y's IP in their design.
You, the driver of either the "Y car" or "T car" are not in violation of anything, as you simply bought the end product. You cannot, however, dismantle your car and rebuild it using the IP of Company Y without identifying that fact (ie: You cannot remove all of the serial numbers and identifiers from each component and replace them with something identifying you as the owner of the IP). If you think you can, I'd dare ya to sell a car with the VIN removed from all locations - you will be arrested on suspicion of Grand Theft Auto.
So what is the basic point of all of this?
Well, the "Y car" is not itself IP - it just contains IP. Just as a CD is not itself IP - it also just contains IP. The songs contained on the CD are IP. I cannot buy a CD from band ZYX and re-record the songs myself as band CBA - band ZYX will sue me for Copyright violations for trying to pass their songs off as written by me. Just as Company Y would sue Company T above for Patent Infringement for trying to pass off their engine design as being created by Company T.
In otherwords - it's the content - not the packaging that is IP.
So, what you are buying when you purchase that CD is the packaged product containing Copyrighted works. You are not purchasing the Copyright(s) to that work, nor are you purchasing the right to listen to that work. You are merely purchasing an Authorized copy of that protected IP.
This is why so many people, myself included, don't think that Napster is evil and trading/swapping/copying/whatever MP3's over the Internet is illegal. We are not taking the IP contained on our CD products and selling it as works of our own, nor are we selling unauthorized packaged products (CD, Tape, etc) containing that IP. We are simply doing what radio stations do when they broadcast the very same songs over open airwaves - we're freely allowing anyone who wishes to listen to that content to do so.
So, are you owed a CD of that vinal album? No, of course not. You bought the authorized package of those songs on a specific media. If you want it on another type of media, you need to buy the appropriate authorized package on the alternate format.
Are you free to create your own package of the material? Yes, as long as you do so under Fair Use provisions of Copyright law. You can create a tape containing songs from one or more CD's and listen to them in your car, or give them to your little brother/sister, or best friend. You can create an MP3 archive and give it to the same, and even post it on the Internet for anyone to listen to. You just can't charge for it. Once you make money off of someone elses IP, you have violated the intent(1) of the law.
(1) I use the term intent since these very laws are being rewritten to change this fact - however, the initial intent of IP law is as described.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
The problem with your analogy is that Mac Office and PC Office are seperate things. The original poster wasn't asking for a copy of Abbey Road, he wanted the same intellectual property that he had on vinyl on CD media.
The reality is that software vendors *will* sell you replacement media for things you "licensed." On more than one occasion we've gotten vendors to cough up new media when the media we had was no longer usable. While it's true we do pay a nominal fee for the replacement media, relative to the price of the software its trivial.
Like someone else said in this topic, this is all about making money for the record companies. There's no "fair" for the consumer. If they could make us pay for each song they would.
See, they aren't selling you 'rights'. This isn't software. THey are selling you a recording on a certain medium. Sure, you may legally be allowed to make copies to other mediums (I say may.. I mean you ARE most certainly allowed.).
If you lost your old record... that's YOUR fault... their service is selling reproductions of music. Why should they charge you again? Because they are selling you something!
Now.. the real question is.. what if Johnny gives me a copy of his 2livecrew CD.. see, I bought it years ago too, but it got dropped in the lake. Is that fair? I mean, I did pay for it (this is like the beam-it situation)
The fact remains.. they did not sell me rights to reproduce the music. They sold me a recording.
One of the topics on Slashdot that seems to generate the most ill-informed opinions is copyright law.
Here is a clue: Every objection or complaint that Slashdot readers have posted on this site was anticipated by the authors of the Constitution some 200+ years ago. These guys were REAL thinkers. These ideas have been tested time and again in both the courts and in commerce. Statutes governing Copyrights have been continually refined and updated to ensure fairness to both the author and end user.
If you want to see the careful balance in the law, READ the Constitution and the
case law that has come in front of the Supreme Court.
Copyright is about copying, not about listening or reading. If you buy a book and read it, then give it to your friend to read, neither of you has broken any law nor done anything immoral or unethical. The media companies are trying to warp copyright into a pay-per-view style system, but that isn't what it is about. When you buy an album you're buying a copy of a work. You own that copy. You can do any damn thing you want with it, let as many people listen to it as you'd like. The one thing you can't do is distribute copies of it yourself. Why? Because you don't hold the copyright on it. Get it? Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I'm also not saying that the entire ruling is wrong. I do agree that reverse engineering the Xing player is illegal under the DMCA
It may have been illegal under the DMCa iff this reverse engineering had been done somewhere under the scope of the DMCA. However it wasn't.
IP law is extremely balanced in the amount of time it appropriates exclusivity to one party before becoming public domain.
In the case of copyright subsitute "was" for "is". Any amount of balance has been destroyed by powerful (and mostly commerical) interests changing the law.
Do you suppose that the company should give me credit for my old stuff at the price I bought it for or should it deduct depreciation?
How much depreciation is reasonable on a copyrighted work, considering that it has a lifetime close to a century?
When you buy Mickeysoft Windows, you get a CD with Windows on it, to be used on one machine. You do not get the right to make a hundred copies to run on a hundred machines.
Except if you have bought 100 licences. It's not difficult to buy separate media and licences for software.
"But if you buy a series of bits from an online music site, it's obvious you only bought the right to listen to the music produced by the bits, so you have to pay again if you want to play them on another computer."
I mean, duh!
"Next thing you know, these open source types will start grumbling about this election thing in Florida, and come to some cockamamie conclusion like the current legal practice of 'fair is defined as that which scrapes up votes for our candidate and invalidates votes for our opponent' being a bad thing or something."
- smuggled tape of pillow talk between Hilary Rosen and Judge Kaplan, as taped by Jack Valenti
" The original poster wasn't asking for a copy of Abbey Road, he wanted the same intellectual property that he had on vinyl on CD media. "
Not quite... The quality of the recordings are different and more than likey would have remixed it as well. The original recordings are probably on 1" master and a muititack format of some kind ( 1" 8 track or 2" 24 track?) I am by no means sticking up for the record companies but this argument will not hold true.
AdFuel
What do you really own with your "White Album"? You own the physical media and the right to use that media under specific circumstances. The specific circumstances here are a private performance of the work encoded on the media. To phrase it another way, you don't own the music, you own the right to play the music for yourself from the record you bought. That's all.
This is at the heart of the Napster controversy. People say, "Why pay again for something I already own?", when in fact they DON'T own what they think they do.
Using the software analogy, its like expecting to get a free Windows version of something just because you bought the Mac version, but you don't use your Mac anymore.
Which is why it makes no sense to you. You incorrectly state:
..."
"This begs the question, when I buy an album, what am I buying. I don't own the music, I just own the right to listen to it,
None can control ones right to listen to something. Once the sound is in the air that sound is PD. (The right to perform is another matter and is limited, don't let that confuse you. Similarly the right to control the space something is performed in, such as the movie theatre charging admission.)
So if thats not what you bought, what did you nuy? The answer is inherent in the word COpyright. You bought ONE COPY of a given eprfromance. You have the right to own that copy, and listen to that copy (or eat it, if that turns you on.) Youy don't have the right o perform with that copy (unelss its a performance copy) which is why you can't play it over the internet for others.
Simialrly you don't own the right o make new copeis of that copy. HOWEVER the courts have recognized a limtied righ to make personal archives. So you can makew a copy for your own use. This means that you cantake that vynal albumn to a friend's house who has the right equiptment and cut a CD off it using a CD-ROm burner.
If you want the record company to do that for you, then yes, you have to pay for it like anyone else because youare buying a new copy from them.
Copyright is simple, really. People who don't WANT to udnerstand it tend to purposefully confuse themselves.
What's so difficuilt about that?
Honestly the willful and purposful ignorance around here is enough to try a saint's patience.
Arguing by redefing the words is just fooling yourself.
Clarification of original poster's second last paragraph:
You, as a free person, have the right to listen to and enjoy whatever content you damn well please. You simply don't have the right to resell or redistribute copies of content that belongs to someone else and is protected under copyright law.
You do, however, have the right to resell a CD or whatever you've bought to someone else, provided that you turn over to them or destroy all copies you've made of it. You also have the right to make copies for backup purposes, changing to a different type of media, and various other things covered under fair use.
Hmm... Actually, I don't think I've ever seen anything on that... Do you have the option of turning over any fair use copies you've made, or must you destroy them?
-RickHunter
I would disagree. I wanted a copy of a Carly Simon album which brings back fond childhood memories :-) and I borrowed my parents copy and made a CD using a good record deck, soundcard and CD burner. A month ago I bought the album on CD because I happened to see it discounted. Guess what? ...the CD I made sounds better - richer sound, deeper bass. My advice would be, if you own the vinyl and it's in good condition then get a friend with good equipment to make a CD for you.
Just to brag, last week someone gave me a boxed set of all the Beatles' albums on vinyl and I'm a very happy man...
once again, we start to lose sight of the REAL question. What are you paying for? You're saying you should get a discount? I'm saying you should have to pay for the media, the work of the people that reproduced that media (i.e. the workers in the factory) and that's about it.
this is simply another example of why the whole concept of IP is flawed. All of the sudden, instead of paying for a tangeable product, or someone's time, you're paying for the concept of music, or the concept of their ownership of that music. THAT IS SIMPLY BULLSHIT.
you want the white album on CD. yes, you should have to pay for the CD (the physical CD) and YES, the guy who made sure that CD was reproduced correctly should be compensated for his work through your purchase, but NO....paul mccartney, ringo star, george harrison, and yoko (and maybe Michael Jackso now) should NOT be compensated for that purchase. Sorry, but their rights to make money off that music ended when they stopped performing it.
"huh?"
how come i'm not still getting paid for the work i did at a video store 6 years ago?
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
If you bought the Beatles White Album you paid for all that, including the salary of the office-boy who brought burgers and soda to the engineers who stayed late to make sure it would come out on time. But you paid it because you liked the music. Or did you keep the 8x10s and threw away the record?
Suppose the receipt had to state separately whatever the intellectual property was worth. If it was, for example: "$10 copyright, $2.99 recording, $12.99 total" - you should be able to buy a second CD for $2.99 if you could prove you had already paid for the intellectual property.
On the other hand, suppose the price was divided thus: "$2.99 copyright, $10 recording, $12.99 total". In this case, you could buy a CD and sell copies for whatever price you wanted, as long as you paid $2.99 to the recording company for each copy you sold.
In a perfect world, an artist should be able to sell his creation to anyone who wanted to buy it. Unfortunately, under the current legal structure, artists must sell their whole future to a recording company in order to have their creations known to the public.
Is reciting a poem after you gave away the book a copyright infringement? Can you sing or hum a song after you gave away the record?
to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will be used against you.
You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you.
I'm sorry to say, I don't remember the rest of the Miranda's. I hope they survive the changes in the Supreme Court by the next administration. They survived on attack in the past year, already.
More on-topic, I fear you have the right to pay the [MP][RI]AA money for the least possible rights of media life or copyrighted content.
Digital signatures and CSS do nothing to prevent copying, in the bit-for-bit fashion. A bitwise copy will be playable on an authorized player, only the small-timers are kept out of piracy.
I fear the practical consequence of all of this is the slippery slope downhill into pay-per-[view][listen].
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
My (limited) understanding of copyright is that the protection is provides is linked to the media. As I have been led to believe...
You bought the media. You own that copy. That's how it is with music, books, movies, newspapers, etc. There is the first sale doctrine which says that you own that copy and the copyright holder only had the exclusive rights to the first sale of that particular piece of media.
now I could be wrong (of course, IANAL), but from what I've read from many separate sources who seem to be the experts, is that what you're buying with music, books, movies is the media. You are buying one copy of the work, that you own.
Software seems strange, in that you agree to a restrictive contract. Most of the commercial licenses I've seen prohibit transfer to a third party, which would otherwise be your right if the first sale doctrine would apply.
I believe the only reason software vendors offer lower cost upgrades is that it fits the market and extracts the most money that the market will bear. I've not seen any reason that they must do this. Existing users have less incentive to switch to a competing product, and they get an incentive to upgrade when they very well may have just kept using the older version.
Just because the software vendors offer upgrades to existing customers doesn't set a requirement for the music or movie industries.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Can you imagine bands "open-sourcing" their pieces? Not only would we have access to every music sheet they write on, but they would be giving their "software" out for free. How would they make a living?
Maybe Bill Gates is right. Maybe software shouldn't be free. Open source is interesting as a hobby, but as a business model it seems fundamentally flawed.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
On the other hand, IF companies were to offer older music/new media at a cheaper price to those who already owned it (or whatever scheme you come up with), there would be far less incentive for those companies to actually bring the old material to the new medium. If they don't think they can make a ton of money by re-releasing the content on the new media, they'll never do it.
As a consumer, I'd love to pay lower prices for that material, but realistically you also wouldn't have much material to buy, since most of it would never get re-released.
One Britney Spears CD: $14.95
Price of each cd: $.20
How much Britney gets: $1.50
How much the RIAA gets: $13.25
The smile on the RIAA's face, when you scratch your cd a week later and come back to buy another one... : Priceless
-since when did 'MTV' stand for Real World Television instead of MUSIC television?
Well, guess what. You don't have to. It's a free country. In fact, you don't ever have to buy any music again if you don't want to.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
All that comes down to is power and strength of
each trend that would make companies do stuff and
stuff we tell them.
Like directors cuts - nobody was making them, until
some dude came up with brilliant idea to give
hardcore fans behind the scenes knowlege of the
movie making. Well since they attached full
version of a movie to the item they charge original
or more price for the item, seems logical from my
standpoint as business.
Now I am a customer, and I decide that they are
bunch of crooks, because they are selling to
me more than I want to buy for 5 fold the price.
So I can do:
1. Not buy the tape and advise so my friends any
one I know not to do it.
2. Buy it, because I can be allknowlegable about
the movie and there may gain better social
status.
Basically when enough people don't buy and complain
enough about this and that or are disgusted at
the practices of particular company, like
with Nestle and their milk thing, company will
get hurt and they will go into survival tactics
of mutation, if they are stupid they would sue
everybody. If not they will adapt to what customers
demand and survive.
Basically No you have no rights to make them do anything
directly, thats because you don't have enough
money to lobby against them, but you can build a
site advocating people not to buy any audio from
recording compnay. Make sure that everybody knows
what's important, and that is how you have power.
Distribute your knowlege/propoganda via internet,
and kick company's ass. I do that at my own site
do you? If all of us stop buying stuff from the
recording companies, they will be left with nothing.
So there.
The original Jimi Hendrix albums were all released on CD from the same source that the records were produced from. Several years ago, the record company (I think Jimi's family has control over his music now) digitally remastered the albums and released a second set of Jimi Hendrix albums.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Those are called singles.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Perhaps I over-stated the difficulty end a bit...I'd like to point out that it does have a cost, though, that most folks tend not to think about unless they're audiophiles [which I don't necessarily claim to be =]. I think /.ers are a bit too knee jerk at times on issues like this, but that's okay--a knee-jerk reaction often can result in an insightful reply that makes people think anew about the issues.
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-- Geof F. Morris
If you buy a gadget that infringes on some patent, the patent holder has full rights to demand that you either pay them royalties or stop using that gadget. If you continue to use it, you are in violation of their patent. The only claim you have is against the person that sold you the infringing gadget in the first place.
this is just a little note that nobody will probably notice. But how about this for some examples. I buy FF9 for PSX, and I want the PC version? Or I own mario 1 for the NES and mario all stars for SNES why should I pay for mario deluxe on the gameboy? How about I had MS-DOS at one point. Shouldn't I be able to get the newest version (win 98 SE)? Here's my feeling. If it is the same exact thing on two different media, or for two different systems. Then you should be able to get it for free. However if it is different, like a software upgrade, or a version that has more features, you should have to pay, but not full price. That's why winme upgrade is only $50 and winme full is $100. If you own a vinyl, and you don't have the equipment to burn vinyl to digital format, then feel free to get some mp3s. I want to see someone go to court with this argument. Why? Because that would mean that we would be able to get all kinds of roms and emulators for classic video games without being hounded by people calling us pirates.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
If you can tell me what "exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" gives the creator the power to do with something, then I can believe that. The Constitution is also a moldable document. The elastic clause allows an interpretation that isn't set in stone, hence its nickname (the one talking about how Congress can use any means necessary to enforce its granted powers).
The Constitution did not refer to drugs. Why do we have the War on Drugs today that throws billions of taxpayer dollars around so rapidly? Or even more visible is bans on certain types of assault weapons. Did the second amendment mention anything about that? Income taxes? The Constitution is NOT set in stone? Why? Because of various, sometimes poor misinterpretations of the Constituion. "Any means necessary" is also a broad term- it can be used to step on individual rights easily- and create the IRS.
You talk about careful balances in the law. Reading case law does not help me in any way. I'll use the example of Kaplan's ruling. Kaplan at one point stated that "To begin with, all or substantially all motion pictures available on DVD are available also on videotape. In consequence, anyone wishing to make lawful use of a particular movie may buy or rent a videotape, play it, and even copy all or part of it with readily available equipment"- Why? Because digital format provides more information. For goodness sakes, this does not in any way justify ruling against 2600.com et al. even for linking. Just using a different format and older equipment makes you legal under the law supposedly- and that's wrong.
In fact, the entire DeCSS ruling contradicts. If a person builds a photocopier- and photocopies somebody's entire book, he/she has created a new copy of the book in a different format. Is that legal? Or should we ban photocopiers because they make copies of copyrighted material just like DeCSS can make copies? If a perfect copier makes a perfect copy, is that also illegal? DeCSS is supposedly designed for this purpose- to let people copy their movies to their computers- and as long as they don't give the extra copy to somebody else, then they haven't done anything wrong. And if Kaplan wants to ban linking to the means to make such copies, we should also eliminate VCR manufacturers and Kinkos since they provide the means necessary to make illegal copies.
I'm also not saying that the entire ruling is wrong. I do agree that reverse engineering the Xing player is illegal under the DMCA- just that also is a bad interpretation of "fair use". Same goes for the whole idea of linking, its only equivalent to punishing somebody else for what you do along with yourself. Copyright law is a set of many rules that contradict- but some people accept them because they have been taught this way.
Another quick point about what Kaplan says- you can view copyrighted material only with licensed DVD players. This is of course a monopoly, and because its so profitable, why don't we ban Company X's VCRs just because they never even looked at a contract for royalties. Same goes for criminal acts of piracy for must we stop all potential abuse or nab the criminals themselves? If the writers of the Constitution were as smart as you say, then they had good reason to add the Second Amendment soon after. This is because we don't get rid of guns because they MIGHT be able to kill somebody, and instead we catch the crooks themselves when they abuse that right to hurt others.
And finally, your post mentions "ill-informed opinions". I just quoted your post- are you going to tell me I can't even use a single part of it even if I give credit to you? Same goes if I make a mp3, name it, and give it to someone else- but not the rest of the CD with it. If I take one part and still mention who made it maybe I then am fully within legal bounds. Face it- law is indeterminate. There is no set standards on anything.
At least opinions can give another perspective. Conforming and accepting does nothing. Some previous posters are right- companies do have a right to do all this, but it does not help us in this capitalistic society. Things that have been the way they are for so long should be changed anyway if they still fall outside the bounds of the Constitution. To stop getting shafted for that little extra packaging or extra movie scene, we must speak out and fight with wallets.
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Don't assume- think
Those two bands are the best two examples of the "Jam Band" business model; tour a lot, play a differen show every night, let people record and trade the music; lather, rinse, repeat. There's a whole industry of bands using this model and some are quite successful.
Yes, these bands also sell albums which are not freely distributable, but it is clear that album sales are not a very large portion of their income at all and they subsist almost entirely on live performances. As Public Enemy's Chuck D has said, you can't download the actual artists.
Some bands using the "Jam Band" model also have had radio hits and became _very_ successful, including Dave Matthews Band and Blues Traveler.
Burris
If you buy the record and want the "higher quality" version off CD, is it really the same IP / product? Or is it something different, different enough to be a new product you have to purchase separately? Personally, I don't know. I tend to think it is fair to acquire higher-quality version of what I lawfully bought, but I am biased by being a cheap bastard.
As for software upgrades, it's hard to argue that Win ME is really the same as, say, MS-DOS 3.3. Not so clear with Win98 and Win98 SE, but one could argue that what you really buy is whatever is differences. You're not paying twice for the duplicated parts; you're just getting shafted on the new stuff.
Would you argue that you shouldn't have to pay full price for a book that recaps its prequel? Did you cry foul at paying $18.95 for the Star Wars Special Edition tapes? Or are you just pissed because music and (some) software are too expensive? Well, sometimes capitalism sucks.
And just because you may have a legal right to a copy of something, doesn't mean the publishing company is obliged to provide it. Don't expect to make any progress demanding that Universal Studios release "just the director's commentary" for the Director's Cut version.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I tried this on at the local record store. The woman in the store gave me a look like I'd just asked her to fellate me right there and then in the store. She wasn't the brightest.
In any case, I figure even if someone got it in their heads to go bouncing through the courts and make it happen, we'd suddenly learn that the 'license to listen' component of the record/tape/cd amounts to a grand total of twenty-five cents.
Those record company execs would be up there swearing on their grandmother's grave: "Yes Your Honour, that's correct, it costs us twenty-four dollars and twenty-five cents to make those rec'ds y'r Honna. We keep twenty-five cents as our profit, take twenty-five cents in copyright licensing fees, and the retailers sells them for twenty-five dollars, keeping twenty-five cents for himself. That's not a lot of profit when you've got mouths to feed at home y'r Honna..."
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Yeah, and what about competitive upgrades? If I bough a new New Kids on the Block CD 5 years ago, shouldn't I get a discounted competitive upgrade to the new Backstreet Boys CD?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
at first glance, i am inclined to agree with this letter, however it ignores a single major fact. if you own the beatles white album, you must have all those glossy 8x10s and the big lyric sheet. i think the cover is embossed.. the CD layout is different.
when i buy records,, i am interested in getting an equally creative lyric sheet or insert. i want innovative packing and presentation. when you look at records in this light, it complicates the issue. getting music on CD and LP is different because of that.. it's not simply a matter of the container's shape-- the container ITSELF is part of the product.
<3x, kevin
Right now I'm rebuilding a guitar that I got for the purpose of making a dedicated 'metal' guitar- which is to say, I have various instruments tailored to get very specific 'sounds'. Many of them, this one included, have scalloped fretboards to suit my playing style. The upshot of it is this: these are tools to help me practice a particular skill at quality levels substantially beyond J. Random Highschooler.
Given that, the question is, do I try to get paid by copy of performance, or do I try to get paid 'for hire', for the time I spend actually doing the work? Well, the former is more of a 'win the lottery' scenario: currently it's really not feasible to expect to get paid this way- musicians _lose_ money in the industry, typically would get paid better flipping burgers because, as I have, they spend their own money on tools, promotion etc in efforts to hit that jackpot.
Instead of being the 'artist' in the 'star system' sense, I can choose to be the tool- and my income wouldn't have to be a lottery gamble. It could be straightforward income for hours of work put in- simple, effective. The line blurs somewhat- ever heard the name Marc Ribot? He played guitar for Tom Waits on the album 'Rain Dogs' and put in a startling, imaginative solo on the song 'Clap Hands' that stole the show from even sidemen like Keith Richards, who also played on the album. I don't know if Ribot gets royalties on that solo- the point is, work like this from Marc Ribot built him a career and he's legitimately able to ask for good wages should he choose to do more session work.
There are more artists needing the help of skilled musicians, engineers and producers than there are artists who will hit big enough for the royalties to be worth anything. That's always been the case. It's slightly different now with the rampant sampling and repackaging of everything- I just visited a friend who was playing a 'new' CD- a big 'greatest hits' collection of remastered Beatles. The engineers did in fact do a terrific job on that one- the tunes sounded very much like the original vinyl heard on a _really_ good system- but it raises the question of how many times will people listen to the same music over and over again before they get bored of it. I think there's a limit- ragtime and big band music are not chart toppers in this day and age, there's a half-life for musical taste despite the efforts of marketers to not come up with new content.
When new music is required, there will be that option- to be poor and try to wrestle the RIAA for rockstar wealth (and probably lose), or to get paid and then allow the RIAA to lose sleep over mp3s and whatever else comes down the pike. For me it's dead obvious- it is just not worth it to try and turn music into a mass market, get-rich-quick scheme. It's the execs and marketers who will win at that game- and they already own the entire catalogue of the Beatles, they aren't interested in me, or even in the 'next Beatles' whatever that might be. Novelty isn't profitable and never has been- formula is everything.
For anyone who feels that they can and should go up against the big media companies and try to get _wealth_ off their artistry: Cool ;) you do that. In fact, I will happily help out with a guitar solo if you like and you can keep the solo once I'm done with it! All for just $75 an hour (if you're an indie) or $7,500 an hour (if you're Britney Spears or some other manufactured star from the major labels).
Up front ;)
Then I'll have your money and _you_ can worry about becoming and staying rich off of volatile, zero-cost-copying, uncontainable, imaginary intellectual property. Lotsa luck :)
The purpose of copyright law is not so that the music industry can charge the public "listening fees" for music. The purpose of copyright law is so that only the owner of the copyright has the right to create new copies of the content. This way, people will purchase only copies of the content authorized by the owners of the content, and the owners of the content are protected from revenue generated by others copying and selling their work.
You, as a free person, have the right to listen to and enjoy whatever content you damn well please. You simply don't have the right to resell or redistribute copies of content that belongs to someone else and is protected under copyright law.
This strange idea that buying a piece of media "grants" one the right to enjoy its content is a very dangerous one. It is not the intent of copyright law, and its implications could lead to the world that many consumer advocates fear: one in which the right to play media that they have rightfully purchased is replaced with a "pay to play" rental system in which our personal freedoms are greatly limited.
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"How many six year olds does it take to design software?"
dinner: it's what's for beer
You don't NEED to go buy the CD. You could just get a new record player. You bought and paid for the right to listen to the music on any record player of your choice. Microsoft may give you a discount when upgrading from Office 97 to Office 2000, but if you own Office 97 and want to use Office 98 on your Mac, you need to pay full price.
Same goes for movies. You bought the regular version. No one is forcing your hand to buy the directors cut, that's a choice that you're making. You need responsibly weigh the merits of buying something you already own versus the benefits of seeing a couple editted out scenes or maybe some interviews. If you decide that $19.99 is cheap enough to justify the purchase, that's your decision.
I think software is the only industry that has an "upgrade" price as the defacto standard. Some car dealers will accept trade in's, while others won't. If you buy a refridgerator and a few years later the manufacturer updates the model with a differently shaped ice cube maker, you're not automatically entitled to that since you own the first version of the refridgerator.
Past that... Stick to your vinyl. Get a new record player and fight the disappearance of records... Plenty of bands still release on vinyl, and more probably would if they saw compelling reasons to do so...
The key point is that there is no easy way for the record company to verify that you own the Vinyl before they sell you the CD at a discount. It's also worth noting that, because record companies in particular are so inefficient, a big chunk of the cost of the CD is in manufacturing and distribution, so I don't know how much they really could cut the cost, anyhow.
In the specific case of Vinyl->CD (or VHS->DVD), there is a valid argument that you're buying something new; that the digital copy is significantly better than the analog. It is perfectly legal for you to make a CD from your Vinyl; you just don't want to because the quality would suck. Therefore, it is arguable that you don't own the CD version of The White Album
A better example is CD -> MP3. This is simply a media transfer. While the RIAA likes to imply that you do not have the right to do this, clearly, under copyright law, you do. The record companies would love to sell you all your music again, of course, and certainly, as a service, that might be something people would be interested in (although clearly not for the $3.50/song encrypted BS they're pusing, now).
I work for EMusic.com, and we've thought about this a lot, as you might imagine. Our opinion is that you have the right to transfer formats and make copies all day long, as long as you don't share them with someone else. When you purchase a song from us, you've got the right to put a copy on your computer, a copy on your Nomad, a copy on your computer at work, and a copy on your car. There's no way you can listen to all those at once, so it's no big deal. What you're not allowed to do is share it.
Similarly, if you own a CD with a song we offer on it, it's perfectly OK for you to rip the MP3 from the CD and not buy it from us. Or, if you'd like, we'll sell you the MP3. For some people (especially our subscribers), that may be easier than ripping their collections.
Anyway, don't let the [MP|RI]AA snow you about your rights. You do have substantial purchase rights over the music you buy. The music industry (unlike the software industry, which you hold up as a paragon of virtue) does not have EULAs, or license agreements. When you buy an album, you still are getting something you retain rights to. Ditto with a movie. I agree that it'd be cool if they'd offer, for example, a suplemental DVD to go with your VHS old copy, for less than the whole DVD copy of a movie. But clearly the market for that would be small.
Software is relatively simple to produce these days--even outdated stuff. Most folks don't keep it, though, because the stocks aren't in high demand.
It's not the same way with stuff in "old media"--to get something from vinyl to a digital format, it has to be recorded from analog, transferred to digital hardware, remastered to make sure it sounds close to the original, then transferred to the new format. That's why you used to see "DDD", "AAD", and "ADD" on the backs of CD's [and in some cases, you still do]. For the most part, new music is created and stored digitally, but that's not the case with your Buddy Holly LP's. =)
Which is better? Depends on the market. The market, to me, seems to dictate that the consumer is willing to bear the cost of the low-volume, high-cost production that converting A-->D runs. So it's nice free-market stuff.
Don't compare it to software the way the original poster does--new versions are upgrades, not ports. A port still costs money [or time-cost of money], though. This is a huge transferrence that requires one or more trained people to listen to.
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-- Geof F. Morris