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HP To Pay German Antipiracy Fee For CD Burners
RiotXIX writes points to this USA Today story which reads in part: "Hewlett-Packard has become the first company to be snagged by a German law requiring firms to pay fees for making CD burners that are being used to illegally lift the latest hits off the World Wide Web.
The case sets the stage for other European countries to possibly adopt similar rules to stem an epidemic that cost the music industry an estimated $5 billion last year." He adds, "DeCSS was attacked partly because the courts felt the creation of LiViD was not it's primary intention. Is this therefore insinuating that computer CD-writers were initially created to ruin the music industry?"
Where do you get this figure from? It sounds implausible to me.
I'd like to learn more, why this came through and which parties did what in the process (in two years it's election time ;-)). The major German parties have become so similar in their behaviour that minor topics like this may make a difference...
The couple of DM they charge for a burner do not matter much, but once they put taxes on the media...
I don't like the idea of paying for the ability to store copyrighted material when in fact I just burn some videos from the last family reunion.
What is your point exactly? There are several perfectly legal ways to shoot people with guns.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
People here are discussing this as if this was a new law and some outragious thing.
It isn't. Here in Germany, every recordable media and recording equipment is affected by this pseudo-tax, since decades. The money is collected by royalty agencies such as GEMA.
This, btw, includes audio equipment such as audio tape, mini discs as well as paper copiers, e.g. copying machines, telefax machines, scanners etc. For paper copiers, the often used example is the copier in the local library. Everyone is allowed to make a copy for private use and since every copy is indirectly pseudo-taxed, the authors of printed books get their share.
The money is then distributed to companies and the authors of copyable works (books, music, film, tv and radio broadcasts).
I see this system from two perspectives.
On the one hand, yes, it is a strange, bureaucratic conglomerate of royalty collecting agencies taking money from consumers.
On the other hand, I am a semi-professional singer who has done some small studio jobs with my band. We have written a song that aired in a children's show on National German TV and - boom - we got an extra check from the GEMA royalty agency (that very same agency that is responsible for the HP story above). Our album was played on some small radio stations and again, the GEMA got notified and we got a little extra income.
There is another royalty agency collecting money from those using my band's vocal work (e.g. for jingles or dubbing work), so if we did the vocals for an advertisement song and that advertisement would be broadcast a gazillion times, we'd benefit from that (we're not that professional, though).
And a friend of mine, a freelance radio journalist, gets extra money through an agency that is exclusively collects money for spoken radio broadcasts, so that whenever a radio stations airs some of his work as a repeat, het gets a little share from that.
So yes, the system works. It is a strange and scary system, but the authors, composers, singers, speakers and actors who create the content for recordable media benefit from it.
With analog media, all this kind of (*) made of sense. But with digital media, things start to become strange. In fact, there are now two different versions of CD-Rs on the market, one for computer data (no GEMA-pseudo-tax) at around 2 DM/disc and one for audio data (GEMA included) for around 5-6 DM/disc. Techically, these discs are identical. This shows that the system does not work as intended anymore.
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You may like my a cappella music
"Guns don't kill people... I do!" - Sledge Hammer
This is correct. The great majority of this data is either illegally copied music or software.
That is the real world, deal with it.
I know you probably want to assuage your guilty conscience by portraying music executives/copyright laws etc as 'evil', but the simple fact is that these things are there to protect the artist.
My primary data type is the music I make, Mr ME, and I am very annoyed when I find people pirating it. This is why I welcome these laws.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Yes, and companies should stop selling blank cd-r, cd-rw, audiocasettes, and videocasettes in the U.S.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
The U.S. version is called the Audio Home Recording Act. It specifically exempts hard drives and computers, but there is a fee of several dollars for Minidisc, Audio-only CDR, and DAT devices. There is a fee of several cents on the media for these devices. This is why there's those "Music" CD-R discs that cost more. I think HP had to pay such a fee a year or so ago for one of their CD-R drives that only had audio software bundled with it.
i know what the better protection scheme will be:
...
german cd burners won't wrtie tocs with audio tracks in non GEMA disks
:-(
well i won't buy such a device
:-)
Didn't you notice there are two kinds of blanks. A data CD and a Music CD. The music CD is for Music. If you pay for it, go for it with a clear consience. Notice the music CD blanks do cost more. Just don't use a data CD for music. That would be wrong.
The truth shall set you free!
It is for German consumers and business users to seek to advocate more liberal policies to their government. Of course, if the german business users do succeed then (cf another post on this strand) they could be construed to have replaced one plutocracy with another.
I go out and buy a CD-burner in Germany to back up my computer (ie, no infringing activity intended).
A portion of my purchase price goes to the "copyright holders".
Does that mean I am legaly entitled to copy their works now? After all I just paid them something - what do I get in return?
I'm sure this argument doesn't hold any legal water, but I think it stands on moral grounds.
Why do newspapers just reprint biased estimates from institutions with an axe to grind? This is where journalists should get busy and do a bit of background research. In particular when the numbers are so out of whack.
This is particularly common with AP stories, where no journalist ever signs responsible for it. The AP seems to have turned into a glorified PR newswire.
But, of course, collecting these fees wasn't enough for the US industry--they keep merrily complaining about piracy and implementing various technical means to deny consumers fair use rights. And the same will probably be happening in Germany.
If I'm paying the fine, I might as well do the crime, right? I mean if I'm pre-penalized, why should I not pirate? It's become my fscking duty.
Maybe HP should just stop selling burners in Germany. Let the German tech firms who have come to rely on this technology tell their lawmakers what they think of their stupid law that says in effect everyone is guilty of piracy irrespective of their stated intentions.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Check out on the CD-Recording FAQ, its under section 7-13.
http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/faq07.html
I don't think, that they charge a tax on the CD Recorders yet tho.
------ 24.5% slashdot pure
The Register is also reporting this here
Never trust what you read in the newspapers... The fee is actually not for illegally copied music, but for legally copied music. Any music privately copied and given to friends is legal. So this is a general fee that is required for all manufacturers of equipment capable of making copies of copyrighted works (audio, video, photocopiers). I think the law is from 1965 or so. It assumed that there was no practical way to control private copies of media works, so it was allowed and this general reimbursement was introduced (fee on copying equipment and media).
The problem is obviously with computer equipment that is not just used for media, but also for data storage.
HPs defense strategie is to say that with CD roms the manufacturer is able to prevent making private copies or at least control the copying, so the fees for their equipment should be less. I am not shure if I like the thoughts behind that more than the general fee.
To put in into perspective: After all HP pays about $6 per CD burner to the GEMA. They announced starting work on better copy-protection schemes now.
--
Currently such pseudo-taxes are meant to pay the copyright owners of music (and perhaps movies?). ...) should apply for a share as well?
Since blank CDs are used to copy free software as well, perhaps free software organizations (FSF, Debian
Clone some Hawaiian shamans?
It's a little weird, but it might work.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Who is ultimately responsible for my well being?
Will police take the rap for murder if they fail to protect me? Will you? Fuck no. And even a 3 minute wait for cops to arrive and defend an unarmed citizenry is long enough for the bad guy to blow you away, rape your kids and slit your wife's throat.
Fuck you, sir, for attempting to jeopardize me and my family by taking away my gun.
So what if it's primary purpose is to kill? Nothing wrong with killing, so long as the right people get killed. I have the right to denend myself with deadly force.
Just get over it, m'kay?
No, we have a president, and his name is Bill Clinton. We just don't have a president-elect. There is a lag time of 75 days between the election and the inaguration, and we're only a couple of weeks into that. There is still plenty of time to settle the election before the winner has to take office.
And as a side note, all these jokes about the "Banana Republic of America" are missing something. There haven't been any riots. If this situation had existed in just about any other country in the world, there would have been riots by now. That is what separates America from a banana republic.
Free Hans!
by suggesting that cd-burners were made to ruin the music industry, you'd have to assume that the music industry was out to ruin itself. How else would you explain the fact that companies like Sony are manufacturing CD burners, whilst having a huge stake in the music industry?
Intercarve Networks, LLC
Get a life. You've been reading too much Heinlein and ESR. A government has restraints bcos if they don't do what the ppl want, they'll be out of office next time around.
You want examples of what you're talking about? Look at any South American banana republic, or several Central/East African nations. Where the government has an armed uprising to contend with, the result is CIVIL WAR. And whilst only a minority of the country may be involved in the uprising, the majority will be affected due to looting, murder, starvation, etc.
There's 2 ways that a country can be ruled, and only 2. Either you allow democracy, in which case ppl are voted into office and voted out of office; or you accept the rule of "might is right" and if you get in the way you get killed or disappeared. You want to allow ppl the right to shoot whoever they choose, then fine - just don't expect sympathy when it's your kids that are murdered.
Armed uprising sounds all fine and dandy to your average hormonal teenager who's not seen too much of the outside world, and learned everything he knows playing Quake. Grown-ups, particularly those with spouses, children and other loved ones, have a rather different view of arbitrary violence.
Grab.
http://www.eactivism.org/decss/
I would gladly pay an extra $6 on a CD burner if it meant more freedom to use the information I buy how I want.
You should already *have* that freedom...you shouldn't have to pay extra for it. You shouldn't have to pay for constitutional rights. Should I pay a "knife" tax to compensate for those people who might buy knives and stab others?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You are a moron for titling your post Imagine This. I'll tell you why. It sounds like an advertisement for this sort of crap not an argument.
I am an artist. I use CDRs to store my stuff for sale. I do not need to pay the German gov't a tax (through increased prices on equipment) which never comes back to me, the artist.
I also use pen and paper. I've heard there's artists out there who use pen and paper to copy other artists' lyrics.
Pay me for your ink and paper.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Looks ok to me in IE4, what browser are you using?
This is an ongoing trend in Europe (and also in Canada I think), levies on equipment and media which CAN be used to copy copyrighted works.
Paper can be used to copy copyrighted works. Why not put a surcharge on paper?
FLASH-RAM can be used to copy copyrighted works. Why not charge that as well?
I know the proceedings are supposed to go to the artists (they do, in fact, go to institutions like BIEM, GEMA, BUMA/STEMRA et al, which are supposed to share the spoils with the artists) for 'legal copying of protected works for personal use'. But why do they have to be paid for that? The law in many countries says it is legal to reproduce a copyrighted work for personal use, as long as you have paid the copyright fees (by buying the CD, video, etc). After you've paid, you may copy the work as many times as you wish, as long as you do not violate the copyright by giving those copies to others who have not paid. So I see no reason why there has to be an extra payment so you can do what is already legal.
Of course, part of the reason for these fees is that people DO in fact give copies to others who have not paid. But by putting a fee on 'suspected' devices and media, buyers are automatically 'fined' for 'crimes' they have not comitted (yet).
All European laws uphold the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. By making people pay a fine before they commit a crime, they (state governments) are breaking their own laws. They are violating their own constitution. If the laws can not be upheld, they should either change the law or find ways to make people abide by them. They should NOT make people pay for crimes they have not commited. By doing this, they create the illusion that it is OK to break the law, since the fines have already been paid.
[I also posted this comment on linuxtoday btw.]
--frank[at]unternet.org
I stopped buying CDs for USD$19..$21 when I decided I'd had enough of companies ripping me off. We're talking about 1,000% markup on merchandise and these imbecilic law suits by RIAA & MPAA & others who can't carry a fucking tune and certainly don't want to pay the musicians a fucking cent.
Don't call me a fucking crook. I buy from MP3.COM and direct from the artist and not from the multi-mega-buck churn mills who make sure that this week's hits are tomorrow's has-been to make space on the shelf more important than what you want to hear.
I loathe the slime that musicians have to deal with to get their music out. Been there, done that and the industry toadies can find a splintery telephone pole and impale themselves 'til their guts squirm out of their throats.
I've seen talentless scum who were willing to play the game get deals while better musicians than I got fuck-all and even the talent-challenged are now working as office temps because the mill guarantees that you make it against the industry not with it
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
burners don't pirate, people pirate
It seems this is an old law based on the notion that piracy can not be prevented. So it is infact legal to do so.
A very good recomendation was for HP to pick up and leave. I wish to extend this notion.
No.. EVERYONE should pack up and leave. Microsoft due to lack of effective piracy laws and IoMega for the potental for piracy using the Zip and Jaz drives.
Both sides are hurt by this addatude...
Hardware makers for being tagged negitively and content sources for lack of protection against theft.
Hay let's hit Intel.. they make ROMs that can store data.. and CPUs that can convert that data into music or other such information sources.
Napster, Sony, HP, Intel, Linux, Microsoft it's all one great big conspericy to steal music we can not posably contend with it so we'll just pass some dumpy laws instead.
[Incase anyone was wondering.. Sony sells tape recorders.. My reel to reel tape is a Sony]
I don't actually exist.
What I have a problem with is this idea.I have a problem with the government making a law that basically taxes consumers, and gives the money over to some capitalist company? Since when have laws been made to protect the rights of multi-billion dollar industries? Since those companies started paying the politicians I suppose. But we have to keep our eyes open. I don't want to fall down this slippery slope where we are pretty much forced to pay companies for their services, whether we use their services or not. Before we know it, there will be several big companies that just raking in cash the government gets from the general population. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit, but I'm sure you'll see more of this in the US. Companies whining because they're losing money (and it's their "RIGHT" to ask the government to do something about it...) and trying to get laws passed with propaganda that the laws are "Moral" and "For the sake of the artists". Bull. Companies should be making money by offering useful items and services that people want. Not by getting the government to tax items because they've fallen behind the technology curve.
Peace out,
-Kefabi
Seems to me that if you _pay_ to be allowed to do a thing, that thing is tacitly accepted by the people you're paying. I don't see much grounds for 'you aren't ever allowed to do this! But gimme a buck in case you do anyway'.
Do you mean to say that your band name/stage name is taken directly from a They Might Be Giants song on the 'Lincoln' album, 1988? Or was this just your unusual way of saying that you feel protective over 'Kiss The Blade' music?
It seems strange to on the one hand be totally anchored in the musical tradition of ripping off artists you like, and on the other hand not giving your potential fans this liberty. It's rather like Led Zeppelin ripping off old blues artists (but their art is not free! Oh no!) except that almost anyone will recognize 'Mr. Me' as a TMBG song if they have any familiarity with that album.
Sheesh...
So I gotta pay $X extra when I buy a CDRW, and the money somehow goes to the music industry. So I'm paying them now for the POSSIBILITY that I might use it to burn a copywrited song. OK. I'm paying for it. Does that mean that it's LEGAL now for me to do so?
Is that the sound of lawyers drooling on the table that I hear?
In Canada, we have a similar situation: there's a tax on all CD-R media that is designated as "CD audio" material (you know the little logo on it), and the tax doesn't go to the government, or the artists. It goes directly to the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA.
With the cost of GPS chips dropping so rapidly, maybe it would be cheaper for manufacturers to equip each drive with a GPS receiver that disables the burner if the user is within German national boundaries. (No, I'm not serious. But some of the weirdest things seem to come true, so don't discount this completely.)
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
I'm not siding with the RIAA or the MPAA, I think they are both overly greedy, but how do we usually become familliar with a band? Radio, MTV, etc. Do you really think that studio time, advertising, music videos, and touring are cheap? One hand does wash the other, record companies spend big $$$ promoting bands, bands get big $$$ from promotions, (concerts, tshirts, hats, etc.), and the record companies make their money back, and profit, from CD sales. Too much profit, I agree, but that is how it works.
Ask any band who is trying to make it "big". They're all begging for a record contract. It would be nice to say that we could do away with greedy record companies, but the investment required to make a return is too great. Any artist can make music free, but music, as an industry, will always need some type of investor assistance.
So, in response to the previous posters comment "Burning their music hurts the /industry/ more than the artists themselves.", he/she is probably right, for the most part. But don't overlook all aspects of the record companies involvement. It does, in the end, hurt the artist as well.
Freeing ourselves from record companies will have to begin with the artists themselves, taking huge leaps of faith, and huge chances, promoting themselves on the internet. Huge, because the amount of propaganda and mass media control (radio, TV) will always belong to the deep pockets of large corporations.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
This is obvious but everyone is reading it as if they are the same.
In Germany you are _allowed_ to rent a movie and copy it for personal use (use with familly or having close friends over). People pay a special "copying" tax for this. In Germany macrovision is illegal because it stops you from using your right to copy video tapes which you paid a tax for.
This is why it's not unusual for them to tax CDROM burners because those are used for copying also.
Did you know that the LiViD web site is hosted in Germany for legal reasons?
It's not as bad as Slashdot is making it seem. It's just different.
Musicians, although making very little from cds, make most of their money from concerts, t-shirts, and other trademarked stuff. Burning their music hurts the /industry/ more than the artists themselves. ;P (And t-shirts of course)
So I say, screw the industry, free the music, and pay for the awesome concerts
You _didn't_ actually know that if I an independent musician buy consumer blank cassettes to record my music on, I'm forced to pay off my own deeply entrenched competition? That I PAY THEM to obliterate me? This isn't a free market, what made you think it was? We're talking about the MUSIC BUSINESS for crying out loud ;P
An interesting sidenote is that if you wiped out government it'd be all the easier to exert this type of force on a purely economic basis- in other words if there's no government taxes are even HIGHER as long as there's an RIAA capable of extorting the taxes out of small store owners and putting them out of business by withholding product if they won't play ball.
Personally I'd like to see _more_ government involvement, just not this corporate-welfare sort, speaking as someone who has literally paid RIAA taxes on his own musical endeavors for years.
Consumers and a seperate Industry vs. Industry = Consumers and seperate Industry wins.
Pissing off HP might not be a good idea for the music industry to do.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Hmm, sounds just like the gun industry here in the USA. People use your product in an illegal way? Well then, obviously its your fault somehow, so let's tax you, the source of a perfectly legal product, instead of going after the people who use it in illegal ways. Right. When will the governments figure out that, from an economics standpoint, trying to cut the supply of an item in demand only increases demand? If a government decides that a certain product is eeeevil, why not work on cutting demand, and supply will go away on its own? Some people just have no business in the government. Oh well.
-w00p
You are exactly right. Why should a product that has many legal. legitimate uses be "assumed" to be used for illegal purposes? Should there be a "tax" on screwdrivers because they can (and are) used to break into houses?
Why not go after the people who actually break the law?
The answer is simple: they don't want to. It's easier to "tax" the product and distribute it to corporate monopolies like the RIAA.
I guess they can tax paper, pens and xerox machines because they can be used to copy books.
BTW, isn't this German statute similar to one the RIAA/MPAA tried to get in the USA some time ago?
Something has to be done to get lobbyist influence OUT of government.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
This reminds me of the way poluters are treated in the States. "Pay this "fee" and we will let you violate this law."
Of course, the money will never go to the people supposedly harmed by the action they are collecting the money for. It will just go into the government's coffers and never be seen again.
What bothers me the most is that they seem to think that the general polulace is too stupid to figure this out. (Then again, they may be right...)
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Now it's payback time.
Or so you thought. It turns out that everyone has the capacity to ruin your work & livelyhood at a whim. Wouldn't you want to license this technology?
Imagine you work as a programmer (as you probably do) and furthermore that you make your money from the code you write.
Now imagine that somehow someone has invented a way of getting the source from your binaries and copying at will. Wouldn't you be annoyed? The boot would be on the other foot then, wouldn't it?
I purport that these measure are perfectly reasonable. I mean, what are 99% of CD-RW's used for anyway? It is right and good that the artists should be compensated.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
but at least we'll never see crap like this.
No you have software patents, the DMCA and possibly the UCITA instead. America has just as many crap laws as Europe.
No he didn't, he was arrested due to pressure from the global cartel and has since received an official apology from the Norwegian government.
Exactly, that's why the government in the US is far more honest than the one in, say, Denmark. Don't make me laugh. Your government is the most corporate-owned in the world. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the DMCA was passed to benefit corporate cartels, so does this mean you're going to Washington to shoot up Congress.
I think you are looking at it in the wrong perspective. The tax does not assume guilt, it compensates for a privaledge, and that privaledge is the personal freedom of information. As Americans, (and just about everyone else too) we pay taxes for the creation of roads. Should this be abolished because it is wrong to say that everyone old enough to pay taxes is a driver? What if you live in a high density city like New York and can walk everywhere you need to. What if you are a recluse and have everything delivered to you. The same goes for any job payed for with taxes. What if you don't want mail? Too bad, it is assumed that you will use that resource so you pay for it. I would gladly pay an extra $6 on a CD burner if it meant more freedom to use the information I buy how I want.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Because the DMCA doesn't stifle anything does it? Isn't the US great?
Someone moderated this post's parent as a troll. Whether it is or not, in my opinion this person has a valid point although I do have a few nitpicks.
Writable CDs are a HUGE market and I too have my doubts on how much of it is for "legitimate" use. Also, most people use CD-Rs and not CD-RWs as even now the cost of CD-RWs aren't worth it, although I don't know what the situation is like in Europe.
In either case, copying CDs isn't "getting the source from your binaries", it is a lot more like copying the binary software itself, as few people have software that turns an audio stream into sheet music and/or lyrics, which is closer to "the source code" of music, the PCM stream on a CD is not "the source code" as it is "compiled" using instruments, vocals and mixers.
BTW: Artists usually don't get compensated when recording media and devices get taxed and probably never have been. The taxes typically fatten up the "label", the company that signed them, but this might vary by country as well.
Partly, at least, because there's a lot of overlap between the hardware manufacturers and the content providers. Companies like Sony and Phillips are heavily involved in both sides of the market. It appears that they currently make more money from milking copyrights than they do from manufacturing consumer electronics, so the music and movie people get to call the shots. One more reason why massive conglomerates are bad for the consumer.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.