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Felten Will Present SDMI Research At USENIX
iamblades writes: "Edward Felten is scheduled to present his research papers on SDMI on Wednesday at the annual USENIX security conference. Apparently the RIAA backed off their harrassment, which makes sense, as SDMI is almost completely dead already." And a Semi-Anonymous Coward writes: "Despite the RIAA's attempts to silence the Princeton Professor and his students, USENIX will broadcast the SDMI Crack Live via the web. The broadcast will be available for the world here along with a discussion concerning your Freedom."
The lawsuit proceeds. Somewhat by coincidence, our latest set of court papers were finished today, look for them on EFF's site later today or tomorrow.
-J, one of the Felten team lawyers
Aren't we all forgetting something here? That is, content producers have _every_ right to protect their intellectual property. IP is still property, and content producers have a fiduciary DUTY to their shareholders to PROTECT their property.
Like it or not, IP is profitable and laws to protect that property are likewise just.
This bickering over the "morals" or "ethics" regarding IP remind me a lot of the environmental movement - crass restrictions and over-regulation of one's property and fruits of his/her effort by "well-meaning" (read - jealous, spiteful, envious) zealots that have no right meddling in another's affairs.
Please think about this if you _truly_ respect freedom.
www.lp.org
www.cato.org
www.moraldefense.com
"Or what about a "minimum profit" record label ?"
I'll make this as short as possible, it's a worthy, but complex question. (Lameness Filter here i come.)
I have done a bit of work in/around the major labels (IT consulting/web design, incl over 50 signed artists websites) and plenty of independent labels have been started very sincerely with the "artist" mind, and in the last few years a number of them have been started as "digital-distribution centric", prob the best known of these is "Atomic Pop"....
here's the problems, Spinster Aunt Maude dies, she leaves $10M, you decide to take half of that money and start an independent label, you have good ears, you know how to club, how to rap the artist, and you figure out how to get studio time and replication...
...that leaves you with 2 Big Problems; Promotion and Distribution....
let's say that you find a hot band, get them a good first EP/LP, solid producer, nice mix, good master...
how do you PROMOTE the band?
radio airplay???...yeah, sure...the Program Directors of radio stations derive their airplay list from who they are paid to play (***legally***, through marketing flacks "registered" as "influencers"), these influencers pay "consultant" fees to the PD's....
BUT, let's say that you spend $25K (1 station, 1 mid-sized city) of your own money on promoing the band, a station's PD puts the band on their "Fresh Cuts" program, assuming that the PD DOESN'T set you up and put your artist against the brand new B182 song (therefore never to be heard again) and assuming that you can "arrange" a grass roots "call-in" campaign...BTW, what did you think the band's "Fan Club" is for????
...and now this radio station is getting a lot of demand for your artist, the station's competitors are programming your artist in morning and/or afternoon "drive time"..you've now won the "Promotion" game...now how do you sell your CD's?????
the station WON'T be giving out your website's URL, and most fans wouldn't think about going there anyway, so you have to put your CD in Blockbuster/Virgin/Camelot/KMart/etc (call em BVC)..how does it get there??????
...IT DOESN'T, let's say that somehow your artist makes into the "Top Ten" airplay list in a mid-sized market (Cleveland, St Louis, Twin Cities, yada-yada)
BVC won't even talk to unless you can sell (nationwide) a half-million, and if you do, one of the major labels will come along, offer your artist 5X-10X more than you can afford to pay...the artist WILL jump ship, you probably won't even make a breakeven...
if you can do this with 3-5 artists, the labels will come along and buy your catalog for more money than you ever dreamed of (rem? Interscope/DeathRow Records)...and if you don't take their offer, you will find that every marketable artist will be taken from you and if somehow that doesn't work, you won't ever get decent distribution deals for your remaining artists through the major retailers...
This ***EXACTLY*** how Coca-Cola marketed up until, say 2012, it worked well for Coke and it works for the major labels
THAT'S WHY the RIAA is SO FREAKED about digital distribution..it can bust the labels promotion/distribution lockout wide open, the retailers and radio stations are the "lock", MP3 is is the "key"..the labels are SCARED and fighting back
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
In other words he seems to have decided to take a chance and be able to be sued by the RIAA if the court says "No" for some reason...
So that's why the RIAA backed off. Putting on my paranoid geek hat, I'm beginning to wonder: if SDMI had been a success, would they still have gone after him? I think they just might have tried...after all, free speech or no, I can see them arguing that his research threatened the livelihood of thousands of people working for the record companies...or maybe I've just been up too long.
From what our Russian friend did? Or is equal protection under the law also now a selective option...either Felton should be arrested or Skylarov should be freed. Actually this might help Skylarov in some respects as an end game, in case of a worst case scenario, by providing another option for appeal. Selective prosecution is a basis for appeal.
They still need votes. But how do they get those votes? That's right. Advertising. Where do they get the money to advertise? Right again. Corporate sponsors. To whom do they owe their allegiance in the end? To the corporations that gave them the money to get into office of course.