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RIAA To Target CD-R
mike skoglund writes: "According to this 8/20 RIAA press release, the RIAA is concerned about CD burners. Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of the RIAA, said: "Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs . . . and we believe this issue deserves further analysis. A preliminary survey of tech savvy online music enthusiasts recently conducted for the RIAA showed that nearly one out of two consumers surveyed downloaded in the past month and nearly 70 percent burned the music they downloaded. All of this activity continues to show the passion of the consumer for music and the need for both legal protection and legitimate alternatives.'" I enjoy Rosen's claim that "consumer loyalty to the physical product still dominates and we are committed to providing the quality product listeners desire." I wonder if they'll eventually push through a Canadian-style tax on anything that can carry data.
Is anybody out there now not completely convinced that Hillary Rosen is the antichrist?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Time for me to put my mp3's on punch cards... :)
They'll be taxing air, which we use to make noises that form phonetics, then words, then sentances, resulting in communication... I'm surprised we've gone this far with free air...
~ now you know
Name me one person you know who is at least moderately computer savvy, has a cd burner and uses a computer as a hobbyist device who has not done something illegal with their cd burner within a week of owning it.
Right. That's partly the reason why we Canadians pay a CD levy tax.
That might be a good idea. Under the right circumstances. If we pay the tax on the CDRs or DVDrs, but are then allowed to copy them amongst ourselves, for instance. That's sort of how ASCAP works (well, for sufficiently large values of "sort of").
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Yea, I've downloaded music and burned it to CD in the past month... but not music that's under RIAA control.
Or did she just forget that little bit about there being actual LEGAL uses for this technology? Just because someone downloads music and burns it to CD does not mean that a copyright infringement has just taken place. And it does not mean the RIAA has just been monetarily damaged.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
So -- did the flack who wrote this really expect anyone to conclude from this anything other than, "Yup, we're in a recession..."
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Mulling a CD-R tax? Nothing new, really.
Other than that, it's just a fnord, like all press releases. Yawn.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
so why doesn't she tell her member companies to STFU and simply advertise them?
sulli
RTFJ.
LPs increased in unit sales by 7.4 percent in the first half of 2001, representing a $12.9 million dollar value. This number is up 3.3 percent from mid-year 2000.
This means that I can continue ripping LPs with out any heat from the RIAA. They'll never catch me.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
(Of course, we all know what exactly the difference between a Music CDR and Data CDR is).
Sure, why not pay a leavy on all data storage devices. Given a hard drive I can carry my stolen MP3 and warez anywhere I want--all i need is an IDE cable to plug into...
Or maybe I could copy it all by faxing it to myself. How about a leavy on fax paper?
::sheesh::
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
Fine, let them try to take away everyone's CD burner... it's almost time to move to the DVD-R format anyway. =)
I think I'm going to patent air, then lease it out and charge a tax on it cuz these morons are using up some good oxygen when they sit around thinking up these STUPID ideas to try and enforce copyrights.
At the risk of being Redundant:
The great thing about this argument is that you can replace "CD-R" with "electricity" or "computers" or "The Internet" and it still holds just as well.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
But isn't that what RIAA wants? They want to kill the competition, right?
sulli
RTFJ.
blank CDs
I got High...
I was gonna pay my fine to the RIAA...but I got high...
I was gonna download divx movies...but I got high...
"It's technical in a psychometric kind a way" -- C. Parish
Oh, I'm sure the absolutely pathetic state of the music industry had nothing to do with lost sales, right?
The media (radio, TV, newspapers, etc.) and the content providers (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are quickly converging on being a single corporate entity. The result of which has been a complete homoginization of all things creative and interesting about music. Is it any wonder that sales are down. There's simply nothing good to listen to... and if there is it's damn hard to find because there's no interesting radio stations anymore.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Interesting story
It makes me wonder how much longer technology like this will be legal. Of course, it's not as if we haven't wondered before (The link I have was to banjo, sorry folks).
1) People who dont own a computer.
2)People who don't know what an mp3 is.
3)People who don't own a burner.
4)People who do not use the internet.
You are left with a *very* small percentage of people burning cd's compared to the countless droves of consumers who purchase cd's without knowing that it's all free
if they say 'sudio', does this mean they are subject to the "Genesis Tax" (AKA, the "Phil Collins Tax")?
I agree. How is burning to a CD any different then recording to a cassette? There is a phrase of what RIAA is doing. It's called "busy work". Seems that someone has too much time on thier hands and is looking for something to do to justify thier employment.
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
RIAA, tax rambus memory... it's so much better for multimedia handling than anything else on the planet, so it's the base of MP3 compression, file sharing, ram on home computers that plays those illegal song, run the software that burns CDs, it's the NextBigThing(tm) and they claim market domination in months from now, so you should look seriously on this threath, and stop it before it gets out of hands!
:) I promise! :)
Plus, you'll get our support
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I have yet to burn an illegal CD. I've space shifted (pulled together some 80's compilations) and have taken stuff from work to home (big source packages) and burned some Linux distributions. I've also backed up media so that the originals can be stored in some offsite place, but I still have the disks to do installs at work.
Now, you can argue whether or not I am 'moderately technically savvy' or not. But, I use Free software, work pays for the non-Free stuff, and if I want a CD/DVD, I either buy it, or wait.
FWIW, I don't mind paying a tax. But if I pay the tax, that means I can do all of the things I've not done yet (ie: download and burn any song I want from any RIAA artist).
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The money collected from it is supposed to be distributed to content producers to offset the business lost to copying, but the bar to entry as a producer is very high. As a small producer, not only do I have to pay the damned tax on the blank media I buy (and then pass that cost along to my customers), but I can't get my share of the gravy, either.
If the US creates such a tax and sets the bar high enough, then only the "big guys" will be able to pass over it and everyone else has to pass along an extra cost to the consumer, to the great benefit of the big guys. Talk about predatory practices!
-Eldurbarn
What percent of CD-R are burnt with data or other non-music content;
What percent of CD-R are burnt with music content owned by the burnt disk owner? AKA "Fair Use" transcribing media.
I have a feeling the RIAA is just trying to kill fair use. Why am I not surprised? Anything for a $.
The change to slash 2.2 didn't fix Timmys' problem with open italic tags. His tags and Tacos spelling. What would slashdot be without 'em?
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Well, actually, it's some stupid minister who decided a tax on CD-Rs was needed. It was absolutely moronic: as was pointed out, now, buying CD-Rs (no matter what for -- some companies that backup data on CDs yelled a LOT) brings money mostly to music corps that don't exactly need it, and doesn't really help small labels that DO need a hand.
Bottom line: people bought massive amounts of CD-Rs just before the law became effective, so the prices went down, which vaguely made up for the tax.
But still. Did you notice that trend where big corps live by taking small amounts of money from you regularly, no matter if you buy something new from them or not? Am I the only one who thinks it is a dangerous road for an economy to tread?
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
I also use my burner to create CDs, for family & friends, that contain the digital photos I've taken over the course of the past year. I set up the photos to be shown using a web browser. This way viewing the photos is platform independent.
The Canadian tax is actually a good thing. It recognizes that people use CD-R's to copy CD's, and makes that legal. You pay the tax, suddenly you're allowed to make copies
Of course, I'm sure that's not what the RIAA wants. But it might be a good alternative to advocate. It's also used in many European countries.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Now I am not naive, and I use them to burn audio CDs too. But I am not a big downloader of MP3s, I have a large CD collection, as does my fiancee. It is legal (and rightfully so) for me to burn a copy of a CD I bought for use in my car.
*If* someone were using CDRs to burn illegal copies of CDs and selling them, the only thing taxing CDRs would do is shrink their profit a little. Unless the goal is to make CDRs unaffordable for the average person, which would be really really bad.
Michael
M$ = Monopoly? Check out "Micropoly" at Pounding Sand Tshirts.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Jimi Hendrix is now a "quality product." So is Mozart, Zeppelin, NiN, Bill Hicks, Tool and every other artist happen you like. They're not musicians, they're not artists, they're "products." They make consumables.
These people drive me absolutely batshit. It's the skewed perspective that gets me. Fuck the art, they say, we just want to make money. Well, guess what: it ain't all about the money. When you focus on the money you lose site of important things like spiritual enlightenment and spiritual growth. Call me a vapid liberal, but I think those things are pretty important in life. If I have to choose between making a buck and becoming a wiser person, I'll choose wisdom every time, thanks.
If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for? I'm paying for the privlage to act in this fashion, so how could I then be sued for it?
Granted if the RIAA suddenly has this new revenue stream, then a reasonable observer might comment that they'll stop threatening to destroy people who copy music, but given their past history, who really thinks they'll actually refrain from attempting to sue people for this?
The RIAA would do well to consider the potential impact of attempting to tack a surcharge onto recordable media, because the mechanism they use to justify the surcharge will simply be used to define what rights they are granting the customer who pays the surcharge. Essentially a good defense atourney could argue that payment of the surcharge is de-facto entry into a contract with the RIAA, in which the customer is paying for the privlage of recording music.
-- CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
"Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs (compact disc recordables) and we believe this issue deserves further analysis."
Translates into:
"We are looking for a way to convince the US (and other governments) to make the manufacturers of CD-burners pony up a percentage per each unit sold and give us lotsa $."
This is also a pretty crummy way for the RIAA to line it's pockets from people (and Indy labels) who write and record their own music in home studios.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Lets look into the future. We have an image of the year 2003:
If you are contemplating releasing a product, you must first check with the patent offices (very minor, they let everything through), then to the RIAA and government to determine if it affects the music industry in any possible way. If it does, then you can't release it and all doc on it is incinerated. The RIAA also goes into research facility to determine if any scientist is using "Sound waves on the "air" medium (they patented that on Dec.14, 2002)", and any violators are sued, raped, then incinerated.
Anyone have a link to the "The Onion" article about Kid Rock starving to death because of MP3's? That'd really fit in....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I have no real interest in copying CDs; it's far and away the most practical way to back up my data.
Last time I checked, sites like Liquid Audio came with software that would let you take your downloaded music (in "proprietary, protected" format), and burn it to a CD-R ONCE.
If they tax the CD-R's, people would be paying TWICE for music.
If they DO tax CD's, does that mean I can copy anything and give it to anyone? After all, I paid for the music when I bought the CD....
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
During the whole Napster debate (back before Napster had filters), many journalists pointed out that judges often sided with improvements in technology in cases of copyrights and unauthroized reproduction.
When the audio tape recorders were introduced, the RIAA cried foul as it gave people the ability to make their own copies of music. Ruling was based on fair use.
VHS Recorders same deal. Hollywood and television threw a hissy fit and said it gave people the ability to copy shows and movies without authorization. Judgement was based on the fair use laws from the audio tape incident.
There were a few other examples (like the Xerox copy machine), but these were the most relevant.
CD burners have been available for the home market for quite some time now, all the previous cases came out just as the technology was brand new before a significant number of people had access to them. I think the same fair use law will come into play because it takes a significant amount of physical time and effort to duplicate a CD (whether data or music) or assemble a custom CD.
In addition, some members of RIAA are also in the business of building and selling CD-RWs. Sony is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are others. I just know my burner is made by Sony.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
One at work, that I have sole control over (along with a 100 Mbps net connect), my personal burner at home, and my parents one.
I think they're a little late. They might as well put pressure on those audio cassette manufacturers and those piano roll makers and don't forget those pesky blank wax drum merchants, ooh I know, lets charge anyone with ears a user fee if they happen to listen to ANYTHING!!!
If anyone was actually losing money, I'd care.
--BUT THEY'RE NOT--
*throws hands up in the air, stomps out of universe*
crazy dynamite monkey
The tax we have here (aside from various compound sales taxes) is only on the CDR media specifically for audio. (read: the kind that works with those near-useless standalone CD copying whizmos).
I often make digital recordings of my friends' horrible bands, and my own decidedly mediocre tunage. These are burnt onto vanilla CDR's. People like to pass these recordings around. People need copies. I don't have the time to make all of these copies.
If someone who owned a stand-alone CD copying device wanted to make a copy of his own CD (of his own band!), he would be paying a tax designed to protect musicians from illegal copying. The technical term for this sort of obtuseness is, I believe, "Bullshit."
There is no tax on the vanilla CDRs because those have business uses. Don't stand in the way of progress.
.... with cassette tapes during the late '70s and early '80s and with video tapes, too. In the end a small tax was levied, they collected their money and people still recorded music and video.
Let's face it, people are going to do a small amount of copying for their own personal use. You do it, I do it - I'll bet even the children of the RIAA demons do it. The RIAA is sweating the small stuff.
The greatest threat of piracy comes from people that will copy in huge volumns for sale on the black market. A lot of this will happen overseas, where RIAA has the least influence.
If they want to sweat the small stuff, I say fine. It hasn't gotten them anywhere in the past - and it won't get them anywhere in the future.
Phillips, Sony and others have invested far too much money in CD-R technology and make far too much off of it to roll over dead for the RIAA.
I've said it once and I'll say it again. The business model where by music makes large amounts of money is dying. In it's place, artists (those backed by record companies) will make money from personal appearances and product endorsements, just like professional sports figures do. Sports figures may make a few million a year, but they pull in much more from product endorsements. That's where the money is and that's where the industry will finally go. The true value in a recording contract for an artist will lie not in the sale of music, but in the sale of his/her image.
We at the RIAA have done studies stating that 90% of the human population at one point or another in their lives has heard music that they have not properly paid us for. Therefore, we are having our whipping dogs in Congress pass a law whereby we will tax every birth in the US $20,000, that will cover our lost revenue for the lifetime of the customer.
Anybody caught commiting birth piracy will be terminated by our lawyers.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Still, buy a few good lawyers, a couple of politicians and call it viral, I'm sure they forces of RIAA goodness will come through in the end.
I have a problem with a levy tax because it presumes that I am currently or will break the law. Since I do not purchase much music, why the hell I should reimburse the RIAA for money they wouldn't have gotten from me anyway? They aren't entitled to a dime from me. If their business model relies on laws that are impossible to enforce, that's just too bad for them. They aren't entitled to make money and I am not, and should not be, obligated to pay them for goods or services I do not use.
If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for? I'm paying for the privlage to act in this fashion, so how could I then be sued for it?
Not quite. Paying for health insurance doesn't give you the right to commit insurance fraud to get your piece of the pie back. The tax on cd-rs would not be for the priviledge of copying music, it is to cover the cost of revenue supposedly lost due to people copying music. Fair? No. Legal? Could be.
I wonder if they'll eventually push through a Canadian-style tax on anything that can carry data.
Ever heard of the DAT Tax? In 1992, the US Congress passed a law taxing media for use in digital recorders.
The Audio Home Recording act of 1992 mandated that consumers pay a royalty on each tape sold for DAT drives.
This contributed to the death of a market for the promising technology. And assumed that everyone who owns such technology would use it for theft. I have not made any illegal copies of music or software using the CD recorder that I own. This sort of levy assumes that I will, and I don't care for that.
I remember waiting for DAT technology to catch on for music - and waiting, and waiting, and waiting.....
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
You know, if computers didn't come with sound cards, I wouldn't be half as tempted to download music and burn it. Maybe we should outlaw sound cards. And who without a computer would download music? let's get rid of those. What about the internet? well, we will take care of that in good time.
There is an old precedent that if a product has both legal uses and illegal uses, it should still be allowed becase the legal uses must be preserved. You can use CD-Rs and CD-RWs for more than pirating music and games, etc.
They need to move to Turkey or Afganistan if they want to control the people like that. Oh wait, those countries wouldn't have them either. They exist because America is Free. And they want to make it less free, but not for them, just for everyone else.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Check my math, but this means that at ~$12.69* per "unit" they sold more units (and made more money) than they have by charging ~$13.96** per unit.
Imagine that. Charge more per unit, and you sell fewer units.
* $6,200,000,000/488,700,000 units ~ $12.6867/unit
** $5,900,000,000/442,700,000 units ~ $13.9578/unit
When you need music for something, it's easy to find some techno tracks from a band nobody ever heard of, and pay them $100 or so for the right to use it in your own stuff. ("And where would you like the cases of beer delivered?")
This would end up being good for everyone (except the RIAA, but who really cares). Distribution channels would pop up all over the place, giving more choice to artists and consumers. We'd have the ability to not feel like criminals when we burn a CD.
The only thing I'd rather see, is congress revoke all of the RIAA's copyrights because they've been using them to stifle innovation and competition.
I haven't seen something this silly since my dog got stuck in the cat door.
"Many in the music community are concerned..."
Well, it's a bit late for that. CD-Rs are so incredibly cheap, pervasive, and useful that there's no way people will surrender them. Since you can burn WAY more than just copyrighted material, they don't even have a legal leg to stand on if they want to impose a "tax".Not only are the horses gone, but the barn door has been ripped off of its' hinges and burned. They should have been worried about this five years ago.
This
Remember the Apple commerical promoting their new CD burner with all the artists (George Clinton, Smash Mouth, Liz Phair,) - and about 30 others on a stage, and they guy was saying he wanted to burn each of their tracks to a CD for a mix...
And George said "It's your music - burn it" - you mean they lied????? I can't create a mix tape of my own stuff that I bought cause it's stealing???? (they afraid I'm sucking profits from NOW compilations? They pissed cause I burned my own copy of the Beatles "1" from the entire catalog I already own?)
Of course, I'm not endorsing the stealing of MP3's, but fer crying out loud...can't a guy make a mix CD of his stuff without the RIAA trying to bitch about that too...? They did this with Consumer Audio CD's (basically stand alone CD burners) and got the media price kicked way up to 4-5 bucks a disk because of taxes and fees...only reason they haven't gotten this far is because users aren't computer savvy enough to put mp3 to computer disk, but they're getting there.
Time to stockpile, kiddies...snag a few hundred and hit the black market when they're illegal.
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Yup. This just confirms my suspicions. When Napster was in full force, music sales were up. Now, Napster has been shut down and there is no easy way for people to exchange or try out new music. Correspondingly, record sales are down. I the words of that big bully kid on The Simpsons... Haaa Haaa!
Don't you think that's funny?
--Robert
Background Music: 10.96 per square foot
Marching Bands: $8.40 each band, minimum fee of $31.13 per day
Receptions (ie: weddings): Without Dancing: $28.75. With Dancing: $57.55.
Like, what fucking right do they have to charge me $30 more if I allow people to dance to music at my wedding? How can this extra fee be justified in relation to reimbursing artists who made the music? Are we supposed to pay different amounts depending on how much the people enjoy the music? This is an ethically repugnant scam of the highest degree and the vast majority of people just tow the line and pay it.
All of this activity continues to show the passion of the consumer for music and the need for both legal protection and legitimate alternatives.
There are plenty of legitimate alternatives to RIAA-owned music. I agree, though, that consumers need legal protection...
The business model where by music makes large amounts of money is dying.
Probably a more accurate statement is: "The business model whereby pre-recorded music makes large amounts of money is dying." In fact, this is the way things usually were; the purpose of recordings and performances were to sell sheet music; later, the recordings were used to push the performances. The music business has already reverted back to this model; that's why the RIAA is feeling threatened all of a sudden. They're defending a dying business, just like buggy whips.
At $17, I don't buy a CD for much less than a special occasion, like birthdays or Christmas. At least part of this is an impure sense of personal protest. If it weren't impure, I'd buy NO CDs at all.
If CDs were half the price, I'd feel less sense of protest, and buy more than twice as many. At one third the price, I'd probably take off on a binge of replacing my old vinyl, which I still hope to transcribe to CDR one of these days.
The whole thing with Napster and CDRs is MASSIVE violation of copyright law. But any time you get to MASSIVE violation of the law, perhaps more structural inspection is necessary, other than pers^H^H^H^Hprosecuting the violator. I can think of two examples of such massive violation, prohibition and the current War on Drugs.
Prohibition was one of the (scratch "one of") stupidest things ever put in to the US Constitution. The Constitution details rights, interactions, and operations, and Prohibition is the only time it tried to "act like a law instead of a framework." Rightfully repealed.
As for the War on Drugs, I have nothing to do with them, but feel they should be put on a peer basis with tobacco and alcohol. IMHO, the side-effects of the War on Drugs, in terms of 'crimes of financing' and organized crime control, exceed the evils of the drugs themselves.
For another example, the oft-repeated piracy of VHS tapes. Rampant at $80/tape, virtually not a worry at $10-$20/tape.
In short, we're being GOUGED. That's the underlying structural issue behind the current "crime wave". Except that their gouging is apparently legal, in spite of what I used to think were restrictions against collusion and price-fixing.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Add me to the list. The reason I use my CD-burner is because, as an artist, it gives me a cheap way to make limited numbers of CD's of my own music. I've also used it to make audio CD's of MP3's that I legally downloaded off of MP3.com for my own personal use, and to burn Red Hat ISO's. I use it for backing up the large amounts of digital data I generate as a musician, so that I don't find myself needing a new 40GB hard drive every month.
I use mine for legitimate work, thank you very much.
Computers are an exception to the AHRA. Funny isn't it. I can, in theory, patent a general purpose PC as an audio recording device but then we go to actual use of the PC and it suddenly isn't kosher. Legalities, legalities, legalities.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
"A preliminary survey of tech savvy online music enthusiasts recently conducted for the RIAA showed that nearly one out of two consumers surveyed downloaded in the past month and nearly 70 percent burned the music they downloaded"
I burn the mp3s that I download. I get them at www.npgmusicclub.com. These mp3s are sold by Prince and the NPG, and users are given the right to burn them to CD so that we can listen to them without using an mp3 player.
Of course, I can certainly see why this would have Ms. Rosen concerned. That fat bitch knows that the big record companies are going to watch their profits melt away as other companies like Tekadence and mp3.com help artists sell their music directly to fans at reasonable prices.
I think I need to write some letters to politicians now...
You bring up a good point in that many people are not honest, but it is not my responsibility to subsidize companies who cannot deal with the problem. I already pay for a police department. If the RIAA catches someone violating the law, they are more than capable of turning them over to the appropriate authorities. If I pay a tax to the RIAA, I am paying for the same problem twice. I believe I have no legal or moral obligation to do so. The RIAA members are perfectly within their rights to defend their business but it is not my responsibility to subsidize that. They are perfectly capable of doing so themselves.
No, but to further your example, paying for health insurance means that when the doctor send me a bill for a visit, I let the insurance I've been paying premuims on for so long, cover the cost. Similarly, when I copy music, I should be able to count on the premium I've been aying for the media, to cover the revenue loss, therefor the RIAA would have no claim against me because they have already been reinbursed through the 'tax'.
Not to beat your exampleto death, but the point of paying insurance premiums is so that you don't have to pay the huge medical bills you incur should you have a major injury. Under this theory, and consistant with your example, copying music is like filing an insurance claim. Based on the premuims you've previously paid, you are in essance collecting goods (in this case) rather than the services - such as medical care - that you would collect under a medical insurance plan. It's like having an insurance company pay for a product like a bandage or a cast.
This is the theory under which the fees would be collected, so you're not committing any sort of fraud. It is the expectation that some will chose to collect, but the majority don't - resulting in profit for the insurance company - which makes this system work, but you're right, the circumstances under which those customers who choose to collect (ie, copy music) do so, are completely arbitrary, which is what would make this sort of 'tax' or payment of a premium, an unworkable system, and why it's such a profoundly bad idea.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Let's face it, people are going to do a small amount of copying for their own personal use. You do it, I do it - I'll bet even the children of the RIAA demons do it.
What seems to get lost in the discussion is that copying for personal use IS LEGAL. Copyright is designed to prevent people from publishing content in competition with the copyright holder. It has nothing at all to do with personal use.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
> If I am going to pay a 'tax' to the RIAA, because it is assumed that I am copying music music, (and this is in fact the justification for the 'tax') then is copying (pirating) music something I can still be sued for?
Reminds me of a decade or so ago when certain jurisdictions in the USA decided to put a tax on marijuana so that they could hit their victims up for tax evasion along with the the usual time in the pokey.
It seemed to me at the time that establishing a tax on something was a de facto way of legalizing it, though I hardly expected the f0cked 0p US legal system to reach that obvious conclusion.
Haven't heard anything about this in years, so I don't know how it turned out.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I want names. This statistic crap without sources is not worth the phosphor its glowing on.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Well, yes, you have your burner, but my guess is that what they're after is taxing the blank discs and new burners. Eventually, your burner will wear out, or you'll want to replace it with something newer, then they'll get you.
But you do make a good point about not consuming their product, and I want to comment on that further. The best way to cut the RIAA and its members down to size is to cut off their money supply. In short, don't buy their product. If you want music, buy from independent labels, if you can find them, or support your local bands. Many of them sell CDs at their shows. Show your appreciation by buying them. If you must buy something from an RIAA-member company, try to find a used copy. That way, they see none of the revenue from the sale.
Now I know what people are going to say. Yes, we here at Slashdot represent a small minority. This is true. However, we have friends who aren't as aware of the situation as we are. We need to educate them. I do this whenever it's appropriate, and the usual reaction is dusgust with the record industry. That's the idea. Show your friends and neighbors what slimeballs these people are. Teach them, educate them, and they may get interested in what's going on, and if we're lucky, they may pass the word on to their friends. The change won't come overnight, but the music industry didn't get as big as it did overnight, either. What we're after is to slowly starve this monster to death, and we have to do it one person at a time. If you want to make a start, send a link to this article to a couple of computer-savvy friends who don't read Slashdot. Don't bug them about things like this, but make sure they're informed. Like I said, one person at a time. I've found that many people already have a pent-up hatred of the music industry, and when I show them what these people are up to, it really makes them mad. I know this won't automatically translate to fewer sales, but it's a start.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
This message, without a doubt, entirely sums up my thoughts on the subject. Well written.
The RIAA must understand it resides in a nation born, in part, as a result of anger to a monopoly, and under the control of a non-capitalistic system. The RIAA's tactics not only reek of monopolistic practices, but totalitarian practices which would be welcome adoptions in a truly marxist society. While I may sound like a troll, I truly do not care. I find the RIAA and any person associated with the organization as anti-democratic, anti-capitalistic and anti-liberty.
Freedom and a free market must prevail.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
The Music and Movie industries tell their customers, "You Are All Criminals"(tm), and the average customer agrees with them????
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Full-length CD units dropped 5.3 percent at mid-year 2001, representing a $5.5 billion dollar value within the market, a 2.7 percent decrease in dollar value from mid-year 2000.
Hmmm... we're in the middle of a recession and CD sales dropped. Who'd a thought it!
Also speaking as a Canadian you are wrong. You're saying that it's legal to borrow a CD, make a copy and give the original CD back, but it's illegal to make a copy and give it to someone else (???).
This is exactly what the law says. The levy gives you the right to copy for your personal use, so long as you personally make the copy. The levy would not be legal under Canadian law as worded otherwise. (I am a Canadian, btw).
From the CDR-FAQ: The rules for music are more lenient. Because of the media tax imposed by the Canadian government (see section (7-13)), you are allowed to copy any music for your own personal use. This means that you can go over to a friend's house and copy any number of discs you like, so long as they are for your own use. You are not allowed to make copies of music and then give them to others.
More information can be found at: http://neil.eton.ca/copylevy.shtml
The Copyright Board of Canada's web site: http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/ the decision on private copying is listed there. They moved the location of the act, but it's there.
Please take a more active role in what our government is doing, it helps stop them from doing stupid things. I wouldn't want to end up with a situation like the USA has now; Go visit your MP and MLA provincially and let them know what you think about these things.
..don't panic
Since when does the AHRA "allow[ed] the sale of DAT, MD, and home audio CD Burners"? These devices were going to be illegal unless a special law was passed? Or do you mean that this law staves off lobbying for such a prohibition by providing for financial penalties to be levied against the users of non-prerecorded media?
I do not have a signature
Then anyone with a turntable at 33 1/3 RPM could be in violation of the DMCA for having a circumvention device... Quick, buy the record players!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I am in the process of developing the basis for a Linux-based multimedia server (needs LOTS of hard drive space) which would provide home-based entertainment. This, and tape backups would get you around the CD tax. (No, the hidden tax probably does not extend to data backup tapes >:)
(Based on mod_mp3 and other wonderful technologies). The popular argument against Napster is that Napster steals from the artist, but we really see where the RIAA's emphasis is. How much of the hidden taxes go back to the artists? Probably not a penny. I am sure the member corporations pocket the money themselves.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
When the time comes to oppose legislation on this issue, my representatives will be aware in no uncertain terms that, if they vote to impose a tax, I will never vote for them again.
All in all, perhaps the time has come for us to go on the offensive? Perhaps legislation mandating minimum royalty payments for artists would be enough of a slap in the face for the RIAA's members to bring something other than greed to their attention.
And a union of concerned artists and computer enthusiasts might be enough to take them down.
Don't be an idiot. Railing against Canadian Content ignores the fact that without it, VERY LITTLE Canadian music would get played on the radio. As giant media conglomerates buy up radio stations, local programming goes down the tubes, and eventually Canadian culture on the air would disappear beneath a deluge of American crap. (This is not to say that some Canadian music isn't crap, but the point is that there's a lot of GOOD Canadian music that wouldn't get played *at all* to make room for more Britney and Mariah).
The problem, if there is one, is the perception that "mediocre music" gets forced onto the air, excluding better American music. That's a load of sh*t. Popular Canadian tunes get a chance against the marketing muscle of their American counterparts. To try and get Can Con sunk would pretty much guarantee that you'd never hear another Canadian artist on the radio outside the college stations and the CBC (both excellent to listen to, BTW).
Last time I checked, Rita McNeil and Buffy St-Marie weren't too popular on Gnutella.
Um, they don't get a lot of airplay on the radio either. That marketing privelege is mostly reserved for younger, hipper acts like Moist, Natalie Imbruglia, or Gord Downie.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Oops, I meant Nelly Furtado... Natalie Imbruglia is Australian, heh.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Okay, I'm stuck in the 80's. But the music just doesn't interest me lately. Even the one 'alternative' station seems to only play about 20 songs over and over, so I don't even know if there's anything new that I'd care to buy. And I'm certainly not going to drop $17 on a CD that I don't know anything about.
Tell me again who the pirate is here.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I've bought a few CDs from MP3.com. They're burnt on demand. Artists that place work on MP3.com are not going to see any real income without this "publish on demand" technology. I doubt THEY'RE worried by CD-r discs.
It's only the mainstream music labels (and the artists that have swallowed their line) that are worried about CD-r discs. The real artists are actually big fans.
Can I take my old CD-Rs back to CIRA for a refund?
I've actually got a spool of about 100 that don't contain any useful data anymore.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I have a problem with a levy tax because it presumes that I am currently or will break the law. Since I do not purchase much music, why the hell I should reimburse the RIAA for money they wouldn't have gotten from me anyway?
Actually, it doesn't presume you're guilty. It presumes that a percentage of the population is going to break the law, and forces you to share in the RIAA's losses. Though this distinction may be slight, here's why the problem is significant.
If a store loses money due to theft of merchandise, it passes it onto its own customers through rising prices. If someone steals from a credit card company, they charge higher interest.
If companies lose lots of money because of product or security mismanagement, they won't be in business for long, because nobody will pay their high prices when their competitors charge less.
The RIAA's strategy is to place this burden on someone else's customers, namely those who might engage in "theft" of their products.
This is socialism, plain and simple. People pay for someone else's enjoyment of a product or service. If someone "steals" from the RIAA, they're stealing from everyone.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
According to the press release to justify that CD's are better than MP3s:
DVD video growing in popularity further confirmation that the disc is the preferred format over all others is found in DVD video shipments.
What kind of positioning by the RIAA is this? DVDs are a very popular delivery method for video. Translating this into popularity of audio on compact discs seems ludicrous to me. By the same token, here's my flawed reasoning for the comeback of snail mail over email...
Recent increase in Stephen King book readership further confirmation that paper is the preferred correspondence format over all others is found in book sales statistics.
CDs are becoming less popular because there's a more convenient distribution channel called the Internet. When the Internet becomes convenient enough to muscle videos around, DVD sales should drop accordingly.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
"You will call off this hounding consumers over mp3s and CD-Rs. You will go on live TV and say that there is no problem whatsoever, and that all your analyses turned up negative.
"You need us. We buy your CD's, we go to your concerts, we put food on your table and tip your chauffeurs. So DON'T FUCK WITH US!!"
Maybe I'm watching too much Fight Club lately.
but hardly as much fun...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
... must be VERY popular in Canada
And look, they're so sad they have to ensure they publicise their coming works in alphabetical order. Politics and Money do not a musical classic make!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
But what if you were copying software? Or top-secret weapons plans? Or any one of countless more possible illegal uses? Should you really have to pay RIAA for illegally using your CD-RW in a way that has no effect whatsoever on their profits?
OK, so I'm being a bit silly, but the point still stands. Maybe M$ should look at getting a cut of the tax to cover all those illegal copies of Windows or whatever.
I found out about Grandaddy...they rock. Also try Ladytron, and The New Pornographers. Listening to New Indie on Spinner pays off ;) Tons of good stuff playing there. All hope is not lost, it's just not being marketed and hyped.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
RIAA may be able to pull off controls, taxes, etc on new hardware and software. However, I have sitting on my desktop machine all the hardware and software to copy copyrighted CDs, burn Mp3s, burn Mp3s to CD audio, etx... RIAA might make future technology more expensive or difficult to use, but the base of installed technology and software is simply so large there will be no way to stop it. Even those nifty methods of introducing noise, simple way to get around that- run a line from the sound output to the mike port on your sound card(you need a full duplex card for this, or a second computer) play one CD out, and record a .wav from the mic, then encode it as Mp3.
RIAA can't stop the spread of digital music. No matter what they do they will fail, whether you support them or not you must realize this. What they can do, if they just had the balls to take a chance, is look for ways to use the digital music revolution to their advantage. IF they don't, in time the spread of digital music will undercut their business model and they will fall from their position, business limping along at best.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.