Content Faction v. Tech Faction

An Anonymous reader writes: "This essay describes the current battle between two former allies in the DMCA fight - The Content Faction (Universal, MPAA, etc.) v The Tech Faction (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). It gives a great overview of what the battle is, who is taking what position, what's at stake - and how consumers are going to be taking it in the *** no matter who wins, it's just a matter of how rough it will be. "

Comments

Content Faction?

[vjmurphy]

Huh? The content feaction would be the artists who actually create the stuff. These companies are just the Distribution Faction.

Re:Content Faction?

[Lemmy Caution]

My point is that in economic and legal terms, to all useful extent and purposes, the recording industry owns that content. The recording artists are just factory workers, independent contractors whose labor has been paid for, and the goods handed over to their bosses. Granted, they get royalties and so forth, but the dispensation of their content is seldom under their control.

Re:Content Faction?

[Lemmy Caution]

While the law may treat artists like slave labourers, they're still the Designers, and should have control over where every one of their designs goes.

Only until they sign a contract that says otherwise - and enough of them do, that the recording industry can call itself the content faction. Musicians aren't signing those contracts so that they can Share Their Music With The World, it's so that they can bring in the benjamins, just like everyone else. If they wanted to just share the music, they'd do just that.

There is a habit to attribute some sort of inherent nobility to certain types of artistic production, but that habit isn't particularly justified.

Re:Content Faction?

[dillon_rinker]

Ah, the eternal debate between craft and art...

To counter your point, singing a song that someone else wrote while someone else performs the accompaniment and someone else alters your voice isn't art either.

Re:Content Faction?

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Fair enough - but it tends to be the exception rather than the rule in the recording industry. And if it's your own arrangement then there's at least some artistic effort going into it. The point is that anyone can make a shoe according to specifications, only *one* person could ever have written, say, American Pie (the song, that is) in the way that we all know and love...

And only one person could have written it in the fantastically horrible way that we all know and hate.

Re:Content Faction?

[Zordak]

Fair enough - but it tends to be the exception rather than the rule in the recording industry.

That's crap. How many big music "artists" write their own music, or even their own arrangements? In some of the genres with a niche appeal, the performers are the artists (for example, most hard rock/alternative bands write their own stuff), but the big money makers are the mainstream pop titles that are cranked out like so many shoes, and have about as much artistic value. This is your pop and country (which no longer sounds like real country music -- it's just slightly more twangy pop). Almost none of them write their own material. The tunes are manufactured to be non-descript because it makes it more broadly palatable, and they hardly bother re-arranging the words anymore. The people performing it are images put together by their respective labels to give a familiar face to the latest garbage. I am not even a songwriter, and I find it ludicrous that people like Brittney Spears and Faith Hill are referred to as "artists." They're salesmen, and what they sell is mediocre at best. That's not to say that there are no artists in the music industry. I think that there are a lot of artists with record contracts that have something to say, and they do write and perform their own stuff. But to call them the rule is like claiming that trading Inde music on Napster was the rule.

This sumarizes the whole thing.

[reaper20]

"If you think about it, the content industry does not want people to have computers; they're too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc."

I don't really know who to cheer for. The content guys are obviously stupid, but MS's tactics and IBMs tendency to forget what one hand is doing means Linux guys get stuck right in the middle. We can access content through 'uncoventional means', without the advertising channels and other marketing gizmos.

You have IBM supporting linux on one hand, and its hard drive people pulling that digital management stuff for IDE drives.

We need to tread lightly before we jump to conclusions...

Re:This sumarizes the whole thing.

[curunir]

"I don't really know who to cheer for..."

Save your cheering for when there are actually two sides that are at odds with each other. This is really just a case of two extremely large entities getting together and discussing how they're going to screw the rest of us in order to maximize their profits (I guess they think that by calling it "collateral damage" we'll swallow it easier).

To suggest that these factions are at odds is kinda funny. Why is the government basically giving up on their prosecution of Microsoft? Well, in large part due to the opinion (and campaign contributions) of the "Content Faction". The "Content Faction" may want to see DRM mandate laws in place, but they'll be happy to settle for a Microsoft DRM'd OS that is on 99% of all desktops.

So save your cheering for when the real struggle starts. Once they figure out how they want to turn your computer into a DVD player that allows you limited email/web privileges, there's going to be a huge fight to get it implemented.

damn right

[MrFredBloggs]

Everyone bitches about how the record companies are slow to adapt new tech and use it for their own ends...where are the musicians using this stuff? Surely if they are so unhappy about distribution methods, they should get off their butts and do something about it?

Re:damn right

[poot_rootbeer]

The musicians you've heard of are forbidden from using this 'new tech stuff' by their contracts with their record companies.

The musicians you haven't heard of ARE using this new tech stuff. Go out and find them and support them.

constitutional amendment someday?

[mrroot]

Just because a technology enables you to break the law should not make the technology itself illegal. That is what we're headed for though.

Maybe someday we'll see a constitutional amendment that gives people the right to own technology. Just like we have the right to bear arms, which may have been equally important to people back in the 1700s.

Just as guns can be used to commit crime, so can technology, but that is more the fault of the perpetrators than the technology itself.

Re:constitutional amendment someday?

[kesuki]

Constitutional ammendments are Ratified by the States. Not the 'congress.' Of course they need a 2/3rds of the states to ratify a constitutional ammendment. As long as the MPAA and RIAA can keep 20 states in thier back pocket we'd never have that kind of ammendment.

Besides, the DMCA already violates the constitution and some of the ammendmends. The problem is getting the law overturned in court.
One could also argue that the right to bear arms already applies to computers. Since they Can be used as a weapon, people have a constitutional right to have them.

Re:constitutional amendment someday?

[dillon_rinker]

Interesting point...

Guns allowed the 1700s US populace to feed themselves, protect their property, and provide for the common defense. Unrestricted general purpose information processing devices have interesting parallels.

Is that what W3C TAG is up to?

[3seas]

"Because computers are potentially very efficient and capable copying machines, and because the Internet is potentially a very efficient and capable distribution mechanism, even in the hands of ordinary individuals, the Content Faction has set out to restructure the entire digital world we have today. They want to rearchitect not just the Internet, but every computer and digital tool on or off the Net that might be used to make unauthorized copies."

Slashdot article on W3C TAG

" In an effort to build shared understanding of Web Architecture principles, W3C has chartered and assembled a Technical Architecture Group - the TAG for short. The TAG will document cross-technology Web architecture principles, and resolve architectural issues. "

which is worse

[archen]

In all honesty I just skimmed the article because I didn't find it all that interesting. I don't really see so much of a bad point of IBM and company winning this fight, compared to the nightmare described if the Content faction wins - basically making it all but illegal to have a general purpose computer.

civil offense for anyone who developed (for example) a new computer that did not include a federally approved security standard preventing the unlicensed copying of copyrighted works

Now THIS really scares me. That is just a skip away from "having any copyrighted material on your computer will result in prison time". Movies first, then Music (or perhaps at the same time). Then we move on to images. Have a wallpaper of some copyrighted picture? Yeah, that's illegal. At some point we have to draw the line. I don't agree with copying movies, but that could be because I hate watching movies on a computer anyway. I'd much rather sit on my cushy couch and watch a movie myself. Go rent a high quality DVD, or search the internet, find a link that works, and wait for hours downloading it - hmm... I'll just spend a few bucks. And if I liked it I'd probably buy it anyway. I really wonder if movie downloading is as wide spread as the movie industry claims.

Government, Business, Religion

[telbij]

I find it somewhat scary that 'content companies' have willing allies in congress for this kind of oppressive legislation.

To me it's a symptom of too much prosperity. Think about it, these 'content companies' are no more than _businessmen_ who profit from other people's work. They say it's their god-given right to buy something and then sell it repeatedly forever making billions of dollars. Yet they forget (and it would seem congress forgets) that money != value. Money is supposed to represent value so that people can trade goods. Throwing more middle-men into the equation doesn't increase value UNLESS they provide quality-assurance, shipping, or some other thing that the producer themselves doesn't want to do but is nevertheless necessary.

Our quality of life is determined by how many goods and services get produced, not how much money is spent. Because the United States is so rich, we forget that the value of money comes from all our hard work. If we suddenly start devoting man-hours to stifling distribution of existing work and regulating everything so that every pasty-faced exec can get his stock options + bonus, where will the value be?

In the information age it's clear that the richest society is the one with the most information. The way to achieve that goal is to spend our time researching and developing new information, not creating a world where trading information becomes harder.

Note that this is not an "information wants to be free" argument. I think people who contribute to society should get paid, and get paid well. Currently there is not an efficient mechanism whereby information producers can get paid small amounts by the masses who enjoy their work. That's the 'content companies' niche.

I grudgingly admit that there is a place for middle-men in this world, but we have to draw the line at legislation that just makes them fatter and reduces our cultural value.

I think this problem, like so many in our society is caused by too much money in government. The founding fathers knew that religion had to be separated from government in order to be fair and just. Sadly we were too poor then for them to realize that the economy must also be kept strictly out of government. I say we have publicly funded elections with standard forums where candidates can express their views. Outlaw political advertising as subversive propaganda, and let Joe Schmoe run for office. It has been said that "You can't legislate morality." But that is a falacy because what else is legislation for?

SSSCA and industry revenues' orders of magnitudes

[SysKoll]

At stake in this war, says Eisner, who's the acknowledged leader of the Content Faction, is "the future of the American entertainment industry, the future of American consumers, the future of America's balance of international trade."

We know the SSSCA does not make sense from a technical point of view. We know that it is akin to smothering basic freedoms. But of course, these considerations do not compute in the dollar terms that are the only things filtering through your average executive's thick ears (not to mention many Congresscritters).

So let's humor Eisner's point of view and talk greenbacks here. Let's see: Unless my sources are totally wrong, Hollywood's revenue is about $9 to $13 billion a year. Among which a lot of derived products reimported in the USA (e.g. console games on movie licenses) which actually degrade the US trade balance. But let's retain the $13 billion/year for the sake of this discussion.

On the other hand, the IT industry represents $600 billion at least. Heck, just adding up IBM, Microsoft, HP/Compaq and EDS gives you more than $300 billion/year.

So let me get this straight, Mr. Eisner: in order to "protect" a $13B/year industry branch against a problem that isn't an effective threat yet, and might never be, you and other SSSCA supporters want to hamper and possibly seriously harm an industry that is at least 25 times bigger?

And this is going to help the US economy?

So even from a strickly financial point, SSSCA does not make any sense. Eisner is a fraud. He is athreat to the IT industry, which produced far more jobs, wealth and well-being than any other industry since WWII.

With business executives like that at the head of American corporations, who needs Ben Laden?

-- SysKoll

P.S. Actually, from the moment Eisner started draping himself into patriotic self-righteousness, it sounded fishy. The guy is a patriot the way a televangelist is a believer.

Just a mating dance between elephants

[sphealey]

This is just the typical mating dance between elephants who are both mature, experienced, and tough. They will circle each other for a while, bellowing challenges, doing a bit of fighting to see who (if either) is dominant, who is more willing to fight, who is more determined. Then the mating will commence (i.e. a "compromise bill" will be introducted by Mr. Hollings) and the two large elephants, and their children, will continue to dominate the rest of the herd.

I hope no one thinks that there is an actual chance that IBM or Microsoft will oppose the RIAA, MPAA, et al? Their long-term interests are identical; it is just dividing the spoils in the short term that is creating the appearance of conflict.

sPh

Wonder what the gun lobby thinks of this?

[sensate_mass]

A lot of the lawmakers who'll be attempting to pass legislation requiring manditory hardware/os-based DRM currently support gun rights.

What's the difference between "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." and "Hard drives don't commit piracy, people commit piracy." I'd like to think that limiting a person's ability to quickly and easily murder from a distance would be more important than limiting their ability to pirate a song. Does anyone here think we'll see laws that force gunmakers to limit what people can shoot at anytime soon?

Re:compelling content?

[DJerman]

Why would somebody pay money for this?

Because LOTR: Return of the King may not play in your old DVD player. All they have to do is change the coding. It's not for delivering stuff over the internet -- it's for keeping you from re-watching your old movies forever, rather than buying new ones, and to keep you from (God forbid) creating your own stuff and posting it for others to see. What it's really for is to raise a barrier so that artists can't show or sell their art without funneling through one of these big companies for distribution.

If the Hollings bill passes, one day your computer will break, you'll look around, and there won't be any more to buy. You'll pay for this or live without computers (or toasters, if it passes in the form i read it). That's the evil - that you won't be able to get a general purpose computer or media player even if you don't want the compelling content. Because if it were general purpose it could be used to copy and display uncontrolled content.

The point is that you're right -- this can't happen with out a law (and treaties) banning alternatives. And the law will happen if we're not careful. That's what's wrong here. Government protecting corporations against the people who elect the government.

A bit Alarmist

[Anonymous Coward]

While the article is generally well written, my impression is that the essay is generally just an alarmist piece. There are for sure some things to be concerned about in the future of technology and a lot of the industries in entertainment worry about the change, as they picture the entire future as a 'worst case scenario'. (IMHO, planning on the basis of a WCS means a good business model). Here are the things that come to my mind, in order:

1) My parents have difficulty just checking email, let alone going out and searching for internet music. While there is a whole generation of people growing up with computers and seeing the internet as a distribution channel for free music, there remains quite a large number of people who don't have the level of skill to get free music. 10 years in technology is eternity: Just look at what was around 10 years ago! By the time we reach 2010, many of these companies will have a shift of people in thier management that will understand that they can't fear the future, they must embrace it.

2) The racket around VCRs. I'm not a legal person, or even a historian, but if I recall correctly: there were many legal challenges by the same groups to outlaw VCRs. These legal challenges were not so much thwarted by the lawmakers (who may get paid handsomely by the industry), but rather by the large amount of the populace that rose up and said "We want our rights to record!" The power of the people is great, even if it seems dormant most of the time.

3) Ebooks. Yesterday on NPR, there was a short piece on the failure of Ebooks. While many people believe that it just isn't the time for ebooks yet, many ebook publishers are going out of business. I think there were many reasons for the failures around this technology, but I think the first and foremost was: technology. Each ebook manufacturer used something different, so buying one brand of ebook meant that you couldn't read books from other publishers! You don't see that sort of problem with paperbacks. With all these competing technologies for Content Protection, I don't think that MS DRM will win out, especially with groups of people who couldn't use the technology (can we say Linux?).

All in all, I really don't believe people will sit around and accept the fact that they won't be able to 'buy' music anymore (or any other type of entertainment), despite the intentions of many of these companies to have strict control over content.

As a personal hope, I always find myself hoping that MS will win. Why? Because those people who did nothing to preserve their rights of choice deserve no choice at all. Those of us who make our own decisions will continue to use Linux: just as those who enjoy Macs will continue to do so. It may be a niche market, but it will be our market.

[ if you don't like what I've written, oh well. This is my opinion after all, not yours. ]

Re:Cry me (another) river...

[pointym5]

Read the damn article.

The issue discussed is NOT content -- it has nothing to do with whether you're boycotting copy-protected CDs, or Disney movies, or whatever. Do you like building your own machine from parts scrounged via PriceWatch? Do you like building your own bleeding edge Linux kernel and optimizing the driver for your video card? Well the article is about the distinct possibility that corporate interests will negotiate a legal solution that directly implies that writing your own software or building your own hardware is ILLEGAL.

Requisite car analogy

[Rand Race]

In the 19th century my family made quite a good living as wainwrights, they made wagons. I imagine thaey felt much like the content industry does now when the automobile was invented. But guess what? They divested from wagons and invested in autos, they didn't try to make cars illegal.

Technology giveth, there was no real music industry until the phonograph was invented, and technology taketh away. Limiting technology in favor of business is shortsited, ill founded, anti-capitalistic, and doomed to fail.

Re:SSSCA and industry revenues' orders of magnitud

[Tackhead]

> [Content Faction: Tens of billions in revenue]
> [Tech Faction: Hundreds of billions, maybe a trillion, in revenue]

I think we'd all agree that government operates by the Golden Rule: Those that have the gold, make the rules. But if we truly live in a "one dollar, one vote" society, why the fsck is anyone in Congress listening to the Content Faction at all? Do Content Faction lobbyists hire better hookers, with cocaine instead of silicone in their tits?

> So even from a strictly financial point, SSSCA does not make any sense. Eisner is a fraud. He is a threat to the IT industry, which produced far more jobs, wealth and well-being than any other industry since WWII.
>
> With business executives like that at the head of American corporations, who needs bin Laden?

I thought my "Hollywood hookers and better coke" crack was good, but I think you've got the better soundbite, by far.

Rack up the dollar cost of the WTC disaster. (Conservatively $100B), and compare it to the dollar cost to the Tech Faction if the Content Faction gets its way, and discover that a mere 10-15% "hit" in Tech Faction revenues is the equivalent of a WTC attack when it comes to GDP. The Eisner-Valenti-Rosen triumvirate is a greater threat to the economy than bin Laden ever was.

I think we need to push three talking points:

• The memes "Content Faction" and "Technology Faction". Portraying Hollywood as a "faction", rather than an "industry" makes it clear that there are opposing interests here.
• The fact that tech is at least an order of magnitude larger - in jobs, revenues, profits, and taxes remitted to the government - than the Content Faction.

When you write your Congresscritter, you can call them "industries" instead of "factions". And instead of asking him which industry is likely to give him the most campaign dollars over the next 30 years, ask him which industry is most likely to provide the most jobs for his constituents. He'll do the campaign contribution math by himself, and you've pointed out there's a compelling "it's the economy, stupid" excuse his opponent can use against him, should he side against the Tech Faction.

When you talk to your co-workers, write letters to the editor, or post to weblogs, feel free to be honest - call 'em Factions, and ask the campaign contribution question. The readers will do the "Hollywood must have better hookers, if my Congresscritter supports the Hollywood faction, he must be corrupt" math by themselves, and vote accordingly.

The economic imperatives ...

[LL]

The golden rule used to be "whoever has the gold makes the rule" but I would observe from current machinations the golden collorary "he who writes the rules, defines the gold".

The reason ... think what the internet does .. every single piece of information whether written in the past or immediate future (think trailers) is now immediately available. It's like a thirsty man in a desert being swept away by a flash flood. All the historical economic models based on a content/distribution model is now completely invalidated. Historically media studios could release stuff at different price/time points (movies, videos, cable reruns, etc) with the nice kicker that a popular franchise can be remastered with relatively little marginal cost.

Now suddenly anyone (with a modicum of hacker skill) can bypass their time/space-controls (cough DVD-region-coding), the TiVo is just one small example. Suddenly all their media libraries is implicity devalued as they can't withdraw "obsolescent" titles. The First Sale doctrine means that anyone can resell their "original" copy which creates competition for their newest overhyped gee-whiz production. Hence their incentive, nay long-term economic survival, in pushing Digital Rights Managment (aka service selectivity/variability) by stealth (submarine legislation) or by wealth (trial by litigation).

Of course, they don't always have much of a clue (cough*CueCat*cough) so they have to rely on the tech experts to provide them with the tools to control/segment the entertainment market. Which means that unless you have a tech department under your belt like AOL, they are held over the barrel by the likes of Microsoft who have their own ambitions of being the broadband toll-keepers.

Economics alway always been about scarcity (whoever dies with the biggest toys wins) but the internet inverts all that into a surplus. The "gift culture" that ESR mentions is thus anathema to any self-respecting aspiring monopolist as infinite replication/distribution of information-based products limits their market of gullible fools.

It will be an interesting decade as all these economic forces resolve themselves.

LL

How much does DRM cost the 'consumer'?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find amazing about all of this is that noone is talking about how much we are expected to spend to participate in our on-line culture.

Radio is free (for now) but I'd have to get a $ub$cription to listen to satellite XM broadcasts. Likewise, I'll need a subscription to be able to listen to music on-line, and I'll need a high-bandwidth connection to be able to download it all...

How much is all this going to cost me? Digital Cable $50/month, Cable/DSL Internet $50/month, XM subscription $10/month, On-line music $10/month.

I'm already up to $120/month and I haven't even started talking about what my kids want/need... or how much my cost of living has increased because I have to live in an urban area where these services are offered...

How much money are we talking about, and how many people, realistically, can afford this ?

There is more involved than they realize!

[3seas]

The real issues at hand are far more reaching than copyrights. The Digital Media functionality that computers provides all of us with most certainly goes way beyond the copyright dimension.

They may not realize it yet, but eventually will have no other choice but to recoignize that the "CANNOT" base intellectual property laws will have to be changed to be "CAN" based.

I'm all for artists, creators, those who produce additional productive and pleasure values to be recognized and rewarded. For such carrots is how we teach our children to help make our society a better place of all of us to enjoy.

But the bottom line is to get people to want to recognize and reward those who do good. And the only way that is going to happen is change the laws so as to motivate and inspire people to do so.

Lawrence Lessig pointed out to me that there are two parts to dealing with Intellectual Property. The first part I believe was in reference to beng granted IP rights as a creator, the second part being liability law. I suppose this is the part in most need of changing into "asset" law.

comments?

maybe see other slashdot posts by your truely?

Re:Cry me (another) river...

[Flower]

Explain to me why 99.999 percent of the consumers out there should give a rip and "wise up." What unreasonable strings are being attached to them? Let's look at DVDs for instance.

• Region encoding? Big whoop. For the vast majority of people out there this is a non-issue. They aren't buying foreign films from France. People are buying stuff like Cat and Dogs or Planet of the Apes.
  
• Can't play on alternative OSes. Again. The market inconveinenced is so small it effectively has no voice.
  
• Can't copy. Most people don't do that anyway. If Joe Average doesn't feel the need to backup his financial data on his PC then why backup his video library? For the public in general this too is a non-issue.
  

Now let's look at what they get by using DVDs.

• Better video and sound quality.
  
• More features. Like different aspects. Abilty to add in deleted scenes. Different languages. Games. The list goes on and on.
  

So from the consumer's perspective, there aren't any strings attached. Just a better product. And just as it is extremely hard to convince the Copyright Office and the Courts to take into consideration hypothetical pitfalls and insignificant markets it is even harder to explain these issues to a consumer. Been there, done that.

So no, it isn't "simple." I refuse to buy those products just like you but after listening to my co-workers I realize they could give a rip about any of these issues. Even the one who got burned by the region encoding on a DVD he bought from the UK. Was he disappointed? Yes. Would he stop purchasing DVDs? Hell no.

The problem with consumers "calling the shots" in this battle is one of inertia and unless Big Media does something completely whacked like suddenly going straight to everything is copy controlled pay-per-view it will only be "radicals" who fight this on the consumer front.

Forgets to Mention

[Coward Anonymous]

The writer forgets to mention that this would happen only in the U.S.
The rest of the world would happily chug along without these wild restrictions on what people can do with their computers.
The irony of it is that innovation is a product of the freedom to think and do whatever you want with the means at your disposal. Today, the U.S. is the best place for it.
The minute these limitations are put into place, the U.S. can kiss its technological supremacy goodbye. The bleeding edge will move elsewhere.

Re:The sound of Inevitability...

[Bonker]

"Civil disobedience"? Let's be honest here, people copy songs and movies because they like free stuff, not because of any larger societal implications. You're really comparing a music-swapping college kid to Gandhi? That kind of hyperbole isn't going to help your argument.

And do you really think all of India followed Ghandi because they wanted an end of British oppression and documented freedom?

What the average Indian wanted was for things to be a little better than they were. He or she wanted to not have to pay a pointless tax to Great Britain or see all his opportunities dissapear at the whim of a European.

This is the same thing. Sure, Joe Napster doesn't have a lot of high ideals other than getting the music he wants for free. What he does know is that his culture is being bought and sold, and that it might be nice if that wasn't the case.

Keep fighting the good fight, file traders!

Imagine this future...

[ksr]

Perhaps at some point in the not-too-distant future, the following scenario might be realized.

A woman waits near her departure gate at Newark airport, musing about the glories of days gone by. She inadvertently begins to hum a popular tune from the late nineties. Unfortunately for her, she reproduces the melody with some accuracy; the humming is picked up by several (digital rights law mandated) microphones, and analyzed by the successor to this system, which identifies the "digital property" being reproduced. The woman's location is triangulated by the multiple audio pickups, and she is identified by face. An appropriate license is automatically selected, according to the length of the humming, time of day, location, number of people within earshot, previous digital rights infraction record, and distributor-determined digital rights attributes of the tune itself.

Later in the week, when she receives her monthly IRS debit statement, the woman discovers a $190 charge for a "public performance and audible reproduction license" covering the episode, along with a 28% tax charge. Of course, she doesn't have to worry about the inconvenience of paying; it's already been deducted from her account.