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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. "
So let's see they ram this HDTV stuff down our collective throats and now they are complaining about it?
I don't think it's ever going to be possible to prevent copying anyways- that's not even legal under fair use! (as I understand it)
I guess I don't hear people clamoring for "compelling music and movies and television" over the Internet. I already have devices that do all three of those things just fine -- what's going to compell me to buy new devices to do these same things? I don't really want to sit in front of my computer to watch movies or television anyway, and I don't see the digital televisions coming into the _really_ affordable range (sub $1k) anyway.
I'd be happy to keep it that way as long as nobody tries to mandate how my computer treats bits! Why would I want to give up my existing devices for new content-controlled, digital rights managed devices? Is it somehow going to be "better" for me? What are the benefits to the consumer? It seems like (almost?) all the benefits are for the content companies, not me! Why would somebody pay money for this?
"Do you hear that, Mister Andersen?"
Listening to this argument is interesting, because you can see just how much these companies, the Tech giants on one side and the Distribution giants on the other continue to rail against what they call the 'Destruction of the Intellectual Property Industry', at least as what they said in the article.
All I have to say is: The Sooner the Better.
Seriously. These guys are fighting obsolescence. They were obsolete the second the first computer disk was digitally written. That was the shot that killed them. Not Napster... not Gnutella, not Morpheus. Not even DivX or DeCSS. What these industries do not know is that they've been doomed to slow death the second mankind invented digital storage. The ability to store and manipulate data in a digital format is one of those watershed inventions, like fire, the wheel, gunpowder, or the combustion engine. Too much has changed for the existing order to survive. Just like there are no wagon makers any more, there will be no 'content distributors' in the future.
The fact that information can be reproduced endlessly, perfectly and easily by individuals, invalidates all the companies who sprung up in order to fill the gap that existed before digital information storage was possible.
The record industry bitterly, bitterly regrets the invention of the CD. It's very nearly a perfect format for storing audio. The people who make CD's and hardware for and software for creating CD's sure as hell don't, though. Roxio, as well as others like Phillips and Magnavox all have commercials on TV that encourage their customers to make CD's full of 'free' MP3's.
Yeah, right. As if. 'Free'. Sure....
The same thing is going on between the distribution industry and the computer hardware industry. Sure, it's a good thing for hard drives and CPU's to be altered so that information cannot be copied on them. That makes them a lot more expensive to produce, however. Why should one industry suffer because another is obsolete? That's the thought going through the minds of the people at Maxtor, Western Digital, and Iomega. It's also the thought going through the minds of people at Intel and AMD.
For the recording and entertainment industries to survive, they're very literally trying to cripple an entire industry with players from all around the globe. They're buying legislation right now because that's the only chance they have to force companies like ABit and Acer, who aren't even headquartered in the United States to tow the line.
But it's already too late. The first step in any kind of revolution is civil disobedience. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes the flow of ideas is just too powerful to allow the existing order to stay in power. Gandhi believed this when he led India against Britain, and he ended up being right.
Even if the recording and entertainment industries manage to buy all the legislation they want, they're still faced with the daunting task of stopping the civil disobedience they've created. They'll very literally have to march into every home and take away non-DRM compliant computers and TVs.
Here's a quick hint. The U.S. government tried to do this in the 30's with alcohol. It ended up being one of the single greatest failures of the government and has created criminal and social problems that live on today.
So, the long and short is not how long you can hold on to your computers... It's how long the RIAA, MPAA and any other companies that make money by restricting the flow of information can hold on to life.
Die, bitches, die...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I am opposed to copy protection, but up to now I have always defended content makers' "right" to attempt to implement it. As far as I'm concerned, it simply reduces the value of a product, and then natural selection in the marketplace can decide whether or not it is worthwhile.
But I really am starting to get pissed off at all these stealth attempts to move the status quo from "try it if you think it's worth it" to mandated incompatability. I am very much opposed to mandating incompatability, but I don't think I would resent the attempts to do this so much, if it weren't done in such secret. These cockroaches scatter whenever there's light cast upon them and media exposure has been shown to be nearly lethal to this kind of legislation. And that makes sense too, because, after all, this crap really is directly against the interests of the American People. Congresscritters are happy to sell us out, but they really hate getting caught while they are doing it (but interesting, they don't seem care if they get caught after-the-fact -- I still haven't figured out that part yet).
DMCA wouldn't have passed if it had received news coverage instead of the Lewinsky scandal. Now we have the terrorist thing to distract the media, so this really is a good time to attack the American people again. They can get away with it, right now. But if it doesn't happen now, it'll happen later. More distractions can always be found. It never ends.
And that bothers me. Sooner or later, the assholes will find a weakness and push us back a notch, and then another, and then another. We just have to let our guard down once. I don't know about you guys, but I get pretty fucking weary of this, and I know someday I will be taken unaware.
What we need is to stop defending, and start attacking. Put them on the defensive for a change, reacting to us.
And there's a way to do it. It's dirty and underhanded, because IMHO it really will infringe upon what I think hey're rights are. But they are assholes and never give up with stealth attacks, and if it has to come down to "them or us" situation, I'd rather be on the winning side. So fuck 'em.
I think we need to outlaw copy protection. Something on the level of a constitutional ammendment (although that feels like inappropriate overkill) so that stealth attacks can't override it.
I think most Americans would support it. I don't know how we'd get the representatives to vote on it (a democracy would make things a lot easier than our damned republic). But it might be worthy trying anyway.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Matthew Gerson, the vice president for public policy at Vivendi Universal S.A., which produces and sells both music (Universal Music Group) and movies (Universal Studios, Inc.), is quick to dispute the prediction that the music companies face cottage-industry status. "We know that if we build a safe, consumer friendly site that has all the 'bells and whistles' and features that music fans want, it will flourish. My hunch is that fans will have no trouble paying for the music that they love, and compensating the artists who bring it to them -- established stars as well as the new voices the labels introduce year after year."
Um, I don't know where to start... Let's see, "safe, consumer friendly site," isn't that a contradiction? I have a feeling that "all the 'bells and whistles' and features that music fans want" doesn't include crippled CDs, but Universal seems to like that idea... Sure, "fans will have no trouble paying for the music that they love," but that assumes that you produce that music and not the usual garbage. Lots of people are interested in "compensating the artists who bring it to them," which is why they don't want to deal with the major labels. As for "the new voices the labels introduce year after year," exactly which ones are these? They all look and sound the same to me...
Where the hell do you get the idea that we are living in an era of "too much prosperity"? You provide absolutely no evidence to back this up (nor could you, because -- I repeat myself -- it is complete nonsense). The economy as a whole, and the economic situation of the music industry in particular, are quickly deteriorating. The current round of totalitarian legislation is hardly the result of "too much prosperity"; on the contrary, it is the result of a number of declining corporations desperately trying to salvage whatever they can (by any means necessary) from a rapidly shrinking industry.
Their behavior depends entirely on how closely they think they are being watched. Congress isn't really opposed to us having rights; they just sell our rights when they're not being watched, and may protect them when they are. I don't think it would inconsistent for people who voted for DMCA to vote against it the very next day.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Is it? Not really... unless you bought it from, say, a "bundleware" CD of stuff that is supposed to be free (many freeware programs explicitly say in their readmes that this is not allowed) or it's an illegally resold commercial item (stolen goods?)
Fair use is an interesting thing. Browsing the machine that hosts my web site (I'm one of a number of virtual hosts on it) I came across this page once:
In other words, this is fair use. The image may be copyrighted, but since you are not reselling it and are viewing it "in your own home" as those FBI warnings on home movies put it, there's no real harm. The images are provided for that purpose, after all -- what's the difference between dropping it on your desktop and floating windows over it and just leaving it in your browser? This is an example of what is intended by the fair use copyright law. A real shame that more content providers (in this case an artist) don't "get it" like this one does.Yeah, I have a fair amount of copyrighted images on my computer. No, I don't redistribute them. Most of them are there as results of discussions ("this is what that looks like, so you know what I'm talking about"). That falls under "academic" use, which is largely what the recent arguments of fair use are about (Prof. Felten is a prime example).
I'd be a lot worse off if my own computer denied me permission to do that. The worst part of all this isn't the lost profits for one of these two camps.
It is going to be when academic freedoms, long held almost sacred here in the US, start to die. Compared to that threat, which has huge potential for long-term damage, the short-term worries about movies and music are a joke.
But that's typical of the MPAA/RIAA lately. Make money now and screw over the future. I bet the space station engineers at NASA and Boeing would be nodding their heads right now if they were reading this ...
i am a soviet space shuttle
If musicians had a good way to deliver their music/art/books/etc directly to the consumer, what need would they have of the big[1] distribution companies?
;-)
Instead the authors would need:
a) server hosting
b) advertising
c) agents who could get them airplay and/or tour venues
and would no longer need
d) to press CDs, DVDs, etc.
e) select the least painful contract from a handful of distrubutors
This would:
-reduce costs- by cutting out the middleman/distributor.
-increase competition- cheaper "distribution" costs would allow more artists to compete for your money.
-decrease pollution- no need to burn fuel for cd making factories, delivery trucks
-increase greenspace- no more need for brick and mortar stores
-shift jobs from music retail stores and fat cat distributors[1] to high tech server hosting companies and slimy advertising firms. (In other words they would have to get "real" jobs.)
[1] aka the Evil Greedy Screw the Consumers Coporations
Well, I don't know what to make of this. Any way they handle this we're screwed. The only way I think this problem will go away is to stop paying for big name albums and movies entirely. When the revenue stream dries up, lawyers tend to wither and blow away.
The problem with this is that there are a lot of extremely gifted artists and musician who would be left out in the cold. Bands like Metallica already have more money than God and can easily afford to set up their own distribution channels, so the little guys are the only people who would be hurt by it.
What to do about it? Support yout local music/film making/Art scene like you support your local LUG. When they get the support they need locally, they don't need to go to LA to get it and it's only a matter of time before this kind of stupidity and personal rights violation goes away permanently.
You are all fartheads.
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1348770p-14 18333c.html
Elton John, No Doubt and the Eagles are among a group of musicians who will perform at five benefit concerts the night before the Grammy Awards telecast to raise money for a legislative fight against the record industry. [...] "It's about time for artists to take control of their work and how it is presented to our fans," said Dexter Holland of the band Offspring, which will perform as part of the effort. [...] The tentative lineup is Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, the Eagles, Dixie Chicks and Stevie Nicks at the Forum in Inglewood; Offspring, No Doubt, Weezer at the Long Beach Convention Center; Ozzy Osborne at the Los Angeles Sports Arena; rhythm and blues acts to be announced at the Universal Amphitheatre; and country artists at an undetermined fifth site.
Of course, the record companies are denying any allegations.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One of the users we support has studied this subject in some detail. Check our his article at/
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_2/odlyzko
It almost brought tears to my eyes when I watched this week's news footage of Afghani citizens out in their back yards in Kabul, digging up old VCRs and TV sets that they had buried to keep them from being seized by the Taliban. One old gentleman had constructed a secret room in his house to hide thousands of books, magazines, and videotapes that would have been destroyed had they been discovered. People were lining the streets listening to music again after a decade long ban, and many were openly weeping for joy.
But what really choked me up was the whole time I was watching that story, I was thinking to myself "this is your future, this is you digging holes in your yard, in the U.S., to hide computer parts and copies of Linux from your oppressive government".
besides marketing
you pitch this like it's trvial
A couple of years ago I worked for a dance music record label in the UK, We'd had minor chart success and were selling about 1000 records per main release.
But how on earth do you get your record in the many shops scattered around the uk?
There were 1200 dance music singles in our genre released EVERY week!!
Making the music is the easy part.
A band can make multiple tracks per week (our outfit was making probably 10 releaseable tracks per week).
A startup music crew in the digital age NEEDS good marketing. We had our music videos on MTV even but still little market penetration when it came to singles sales.
So there we are, we can put maybe 500 tracks a year on our web site on mp3 but how on earth are we going to make money from that? Subscription?
But that means e-commerce infastructure and business people and marketing so we're back at square one.
.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Non-commercial pirates are ordinary people, who otherwise would be like you and me (well, ok maybe they're exactly like me.) They are the people who like certain content and are just looking to access it at their leisure. Non-commercial pirates are fans of content. They are students (formal and informal) who want to learn from the content. They are critics who further critical discussion of content. They are consumers who will likely purchase content when they are able. They are archivists saving the content that the distributors have abandoned. They are nurturers who want to see more content and help make content better.
But, in order to have a large enough inventory to attract people to their wares, some pirates may turn their activities into businesses. Turning commercial causes provable financial damage to the content holder (at least whatever the pirate charges, theoretical maximum of up to what the content holder charges, although certainly the discount rates of the pirate may boost his sales over what the legitimate holder would have) With such damages, there is an unquestionable standing for a lawsuit. On-line commercial pirates are especially susceptible. The 24/7 availability that offers such an advantage to on-line business, dramatically increases the pirates' chances of getting caught. Unlike the street-corner pirate, the on-line pirate can't turn off his web site if the cops come strolling by. Suffice it to say, commercial pirates are thieves, they are scum, whatever ugly adjective you want to use probably applies to them. They take the creative labor of others and use it to make a profit for themselves. Laws, regulations, mandates, and technical barriers will not stop them from their piracy. They have access to devices to circumvent whatever barriers put before them. They smell money, and don't care who is hurt in their pursuit of it.
Eric Flint from Baen Publishing isn't worried about online piracy because is a minor problem, any losses are offset by increased exposure of the content, and any attempt to restrict piracy is worse than the problem of priacy in the first place (see this Salon cartoon for an example carried none too far to the extreme ). His own experience has shown that content released freely, and without barriers to priracy (technological, legal, or moral) are the ones that drive exposure to the artist and sell better than similar books not available freely.
Content distributors (especially in the music industry, the RIAA and record companies) tend to justify their existance because of the amount of their marketing of the artists (in addition to the actual production/distributing efforts.) Online piracy is, then, a dilemma for artists. Piracy increases their exposure by definition, but at an inferior quality and no royalties. Piracy should show to consumers the complete uselessness of the content distributors as guardians of good taste. How many awful CD's do you have that you bought because of a catchy tune on the radio.
Current copyright laws almost ensure that there will be a historical hole where content simply disappears. Which company will be the one to ensure that Arthur Byron Cover's 1988 novel Planetfall for future generations? Neither quality nor the commerial success of content should be the judge of whether or not it is to be preserved. Many of Shakespeare's plays where bawdy low-rent entertainment in its era, but is now considered high-art. American Pie 2 deserves no less preservation than American Beauty. Plantfall deserves no less preservation than Snow Falling on Cedars. Married With Children no less than The Honeymooners. With corporate takeovers and massive inventories, content distributors can be the worst preservers of content. While this report notes some possible solutions, it generally suggests working with the content distributors to authorize preservation efforts. This is unworkable when a distribtor is unaware of their content property, has dissolved, or is hostile to the preservation effort. The societal need for preservation outweighs the property rights of the distributor.
It is high time that legislators and regulators stop acquiescing to every demand of the content distributors. The policy pendulum has swung too far in their favor. The problem is that the pendulum has swung quietly, without the public's knowledge. Efforts that the public does know about don't sound as harmful as they actually are, so your constituents (or those who are affected by your regulations) aren't alarmed. But as representatives of the people, you are the guardians of their rights. Fair use rights that the content distributors are attempting to restrict and even to abolish. The most perilous danger with legislative acts recently, such as the DCMA, is that they ingore that all copyrighted materials will eventually reach the public domain, as required by law (via the "limited time" clause). While content entering into the public domain is not advantageous to content distributors, it is vitally important to the general public.
Of course, that's just my opinion... (don't sue me Dennis!)
-sk
It's a sad thing but China is going to be more Free than america within a decade. The chinese have decided that they're going to use linux because 'Microsoft is an extention on the US government.' Which is a Scary thought... FBI: "we've determined you're using linux, and we've come to arrest you.."
China does supress a number of civil liberties, but soon america will be suppressing those liberties, and requiring you to use 'approved' hardware and software.
I just hope I'm wrong about this. I guess I better study those nuclear physics or start playing around with genetic engineering in my bathtub if I wan't to stand a chance against the oppressive police state that america is moving towards.
"the USA act is a mere tiny step away from the two way, always on televisions of 1984." What about interactive TV complete with targeted ads etc?
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html