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Future of Music Summit
DotcomScoop writes: "We were provided with a copy of the letter sent by Congressman Rick Boucher to RIAA head Hilary Rosen and IFPI head Jay Berman questioning the legality of copy-protecting CDs. 'I am particularly concerned that some of these technologies may prevent or inhibit consumer home recording using recorders and media covered by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA),' Boucher writes. We've summarized the letter in a story and CNET also has coverage. Monday is the kick-off of the two-day Future Of Music Policy Summit, which includes keynotes or panels from Boucher, Rosen, Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers, Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, Fugazi's Ian MacKaye and the National Writer Union's Jonathan Tasini, among others." We already posted a story about the Boucher letter, but it can't hurt to mention it again.
The motto of a new generation (of /. editors)
;-)
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
The RIAA has been stomping royally on anyone and everyone about protecting their copyright.
Of course, the artists themselves don't actually see much of it but the publishers do.
Last I heard the royalty paid to the artist was somewhere in the region of 5%. Once you deduct production and advertising costs, it's not hard to see why the industry is trying to protect it's margin...
I've always like the idea to let recording ass. a few cents from a potentially made copy. Now if I can't even do a copy I'm excited to pay a few cents for my own backups of my work.
Just my two cents has now a new innovative meaning...
Either the record companies will say "Keep you pittance you collect on the blank media" or they will simply start a smear campaign on the senator and all others that bring this up to discredit them or to try and direct the public's focus away from the issue.
The record companies know what they are doing is wrong... hell they helped write the law.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No matter what they do, it will be cracked -- therefore copy protection does not hurt software and music pirates. They will figure out a way to do it. No, the people it hurts is the legitimate users that just want a backup copy in case the cd gets broken, which is their legal right. The people who want to put the songs on their MP3 player so they can listen to it while jogging without experiencing CD skipping. Thats who is hurt by the copy protection. Honest people who have paid for the product are being robbed by the publishing companies. This is true for both software and music. It *will* be pirated. That cannot be stopped. Only law abiding citizens follow the law.
I would honestly bet, that the people in the cyrstal palace of RIAA forget that there is this "tax" on black media, or they knew about it, and now want to have a more effective way of increasing it without huge public backlash (we will return your right to have clean cds, but we can pull this stunt again if we want more money). Imagine if the RIAA wanted to increase the "tax" to 50c/media, without going through this effort first. People would revolt, now they are saying, well if I get access to all my CD's again, maybe its worth it
`find / -name "*your_base*" -exec chown us:us {} \;`
Keynotes at a Music Summit - how harmonious.
Shouldn't it be overture instead of kick-off though?
The Future of Music Coalition, some of the folks helping to organize this, is one of the few organizations that really "get it". Basically, they've taken the stance that creators of music should be rewarded, and that the practical implications aren't as black and white as "file sharing bad" or "record industry bad". So, what they're trying to do is figure out what technological and social solutions can be used to address the problem of artist compensation. The FOMC Manifesto is recommended reading.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
Gee, with all this math, I can't keep up! Then again, it seems that every other word was "lawyer" on that page, so maybe they just understand their audience. ;)
-- Dan
D.C. al Fine!
--
(if you're still looking for the point, it was back there, in the post. </sig>)
Hilary Rosen (RIAA)(Public Enemy)
-- Dan
So we all known the score. The established position is that any "information" product you buy, like a book, video, magazine, LP, CD or whatever, is sold to you on the condition that you do not reproduce it in any way. This wasn't so bad, because reproduction was expensive anyway. Time for a ramble through my thoughts...
If I buy a book, I know what I'm getting; a physical object which I can read (in one place at a time). I can re-read it any number of times without paying any extra money to the author/publisher. I can give it away to someone else, and they can read it too. The people who write and produce books are obviously happy that this does not erode their profits, or they would have tried to outlaw second-hand bookshops and libraries long ago.
So if it's possible to make money on print media in that environment, why is it so hard for those selling music? After all, they have extra revenue channels which have no equivalent in the print world, such as live performances. And that's before you consider the merchandising opportunities, which are just as possible for authors (J.K. Rowling, anyone?), musicians, artists...
More reflections - original works of art are traditionally extremely expensive because a "copy" or reprint is inferior to the master. Studio production of music is very different; the artist can slave for months over one recorded track until it's finally ready... but the perfect copies cost nothing.
Are people used to "getting stuff for free"? Sure they are, they listen to the radio. Who cares what deals happen behind the scenes to ensure airplay? The music is free! In what way is recording something off the radio and listening to it again "offline" any different from re-reading a book, or for that matter, Napster?
So say the music industry collapsed in the face of widespread "piracy", or sharing, or whatever you want to call it. What happens to the creative impulses which were responsible for the great music in the first place? Do they just die off in the absence of money? Hell no. Music and art have existed long before the RIAA, Disney, the Industrial Revolution, Capitalism or even currency.
If all musicians were just in it for the money, then the charts would be full of lowest-common-denominator bland whiney teenage well-groomed all-style-no-substance pap.
Ah.
These sigs are more interesting tha
2. Based upon your knowledge and upon any consumer contact received by your member companies, have any discs entered the U.S. market that may not be copied on a device or on media for which a royalty has been paid under the AHRA?
This is really the point of his question. The AHRA allows the collection of a royalty on recording media, but this comes in exchange for the priviledge of the consumer to make these copies. By making copy protected originals, the priviledge is removed. Congressman Boucher's questions are pulling tight the noose the RIAA has made for itself out of all that rope.
Very funny indeed.
Check out today's (well januari 7th) DrFun cartoon, seems like Dave knows what is going on here...
2 0107.jpg
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200201/df200
As you know from your personal involvement in its drafting, the AHRA clearly requires content owners to code their material appropriately to implement a basic compromise: in return for the receipt of royalties on compliant recorders and media, copyright owners may not preclude consumers from making a first-generation, digital-to-digital copy of an album on a compliant device using royalty-paid media. Under the AHRA, any deliberate change to a CD by a content owner that makes one generation of digital recording from the CD on covered devices no longer possible would appear to violate the content owner's obligations under the statute.
And how much of a royalty does the RIAA get on the sale of hard drives/MP3 encoders/iPods/Nomads? I'm sure Ms. Rosen will gleefully point out to our well-intentioned friend in Congress that she's more concerned about CD-to-MP3 copying than CD-to-CD, which might, unfortunately, render Rep. Boucher's argument moot.
sometimes I can not understand where this is going.
Now we talk about the legality of a system created to prevent illegality, besides that it does not work it's far away from being accepted.
Why all this trouble?
The stuff I like I buy on CD, if I just hear stuff on air and think i might like it, I download it.
If I accidentially bought a "defective" CD I may (a) download it, or (b) drag me thru the more or less painful process of ripping it via some analog cables.
That is my solution, come what may, nobody can kill systems like gnutella.
So why do we even care? Let the RIAA mofos do what they want, let them waste their money, I couldn't care less.
I know where I'll get my music. Everybody should. I know most of you already do.
I'm not sure I understand how your post is relevant and rates an "Interesting" mod, but I thought I would reply anyway.
Your post is funny and when I read it I laughed. Then I thought about it and wondered to myself why it's funny because, after all, that's what they're doing with software these days.
With a software product you have only labor involved, assuming the potential customer downloads the product. If he wants it on media then you make him pay for media an shipping. But a car has a hell of a lot of material involved in it, so you would require a healthy dose of venture capital to purchase the material and give that away. Yikes!
So software is really one of the few things you could do this with. Cars, no way.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Every clockwork has its limit, just put it in some sand...
By encouraging Free Art models (such as the EFF proposed model or GNUArt) we may achieve a parallel distribution model which will de facto have to cohabit with the existing industrial model.
For example, GNUArt agrees that, for example, Free Music songs may appear on commercial compilations ("Best Of"), provided there is a notification of its GPL'ed status.
That's why the way to avoid such industrialization of entertainment would be to
Trolling using another account since 2005.
rm -f ../comment
I bought a car manufacturing plant from Radio Shack. Yesterday I made 350491 cars with my car manufacturing plant.
See, you can't compare digital information, a formless entity, with something concrete like a car.
Is anyone else troubled by the fact that this is hosted by a group of lawyers? If you think about it, what better way to find out what's going to be easy to sue about this year than to host a summit like this?
-- Dan
If there was a DOS attack on that fucking site and the attacker was traced - would he/she be tried for any wrongdoing?
~DonkeyKong
One thing that slays me about all this is the attitude that if I record something to a CD it MUST be material that was created by someone else. The folks pushing this battle and demanding taxes on blank media assume that the common man is not capable of creating his own music, documents, movies, etc.
I got a taste of this during the discussion of Napster at http://www.tednugent.com where they were insisting that if I made my own MP3 file it was copyrighted and illegal for me to offer for free. Never mind if I wrote and performed my own music, recorded it myself, and chose to give it away to the world. The attitude seems to be that even if a moron like myself is capable of such a thing, I'm not as wise as the RIAA and should be protected from myself and not allowed to give it for free.
But of course.....the RIAA wants a chunk of "the action" and if I give it away there isn't any action.
I understand that some places (Canadia?) already have a tax on blank media under the assumption that you are going to use that media to copy copyrighted material. They don't seem to take into account that the same media can be used to save files of any type. Maybe you just wanted to save your family photos to CD, or your letters to your girlfriend. Oh well, you pay the tax anyway.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Anyone who uses the word "jammies" well i just want to drill em in the shoulder so hard. I don't want to pound their face and snap their lame nose, just plant a square one right on their shoulder with such force that it leaves a nice green bruise. "jammies", damn you want a beat down don't you.
The royalty payments are on Digital Audio Tape, Blank Music Compact Discs, and Mini Discs. There are not any music royaltys on DATA CD's. Using a data CD for music is wrong. The royalty is not paid. Using a music CD for data backup is stupid. I agree, why pay music royaltys on your data backups? (unless it's your Napster directory)
I keep stock of both kinds of CD blanks for these reasons. I do have copies of some of my cd's to use at work and in the car. That's what the mucic CD blanks are legaly for. Any CD that won't work with the music blanks gets returned as defective. I refuse to buy/own defective CD's.
The truth shall set you free!
I'm a law abiding citzcen who feels that car theft is wrong, so i only have the 30 day evaluation versions of said cars in my 60 car garage...
The material for a car isn't that expensive. A $50 000 Mercedes includes material for about $2000, the rest of the cars value is in R&D+labour for manufacturing and marketing.
Same goes for software, most value is in labour.
Not that much of a difference.
According to the 1992 Act people are entitled to produce a copy of purchased music for their own, private use. Ergo, CD copy-prevention software takes away that right; and therefore record companies should be banned from using it.
However, I also noticed that a representative from Napster is to speak at this conference. Although there are legitimate uses for these P2P file sharing networks, Napster and its peers have the legal and ethical responsibility to make sure that their networks are used only for legal purposes. If rampant trading of copyrighted music is the norm for these networks (as I believe it is), then indeed they should be forced to shut down.
Purchasing a CD does not give one the right to distribute copies of the music to anyone he wishes. However, by law if someone wants to make a cassette tape (or MP3 file) for his own personal consumption, he does have that right; and the RIAA should not be allowed to nullify that right without very strong evidence that it is being abused by a large portion of the consuming public.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I just bought a new CD, and it doesn't play on my XP machine. Aren't Microsoft shite.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
The same thing applies to almost all products these days. The value is hardly ever in material and such things, there are exceptions like jewelry with expensive gold and diamonds and such things but generally speaking thats how it is.
A Pentium 4 intelship costs about $20 to make including all costs associated with production. Same thing with clothes, shoes, furniture, etc, etc, etc.
The value is mostly in intellectual property for nearly every product manufactured today.
The interesting thing about these type of discussions is that the people who are most involved in the music itself, by this I mean the musicians and the audiance, are not even being asked what they think about things. This is a dialogue between people who make money off of others peoples works and lawmakers.
I found the congressman's letter concise and powerful. The language was matter-of-fact and keeps the focus on the legal issues. Hopefully his actions will result in a balanced out come. Now if only the congressman would take up the cause of the DMCA and find an equally effective legal approach to repealing the law.
The problem is that everyone is asking and answering the wrong questions. It is a sad thing that lawyers relate everything to laws, old and new. Problems do not solve themselves when you relate them and attempt to solve them using current flawed laws. It should not be about laws or acts, it should be about what is right and what is not.
If you want to know how to solve the problem with the music industry then listen up. The industry is large and that is the way most want it, atleast those who are a part of it. To them it is about lifestyle, money, jobs, and simply put it, it is the way they have lived their lives for as long as they can remember. They are not willing to let go and just like most people, they want more. The problem is that the whole idea of a music industry is just crazy. Yes, we do need companies that work with music and such, but why make the industry so large. Those who work in the industry have it all well planned out to make more money and to keeps the profits rolling. We do not need an industry and we do not need copy protection, we do not need the DMCA. What we need is more music, more jobs, more valueable work, and less profits for those who only work on making more profit. Sometimes profit is needed to proceed with bigger plans, ones in which more money, but why would the music industry need to make large profits? Artists do not get paid enough. A majority of the music we listen to is on the radio and CDs that we buy or pay for to the industry; various record companies. What happens to all the small time artists? All they can hope for is to make it in the industry. No matter how much work they put into their music or how hard they try to "make it", it will all come down to chance that some record label will make a deal with them. Not only is that a problem, but when the deal is finally made, the artist only gets a small fraction of the profit. The right thing to do is take the power away from the wealthy and give it to the artists. The record companies want money, people want music, and artists want to make music and be able to live off of it. The solution is simple, take away the companies and take away the laws. The only thing you will be left with is people making music and people paying the artists for their work. Sure people will spread the music around, but artists have many avenues for making money, and when the companies and lawyers are taken out of the equation then the artists are the ones that take in the share. Jobs will always exist in our economy no matter what the government or companies tell you. It is people that work and people that make up companies. Yet when a small group wants more money and or more power they attempt to take more profit away from those below them. Stop the cycle, stop the problem, do not fix the problems with current laws, do what is right. It is not what I say that will change things for the better, it is what everybody says.
Question everything.
one of the two states that passed UCITA. I don't know how, with all the high-tech companies in Northern Virginia (NOVA), that UCITA made it through the state legislature. Perhaps Boucher, who is a US Representative, can make a difference at the national level. He is definitely against the DMCA in its current form, and wanted Skylerov released when he was arrested. I'm glad I voted for him, and he has my continued support.
I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check. -M.C. Escher (1898-1972)
5. Would you and your member companies support independent testing of the effect on sound quality, on listening behavior, and on the performance and operation of home networks, before these technologies appear more widely in the U.S. market? Assuming you and your member companies support such testing, are you prepared to provide assurances that no assertion would be made that these tests and any peer review of the tests would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?
;)
When even a US congressman fears DMCA reprisal, you know something's gotta be wrong.
Someone put up a Napster-like site that only catered to independent artists that agreed to alow free copying? 1) The artists would reach a very wide audience of people that would download samples. 2.) Some of these same people would buy their CDs. 3.) They could tell the RIAA to kiss off and keep all their profits themselves. Is there a down side here?
This is really what it has come down to. the RIAA is forcing consumers to choose between piracy or a product that is of limited or no use. And I choose piracy.
Before entering the much more stable world of software engineering, I was a member of a band that had attained some local renown. In fact, we were told that there was some industry attention directed our way. We headlined at a gig one night in New York where A&R personnel from Maverick came to see us play.
One of my former band's members thought much the same as you did, as did I--we should shun any major-label deals and keep playing gigs and promoting ourselves through mailings, on-line and selling CDs/T-shirts/etc. at each show. We knew that signing a major-label deal would be, in essence, selling our solus to the devil and that we might never see the rights to our songs (on which we all took co-writer credits) ever again. And this was scary enough to persuade us, after careful consideration, not to sign any deals.
But the stress of promoting ourselves, without major backing or assistance from a label, ended up taking away from the sheer joy that we got making our music, and ended up in the long run causing us to give up the band. If we had sold our souls, we'd have had a lot more support in directing and marketing our music and probably could have concentrated on the songwriting and performance aspects. But despite everything we did--we had a newsletter, Web site, MP3 downloads of sample songs, fans who were willing to sell our merchandise at shows, it just ended up being a lot of work. We had to hustle for our own radio interviews, club dates, write-ups in the paper, etc. It really is frustrating and does take up a lot of time (kinda like the management vs. programming aspect of my job now).
In conclusion, while it may be easy to say 'do it all yourself--shun the labels and promote and market yourselves', it really isn't as easy as all that. I wish it had been.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
What's the difference between a Data CD blank and a Music CD blank? Hmmmmm, let's see . . . None? If you're paying a different price for one or the other because of a simple label, you're getting hosed. OTOH, I might be completely off the deep end here.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
I was under the impression that the tax on blank CDs only applied to those 'special' music CD-Rs for component CD writers that I would imagine nobody on /. has ever even purchased? I thought that was part of the reason they are so much more than 'regular' blanks for a computer-based CD writer. Can somebody comment on this? All I can find on Google are articles about Canada and Germany's tax laws.
The reason these "cowardly" artists have typically signed adverse contracts is generally because there has never been an alternative. A bad contract is better than no contract if those are the only two options.
Record companies have traditionally controlled both the production and distribution channels. Without the help of a major label, the odds of an artist creating his or her own content and seeing widespread distribution have until very recently been essentially nil.
While the recent technology developments and widespread internet access are changing that rapidly, I think it's a little early to consider anyone who has signed a record deal with a major label a whore. Even now, recording and distributing your own music would require a non-trivial amount of cash and some insider knowledge that is beyond the reach of the "average" starving artist. Everybody needs to eat, and the record labels have a long history of catching an artist at a time when they are negotiating from a weak position and bullying them into signing an unfavorable contract.
It's interesting that you compare a record deal to a software development contract, because I believe there is a much greater market and reward potential for an average programmer than there is for an average musician.
Copy Protection and Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems will likely not only dilute user control but also user privacy.
EPIC DRM and Privacy Web Page.
Actually, there is a difference: dedicated music CD recorders will refuse to record on data CD blanks.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Fugazi has been the future of music for years. Independant. No compromise. Not only are the records cheap but so are the live performances. Ian has been a hero to me as far as independant music long before the debate on digital music. Cant wait to hear what he has to say. He the Stallman of independant music.
-Legion
***I would honestly bet, that the people in the cyrstal palace of RIAA forget that there is this "tax" on black media***
I'll bet the people at Vibe, Ebony, and BET are pissed about that!
ok olive pretzel.
According to Webster's, Piracy is the UnAuthorized use of copyrighted masterial.
Copyrights are granted by Congress under their authority to regulate interstate commerce. Once the item has been purchased, the personal, private use of that item does not involve interstate commerce and falls outside the authority of Congress to regulate.
Those who attempt to misuse copyrighted materials to prevent my fair use of legally purchased items are not authorized by the Constitution to do so.
They are the Pirates.
oh ok and exactly what is the difference between a BLANK audio cd and a BLANK data cd, you fucking dumb faggot?
oh gee thanks for protecting (if your idea of protecting involves whining on medoicre weblogs) everyones right to steal music over the internet.
Well, kinda.
An audio CD player has error-correction hardware that interpolates through any bad bytes that get read. Arguably this could be called "noise", although it's not the same as the noise we're discussing. In any case, this behavior is good for audio, since it allows you to interpolate over the inevitable dust, minor scratches, and other imperfections.
However, you can't just interpolate a missing byte from an executable program or word-processor document -- that could destroy the entire thing. So the data CD players (like the CD-ROM drive in your computer) don't have the error-correction hardware that audio CD drives do.
That allows you to deliberately add noise -- especially annoying noise -- to an audio CD. When the audio CD player reads it, interpolation occurs and you hardly notice. When a data CD player reads it, you get every stinkin' byte -- including the annoying ones. This is the case whether you send the bytes directly to the sound card for playback, or to the hard drive for recording.
(Note that this inevitably reduces the quality of the CD. Besides losing the actual data where imperfect bytes were written, you get less room for the correction of actual errors. I suppose you could only replace bytes that would be correctly interpolated, but I doubt that's what's actually happenning.)
So really, you don't need to save to a file to hear the noise. You just need to use a data CD player. Like the one in your DVD player. It doesn't matter where the bytes go after that.
Judebert
We're out of dynamite. What we need is a plan!
For geek dads: Contraction Timer
You do realize that you're paying royalties twice for the same music, don't you? That's like buying two licenses to use one program. No thanks. And with RIAA-endorsed copy protection, you would effectively have to buy THREE licenses -- one for work, one for the car, and one for your music CDRs.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
The classical example of someone actually standing up to the record companies is Frank Zappa. He discovered that Warner Brothers was pulling one of the standard record company tricks to avoid paying royalties, which involves pressing more copies than they record in the books, typically twice as many. I believe this was with Freak Out, his first album, circa 1965. He sued Warner Brothers and won. Part of the settlement was for him to get his own sublabel Bizarre under Warner/Reprise. Even then, he didn't get completely out from under Warner Brothers' thumb until the mid-to-late 1970's, with the Lather fiasco. After that, he sold records under his own separate Barking Pumpkin label and CD's, at first, under Rykodisc.
I think there are two lessons from this:
Irony obviously a little too subtle here. Let's put it another way.
I wonder how many people will blame Microsoft for the fact that their copy-protected CDs won't play on their pee sees. And whether, for example, they will assume that as they used to be able to play (non copy protected) CDs on their Win98 system, they will therefore lay blame for non-playability-on-PC arising from said copy protection wrongly at WinXP's door.
Perhaps Microsoft themselves will take on RIAA.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
You do realize that you're paying royalties twice for the same music, don't you?
Yes. I pay the huge royalty for the original which I keep locked up at home and less than a dollar for the other copies. If I could just pay the lower royalty and take my blanks (Audio with royalty paid) into the music store with my laptop and legaly borrow the originals for a few minutes... Of course I am paying an additional royalty. I am expanding the lisence of the original product. Public performance also requires an additional royalty. Space & time shifting is worth the royalty for the privilage of not carying the originals in my car.
The truth shall set you free!
I heard recently that Philips are planning on defending the CD standard (owned with Sony). Copy protected CD's dont meet the red book standard therfore cannot employ the CD logo.
This is going to hot things up somewhat.
Well, what's this mean then. Even if this guy succeeds in shaking things up, will he only effect change insofar as rack CD burners will be able to copy these discs?
According to their arguments - the RIAA owns the rights to the music, and all the royalties entitled to it. Well, if that's the case - let them put copy protection on all of the CD's and DVD's they want. When it gets scratched or damaged, I'll just send my CD back and demand they send a new one to replace it. After all, I've paid MY licensing fee. If they don't send me a new copy to replace the damaged one, they're not honoring the purchase contract that I agreed to when opening their CD......Let's just see what happens when the RIAA has to start giving away millions of CD's as replacements. Oh, and for the argument of "once it leaves the shop its out of my control" - I could say the same thing, only in different terms - "once the CD leaves the store, its out of my control, if a copy happens to get made, than it must have been an act of God."
The real future of music is my recently purchased beat-up secondhand piano in the living room.
Let's see the RIAA try to do something about that, the greedy bastards.
My personal feeling is that the Home Recording Act has a lot of problems and doesn't fairly make a balance between fair-use and content protection. However, unless the law is changed, I think you may be right. The law only covers consumer-oriented digital recording equipment, which has generally been interpreted as being rack-mounted CD audio burners. Blank CD-R's do no have a royalty fee on them, and neither do CD-ROM burners (unlike the rack-mounted devices). That is the compromise - we don't pay royalties on their use, but on the other hand the RIAA isn't obligated to support them. Obviously there has to be a fair balance. If somebody wants to charge for their music, that is up to them (I'm all for GPL'ed music - but that is up to the artist who creates the music). If they want to sign away their rights to a huge recording company, that's their right as well. On the other hand, if I want to make a copy for use in my car that should be fine, and if a library wants to lend out a CD, that should be fine too. The AHRA tried to strike a balance, and does a better job than a lot of other laws like the DMCA, but it is not perfect. Honestly, in a court of law I don't think that you would be able to use the AHRA to combat CD copy protection - at least for computer CD players/burners. Other laws may be more effective and there is always the chance that new laws could be passed. The current inquiry will help bring attention to the current state of affairs, and keeping the RIAA on its toes will probably help them to tone down their measures next time. As was pointed out by others, it is only a matter of time before these schemes are cracked. The RIAA can only go so far in using draconian measures to stop this before the opposition gets heavier than it already is. Supporting representatives that are for better fair-use protection is a step in the right direction. So is boycotting CDs that use draconian measures. I think eventually a balance will be found (at least de facto, if not in law), or technology will move in a different direction making this whole debate obsolete. If nothing else, eventually some of those teenagers who traded files using Napster will end up being record company execs. Even bureaucracy allows for change - with about the same half-life as human life-expectancy.
except, of course, you have a legal right to your space & time shifting WITHOUT paying an additional royalty. So you're paying this extra royalty for NO reason, moral or legal. You might as well just buy data CDs and then send Hillary Rosen a check directly (note: no artist sees any of the money from blank media taxes).
This is a way to increase the pre-paid royalties for blank media?
/. poll - everyone who has used a music CD-R when copying an audio disc raise your hand. (squinting at my monitor) I count zero hands. Granted, I can't actually see y'all, but I suspect the count would be the same if I could.
Please.
Quick
- If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
well now.. those were a couple of intuitive retorts. ur brilliant folks.
No, my idea for "protecting your rights" is to work for both Uncle Sam AND private industry in locking down network security, AND remaining vigilant in voicing my concerns over Civil Rights/Freedom issues... Not to mention having served in a uniform...
My main objective in posting originally was to belittle the coward's attempt to shun those of us on here who actually CARE about our freedoms, especially in times of War and strife.
For the anon coward to have posted his/her whiny bit about OUR whining seems awfully hypocritical.
If we "should be worrying about more important things," shouldn't he/she?
-oliver
"I think, therefore I get paid."
Just Stop, Drop, and Roll. ;-)
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
It's riculous for the record companies to worry about copy protection when as long as the music comes out of the cd-player it can always be redirected from speakers to a recording device or computer and from there made into an exact copy with minimal work. I think the only way to make cd's that truly can't be copied or ripped is to make some that won't play in anything (which it looks as if they're working towards).
How about starting a new campaign? I personally have been on this campaign for a while now due to the insanity that is known as the music industry
Campaign title: I choose piracy!!
I have been refusing to buy Major Label albums for years now, trouble is even most of the indies are being fuXored by the majors and the RIAA through distribution and legislation deals that are wrought in the favor of business and not art.
Later on as more facts came in, I began refusing to buy any albums/cds/tapes at all. The advent of p2p and all sorts of wonderful little corners where I find the music I want (usually hard to find) has made living the reality of no support to the industry at all pretty easy.
But what of the artists you say? Well, here's how I do it. I download like mad, but pay the artist directly. Here's an example:
Sonic Youth released a new album on Geffen, I download it as well as another Geffen SY album I was missing from my collection. As payment I goto sonic youths website, click the link for their own label SYR and purchase a copy of one of their own CD's directly from them. Later in the year, sonic youth rolls through town, I buy a t-shirt, a book of poetry and a canvas shopping bag from the stand outside the show- cos that stuff is theirs and they make the most profit from it.
Granted, if we were talking Creed here, the stuff for sale outside the show does not have the same level of intimacy that it does at a Sonic Youth gig. But, we are not talking about Creed. If for some strange reason I liked any of the output from that band, I would have no problem stealing a cd or two from them because everything about that band has been manufactured from start to finish. I don't get the guilt that drives me to the edge of the stage to hand the guys from Modest Mouse a 10 dollar bill, while telling them I downloaded their latest album off of the internet, so here's ten bucks. With Creed, you just simply can't do that, unless you win the "wow man, rockin" contest from the local Alternative market (read: radio station). The same contest that if you had any scruples would require a few showers to wash off all the dirty feelings you got from the payola scams going down left and right around you. The contest that would make you feel like you needed to be a woman so you could get your tits signed backstage by the lead singer. But wait.. I digress.
And why are we talking about Creed anyway? If you stop squinting Creed has nothing to do with alternative anything. We should be talking about Negativeland and the fact that they have made a career out of challenging the record industry about copyright issues. You should too.
Tell em all: "I choose Piracy!"
Do you send royalty checks to the RIAA when you play an MP3 file on your computer?
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Please don't slam me for posting nothing but a quote, but that line sums it up pretty well :)
I wish there was a fscking blue pill
Depends on what you're using to copy the CD.
My guess is that if you use a commercially available audio componant CD writer, you most likely would have no choice but to use the RIAA-mandated music CD-R media... But my guess is also that most knowledgeable (and even the not-so-knowledgeable)people would be using computer CD writers to do it, thus negating that need. That is, of course, unless they don't have a computer)
...this is getting out of hand
So it's doubtful that they will press their standard claims too hard if at all when their standards department realizes their music distribution department is using this protection.
Does anyone know if Sony is planning to protect their disks?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
According to the logo license agreement issued by Philips
Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA)
This logo may only be used on discs complying with the CD-DA specification: IEC60908 and/or the Philips-Sony Compact Disc Digital Audio System Description (also known as the RED Book).
If any Record company issues 'copy-protected' discs that violate the spec, they should not use this logo on the packagaing.
When I was involved with pressing CDs, including this logo on the artwork was mandatory. If Philips is smart, they will enforce this clause to preserve their brand as the gold standard in audio quality.
You might actually be onto something here. What is the one thing the the RIAA understands? The hulking monolithic giant may be unable to see, smell, or hear, but it can feel fire. This morning, I heard of a lawsuit that paid eight claimants for their "violation of their right to sleep" or something like that from an airport. The moral of the story: a jury in today's society is the ultimate equalizer of big business and the little guy, (even when the big business is in the right- but that's another post.) If what the RIAA is pushing for, the media is irrelevant, the music is what matters, then the above poster may actually have a case against the RIAA and have a legal replacement right if the media is damaged. If he has a right, so do millions. This is the fire the monster understands. If anything motivates a lawyer, it's deep pockets, and a class action suit against the RIAA with claimants numbering in the millions would likely be noticed even by the RIAA. The only question remain: "what is the legal angle to approach / attack" It's all how you view it...not from the helpless little guy being run over by big business, but instead, millions of little guys collectively collecting from big business. And you know any jury in the world will side with the little guy every time. Take THAT you RIAA trolls! The natives are restless! Back OFF! Drop your overcharged CD prices, quit restricting the fair use of music. By the way, I've never downloaded from Napster or any other service, all I listen to are MP3's from my own CD's. Anyone for legal lotto?
Except that the equipment he owns probably only plays Audio CDRs
-no broken link
You're kidding right? "exceptions like jewelry with expensive gold and diamonds"
/.r who didn't see the DeBeers special on public television? Those items are in reality among the most worthless on the planet, but due to effective marketing reap the most profit.
Those are tho MOST overpriced of all. Are the one
Congressman Boucher is concerned that 'restricted' music CD's conflict with the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) which taxes blank media.
I think he's mistaken to suggest RIAA stop producing these CD's. I say let the RIAA make all the defective CD's they want. Just repeal the AHRA tax on blanks.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
A set bit in the non-writable part of the disc that enables the music CD recorders to tell one from the other. Now who's the fucking dumb faggot?
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Well, I was referring less to the realities of his situation than his attitude, where he says that he gladly pays extra money to gain rights that are already his.
Malcolm X said, "You do not stick a knife into a man nine inches, then pull it out six inches, and call it progress.".
P2P networks and other network providers are common carriers. Phone companies do not pro-actively work to
prevent the use of phones for commission of crimes; police radios are legal even if crooks use them to evade the police.
The 'major use' of P2P may or may not become infringing file sharing, but the world and the
economy may never know if these buggy-whip mfr.'s
persist in grinding their heels into our rights and wallets.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off