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File-sharing, Digital Rights Management, Etc.
Politech has a couple of good articles on political developments in the post-Napster world. (That's almost a Katz phrase there, isn't it?) The folks behind Kazaa, when they're not busy spying on their userbase, took the time to write to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after a bashing they took a few weeks ago. Kazaa's new owners suggest a general royalty fee, perhaps similar to the recent webcasting fees, be put in place to compensate intellectual property holders for file-sharing. Meanwhile, the European Commission takes a look at digital rights management. Looks like Europe will get its own version of the SSSCA.
That 1992 statute mandates a small royalty on digital audio recorders and recording media, with the proceeds of that levy redistributed to content creators
What is the equivalent in the internet world? Is the new tax on computers? Modems? File sharing software?
The latter obviously won't work for decentralised P2P systems like kazaa, so I bet they'll put the 'P2P tax' directly on the original CD itself.
You are going to get pretty much unitary legal structures on intellectual property and music copying. That's what's been planned by groups like the World Economic Forum and the World Trade Organization for years.
What's more, there won't be too much debate on perspectives other than those put forward by U.S. law and the major music corporations. That's because these firms and the U.S. government are able to dominate the meetings of business decisionmakers.
The protesters outside global gatherings are, in part, fighting for freedoms in music copying and things like this. What they are doing is trying to get more than a few voices into the meetings where these decisions are made. You should consider lobbying these global groups like the WTO - it doesnt make you a "bomb throwing anarchist," and it may be more effective than lobbying your congressperson, 'cause that's where the decisions are getting made.
Goat sex free since 2001
Soak
Wash
Repeat
I'm getting fed up of this bullshit. We all know that in 20 years the technology for online music exhange will still be here and it'll be legal. The music industry is doing the exact same thing the petroleum cies did, boycott the product until they own it. Then market it and prepare the market (ie. electrical cars), and finally say you played along the whole time, while unveiling your product.
The birth of a new monopoly, the same as before, just different packaging.
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
There are so many people out there sharing music and other files, that it would be difficult to actually stop them. The RIAA thought that people would give up on downloading mp3s after the death of Napster, but instead the music exchange continued (and may have even grown). Schemes like gnutella have been largely invulnerable to attack from the {RI,MP}AA, although they could still be improved to further protect their users.
My point is this: no matter what they do, people will find a way around it. There may be some martyrs at every turn, such as Emannuel Goldstein and Derek Fawcus with DeCSS, but now CSS is all but broken, and virtually anyone can find DeCSS if they look. A DRM OS, while evil, can still be broken, and tracking down the subversives who use Linux/BSD and other "unAmerican" OSes would prove difficult. And if the governement started coming after the people, they just might have a revolution on their hands.
This isn't something to get overly depressed about. We should be fighting it, but even if they win the battle of legislation, we are still able to continue the war.
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen
We have also seen how perfect encryption is fundamentally impossible, although being good enough for government work may get by.
Somehow, the connection between this and the SSSCA could mean that Microsoft could be the only legal OS in the US. Purely coincidental of course.
I think this should be investigated, just in case my paranoia has a legitimate case to make. Microsoft has a habit of too many convenient coincidences.
Maybe they'll all go to jail because they will not be able to obey the law and provide an impossible result. I'm not holding my breath.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
A clearing-house of sorts (like the radio-royalty structure already in place) would solve 98% of the "file sharing problem."
I think the current limits on bandwidth really are going to make widespread DVD sharing a little unlikely, even with broadband. The files are just too big. If it takes 412 hours to download a movie (at lower quality with fewer features, etc.), people aren't going to care. They'd probably rather just go to Blockbuster and rent it for $4 or whatever.
Perhaps it could even be tied to bandwidth and charged at the ISP level. Say $.10 for every gig of downstream bandwidth used. Money goes to a clearing house and member copyright holders are paid based on the amount of material they have licensed to the clearing house. The more stuff they license, the more they get paid. There should also be a limit on the cost of the licenses written into the agreement so once everyone signs up it doesn't become $1000/gig.
I think in radio now, anything with a particular label (or stamp or something) can be played royalty free without limits, incorporated into other forms (like commercials, etc.) and so on. Music industry doesn't complain about that at all, because it is free publicity for their product. Same thing here.
This really would help solve almost all of the problems with file-sharing and it is a win-win of sorts. Pay-per-play it isn't, but pay-per-play isn't going to work anyway.
Goddammit! If Europe gets the SSSCA, my plans to become an irresistably chic Espresso-sipping Parisian nouveau hacker are dashed.
Looks like I'm moving to Sealand. They better have a whole lotta instant, that's all I can say.....
- undoware.ca
I've often thought that one should use whatever means are commensurate with the threat at hand to defend one's constitutional rights, including killing those who would take them away, collateral damage be damned, if it comes to that. Otherwise, such rights are meaningless.
The only issue then, after (for example) killing the dozen cops trying to arrest you for daring to run Linux, is whether you have a constitutional right to do so.
If so, you go scott free.
If not, you fry.
I'd think that, with the stakes so high, we would not see very much murder in the name of defending bogus rights that do not exist.
You could've hired me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If theres slashdotters in the UK / Europe who haven't already seen this, and want to do something about the EU Copyright Directive (our DMCA) and now this, have a look at The Campaign For Digital Rights (in the UK) and The Eurorights Movement There may be something we can do about this one, but we have to get reasonably organised to do it. Sign up to the mailing lists, and join in - before they take all our rights
CDs cost less than cassettes, but are priced higher, "because of apparent value". Tell that to computer makers, who pack more and sell for less, every year. IMHO, the price of real products is a compromise between cost of manufacture and what the competition will allow. Look at the price of DRAM, for an example. And of course we all know that next to nothing of that $18 CD that cost $0.10 to make went to royalties for the artists.
Also IMHO, the only business where "apparent value" can be a true factor in pricing is where competition is absent, that is a CARTEL or MONOPOLY. In the case of CDs, we have the joy of both at the same time.
There's the old lesson from videotapes: $80 tapes get pirated bigtime, $20 tapes don't. Plus tapes aren't $20, any more.
I feel ripped off every time I buy a CD, and thus I buy very seldom, principally as gifts. At half the price, I'd buy more than twice as many. At a third the price, more than thrice. At some point, storage would become the limiting factor, not money and purchase price.
Movies are headed the same way, and what's unfortunate about all this is that we're about to take a hurting tech sector and send it down in flames with SSSCA-type legislation. We're about to say that Jobs and Woz, or Hewlett and Packard will NEVER happen again, at least not in computing, because SSSCA turns the entire computing field into sealed boxes, and locks the innovator out.
At the very least, opt-in would be workable. Strong enough crypto to require hardware chips, maybe even crypto all the way into a sealed monitor. Better than SSSCA, anyway.
Of course copyright reform would be better yet. Isn't it interesting that patent durations have remained steady? Says something about the media industries, and what we've allowed them to turn into.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The RIAA doesn't want people to have digital copies that they can burn.
File sharing companies at least want to deliver something that we can hear, watch, and experience.
The fast track[tm] technology that is used by products such as Kazaa[tm] and Music City's Morpheus[also tm] is pretty strong and can combine clients/servers to provide media almost on demand for people who have dsl/cable and above. Gnutella also is becoming the strongest in terms of a network that may never be truly killed. And let's not forge Napster, the demon of P2P IMHO; they may actually sell some media to people.
No one wants to bother with DRM. Computer users will most likely reject any such system. So, the simple solution is to take a somewhat common sense approach.
Advertising and competition must come into play so that the P2P business isn't stomped on by media owners [of course, if the money comes in no one gets stomped]. Maybe one network will offer digital copies, fast browsing and strong searching. Another might offer a way to put your media on a personal server and a winamp/xmms/FreeAmp/Netscape/IE et.al. plug-in will be the search and viewing client. Finally an open and free network which will probaly be supported by an array of advertising stunts.
The point is, we can have a system where no one is abused. DRM isn't needed if people use common sense and let these systems evolve into a decent business model. Not everything will work. But media/content owners can be payed. One thing I think we will need to get over is the fact that P2P systems may collect data on what is downloaded, viewed, and listened to.
If we don't think of P2P as a way to get free stuff and show our friends how cool we are because we watched LOTR 2 days before release we may save it. Let's think of it as Cable, Network TV and the like. But like some cable channels if you don't want commercials you are going to have to pay up.
Look at XM radio, in my town it's becoming quite popular. We can take advantage of technology in a good way.
Get your Unix fortune now!
The internet, which once held the promise to liberate 'the masses', allow point to point communication on a scale never before seen, is now being co-opted by the mass media by force of law. That's just wonderfull.
Btw, I'm being sarcastic.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I don't believe the SSSCA will ever come to pass.
I strongly disagree. With all due respect, you are niave.
Let me see now. I'm old enough to have said to myself under my breath....
I don't think the government will let Microsoft get away with it.
I don't think the DMCA will ever come to pass.
I don't think the CDA will ever come to pass.
I don't think that encryption will ever be illegal.
I don't think anything will ever come of CALEA.
Should I go on?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
just curious
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
It's my greatest wish that bands like this are the future of music. Musicians: screw record contracts, publish your stuff yourselves, because you love making music.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
at the current (insane) price of new CD's, I think it's safe to say they already have included a P2P tax, infact, you could say that is why P2P is so popular, people are already paying that tax, so why not do it?
Realy, if they priced CD's a little more reasonably this would be much less of an issue, there is a reason you can get all those older CDs for $5 each, and that is that it is STILL profitable to sell them at this price!
Unfortunately (well, fortunately
I've only read negative comments so far. Actually, I *read* that pdf the last hour and I didn't find it really shocking. It is good to see the European Commision do a study on this topic. The European Commission seems to recognize that DRMs easily cause trouble because they can take away our rights. The PDF says that lawful use of protected media must remain possible. What's wrong with that? I haven't found any phrase which proposes to forbid hardware that does *not* implement DRM. That is what the SSSCA is about, what nobody here will want and what I hope many politicians in Europe will oppose too. There is some DMCA-alike speech, however: 'legal safeguards are essential to support technological measures and protect them against unlawful circumvention and these are already in place' - but that is already much more subtle than the general definition of a 'circumvention device' that the USA have defined.
I live in The Netherlands and I might be naive, but I just haven't seen the proof yet, that a European SSSCA would come to exist. Good to keep an eye on this matter, but where is that proof? This seems Slashdot-hype again..
Here in toronto the keynote speaker for CMW (a mildly pretentious and industry-oriented music festival) was moby, a guy who has been successful not so much in making good music but rather for selling snippets from every track of his last album for commercials.
He had, I thought, an interesting and pragmatic take of the future. Especially given that his audience was mostly people in the music industry. He thinks that the ways in which music is made, marketed, distributed, and sold must change radically over the next ten years. He said that bands oriented towards live performances would be successful, citing the Bare Naked Ladies and Nirvana as examples.
The quote that i remember was, "You can't download a concert. You can't download a t-shirt." That is to say, you can't replicate the experience of live music. His follow up comment was, "you can listen to a recording of live music, but compared to being there it's like watching porno in a hotel room instead of actually having sex with someone".
In a way it's like a shift back to Mozart's day -- you had to go around performing and composing prolifically to make a living.
He also noted how the a large chunk of the generation of his 14 year old cousin had "grown up without ever having bought an album. they download everything." So he was trying to make people in the industry aware that a cultural shift is already taking place with respect to consumer's attitudes towards 'ownership' of music.
He also dismissed conventionally 'manufactured pop' and boy bands, and cited himself ironically as an example of an act becoming successful outside of the mainstream labels.
I would have to say that the technology that allows the transformation from one media to another is where the tax should be placed. Place it on CD-Rippers, or MP3 Encoders. Of course since MP3's and CD (so far) are basically open there's precious little way to enforce the tax.
I really wouldn't mind paying an extra $2 for iTunes or a disk burner. I WOULD mind paying $.02 for every CD I ripped, or every disk I burned.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
I posted this comment a few days ago in a different thread, but it bears repeating.
The SSSCA isn't that bad, and something like it needs to happen.
So... copyright cartels get control over their stuff. So what. So people have to pay for it. Big deal.
In fact, as long as there isn't any mandate that ALL content has to go through some kind of corporate or government review in order to be distributed, we're fine. As long as distribution costs are cheap for those who want to distribute cheaply -- as long as I can give away MY music for free, or charge a quarter a song without having to give some portion of the fee to someone else -- then we're in good shape.
Because once the copyright cartels proceed to ream everyone over, then non-mainstream distribution is going to look better and better.
I don't know how to get around problems for open source running on various hardware. That does need to be addressed. But getting a death grip on their own content will cause copyright cartels to lose their grip on the market. Which is what we all want.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
hmm, perhaps you should think before posting next time,
they happily sell !NEW! CD's for $5 a hit (and less!), therefore I guess the value of the TOTAL PACKAGE (including the intellectual property) is $5.
the rest of the value must be, let me see, the value of the media hype used to push the new product so that it can hold a 300% and more premium over one 6 months old. hmmm.
If the SSSCA passes and I am no longer able to put my Linux box on the internet, perhaps I will dig out a couple of old modems I have and setup a good old fashioned BBS. I remember a time when the US was dotted with somewhere around 30,000 of these BBS's and many of them were connected through FIDO net or similar. I know no one would want to download MP3's off such a thing and after having been on a cable modem for over a year, I would hate to fall back to dialup. It worked for us in the past, perhaps it will be our future and maybe the only future for Free (as in both beer and speech) content.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
If I'm not mistaken, CD-R and RW manufacturers already pay the "rip" tax as mentioned in the AHRA.
-9mm-
Besides, as much as some in here bitch about the SSSCA and the DMCA, the true strength of their conviction is really shown when they line up to the MPAA trough every couple of weeks. Or buy hardware from Sony, Nintendo, Toshiba, IBM, or any of the other companies who have made it clear which side of the digital rights and DMCA fence they are on. Tell people that all you have to do is stop spending money on certain things, or hell, even just cut back their movie spending, and they'll respond like you just asked them to amputate a limb.
Look, we can't even convince the people who are supposedly clued about the whole problem (Slashdot) -- what possible chance is there to make the problem and solution clear to people to struggle to understand the evening news? +1 Insightful to you.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
If I'm naive, you're clueless. :-)
OK, flames aside, here's why the SSSCA faces a severe uphill battle. Unlike any of the other points you cite, the SSSCA involves incorporating copy protection into *all* digital equipment, not *just* consumer equipment. Buying high-end Sun servers for your big-ass corporate data center that serves people like GTE, AT&T and GE? Buying industrial strength routers for your 80 location corporate intranet? Buying a cluster of high-end servers to help manage reservations, check-ins, real-time security and departure/arrival times? Do you think these corporations are going to tolerate having copy protection tech built into computer equipment that will never see the light of day regarding mp3s or DivXs?
Wake up. The DMCA, Microsoft, the CDA and CALEA do not effect big business in any perceived meaningful way (If you don't want MS, you can always go Linux/*BSD). Encryption, huh? It's legal and anyone who wants to use it can. Both my employer and I use 2K+ bit encryption on e-mail...
The SSSCA, unlike any of the options above, will be a major headache. You may not like the fact that corporations are more important to Congress than citizens are, but for once it does play to our benefit (unless of course Congress builds mass-scale exemptions into the SSSCA for corporate purchases).
Time will tell.
...to everyone ever wrongfully shot by a gun. If they can legislate mathematically impossible DRM into existance, then why the HELL can't they legislate guns that won't shoot innocent people?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Because the ad/spyware monkeys have the largest userbase and in P2P land, he who has the most users (=content) is king.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
just XOR the data with 'give us all your money' and call it DRM,
LOL!!!!!
The artists should be signing up with web sites where they can sell their music directly to the public, say $3 per album with the profits split 50/50 with the distribution site, passing on the cost savings and still taking more per download than they get on each CD sold.
Vivendi Universal, one of the proponents of violating the Red Book standard, operates such a service, called MP3.com D.A.M. Artists like Gregory Chekalin who distribute their albums on D.A.M. for $10 a piece keep $5 a piece, and unlike Universal's other releases, D.A.M. discs are compatible with the Red Book, and they include cleartext 128 kbps MP3 files of all audio tracks.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Lastly, you rip an mp3 that is music you created to put up on mp3.com. I download it. If it has a copyright on it, and I didn't rip it, how do I play it?
"This europop remix of the Tetris theme has been arranged, performed, and ripped by Gregory Chekalin, who has authorized it for world distribution. This licence has been digitally signed by Gregory Chekalin." The SDMiPod verifies the signature, checks the license, and plays the MP3 file.
If it doesn't have a copyright on it
Huh? Doesn't every work have a copyright on it from creation? Nothing expires into PD anymore.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I agree. Flames aside, before they even get lit. The reasons you cite for it being an uphill battle are valid. And I agree that the SSSCA would be incredibly stupid.
But you don't see my point. (BTW, I did say with all due respect.) I was once niave too. Then the CDA was not only passed, but signed. I was stunned. Couldn't believe it. I had carefully watched this battle for two years.
My point was that these people can pass any law they want. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't even have to be possible to implement. Wanna bet there is selective enforcement for corporations? Or licenses that can be obtained to have SSSCA free hardware, just as you can now get a license to handle controlled substances, marajuanna, explosives, pyrotechnics, etc.?
My point was that it is niave to think that they won't pass laws because you assume that the following obstacles would stand in their way:
That's what I meant by niave. No disrespect intended. The non-niave view is that none of the above things will stop them from passing stupid laws. We could all very well live to see the day the SSSCA passed into law and signed. I illustrated with other unthinkable examples that all came to pass. There are other examples of stupid laws such as the War On Freedom, the War On Drugs, Prohibition, 55 MPH speed limit, Proposing that PI be equal to 3, etc.
While I agree with all your reasoning that the SSSCA should not be passed, I am saying it is niave to believe that it will not be passed, simply because of your valid reasons. I gave examples, and you did not counter them, yet suggest I am clueless. I give even more examples in this post.
Go to any modern bookstore. (You know, those chains run by big corporations.) Look in the humor section. You can probably find one or several books about funny laws. These books are humorous because of the incredible stupidity of those laws. Did you know that it is illegal in Boston to bathe without the authorization of a physician? Are you so niave to think that a law like this would never get passed? (Again, no disrespect meant.) But it did get passed a long time ago.
Clueless? Maybe I don't have as much of a clue as the heterosexuals do. But just look at history. Haven't you ever heard the famous quote? Something about: No man, nor his property are safe while Congress is in session. Or something like that. I'm sure someone can correct me, or mod me down. Don't you think that the person who wrote this famous quote had some insight?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It's possible these days to create music from your own home and record it onto CDs with the same quality as you'll find on the latest Britney Spears album at Wal-Mart.
That doesn't say much...
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I read somewhere once that publishers of quilting books are getting upset at grandmas who are sharing quilt patterns online. Many of the patterns are copyrighted.
Is this extreme enough? Let's arrest grandma!
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I don't believe the SSSCA will ever come to pass, but it doesn't hurt to hope for the best and expect the worst.
I disagree. It is for the simple reason, that this will be sold as new technology enabling you to access new content. It's like you need Real Player to get a Real Audio stream, need Flash to play the latest video games etc. It will be an additonal feature. When it is in place, the push will be on to have it dilute and replace MP3's. Yahoo searches for mp3's now turn up more non-mp3 stuff in one protected pay me format or another than mp3's. Try it. See how long it will take you to find and download more than 10 good mp3's without giving up a credit card number or giving any personal information. See how many non-MP3's are offered (Liquid Audio, Real, etc.) Start with a Yahoo search for MP3. There are very few MP3's simply posted on a web site due to the litigation risk. Even MP3.com does not have MP3's. To listen to ANYTHING it is streamed and not downloaded. It will be worse when SSSCA is as standard as MS Windows on new machines. You will have to visit the internet underground to find mp3's.
The truth shall set you free!
"CDs are too expensive
And when they are too expensive, many people leave them on the shelf as unsold. I stopped buying music on a weekly basis when it passed $8 per copy. (I know it's been a few years ago.) This has weaned me from being a prerecorded music collector. Last year I bought a total of 3 CD's and one used DVD. I still buy movies. On tape movies are much cheaper than music. Why is a 2 hour movie on DVD about the same price as a 1 hour music CD recording. The overpricing of audio is obvious to anyone. I thought movies cost lots more to make than a band recording. How many people would buy music on a regular basis if it is priced like a Sunday newspaper? Unsold CD's regardless of piracy or price is not helping anyones bottom line.
The truth shall set you free!
Imagine if this law was passed in the U.S. and in Europe, but not, say, in Canada. Many programmers would protest, ineffectively, and decide to live with it no matter how distasteful; but a not insignificant minority might say "Canada's looking pretty good right about now".
If even this minority decided to move to Canada the country would suddenly inherit a wealth of technical expertise - unfettered technical expertise - which would result in a boom in its technological industries. Along with a resultant expansion in the economy and the creation of thousands of new jobs.
All you need is one savvy, future-oriented nation to say "no thanks" to these kinds of laws while it sits back and reaps the rewards of dissent in other nations. Not to mention the sales (roundabout or direct) of non-crippled devices to countries which have outlawed their own industries from producing these goodies.
(I'm using Canada as the example because, so far, they don't appear to be caught up in the same sort of digital hysteria that seems to be sweeping the U.S. and Europe. I could be wrong - any resident Canadians, feel free to correct me.)
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Well, I was one of those blokes who got sent to the principal's office more than just about everyone else in my class combined. A born button-pusher, especially when I thought that what I was being told was a crock of shit. Which was pretty darned often, in the public school system.
I'm also a movie fan and have rented hundreds, probably thousands of movies. My wife and I go to the movies at least once a month. And we buy cds as well, because although I feel like I'm getting reamed every time I pay the outrage prices the ripped shit on the internet *just isn't good enough*. Good enough to sample, but not good enough to listen to on a regular basis.
This doesn't contradict my convictions that CD prices are way too high, that the RIAA and MPAA are robber barons, and that legislation like the SSSCA is something only Satan himself, through his minions - the U.S. Congress - could come up with.
So if it's passed I won't buy DRM hardware and I won't stop running Linux. The government can wrap it's oily, pus-filled lips around my nether regions before I give up my equipment or my OS. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
That will be my protest, along with the loud bitching and yelling I'll continue to do at my reps. It may not meet your standards, but it certainly meets mine.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
"Let us now stand and sing the Corporate anthem..."
A new kind of meat designed to appeal to vegetarians.
Well, that right is claimed, but of course, you have to win the revolution, so you better bring a decent army.
presumably as long as you declare a revolution you are immune you legal prosecution for anything done in the name of the revolution.
Obviously it isn't that simple: what is "legal" in a revolutionary climate very much depends on who's "law" you chose to accept. The U.S. Declaration of Independence lays out some sensible principles though: the biggest beef was that fact the that Colonies' grievences were ignored by King George.... not "addressed and summarily dismissed," but blatently ignored.
You could've hired me.
They are priced high enough, most people don't bother to buy them often. The price fails to fall into the attractive price range for most people. A Pepsi is priced so most people don't think twice before dropping a couple quarters into a vending machine. CD's are priced so most people don't even bother to go into a store to browse the selection. It is true, they do get a few people, but most people on a trip to the mall never make it into a music store. More people browse jeans.
The truth shall set you free!