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Disney Blames Apple For Music Piracy
Vishniac writes "It looks like Disney CEO Michael Eisner is accusing Apple in part for fostering music piracy, particularly with its 'Rip, Mix, Burn' campaign. Testifying before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Eisner said that the ad suggests to people that 'they can create theft if they buy this computer.' Apple? iMac? Impossible."
I blame Microsoft. They allow Napster to work. The RIAA should sue Microsoft. Ok.. I confess, this is a lame first post attempt. :P
I wondered when they would get around to going after Apple. *sigh* granted in order to RIP the music you sort of need to have bought the CD, but of course fair use rights can just be damned.
... I could accuse Disney of promoting the idea that not wearing pants is okay. There is Disney propoganda that dates back as far as World War 2 of Donald Duck clearly not wearing pants. Thanks to Disney, people are learning left and right that not wearing pants is ok.
"Derp de derp."
If it was download mix burn they might actually have a point...
One has to wonder what effect this may have on Disney's relationship with Pixar. After all, Steve Jobs is the CEO of both. I've always hoped that Disney would purchase Pixar. They do great work and would be a valuable addition to Disney. Buy them, and then leave them alone. Don't interfere in that division.
But, with Eisner making these comments could the already difficult relationship between Disney and Pixar become even more strained?
they can create theft if they buy this computer
Theft is an act. It is not something that is created. People can create pirate copies of music with this computer, but they can do that with most modern computers. Why pick on Apple? Why not pick on Redhat for shipping GRip and and MP3 encoder with their distro?
Follow me
I'm reminded of a quote I heard over the weekend. Apparently the "leader of the club that's made for you and me" stated in the hearings (in a rather irritated, spiteful tone of voice) that "if things don't change soon, we might have to change the way we do business."
Gee, you think?
People like Macs in part because they can rip, mix, and burn their purchased CD collection, or tote it around on their iPods. They also like Macs because they come with the tools necessary to put your own videos on DVD and send them to your pals. The latter is a power Disney does not want you to have. All video entertainment must come from the corporate empire. None of it must come from regular people.
Kudos to Eisner! The more that the copyright orthodoxy makes ridiculous statements like this, the more it makes it look like their proposals need a good second look. Let them scream from the mountains how everything should be protected because everybody is pirating. When they get to the point of labelling all of society as criminals all of society (hopefully including congress) is going to start wondering what the RIAA and the MPAA are smoking.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
The arguments the "industry" keeps posing are like blaming the people who make ballpoint pens for ransom notes....
Sinepaw.org: Grape Winos
To listen on my portable cd player, whats the legal problem ?
That people do illegal things isnt Apple's problem or now is it ?
Rip/Mix/Burn isn't very subtle. It's not very suprising that someone was going to notice this and be annoyed. It wasn't very subtle at all. It's yet another opening shot in the war between the computer industry and the RIAA. I'm rooting for Apple in this one obviously.
To the rest of the world, however, they equate "rip" with "rip-off" as in "steal".
This whole problem is a result of bad word choice by the folks that coined the term for digital audio extraction. If they would have called it "extraction" or "transformation", Disney wouldn't be able to criticize Apple this way.
Disney is really a hypocrite, I mean it has been proven that a lot of their movies have been ripped off of others, such as Lion King from Kimba the White Lion and Atlantis from Nadia. Where has Apple gone wrong?
Maybe it is because of the Disney and Pixar issue (where Pixar is bound by Disney and they really want to get out of the contract) and Disney is really aiming at Steve Jobs... Thats probably completely wrong but is a thought.
Doesn't disney Own "Go" A search engine that allows you to fing DeCSS?
= go _home&Keywords=decss
http://srch.overture.com/d/search/p/go/?Partner
Shouldn't they be yelling at themselves for aiding and abetting piracy?
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Sounds to me like they're promoting doing what teenagers around the world have done for decades: make music mixes.
Only Apple has made it easier to do via CD's. If you own the CD's, how is that piracy? Since if you're RIPping, you have to have the actual CD in the drive, correct? MIXing is rearranging tracks, and BURNing is putting the mix BACK on the CD.
I, for one, am tired of all of the legal bullshit that's being tossed around over the same damned issue time and time again. Do these people have nothing CONSTRUCTIVE to do, for crying out loud?
GIR: I'm going to sing the Doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom de-doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...
Oh man, I always thought that when they said "Rip," they were referring to the seat of my pants from sitting at my computer for 15 hours a day. Oops.
------
Today's Top Deals
What the Great Eared One fails to mention is the fact that Apple has made several important concessions to the music industry in the design of their products.
First, there is the hard-to-miss "Don't Steal Music" warnings that one finds in Apple's materials. Second, much to the annoyance of consumers, Apple has designed the iPod/iTunes product in order to minimize the opportunity for piracy - it only synchs one way. Yeah there are ways around that but not with Apple software tools.
Incidentally Jobs has already issued a response that is quite interesting.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own," said Jobs.
Goddamned right.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
1. I remember Rogers used to run an ad campain that promoted their high-speed internet by describing how fast you can download audio off the internet (this was back in the Napster days).
2. I recently saw a commercial for some computer co. (I'm thinking Gateway, but I'm not sure) that promoted using it's built in CD-burner to record audio downloaded from the net.
3. And of course Apple.
If the people didn't want to download music and burn it themselves then these ads would not be successful. By showing that these ads are working, then what the people want is the ability to download such things. The RIAA (Disney, whoever) should just let it happen. The RIAA's role will not become obsolete even if the only means of distribution was via the net. Their role would definitly change, but it would not cease to exist. They just need to see this.
Its when you distribute music to people freely that it becomes piracy. Apple makes no hint of transmitting your music to others, instead it provides features that make music more worthwhile to buy. In other words, they're promoting purchase of CD's.
Eisner should not be an advocate of the RIAA, he doesn't even know his terminology. As long as they want to use heavy handed approaches to 'stopping piracy', then they're just going to encourage it. Why? Because Eisner, for example, is turning into an enemy of freedom. As long as people hate him, then people feel justified in doing exactly the opposite of what he demands.
"Derp de derp."
I hope some of the Congressmen realize the difference between "Rip, Mix, Burn" and "Download, Burn." When Apple advertises that their computers can do this, they are in no way advocating stealing anything from the music industry (obviously). When you "rip," you take the music off of a CD that you purchased, when you "mix," you remove the crappy songs from the album that were only included so you don't feel ripped off because you bought a CD with only 2 or 3 good songs on it, or you put the best songs from several albums that you purchased onto one CD, effectively discarding the excess crap that the good ol' music industry always surrounds the good stuff with. And I think that even the elected know what "burn" means.
"Rip, Mix, Burn" does not in any way advocate taking things away from the music industry, in fact it advocates getting rid of the things you paid for but deem worthless.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Ford is accusing Sears of encouraging theft by their promotion of "Crafstman" brand crowbars, thereby distressing Ford's customers. When asked about the actual legitimate uses for crowbars, a Ford spokesman responded: "What's the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear the word 'Crowbar'? I bet it's smashing things. Maybe smashing windshields. We just want to help keep crowbar wielding thugs off of our streets."
Rip - Copy songs from my CDs to my computer.
Mix - Change the order of these songs to create a playlist that is superior to the individual CDs.
Burn - Write this playlist to CDs so I can listen to these songs the way I want to listen to them.
I don't care how many laws Disney buys, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. What these ads really suggest is that Apple won't try to make listening to music impossible because of some misguided notion that pissing off your customers is good for business.
1) Rip, Mix, Burn is a cool tagline and picking on it makes better press than attacking parts of an operating system many people still haven't heard of
2) It's Microsoft's job to take on the Linux folks not Disney's. There are clear divisions of labor in the Illuminati.
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Love the new Apple icon for /.
Actually, he blames tech in general, that some tech companies are making money by selling devices that enable piracy of OPIP (other people's Intellectual Property).
Disney likes to have things both ways, go to a store and pick up a Disney branded toy, if the toy plays music, it will play either Disney-owned tunes, or public-domain music. Disney doesn't want their stuff going into public domain because they would have to actually create something new!
Of course, Disney creates new stuff all of the time, often drawing from public domain sources(Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen, Arabian Nights). So when Eisner say he wants to hold the rights to Mickey, Donald, Goofy in perpituity, it is with the knowledge that public domain works have fuelled his company's growth for the last decade(Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Alladin).
My other sig is extremely clever...
A company with a number between 2% to 5% of the market gets so much attention?
If *everyone* reads this kind of article (Newsweek, Time, Slashdot, anywhere), Apple gets tons of free advertising, even though just about any PC can do the rip, mix, burn thing. Or rather, I think they can. I always build my own, so I actually don't know what a Dell or Compaq can do.
Anyone here own a Compaq or Dell? Is it as simple as 'Rip, Mix, and Burn'? I'm not joking when I say that this *is* how simple it is on the Mac. Writing a CD is similarly simple; select, drag, and burn.
GPL Deconstructed
This is a pretty shocking accusation. I have to wonder if Eisner shared his planned comments with anyone at Disney or Apple beforehand? That is a pretty striking statement from someone who has in the past supported Apple.
Evenmoreso, Apple pretty frequently says they support people keeping the music that they own on their iPod and in iTunes. There is a little clause with iTunes and iPod telling consumers to be responsible and only store music they own.
Eisner is being a bit extreme. He should learn to pick his battles. Picking a fight with Apple is a bad idea... Especially when you have fish like MusicCity and Gnutella to fry.
Bad business decision. Really bad.
Justen
By the time this posts it will probably get modded redundant, but nowhere did Apple's ad say "Rip, Mix, Burn, Steal", or even "Rip, Mix, Burn, Swap."
This is one of the most offensive aspects of Disney et al's push for the SSSCA; I don't begrudge them the desire to protect their IP from piracy, but the attitude that everyone who owns a computer (especially an Apple, apparently) is a dirty, dirty pirate really chaps my hide. Well, that plus the fact that the SSSCA would effectively put me out of work if passed in its current form.
God forbid I rip all of my CD's which I legitimately own by a particular band and burn all of the MP3s onto one mix CD that I can leave at the office.
Rip, Mix, Burn, Fair Use.
I'm sure that Weird Al gets permission from and pay royalties to the artists whose songs he uses.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
Apple puts this slogan in all of their music-related ads, and I think they also put this sticker on their iPods. I guess no one told Eisner about that...
It doesn't matter, really, since the RIAA/MPAA's new take is that beacuse of rampant piracy, fair use must be eliminated. There goes the doctrine of "substantial non-infringing uses."
For the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."
Disney had better be pretty careful on this one.
Disney's last few decent releases have been the animated films Toy Story, Bugs Life, Monsters Inc. all coming out of the Pixar production house.
Steve Jobs is still CEO of Pixar and major shareholder and has a well-known history of fighting fire with fire.
IIRC Pixar are contracted to do two more films and so far every one of the Pixar releases has been very successful especially when the merchandising angle is brought in.
[)amien
It is about time a large company got into this debate that wasn't on the accusing side.
For a long time, some companies (Apple, Sony, HP, Phillips, etc.) gave us tools to "rip, mix, burn" and told us to do so (I'll call them enabling companies), but when these sacks of shit that make up the content production companies complain and whine, these enabler companies didn't have much to say. Now, a big company (with their own healthy PR department/company) can take some of this brunt.
We can now have a debate between equals (or semi-equals, we'll see who else gets involved over the coming months) instead of having big companies attacking consumers for using products in seemingly fair ways (use the PC to rip and mix, and then use a CD burner to make CDs).
So, yeah, it seems pretty stupid and petty, but I think it is high time the enabling companies get into this debate.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Ummm, IMHO fair use is still alive. Until further notice, I reserve the right to space-shift any content that I have purchased.
Mikey can perform unnatural acts on a wildebeest for all I care. Come and get me, Disney lawyers!
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Note to Moderators: The above was SARCASM, not a TROLL.
"Da ist ein Technölüst in mein Unterpanten!"
Isn't this kinda like blaming ferrari for global warming? I don't quite see how '5%' of the computing population could be responsible for the decline in 'insert favorite medium here'...
As an aside, I think the term 'rip' has been misinterpreted...I remember when iTunes came out and I had to explain to someone that 'rip' was parlance for extracting songs off a CD...not 'ripping off the musicians' by downloading illegally obtained music.
I guess "Extract, Mix, Burn" isn't as catchy...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
How is someone supposed to "Rip" if they don't "Own" first? Someone needs to put these companies in their place and protect us from their unbridled greed. We have fair use rights, if we have paid for the music then we are legally allowed to make copies for our own enjoyment. You cannot "Rip" unless you have already purchased the product. Apples rip, mix, burn ads do not encourage theft, they encourage fair use. It is Disney who is encouraging theft by trying to persuade congress to restrict our freedoms for their unfair desire to charge us all multiple times for the same product. Now THAT would be theft.
Michael's just pissed off because Shrek's been downloaded more times in one day than the Little Mermaid II, Tarzan, and that Sleeping Beauty thingamacrappy-sequel all rolled up in one really putrid sack with a ribbon on top. I'm sure after all those months he's spent hearing Mickey go on and on about how Minnie's riding his arse for not bringing home the bacon, Mr. Eisner's had just about enough.
The people at the Mousehouse had better whip him up an extroverted and irascibly witty talking trashcan along with a shy, yet very good-hearted dancing toilet plunger who yearns to be spitshined, so he can set out on some sort of adventure in which he sings and dances Disney's way back to decent animated features.
Ah, who am I kidding? They'd be better off just hiring Dreamworks to do it for them.
Well, if using an Apple makes me a pirate (and didn't Apple fly a pirate flag from the building they were inventing Macintosh in?), I submit the following:
Yo Ho
Yo Ho
A pirate's life for me
We're ripping and mixing and burning CDs
(Upload me hearties yo ho)
We steal and create theft and don't like Disney!
(Download me hearties yo ho)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
have a looksee at Insulting Partners Is Fun on AtAT. that is probably the best written artical on the subject i could find ;)
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
Thank goodness we have people like Eisner standing up for our rights to purchace entertainment at premium prices.
Yes, it's completely Apple's fault. Eisner's 100% right.
I didn't WANT to buy a Mac. Apple made me because they convinced me with marketing how great it is!
I didn't WANT to use OS X -- Apple made that the default.
I didn't WANT to download Limewire. My hand was forced.
Downloading them music itself? Well gee, I had Limewire, OSX, and the Mac, so I figured it was alright.
Sheesh! Leave it to Apple to corrupt me. God forbid it's as simple as an individual making his or her own decisions.
Luckily, Disney isn't forcing me to pay for their overpriced, shitty theme park, nor are they making me see their crap films (not including Pixar movies -- simply because those ARE pixar movies, not disney whatsoever).
Anyway, I'm going to write my Congressman and demand Apple be stopped!
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Disney CEO Michael Eisner blames Microsoft for allowing children access to rampant pornography. Through their technology cleverly named "Internet Explorer," children of all ages are easily given access to hoards of pornography. In addition, their tagline "Where do you want to go today?" has already been answered by many children to the words of "To the bathroom... I'll be right back" and "To take a long shower." This can only serve as proof that Microsoft is using pornography to corrupt little children's minds. Eisner said that the propaganda suggests to people that 'they can easily perform self-pleasure if they buy a computer with Windows XP. We must stop this travesty now.'
All Disney needs to do is to buy out Apple.
Err.. Is it too early in the year to start this rumor? It is March..
I hope some of the Congressmen realize the difference between "Rip, Mix, Burn" and...
Congressmen will realize what Disney pays them to realize. Now you'd better turn yourself in for pirating music by humming "Whistle While You Work", because you are illegally copying Disney's Intellectual Property with your mind. Federal agents are closing on your location as we speak.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
As long we're on the topic of Disney and private property, wasn't Mickey Mouse supposed to pass into the public domain some time ago?
Disney is keeping him on the corporate payroll only through liberal donations to various polititians.
Disney has long had a problem with the whole 'public domain' thing.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
And, indeed, I do buy fewer CDs now--not because I download anything from the Internet (which I don't), but because I can actually find the music I have.
If Eisner would get off his behind and actually offer music on-line and on-demand at a reasonable price and under reasonable conditions, I wouldn't have to bother with the CDs or with maintaining harddisk space. The price should be somewhere where it reflects the costs, which would make it cheaper for me to download it when I want to listen to it rather than maintain 50G of my own disk space spinning.
I'd very much prefer prefer music on demand. But someone who makes many millions of dollars a year is perhaps a little too out of touch with real consumers to understand what they want.
Has anyone every stopped to think that maybe people just want to be able to listen to any music they want at their convience. Maybe we should just make that part of all this legal. Technology is nice, but not worth the price.
Good thing you're not a lawyer, because all your clients would go to jail.
What you're suggested is certainly NOT legal. How many lawsuits have there been over the years due to unauthorized sampling?
By your argument, I should be able to take somebody else's song, sing it myself, and sell it because i'm 'adding value'.
I replaced my old iMac partly to get this fancy CD burner and the iTunes software. If only I had known I was creating theft by making copies of my CDs and rearranging the tracks without permission, I would never have bought it.
But on the other hand, if I didn't buy the Apple computer, my $1300 would be sitting in my savings account, denying the government rightfully-deserved tax revenue (or even worst, I could've put it in my Roth IRA! Only communists use Roth IRAs to deny the government tax revenue!!).
I don't know what to do! Should I take the computer back and then turn myself into the authorities? Please, won't Bill Gates or Mickey Mouse come on TV and tell me what to do! Or N*SYNC could write a song about it so I'll know what to think! Help! Thinking is hard!
Well, Jobs statements and the skewering Pixar gave Disney in Shrek. You don't think Lord Farquaad, er, Eisner was amused do you? Perfect little boring kindom, nasty leader, gates at the entrances, work it out!
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
We all know that Apple doesn't promote music piracy; they promote software piracy.. :)
If anyone is from these states could you please get in touch with the people mentioned and tell them to tell Disney to suck on something? No Jersey, so no go for me :(
[o]_O
Well looks like the day has come where I actually have to defend Apple's and Steve Jobs position.
:)
I think that Apple and MS should audit Disney to see if they have all the required licenses. Thanks to proprietary software, we can have our sweet revenge
Nuff said. I'm more and more depressed by the day at the complete lack of desire by ANYONE to MAKE ANYTHING NEW anymore. Shit, everyone seems so caught up in making sure they can own shit ad nauseum that the whole idea of creating quality art seems to have gone out the window.
"Old man yells at systemd"
We could sue the companies that press the CDs, or make the CD-ROM drives that read (or rip in their mind) the compact audio, or Sony for their VHS tape players, or Maxtor for making the hard drives that store the "pirated" material.
Give me a break.
Everyone should be using FreeBSD instead. Ooops, wait, Apple is running FreeBSD in OS-X :)
I believe that the courts have ruled that sharing music with friends (specifically tapes) does not violate copyright.
Thus even rip-burn-share or borrow-rip-burn probably doesn't violate the copyright either.
Unfortunatly, we have the best government money can buy. Double-unfortunatly, greedy corps did the buying. That means we get the screwin'. Forget about the government doing anything that might deprive big business from a huge revenue stream. "They provide jobs" they say. I've got news...so do pimps - our representatives should know better than most!
Cheers!
Eisner said that the ad suggests to people that 'they can create theft if they buy this computer.'
So, the mere hint of an illegal activity will obviously lead to rampant law breaking?
Blaming Apple is really a stretch. I would guess that people with enough money to purchase a Mac are less likely to pirate all their music than users of more affordable hardware.
It looks like corporations that deal with copyrighted material have a new scapgoat for any failure to bring in revenue. Blame Apple. Blame Napster. Blame college kids.
Eisner's bellyaching is yet another example of a trend where large corporations try to portray themselves as victims.
Pathetic.
Wouldn't "Load, Aim, Fire" be a more apt analogy? There's nothing inherently illegal about "Rip, Mix, Burn", just as there's nothing inherently illegal about a firearm.
Disney is ingenious. According to this Wired article (I believe another Slashdotter got to this before I did), they're also beginning to manipulate their television programs so that they include anti-piracy messages.
"If we can't stop the current generation from benefitting from fair use, we can certainly instill 'revenue increasing morals' on those generations to come!" It's a bit ironic considering that Disney is notorious for plagiarizing a superior artist's work and releasing it as their own.
I can only imagine the army of influenced five year olds uninstalling their older brother's copy of [Napster|Grokster|Kazaa|Morpheus|WinMX]. "But Rob, Goofy said that it was bad not to purchase a RIAA licensed copy of that CD!" "Garsh," Disney sucks.
Do you like German cars?
The fundemental problem is Apple and Disney have fundementally different revenue models:
Disney has a huge backlist of contenet taht they can control, repackage and sell - on ethey add to every day. Anything that threatens the value of taht backlist by making it easy to acquire outside of Disney lower's Disney's expected return, and hence overall valuation.
Apple views itself as a hardware company - it makes money selling Apples, and teh software is an integral part of the product, and not one that forms a growing and valuable backlist (how many people are looking forward to the 25th aniversary edition of Finder?). Hence, they are driven by consumer desires, and consumers want to be able to burn CDs (and increasingly, DVDs). If they don't include features consumers want, people will either:
1. Buy add-ons elsewhere; or
2. Buy something else.
In either case, Apple loses potentially profitable revenue streams.
Apple, whoever, is also a software company and values IP (although for quite some time they gave away updates to their OS - until they realized it was a good source of revenue), so they really don't want people to steal music or videos, but must try to walk a fine line between providing what people want and not giving people ways to steal other's property. In the end, however, revenue trumps a desire to take the high road - they are after all, in business to make money, and for Apple, the money is in the hardware/software combination; not in softwrae alone - so they will do what it takes to push iron out the door, no matter what Mickey wnats or thinks.
Now, what would be interesting if Apple secretly tagged al copies of CDs/DVDs burned with their software - so copies could ultimately be traced to the original source.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Piracy is not a technological problem, it is a social problem (paraphrasing here).
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Why do pleas for sympathy coming from Michael Eisner ring hallow?
No artist tolerates reality. -- Nietzsche
According to his FAQ page Weird Al's policy is to get permission. There was one case where somebody dropped the ball ("Amish Paradise"), but Al was acting in the good-faith belief that Coolio had given permission.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Disney has a navy, they should have this whole piracy thing cleared up right away. Aaaarrr! Matey.
Seriously, it's 'copyright infringement', not piracy, piracy implies boats and all sorts of sexy high-seas hijinks. Every time you call it piracy you feed the media hype surrounding it. They can't sell it to Joe Average if it doesn't sound sexy.
Yeah, Apple is a real threat to the music industry. That's why they gave them a grammy!
He generally gets permission, but there's no legal requirement for him to do so - it's fair use.
Of course, the vast majority of us knows this is hogwash, but there is a loud and vocal minority that copy illegal music/software/movies, and they might have very well been the first to coin these particular terms.
I know, for example, when I asked my mom in high school if I could buy a "CD burner", she freaked out. It just sounds wrong. But if you say "CD writer", it sounds official.
There's an ad for AT&T broadband that runs on my local TV in which a guy says "I want to download the top 40... while it's still the top 40!"
I've always taken that to be telling me that I should buy a cable modem to pirate music faster.
Hey! I've got a great idea! I'm going to DisneyWorld for my Honeymoon in a couple of months... how about all the down-south geeks grab some tickets, or at least pay for parking... grab some fsck the MPAA shirts and we parade around letting those asses know just how pissed we are about their arrogance.
You can hit up the Commerce Committee for PDFs of the actual statements. Anyone got any Ogg Vorbis of the Hearing?
Promoting penises escapes me. But Ariel (the little mermaid herself) is underage, as most debutantes debut at age 14, which means a movie about her getting the sailor guy can be labeled as child porn and Fantasia has been labeled by many as Walt's best acid trip.
Virg
I was mostly joking, of course there is nothing inherently illegal about it, most of us wouldn't be on Slashdot if we disagreed with that statement. Target Kill Bury is what Disney et al want most consumers to equate Rip Mix Burn with, in their attempts to demonize fair use. But, "mostly" joking because this ad campaign was one of the first major media attempts that I can recall that would encourage consumers to make copies of their music - by encouraging this first step, it could be argued that they're pushing consumers down that road.
To give another example, why aren't mod chips for Playstation 2 being advertised? Of course they allow one to make backups of your game in case it gets scratched, but what's its primary use? To play pirated and imported games, of course. So if an ad campaign said "Mod your Playstation to make backups." but said "Do not steal games.", could Sony be miffed? I would say yes. I realize there are holes in this analogy, but just an example.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
Seems to me that the content industries want it both ways. In the days of yore, records were treated like a media purchase, and it was common practice to tape them to keep the disks pristine.
With the CD, we crossed the Digital Divide, and suddenly we're not buying media, we're buying a license. Well, if that's the case, if my CD gets a scratch, I should be able to get a replacement for a nominal fee. After all, the cost of manufacture is around $0.10. Also, if *I* am licensed to use the content, I should have a decently described set of rights for use, and they shouldn't by necessity be limited to the delivery medium.
OTOH, if they're selling me the media, a thing, I should be able to do whatever I want with it, shy of making copies for others. But of course if I scratch it, it's done for. So then prudence would dictate that first I rip and reburn, and use my copy so the original remains pristine.
Seems to me that there's not a heck of a lot of effective difference between pure (reasonable, Borland-like (remember Turbo Pascal) license) content license and simple media purchase. Video is in essentially the same bucket as CDs, though they started getting fiesty with videotape, and didn't wait for digital.
But the content industries have crafted a new hybrid that's more restricted than either media or license, alone. It sounds like I've bought a license to the media, not a license to the content. So what have I really bought?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
There is another issue I'd like to clarify. Disney and other content owners are not seeking to stop home taping or eliminate "fair use." We are not here because we want to hinder libraries and college professors in using portions of creative works for scholarly research. Nor are we here because we want to interfere with consumers who wish to make a home copy of Broadcast and basic cable TV programs for their own personal time-shifted viewing. We are confident that the government can act to facilitate the needed technology standards without endangering home taping or fair use.
So if you take him at his word here, he wants to preserve fair use, including personal taping for time-shifting and that sort of thing. Do you think he can be believed here?
and buy a PowerMac, PowerBook or new iMac in the event that they get sued. That would be probably more effective than any Amicus Curae brief.
Actually, it IS illegal.
In this case, apple is not advertising about anything illegal.
Yes. I seem to remember the introduction of cassettes was going to kill the music industry if their prophets were right. I guess they were wrong.
The same goes for VCRs and the movie industry. "Oh no! Videos will kill the movie industry!!!"
Bzzzt! Wrong again...
I prefer to take action that use these TOOLS for bad purposes.
Eisner is a tool with a bad purpose.
I'm a 2000 man.
Now we are seeing this attitude surface in public statements. The speech given at the recent music awards (can't remember names - shows how much I pay attention to such things) specifically mentioned "illegal riping". And now Eisner points to a campaign entitled "rip, mix burn" (as opposed to, say, "download, mix, burn" or "rip, mix, copy" or something else that suggests actual illegal actions).
I thought that was really funny at first. Then I realized it wasn't funny at all. Not even a little bit.
God, I wish that was funny
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
How the hell did this get modded off-topic?
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I am disgusted after hearing about Thursday's SSSCA hearings. The computer, something I have loved to use for over a decade, is now being neutered thanks to media companies. Disney is one of the main proponents of this bill. I am also disgusted on how Disney is at fault for copyright extension - something that is hurting the collection of public domain works.
I made a decision on Thursday to boycott Disney. I have been planning on taking the family to Disney World or maybe go on a Disney cruise. Not any longer. I am not even going to let my newborn watch Disney movies.
Sorry, Disney, you lost a potential costumer. It's your fault you lost me.
'they can create theft if they buy this computer.'
I made a look at the artlce, and created a stare in disbelief as Eisner established a speak that built an annoying and built a trample of my fair use rights, brewing a pissed me off.
They sell blank CD's after all!! How much more blatant can you get??
Want more?? Just wait until the RIAA goes after the copper industry, for making the wires via which their 'property' is stolen..
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
I like Apple as a company.....well, sorta. There's plenty of reasons to like them. The simple fact that Microsoft and Eisner aren't all buddy-buddy with the folks at Apple is a good start. But why does Apple insist on being part of this joke of an alliance that probably doesn't like their 'Rip, Mix, Burn' campaign anymore than Eisner does?
The fact that I can rip my friends CDs but choose not to, should not restrict me from ripping my own legal purchased CDs. I could walk down the street and break windows but I choose not to, the fact that I might doesn't have shopkeepers lobbying congress to close the sidewalk.
All disney has to do is expand the Copyright term by 4 more years and we can pounce on them!
Jacob Grimm died in 1863. Disney's Snow White and the 7 dwarves came out in 1937. That's 74 years later.
All Disney needs to do is expand the copyright term by 4 more years and we can point out that if this copyright term had been in effect when Disney started out, they wouldn't have been able to make the world's first full length animated feature film.
I always find it ironic that Disney makes such a big deal about copyright, yet they made their living off other people's past-copyrighted work. Snow White, Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty.
Disney owes their livelihood to public domain works.. particularly The Grimm Brothers' intellectual property.
Not counting Toy Story 2, they've released:
Now, I'm no math major, but doesn't five minus three equal two films left on that contract?
In Lessig's book "The Future of Ideas" he has a story that shows you pretty clearly where Disney's head is. In IIRC the early seventies, RCA was working on a consumer VCR. They were concerned about publishers' IP rights so they developed a ONE-USE cassette. After showing the video once, the cassette would mechanically lock and couldn't be rewound. You'd have to take it back to the video store and pay them another rental fee to unlock it.
They showed this to a bunch of Disney executives. Their reaction was "We would NEVER distribute our movies that way. When the tape is played, we have ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF KNOWING how many people are in the room."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I hate to borrow a catchphrase from the gun nuts, but..... I have ripped over 2000 songs to use with my iPod. I own the CDs for every last one of those songs. the iPod has DEFINITELY caused me to buy a lot more CDs than I otherwise would have bought.
Record companies should loosen their grip
Quote: Jobs suggested that recording labels need to make it easier for consumers to use their own music however they want. "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own," said Jobs.
Funny that Disney chose to single apple out, since they are in bed together due to Pixar... One must wonder how much money Steve Jobs has made for Disney, through movies and merchandising. Perhaps Eisner could have picked up the phone to his wunderchild, rather than moan and groan about him to congress?
If I bought a product from everyone the RIAA sued, I'd be broke in no time...
Bullshit. Don't substitute one distortion for another. I acquire some of my music from eMusic, which I have to download to get. I'll be damned if you, Eisner or anyone else implies that I'm a thief for doing "download mix burn". My credit card statement for the last eight months says otherwise.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
They might have actually had a case. AT&T broadband in my area currently has a slogan on one of their commercials, "I want to download the top 40 while it's still the top 40." Where as "rip, mix, burn" in most cases constitutes fair use (notice they didn't say "rip, mix, upload", or "borrow, rip, mix and burn", or anything to suggest copyright infringement), I don't see how downloading the top 40 while it's still in the top 40 can possibly constitute fair use (unless AT&T has some deal which I don't know about, in which case I'm getting AT&T Broadband). It seems to me this is good news for us, as Apple simply have to remake the Sony/Betamax timeshifting case all over again. I'm glad they didn't find AT&T Broadband first to irreversibly muddy the waters. AT&T would be the straw man argument. Thank god they are finally going after what they really want rather than some rediculous straw man.
It is not illegal to write music about doing drugs or committing crimes
...
Actually, it IS illegal.
Damn, better round up every single rap artist out there (& most rock 'n' roll artists) and throw them in jail, since singing about doing drugs is illegal...
You must be new to this country. Let me be the first to say, "Welcome!" Now I'd like to introduce you to this little thing called freedom of speech. It basically says that writing songs about doing drugs and committing crimes is protected speech and is perfectly legal. I understand that you were denied these freedoms growing up as a young communist, but you're in America now, and we do things a little differently around here.
With this new understanding, go forth with your life in your new country. Enjoy, frolic, but please don't multiply unless you plan on teaching your children the foundations this country was built on before allowing them to post idiotic statements on public forums.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
No, gunpowder kills people.
Um...
No, nitrocellulose kills people.
Um...
No, nitric acid kills people.
Um...
No, nitrogen kills people.
See how quickly we can get to the real root of the problem this way?
If only a thousand MP3 zealots who don't already have Macs went out to buy new iMacs ... that would be almost a million dollars straight into Apple's coffers
$799 * 1000 = $799,000. Apple *might* get 20% of that. Maybe.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
This man (Eisner) is clearly losing his mind to claim the ability to create a verb that is as old as language itself. It's not like this is anything new, however, since it isn't any more fallacious than the idea of intellectual property. I'd bet that this is just the stress of lowered profits and a senate hearing exposing his insanity and permitting to to spread.
I'm dead serious, too. The whole idea of intellectual property is big time doublethink, a feat which no sane mind is capable of to any great extent.
BlackGriffen
I'd like to state that the above is my opinion, and is clearly meant to be such, since I am not a doctor, and have no clinical training to actually make such an evaluation.
I'm being a bit paranoid, I guess, but I'm not in the mood to get sued today.
BlackGriffen
He generally gets permission, but there's no legal requirement for him to do so - it's fair use.
Actually not. It's legal because it's a parody. There are clauses outside of fair use that cover parodies.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Yeah, you can always count on a good story from AtAT.
I mean, you know Eisner is coked out of his mind when Intel is defending Apple. I wish ol' Walt was still around to smack some sense into this idiot.
SIGFEH
Lawsuits are currently pending against firearms manufacturers along similar grounds.
It's not that big a stretch.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
It's really encouraging to see Apple stand up to this kind of misinformation, and to take a stand on fair use. I'd also like to point out that, for those that missed it, that Apple delayed the release of Quicktime 6 (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/13/04123 4&mode=thread) due to the unfair license. Apple was willing to shell out the $2 Million, but did NOT want customers to have to pay $0.002/minute for commercial streams. The point being that they could have released it for personal use and let the customer deal with it if they were streaming commercial content, but they didn't. They took a stand.
Thanks for putting your money where your mouth is, Apple.
all they are doing is saying that you can RIP(music from a CD), MIX(Music tracks for a new CD), and BURN(the tracks to a new CD)
besides....when you make an MP3, it can only be transfered from the creation PC to another location, you can not retreansfer from the new location because the MP3 is marked....that I think is a very fair way to deal with the music issue....rip all you want, have all the MP3s you want, mix as many CDs as you want, send an MP3 to a buddie or the iPOD , but the proliferation ends there.....that should be the hardware/entertainment industry standard.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
No, you do not need a license to read things you own. You own CDs. You don't own the copyright to the music therein -- that's seperate. Licenses are a very novel, very sneaky, and very useless and dangerous innovation in the realm of publishing. But they're the exception and not the rule... hopefully it'll stay that way.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I hope some of the Congressmen realize the difference between "Rip, Mix, Burn" and "Download, Burn."
There seems to be three opinions:
Apple - "Rip, Mix, Burn"
Eisner - "Download, Burn, Steal"
Slashdot - "Burn, Hollywod, Burn"
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
because they are the ONLY company (read: unlike Microsoft) who is putting out creative software without a single shred of DRM in a whole hardware/software platform.
Oh the other hand, MS tracks what its users watch, listen to, and possibly download.. sotheir court cases are being squashed left and right and will continue on being the sole source of software from the US govt...
(then again, it took over 9 months to figure out that they were tracking wath you watched, so tell me that they AREN'T tracking your downloads)
Apple is in the sights of the RIAA and MPAA. This is because they have not capitualted with the notion that if you can hear it, they can charge you for it. The battle has just begun.
Maybe i should take back some of those granola chewing long haired hippie comments i made about Apple before.. well, i do own 7 Macs.... so maybe i voted with my dollars a long time ago.
I was just about to say that Apple is in serious trouble.. but then, i've been hearing THAT for 20 years so.....
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Which is fine and dandy, but I was asking about my post and why it was interpreted as flame bait. Technically that is on topic. But I just don't have any more energy to worry about it.
"Derp de derp."
In the eyes of the recording companies and some musicians, yes you are ripping them off by buying used CDs. However, as Garth Brooks found out, the law doesn't see it that way. When he tried suing to prevent resale of his CDs by used CD stores, the judge told him flat-out that copyright law ended his rights to royalties at first sale. After that, he had no rights to royalties from additional sales of that copy and no legal right to prevent those sales.
- I can take my gun to the shooting range and practice. That makes me a hobbyist.
- I can take my gun into the parking lot and shoot someone. That makes me a criminal.
- I can go into the Apple Store and buy a Mac (yeah, a nice Dual G4 1GHz... *wipes drool* sorry where was I). That makes me a consumer.
- I can take my Mac home and pop in a CD to listen to, as well as rip that CD to MP3s and even take my favorate songs from that CD and others for use in my car. That makes me a hobbyist.
- I can also burn that mix 1,000 times and sell it unlicensed on the black market while paying no royalties to the record label or artist. That makes me a criminal.
The logic behind most corporations management of IP assets gives me a siezure if I think about it too hard. If seems that most common sense has gone out the window when it comes to tech. issues. The problem is that money is as addictive as cigarettes and those who are addicted are already swiming in it. Therefore they have the resources to buy off elected officials and get restricted laws passed. And let's not pretend for one second i'm being "unconstitutional" or "anti-american" by suggesting our politicians take kickbacks, either.
The real unconstitutionality here is that those corporations that already make enough to feed all the hungry nations of the world and don't, (yes that's you Disney, you sweatshop fucks) simply try to bleed us dry as well, as if the ultimate goal for them is to have ALL the money in the entire world. Fellas, that's not how the game is played, get your head out of your ass before you ruin every aspect of our lives.
If you made quality products, piracy or not quantity wouldn't be a problem. Stop screaming bloody murder for the protection of IP that isn't even worth protecting.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
This is grey area...
Clearly, it verges towards a copyright infringement. But since copyright is so hard to define, it probably would have to go to court, and a judge would decide, based on the particular facts of the circumstance.
But it has generally been allowed, or at least uncontested by the RIAA that sharing tapes of copyrighted material isn't objectionable. I would suspect that they don't feel it cuts into their profits, and probably encourages people to but their own copies... Thus, it seems somewhat hypocritical to then claim that ripping disks from friends is HORRIBLE, sa least from the position of the RIAA/Music Industry.
So, technically, it may be copyright infringement, though it's VERY difficult to define, but the music industry generally has not contested those who share music between a few friends.
Cheers!
How's this for starters? Somebody should hook Apple up with Xybernaut's attourneys...
You're using her as bait, Master!
My personal opinion is that things will start to get better as the younger generations replace the older. Hopefully more reasonable laws will result, of course they probably won't be beneficial to the new younger generation...
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I can create theft with a crowbar and some duct tape, whether or not the hardware store advertised this fact. Besides, 'Rip, Burn, and Mix' is perfectly legal. I have a tendency to be rough on CDs. Nor do I like all the songs on any given one. Its very nice to be able to create a mix copy of my favorites. Best of all, thats perfectly legal. I can do anything I want with a legally-purchased CD. I can use it for a coaster, I can use it as a frisbee, and I can use it damn near any way I choose, as long as it doesn't make me money. Its not like apple says 'Rip, Burn, and Mix (illegal music)' or anything. Sheesh, gimme a break.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
IANAL, of course . . .
/not/ have a right to copy it indiscriminately, resell it commercially (you can sell your copy, but you can't make lots of copies and sell them), or do things like pass it off as your own work. Those rights are controlled by the copyright owner.
/not/ control anything outside those rights - if you sell your copyrighted work to someone, they own that copy and can do what they like with it, including listening to it. The MPAA and RIAA are busy trying to gain control of things that copyright law doesn't allow them: that's why so many people are pissed off at them.
You have a right to listen to the stuff on the CD because you own your copy of the contents: you bought it, and that gives you the right to listen to it.
You do
That's the idea of copyright: you get to control many of the rights of copying that are available. But you do
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
... all that threatens Disney's right to eternal existence must be elimimated:
...
- time
- technology
- art
- people drawing pictures of mice
Nuclear weapons are specifically designed to do illegal things (ie, killing people and destroying property).
/do/ have a legitimate use, but it's still a special case of an illegal act: picking a lock you happen to own).
/is/ - it's far more useful to outlaw the act of using a crowbar in a crime than to outlaw all uses of a crowbar.
/useful/ for controlling the actions you want to control? It's a matter of compromising between what you want to control and what you /can/ control, and what it's worth trying to control. There are some good rules of thumb available to guide those decisions - the one about a known legal use dominating a potential illegal use is a good example.
Lockpicks are specifically designed to illegal things (ie, picking locks - they
Ripping music to some portable digital form like mp3 files is designed to give you a portable copy of some piece of music - this is perfectly legal. It only becomes illegal when that piece of music isn't owned by you, or when you don't have the right to legally copy it.
See the difference? Your two cases are specifically designed to perform illegal acts - any possible legal uses for them are such a small percentage of the actual uses that they make no difference. The case of ripping music has a very big and extremely significant legal use.
When the legal use dominates the illegal use, you should look at controling the actions rather than the tools. That's why crowbars aren't illegal, but using them in a theft
This is one of those decisions that goes on all the time in legal systems: how do you make your laws
As a side note, it should be noted that when you find yourself dealing with an unenforceable law, you've almost certainly got that compromise wrong, and should go back to the drawing board and start again. The problems with drug prohibition are a perfect example of this, and the current copyright issues look to be another example.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
. . . are almost inevitably /bad/ laws.
/Think/ about what it means, and then support it or not based on what it /means/, not what it is.
What good is a law if all it does is make common usage a crime? You end up with a population made up of criminals, with all that entails.
Good laws simply codify what a society already does, so that serious transgressions can be handled consistently. If a society changes, then the laws should change to reflect that. Anything else is a short fast trip towards insanity.
Don't deify something simply because it's been written down officially.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
That is a blatant misreading of my argument, and if you don't realise that then you lack the intelligence to hold a reasonable discussion.
Murders happen, but they've
If you actually take a look at the history of most laws you'll see that they tend to come long after whatever it is they regulate began to occur. Certainly most of the good laws are like that - the ones that were developed
As for copyright's history, that's all well and good, but if it has little relevance
Yes, copyright had, and probably still has, a sound basis, but if copyright laws end up making most of the population criminals, then there's almost certainly something wrong with them.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
uncontested by the RIAA that sharing tapes of copyrighted material isn't objectionable. I would suspect that they don't feel it cuts into their profits, and probably encourages people to but their own copies... Thus, it seems somewhat hypocritical to then claim that ripping disks from friends is HORRIBLE, sa least from the position of the RIAA
I don't see an unwarranted double standard. Each generation of an analog copy adds some noise. Each generation of a digital copy adds no noise. Mastering (dithering of 20-bit to 16-bit PCM, or compression to 192 kbps MP3 format) adds a small amount of noise, but that doesn't increase per copy generation, leading to spreading of a work on a logistic pattern (that is, exponential growth with a plateau) as it is copied from machine to machine. This explains why the copyright industry has been tougher on digital technology than on analog technology.
Will I retire or break 10K?
[Broadband commercial:] "I want to download the top 40... while it's still the top 40!"
Napkin calculation: On average, it takes well under five hours to download ten songs at high quality (192 kbps MP3) over a dial-up connection, assuming two concurrent downloads plus light web browsing. Thus, four 5-hour sessions should fetch the first week's Top 40, and assuming 10 songs are replaced each week, a pirate needs only one session of Slashdot-reloading to incrementally update the playlist. Who needs cable?
I've always taken that to be telling me that I should buy a cable modem to pirate music faster.
Or to download Universal's MP3.com top 40. Or to download from eMusic, which has licensed MP3 distribution rights from some of the major labels.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Your kid can still watch Pinocchio, Pinocchio, Pinocchio 2, or The Lion King. Too bad Atlantis hasn't been dubbed yet. Also boycott Sonny and Cher because of the Bono Act that they both supported and that Di$ney helped push through.
Will I retire or break 10K?
hehe guess we are thinking different :)
Geeks probably don't know this, but in the mainstream, there has been confusion (deliberate?) over the word "rip." I have seen it used on TV (some guy on "Politically Incorrect") and in a recent article from someone at ??AA (might have been the Valenti letter?) where the verb "to rip" was used to refer to downloading.
Depending on where you fall in the spectrum of attributing things to malice vs stupidity, it's either tragic ignorance, or a very dirty trick to make "ripping" into something bad.
You might want to keep this in mind when discussing with non-geeks, to make sure they know what is being discussed.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
disney is the outfit that dreamt up classics like cinderella 2 and peter pan 2 (wtf?). surely these people don't publish any music that i might ever want to listen to or inspires others to go on a pirating rampage?
Don't get me wrong!
Well, we can thank the late Sonny Bono for that one, although I understand the Supreme Court may consider the possible unconstitutionality of that copyright extension law. If it is overturned that may mean that copyrighted material from the 1920's will go into the public domain 30 years after we die instead of 50. woo hoo.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Coolio? You mean that no-talent rapper who butchered Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise"?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oh... actually I was directing that at a bunch of people. I didn't make that very clear though, I'm sorry. I mixed my response to yours with a response to a bunch of people running up to try to milk funny points from what I said hehe.
It did bring up an interesting point though about context. What you said made me understand my values about freedom of expression. It really felt, to me, that it was unfair of Finland to ban Donald Duck for that reason. It also offended me that Eisner (Disney) said that Apple was promoting thievery. What if I were sued for making a Disney parody because it 'promotes not giving Disney money?'. I realize that Eisner's comments aren't part of a lawsuit, but imagine if it was? Parodies are protected today, but what if the victim of a parody can prove they lost money from it?
What you said about Finland made me think. Thank you!
"Derp de derp."
I have the S110, which gets about 20s of 320x240 video. It's somewhat limiting, but good enough for quite a bit. It's the price you pay for the tiny form factor.
-Erik