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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 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
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.
The arguments the "industry" keeps posing are like blaming the people who make ballpoint pens for ransom notes....
Sinepaw.org: Grape Winos
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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)
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.
The problem comes in step 0 and step 4.
Step 0: Borrow cd from a friend
Step 4: Burn 100 copies and give them to your other friends.
The ad is perfectly legal, but it did have the effect of focusing the music industry's attention on Apple. Hmmmm maybe they'll focus so hard on Apple that they'll forget about my Neo MP3 Player.
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.
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.'
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!
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.
Yeah, Apple is a real threat to the music industry. That's why they gave them a grammy!
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.
'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.
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?
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.