The Customer is Always Wrong

McSpew writes "Hackers author Steven Levy so far is the only person in the mainstream press to pick up on the the travesty of the SSSCA hearings. He points out that only the media giants could be so stupid as to think treating their customers like criminals will increase sales." Steven's a very smart guy - and very well said on this issue.

Comments

it's not about piracy

[0WaitState]

It's not about piracy--its about destroying fair use and moving America to a pay-per-use business model. The whole piracy thing is arrant bullshit--content will still be created regardless of copying. After all, it's done pretty damned well even after 30 years of rampant analog copying.

The whole scare over "digital copying" is a red herring--what the RIAA and MPAA are trying to do is use this new-fangled technology thing to get rid of this profit-limiting concept of "buy once, play (or read) many times."

Get that message out there folks--its not about piracy, its about pay-per-view everywhere.

Smart Story Poster

[lkaos]

I know I'll get mod'd down for this but I just had to point it out.

The guy who submitted this story included a link to purchase the movie 'Hackers' from Amazon.com (as opposed to the movie's website which would seem more logical) as part of the stories description.

I was curious about this for a minute until I released that he included a referer ID in the URL so as the URL gets /.'d and people purchase the movie (which is bound to happen), he will get a percentage from the sale! Talk about using the /. effect to one's advantage.

Capitalism is wonderful, isn't it? I'm amazed that the editors let that slip by. I think this is a whole new category of karma whoring...

Levy's Newest Book

[Cy Guy]

Levy's newest book Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government Saving Privacy in the Digital Age(*) helps demonstrate one of the key hypocrisis in the mind of the common SlashDotter (like I picture myself). Which is that while we respect (even worship) the ownership of data when it comes to privacy considerations, we abhor that very same ownership when it is expressed by others (like the RIAA & MPAA) in the form of copyrights. The very same poster can easily find himself posting in one thread that users need good encryption technology to protect their personal data; then later that same day argue that tools that break encryption in the form of DeCSS etc. are our God given right to own and use as we see fit to break the encryption of other people's data.

Before you flame me, I realize there is a distinction in that supposedly you paid for that DVD you only want to make a backup copy of. But if the seller of the DVD and law say that is not what you paid for, then why are you arguing with the seller? You should only be arguing with law.

So maybe that's the commonality of the two opinions, both advocate that the law should be changed in the consumer's favor. One to allow consumers access to strong encryption, one to to allow consumers the common law right of fair use to DVDs they have purchased.

* BTW, Why hasn't SlashDot reviewed Levy's new book yet? It's been out for two month's now.

Re:Nothing New

[pmc]

the only mp3's I have on my harddrive that arent legal are ones that I wouldnt have bought anyway

But, BUT, BUT... the only reason you can say you would not have bought them is that you downloaded them, and realised that they were crap. If you hadn't downloaded them, you may have bought them because you would not have realised that they were crap.

And that is the point of all this. They don't really care about people people downloading music - they are more worried about people finding out the music is crap before they get a chance to buy it.

OK - that was tongue in cheek, but think about it for a minute: how many chances to hear a whole CD do you have before either you, or one of your friends, buys the thing? Radio? Nope - the record companies have this sewn up. A record store? You'd have to get lucky. Any others? So, if you want to hear a CD you have to buy it.

Or at least, that used to be the case. At the moment it isn't, and by God these guys are desparately trying to get the worms back in the can (or, more aptly, get the pig back in the poke).

We'll have to see what happens - my hope is that they will kill their goose, and music will become more diverse. My guess is that music will be two types - the bulk will be draconian corporate type (uncopyable, which is lucky as it'll be unlistenable), and the rest "underground", which will be more interesting but harder to find.

Remember one thing about music - and I can't recall who originally said it - "People don't know what they like, they like what they know".

Re:Protecting yourself

[eyeball]

Rip, Mix, and Burn.

I think they're safe, especially since none of these are illegal activities. Violation of copyright is illegal.

yes, and shooting someone with a gun is illegal. 99% of gun owners don't shoot people, yet look at their constant struggle with gun laws.

don't put it past our government to pass irrational and unreasonable laws under the influence of a small unethical subset of our corporate population. where there's a will, there's a way (of course 'will' in this case means lobbyists, lawyers, and millions of dollars.)

A suggested business model for MP3 downloads

[Reziac]

Here's a business model for the **AA to kick around:

Get yourself a fat pipe and fast servers (and make sure you support resuming and are dl-client friendly). Trust me, it'll pay for itself. Get yourself a good login and automatic billing system that doesn't charge the user's account until the download is confirmed complete. Make the download catalog easy to use (workable in any browser and no damned javascript), searchable, and as complete as possible.

Offer MP3s as follows:

64 kbit mono -- no charge. Okay for previewing stuff to decide whether you want to buy it or not, but not really good enough for cuts you want to keep and play a lot. (And will prevent complaints and billing disputes about songs that suck too much to pay for.)

128 kbit stereo -- 25 cents each. Good enough for most people and not too much of a bandwidth hog.

360 kbit stereo -- 50 cents each. (Or, since this system obviously will have login and tracking of purchases, just 25 cents if you already downloaded the 128kbit version -- effectively a discounted upgrade price.) This satisfies the more-devoted audiophile's need for better sound quality.

If you want to make sure no one avoids billing by stopping the download with 2 seconds to go (since incomplete MP3s *do* play), ZIP 'em, since that will largely defeat people who try to cheat the system. NO ENCRYPTION or "phone home before it can be played" crap, tho.

Yeah, people will still trade MP3s, but why should I spend hours searching for and dragging home unreliable files from some slow cranky server, when I can cough up 25 cents and get the same material, in guaranteed quality and complete condition from a fast reliable server, at the very moment I decide I want it?? Hell, for that price it may beat the bother of ripping my own.

I'm sure a similar model could be developed for downloadable movies -- a highly-compressed 320x200 preview copy for little or nothing, and a top quality copy for a buck or two. Why spend all night dl'ing an AVI that proves to be someone's grainy screencam when for a couple bucks I can get the same thing in close to DVD quality?