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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.
Thank you, Mr. Levy, for giving me, in Hackers, the words to express what I already knew to be true.
"Bite my [shiny metal] ass, Eisner."
OK, so my computer's version's not as eloquent. I think it gets the point across, though.
... they can build their own!
The SSSCA is just the result of a lazy slob MPAA/RIAA executives who want the PC industry to build them tailor-made-to-order PC technology to their exacting specifications, without having to invest a single penny or lift a single finger of effort. Oh, the industry won't play along? Let's pass legislation REQUIRING them to.
The MPAA/RIAA are so used to having their way with consumers, that they now believe they can hand the jar of vaseline to the PC industry and have their way with them, too.
And the scary bit is that for the most part, they're right...
As always, its the "Music industry has head stuck up ass. People will be mad. News at 11."
Duh.
It's a shame people dont have the time or money to care until it actually happens.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Please! This is basically more of big, rich media companies convicting all their customers without a trial. Guilty because you own a piece of hardware. Yeah, file-sharing and copying is rampant...does it take away their profits? That's not clear...and in MY opinion, it doesn't since there's no guarantee that I would have purchased a CD containing a song I download...yet I know that many times, I've downloaded a song, liked it, then bought the CD.
As for the Apple campaign, nothing in it is promoting criminal behavior, only fair use...which is what these people would LOVE to stamp out.
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
only the media giants could be so stupid as to think treating their customers like criminals will increase sales.
Hrm. I wonder if Microsoft will be able to license their Activation Code technology to the good people of Vivendi Universal.
"We're sorry, but someone is already listening to this pressing of the Britney Spheres CD."
--saint
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.
Remain calm! All is well!
I think they're safe, especially since none of these are illegal activities. Violation of copyright is illegal. Unlimited distribution without permission of the copyright holder (not "owner") is illegal. But for music you've made, or music you've purchased, ripping, mixing, and burning are entirely legal for your personal use. Not only does common sense say so. So does the law and quite a number of federal courts.
Despite efforts to grab the mindspace, the Content Cartel is simply wrong when it claims that ripping, mixing, or burning are, prima facie, illegal. Don't yield that ground to them.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
As a company, it makes a lot of sense to try to stop people from using your products
I doan theeenk so.
What galls me most about the media oligopoly is that they think they have a right (and congress is, sadly, too eager to oblige) to have the general public shoulder additional costs so that the media oligarchs can easily apply their existing business models to new media.
What a fantastic piece!
Arguing against those who favor copy protection measures extreme as these can sometimes be difficult for people who arn't particularly technologically inclined; that's why we always see anologies to Ford making cars whose engines need updgrades like Windows does. This article does a good job of making the electronic freedom arguement without resorting to such sillyness by pointing to the underlying economic reality: treating your customers like theives will never increase sales.
Let's hope this is just the first in a long line of articles making a sensible arguments against Disney et al., and their handpicked legislators.
Specifically in the area of digital music, if this had been done right this would not be a problem. Music companies offering their catalogs for say .25 or .50 cents a song with a fat pipe and guaranteed quality would have been popular. I would have considered it myself. I would have download from them regardless of the availability of other sources such as the Gnutella network. I would have been happily legal, with clean, correct copies of my music. I think that many people would have also.
Sure, there would be quite a few people still pirating the content, but for audiophiles it would have been a no-brainer. Legal, fast, and clean would have been the watchwords. How many MP3s have you downloaded only to find out that it's a bad rip that took you an hour to get? Misnamed songs, misnamed authors, and things like that would have been things of the past. But no, we have to have paranoia, fear, and mistrust.
A company that would trust its customers a little bit could reap huge rewards. There will be piracy regardless of what they do. If it was created by man, it can be broken by man.
The first company to engender a little trust and lay on a little guilt "If one of your friends wants this song, send them to us so we can continue to offer you this premium service" would have made them money.
...Steven Levy so far is the only person in the mainstream press to pick up on the the travesty of the SSSCA hearings....
Uhmm...am I the only one who sees how obvious it is that mainstream media, controlled by the companies that are backing the sssca, wouldn't be reporting on it? Unless it wasn't going their way, that is.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
The thing is that Copyright laws do allow you to make copies for your own use.
I have on my PC at work about 1500 mp3's that are perfectly legal and their purpose is to keep me from lugging CD's to and from work.
SSSCA would prevent that since the only purpose of mp3 is to steal music...
It's written very clearly on the bottom in 12 point type "Please don't steal music".
Don't forget that if the Slashdot "Customer" is wrong, simply insult them in their own journal, even though they aren't a troll and have 50 karma...
Michael never did apologize for that, so, yes, I'm still sour about it.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Just a shot in the dark...
It's really quite simple - the only right of a consumer is to buy stuff, so if you are doing anything else, you must be an evil, un-American, commie bastard criminal. Since people obviously aren't playing along and sending all of their money to groups like the MPAA, RIAA, etc. in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills left under the third tier of the right field bleachers at the high school at precisely 6pm, they have no choice but to have all of their rights removed. We didn't bow down to our lord and god Big Business, paying tribute to its greatness with gifts of gold and promises of eternal servitude, so it shall smite us with the sting of a thousand legal restrictions. It's really quite fair when you consider that we've been given such wonderful gifts as the opportunity to pay for Britney Spears "music" and cinematic gems like "Super Troopers." So get out your checkbooks and bend over America, it's time for your medicine...
... they're always saying "content holders"? Or content providers?
Nothing is going to change until the content producers -the artists - rebel. Nothing short of a mutiny by the bands and filmmakers will get the industry to change.
There have been attempts. The Offspring come to mind, with their pro-Napster stance. (Question: are the still pro-p2p? Are they still a BAND?) But their rebellion was too early, and they were "just a punk band" so I guess few listened.
Until you have Ms. Spears do a press conference stating that she is not going to sign with [whomever] when her contract gets renewed, because [whomever] only produces copy-protected CDs that her lil' girlfriends can't listen to on their Nomads or iPods, and other artists follow suit, there willbe no change. I hate to say it but this is one fight where drastic change is going to need a little violence, if only in the legal sense.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Here's yet another reason why increasing the size and power of Government will only deteriorate the rights of the common man. These anti-speech measures will only increase in number as long as the average person votes for the three parties above.
Advocating liberty means supporting the decrease of big government. Stop asking for handouts, no matter what type (corporate subsidies, welfare, social security, etc) because those handouts come with reductions in our rights, like the big corporations want. If you want to end these ludicrous and obviously unconstitutional laws, then vote for the only party that advocates disassembling any law that is unconstitutional: the Libertarian Party.
I hate being a broken record, but ALL these laws (SSSCA, DMCA, etc) are unconstitutional, but as long as Congress is more powerful than the Constitution allows, they will never be repealed.
My view on copy protection: let manufacturers make an unbreakable copy protection scheme if they want. Let hardware developers get in bed with software developers. But DO NOT LET THEM have laws that prevent reverse engineering. Do let the free market consumer power choose between an encrypted uncopyable format, and possibly an open format advocated by another group of software publishers.
As long as we allow the RIAA and MPAA and other large organizations lobby Congress to overextend Congressional power, we'll always be victims. The free market works, but only if you get government out of it.
They already do. Most of Apple's RipMixBurn and iPod materials have "Don't steal music." at the bottom.
So here's Mr. Levy being bothered by the SSSCA, which could allow the intellectual property industry to force consumer electronics manufacturers to include copy prevention technology in their products. And yet he still chooses the cop-out of saying that digital downloads aren't bad because somebody could come up with a "feasible" DRM system. Hello -- am I the only one who sees the contradiction? Move along, folks, nothing to see here...
Breakfast served all day!
Ok, so the only real way that a consumer has of telling the RIAA & MPAA how they feel is with their wallets..
So, short of not buying any more music or seeing any more movies, what are my alternatives?
Where can I find movies and music that don't grease the MPAA and RIAA wheels?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
The ONLY reason why any form of exchange/barter/loan/transaction works, is because both parties end up in the plus. I want CD abc more than I want $20. The label want's $20 more than that copy of the CD. We go through the transaction and we're both better off. Hence these exchanges, when executed properly, are not a zero sum game.
Many industries have taken the perspective that exchanges should be zero sum. i.e. Screw your customer for your own good. When that doesn't work, screw them more. Now even cockroaches learn quickly from negative re-enforcement. How does the record industry expect us to behave?
-... ---
Remember my.mp3.com? For those that don't, you could pop in your purchased cd at home, it would authorize you as having bought it, and then you could stream the mp3 from anywhere from that point, but only with your login. I thought it would stand up to legality as well, and used it quite a bit, authorizing at home and listening at work - no lugging! But of course mp3.com lost that lawsuit. Your example is different b/c you actually made those mp3s yourself, and I have plenty of those as well (a binder full), but proof enough that simply owning is not necessarily enough in the eyes of the law.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
My goodness, he knocked you for having 700+ posts? I hope he never takes a look at my user profile... And I'm not even that prolific a poster.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Business-school professors could feast for years on the unintended consequences that come from treating Britney Spears tunes like nuclear secrets.
So we might have Britney Spears tunes locked up with only a select few authorized to listen to them? Maybe there is a upside (albeit a tiny one) to this after all.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Check out this log, and search for Hollings. The main point from the BlogSphere is that Hollings, the committee chairman, is bought and paid for by the entertainment industry, and why would the same industry give themselves negative press?
The good news is that the "evil" republican House seems to be willing to tell Hollings to take a leap.
Donut
Actually, it's perfectly valid to view this as slashdot charging for the service, not the content. They organize the servers, the software, maintain the archives, etc. Through their reputation (such as it is) and their userbase, they supply the eyeball.
Hey, sort of like open source.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
By making clear that your company opposes illegal use of your product, even going so far as to lobby for the enactment of laws restricting your product's use, you remove liability from yourself and transfer it to those who seek to use your product for illegal purposes.
Unfortunately, you transfer the liability to the hardware manufaturers, the courts, and the government. Its easy to implement crappy copy protection, and then rely on other people to protect you when somebody figures out how to circumvent it.
As a company, it makes a lot of sense to try to stop people from using your products illegally.
I agree. And I have no problem with any company trying to do this. If they want to, then there should be nothing trying to stop them. I, of course, am free to not use their products, and I am free to support any company that chooses not to use copy protection that interfers with my fair-use rights.
The problem is that they are trying to pass a law to remove these rights from me. They are taking the actions of a few illegal traders (who are outnumbered by legitimate CD buyers - Somebody must have made O-Town a #1 record) and turning them into legislation that will effectively, remove my ability to choose and to fairly use my media in a way that I see fit.
This scares the hell out of me.
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
I guess ALL innovation comes from the halls of corporations. We don't need no steenking startups. If you *think* about what's really needed to implement the SSCA as currently envisioned that's what happens.
If our government thinks we're in a hi-tech slump now, just see what happens if SSCA passes. Just watch the US fall on the wrong side of the digital divide as innovation moves elsewhere.
As others have said, it's not just hardware, but software, too. You can add all the DRM hardware you want, but unless you've got a DRM OS with signatures, security, and verification everywhere, it's broken. An OSS kernel is dead in the DRM age, and userspace may well be in trouble, too. Imagine SSCA-certified compilers that guarantee the 'DRM Devices' are only used properly.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Bingo.
The reason that Metallica went all stupid was that "I Disappear" (IIRC) was put on Napster 3 weeks before it was to be made available for radio play. Radio station WRIF in Detroit (amongst others) put that copy on the air, resulting in the first round of "cease and dissist"s. Metallica then relised that they lost control of thier own production, and the rest is history. (remember Google is your friend, people)
No excuse for thier over the top cheeleading of killing Napster, but kinda makes you see where they're coming from.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I know it has been said and batted around, but sooner or later some a-hole politician is going to "officially" coin the term.
And it will put a stop to "piracy" just like the "War on Drugs" put a stop to all drug use in the US.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I hate to use Adult industry examples, but there is a very good example of taking advantage of a market instead of trying to shut it down.
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. was probably one of the most pirated companies in the history of media when it comes to original content. I don't know about you, but I've read hundreds of articles talking about Pamela Anderson or whoever being #1 on most search engines, etc etc.
So what did PEI do? They capitalized on the market. They didn't try to prevent you from copying JPG's and MOV's. They gave you a service so killer that it's not worth the time trying to pirate it. Most adult companies try and charge like $30 a month for a crap ass website with lousy content and slutty women.
Not Playboy. They charge like 6 bux a month. The price of a paper magazine. All of their playmates in an online archive. HUGE libraries of content. New features weekly if not daily.
Playboy recognized it could benefit from a potential source of huge revenue or it could be like the RIAA and MPAA and try to prevent it's content from being copied. By providing a service with such value at such a reasonable price point, I'm quite sure Playboy is making a killing.
I wish the RIAA and MPAA could pull their heads of out their respective a$$es and open their eyes to the REAL market they COULD capitalize on without screwing things for us: the consumers.
Msft gets off scott free, able to leverage one monopoly into as many as they can grow tentacles (buy one, you have to buy them all! No "mix and match" no mo...) but hardware companies like WesternDigital, Maxtor, IBM etc. are required by law to put secret undocumented protection features in their products to give Msft unlimited control over distribution, installation and use ("Please enter your 24 digit auth code to begin performance of this content, or contact your vendor for assistence in obtainly a copy authorization code.").
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Ok, so they design and market a DVD drive that thoroughly prevents CSSed data to be read except under "endorsed" situations, or something like that. They take it a step further, and make DVD drives that don't use this scheme illegal to sell. Now, who is going to knock down my door, rip out my good old 2x dvd drive and force me to buy this new thing?
Will my current computer become illegal, would a law be forcing me to shell out over a thousand dollars to stay legal?
Since MS has patents on DRM OS, would MS products suddenly become the only legal OSes (government enforced monopoly). How does Sun, Apple, RedHat, and the many many companies who has an infrastructure dependent on non-MS software feel about having their products made illegal, or being forced to spend millions to migrate infrastructures to MS-only?
Without new media, no one can force new hardware on consumers, therefore the existing hardware will be accessible to pirates if they so desire. You start releasing something new so soon after the widespread acceptance of DVD and completely drop DVD technology, consumers will be royally pissed. Suddenly making tons of software illegal (especially open-source software becomes impossible, someone could easily disable the DRM bits) would also piss off companies and individuals who want to operate legally, but would have little impact on those who could care less about copyright law (already illegal, why pay attention to a new law?).
So the SSSCA basically penalizes the innocent and has essentially no impact on piracy when you think about it....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I've seen it in MS's Product Activation. I've seen it in the creation of Copy-Protected CDs. A customer is now seen as the enemy of the company selling it's goods and not a friend. This is a completely backwards view. These companies (MS, MPAA, RIAA, and others) don't see the customer as someone who's plunking down hard-earned money to use something they created (using "created" in the loosest sense with the RIAA/MPAA), but as someone who might pirate their work and deny them additional sales.
They will regularly trot out "how much we're losing" piracy figures. (Nevermind that some users who pirate software would do without before paying the inflated price for a legal copy.) They assume that they have a right to sell their product to everyone, charge whatever they want, and tell the user exactly how they can and can't use the product.
I imagine in their perfect world, there'd be a RIAA/MPAA/MS computer-chip implanted in everyone's brain calculating how much we use their product (so we can be billed by the hour, rounded up of course), stopping us from doing things they deem "illegal" (I'm sorry, you can't rip that. After all, you paid for it, but we still *own* it.), and turning us in the police if we persist.
If I could sit in a room with them and say one thing it'd be: "You're in for a serious wake-up call. People do not like being treated like criminals. They take offense to it. You exist to provide a service to the public (and make some $$$ off of it), the public doesn't exist to send money to you." Of course, I'd probably be branded a criminal by those statements and be shipped off for a "special" brain implant.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I have the solution to the "Piracy" which should make everyone happy. The problem is not in the technology, it lies in the simple fact that the content providers actually give consumers the first-generation copies in the first place, which facilitates second-hand copying. This practice needs to be stopped.
The solution is deviously simple: when a someone goes to the record store and buys, let's say, the hot new Alicia Keys CD, they should only get a copy of the liner notes, not the easy-to-copy CD.
Voila! No original, no copies, and the problem is solved. You can't pirate a CD that you don't have. Sure, album reviewers might have a harder time with this scheme, but your average Britney Spears-listening vegetard won't know the difference. They'll still be a part of the excitement as they clutch their empty CD case, their small, vapid minds unaware of the change. Since most pop music is brand and marketing, the music studios could concentrate their efforts more efficiently.
It will save money on studio and recording fees as well.
Someone get Sen. Fritz Hollings on the phone, if he helps set this plan into motion, there's a nice vacation condo waiting for him!
For those who are unfamiliar with the details of the bill, you will find them here
Also, please sign the online petition that is posted online here
It would also be good if you write your elected officials, but at least add your name to the petition.
The future you save just might be your own...
When faced with a problem, many web developers say "I know, I'll use JavaScript!".
Now they have two problems.
I know I'll get mod'd down for this but I just had to point it out.
/.'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.
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
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...
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
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.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Hear Hear!
I voted Libertarian last election, and everything I see happening on the political front does nothing but continue to solidify my belief that the Libertarian Party really has the right idea about the _real_ issues.
What I continue to find sad is when I'm with a group of people fussing about taxes, or laws, or governmental intrusion, all I have to do say "If you vote Libertarian, then all that has a chance of coming true. If you don't then you're doing nothing more than whining while at the same time contributing to the problem." All of a sudden I get looked at like I just landed from Mars.
I'm still an optimist from the standpoint that I truly believe that eventually people will see that the path that's being followed is _extremely_ hazardous to our basic freedoms, but sometimes it's hard to stay upbeat. Especially when I see big players in Industry and Government repeatedly and unabashedly squelch the freedoms and liberties granted by the Constitution.
RFC2119
Why is it that the software industry can have suffered from piracy for longer than most of you have been alive, but just a few years of Napster warrant stepping all over our freedom and forcing us to lose control of the hardware we purchase?
The music/movie/software/everythingelse industry is not interested in spending a lot of money to completely eradicate piracy. What they want to do is to prevent casual copying (ie napster) and distribution. If they put out crippled CD's that can't be copied by the common person, then the volume of piracy will go down. Similarly, if they go after the major file sharing networks then they make it harder for the _average_ person to pirate their goods then the volume of piracy will go down. People like me (and most of slashdot) will always have the skills to get things for free, but if most of the rest of the population doesn't know how then the losses due to piracy are far lower.
Some people equate digital copying with analog copying, but the primary difference is the volume of piracy, and that's what they're scared of.
...especially if you just happen to be purveyor of old, unencrypted hardware (just like the stuff I'm using now). For these people, all the MPAA/RIAA bullshit will be a godsend as the market for old used equipment skyrockets. So, don't throw out that old PC or Mac folks, they might be the only way you can keep your freedom.
The RIAA and all the lawyers in the world will never be able to completely stop pirating. Look at how much money the feds throw at drugs and the number of addicts on the street. If enough people want something, they'll get it.
:).
;)) in XP to fake the IP address and have it ban the hapless 'regular' user in the ISP.
To put an interesting spin on it, what if the RIAA were to attack the source of the MP3s.. Not so much trying to force Morpheus or whomever out of business, but to taint their supply of MP3s? I know one of my chief frustrations is to search for a song and either have it incomplete, or be of poor quality (e.g. pops or other defects) or to simply have it not be the same song that I downloaded. If I could search for a song, pay a penny for it and download a 'known perfect' copy at my choice of bitrates (e.g. 128, 160, etc.) then sure as heck I'd do it.
In that vein, what if RIAA / third party went ahead and started 'poisoning' the well? Started distributing broken or otherwise junk MP3s? If they could find a way to diminish the signal ratio by spewing so much junk I'd have no other choice but to find alternate means of obtaining the mp3, be it buying the CD, obtaining it from a friend, or buying the mp3 online.
Now, before you say 'That's impossible!' consider the following little scheme:
1) Entity (be it RIAA or some 3rd party company) contacts recording studio and asks "Which song/artist would you like us to poison?"
2) Record company gives them a list, and a certain amount of money (e.g. the Entity charges on a per-song or per-artist basis).
3) Entity floods the Napster / Morpheus / etc. community with junk MP3s.
Now this would take an enormous amount of bandwidth, so said Entity would have to have some sort of agreement worked out with ISPs and a mass-content provider, say Akamai. Akamai has tens of thousands of servers located in hundreds (if not more) of ISPs throughout the nation. I think on peak usage they're pushing out 100 GB/sec. in the US (if not more). Simply say "Ok Akamai, can we buy 10GB on each of your servers and push all these MP3s out?". Then you write a gnutella client for each box which offers all the MP3s up for distribution.
I can't remember how the gnutella protocol works but I think it broadcasts search requests to the nodes who store a cache of what they have and what their neighbors offer and then can pass the request off. Have your client log all the requests (so you can tell the record companies which songs were requested more) and of course offer up your files when requested. If you do this with 10,000 boxes full of identical content chances are you're going to drown out any signal out there.
If you're really tricky, you can even have the client 'fake' files so you don't actually need to have the file on the box; you could send a pre-existing obfuscated file.
Of course, all of this is moot if you still don't have a very easy, cheap method of offering MP3s online for the mass public. You could pitch it like this "Yeah, so you won't make much money off of offering a penny for each MP3. But you're a fool if you think simply shutting Morpheus off will result in even 10% of the Morpheus users buying the actual CD or using a painful, userUNfriendly pay-per-MP3 system. However, what if we have a method to net you 20 or 30% of users who wouldn't pay you anyway?" So the pitch would be "We can't get you all of them, but our method would give you more than you're getting now!". Frankly the people who post on SlashDot (from the very negative response to the Subscription model) are not a good cross-section of the vast majority of internet users out there
So in your obfuscated file you have it play maybe 20 seconds of the file and then say "Sorry, this is a copywrited file. Pirating files costs artists money. If you want to buy this MP3 for a penny, please visit http://www.somestore.com. 80% of every penny earned will go directly to the artist."
It gives them a reason to buy it - not only do you have SomeStore.com very easily accepting payment of the penny, but you ACTUALLY PAY THE ARTISTS A MAJORITY OF THE MONIES EARNED! So it can quell the naysayers who say "Well the artist wouldn't receive anything anyway!" (rant: but who are you hurting more, the billion dollar-industry or the Artist who NEEDS even the small cut they receive from each CD sold?).
Some drawbacks could be of course that someone writes a 'detector' to find and ignore the invalid MP3s, or they block the IP addresses of the servers, etc. but that is easily fixed. Most non-power users (e.g. the great and huddled masses of the internet) don't want to update their Morpheus client every time a new version is released. Heck, even programs which offer hassle-free updating (e.g. antivirus, windowsupdate.com) very rarely are by the majority of internet users. Also, you'd work out the server IP settings with the ISP so that they would rotate to a random IP in their pool - since most of the servers are located in most ISPs you couldn't ban the single IP but perhaps a subnet. But since the IPs are in the ISP, you have now banned a large chunk of users. If they are in every ISP, you will have to ban every ISP (see the problem in banning IPs?). You could also use the EVIL RAW SOCKETS (sorry had to poke fun at XP haters
So, to boil it down to a few bullet points:
*Poison the well
*Have very easy-to-use, hassle-free, cheap, reliable, etc. method for users to buy MP3s and they WILL.
Thanks,
--
Matt
Seriously.. i was a macworld subscriber back when they were GOOD, and i consider steven levy to be one of if not the biggest badasses in computer journalism. And this article is just about perfect-- i would have emphasized the anti-competitive nature of the RIAA middlemen, and maybe put in something noting that the sssca effectively illegalizes computer engineering research (the copyright protection-in-everything rule does not have an exception for test models, last i checked.. no?), but i can forgive that.
But the question comes up of how much help his support is. This is being printed on msnbc.com.. which is a step removed from, say, slashdot, true, but not a huge step. If someone is reading msnbc.com, there's an excellent chance they're aware of the SSSCA. These are not the people who we need to reach. The people we need to reach are the random uninformed trailer trash and soccer moms.
My question is this: this piece is copyrighted by newsweek. Is it being printed *in* Newsweek? If it is, i'm overjoyed, because that gives this issue the kind of public exposure it so violently needs. People read newsweek. Like, mass numbers of people who are not already relatively in touch with the slashdot groupthink.
We don't need a scattered collection of geeks with excellent philosophical, moral, and constitutional arguments against the SSSCA. We need a large body of uninformed persons who, while they may not be able to understand what "DeCSS" is even if you explained it to them, understand vaguely what the SSSCA is saying and understand *EXACTLY* what its repercussions would be. The congresscritters aren't afraid of lone gunmen with weblogs. They're afraid of herd behavior-- afraid of anything that the uninformed voter mass begins to do en masse that they aren't either in total control of or able to escape blame for. If a lot of people start asking questions about the SSSCA and have begun to realize an answer like "Congressman R. J. Theonomist has a tough anti-piracy stance and is pushing new digital encryption technology to help e-commerce and fight copyright theft" is just dodging the question, the congresscritters will spook and skitter away from the SSSCA like roaches when you turn on the kitchen light, trying to make sure they're not identifiably supporting the SSSCA in any way when the common voter figures out the people supporting the SSSCA are trying to take away consumer rights.
Again, it takes a lot for people to understand what DeCSS is, it takes a lot for people to understand what the DMCA does, and it seems to take a hell of a lot for people to begin to consider source code as "speech". It takes a lot to get people to the point that they understand that napster workalikes do less hurting of the revenues of the music industry than guns do killing people, much less to decide considering the first illegal and the second legal is absurd.. so there may not be hope for the DMCA anytime soon. But the SSSCA is simple to describe-- It makes it illegal for your teenage son to wire together circuitry in your garage because of the possibility your teenage son could potentially be making devices that have the effect of enabling people to listen to music without paying!-- and so there may be hope in stomping it down forever, if the steven levys of the world can bring it up to enough people..
In the meantime, i'm wondering if there's anything we can do to help that process along. Maybe starting a mass movement for computer-savvy geeks to start emailing to their less computer-savvy relatives URLs to news articles explaining what the SSSCA does would be a good idea?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Yes, laws being put forth are indeed unconsitutional. However, they have nothing to do with the 'size' of government, and everything to do with the 'size' of companies who can bribe the government. Reduce the amount of money any particular group of private interests can make, and you reduce the likelyhood of 'purchasing' laws. Of course, Disney has been doing this for years, but we're really approaching some sort of 'make-or-break' point here. I've never really been interested in living in the US, but these days, the very thought sends shivers down my spine. I don't think its your government, I think it's the size of your companies, the size of the pot of gold to be won (tho I think that the pot of gold is largely imaginary, part of the mystic prize of unmitigated free-markets), and the complete lack of any kind of regulations banning private influence on government.
....
Incidentally, you might be interested to know that the closest thing to total-free-market libertarianism that has occurred so far in western society (UK, 18th century) resulted in MASS poverty, and the price of bread rising above levels the vast majority of the population could afford. Under totally free markets, people 'compete' until there is no time/money left over after production to inject back into the economy or use to enjoy said fruits of the system.
Most countries that have seen their GDP rise over the last 10 years (India, Japan) have done so using decidedly anti-free-market tactics (choosing and awarding development to oganizations that are more likely to help the economy in the long run than provide the 'cheapest and best' in the short run), and of all the countries in the EU that have been placed under WTO sactioned IMF reforms, where everything has gone free-market, only Poland has seen their GDP rise slightly. All other 12 countries have seen their GDP fall under true freemarket reforms; even the WTO admits nothing has worked out as planned in their 2000 annual report
So where does that leave you? With a decent system, some things to fix, and a immediate need to cleanse your political system of big business brown nosers. Life wasn't so bad in the mom'and'pop days, no matter what these huge corperations want you to believe. If you can find a non-violent way to restore your government to being more pro-people than pro-business, and temper your fears of market regulation (you dont want total regulation, of course, that doesn't work, but 'checks and balances' when things (read: MS, or RIAA) get out of hand, much like the checks and balances that supposedly prevent any one political body from owning all political decisions), you might have the greatest chance of stabilizing the situation.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yes, it's possible and quite simple. You just need the cooperation from several strong buisnesses to do it.
You have an OS that will refuse to boot without a cryptographic handshake with the BIOS. The BIOS verifies that the OS is untampered with, the OS verifies that the BIOS is legit. Then you have additional handshakes between CPU, BIOS and, for example, the northbridge on the motherboard. Again, any component fails its check and the computer wont boot. When you're booted up, you have handshakes and verification of legit drivers for the hardware, and additional checks that it hasnt been tampered with. And then the OS will simply refuse to duplicate, transmit, or do anything else with a file you cant prove you own. This will be followed by pay-per-play from the media industry.
It will be much harder to upgrade things, but most consumers dont really upgrade that often anyway.
Of course, it requires the will from the various involved parties to partake in such a system. But Microsoft will probably tag along (after all, that's a good way to kill off Linux), and they could easily pressure most hardware vendors to do so too (ship any unprotected hardware and we'll make sure windows doesnt run on your hardware at all).
There are ways around it, but they will probably involve the use of, by then, illegal and very expensive hardware.
I was watching meet the press this past Sunday, Sens. Tom Daschle and Trent Lott were on and there were discussions about how to eliminate US dependency on Iraqi oil.Daschele apparently wants to force auto manufacturers to change the average fuel efficiency for automobiles (which I think is a good thing) in order to reduce importing "about two million barrels of oil per week."
Interestingly, or not, Trent Lott, said, rather predictably I suppose, "I guess there's some people that think we ought to all be driving Honda Civics." His point, and he went on to say, as part of the Republican creedo, we don't need government in our lives to dictate how and what we should drive.
The point being, it is very interesting that people who would be on the side of government installing some sort of copy protection are the Dem's and it follows almost from their ideology, it would seem. I would be interested if Lott, and his ilk, would stick to their ideology in saying that govt shouldn't meddle in this. In fact, it is other people like Bob Barr (and let me say I find Lott and Barr as a particularly vile strain of politician) who speak out against surveillance cameras.
It would be interesting to know, or to hear some of the "keep govt out of my life," "let the market rule" Repub's speak out on this issue. Especially if Hollings keeps this up. Maybe it is just in my mind that I still imagine Dem's as being progessive, but the truth is that people like John Perry Barlow and Lawrence Lessig are more Liberterian than anything. The dem's are poised to lose a lot of consumers/citizens on this one, via pissing off the voter. I wonder if any of the other party's are poised to pick it up and run with it?
...only outlaws will have CD burners.
And the funny thing is the record industry will STILL have CD burners. I wonder how they'll get around that little problem. If all CD burners have to be crippled so that they can't copy protected content, how the fuck is the record or movie industry going to produce its product?
Answer: They will have CD burners that aren't crippled. But won't that be illegal?
Answer: Obviously not. So, the SSSCA is even worse than these bastards wanting to cripple all of the electronics in the country...they want to cripple all of the electronics in the country EXCEPT FOR THEIRS BECAUSE THEY NEED FUNCTIONAL ELECTRONICS TO MAKE THEIR PRODUCTS!!!
In fact, I might support the SSSCA if it would apply to everyone, since that would fuck the content industries, and I could live without CDs or movies for a few years before things get straightened out.
When you're writing about the SSSCA to your congressmen, please point out this little piece of hypocrisy. The fact that the industry will keep for itself functional devices and deny these same devices to everyone else. If they can't trust us, why the fuck should we trust them?
Or, maybe I could declare myself to be a record or movie company and get the "privilege" of obtaining the uncrippled devices.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
I think they realize that people who are capable of breaking security will keep doing it, but they also know that the vast masses are just consumers afraid of getting in trouble. The average person will simply tolerate whatever inconveniences and costs are imposed by copy protection, and blame it all on those damned hackers. People may grumble about things they don't like, but mostly they don't do anything about it. And if they have no choice, thanks to our bought-and-paid-for Congress, well... problem solved.
All this bull-shit is counter productive. Try to imagine what will happen to the so-called "country of oportunities".
Imagine there's no garage development, imagine there's no Apples, and no Suns. Imagine a country that the simple fact of develop your own way to connect your VCR to your home computer is a federal crime.
Most of American's biggest technology companies has born in garages, with small projects becoming big. All this will never more happen again.
Who will win? India, Israel (if they don't kill themselves in their own war before), Brazil, China. Countries that produces big minds and today export them to US. They will not be exported anymore to US, they will build their own worldwide technologies companies in their own country. And then US won't have big technologies companies anymore. Everybody will have to use their 10-year-old DVD player bought in 2003 because brand new technologies produced in other countries do not fit into SSSCA!
Who wants this? RIAA/MPAA don't care about this, when US becomes a technologic dead country they will leave and find another country where they can win more money! The same applies to big technologic corporations, they will leave US and will go to other countries where technology development is cheapper and most of all possible.
I'm not american, I should be favorable to SSSCA, but I'd like my country to grow for their own credit. The only who have to care about this is American people, nobody else needs to worry about this.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I think this issue really depends on where you stand when it comes to intellectual property or the lack thereof.
/. crowd and the normal people saying or atleast mostly thinking "If you copy something for yourself then no one has actually lost anything"
Theres the record companies and the 4 letter acronyms on one side saying "If you take anything its bad bad bad.."
Then you have the
The articles says something like 10 million people 'steal' things from the internet. If 10 million people think sharing music is OK, does that make it OK? In this case, I think it does. As a society, we are saying to the recording artists of america and everyone else that we don't feel you can stop of from sharing music just by virtue of the fact that you technically 'own' it or own the 'rights' to it.
This isn't like murder, where its most definately wrong in the eyes of everyone. This is an issue that doesn't necessarily have a clear moral standing you can cling to. If everyone thinks music should be free.. then perhaps shouldn't be free.
If this means some musician might have to cut back on the drugs and underage groupie sex, does that mean its wrong? Maybe society is saying that playing music shouldn't be something you are allowed to make your living off of. Maybe society is saying musicians should get real jobs and just play music for the sheer joy of it.
Who knows.. but this definately raises some questions that people need to decide for themselves.. but if 10 million people want music to be free, then who is the united states gov't to tell them otherwise? It didn't take 10 million people to decide they didn't like paying taxes on tea to change the world.
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.)
_______
2B1ASK1
Oh, I'm aware why they lost. But this was a technicality. mp3.com didn't steal the music, those cds they had legitimately, and I had the music legitimately as well. But because they made their mp3s available to me, this was unauthorized. So if you have an album but not with you, and I let you listen to my copy of it, we're both breaking the law by this logic. This case affected me even more than Napster, b/c I really liked the convenience and there is no comparable solution from anyone else.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
I love the way you take his quote,
and turn it into the very different
without even a ... to indicate the snip.
What should really gall people like you is that he's right. I don't like the music business charging what they do for materials any more than the rest of you here. But the answer is to vote with your wallets and not buy stuff, rather than to disregard the legal rights of copyright holders. As much as the young and enthusiastic here might dislike copyright and feel that everything they ever want should be free, the simple fact is that the world doesn't work that way today. Copyright, and intellectual property generally, were invented for a reason, and that is that without them, there is no incentive for people to improve or develop the products and industry concerned.
If you don't like the action that organisations like the RIAA and MPAA are taking, try blaming the people who are actually responsible for it: those who rip off the members of these organisations wholesale, blatantly illegally, and without a second thought about who it might be harming in the process.
Organisations who attempt to prevent people from doing these things using their own hardware are simply acting responsibly. You can come in here and insult them all you like, but the simple fact is that you are in the wrong, and you know damn well that you are. I hope people realise this before the mass distribution of copyright content over the internet really starts affecting the quality of music, movies and such produced. We all know you can't stop mass copying physically, but that doesn't make doing it any less damaging.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Weird how the universe works. Today's Foxtrot knocks the CD copy protection garbage.
/. reader... His "UNIX Underpinnings/UNIX Underpants" strip really makes me think so...
Sometimes I wonder if Amend is a
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
2) Make sure you read today's Foxtrot (3/4/02, should by on United Media's site in two weeks for those without paper version), which refers to copy-protected CDs. Bill Amend, what's your slashdot handle? :-)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
One thing that is wildly irksome about the whole music copyprotection debate is how seldom we go past the two-part question of whether or not the latest intervention by the music industry is a fair try at protecting their business from thieves, or if it is an attempt to cheat the consumer out of his right to duplicate for private use. By limiting the debate to these terms, we miss the key point: the media industry has everything that it wants.
As a business, the big media companies have created music as a commodity and they have driven the price of it as high as they can without losing substantial customers. All you have to do to prove this, is to walk into Tower Records and look at the casette tapes instead of at the CD's which have replaced them and vinyl as the main musical storage media: the casettes cost one third of what the CD's do.
The physical media are different, but the songs are the same. The only difference is what the market will bear, the price, and with the only source of the material being a very small number of media providers, the fix is in with regard to pricing.
Essentially, the media industry has used the invention of the compact disc to do what Microsoft's harshest critics say that it does, by creating a way of doing business where in order to enjoy the benefits of a technology, you have to pay a price that is set by a seller whose business model is not touched by the moderating influences of competition--monopolistic price-gouging.
People like the original poster either fail to see or hide the key fact that copyright law--a concept put in place to allow creators to enjoy a market value for their works--is not being used the way it was originally intended.
Copyright law is there in order to provide insentive to create and invent; insuring the creator that he or she will be able to derive some profit from his work. Instead of this, copyright law is being used as the basis for price fixing; putting a noose around the neck of every consumer and offering the choice of either paying a price that gives the industry the money to consider copyright-law, and copyright protection schemes as a commodity for sale by the government, or walking through life in silence.
This brings us to an the unpleasant impasse between the passive consumer and the too active producer. The media companies have the money, lawyers and lobbyists necessary to make ridiculous changes in the law of the land and they will continue to use those resources because to do otherwise would be to forego billions of dollars of profits that they have secured by the power of a frighteningly well-funded oligopoly.
With this in mind, the original poster's trumpeting the media industy's just cause with regard to Apple is a ridiculous argument. The truth of the matter is that the media industry is protecting and will continue to protect its "natural right" to define price-gouging as pricing itself even if it means writing laws that reach into every electronic device on earth to do it.
In a better world than the one that businessmen make, the solution would be a very simple reaction to the market itself: if the price of CD's were the cost of tapes, more people would be able to afford larger music collections and the time and trouble needed to rip and burn MP3's would be more of a burden by comparison.
The problem would solved: fewer people would bother to steal.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
Typical socialist bah-ness to free markets. The Britain of the 18th century was anything BUT laissez-faire, if you properly review history. But that's another debate.
Big business only does what Congress allows it to do. Campaign finance reform will only hurt the 3rd parties, and it will only help the incumbents. The media corporations love Campaign finance reform, because it allows them to pick which representatives to cover. And guess who is buying out all the media corporations for this reason?
Limiting how Big Business pays of Congress will only cut off the medium and small sized businesses -- there will always be loopholes in how Congress can be bribed. Or, you can cut Congress' powers entirely to only what is in the Constitution.
Do not believe socialists. They condemn free markets, even though free markets have shown time and again that they work (long distance prices dropped during PROPER deregulation, the prices of computers falling as government never got involved, etc). When even a tiny bit of government remains, deregulation fails of course.
You think India and Japan grew because of regulation? Look at the facts of that. Their economies grew because of business output, not because government got involved or uninvolved. Business breeds profit and well being, government breeds corruption and distrust of your fellow man.
Libertarians fail to garner more than 3% in most elections for one simple reason: They have no common sense.
Examples:
Most Americans agree that non-violent drug offenders should not be removed from society and locked up with violent criminals while rapists and murderers go on parole. Most Americans do not want pot for sale at the local 7-11. This is common sense.
Most Americans don't want to throw the borders wide open. If we don't protect our borders, what's the point of having a sovereign nation in the first place? In this regard, Libertarians are just a useless proxy for one-world government. Most Americans see right through that. It just doesn't make sense.
The Libertarians have some excellent ideas, but until they are willing to act like real politicians and engage in the art of compromise, until they temper their idealism with common sense, they are useless.
That's why the Reform Party and the Libertarian Party need to unite. The Reformed-Libertarian Party could actually pull people from the Dems and the Republicans. Look at how well Ross Perot did despite being a paranoid with a hopeless running-mate. There is plainly a yearning in America for a party that isn't hog-tied by special interests, a party that holds true to the American ideals, but does so in a well thought-out practical manner. The Reformed-Libertarian Party could be the answer.
Just do me one favor: Leave Jesse Ventura, Pat Buchanan, and Ross Perot out of it. We need someone that mainstream Americans can accept.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Do the people of South Carolina know that their senator is the MPAA's lapdog? Isn't his job to push the Tobacco industry's deadly products instead?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Shame on Slashdot for beginning to use popup ads (via DoubleClick)!!! I suppose Slashdot contributors (aka customers) are "wrong."
Exercise for the reader: Reconcile a commitment to "open source" (and the enriched democracy/freedom entailed with this) with foisting a popup ad on a user using a separated launch of the user's browser without the user's prior consent.
Note: I was actually considering subscribing to Slashdot before the popups started.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
The free market has never been given a chance at all. In every situation where America has allowed the free market to operate un-regulated, it HAS worked. In every situation where government has attempted to regulate, you only see big business running amuck.
How about we try and see where it will work? Some countries in South American have deregulated their social security system, only to watch retiree benefits sky rocket when they invest in the free market. In the U.S., our system is in virtual collapse. Step by step, our country is only becoming socialist: redistributing wealth, while government takes a cut to distribute to their cronies and peers. Things will never get worse that way.
I have no idea what to make of your point about running out of time and money. A free market is all about allocating limited resources (notably time and money) according to people's preferences. All time and money is accounted for, even if the time is spent relaxing, and the money is stuffed under a mattress, so really, I have no idea what you're talking about.
It is true that we have not found a magic bullet for helping developing nations. Certainly most of the strategies employed over the last 60 years have performed poorly everywhere except Asia. The one constant though has been the central planning doesn't work. Nowhere ever has a centrally planned economy brought anything but ruin (Russia, the middle east, North vs. South Korea, the PRC vs. Hong Kong and the DRC, central america, the list of failed collectivist governments is almost endless). The debate then is about the rules of the capitalist game. Should a country impose import duties, and if so on which goods and at what levels? What constitutes a monopoly, and what should we do about monopolies? But selectivly aiding and beating down particular (non-monopolistic) companies gets you right back into central planning.
The other debate is on how a country can get its population to participate in an economy and respect the rule of law. A country like Russia cannot simply snap their fingers and say "we're capitalist," and expect all of the black markets to suddenly start getting legit business licenses, play by the rules, and pay taxes. When homes and land become abandoned, as often happens in the war and famine ridden third world, who should get the property? If someone moves into that property, does it become theirs? Who makes sure it was really abandoned in the first place? Questions like these, as well as dismally small tax revenues make it exceptionally difficult for the developing world to get started.
Finally, in regards to your last paragraph, I should point out that the growth of business has directly mirrored the growth of the government. The "mom'and'pop" days you so fondly refer to were by and large much less regulated (although I'm curious when exactly you are referring to. The days of AT&T's telecom monopoly? The Great Depression? The heyday of the Robber Barons? Or are we talking about the days before the industrial revolution, when perhaps 20% of the population was below the poverty line?)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Decades ago, F.A. Hayek and Mises founded a new economic theory that seems to hold true better than the ones of old. Smaller government = less government intervention in our lives. End the drug war, and drug dealers won't be able to pay off the government. End government subsidies of the farm industry, and you'll see the huge farm conglomerates won't bribe Congress for more subsidies. End our foreign policy involvement in policing the world, and you'll see the "defense" contractors won't bribe Congress in order to go to war (illegally) against other countries.
As for open competition: we have NEVER had a monopoly that wasn't government created through subsidies and tariffs. Truly open competition allows the consumers to decide if they want a company to prosper. There are SO MANY examples of consumers destroying big business solely through their purchasing power.
Guys like Nader and the rest attempted to hurt Big Business, but if you look at every fight Nader has claimed to have won, you really see that it wasn't government that ended a "monopoly," but consumers who were educated stopped buying that product. It takes government too long to get anything done, but businesses can change and adapt in the blink of an eye.
As government works harder to "protect" the consumer, all you see are big businesses bribing government to get more subsidies and financial help.
If you want, drop me an e-mail and I'll give you some good books to review with better proofs and details on why the free market can and will work.
It's not just hippie music, either. Metallica (ironically,) Pearl Jam, and Radiohead are a few bands whos live music is freely tradeable. A very incomplete list of bands who allow recorders at their concerts and subsequent trading can be found Here
burris
... as I am posting way after the topic was posted ...
... has anyone ever checked out Sen. Hollings website? http://hollings.senate.gov/
My thoughts are let them do it. More power to them.
Levy's thoughts are dead on. Of course I'd buy the CDs from someone used off of ebay. Of course I'd keep my current DVD and VCR.
Innovation will die. Period.
One of the great motivators on the technology front is ENABLING people to be creative. If they build in limitations to the products, read DIVX, people won't go for it at all.
And
The guy doesn't look like he even knows what ripping is let alone burning.
Yeah, right, how about any kind of reference to back this up. Actually, the reverse is true:
From http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture17a.
That's a novel theory; unfortunately for you, history shows the exact opposite.
However, they have nothing to do with the 'size' of government, and everything to do with the 'size' of companies who can bribe the government.
The solution to this problem isn't to impoverish companies, but instead to stop making government power a salable commodity.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That might be fine and dandy for you, but believe me, you don't want 1000s of CDs of MY neighbour's garage band out there. Trust me. You might as well just jab icepicks in your ears and save yourself the trouble.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
There has never been a modern country with anything like true capitalism. All capitalist countries are ruled by governments which work to *interfere* with market forces, generally in favor of monopolies or oligopolies. It's axiomatic that large corporations can buy government protection, and that protection is inherently anti-capitalist.
While the criticisms of the socialists are somewhat off-base (because there aren't any truly capitalistic countries in the First World), anyone who argues that 'capitalism works' is talking out of his ass. There's no example of true capitalism to point to; all such examples, *every single one*, have had heavy government interference in the market. *We don't know* if real capitalism works because we've never tried it - just as we don't know if real socialism works, because *there's never been a truly socialistic country*. The labels 'socialism' and 'capitalism' don't describe anything close to the actual economic models in use world-wide.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The RIAA screams every time their revenue drops that piracy is to blame. HOWEVER, note that the Grammy ratings were the lowest in 7 years.
"People must be pirating our TV shows!!!"
Isn't it? What are the odds of more people seeing this guy's point of view?
This isn't a case of people suddenly saying "wow! we can get this free!", if it were I doubt people would pay $300 for an MP3 player. I think, instead, people's needs have changed. They no longer want to carry tons of CD's around, instead they'd rather have one little device with their whole collection on it. That's why they're willing to spend hundreds of dollrs for units such as the iPod.
What happens when you treat these guys like thieves, though? They respond like this "I spent $400 to listen to music, and that makes me a thief?"
I appreciate MSNBC's article here, I just hope more people understand what's really at stake here. People have new criteria for listening to their music, and the RIAA has done nothing to fill that demand. The customer pays the money, they make the rules. Not the other way around.
"Derp de derp."
If we had Libertarian government, then when someone in power were approached with these bribes, they would have a big problem: How can they pass the requested law and yet maintain even an appearance of not being corrupt? A libertarian passing a law as corrupt as SSSCA, is like a baseball umpire making calls based upon the color of the players' uniforms.
At least under the Big Government parties, the crooks can always hide behind a pretense of trying to do the right thing (e.g. protect IP). Under a Libertarian government, the mere scope of these laws is enough to make them stand out.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So, rather than bitch, piss and moan about the reaction of the victims of unauthorized trading of copyrighted music, why not have a discussion about how we can stop the thievery without losing our privileges?
Because with the SSSCA, the discussion moves beyond the legality of file sharing. It would criminalize a large swath of activities we now consider legal -- beyond music, it would prevent you from using or designing an OS without licensing and incorporating DRM from the onset, creating sound recordings with a card not DRM-certified, creating innovative hardware without considering the possibility (however unlikely) it'll be used to copy or play digital media, and so forth.
The only people who lose their privileges are the people who do their best to stay on the good side of the law. The pirates will be momentarily set back, but you'll be heavily penalized for doing nothing. That's why it's unfair, and why we're complaining.
--- Work, worry, consume, die. It's a wonderful life. -- Bill Griffith
but ALL these laws (SSSCA, DMCA, etc) are unconstitutional, but as long as Congress is more powerful than the Constitution allows, they will never be repealed.
Actually, you make an interesting point. In order for a law to be repealed on account of its unconstitutionality, the Supreme Court has to do it. This will obviously not happen with the current generation of Justices (interesting pun...), but eventually, the Supreme Court Justices will be aware of these situations. If you want these terrible laws repealed, get them to the Supreme Court, and if they truly are unconstitutional, they will be deemed so by the Just Seven.
It will be interesting to see what happens in, say, fifteen years when the Justices being appointed have grown up with the RIAA/MPAA/DMCA/SSSCA collective fiasco, and bring justice back.
Go Supreme Court!
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Back in 1998, such talk would have been reassuring to me and I would have supported Republicans. But now how do we know that by "existing law", he doesn't mean DMCA? If he does, then he's part of the problem. If he's not part of the problem, then he should be trying to repeal some "existing law" and go back to the copyright system that worked just fine for a couple hundred years.
DMCA passed unanymously less than 4 years ago, and there were plenty of Republicans there. I would like to think they would stand up for America, but I ain't holding my breath. Republicans' track record in this matter has been pure liberal so far, and they're going to have to do something about what happened and turn back the tide, if they want my trust.
Quoth McCain:
Where were you in 1998, McCain? McCain, do you think criminalizing DVD players and PDF readers, isn't an example of government meddling in the marketplace and selecting technological winners and losers? He's a two-faced socialist rat bastard until he redeems himself. Opposing SSSCA isn't enough, if DMCA is staying on the books.As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Is, once a week, send your senators an E-mail discussing the SSSCA. tell them that while you agree with the motives behind it, to stop casual piracy of music, the law itself is poor and due to its overly broad speech, will restrict fair use rights of the consumer by giving the entertainmnet industry a free pass to abuse the intentions of the law. include how you like Apple computer's meathod of control where it does not restrict your ability to shift media or your ability to shift the MP3 from your PC to another or the iPOD, but that is is as far as it can go due to fingerprinting the MP3 with the originating PCs fingerprint, thus making it the only mode of distrobution of the music etc.
bug them and bug them some more, eventualy, you will be known intheir office and I am sure that by the end of the year, you could meet them and they would knbow who you are.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The only thing that's missing is another Boondocks cartoon parodying the RIAA's paranoia and campaign to paint all people with the worst color brush.
Curse you, record labels! Curse you straight to Hades!
No argument here. But let me state something so obvious it's trite: If there were no slashdot site, there would be no slashdot posts. Without the site there is no such thing called "slashdot" and the audience is, conceivably, vastly fragmented. This site provides a service in that it offers "one-stop shopping", a communal marketplace of ideas (some good, some less so), and a place to go. People whine a lot... but they apparently keep coming back, so it must offer them something.
If all the posts to slashdot were distributed all over the Net, each would receive much fewer reads. Indeed, due to the loss of feedback, most likely there would be a lot fewer posts. And I believe that the higher quality posts would suffer the most.
I'm not trying to say that the posters are unimportant to the success of slashdot. Being one myself, I have a very high opinion of them.
Time will tell if they add enough value to entice people to subscribe. But there is nothing illogical, immoral, or inconsistent for their asking.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
A big, powerful State is the best guarantee that the rights of the little guy won't be trampled by big business. But at only one condition: that the little guys firmly keep the government in check through the democratic institutions, and prevent them from being corrupted by croporate largesse.
A good start would be outlawing political contributions by croporations, limiting individual contributions to $100, and probibiting political advertising by non-politicians/political parties.
This is actually the case of at least one jurisdiction in North-America, and over there, the government had not been subverted by croporations during the last 20 years.
Ok, I'm not very technical, but can't one simply come up with a device that takes the video and audio out and burn it back onto disc?
Sure.
But how much time and money do you want to spend with an oscillascope recording electrical inputs and outputs in order to defeat the cryptography running over the wires?
This is part of what the SSSCA wants to do. Basically, the *only* time it gets decrypted is at the computer chip that is inside the monitor/speakers.
Get or reverse engineer those chips and certainly you could use it to record unencrypted data.
But..but..but.. there's this little thing called the DMCA that's already been made into law and now reverse engineering is illegal. So if you make one of these for yourself, you're probably okay. If you make one of these and try to sell it? Bad move.. unless you go black market.
Which means that people are either forced to the black market or have to do it themselves. More trouble than average law-abiding citizens will bother with.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Not only will they fuck with you, but they'll be laughing at you while they're doing it.
Name ONE thing that the geeks have done to show their power. Like: Stop email all over the US for a day.
You guys that think geeks are a political group, you aren't. You're nothing in the world until you're willing to use actions to back up your words.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Given that the upshot of the SSSCA is the outlawing of Free operating systems, why isn't there someone from RedHat testifying at these hearings? Why isn't there someone from the Debian project there explaining that this bill is asking for nothing less than outlawing general purpose computers?
Eisner and that Luddites of the --AAs (who don't make a thing for me to buy anyway,) can kiss my wallet good bye.
They have fought EVERY technology from and since the player piano roll. They have ALWAYS lost. Not ONCE have they been able to sit on the beach and hold back the tide. But they lose only after costing their members incalculable potential revenue.
The ONLY reason I can think of why anybody in their right minds would pay this bunch of losers a dime is threat of physical violence. But then again, I am honest and have limited guile.
If you can tell me what they have actually done FOR (as opposed to TO,) their membership, please post it. I need a good laugh.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
take a look at look at THIS for the next target for Valenti and the other useless drones.
"How DARE anyone establish a network where people can share anything without our getting our tithe."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Appearances at hearings are dependent on campaign contributions. To appear at that type of hearing you would have to donate approx $50K to the members of the committee.
And no, I am not being sarcastic, I am not making it up, that is the way your Congress people behave. If you don't like it write them a letter asking them why Red Hat etc. were not invited and ask directly if campaign contributions are the reason.
The response you receive will of course make an outright denial. However the probability that Red Hat and the Linux crowd will be allowed into the hearings will increase substantially. With Cheney in hot water for selling access to Enron and his oil company friends the hint that you might fight them on the contributions front would be very frightening.
As they say in Washington, money only buys you acces, it does not buy legislation. Well the crooks who charge for access should be considered no less a crook than the ones who sell legislation.
So next time there is a hearing, go down to Washington with a nice bunch of signs saying something like 'We don't like the SSSCA, but Hollings won't hear from us because we won't pay'. Then go to his office and leave them with his staff.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the fools who tell you to play the DC game, they will walk all over you if they think you will be quiet.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
..."The customer is always right" become "The customer is the enemy"?
...the right to try to make a profit become the right to a profit?
..."The business exists to serve the customer" become "The customer exists to serve the business"?
..."Our business model must evolve to fit the environment" become "We must change the environment to suit our business model"?
..."Build a better mousetrap..." become "Buy out, destroy, or outlaw all the other existing mousetraps..."?
..."When profits are down, reevaluate our business plan" become "When profits are down, sue someone"?
All socio-economic systems have their good and bad points. I fear we are doing a superb job of demonstrating the dark side of capitalism today in this country...
DennyK
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?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Why should it matter? They're not trying to win a case in court, they're trying to buy legislation. Proving that their case is right would never occur to these guys.
Dyolf Knip
Funny you should mention those. None of them are truly deregulated, especially not California's electricity. In many of these situations, they were deregulated JUST ENOUGH to be considered partial deregulation, but what was still regulated let the government either cap prices (California's case), or impose a monopoly (the local telephone service case).
Canana got rid of their FAA -- one of the worst in the industry. They privatized it a few years ago, and now their flight safety and on-time arrivals are up 60% -- one of the best in the industry.
Don't say deregulation has failed -- you can't pick one case of total deregulation where it hasn't improved the situation significantly.
Considering I'm not from or in the US, this is funny.
I'm working strictly on economic and political clout, combined with history. The US wields more power than it actually has, and will continue to do so. That's the facts. It sucks badly, but it's true.
Deal with it or do something about it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The majority of libertarians I know believe that we need to reduce the size of FEDERAL GOVERNMENT a ton, reduce the size of STATE GOVERNMENT a lot, and do whatever we want to do with the size of local government - INCREASE it greatly, decrease, whatever.
:(
If you want safe cars, you'll go live with other people who want safe cars. If you want social security, you'll go live with people who also agree that government controlled welfare and retirement plans are the status quo.
Our Constitution was set up this way -- whatever wasn't allotted to Federal government was left for either the people or the states to decide. Instead, our Congress and Executive branch take more and more and more powers in the name of "The children" or "the elderly" or "working class citizens."
None of it is Constitutional. The end of our fine country is probably closer than you think.
Isn't the reason most often touted for bans on marijuana is it's role as a "gateway" drug, leading it's casual uses down the dark roads into full blown hard core drug addiction? How can "music" be justified in our country. It leads people to petty theft when they can't get thier "fix" from the CD dealers. Sure, the theft is small, costing nothing but the price of bandwidth, but what cost is it to have the youth of our country entering into criminal acts before they even understand the true concequences of what they are doing? Music is a gateway into hard crime, into rape, violence, murder...
BAN MUSIC NOW!!!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Yes, it is possible, once you get an analog output somewhere.
But more and more equipment will go to fiber and digital transmission. Even things like speakers. Pure audio will be easier to record over an analog line; with video you already have Macrovision preventing PVR's from recording protected content today (this is possible to bypass tho, altho the de-macrovision devices are illegal).
But it's possible they'll go all the way and make any personal recording possibilities severly crippled through lower bitrates. That solves two problems for the entertainment industry; it wont be possible to make personal over-analog copies of good quality, nor will it be possible for artists or independent filmmakers to produce cheap good-quality songs, films or videos without signing with the big labels.
There are other options too tho; they could supply all legal recording devices with personal watermarking algorithms that would 'protect' your right to your own recordings (with the interesting side effect that it would be possible to trace illegal recordings back to you).
It will never become impossible to copy, but the idea is to make it close to impossible for the average consumer. And that can be done.
If this act is intended to make black metal illegal, count me in.
it's getting to the point where I may not even be able to legally give my own music away for free
The point at which you couldn't give away that kind of crap was reached a long time ago.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
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.
If you cannot see the distinction I pity you!
* BTW, Why hasn't SlashDot reviewed Levy's new book [amazon.com] yet? It's been out for two month's now.
Probably because he's an apologist for the vested interests we oppose, why should we provide publicity for him ?
Honestly, 80 percent of the people who dont buy CDs and download stuff from the net, wouldnt buy CDs.
I mean really, if you wanted CDs you'd buy CDs. If you want music, you'll listen to the radio, you'll record it on a tape cassette and you'll have music.
Now wait, you'll say the quality of the cassette isnt the same as CD, but thats what people did before they had the net, they'd tape stuff on cassettes.
Its like saying by law all VCRs should remove the ability to record because you might record a movie from cable or satelite.
Thats just bullshit.
Its also bullshit to say that every movie you'd record from satelite you would have paid to go see at the movie theaters, thats bullshit.
Most movies arent worth paying to go see, but most movies that are halfway decent are worth recording on a blank VHS tape.
I go see maybe a few movies per year, sometimes i dont see any movies for the year.
When i go see a movie, i'm not paying to "see" the movie, I'm paying for the atmosphere, the ability to see the movie on the big screen, to have surround sound, to see the movie immediately.
Just like the movie theater vs the VCR, people will pay to get music immediately, waiting for it to be spread throughout the net is not going to work if you want the music now.
People will have to buy the music or else it wont spread throughout the internet, all the music companies have to do to make people buy their CDs, is to slow the spreading of the music, this can be done by making the CDs more difficult to crack and pirate.
Its fine to sell copy protected CDs, i dont like copy protection but I'm fine with this because the movie people have a right to do this, just dont buy their CDs if you dont want it.
As far as controlling how we use our computers, this is a totally diffrent issue, no one should have the right to control how we use our computer, NO ONE!
This is as important as our right to freedom of speech.
Tell me, 20-30 years from now, when we have some sorta brain to computer interface, Will thoughts be under copyright? By sharing illegal thoughts with someone else will you go to jail? Think about where this is going, technology should overrule copyright. Someday technology is going to be so advanced that to enforce copyright would require mind control and render us total slaves to these people so they can protect their secrets and make money.
Some things in life are more important than money, Freedom is more important than money, the USA, was it founded on capitalism or on freedom? You all have to decide, because if we keep going in this direction will we be giving up our freedom for capitalism. All the talk about communism and facism, well just wait, capitalism is going to lead to the same thing.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Trading off one industry for another.
The content industry will kill the technology industry.
Technology and Copyright do not mix, because at some point you have to draw the line.
I'm not going to argue about if copyright is right or wrong, perhaps for our time and our current technology, copyright still has its benifits.
I want you all to think ahead about 20-30 years.
Imagine us living in a world were everything is under copyright. Imagine us having great technology, the ability to think and a computer translate your thoughts, thought based computing, AI, Imagine a new genetic medicine which is the cure to old age, Imagine someone creating an invention which allows you to have unlimited food, water, everything.
Consider the fact that all of these technologies are in labs right now, and we will all live to see these technologies.
Do we want all of these innovative technologies released in a controlled fashion, and ruined?
Thought based computing will never be released unless there are thought control mechanisms, afterall people have to protect their secrets.
Imagine the cure for old age being restricted, the medicine is so expensive that only the top 10% of the population can afford it, so you get to die at 70 while the top 10% gets to live for another few hundred years.
Imagine AI technology, which is so intelligent that it can be used to help calm people down when having panic attacks, can help people with mental problems, can stop people from commiting suicides, and many other helpful innovative technologies which can try to talk people out of situations. Imagine this technology only being availible to the top 10%, while the rest of the world is just suffering.
Consider the fact that we have some kinda nano technology, or perhaps nano genetic technology which can produce unlimited amounts of food, imagine us creating unlimited amounts of drinking water, then imagine this water and food costing more than real food and water which is no longer fresh after years of pollution.
Once again the top 10% will have pure food and water, the best medicines, longer lives, better lives, less mental problems and finally lets consider the fact that even with our technology, the quality of life for 90 percent of the planet will be the same if not worse than it is now.
Also consider the fact that this will be because of greed, not because resources are limited.
I can understand when resources are limited as they are now, but when we have technology which benifits the world and improves the world in total, this technology should not be restricted for the sake of greed(Capitalism)
I'm not saying Capitalism is bad, I'm saying greed is bad. I think we need to figure out how we want to use the technology which is currently in the labs right now, do we want to use it to benifit the world, or do we want to use it to make as much $$ as possible for a select few.
I believe that if this is a democracy and you were to have the world vote on it, They'd make the right choice.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You mean to tell me that republicans arent the same way? Smaller government has nothing to do with it, corrupt government and size wont matter.
The government is corrupt.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Donate money to EFF and other groups which defend our rights. Whats a petition going to tell the industry who already knows 60 million+ people disagree with them from the Napster Saga.
Donate to EFF EFF
Donate to GNU
Donate to Linux Mandrake Linux Mandrake
Donate to Freenet
We should donate to all of these groups because these groups are doing the actual fighting, stupid pettitions arent doing anything. Its like a kid who gets down on the ground banging their fists crying, thats not going to stop the bully from kicking your ass. Not giving the bully the money is also not going to stop the bully from kicking your ass. Hiring people to help you fight the bully will help you kick the bullies ass. Its the only way.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Instead of paying the MPAA and RIAA, we donate to people who are supporting our freedom.
I think the main advantage of the RIAA and MPAA is their money, they get their money from us. Why shouldnt we give some of our money to the people defending us.
Lets put the pressure on them, Donate to freenet, EFF, if we can lets donate to Gnutella, all the people the RIAA and MPAA are fighting we should fund the best we can, if we all put millions of dollars into these groups who are defending us we might actually get somewhere.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We need to donate $$ to people who are defending us.
Alot of you people talk alot, how much have you donated? The EFF, FSF, Freenet, all of these people who stand up for us, how much have you donated? Donate $5, i know everyone here has $5 and if everyone here were to donate $5 to each or to one of these groups, these groups would have more money to defend us.
5x500,000= 2.5 million
If you were to donate 2.5 million to freenet it would be the next napster, if you had 2.5 million to donate to EFF, EFF would have more money to defend you when you are the one going to jail over the SSSCA crap, its these people who can make change, you have to fight back with $$, with hard work, and eventually you can have a revolution, you can even the odds.
Begging them not to change the laws by emailing or writing them isnt going to work, you have to use technology to make the laws impossible to enforce, and get people to stand up for you when they try to outlaw your sourcecode.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
First, Donate to Freenet, Gnutella and other difficult if not impossible to stop technologies.
Eventually Morpheus or some company will use this technology, let the economy form after the technology is in place.
You'll be able to buy music directly from musicians without the RIAA, musicians would make more money, you'd save money, and the technology would make buying it effortless, click "pay musician"
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Lets donate some money, and then buy some TV and billboard advertisements. Convince the voters not to vote for certain people who support this.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The funny thing is that this would be as successful as Prohibition or the war on drugs. That is to say, not at all.
Even more interesting is that this legislation would make many, if not most, geeks into outlaws. The people who would be supposed to implement these systems. How can any law succeed in its purpose if the majority of those supposed to observe and implement that law believe it to be fundamentally wrong? Simple, it can't.
The difficulty of getting SSSCA standards created and implemented in hardware would mean that they would be effectively set in stone. Uh huh. How long would it be before software cracks were widely available? The kind of creativity and sheer bloody mindedness that goes into all those emulators we know and love would find a new center of gravity.
But, it would be illegal! Yes, and the FBI will drop the War on Terrorism to crack down on people watching illegal copies of The Little Mermaid.
I seriously doubt that even people as craven as Fritz Hollings would compromise the credibility of the US Congress in such a fashion. Even if Fritz is craven enough, there are cooler heads around. They won't let him spoil the whole game just to satisfy his corporate patrons.
Uh, yeah. Try telling the citizens of the United States of America that a small, weak state is the best guarantee that the little guy won't be trampled by croporate giants...
We need MS media to criticise media companies, and the media companies to criticise MS.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Europe is a lot stronger socially and politically than you might think and the UK is still the richest country in the world...
Unfortunatly the UK government has frequently insisted on following US "leads" even over the objection of other parts of the EU.
Maybe, but his opposition could say "Hollings is funded by a bunch of liberal hollywood Jews!"
Does anti-semitism still work down there? S.C was the last state to fly the confederate flag from their capitol dome, weren't they?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Canada is rated Category 1 (meeting ICAO standards) in FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment Program (IASA). Air Canada, the biggest airline in Canada, last had a fatal accident in 1983, but it was in Cincinati, Ohio. The last accident in Canada was in 1978. Air Transit, and WestJet have never had a fatal accident. Canada 3000, and Roots Air, which both went defunct last year, never had a fatality in their operating lifetimes either. I can't think of another Canadian Airline.
At least one crash can be directly attributed to the closure of a control tower "to save costs". This is one crash too many.
That being said, I'm pretty tired of posts that begin with the above sentence. I wish people would worry less about their karma and more about just contributing to the conversation.