Anti-anti-cd-copying Legislation?

RedCard writes "Wired has an article up about congressman Rick Boucher wanting to introduce legislation to prevent or regulate anti-copying/ripping technology being introduced on CDs."

Comments

Its already there silly

[tomstdenis]

In the US at least there is the fair use clause of the copyright laws.

So in reality this senator should just be acting to ensure that your laws are being upheld.

There is no need for special new laws to uphold laws that already exist.

Geez...

Re:Its already there silly

[OpenDirectX]

We live in an age where anyone with enough money could buy a new law to suit their needs (Disney). Maybe the only real way to protect our current laws is to hide them under other laws.

It seems like a silly and stupid idea, but when you think about maybe its the only way? Instead of fighting to change 1 law, now they have to change 2.

Re:Its already there silly

[Nurlman]

How many times does it need to be said?

Fair use is a defense to a charge of copyright infringement. You do not have an entitlement to access copyrighted information in any manner you want to.

Maybe it's the "fair" that throws everybody off. "Fair use" just means that there are some situations in which it is acceptable for you to reproduce copyrighted information, even though such reproduction would otherwise be infringing.

Re:Its already there silly

[Phanatic1a]

Wrong. Wrong wrong, wrong wrong wrong.

As it stands under current law, fair use is a defense, not a right. Saying "Fair use!" might get you off the hook when someone accuses you of violating a copyright, but a copyright holder isn't required to provide you with the tools you need to exercise fair use. That's an important distinction.

Re:Its already there silly

[leviramsey]

You do not have an entitlement to rip CDs (in the sense that anyone who tries to stop you is violating the law). However, if someone tries to stop you through the courts, by accusing you of infringement, you can use the Fair Use defense (and will probably win, under current law). Fair Use doesn't obligate the owner of a copyright not to do anything that might reduce your ability to exercise Fair Use.

Re:Its already there silly

[dtfarmer]

from the article (for those that haven't read it)

"We know of no authority for the proposition that fair use, as protected by the Copyright Act, much less the Constitution, guarantees copying by the optimum method or in the identical format of the original." - unanimous 3 judge court of appeals decision

Fair use does not give use rights - it protects against overzealous copyright holders suing you.

As long as the CDs are required to be identified by labels, the RIAA will be cutting their own throat, as they will experience more lost sales from a warning label than they will from warez kiddies. Beside - said warez kiddies will just end up using analog outputs to capture audio, that will be turned back into digital audio (with slightly reduced quality), then ripping said files into mp3 or whatever format prevails.

But, I know that when I stop buying CDs because of copy protection - it will hurt them so much, they will cry uncle - not because of me in particular, but because many people will be doing the same as me, a great many people. We will hit them in their pocketbooks - and reward the companies who do not copy protect their CD's.

So all I want is legislation that requires the label to cover at least 25% of the front, so as it cannot be overlooked.

'nuff said

I agree with Rosen

[Shadowkiller]

Rosen said in a statement: ... "Legislation to prevent self-help technologies would be unwise and unfair."

Why doesn't she tell that to the people who passed the DMCA?

Re:Poly-negative soup

[vbrtrmn]

Consumers don't have any rights. A consumer will rarely win against a large company in court, unless the company settles, because it is too much of a hassle for them to deal with. Look at the current situation in the US, all the laws are being made to help out .. Big Business. Within 10 - 20 years will will no longer be the United States of America, we will be the United Corporations of America.

Not gonna happen

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

In america you BUY laws, and this one isn't paid for. Good luck

Not sure that's true

[somethingwicked]

Fair use does not really cover all of what is occuring here, I believe

This also comes under licensing. Phillips licenses the technology and dictates that any use of the technology menas that it is universal. You should be able to place ANY CD Disk in ANY CD player and have it work.

Is there a law covering what happens to a company when they bend the license agreement so that their product only plays in certain players because they have ATTEMPTED to prevent copying?

Re:Not sure that's true

[st0rmshad0w]

Very correct.

I believe that whatever is to be done, it needs to start with hard and fast rules regarding the nature of music purchases. Are you buying a product(disc w/music on it) or buying a license(permission to listen to album 'X').

If the former, then what I've purchased is mine and I'll use it how I please. They can do whatever they want, as long as its still CD compliant, but they shouldn't whine when I make a back-up copy.

If the latter, then someone is replacing my scratched disks, providing CD media versions of my old cassette tapes etc. I've PAID the license, I've the right to different media, the same as software companies would provide floppy disk versions of software on request, replace damaged media, or allow you to generate back-up copies if you so desired.

Currently the recording industry wants it both ways, but only the parts that benefit them.

Don't get too excited....

[mblase]

Boucher's complaints are twofold: Americans may not know they're buying crippled discs, and that the new discs don't work on all players.... Boucher wouldn't give details on what approach he's considering -- obvious possibilities include ordering the music industry to stick labels on protected CDs, or an outright ban of that technology.

In other words, he not necessarily advocating blocking all copy-protection on CDs. He just wants to stop the music industry from passing off copy-protected CDs as regular copyable CDs. If the music industry agrees to label all copy-protected CDs as such, he'll still be happy.

Necessary?

[Phanatic1a]

Much as I like Boucher's agenda, I don't think this law is necessarily a good thing.

Content providers should be allowed to encode whatever they want to, however they want to. Yes, I agree that if they encode copy prevention techniques in their CDs, they shouldn't tell everybody that they're actually CDs, because they aren't. But there shouldn't be any restrictions at all on what they can put on a 5" sandwich of aluminum and polycarbonate.

The problem here isn't CD copy prevention. It's the DMCA. Just like the content provider should be able to encode his content however he sees fit, the end user should be able to take whatever steps he needs to to access the bits that are sitting on the disc he purchased that's sitting inside his computer. But the DMCA prevents this, and makes illegal that users efforts to circumvent the copy-prevention code, feeble as it may be.

But I don't think the solution to this problem is another law. The proper solution to a problem caused by passage of a bad law is repeal of that bad law, not a new law that's intended to act as a band-aid. I respect Boucher's efforts, but overturning the DMCA is way more important.

Re:Necessary?

[Christopher Chang]

> When that type of copying becomes easy, the
> equation changes. HARM_TO_PUBLIC from
> restricting copying is suddenly a lot higher
> (because the artificial monopoly is now the
> primary barrier to the public).
> BENEFIT_TO_PUBLIC of maintaining restrictions
> may also be lower, to the extent that
> publishers are no longer the only entities
> technically capable of keeping works in
> circulation. The existing restriction may thus
> be too strong for the new situation, even if
> it was perfectly balanced for the old one.

You miss what is by far the most important term in the BENEFIT_TO_PUBLIC part of the equation: incentive for certain kinds of innovation.

Which, incidentally, has a tendency to perfectly offset any increases in the HARM_TO_PUBLIC part of the equation due to greater ease of copying.

There isn't really any way around the fact that copyright needs to be effectively enforced to maintain incentive in certain fields. Notice that I qualify my statements, though; "certain kinds of innovation", "certain fields". In some cases, a pervasive "open source"-style model manages to yield the best results for the public in both the short and long term. The nontrivial question is, what are those cases, and what aren't? And will the law prove to be flexible enough to accomodate both situations?

Viewed in this light, the DMCA is not that flawed for the reasons most people give. If you don't have an anti-circumvention law, those trying to protect their products from mass piracy must engage in a copy protection arms race that results in less convenience for users. (Even with the DMCA, they still need to, but not as much as they would otherwise in the long run.) The greater degree of inconvenience that must be imposed provides a competitive advantage to those who don't care if their products are copied; while this is generally viewed as a Good Thing at a place like Slashdot, this ruins any benefit that enforced copyright would provide.

So, again, the real question is, where is enforced copyright beneficial to society? I claim that if the DMCA is flawed, it is because it enforces copyright in contexts where society is better off without copyright at all. (Incidentally, this is orthogonal to the issue of constitutionality. I'm asking here whether the DMCA is a positive utility law to have around, not whether the DMCA is a "legal law".) Music might be one of these cases.

Hubris -- The Illiad (Homer, not userfriendly.org)

[segfaultdot]

Achilles (MPAA/RIAA) is so vexed by Hector (Piracy) that he not only kills him, but drags his body behind his chariot for days (attempts to eliminate ALL fair use) to the point that his father, Priam (the american public) is bereaved by his actions and begs Achilles for permission to bury him (congress talks about passing law to ensure fair use).

Howz that for culture? And they say history can't teach us anything.

Miss Hilary

[futuresheep]

Stated using her one sided logic:

Rosen said in a statement: "The notion of copy protection is certainly not new to the entertainment industry. Even computer software already employ various technology protections as appropriate for their marketplace and their consumers. The music industry deserves to do the same. Legislation to prevent self-help technologies would be unwise and unfair."

I can still make a legitimate purchase of any piece of software and expect to be able to use it without any interference from said copy protection, unlike these CD's, which can keep you from using them in the very devices they were intended for.

Good intentions...

[MantridDronemaker]

Obviously this proposed law has very good intentions on the side of the consumer, however...

...aren't there too many laws already? Does the government need to pin down yet another nuance of society? Perhaps there are laws which need to be repealed, perhaps the DMCA or others that would simplify things and prevent companies from having too strong a hold to begin with.

Copy Protection Not The Problem

[cybermage]

It is not the copy protection itself that is the problem. The issue goes much deeper, and the point, I think, is being missed.

If CDs were clearly marked as copy protected or if stores were required to give an actual refund if you want to return them, these klunky, defective schemes would never have been launched in the first place.

The same can be said for software. Try buying software, and then, after rejecting the enclosed license, try to return it for a refund. Good luck.

Consumers don't need a law banning copy-protection on CDs. Manufacturers have a right to do this to their CDs. What consumers need is a right to a refund if were not satisfied with conditions of sale that were not disclosed upfront. Further, we need the right to a refund if the product is unusable. Obviously some time-frame is necessary (e.g., within 30 days,) but there's no reason why these rights aren't afforded us now.

Re:Copy Protection Not The Problem

[weinerdog]

Consumers don't need a law banning copy-protection on CDs. Manufacturers have a right to do this to their CDs.

That philosophy may work in the context of the free market, but the content of music CDs is typically the subject of a government-granted copyright monopoly.

If you could get the same music from someone else, one might argue that a manufacturer has the right to put copy and usage control technology on its CDs. But you can't get the same music from someone else.

Every other state-granted monopoly comes with a corresponding set of responsibilities. For example, AT&T may have been granted a monopoly over telephone service, but it was subject to rigorous controls: it was limited as to whom it could deny service, the minimum standard of service it could provide, what it was allowed to charge, and what uses of its network it was allowed to forbid.

It seems entirely reasonable that holding a copyright monopoly should be dependent on accepting certain conditions too. Perhaps not as strenuous, given the relative importance of the telephone network and Britney Spears' latest dreck, but it seems entirely reasonable that a copyright holder should be required to adhere to certain restrictions regarding price, use, and availability (i.e. you have an obligation to make sure the public has reasonable access to your work, at reasonable prices and with reasonable capabilites to use the work in a variety of ways, if you want to keep your copyright).

$cat bullet foot

[Darth RadaR]

Companies should consider the basic fact that if a product doesn't work, is difficult to make work, or requires upgrades to exisiting equipment, Joe Consumer will simply ask for their money back and spend it elsewhere. If the RIAA thinks that CD sales suck now, wait till they try protection schemes. Even then, those in the know will be disabling the copy protection, whilst Joe Consumer will be trying to figure out how to get his Britney Spears CD to play on his computer.

If it gets to the point where a music CD is going to ask me for a password every time I want to play it, I think I'll go back to tape or vinyl.

Re:Huzzah for common sense.

[jweb]

Yes, copy-protected CDs are not red-book compliant. And this bill is hopefully going to AT LEAST make these 'tainted CDs' labeled as such, so consumers can choose to avoid them.

The dark side of this issue, however, is that there doesn't seem to be anything to keep these copy-controls out of any future formats. If the RIAA-holes can't copy-protect their CDs, why whouldn't they just move to some new copy-protection-filled standard, and refuse to make music CDs? Yes, this would totally screw the consumer, but it's not like that's ever stopped them before.

ZDnet has it too!

[psycht]

I submitted this story yesterday.. you can find that atricle on ZDnet. It covers the same information, but with that "ZDnet" feel.

Require labels for functionally impaired CDs

[Ride-My-Rocket]

I don't think the government needs to do anything beyond making sure that consumers know which CDs are hobbled and which aren't. If a CD is clearly labeled as copy-protected, I won't buy it -- plain and simple. And that way, consumers can vote with their dollars........ if they don't care about this limitation on their ability to take their music wherever they go, then they can choose to buy it.

It's as simple as educating the masses -- nobody's gonna want a conglomerate to tell them what they can or can't do with their music. If anything, legislators should start focusing more on the digital rights of consumers, instead of narrowing the scope down to addressing only CDs. If it's crystal-clear what constitutes piracy and what constitutes fair use, the RIAA won't have any excuse to start bawling about how consumers are copying their music, regardless of the reasons for doing so (piracy vs portability).

I Like to copy CDs, but I buy them all

[totallygeek]

My wife hates the racks in the study, but I have well over 300 CD's now. All of them are hard to replace punk CD's, and I have paid for them all. Now, I have some that over time (used in the truck, or taken out somewhere else) have become scratched. Some of these are irreplaceable (producer out of business or the like), and I have been sucessful using IRC or newsgroups to get MP3 versions of "lost" tracks. I have to date, eventhough I have a burner and am an able geek, never burned a music CD from downloaded MP3 files that I did not already have on a purchased CD. Another example of an MP3 saving the day was with a recent Fear CD I purchased had a screwed up track 3. No problem, I downloaded some songs the other day and burned approximately 20 to one CD that I have at the end of a shelf called "Mistrack/Scratched Track CD".

I for one view this new era of the music industry keeping honest folks from ripping tracks on CD's rediculous. Even when tapes were the classy way to purchase music, I always bought vinyl. Usually for the extra inserts, but mostly for the larger image and the medium would last longer. I was very anal about my records, and would never play them unless I were dumping to a blank tape. Now I have begun this with CD's I play in the vehicles. My new view is that my purchased CD's NEVER leave the house. And, no more do I have to deal with a CD that I only like one song on taking up a slot in the CD changer. If the music industry makes ripping and burning impossible, they are doing honest customers a disservice. Of course, all this is moot in my scenario because the punk industry seems to "get it" with regard to music trading, bootlegs, MP3 files, etc.

Just my $0.02!

This is good, but is it necessary?

[nate.sammons]

It's good that someone in Washington is paying attention to all this CD copying garbage.

But is it really necessary? What I mean is, Philips says that "copy protected" CDs are actually "silver discs that looks like CDs, but are not CDs", and they are the people who say who can and can't use the little "compact disc digital audio" logo. Philips has said time and time again that they don't approve of the copy protection.

So, can't we just enforce what it means to be a CD (perfect duplication of audio each time, meaning no copy protection) instead of wasting a bunch of money writing new laws that don't *really* need to exist??

-nate

Re:Copyright law,,,,

[vicviper]

Maybe because copyrights are not patents. Assuming that "copyright law was created to encourage science and progress", you could see how monetary compensation for copyrights is one method of encouragement. Copyright holders have the right to such compensation under the law. It doesn't have to be fair to the licensee, either in restrictions or the cost of the license. However, those that use licenses have the right not to use them. It ends up being an individual choice.

Because of the ease digital media lends to circumvention of copyright of items stored in that mediusm, IMO it's understandable that copyright holders may want to attempt to restrict the casual (or die hard) violator. Accesses to these items are not being denied, but more closely ristricted to the origninal copyright licensee. As long as this ristriction does not prevent your use of the product (under the license) they are fulfilling their obligations to you.

Distinctive Differences

[virg_mattes]

You're quite right, but copyright holders are not allowed to prevent fair use entirely under current law. To wit, they need not make it easy, but they're not allowed specifically to make it impossible.

Virg