Public CD Copying Machine in Australia

kanad writes: "With all the news of banning cd burners, taxing blank CD-Rs, DMCA, and whatnot in the U.S., here's a breather from Australia. Some stores have installed coin-operated CD copying machines. Basically it's very simple: put the CD to be copied and a blank CD in two different slots and drop your coins and Presto! In 10 minutes you get a copy. It even bypasses some anti-copying measures. ... Obviously the burden of not violating copyright rests with the user under Australian law, which is the same as that applied to photocopiers. Today evening I saw the machine and it's really cool. Wonder what would happen to this machine in U.S. and Europe."

Comments

Well, now that the cat is out of the bag

[zangdesign]

You can bet your ass that Hillary Rosen and her crew and Jack Valenti and his crew will do everything short of murder to get that machine and all related technology banned.

popping noise

[abe ferlman]

That giant popping noise you hear is Hilary Rosen herniating herself when she reads this article.

Xerox machines were to the publishing industry are what the Boston Strangler was to a woman alone, to paraphrase Jack Valenti. Given that no one bothers to write books anymore since perfect copies can be made inexpensively, I'm sure we'll wise up this time and stop this reckless sharing of information in its tracks.

Re:popping noise

[pogen]

Except copying a book with a Xerox machine is slow, time consuming, and does not give you nearly as easily readable a version as buying the book itself would. CD copying machines give you perfect copies with very little hassle.

Indeed. And to point out another flaw in the photocopier analogy, there is only one real-world "fair use" defense for this machine (in the U.S.): The purpose of the copy.

The "character" of the copy cannot be used as a defense, since it is effectively identical to the original.

The "nature of the copyrighted work" cannot be used as a defense, since we are almost invariably talking about for-profit, commercially produced CDs (no one who could create their own original CDs would need this machine to help them make copies.)

The "relative amount" cannot be used as a defense, since the CD is copied in its entirety.

And the "effect on the market" cannot be used as a defense, since even legitimate backup copies take sales away from the industry.

The only legitimate "purposes" that I can see for using this machine are backups and space-shifting (though I don't know what legal standing these have). When was the last time you "backed up" a book with a photocopier?

So let's stop clouding the issue with this ridiculous book/photocopier analogy.

(IANAL)

Re:popping noise

[raresilk]

I'll call the analogy and raise you one. Textbooks (at least here in the USA, and last time I was in school) cost anywhere from $75 - $150 a pop new. Every professor who has enough pull writes his/her own expensive text and assigns it in every class. The texts range from brilliant to useful to crap but you still have to have them because the professor will make sure something on the final comes straight out of them.

It does not take a genius to figure out that "$150 a textbook" or "$15 a CD" is not the fair market price, nor does it take a genius to figure out that such price gouging depends on the active collusion of sellers to the customer's disadvantage. I submit that when customers know they are being gouged, whether through overpriced textbooks sold to a captive student audience or overpriced CDs sold by a cartel with a large proportion of the musician population under long-term contractual captivity, they are highly likely to attempt to turn the situation around on the gougers.

Antitrust law enforcement is supposed to prevent such anticompetitive pricing from taking place, but with a few high-profile exceptions, the authorities have abdicated their role. What we see in the copying wars is old fashioned vigilante justice, and it's going to continue until the Justice Department regains its guts and goes after the publishing/music cartels.

(thank you for indulging this rant.)

Re:popping noise

[AlexCompy]

"And the "effect on the market" cannot be used as a defense, since even legitimate backup copies take sales away from the industry."

I agree with the rest of your comment, but I'm not sure how legitimate backups take sales away from the industry. If I had to buy another copy of, say, Windows in order to have a backup, I'd just learn to live without a backup. Let's face it, people are generally pretty poor at backups when its free - I can't see a lot of people buying two of every album/software/etc just to have a backup available...

$70 million a year loss?

[Ioldanach]

Music Industry Piracy Investigations spokesman Michael Speck said illegal copying already cost the Australian industry $70 million a year.

I'd really like to know the source of this number. This number implies something like 7 million illegal copies being distributed per year. (This assumes, for argument's sake, an average of $10 per cd retail.) I'm not sure there are that many blank cds being sold per year in Australia. Did they just take the number of blank cds being sold, multiply by the cost of some of the more expensive cds, and assume every cd was used to make a infringing copy of a music cd? To top that off, did they assume that if the recipient of that music cd hadn't gotten the infringing copy, the album would've been purchased instead?

Personally, I have just as many data cds as music cds, and most of the music cds I have are copies of my own music for travel and taking mp3s of my music to work.

Re:$70 million a year loss?

[Cam Wheeler]

Don't forgot that they are using AU dollar value, most new music cds here are around $25-$30 Australian.

They are probably estimating closer to 2.5 - 3 million illegal copies each year. Still sounds fairly unrealistic, but probably closer to the mark than 7 million.

Another note, when it says it costs $5 to use, thats closer to $2.50 american, so it's cheaper than other people have been pointing out.

Re:$70 million a year loss?

[John Sullivan]

If you account for software piracy

Given the quote is from a music industry guy, it seems reasonable to assume the figure given applies only to music. But since when has this sort of propaganda been reasonable.

It is already paid for

[Vspirit]

They tax CDR to cover monetary compensation to the artists.
ahh nice, then its already paid for, no more complains.. no problem.
lets copy.

Today is the day.. not my first post, but registered post number 100 after coming here day in and day out since dec97.

Re:Another completely far wing article

[Erasmus Darwin]

"You can buy knifes at stores. That makes murder as easy as 1.2.3."

On the other hand, I have a much easier time thinking of everyday legitimate uses for knives (cutting food, opening packages, spreading butter) than I do for a machine that can only do exact CD duplication.

The machine is limited or fails in many of the traditional legitimate uses of a regular CD burner:

• Personal file backups -- This obviously won't work, as the machines only duplicate existing CDs
• Commercial PC software backups -- I have to concede this one, though PC software CDs (which generally sit in a box or in your machine) don't incur as much of a damage risk as music CDs
• Music CD backups -- This is reasonable at $1 or less per pop with a regular CD burner. But when someone has to pay $7 per CD and stand around while it burns, I think they'll be more likely to replace the occasional damaged CD unless they really abuse them.
• Fair use mix CDs -- Since it only does an exact duplicate, I can't even combine my favorite tracks for 8 different CDs that I already own onto a single, convenient disc.

I think overall, the majority of usage of the machine will be of a copyright infringing nature. And unlike a photocopier, which manages to prevent many improper uses through cost and inconvenience, this machine would be a casual music/software pirate's dream.

Pay the artists a cut

[mgkimsal2]

If there was a way to identify the content (aren't there some nifty headers some place with a specific ID for many commercial CDs?) one could fairly easily track which commercial music CDs are being copied and collect royalties on behalf of the artist.

IIRC, a CD costing $18 at a retail store ends up putting about $2 in the pocket of the artist. I'd happily give $2 directly to an artist for a copy of their disc. The other $16 is to cover overhead of distribution, marketing, etc. Well, the marketing is being done via WOM (or via ads which I'd already seen, causing interest in the music) and the distribution is being handled by the CD copier itself. I can do without the packaging, and the arist gets their $2 from the CD copying machine company.

If I'm copying a CD of my vacation pics, it's $5 to copy. If it's the latest Tom Petty or whatever, it's $7. Works for me.

Re:Another completely far wing article

[Odinson]

Not to mention copying Linux distros for friends.

Somebody should tell Glenn A. Baker that some copright holders like that kind of copying. They have as many moral and legal rights as he does, he is very inconsiderate.

http://www.openmusicregistry.org/

http://www.fsf.org/