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Public CD Copying Machine in Australia

Posted by timothy on from the every-dorm-should-have-one dept.

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."

15 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. are they available INSIDE supermarkets ? by dario_moreno · · Score: 2, Interesting

    then it would be a pleasure to pick
    a music CD or a game, make a copy, and
    go out...

    by the way, this would be an
    interesting use of a laptop with a Cd-RW,
    when I think of it !

    --
    Google passes Turing test : see my journal
  2. $7 bucks...... by FXSTD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to the article it costs $7 to make a copy.....($5 for the burn and $2 for the blank, I assume you can't bring your own). If the record companies would sell their "music" or other products for that price, instead of $16.95 for a new CD, maybe it would not be an issue......Maybe instead of wasting money developing anti copy techniques that just make everyone angry, they should sell their "products" for a reasonable amount......

  3. Another completely far wing article by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NEW machines installed in Adelaide convenience stores make the illegal copying of the latest CDs and computer software - which costs artists and software designers millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.

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

    Duh. Why do people think they are original when they take item X and immediately point out it can be used for crime Y.

    I mean if we sold bullets at corner stores than you'd read a news article that says something along the lines of "new store makes kids with guns a ready proposition." etc...

    Did it ever occur to those people that business people put slide shows on CDs now? Maybe they will use the public burners [although I couldn't imagine so] for copying their own work!

    The point is these lines of thinking have got to stop. Anything can be used to comit a crime and it isn't very intelligence to insight people to be against technology X for that reason.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  4. This should be legal in Canada... by FreezerJam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...because you are making your own copy of an original, and artists are supposed to get reimbursed from a per-blank-disc levy (which is a topic of some discussion on its own).

    It would be most cool as well.

  5. They have one of these at a CD shop in town by qurob · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Its one of those places that buys and sells used CD's.

    For $3 you can copy any CD in the store.

  6. Stealing the invisible by jimharris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I find all this glee surrounding stealing very odd. And be honest, people are stealing, even the older generation has gotten into the act. I'm 50, and I see all kinds of people just copying CDs right and left. No one wants to buy them anymore.

    And I think it's a kind of gutless thievery. People will rationalize this because they aren't stealing anything tangible. But future economics will be based on the intangible.

    This shows that ethics is directly related to what people can get away with. People are more than willing to steal if it's easy, but they don't have the balls to steal the CD player to play their stolen CDs in.

    Jim Harris

    1. Re:Stealing the invisible by Havokmon · · Score: 3, Interesting
      If some kind of Star Trek replicator was invented so we could copy a Mercedes as easily as a Nellie Furtado CD, we'd still need to sell them. Our world is based on jobs. Anything that destroys jobs is bad for the world.

      The U.S. has been moving towards a "service industry" for YEARS, as our imports have greatly outnumbered our exports.

      I see it as, "If you don't have anything to offer, you've only screwed yourself."

      Music and Publishing are not service industries. Like you said, just look at trends. I saw this coming before I got into High School, the service industry (not just waitressing) is where the future is. Not the resale of physical property.

      Jobs aren't "Lost" they're merely transferred from production to service. This is why there are so many 40yr olds going back to school. Someone working in a 'plant' for 40 or 50 years is rare now. Career changes are expected.

      Eventually, the concept of owning an Idea forever will go away, and you WILL be able to replicate a Mercades legally (via Star Trek). But not until after you've purchased the rights to it.

      There would be no product on the shelf as you invision. Only the plans would need to be sold.

      Only the uninformed think that copying computer data is any different from Xeroxing a book. No, it doesn't take much longer to do OCR a physical book than it does to copy an ebook. I did that for a living 10 years ago (legally OCR'ing manuals for companies). Burning a CD now takes just as long as OCR'ing 500 pages 10 years ago (on a 286).

      You're almost there, you realize the future is coming, and there are legal issues, but you havn't let go of classic manufacturing...

      Is it so hard to see the trend that stealing digital copies of music, movies, books, etc will hurt the economy, and destroy jobs?

      Actually, yes. Stealing in the digital age is not the same as it was 100 years ago. You envision Star Trek repliation of a Mercedes. If that car is stolen, who loses? The owner? They'll replicate another one. The seller? Maybe, but please, a little common sense here: the person stole the car beause they didn't want to pay for it. It's digital, there is no materials cost lost by the 'creator' (Now, the buyer is producing the vehicle in his replicator - some energy is lost), just a potential loss of another copy that could have been purchased - which costs zero to produce above what has already been spent on creation.

      Sure, it's easy to copy music. What's being stolen? The same thing that's played on the radio? So I press record on my PC, and record the radio. Have I stolen? Or maybe I bought the CD version of a tape I already bought. Now who's stolen (Some think the RIAA)? I already own the content, it was placed on a CD for me as a service..(See where we're going?)

      All the hubub about piracy is mostly because the industry is seeing an end of the line of upgrades (8-track -> record -> tape -> CD). With digital content, they're revenue is fixed. No longer can they get revenue for the same material (original cost) over 30 years, reselling it in different formats. They will need to adjust to the new SERVICE industry that has been coming for YEARS, or someone else will take their place.

      If I could see the trend from production to service industry coming before I hit High School (I'm 28 now), and big business did not, that's pretty pitiful. I'd be willing to bet they just didn't WANT to see it coming.

      We're "Losing" jobs over this supposed "piracy" as much as we've lost jobs over automation in manufacturing. Remember when those robots were going to put all us humans out of work?

      Even in this 'recession', and those pesky robots building our cars, unemployment has not reached critical mass.

      --
      "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
    2. Re:Stealing the invisible by PeekabooCaribou · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here's a hypothetical situation: I need to use, say, Adobe Illustrator to finsh my homework for a graphic design course. I'm a starving college student, taking home about $50-$75 a week working part time. I have expenses like school supplies, gas, food, etc. I'm obviously not going to buy Illustrator because of the high price tag, even though I would like to support the developers and their wonderful program. Even the educational pricing is prohibitive. Instead, I have two choices: use the school-supplied computer labs, or download a copy and use it from the convenience of my home.

      In either case, I don't have the means to pay for the program. I could go without having the program on my own machine. I could pirate, which in other hypothetical situations might mean the difference between finishing and not finishing the work. If I pirate, you say the company is losing money. I say the money was never headed in it's direction anyway. It "lost" money it never had any claim on.

      I believe these two things: people buy good software, and pirates grow to be consumers. Piracy has the potential to be harmless, and it has been in most cases that I've seen. Don't knock the 19 year old college student that pirates a copy of Word. Go for the computer consultant installing free copies of Office XP on every machine that comes through his door.

      --
      "I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
    3. Re:Stealing the invisible by rudedog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      First quote: But future economics will be based on the intangible.

      Second quote: you are ultimately destroying jobs ... truckers, cashiers, store owners, warehousemen, and so on

      So, in this future intangible economy, exactly what are the truckers, cashiers, store owners and warehousmen going to be doing?

      The fact is that economic models change. Business that don't change their business models to adapt to changing economic models will go out of business.

      If the typewriter industry had the lobbying clout of the entertainment industry, general purpose wordprocessors for computers would not exist, and printers would have a surtax of $1 per DPI capability, adding $600 to the cost of a 600 DPI printer.

      It's time for the entertainment industry to change their model or go out of business like the typewriter industry.

  7. I don't like the analogy by Mr_Silver · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Can someone come up with a better analogy than copying CD's with this and copying books with a photo copier?

    I don't like it because:

    1. If you photocopy a whole book it takes a lot longer than the 9 minutes it takes for a cd.
    2. If you photocopy a book, you don't get a near perfect copy, whereas if you copy a cd you do.
    What does worry me is that the people in the article might just be right, this could harm the music industry. If anyone on the street can make a near perfect exact copy of any cd then what is the incentive for most people to buy it in the first place? People don't go out a photocopy books because the methods that you use to copy it are so tedious and time consuming that it rapidly becomes a waste of time and money. This is different, you stick the cd in and wait 9 minutes, this is substantially easier than copying a book.

    Many people who buy a copy of something they have on pirate do it either to support the artist or because their copy quality is rubbish. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people would even both to cough up would because of the latter and with this, there is no need to do that since the quality is already perfect.

    Of course the industry shouldn't charge such exhorbitant prices for stuff. You think you're hard done by in the US? Take the price in USD and that is what it is in UKP, in other words, our CD's are 1.5 times more that yours!

    Take a look at the Amiga. Ignoring Commodores own inabilities, the software market was utterly obliterated by the ease it was to pick up copies of anything released. It just because totally un-economical to write and sell anything for it.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
  8. slightly OT by SubtleNuance · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In Canada it is also (...for now... but stay tuned to properly oppose any pending legislation(!)) perfectly legal for a person to make copies of their own media. It is also absolutely LEGAL to copy ANOTHER PERSONS AUDIO CD.

    What does this mean? (first see this faq) You can take your friend's CD and burn yourself a copy - and its legal. This is because Canadians pay a levy on CDRs which 'compensate' producers (et al). I dont agree that this is the best tactic, but it is a powerful one. If people were informed of this fact, and groups actively promoted this, you could eliminate the present distribution scheme in Canada (retailers/distributors/labels). The Library would be all that Canadians needed to have copies of all the music they wanted.

    Now, why is this going OT? I would like to know, does anyone have links or Info to make a Linux based, CDR 'copy machine'? I would like to organize a 'Copy Your Friends CDs Party" at a library or some such (near the Uni in town would be good), but would like to be able to copy many-many volumes of CDs.

    I also have thought about make such a device available on loan to local Libraries in order to 'promote' and 'encourage' the practice.

    Can anyone provide a info to do such a thing? What would be really nice is if the device could be operated without a monitor - just insert discs and close the trays...

  9. Re:popping noise by brunes69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Indeed, let's continue it:

    • The "character" of the photocopy 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 books (no one who could create their own original printed material would need this machine to help them make copies.)
    • The "relative amount" cannot be used as a defense, since the printed material can be copied in its entirety.
    • And the "effect on the market" cannot be used as a defense, since even legitimate backup copies of books take sales away from the industry.

    What is the difference between this and photocopiers? I see none. And I am a university student. I cannot even count the number of people I personally know who photocopy their entire textbook collection from the library. And they bring these copies to class. It is not hidden. It is common practice.

    You don't see the publishing industry going bankrupt because Xerox came into play. Nor did you see laws come into play regarding the use of photocopiers - the same old copyright laws still held. The USER is responsible, not the manufacturer.

  10. self-fulfilling prophecy by uslinux.net · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Does anyone remember when CDs came out? Records and tapes were $8-$10. Hell, records and tapes were $8 for YEARS. CDs came out at $15-16. The *excuse* at the time was that they were much more costly to manufacture, though truthfully, they were still cheaper, since there was a much lower rate of return for defective merchandise (after all, you don't get pops on CDs, normally).


    Even if it *was* $6 more expensive to produce a CD then, *now* CDs are practically free (just look at how many AOL wastes). So why hasn't the cost of CD music come down? Because the music industry can get it. Piracy was far less an issue when costs were *half* their cost now.


    My point? If CDs were $8 or $9, people would snatch them up and not bother to pirate them - after all, the amount of *effort* you need to put forth just to find stuff, download it, burn it, etc, isn't worthwhile. But, when CDs are now approaching $18+ at local stores - well, it doesn't take a genius to realize that it's *easy* to recoup your initial hardware "investment" (cost).


    FWIW, I own about 150 albums and another 150 CDs. And yet I really haven't bought any CDs in probably 2 years. Why? Cost, and the level of crap which is being put out now (which is probably more a function of me being 25 and having already found a style of music 4 or 5 years ago which I like - which is now disappearing).

  11. Re:Won't Last by Polaris · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have to agree. When I was at Disneyworld Orlando in August I bought a picture of myself and my son on one of the rides, for the exorbitant sum of $12. Since I wanted him to keep the original, but wanted a copy for myself, I took the pic into the local Walgreens in downtown Kissimmee, where they had a color photocopier, and asked them to copy it. They refused, citing copyright. WDW obviously polices these guys pretty heavily. Still, I have a decent scanner at work, and a color laser...

  12. Re:Can you say "circumvention device" ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Not really.

    A circunvention device is something that avoids a security implementation. The current layer of "anti-copy" systems implemented in CD's aren't such, but only "errors" and "defective CD's". So, the machine isn't a circunvention device but only a "corrector" of defective CD's.