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Record Industry Wants Royalties for Used CD Sales
cuberat writes "In a continuing effort to maintain their image as evil incarnate, record companies are considering charging used CD retailers a royalty for every CD they resell. The story is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune here. When are these guys going to get a clue?"
We could always start boycotting used CDs :)
In a continuing effort to maintain their image as evil incarnate, record companies are considering charging used CD retailers a royalty for every CD they resell.
I'm amazed they didnt try this before....anything that they could use to make even more money and screw the buyers over is PERFECT for them
P-S-Y-C-H-O
I can just imagine the future of CD sales. They probably will have a ELLA (End Listener License Agreement).
By breaking this seal you agree to the terms of this license............... We the RIAA have the right at anytime to enter your place of residence to do an audit, and make sure all of your music is properly licensed.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
I was really wondering how long it was going to take before the RIAA kept up with their modus operendi to get their pound of flesh from EVERY possible location. Used CD's have been for sale for YEARS around here. I never thought that they would just let something as big and as out in the open as that just go.
This, just like everything else, probably won't turn out good for them. I forsee further alienation of their customers over this. Not that they seem to give a damn.
What a way to run a railroad...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
The MPAA has filed a lawsuit against any and all video rental stores, stating that they want $5 for every rented movie.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
The record companues were in NO WAY involved in the transaction, they got theirs on the first sale, why should they get more money ?? Do used book sales generate for authors ? Does Ford get money when I sell my car as used ??
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Didn't publishers try this with books and outrage all literate people? Do the record companies think they can do this just because their demographic only needs to be able to read well enough to figure out which album they're buying? I'm sorry, but once I buy the CD, I own it (although I don't technically own the data on it) and can do whatever I darn well please with it, and it's just too bad if the record company execs can't afford a third hottub and a fifth BMW.
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
From the article:
...which can be defeated by a 99-cent felt-tip pen.
"That's an example of why labels are experimenting with copy-protection technology" that blocks duplication, said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy.
First sale rights are in full effect here. Not even the nincompoops in Congress will fall for this.
I have been pwned because my
Ok, so in other words, if I _OWN_ something (a CD), I have to PAY someone else for the right to sell it?
IANAL, but it sounds like pretty shaky legal grounds to me.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
O'Reilly is considering charging paper recycling companies a royalty for every sheet of recycled paper they sell.
There was some stupid movie I saw on HBO once called kidco, kidcon. Anyways
The story is about some kid that starts a fertilizer business collecting the poop from the different farms around town. Big fertilizer business takes the kids to court and tries to get them shut down on all sorts of technicalities.
They come to the issue of sales tax on the poop. The kid calls up the local alfalfa farmer and asks him if he pays taxes on the hay, to which he replies yes. The kid then makes the argument, "If the hay was taxed on the way into the horse, then taxing it when it comes out is double taxation!"
Manuer, Used CD's, its all the same really, isn't it double taxation when royaltee's are collected twice on a CD?
One proposed remedy being debated by record label executives is federal legislation requiring used-CD retailers to pay royalties on secondary sales of albums.
Interesting choice of phrasing. The executives aren't debating whether or not they should lobby for the legislation, or support the legislation - they're debating the legislation itself. No criticism of Frank Green (author of Union-Tribune piece) is intended; unfortunately, I think he is being totally accurate.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Doesn't this violate the principle of first sale? After all once an item is sold once, you can't force future parties to stick to terms which are not enforcable by law. Thus if I buy a CD and sell it to someone else, I can't be forced to pay another royality on it.
--Karl
I'm glad to see such actions like this, they are so ridculous as to be doomed to failure (hopefully) and they clearly show what a bunch of money grubbing bastards recording companies are.
This kind of thing has been legally established for over a hundred years, when used books are sold.
They should get some of Brittany Spears assets!
Even if they are used.
-Dubya
The mind boggles. . . Can you see Detroit asking for a piece of Used Car Sales ? A Home-builder demanding a piece of home re-sales ? I've seen that authors and publishers have tried. . .but haven't had the sheer unmitigated gall to try to get their profits codified into law like the RIAA, and to a lesser extent, the MPAA. . . .
But, on the bright side, somehow, I don't think they'll get the Congress to fall for this one. . . .
That's double dipping. They GOT their royalty once, they're not entitled to it again. They're not entitled to it on a CD I sell to a store. They're not entitled to a second helping if I make a copy to play in the car (I won't risk getting my originals stolen). They're not entitled to it if I rip to MP3 and play it on my jukebox (no I don't share files, but I don't want to buy 300 gigs of storage for all my CDs in WAV format.
I'd say the Used CD store owners should SUE them en-masse if they try to charge it. Furthermore, if I owned a used/new CD shop, I'd STOP CARRYING NEW CDS ENTIRELY. Just sell used.
Thank god the only new CD I've wanted to buy in the last few years is the new RUSH cd. Now that I've bought that, I can comfortably boycott the industry. I already HAVE the music I care about.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
The supreme court likes taking the side of the consumer in cases involving the doctine of first sale
It sounds fair. Right now I'm going down to the furnature store to give them their share of the $12 bucks I got when I sold my old couch.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Isn't there an established precident? Reselling records has been going on for sometime. Kinda like the "recording shows on your VCR" argument with the TIVO?Oh.. wait.. nevermind. Now I get it.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I thought the right of 'first sale' had already been well hammered out in americas courts? Once I buy something physical, it's MINE, and I have the right to resell it however I want.
Sounds to me like RIAA is trying to duplicate the software industry and relabel the 'purchase' of an album as a license.
Didn't the book publishing industry already try this?
If they can bill for royalties for reselling a used CD (thus billing royalties twice for that CD), then the royalties aren't strictly tied to the ownership of the physical CD.
That should mean I could either legally keep the mp3s I burned from that CD, since I've already paid for the royalties, OR, they should refund me the royalty fee when I relenquish possession of the CD.
"One proposed remedy being debated by record label executives is federal legislation requiring used-CD retailers to pay royalties on secondary sales of albums."
It's interesting how the federal government is seen as a convenient tool for furthering the music industry's profits. The article makes it appear that the moment a decision is made, the government will heel. No one bothers to point out how chilling this idea is.
I am going to show everyone I can how to burn anything they want protected or not. Screw those bastiches, everything I own in the future will be on cdr.
Next they're going to charge us a royalty fee everytime we listen to a song.
please insert $2 into your stereo to continue listening...
Wonder how long it will be before you have to register each sale of a CD so that they can be traced.
I hope you gun control people are happy, nice precedent you set.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
there isn't a clue-by-four big enough to help the RIAA:)
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
"When are these guys going to get a clue?"
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
This has got to be the most fscked up and outrageous thing I have ever read! The record industry has absolutely NO RIGHT whatsoever to demand payment for used CD sales because those CDs have already been bought and paid for.
If Joe sells Bob a cow, Joe can't charge Bob a tax if Bob decides to sell that cow to Bill. That's just how it goes.
The record industry is a greedy, disgusting bunch of corporate scum, with no respect whatsoever for anybody or anything. They are NOT protecting artists, because the artists whose content is published are forced to sign over their copyright to the record company! Only independant artists are not affected, and those are the only artists whose works should be supported by those of us who hate the record industry.
The next thing you know, you'll have to pay Home Depot a royalty every time you flip on or off a light switch that you bought in their store. Absolutely ridiculous.
Read George Orwell's 1984. It will really open your eyes.
It also means that people will avoid other new formats that as effectively copy protected, because they will go ahead and buy/sell used CDS, etc. As the RIAA will discover, the "sheep" the want to sheer continue to rebel.
The only solution will be to actually have an original musical product. Not that the RIAA will be able to do this.
Looks liker the death of an industry, because the things they think they have to do, will also kill off the industry.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I thought when I paid my money for it that it's mine. So if I pay for all of my damn 2000 CD's, and I want to sell them to my friends, I have to pay you RIAA bastards money? Didn't you get enough the first time, when I bought them? What's your reasoning for wanting money? Did you spend so much money advertising my CD's that you need a return? I think not... Now back the fuck up off me, and let a brother sell what he already owns.
The reason why this is important is spelled out in Jefferson's own writings: His assumptions are based on the fact that you can not control what people do with information that you give to them. If you hand someone a book, they can transcribe it. If you give someone a physical invention, they can disassemble it. But if you give them a new form of media, say, a song on a copy-protected CD, and they can no longer listen to it except on approved devices that they cannot copy from, why should the government provide the same protection to you? The record companies and movie studios want to have their cake and eat it too. They want traditional copyright protection, technological copyright protection, and a government guarantee of technological copyright protection. They want to deprive all those bearded Linux hippies their DeCSS, so they can't watch bootleg Buffy the Vanpire Slayer DVDs in their parents' basement. But if they have technological protection, then why should the government give them traditional protection? It was only there because information was hard to protect as property.
How far are we going to let the copyrighters go? We need to remind people that copyright, like most laws in the US, is a balance between two forces, and the scale should not be tipped too far to one side.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...narrowly. They're right that a customer doesn't "own" the CD she bought -- it's not hers to pass on, unless she specifically pays for that additional right (via royalty). In the same way, she doesn't "own" the CD she bought, so she shouldn't get to do whatever she likes with it. I propose that the record industry charge a per minute per person fee on anything it owns. Obviously, we would need new equipment that securely keeps track of what music who plays for how long (with how many other people in the room), and, too, who that music belongs to. Obviously, too, we need to outlaw all the old equipment, since htey become, effectively, circumvention devices under the DMCA. To pay for all these new laws -- er, to help fund the campaigns to pass them -- we can enlist the likes of Sony and so forth, who would be all too happy to resupply the world with all the equipment we thought we had already (but which has now become illegal.)
Just think of it as a very old car you're not allowed to use anymore because of new emissions standards -- only instead of protecting our environment this time, we're protecting our record indus--er, starving musicians. (who get one half of one penny for each minute of each song of theirs you listen to -- cheap? it's a bargain at twice the price!!)
This means I would get money every time someone re-sells the CD, right? I mean, I have as much legal right to do so.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Apparently, Mr. Green doesn't know the difference between a hypothesis and established facts. A professional journalist ought to know the difference and clearly indicate it in his writing. (His "according to the music industry" qualification only applies to the subsequent dollar amount.)
I'd propose an alternative hypothesis to the music industry's self-serving pronouncements, so uncritically cited as fact by Mr. Green: there is a limit to how interested people are in getting new music, and they can get the standard commercial stuff through more-and-more radio stations, on air, on cable, and on line.
By way of example, I know I have largely stopped buying CDs. I have all the stuff I really care about in legally purchased CDs (a few hundred), and for the rest, I mostly listen to the radio. Why would I want to pay $15-$20 for music CDs? If the prices came down to $3-$5 per CD, maybe I'd find it more convenient than the radio again. Until then, no thanks.
well. thats. just. great.
so now, the RIAA/MPAA is going to have more ammunition in the War Against Piracy(tm). So now, not only will they be able to justify the royalties paid for every piece of recordable digital meda sold, they plan on charging money for used cd's sold. What next? A premium paid per gigabit of broadband data transferred to make up for P2P file sharing?
Im definately not the first person to say this, but "Something ought to be done." It's pretty damn rediculous when we hear things like: "One proposed remedy being debated by record label executives is federal legislation requiring used-CD retailers to pay royalties on secondary sales of albums." Well, thats nice; im glad that the record label executives are able to decide federal legislation for us now.
just my $.02
because there's no good music being released anymore.
I know that a few years ago when I lived in austin tx, a major label (warner, I believe) threatened to stop selling their music to a very large indie record store (chain of one) if they continued to sell used music. Management looked at their used sales profits vs their profits from the sales of the new CDs from this label... and gave them the finger, and started buying anything they need from that label from a distro house instead of direct (5% difference in price).
Less than a year later, the new regional sales rep came to their buyers trying to convince them to host in-stores and buy direct again.
Seems to me that someone in management accidentally sent their wishlist to the PR dept.
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
We might as well make it illegal to sell used cars. After all, poor Detroit goes to a lot of trouble to make those new cars, far more than the recording industry does when they just stamp out CD's and run funny acounting practices to cheat the artists.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Any reproduction of a copyrighted-work will constitute grounds for civil suits with fines and lawyer fees and so on...
Why should it stop with pre-owned CD's? Aren't the lyrics copyrighted? Isn't the score for the music itself copyrighted?
What's to prevent their taking us to court for merely humming a copyrighted work?
The new big brother Mssrs. Ashcroft and Ridge are creating would excel at tuning in to our barely-audible humming of copyrighted works. With the right kind of software you'd get busted every time.
Indeed, with the advent of immersive virtual reality, where our every thought is analyzed for use as input, the mere recollection of more than three adjacent musical notes in a copyrighted work would spell disaster! It would constitute an unauthorized digital-reproduction of the artist's (read recording label's) property and immediately flagged as such.
And why should that stop with music? Literature, software, porn... it's hard to see how we would be able to get through a moment let alone a day without unlawfully summoning somebody else's intellectual property.
Copyright has to die.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
The focus on the used-CD market comes at a time when new-CD sales continue to stagnate in the United States. Total sales last year were about $13 billion, unchanged from 2000.
Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year.
Hunh? If sales remain the same from one year to the next, how have Sales have been hurt? Does the record industry actually think that everybody who pirates or shares music would actually buy a copy of everything that they listen to? I think they would - if a CD cost $2 instead of $16.99 and Musicians got a bigger cut of the dough!
Used CDs are exchanged/sold between friends, co-workers, fellow students, etc. Sure, a used store makes it easy to find things, but a large portion of the exchange of used CDs goes on unseen.
If something along these lines were implemented to increase used CD sales, I would propose a sort of P2P network of people to exchange used CDs with the same sort of selection. Similar to an eBay system, the network would simply deal with used CDs. All that needs to be done is connect someone who wants a particular CD with someone who wouldn't mind selling the particular CD, and bam, the used CD store is eliminated from the equation, and the RIAA can't get in the way.
"In an attempt to combat the growing problem of children listening to used CDs the record industry today recommended a 'Used CD Tax'. An additional 50% tax should be applied to the sale of all used CDs. Similar actions have been taken for alchohol and tabacoo, but this is the first such action that confronts this growing problem." A.P.
"Kids these days are beginning to buy used CDs at a younger and younger age. This is depriving me.....I mean.....the artists of their well deserved income," said Harry Buttes, V.P. of Money Grubbing at Great Tune$ Record$.
Let me get this straight: If I buy a Sony CD and take it home, then put it in my Sony CD duplicator in my Hi-Fi system and make a copy (without the track I despise) on special audio CDR media that Sony gets an extra royality payment for, they also deserve yet another royality if I sell someone else the original album? Yea, that seems fair.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Just one more thing that I must add to my original post on this matter. It is high time that corporations STOP running to the federal government for new legislation every time something happens in the market that lowers their profits. And it is high time that the federal government pass a law banning laws to protect the profits of corporations (with the exception of the original copyright, trademark and patent laws, which provide quite enough protection anyway). There is no such thing as a right to profit. When a corporation's profits decline, they should figure out ways to compete through better products, higher efficiency, simply better marketing. Setting costs, for example, is a part of marketing, and I believe the music industry in particular should lower the prices of new CDs. If a new CD cost only five bucks more than a used one, many people would say, "Oh, it's only five bucks more, I'll just get the new one." Instead, new CDs are priced outrageously, and when people don't buy, the music industry runs crying to the federal government.
If something isn't done to stop this trend, we'll soon find ourselves paying taxes to corporations for the use of every product we own and have paid for.
When are these guys going to get a clue?"
These guys have a clue with one overridding imperative: profit. It may be that with the internet and the indie scene they see further than you give them credit for and are doing what they are paid to do: make money.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
the software industry?
I am LICENSING music? Did I miss a memo?
Combine this with plugging the analog hole and hoo boy we're in trouble.
This is SO not going to happen.
If they are that worried about digital copying... and bear with me here, maybe they should just stop releasing material on media that can be digitally copied!
Seriously... I'm not trying to be a troll with this suggestion, it's just that I'm so sick to death of their attitude that I really think everyone would probably be better off going back to analog media. Those who aren't going to be such pain-in-the-buttocks about it can keep on using the digital media. The bottom line is that these media companies just aren't genuinely ready to truly embrace the technology, so why bother trying to use it? Someone once said trying to make a bit that is not copyable is like trying to make water that is not wet. Until they learn that lesson, I know I'd be a lot happier if they just took their bat and ball and went home.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Let's see...
A group imposes an arbitrary fee on a transaction that they don't have anything to do with...
I seem to remember something like that from high school history class...what was it...
A-ha! It's called a TAX!
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
as well as promoting piracy by allowing consumers to buy, record and sell back discs while retaining their own digitally pristine copies.
I've been in dire enough straits that I've had, on more than one occasion, to go through my collection and decide whether that rare Stereolab single was worth more than rent (arghh!). Any place I've ever been, $3 per full-length album was pretty damn good; most of the time it was $2.00 or $2.50. That's one damned expensive way of ripping MP3s and screwing Emimem over, even if you figure that the pirate (ahem) bought the damned thing used. And if there's even one scratch, forget it. And we all know how pristine our CDs stay, right?
On another note, I've recorded my own CD (acoustic guitar sadboy emo-folk), and I made 500 copies. I sold a few, have a lot more sitting around my apartment, and every now and then I'll come across a copy in a used CD store. I can't even begin to tell how thrilling it is to see this. I've come across so many wonderful and amazing albums in used CD stores that I either would never have been able to afford new, or else would never have thought to try, or else have never been able to find anywhere else. (If anyone can point me to a copy of Lotion's third album, let me know.)
My point is that if someone was to do this nasty pirate thing -- buy it, rip MP3s, then sell it back -- I think it would almost be like catch-and-release fishing: enjoy the fun, and make sure it's there for the next person too. And I'd still be thrilled to see a copy in a used CD store. I'm not proud. :-)
Carousel is a lie!
They should have the RIAA next to the definition of "petty" in the dictionary. This is the worst kind of penny-pinching mentality there is.
This is the same kind of mentality Microsoft has employed in the EULA's and their bullying of eBay to stop selling old copied of Windows.
The RIAA is trying to get blood out of a stone. Why in God's name would a profit-concious CD retailer go out of his way to line the RIAA's pockets for transactions on which they should have no right to get money on.
If I buy a CD, don't I theoretically own the right to listen the music until I should choose to sell it to somebody else? Why should they get a cut out of every transaction? That's like Ford charging me if I decide to get a cut out of me should I decide to sell my fomerly new car to a used car store. This starts down a really slippery slope. What if I decide to sell old furniture, an old computer, dishes, clothes, hell, what if I decide to donate my old clothes to the Salvation Army? Should the Gap get a cut of that too?
The RIAA should just stop being so damn greedy and understand that their business model is based largely on giving away music so that they won't make an optimal profit the way other businesses do. They shouldn't be trying to squeeze money out of places they have no right to.
This space left intentionally blank.
... when there is something worth buying.
Occasionally, I go in to the used CD retailer in my local area to see if there is anything from my mis-spent youth. Usually not.
I don't bother with too much new stuff. Boy, there's a lot of Sh..stuff being pumped out.
Same for movies. The theaters don't get my money.
Fluff and more Sh..stuff.
Waiting for LOTR to be available for rental, though.
Boycott the RIAA and MPAA!? I'm WAY ahead.
Today, the RIAA was granted patent number 8,675,309 for their ingenious work. The patent covers "sounds or one or more frequencies arranged to form a series of simple and compound sounds, sometimes called 'notes.'"
The patent goes on to claim inventions such as "rhythm" and "scales." It even suggests a name for these strings of notes, "music."
The RIAA wants to assure the public that it plans to license the "music" under RAND (reasonable and non-discrimanatory) conditions.
The more obnoxious the RIAA and its minions are, the sooner the mainstream consumer will revolt and get them back into line. Rather than die by a thousand cuts without retaliation, I'd much prefer to take one solid punch in the mouth and then win the ensuing fight.
is that it really does help to expose the greed of the music industry. And this is useful in defending against them in other efforts they have to constrain
the consumer.
I really do believe they are shooting themselves in the foot in their assumption of associating the consumer to being theives.
And didn't MS get themselves busted in an act of harming themselves in order to constrain others?
"Marshal: All Rise. The Federal Court for the Western District is now in session. The Honorable Wilfred M. Impatient presiding."
"Court Reporter: Docket number 31337, RIAA vs. Guys Trying to Make a Living, Inc."
"Judge: Alright, let's hear it."
"Defense Attorney: First sale doctrine."
"Judge: Case dismissed (gavel). When's lunch again?"
"Marshal: All Rise..."
The article makes this ridiculous statement without offering any kind of proof. We may know this is a lie, but the typical reader of the article may not know.
The article also quotes a record store owner whining about how they can't compete with the used CD stores on price with new CD's costing as much as $18 and used CD's having the same sound quality as new ones.
No shit. We've been saying CD's have been priced too high all along. Message to recored industry, "When the competition beats you on price and matches you on quality, the obvious solution is to lower your prices. This is true in all industries." BTW, I was referring to to digital quality, not music quality. I can hardly stand most of the shit they try to pass off as music these days (am I getting old?).
-- Will program for bandwidth
If I win the lottery, I'm going to open a library with every CD that I can think of in it. It's free, all I ask is that you return it in a day or two. That should be enough time to 'listen' to any CD. Or am I describing any college campus?
On second thought, if I win the lottery, I'm going to join the Republican party, hire guards to keep the likes of you away, and get some lawyers. And you should be aware that my lawyers will be on your ass in a flash. I don't know what for, but they'll be on you.
Come on guys, wake up. I hate to sound like I'm defending these people but a car and a CD are not the same thing.
If you can find a way to buy a car and sell it the next day while still keeping an exact duplicate for yourself, please let me know.
Mint condition. Only 10 kilograms of sloppy wet cowshit per CD. This week only!
J.
I'd just buy the CD new, rip it, shrinkwrap it (or not, depending on how dumb the cd store is) and return it for a full refund.
What's next? the RIAA demanding royalties on shrinkwrap?
Actually, I shouldn't say that. Next I know it, it'll be true
Come on! If I buy a used CD, it's because I want a copy on CD, and find it wasteful and extravagant to buy a brand-new copy when older copies are going spare. By the time a CD has hit the used bin, I could have downloaded it a thousand times from any of the various music-sharing sources. I hardly need to pay $7 to buy a CD, rip it, and sell it back for $3. That's $4 I never needed to spend.
The issue, as always, is about price fixing. Used CDs, like their digitally-shared cousins, compete with their still-shrinkwrapped brethren to drive down the price from the ever-encroaching $20 mark. The RIAA is not an "industry trade group" - it's a trust by any reasonable interpretation of the Sherman Act. Record executives deciding anything together - especially legislative agendas and lobbying efforts - should be illegal!
Right...
The large scale recording industry as we now know it started in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
In times when per-capits musical skills were far higher than now, published sheet music was all the rage. The publishers would hire a singer and pianist to appear at every music store to promote the latest offerings. At that time, the product being sold was just the composition - lyrics, melody, arrangement, chords etc.
Later, as mass-production of recordings became viable, this industry changed accordingly, recruiting the best exploitable artists. At that time, many sheet music printers and performing singers/musicians found themselves out of work, as new technology replaced old.
As for mass-communicating the offerings, remember that Buggles song - 'Video Killed the Radio Star' - need I say more? The technology of filmclip production and the rise of colour TV saw a decline in radio's popularity. Ditto for cinemas, as video distribution has partly taken over the movie market.
But society has proved itself capable of making meaningful adaptations to new advances in technology. I suggest that the whole system of private intellectual property ownership was great at the time, but has been made redundant by the explosion of this new technology for cheap efficient distribution.
I now suggest that the recording/publishing industry, as we've known it for a century, is now obsolete - and look forward to seeing the wonderful cultural adaptations that will come in its wake.
The struggle by the recording industry to keep its obsolete business model in place makes about as much sense as ferry operators trying to charge a royalty for everyone skipping the ferry and using the new bridge.
My suggestion to the recording industry would be to start winding up operations, and investing heavily in internet infrastructure, especially broadband. You'll get your goddam money, guys, but you're going to have to adapt!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
That anybody selling CDs at a garage sale has to pay royalties? This is actually a good thing, because the Labels are just digging themselves deeper and deeper with not only public opinion, but their credibility within the legal system as well... With any luck, they'll think of something even more assnine than this and they'll get smacked down hard.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The article says "A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, said it is especially concerned that many used CDs are being bought by people who "rip" the music using widely available CD-burner devices, then sell the used CDs back to the secondhand stores where they were originally purchased"
Don't these turkeys understand that copy protection makes that situation worse?
Instead of buying a CD for $12 (giving the recording company its full entitlement), copying it, and then selling it back for $6, the smart cookies will now buy a copy-protected CD, rip it using whatever technique works on that particular system -- then take it back and demand a refund because it doesn't play properly on their equipment.
Instead of earning the full royalty on the CD sale the recording industry loses every penny!
And with such shortsightedness being demonstrated on an almost daily basis they wonder why they're losing money??
1) The weakening of the doctrine of first sale: Selling used records and cds have already been deemed by the court to be subject to the doctrine of first sale. To whit, the record companies can't get their piece of the pie twice because after the first sale it's not theirs any longer.
IANAL (yet--planning to be for just this kinda reason) so I'm not sure whether the law would supplant prior case law, or must respect prior case law.
2) The tacit assumption by the news media that the drop in record sales is due to piracy. This is certainly a grave problem. In this article, as well as many others floating around these days, the newsies attribute the downturn in CD sales to piracy. While RIAA and their little friends will have us beleive this, there are other things upon which this can be blamed, namely the lower amount of discretionary money for luxury items due to a lower rate in employment (hmmm....not a big stretch, that one) and of course the recent rise in CD prices. I can't seem to find the story about that one, but it was linked here.
This is a real problem in light of public perception and our fearful leaders in the HOR and Senate are likely to beleive this FUD. There's just no accurate way to attribute a drop in CD retail sales--it could be any or all of the above factors (or any other thing, such as market demographics, the proliferation of pre-fab boy-bands, resurgence of popularity of indie-pop, et cetera, ad nauseam)
Watch for item #2--you'll see it everywhere and it is quite dangerous for those of us that beleive we own the music we buy; I tend to remind people of this one whenever I can. BTW the economic argument works well in Republican company--ask them if they are sure about propping up internal markets in a recession then lower the farm subsidy boom on them. Demos seem more amenable to first-sale argument.
Protege Posterioram Tuam
It seems that the RIAA are trying to tell us that we're not *buying* the music, only renting or leasing it.
;-)
Under this proposed new system, when you sell your lease, the new tenant has to pay a fee to the RIAA for the privelege.
Okay, if that's the way they want it, perhaps it's time we stood up for our tenant's rights.
When a CD stops working (like the plumbing or the heating in your rented apartment) then it must be the job of the RIAA (landlord) to put it right -- at no cost to you!
If the RIAA wants to collect what amounts to a security deposit from the new tenant when a CD is resold, then they are surely obliged to refund the component of your initial purchase that represented that same security deposit.
If we could establish a precedent that the music was being leased and that there were analogies with other lease contracts then we'd open up a whole new front on which to teach these profiteering fools a lesson or two
You'd be surprised what Congress would and has fallen for. You've gotta love this sentence from the article:
How far gone is our government when record label executives are debating whether or not to have federal legislation enacted?!
I remember reading years ago that Garth Brooks wanted to do this, and I thought it was assinie. Think about it, why would you pay roalities on something that's already had royalties paid for? Makes no sense.
If I sell a CD to my friend, and a week later he sells it to his brother....do "I" get royalties?
If so, do I have to give a cut to the RIAA?
"Finally.. a way to recoup our losses from those dirty people who use P2P software to pirate our music! This will teach them!" (/end quote from Hilary Rosen)
;)
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Jefferson was in France during that time and Madison is known as the father of the constitution.
Go back to school and play again latter.
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
No Taxation Without Equal Representation.
Honestly, I would like to take a poll, on the street's of America, and ask the people if they'd grant a law like this to be passed for the benefits that they would gain. I can see it now, copyright will finally attain it's glory of creating tremendous creation everywhere. We will have more entertainment, on more mediums, doing more things. This is the wave of the future.
*coughs*
I thought this was one of the more interesting paragraphs in the article:
Allen said the industry's target audience has changed in recent years from college students trying to build inexpensive record collections to mostly male music fans between the ages of 18 and 34 looking for out-of-print and hard-to-find copies.
You'd think in this day and age, it would be easy enough to keep in print (even with just a small stock) every CD ever made. But it doesn't seem to be working out that way, huh?
The situation is just as bad with books. You'd think some print-to-order system would be a great service for rare and less popular books. Of course, they would be more expensive than the mass-produced versions. But I'd rather spend a few more bucks, and be able to order a copy easily, than hunt through various used-book stores.
We have all this information technology, but we're not putting it to its best use.
Oh I like this part:
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year."
Of course we should obviously trust a number given out by the "National Federation of the Phonographic Industry". Not!
At US $18.00 a pop I'm going to look to used. That's simply too much cash for the value. If new CD's cost $7.00, about what I'm paying for used, then yes I'll start buying new. But only if I can rip them onto my computer. Actually give me Mini-CD's with just the music in 192/44. With an MP3 player in my car, my book bag, on my computer, traditional CD's are a bulky antiquated burden I'm forced to rip to a usable format. I can't really hear the difference between a ripped mp3 at 192Kb and a redbook CD anyway.
Better though, every member of RIAA should join in a unified website and allow downloads at say $40.00 a month, maybe cap at 2 -3gigs a month. Fools, your making little money from the technically savvy sector now vs turning that same segment into rabid users of your services. Try capitulating, throw in the towel and hire some devs to build-out your next gold mine. bah. They don't want to listen.
yea if you listen to the shitty radio. PLENTY of great music is being released daily. Independant labels like Subpop and Barsuk, put out some fantastic bands. another label, Vagrant Records, great rock and roll label. if you're gonna make a broad statement about the entire music scene, get the facts straight.
several executives who said they favor the establishment of an agency that would exert a flat royalty rate - say, 6 percent or so
I wonder what percentage the artists will get of that...
I'm never going to buy a CD again if they do that, not only am I going to take all the mp3's of artists I want I'm going to take all the one's I don't want as well!
i don't see honda, ford, chevrolet, etc complaining about how used car sales are cutting into their profits ...
... and in the commercials, you can see his new car lot right next door
... hell, i see the complete opposite. every night at 11:30, i see some hokey cowboy trying to sell me used cars
--m
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year."
I see. So now the NEWS media doesn't even question what caused the sales decline. It is presented as a *fact* that is was piracy. What a crock.
Sorry... That's just my initial reaction to this story.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
in Canada, at least. We have to pay 7% tax on all items purchased through or from a business. On used cars, less than a year old, we have to pay the 7%, plus an 8% provincial tax. Seems like a rip off to me. How can they justify collecting taxes on a single item more than once?!?!?
While I agree with the theory of capitalism, it's obviously not what's happening in the US.
In theory, consumers are supposed to have an active role in determining the price point for a product. If it's priced too high, they'll go elsewhere. Sales drop. Prices drop in response. Sales rise. Price stabilizes. However, in the music industry, there's no where else for consumers to go.
Until used CDs and mp3 came along. But instead of listening to the consumer, the recording industry wants to criminalize any action that doesn't support their supply/demand curve. And when consumers have no input, then it's no longer capitalism. It's just plain greed.
The skilled trades unions that build houses will be petitioning the government for a royalty on each home that is sold in the used market.
"Our craftsmen put their heart and soul into creating these homes, it's only fair that each person that enjoys the product of that labor pays their fair share" said an industry spokesperson.
Sheesh.
Collecting royalties on used CD sales is insane. First of all, I don't think they have the right to. Once I own something, I should be able to do what I want with it (like, when I own a gun, I should be able to shoot people with it...err...) But come on, I can play my CD, give it away, drop it in the trash can, or sell it, can I? All those things don't generate extra copies and hence don't harm anybody (though playing could potentially harm the neighbors' ears).
Secondly, it's simply not feasable. Do they really think they can control everybody who sells their CDs? Of course, there are central places for used CD sales, like music stores, second hand markets, websites, etc. that could be located and ``taxed''. So maybe this is just a plot to push second-hand retailers out of business by impairing their ability to compete with person to person sales?
---
I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
--Ok so think about this for a second. If every end-user of a CD pays royalties, then that implies that even after you re-sell a CD, you have the right to keep the music (you're just selling the physical disc I guess). So... you buy a CD, make a copy, then sell it to your friend. Your friend makes a copy and sells it to someone else. This continues on and on until everyone who wants the CD has it.
Now look what happened! Everyone has the CD, but purely at royalty price (which I'm betting is a mere fraction of the retail CD price). HAHAHA!! The record labels will have just unwittingly killed their own profits! Isn't greed a wonderful thing?
-T
When are these guys going to get a clue? ...
When Microsoft respects our freedom
Hi :) This is some text.
It's time to merge the needs of the content industry with that of the containment industry - that is, of the RIAA members with the government. Towards that end, henceforth all playback equipment will record each time a content item is accessed, and a charge therefore will be presented on the accessor's next monthly federal return, to be split between the feds and the consumer-feeders. Then statistical correlations will be made between specific content ingestion and later anti-social acts, discounts given if those acts are of minimal actual impact but further the goals of the containment crew by creating the appearance of vast, looming criminal potential, and then apprehensions practiced first against those not credited with discounts (since government credibility is furthered among consumers by leaving live evil out there somewhere), followed by occassional samples from the propaganda-enhancing group drawn by lottery, so that "Progress is being made."
Studies show that most people listen to a new recording 12 times before putting it away. It's only fair that the recording they listen to 1200 times end up costing them 100 times as much, or else musicians will not have been rewarded in true proportion to their contribution to the consumer's consumptive life.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
all get together and form their own company to sell their music! I can't imagine that these musicians want all this nonsence! I mean really, what is the RIAA going to think of next? Charging every time you play a CD?!?
I was always against the distribution of pirated music, but if this goes through, I will not buy another CD again. Ever. Instead I will get ALL my music for free, the way that I always thought was wrong, but is starting to look like a good idea. I currently don't have an mp3 collection, but I can guarantee the I will. Also my CD burner will actually get used for more than just backing up data, and making cd's to distribute. It will be used to burn that CD that I just had to have, but I couldn't buy due to my boycott of the recording industry. I can see them losing more money from this than they gain. Oh well, since when did the industry actually make sense?
Have they no clue? No grasp? Don't they realize they're just further alienating their own customers?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
vinyl doesn't last long enough to resell =P
sig - .
You know that's a really interesting piece of information considering that Napster was released to the public in 1999.So cd sales have not been effected at all by music "piracy" ,the music industry says so, and the sales figures prove it.By the way cd sales in 1999 were 12.8 billion, and in 1998 cd sales were 11.4 billion.
Market data information on years 98 and 99 were obtained from:
http://www.riaa.org/MD-US-3a.cfm
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
i say just copy those fuckers, put on napster like things and take some more money away from them.
.. when you can just download the MP3's and be done with it? ;)
Don't they get royalties the first time these are sold? Next, auto makers will begin complaing about used car sales.
It's the law, and there's no ambiguity at all when it comes to physical distribution media like a CD. They're wrong, they lose, and someone should sue the MF's to get the court to order them to quit trying to intimidate anyone who wants to sell used CD's.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
OK, so they would like to get their royalties 1.5 times. Good for them, but besides the fact that we all think its wrong (I'm not disagreeing), there are other fundemental problems that it seems they haven't thought out yet.
If I got to a CD resale store and sell them my CD (for them to re-sell), how in the world would the RIAA know about it? Would all CD-carrying stores be required to be audited, and all of their sales tracked and recorded? That is the only way (that I see) the RIAA would be able to keep track of resold CD's.
I'm not sure about you, but if I owned a store, I wouldn't want to keep track of all my sales for auditing purposes, especially if the RIAA wants it that way. Could it be that anywhere selling CD's would become like a pawn shop is, and be subject to monitoring by the police? Then entrapment could become a problem.
Maybe I'm stretching it too far, but I don't think so. If you do, please let me know. Just my two cents.
People here on /. don't want good music.
They wan't good mass produced music.
You want to be led like sheep only you've realized the current sheperd wants to fuck you all.
There's plenty of good music out there, independent labels, clubs, "the net", old CD-s,
hell you can even pick up an instrument and play whatever you like.
But of course these methods require work, and it's harder to find communities to fit in where others share the same music tastes.
Choices, choices...
Any politician dumb enough to support this bill will get a swift kick in the ass the next election. Plus, it would be totally unenforceable. The only thing this will result in is pissing the audience off.
guilty by association.
If customer can't think of buying music w/o getting
pissed of , some of that ire will be directed at
muscians.
Not fair but an increasing chance they will get tarred with the same brush.
the Riaa, and mpaa: the new mob.
I know this simplifying things a bit, but they try to use these simplistic arguments all the time...
Either IP *is* property, or it *isn't*.
The RIAA and MPAA go to great lengths to equate IP with physical property. Like any other normal kind of property, if they sell it to me, then I now own it and should be able to sell it freely to who ever I choose. On the other hand, they are saying the IP is *not* like physical property - that they never actually sold me the CD and they can dicate use and profit from any resale. (As an aside, in this second scenario, if someone steals a CD, but doesn't listen to it, is it only theft of the actual plastic and packaging, but not of the IP?)
They shouldn't get to have it both ways...
Yes, IP *is* a different animal from actual "property". And if they want to attach a limited use agreement/contract to each CD then that should be within their rights, no matter how stupid that is -- but only if it's made very clear at the original time of purchase that I'm just borrowing the content and the CD is just a delivery device.
Go ahead, put a EULA into each of your CD's, but you have absolutely no right to try grandfathering any of the ones I've already bought. That would be theft - straight forward property theft in the old fashioned sense. And don't expect me to ever "rent" out one of your new fangled CD's unless (and only maybe) you considerably reduce the cost.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
There is no way to support this unqualified statement with data. There are many other valid explanations such as the economy, lack of new talent, increased prices, etc...
Where is the critical review of statements in modern reporting?
The income tax alone should suck enough to make you not want to live there. A long long time ago...
I worked in Portland OR and lived in Vancouver WA and I still had to pay income tax. WTF? Why? I used (round trip) 15 miles of tarmac per day, 5 times a week. My income tax came out to about 7K$ per year. That means I spent less on gas going to work than I did paying the tax driving to work.
That is some seriously fucked up stuff.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
if they're going to charge royalties on used cds, i'd damn well better get paid by the record companies when i sell the used cd to the used CD shop, too.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
If this goes through then they shouldn't have any problem with us making a copy and then selling it to the record store. After all, they'll still get their royalty...
This actually rewards the bad artists! If I buy a CD I like I keep it. If I hate it I trade it in on one I think I will like. So the artists I hate will be getting double royalty; while the artists I love will be getting a single royalty. Of all the totally f**ked up ideas I've ever heard that's the king!
Mind you the likelyhood of the royaties being fairly distributed by the record companies is minimal.
It would explain Kid A and Amnesiac assuming Radiohead got wind of this idea...
If it is no longer sold, they would have to find out how much it last sold for.
Theoretical conversation in a future world:
Clerk: "Yes Sir, that's right, we are selling the Gyspsy Kings Greatest Hits. You can buy it new for $15, or second hand for $12. Of course, since it originally sold for $35 we will have to charge you $3.50 royalty charge on the second hand recording"
Customer: "Gee, can I swap it for my 3 Doors CDs?"
Clerk: "Certainly sir. We pay $2 for second hand CDs, but have to pay $2.50 royalties. So you can hand over your CDs and get the second-hand Gyspy Kings recording for $17"
Your bridge vs. ferry analogy is a great one, I'll have to remember that one.
I've said it before: The RIAA and MPAA are sitting on a GOLD MINE of works that they could make even MORE billions off of if they'd just LET GO of their ridiculous ties to the past and take a step into the future.
How much would any of you pay per month for the ability to download any song or movie ever made and watch it at your convenience with NO strings attached? I don't know about many of you, but I'd pay anywhere from $9.95 to $29.95 for such a service, especially if the downloadable stuff was of high quality. A few million people paying that every month would keep Sony Music and the rest in deep cash for a long time to come, especially since they could absolutely junk any and all manufacturing and distribution fees. After all, we all know that the artist only gets a few pennies for each CD sold. The rest goes to distribution, manufacturing, etc. etc. Rip that out and profits can be maintained, while at the same time giving customers WHAT THEY WANT.
The overwhelming popularity of Napster was NOT totally due to it being free. I would've PAID for such a service had one actually been available. I wanted the convenience of getting EXACTLY the song I wanted with no extraneous fluff. Who actually WANTS all the songs on a common CD these days? Even "Greatest Hits" CD's invariably include a few duds. Why pay for songs you don't want to listen to? And singles are a horrendous idea, being that they're only marginally cheaper than full albums but only contain one song. Better to get the album with at least two songs you like than to purchase two singles.
The music industry must adapt to the new distribution models available to them. This means letting go of their obsession with control, control, control over everything. The very LACK of control is a GOOD THING when it comes to the new distribution model. All they have to do is make it somewhat affordable AND extremely convenient and people WILL use it. Of course, some piracy will always exist, but if you make it easy to stay legal, folks will do that just because it's easier than stealing.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It sounds to me like the record companies are trying to compete with the government in the stealing game.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
The industry worries that the expanding used market is cannibalizing new-CD sales
No pun intended to present day artists, but they suck.
I'm 17, i.e. a 'late '90s eraly '00s guy, and i find '80s music much better.
Sure Nelly Furtado, ATB and a couple of others are good, but nowadays there aren't any artists as good as Marvin Gaye or U2 or the BeeGee's.
I'm not surprised people rather buy old used CDs then modern music.
And if current artists continue loosing talent, then i'm sorry but used CD sales will grow and new CD sales will drop.
(Again no pun intended to those that actually listen to present day manufactured music, that includes not just britney but also limp bizkit, linkin park, ashanti, J.Lo and p.diddy IMHO )
<Customer> I'd like to return this album, because it does not play in my computer.
<Clerk> How old is your computer?
<Customer> I bought it here back in 2001.
<Clerk, pointing at fine print on receipt> Sir, our store policy holds that you may not return any media items on the grounds of incompatibility, as we only endorse devices released after 2003. May I interest you in one of our new Integrated Media Stations? There's a 25% discount if you trade in any pre-2003 general-purpose PC.
<Customer> Er.. no thanks, I'm happy with what I have. So there's no way that I can return this?
<Clerk> No, but you can also have your old system overhauled by our technicians for a nominal fee. This includes labor, the cost of the new BIOS/DRM controller, and an upgrade to Microsoft .NET Workstation 2004...
Valenti said the same thing about DVD media. Something along the lines of DVD media devaluing movies.
Open digital media with a long lifetime *will* get used over and over again. Older analog media required new purchases for the best experience. Today you can find a scratched CD in the dumpster, clean it and get that new CD experience, sans liner notes and such.
Tough spot for them right now. The big bucks only happen with high distribution. The higher the distribution the quicker the value drops.
Too bad those pesky CD's don't just decay.
Really its their own fault.
They have saturated their market with increasingly bland albums. Killed radio at the same time. Nice...
The trading of production values for profit has made many buyers reluctant to buy new. Why bother if 2 out of 15 tracks are trash? This more than any other reason is why lots of people are looking used CD over a little more closely.
They know we all want to purchase music online in unfettered formats, yet they killed their one chance to get that done. (Napster.)
One common thread to all their actions seems to be preserving that annuity model. Each hit needs to be the gift that keeps on giving.
As they continue to saturate their back catalog, look for them to become more desperate as their overall sales continue to fall.
I am not sorry at all. Our goverment should not be either.
Blogging because I can...
Probably 50% of the population can create music as good or better than the entertainment cartel, so why not just make our own and freely distribute it? This is possible because a $2000(US) computer could do the recording--in fact a $1000 should do it. Yeah they'll also have to buy instruments, however most anyone interested in music already owns them--how many people do you know that own a guitar? No need for the thousand dollar per hour music studio and big label execs.
This will do several things:
eBay would be an excellent target for this proposed measure. The RIAA would simply force them to add a fee to each CD transaction which would cover the "royalties". This is because, like Napster, eBay has a central organization which can be legally targeted.
Now, the obvious remedy to this is a decentralized P2P system, where there is no single entity to attack. However, eBay provides certain CRITICAL services without which buying online would be much less appealing. When somebody you bought from over a P2P network rips you off, what are you going to do? Leave negative feedback? Get their account banned? Who will ban them? People are willing to buy things from complete strangers on eBay because the central corporation provides a measure of control, reliability and trust to the buyer and seller. Without that, you send your $ and take your chances.
Freedom: "I won't!"
When the price of used CDs suddenly go up $2 or so and the sales clerk tells the customer "the money's going to the record industry, they bought themselves a law... if you don't like it, call your Congressperson..." the public will get the idea very, very suddenly.
While Joe Sixpack wouldn't recognize "first sale" doctrine... he knows that once one sells something to somebody, that if that person resells it, he has no right to a profit from the item. He's going to start asking loudly and nastily just why the record industry gets to play by a different set of rules.
You think piracy is big-time NOW? When nobody has any further respect for record industry copyright, I predict that ripped CDs will become far more popular than ones purchased in stores.
This is going to piss off a lot of musicians as well. If one doesn't like music, one doesn't try to do it for a living. Once the musician finds out that the record industry is collecting royalties for the second and subsequent resales of a CD that is being passed along to him as a customre and that he will never see a single cent of profit from this, he's going to go ballistic... and many will suddenly realize that with CD-on-demand (try Ampcast ), they don't need the record industry for international distribution.
As for political impact... watch the Democratic Party stampede in all directions away from Hollywood as the GOP finds they've been handed a new campaign issue... they've been pissed off for years about the fact that the entertainment industry never considered the GOP worth buying.
I think the record industry is shooting itself in the head with this law. If anyone knows anybody at MPAA, tell them about this wonderful new idea and to make sure movies are included as well.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I wonder what kind of song Woody Guthrie would write in response to all this.
I wrote a song
And put it to disk
Initial sales
Were mighty brisk
But soon sales
Dropped drastically
And I suspected
It was piracy
I'll sue, I'll sue
Yes that's what I'll do
I'll raise a hellatious
Hullabaloo
Until my recepts are
Out the wazoo
I take legal action
And sue 'till I'm blue
(Sorry Woody)
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
GM has decided to demand for $1000 from the sale of every used car.
Calvin Klien wants 10 bucks ever time someone buys used jeans at a Goodwill.
A representative from the IRS commented on the record: "Just who the fuck do these guys at the RIAA think they are? US?
First, as an AC posted below, this post was lifted in its entirety from kuro5hin.
Second, Jefferson had nothing to do with writing the US Constitution.
Just one sensible observation here.....which I hope these morons would realize!!
Do auto makers get a cut when a used car is sold, to designers get a fee from 2nd hand stores, and do manufacturers get money from ANY garage sale?!?!
The answer to that is a big fat NO !!!!!
Time for the children just getting out of college, going into the music biz, to get their heads out of Hillary Rosens BIG FAT BUTT !!
I denmark this is normal, about 2usd pr. CD and Yes its not fair to Computer guy that is only making "backup" copys of software, however it keeps the artist happy, and the industri of the back in most cases...
Mostly the later. Pop may be manuer, but it is easier to filter out than rap.
KoRn FOREVER!!!!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Jefferson was against copyrights and patents. He only agreed to a very limited term because he saw the greater good in crafting the constitution as written. Like the slavery clause. It was immoral, but sometimes you gotta put up with shit to make a steak.
I think you meant someone else.
If you think about how much $1 USD gets taxed in its lifetime, it's mind-boggling. The Man takes 1/3 of my income, then he takes 5.5% more when I take the rest of that income and blow it at newegg.com, who then uses it to pay their employees, etc.
It's a vicious cycle, and since the Music Industry is struggling so much (Eminem's disc gets pushed up due to mp3 pirating, then leads the sales charts 3 weeks in a row), they've got to get every dollar possible. The cost of yachts and country clubs doesn't stay the same, you see.
Once I buy something, I should be able to do whatever I want with it assuming I'm not breaking any laws. If by some strange occurance do CD's get more royalties extracted during a reselling, then I'd change my used CD store to a "take the discs you want for free, but you must donate $5/disc to the guy playing his guitar in the corner" model. There, I'm no longer selling CD's. It's like the baseball model where you can trade a guy for "a player to be named later", or the infamous "past considerations" deal used in the NFL up until 2 years ago.
Rolls states that if the car is not on their list then it is not a Rolls. A guy I know got bitten by that in the 80's. He knew on the the best body men in Chicago. He found a burnt Rolls in a junkyard and restored it without ever thinking. [It looked great!] He took it to the local Rolls dealership for a tune-up. They looked at the VIN number and said: "this car is not a Rolls and does not exist".
He could not even get sparkplugs for it. He could not sell it to anybody who wanted to acutually use it. It was junk!
"On the contrary, they've gone out of their way to make sure that folks know they don't give a damn about that polycarbonate disc you've got there, they're talking about what's encoded on it."
Lets assume you've never been to slashdot and don't know IP from TCP/IP.
Okay, pick up a music CD in the music store (easier, find the closest one to you).
Read all the fine print. ALL the fine print.
Tell me where they've made it clear that its not my property. Guess what...you can't.
There is no EULA on any of the music CD's I have. A reasonable person would say they own that CD and can do with it as they please (within the limits of the law, obviously).
Now, the LAW doesn't say anything about not owning the CD and the music on it; that's a creation of the record companies. But they haven't made that clear.
THEREFORE, as far as I know, I own the rights to do with this CD as I please, including selling it to anyone I want without any special encumberances by the copyright holder.
Seriously, where have they made it clear?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
possibly the the reasoning behind this is that over 57% of americans do not buy their cd's, they download them, and since they haven't been able to shut down p2p, they're going after the resailers, sad but true
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
... to make me download music w/o paying for it.
Either I let them play games with fairness and my personal rights, or I break the law and fight the evil power.
Can you believe that a year ago, I wouldn't download Napster because I didn't wanna be unfair to the music industry?
"Derp de derp."
The sad fact is that the indie stuff sucks even more than the RIAA crap.
I put this CD on consignment (or sell outright) at my local used record store.
Someone comes in and purchases my CD. (thank you!)The RIAA wants a royalty on this sale.
I am not employed, retained, on in any way affillated with the RIAA.
Why are they paid for the blank CD-R? The secondary sale? They cannot recoup money from me! I owe them nothing. They are stealing from ME.
As I have said time and time again, the RIAA, the MPAA, The Big 5, the Industry, whatever you want to call them, they are after control over creation and distribution of content.
If the abillity of individuals to create and distribute independent content is stifled, the 1st amendment is GONE.
Remember this saying? Freedom of the press belongs to those that own one.
Don't let what has already happened to Radio, TV, and Newspapers happen to music too.
I want to know what added value the record companies are going to provide for the royalty fees on used CD's? They can't think we are willing to pay extra royalties without some benefit in return. What are they going to do to make that used CD worth 6% more?
- Eric, InvisibleRobot.com
Sounds like extortion to me.
I'll keep this short:
Other posters have said this but I haven't much in the way of solutions to this problem. What problem?
Let's say duplication costs $1, new CDs (new releases) $20, used CDs (new releases) $13 and I get $6 for selling it.
Math says I spent $21 to make a copy and I got $6 selling it used = I'm out $15 instead of $20. What I did was totally illegal but just *so* easy. Or, I buy a used CD instead of new - I'm now out only $14-$6=$8 per CD.
If I remember my economics, this makes me feel a little richer. If I saved $100 though, I do NOT spend the whole thing on new CDs - I spend it on pizza, beer and way too much at the Torontozilla party. Even if we ignore this effect and pretend we put all our savings into more CDs, we are getting MANY more CDs for the same amount of cash.
So, I don't spend more money - but I'm getting more stuff. Who lost it? The members of the RIAA.
They have a legit problem here. Their product is insanely easy to copy - even my mom can do it. Adding the fact that people are buying less CDs just to replace their tapes... imagine where their sales estimates are in 5 years.
The RIAA is trying to solve a problem - let's assume they are going the wrong way. Their product is easy to copy and there is a large market for used product. A tax won't work. What will?
Ignore the inflated "piracy loss". Use your brain and solve the problem yourself - kudos to anyone who comes up with a fair solution... but in the absense of a fair one, the RIAA will take any solution.
Hey I will agree with the deal if for every royalty paid by user CD, the owner can grab a gun and blow the brains out one MIAA member. I will rather pay alqueda members than the MIAA RIAA or whatever their stupid acronym is.
The JZA
National Federation of the Phonographic Industry
I misread this as Pornographic Industry. It made me wonder: Someone who didn't know anything about the internet might reasonably assume, at first glance, that it was created as a place for free porn. I wouldn't be suprised if there's more piracy in the porn industry than any other one. Yet I don't hear Larry Flynt whining about lost revenue. Does anyone have any figures on this? It would seem like this is an actual real-life example that proves that piracy doesn't hurt sales. But then, is it even about loss of sales? Did the RIAA have to prove damages in the Napster case? I doubt it, since there really weren't any.
c-hack.com |
I will rather pay royalties to alqueida members than this people.
The JZA
this sounds like the same hillary rosen who stole 1981-1987.
6 percent isn't alot.... Although the price we pay letting the RIAA have this much power in congress is phenominal. Priceless in monitary terms. We can't let this happen. Get out the word. Don't let them do this to us.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
why don't you go back to woodstock ya hippie
California collects sales tax on any used item sold in a retail outlet (garage sales and non-retail person-to-person sales are exempt if the total is below a certain amount, something like $500). So we get double-taxed routinely. While it may well be unconstitutional, it's still state law. :(
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.
The RIAA is an illegal trust. However only the Attorneys General can bring an action against it/them. Petition your attorneys general. They took down big tobacco, MSFT is feeling their ire, bring it home to the RIAA.
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
First sale doctrine.
Fuck you RIAA.
:-)
If the recording industry expects to be able to argue that they "need" these royalties to make up for the people ripping the CD and then selling the original copy, then their collection of the fees eliminates them from pursuing possessors of the CD's contents but not the original CD.
I personally could care less if the record industry loses some of the fat that they gained complacently churning out over-priced low-quality merchandise. I certainly don't want any government enforced welfare for a multi-billion dollar industry. If they dont want people copying their files then they need to provide adequate copy-protection that doesn't prevent fair-use. If they can't do that it is not my or our government's problem. Trying to stick their hands in the pockets of students and small shop owners is one mroe example of why government should only be invoked to protect the consumer's intrests the coprporations must develop a viable strategy and product line or pass away so that the next innovator can show them how.
Plan:
/.) Inaction breeds ignorance and hypocracy.
1. Round up a group of friends and have everyone buy one CD, all different. (Legal)
2. Everyone rip their CD. (Legal)
3. Slap a bow and a loving note on each CD, and swap the gifts with a buddy, 1:1. (Legal)
4. Rip your new gift. (Legal)
5. Repeat.
Seems legal to me. And please, even if you don't do this, write to the RIAA.
http://www.riaa.org/Contact.cfm
Tell them what's wrong with their actions (in a civil fashion, friends - save the profanities for
e
Rock!
BS if it was burnt out he would have had to replace the engine. And who the hell rebuilds a car and then takes it to the dealership for new spark plugs?
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year. "
This is like Greenhouse gas, we all know its out there we just disagree on how much. $4.2 Billion? Not 6? or 3.1 or 2.8 or... Please this is an unmeasurable number.
With most papers owned or tied directly to the RIAA or MPAA we can expect more "advertising" and less objective news like this. Now Grandma will be out there saying how we need to do somthing about the kids today, stealing from the record companies.
My prediction...look for EULAs on CDs, DVDs and e-books.
The article says the "royalty" would be around 6 percent. On a $15.99 cd, that would be about 96 cents. This is more than it costs to manufacture the cd and case in the first place. If I'm not mistaken, that's even more than the cost of manufacturing the cd and jewel case, AND the royalties (hypothetically) paid to some of the _artists_.
This.
Not just that, but they're getting it from money on which you've already paid INCOME TAX.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
> new-CD sales continue to stagnate in the United States. Total sales last year were about $13 billion, unchanged from 2000.
Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in people not buying as many CDs as the RIAA would like them to. One proposed remedy being debated by record label executives is federal legislation sending jack-booted thugs to the homes of consumers who don't buy enough CDs. Industry executives were quoted as saying: "We believe that if we shake them hard enough, some more loose change will fall out."
When someone remotely connected to the real world suggested sales have been hurt largely by *a recession*, a condition characterized by *people not having as much money to spend on wants like CDs*, industry executives were quoted as saying: "La la la, we can't hear you!"
The Xerox copier I have at work is on the LAN. I rip off the binding and put the pages in the ADF, and the copier will put the scanned pages into the directory of my choosing, as either tiff or pdf files.
Now, if only I could get a good compression utility and a pdf reader for my Palm, I'd be all set to pira^H^H^H^Hread MY books anywhere.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
We are just a few steps away from CD's that self destruct after a certain amount of time. I think I remember reading about this somewhere.
Unfortunately with all that we know, with all that we discuss, with how "free" we are here in the US and some areas abroad - twenty years from now all of the above will still be true and unchanged. Change requires action. Action implies motion. The only thing in motion of late is the politicians mouths and the industries money to the pockets of the politicians (campaign finance or not).
The industries know that for every one person that they get that tunes out/boycotts/jumps ship that there are five or more people without the thought or scruples to do the same. The government knows that for every on person who knows the issues, votes his conscience, and holds the government accountable there are five or more people who are voting because they like the sound of someone's name, because so-n-so is liberal/conservative/baptist/black/green/loud/qui
As long as we have no way to hold either the industries or the government accountable for what they do to the people then we are stuck with it. Hopefully slowly we'll start holding each other (and ourselves) more accountable to higher standards of practice, but for some reason I doubt it. Therefore we'll continue to have a place in our language for the phrase "public secret".
I post this--I know it's long--so that those that have never read Jefferson's most famous statement on patents in it's entirety may do so. There are a number of web sites the have the condensed version, but fewer that have the full letter. I consider this letter to be amazingly pertinent to the issue at hand, extremely well considered, and well worth the effort to read in its entirety
NO PATENTS ON IDEAS
_To Isaac McPherson_
_Monticello, August 13, 1813_
SIR, -- Your letter of August 3d asking information on the
subject of Mr. Oliver Evans' exclusive right to the use of what he
calls his Elevators, Conveyers, and Hopper-boys, has been duly
received. My wish to see new inventions encouraged, and old ones
brought again into useful notice, has made me regret the
circumstances which have followed the expiration of his first patent.
I did not expect the retrospection which has been given to the
reviving law. For although the second proviso seemed not so clear as
it ought to have been, yet it appeared susceptible of a just
construction; and the retrospective one being contrary to natural
right, it was understood to be a rule of law that where the words of
a statute admit of two constructions, the one just and the other
unjust, the former is to be given them. The first proviso takes care
of those who had lawfully used Evans' improvements under the first
patent; the second was meant for those who had lawfully erected and
used them after that patent expired, declaring they "should not be
liable to damages therefore." These words may indeed be restrained to
uses already past, but as there is parity of reason for those to
come, there should be parity of law. Every man should be protected
in his lawful acts, and be certain that no _ex post facto_ law shall
punish or endamage him for them. But he is endamaged, if forbidden
to use a machine lawfully erected, at considerable expense, unless he
will pay a new and unexpected price for it. The proviso says that he
who erected and used lawfully should not be liable to pay damages.
But if the proviso had been omitted, would not the law, construed by
natural equity, have said the same thing. In truth both provisos are
useless. And shall useless provisos, inserted _pro majori cautela_
only, authorize inferences against justice? The sentiment that
ex post facto laws are against natural right, is so strong in the
United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have
failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts
them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as
in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have
been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong. Nor ought it
to be presumed that the legislature meant to use a phrase in an
unjustifiable sense, if by rules of construction it can be ever
strained to what is just. The law books abound with similar
instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity. Laws,
moreover, abridging the natural right of the citizen, should be
restrained by rigorous constructions within their narrowest limits.
Your letter, however, points to a much broader question,
whether what have received from Mr. Evans the new and proper name of
Elevators, are of his invention. Because, if they are not, his
patent gives him no right to obstruct others in the use of what they
possessed before. I assume it is a Lemma, that it is the invention
of the machine itself, which is to give a patent right, and not the
application of it to any particular purpose, of which it is
susceptible. If one person invents a knife convenient for pointing
our pens, another cannot have a patent right for the same knife to
point our pencils. A compass was invented for navigating the sea;
another could not have a patent right for using it to survey land. A
machine for threshing _wheat_ has been invented in Scotland; a second
person cannot get a patent right for the same machine to thresh
_oats_, a third _rye_, a fourth _peas_, a fifth _clover_, &c. A
string of buckets is invented and used for raising water, ore, &c.,
can a second have a patent right to the same machine for raising
wheat, a third oats, a fourth rye, a fifth peas, &c? The question
then whether such a string of buckets was invented first by Oliver
Evans, is a mere question of fact in mathematical history. Now,
turning to such books only as I happen to possess, I find abundant
proof that this simple machinery has been in use from time
immemorial. Doctor Shaw, who visited Egypt and the Barbary coast in
the years 1727-8-9, in the margin of his map of Egypt, gives us the
figure of what he calls a Persian wheel, which is a string of round
cups or buckets hanging on a pully, over which they revolved,
bringing up water from a well and delivering it into a trough above.
He found this used at Cairo, in a well 264 feet deep, which the
inhabitants believe to have been the work of the patriarch Joseph.
Shaw's travels, 341, Oxford edition of 1738 in folio, and the
Universal History, I. 416, speaking of the manner of watering the
higher lands of Egypt, says, "formerly they made use of Archimedes's
screw, thence named the Egyptian pump, but they now generally use
wheels (wallowers) which carry a rope or chain of earthen pots
holding about seven or eight quarts apiece, and draw the water from
the canals. There are besides a vast number of wells in Egypt, from
which the water is drawn in the same manner to water the gardens and
fruit trees; so that it is no exaggeration to say, that there are in
Egypt above 200,000 oxen daily employed in this labor." Shaw's name
of Persian wheel has been since given more particularly to a wheel
with buckets, either fixed or suspended on pins, at its periphery.
Mortimer's husbandry, I. 18, Duhamel III. II., Ferguson's Mechanic's
plate, XIII; but his figure, and the verbal description of the
Universal History, prove that the string of buckets is meant under
that name. His figure differs from Evans' construction in the
circumstances of the buckets being round, and strung through their
bottom on a chain. But it is the principle, to wit, a string of
buckets, which constitutes the invention, not the form of the
buckets, round, square, or hexagon; nor the manner of attaching them,
nor the material of the connecting band, whether chain, rope, or
leather. Vitruvius, L. x. c. 9, describes this machinery as a
windlass, on which is a chain descending to the water, with vessels
of copper attached to it; the windlass being turned, the chain moving
on it will raise the vessel, which in passing over the windlass will
empty the water they have brought up into a reservoir. And Perrault,
in his edition of Vitruvius, Paris, 1684, fol. plates 61, 62, gives
us three forms of these water elevators, in one of which the buckets
are square, as Mr. Evans' are. Bossut, Histoire de Mathematiques, i.
86, says, "the drum wheel, the wheel with buckets and the
_Chapelets_, are hydraulic machines which come to us from the
ancients. But we are ignorant of the time when they began to be put
into use." The _Chapelets_ are the revolving bands of the buckets
which Shaw calls the Persian wheel, the moderns a chain-pump, and Mr.
Evans elevators. The next of my books in which I find these
elevators is Wolf's Cours de Mathematiques, i. 370, and plate 1,
Paris 1747, 8vo; here are two forms. In one of them the buckets are
square, attached to two chains, passing over a cylinder or wallower
at top, and under another at bottom, by which they are made to
revolve. It is a nearly exact representation of Evans' Elevators.
But a more exact one is to be seen in Desagulier's Experimental
Philosophy, ii. plate 34; in the Encyclopedie de Diderot et
D'Alembert, 8vo edition of Lansanne, 1st volume of plates in the four
subscribed Hydraulique. Norie, is one where round eastern pots are
tied by their collars between two endless ropes suspended on a
revolving lantern or wallower. This is said to have been used for
raising ore out of a mine. In a book which I do not possess,
L'Architecture Hidraulique de Belidor, the 2d volume of which is said
[De la Lande's continuation of Montuclas' Historie de Mathematiques,
iii. 711] to contain a detail of all the pumps, ancient and modern,
hydraulic machines, fountains, wells, &c, I have no doubt this
Persian wheel, chain pump, chapelets, elevators, by whichever name
you choose to call it, will be found in various forms. The last book
I have to quote for it is Prony's Architecture Hydraulique i.,
Avertissement vii., and 648, 649, 650. In the latter of which
passages he observes that the first idea which occurs for raising
water is to lift it in a bucket by hand. When the water lies too
deep to be reached by hand, the bucket is suspended by a chain and
let down over a pulley or windlass. If it be desired to raise a
continued stream of water, the simplest means which offers itself to
the mind is to attach to an endless chain or cord a number of pots or
buckets, so disposed that, the chain being suspended on a lanthorn or
wallower above, and plunged in water below, the buckets may descend
and ascend alternately, filling themselves at bottom and emptying at
a certain height above, so as to give a constant stream. Some years
before the date of Mr. Evans' patent, a Mr. Martin of Caroline county
in this State, constructed a drill-plough, in which he used the band
of buckets for elevating the grain from the box into the funnel,
which let them down into the furrow. He had bands with different
sets of buckets adapted to the size of peas, of turnip seed, &c. I
have used this machine for sowing Benni seed also, and propose to
have a band of buckets for drilling Indian Corn, and another for
wheat. Is it possible that in doing this I shall infringe Mr. Evans'
patent? That I can be debarred of any use to which I might have
applied my drill, when I bought it, by a patent issued after I bought
it?
These verbal descriptions, applying so exactly to Mr. Evans'
elevators, and the drawings exhibited to the eye, flash conviction
both on reason and the senses that there is nothing new in these
elevators but their being strung together on a strap of leather. If
this strap of leather be an invention, entitling the inventor to a
patent right, it can only extend to the strap, and the use of the
string of buckets must remain free to be connected by chains, ropes,
a strap of hempen girthing, or any other substance except leather.
But, indeed, Mr. Martin had before used the strap of leather.
The screw of Archimedes is as ancient, at least, as the age of
that mathematician, who died more than 2,000 years ago. Diodorus
Siculus speaks of it, L. i., p. 21, and L. v., p. 217, of Stevens'
edition of 1559, folio; and Vitruvius, xii. The cutting of its
spiral worm into sections for conveying flour or grain, seems to have
been an invention of Mr. Evans, and to be a fair subject of a patent
right. But it cannot take away from others the use of Archimedes'
screw with its perpetual spiral, for any purposes of which it is
susceptible.
The hopper-boy is an useful machine, and so far as I know,
original.
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,)
that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their
inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to
their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of
any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be
singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to
inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the
subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate
property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law,
indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men
equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who
occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property
goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is
given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if
an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of
natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If
nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps
it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into
the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess
himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses
the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who
receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without
lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light
without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to
another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man,
and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and
benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire,
expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any
point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our
physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society
may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an
encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but
this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of
the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly,
it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until
wecopied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law,
gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other
countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and
personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought
that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to
society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse
monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful
devices.
Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of
natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the
difficulty of drawing a line between the things which are worth to
the public the embarrassment of an exclusive patent, and those which
are not. As a member of the patent board for several years, while
the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with
what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured. Some,
however, were established by that board. One of these was, that a
machine of which we were possessed, might be applied by every man to
any use of which it is susceptible, and that this right ought not to
be taken from him and given to a monopolist, because the first
perhaps had occasion so to apply it. Thus a screw for crushing
plaster might be employed for crushing corn-cobs. And a chain-pump
for raising water might be used for raising wheat: this being merely
a change of application. Another rule was that a change of material
should not give title to a patent. As the making a ploughshare of
cast rather than of wrought iron; a comb of iron instead of horn or
of ivory, or the connecting buckets by a band of leather rather than
of hemp or iron. A third was that a mere change of form should give
no right to a patent, as a high-quartered shoe instead of a low one;
a round hat instead of a three-square; or a square bucket instead of
a round one. But for this rule, all the changes of fashion in dress
would have been under the tax of patentees. These were among the
rules which the uniform decisions of the board had already
established, and under each of them Mr. Evans' patent would have been
refused. First, because it was a mere change of application of the
chain-pump, from raising water to raise wheat. Secondly, because the
using a leathern instead of a hempen band, was a mere change of
material; and thirdly, square buckets instead of round, are only a
change of form, and the ancient forms, too, appear to have been
indifferently square or round. But there were still abundance of
cases which could not be brought under rule, until they should have
presented themselves under all their aspects; and these
investigations occupying more time of the members of the board than
they could spare from higher duties, the whole was turned over to the
judiciary, to be matured into a system, under which every one might
know when his actions were safe and lawful. Instead of refusing a
patent in the first instance, as the board was authorized to do, the
patent now issues of course, subject to be declared void on such
principles as should be established by the courts of law. This
business, however, is but little analogous to their course of
reading, since we might in vain turn over all the lubberly volumes of
the law to find a single ray which would lighten the path of the
mechanic or the mathematician. It is more within the information of
a board of academical professors, and a previous refusal of patent
would better guard our citizens against harrassment by law-suits.
But England had given it to her judges, and the usual predominancy of
her examples carried it to ours.
It happened that I had myself a mill built in the interval
between Mr. Evans' first and second patents. I was living in
Washington, and left the construction to the mill-wright. I did not
even know he had erected elevators, conveyers and hopper-boys, until
I learnt it by an application from Mr. Evans' agent for the patent
price. Although I had no idea he had a right to it by law, (for no
judicial decision had then been given,) yet I did not hesitate to
remit to Mr. Evans the old and moderate patent price, which was what
he then asked, from a wish to encourage even the useful revival of
ancient inventions. But I then expressed my opinion of the law in a
letter, either to Mr. Evans or to his agent.
I have thus, Sir, at your request, given you the facts and
ideas which occur to me on this subject. I have done it without
reserve, although I have not the pleasure of knowing you personally.
In thus frankly committing myself to you, I trust you will feel it as
a point of honor and candor, to make no use of my letter which might
bring disquietude on myself. And particularly, I should be unwilling
to be brought into any difference with Mr. Evans, whom, however, I
believe too reasonable to take offence at an honest difference of
opinion. I esteem him much, and sincerely wish him wealth and honor.
I deem him a valuable citizen, of uncommon ingenuity and usefulness.
And had I not esteemed still more the establishment of sound
principles, I should now have been silent. If any of the matter I
have offered can promote that object, I have no objection to its
being so used; if it offers nothing new, it will of course not be
used at all. I have gone with some minuteness into the mathematical
history of the elevator, because it belongs to a branch of science in
which, as I have before observed, it is not incumbent on lawyers to
be learned; and it is possible, therefore, that some of the proofs I
have quoted may have escaped on their former arguments. On the law
of the subject I should not have touched, because more familiar to
those who have already discussed it; but I wished to state my own
view of it merely in justification of myself, my name and approbation
being subscribed to the act. With these explanations, accept the
assurance of my respect.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Sure there is. (Ok, I have may weird tastes in music)
Keep in mind that if the record companies do anything that lowers the perceived value of their product (new and used) then less product will move. If it is a truly bad idea to demand royalties on used CDs, then the free market should respond negatively to it. One example: John Doe walks into a used record store looking for xyz album. This album is from a company that demands royalties on their used albums, and the used record store, working off of tight enough margins as it is, has sanely decided to not simply swallow the cost but pass the cost on to the customer. So John finds that this particular used album is now simply more expensive than he would like to pay for it - so he doesn't buy it. This also works if the store HAS decided to absorb the cost: they will simply have a tendency to not bother carrying as many albums from that company. The only thing that really worries me about the various publishing companies and their desire to cling to antiquated business models would be if they stole from me against my will. An example would be if they convinced the powers that be that their slumping sales have nothing to do with their inability to react to market pressures, but rather because of "pirates". You see this logic crop up quite a bit in the claims that "piracy costs xyz industry 2.5 billion dollars annually" - like complex market forces can be summed up in a single accusatory sentence. If they manage to sell that lie, the next step would be to seek government subsidies to crop up their failing businesses. Look no further than Canada's recent tax plans for a recent example. To summarize: The publishers can be as unresponsive as they like to the market and live in whatever fantasy world they like as long as they don't start robbing me at gunpoint.
I wonder what Jon Katz would say about all this? Whatever it's be, it would definately include his thoughts of the RIAA "in the post 9/11 world" :-)
I have two words for the Record Industry:
FUCK and YOU.
Get a fucking clue.
That's nice.
As far as I know, it has been illegal to sell used CDs and video games in Japan for years. Welcome to your future.
This is just outright rediculous. The concept that copyright protection does not protect beyond the right of first sale has been upheld by the courts innumerable times over a *very* long period. Are there no bounds to the avarice of media publishers? I guess this is the final proof that the answer is a definitive no.
What's next? Will they demand royalties from people who listen to music on the radio? Overheard music from neighbors? Will they charge royalties for singing along or humming to a song? This is just fucking rediculous. We have to put a stop to this crap before they abolish all the rights of media consumers.
--
He lied to us through song. I hate when people do that!
Allthough I must say Autechre and Nitrus Oxide go very well together
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Don't use decimal percentages.
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Money is no excuse to use decimal.
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Use hex percentages (out of 100h).
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Try $10h.99 instead. Repost or admit stupidity.
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Money no reason to use decimal.
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Idiot, it's 80h%. Repost as a reply.
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How many copies? Moron.
Havn't they ever heard of free trade?
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10+. Hmm?
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Personalized message:
How many tracks? Idiot.
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It's the percentage that is bad.
I only play CDs when working on my PC. I recently purchased the first Natalie Imbruglia CD, and was going to purchase the second when I found out it was copy protected - so I downloaded the mp3s and burnt a CD-R myself.
They directly, absolutly definatly, lost a sale because of copy protection.
I have an extensive mp3 collection (second HD installed for the purpose). Every time I've downloaded mp3's from a new artist I like I've ended up going and buying their back catalogue on CD. I prefer CDs to mp3. The more they copy protect the less likely I am to do this.
They directly, absolutly definatly, will loose sales from me because of copy protection.
I also buy second hand CDs from time to time to try out artists I'm not familiar with. Often I'll end up going and buying new CDs. If the price of second hand CDs increases I'll do this less often and download more mp3s
They directly, absolutly definatly, will loose sales from me because of their actions.
It's like they have a death wish. All the RIAA seem to want to do is prevent me spending money on their products.
come on congress pass all the laws. and when the web, and music, and video sales grind to a halt. well all have a big party.
these gluton's are so greedy, it's like a drug dealer selling dime bags, the dealer pinches some the guy that know the dealer pinches some, the guys down the street who saw the buyer show up come to try to get a hit for free. in less than 2 minutes after the buyer physically holds the bag, the dime bag is gone. everyone getting their hit.
And they're organized, they're as fast as the effects of the drug, and motivated to get as much as they can for free.
[Caveat: IANAL, L="leg://washington.dc.Lobbyist"]
It seems to me that this is done all the time for things like NAFTA, WTO, and who knows what else -- specifically because legislators almost never even bother to read the bills they sponsor.
A group of wealthy whatevers (often not businessmen, so much as a club) set up a "commission" to debate the laws, with the assumption that the laws should be passed once they come up with it.
Then they submit the laws to a Congressional committee, and get the ball rolling. The Congressmen debate it based upon what they are told to say in their "talking points", but don't bother to read it.
If the group is really good, I suspect that they might seed the ground by *also* providing the opposition side with straw-man talking points, but that probably happens very little in real life.
But it won't work for you that way, unless you and your friends all regularly give large amounts of money to the Congressmen, and thus actually have their ear. The most you can do is go to your Congressman's town meeting, and "petition your government". Which is not nothing, but it's not nearly as good as being able to author your own legislation.
------
[/Caveat]
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The next thing they are going to try and pull is per use deal--- everytime you put the CD in, another dollar...
I said it before and I'll say it again here:
Why is it the RIAA is trying to hard to alienate it's customers? One would think that with sagging sales and rampant piracy, they'd get the message that maybe their product is *blatantly overpriced* and usually worthless in most interests.
Most of my CD purchases have been spurred by my hearing one song by the artist on the radio. I decided that I liked that song and went out and bought the CD. I've even bought CD's based on downloading MP3's and liking the music enough that it's created a purchase for the RIAA. However, in most instances, I've found that if it weren't for the one song, I'd have never bought the CD because the rest of the music packaged with it is CRAP!!
Another good reason *not* to buy their music is the current wave of teeny-bopper hiphop crap that's being pushed like it's the second coming of Jesus. One more Backstreet Boys hit and I think I'll go insane. It's a wonder the RIAA can sell anything at all when the crap they put out sucks all ass.
That's what I want to know. I've been making the argument for over 2 years that if the software/music/movie community wants to stop "piracy" they should start with actual bootlegging. Completely. No playing favorites to those with the money (read Blockbuster), but any reselling/renting is in a moral sense worse than P2P (making money off of somebody elses work!).
Of course, this violates so many principles of fair use it's not funny, so it's not a realistic proposal. Yet in the same "moral" sense that P2P is wrong, so is the used purchase/rental of media. The original producer is not getting a cut of the particular transaction either way.
It becomes clear that the current copyright tomfoolery is not even based on any sort of "moral" grounds, but is instead based on purely business and monopolistic grounds. If the cartels tried to go after the non-Blockbuster rental shops and the pawn shops FIRST, they'd at least have some sort of "moral" base to stand on.
The "theft" in their eyes is going to happen when indie media starts becoming bigger than them. That's their real reasons for all this insanity.
Now heres a question thats been bugging me, does the DMCA and RIAA apply to the world, or just the US? If it applies to the world, then since when did US laws govern the globe? Just a question, as Im curious for an answer.
to qouth the greates poet of the 20th century...
she can bite my shiny metal ass.
No way no how, and tactics like this push me farther and farther closer to just gladly copying cd's and mp3's for peopel who ask me to.. Right now I refuse based on the fact it is stealing.. but if they keep up this crap, I'll jump in the fray and help destroy every single one of them. (economically wise.)
How the hell are they supposed to keep honest customers honest when they try and piss us off at every turn?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Actually, the money from royalties goes to the songwriter (& associated publishing company), not to the record company. The reecord company only sees a percentage of royalties IF they are also the publisher and IF there is a clause in the publishing contract allowing an advance recoupable from future earnings.
In the case where a record company is not the publisher (cover versions, for instance), the record company must make it's money from the initial sale of the CD. Since most music in the charts these days is written not by the performers, but by professional songwriters, it is those songwriters who actually stand to benefit from this.
Does this mean I (as a person with a publishing contract) think its a good idea? No, I think its a way for the record companies to deflect criticism over the pathetic percentage paid to the artist from new CD sales.
Still, you have to admire their balls...on a silver platter, if possible.
Thats an easy answer, stop buying their products all together. Not like that will ever happen with most people, but if a big enough stink is raised over this it may just be a possiblility.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Here's what their argument is:
Now wait just a minute, because until we reach step 3, everything is both legal and moral. The violation is that Joe is supposed to destroy all of the copies that he (quite legally) made. OK, argue on that point, but why assume his guilt at step 1? If anything, the tax should be on Joe selling the CD in step 3. And even that tax assumes guilt with no evidence other than supposition.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
This is THE single most stupid thing I have ever been subjected to in my entire life.
It's Sci-Fi Science FICTION. Why would you possibly try to rationalize Sci-Fi?
Truly a gagle of morons nested where these folk live and spawned these turds. These turds in turn made freinds with other turds who were came flocking to turdville USA because they heard that turds can gather here free the ridicule of the intelligent people that sorround them everywhere else.
Please remember murder is wrong but flushing a turd is expected and rewarded...
..to friends, pawn shops, etc. What qualifies as a retailer?
Fsck.
I'm half tempted to get a business license. Let them come. I'll see them off to hell.
I see a lot of posts complaining about the record companies.
Fact: The record companies are business, their _job_ is to make money.
Fact: Shareholders expect revenue to increase each year. They get real annoyed when things level off, regardless of the amount of money they are making.
Fact: If shareholders start getting annoyed, directors get real nervous and start doing anything to keep their job.
Now that's out of the way, The above is common knowledge.
Why is no one commenting about the one sided nature of that "news" report. Why is it that journalism these days seems to be just cut and pasting of PR statements. Its disappointing rare to see a journalist even attempting to get the other side of the story. eg: record company blams pretty much anything but themselves when their revenue levels off (not reduce mind you, just level of at their previous ridiculous levels), regardless of recessions, etc, etc.
Also no one has commented on the fact that it talks about the record executives talking about what type of federal law they want. Not "how" to get what they want, but "what". What, no one is concerned that executives just assume they will get what they want???
Any place I've ever been, $3 per full-length album was pretty damn good; most of the time it was $2.00 or $2.50. That's one damned expensive way of ripping MP3s and screwing Emimem over, even if you figure that the pirate (ahem) bought the damned thing used.
First of all, you never buy new CDs -- too expensive and as you point out you can't get your money back. Only buy used CDs, which halves your initial investment. The real scam part comes where most used CD places near where I live will allow you a 4-5 day return period where you can bring the used CD back for a store credit. If you're careful and the store is big (ie, large staff), you can buy, copy and return a fair number of CDs on a pretty regular basis.
It's certainly not free -- once you give them your money it's theirs, its a question of whether its a 2 or 3-for-1 bargain or not. I'm pretty sure this isn't what the RIAA is worried about, but its a nice little option for expanding your collection.
San Diego, June 15
An RIAA spokesperson today announced that in the interest of equitable treatment of consumers, it was instituting a new program, labeled the Pre-Owned Media Fair Pricing Program.
The new program will be effected as follows. All used CD stores are to register with the RIAA. In turn, all consumers who sell CDs to these stores must register with the store and allow information about themselves to be registered with the RIAA as Mini-Sellers. The RIAA will henceforth refund to the Mini-Seller any amount they had received during the initial sale of the CD.
The RIAA spokesperson ackowledged that as a CD continued to be resold, and its value dropped, the RIAA would be paying out more than it would receive in royalties on a per-CD basis. They stated that the consumer's happiness was their primary goal and this was an acceptable price to pay.
Consumer advocates, however, cautioned that the underlying goal of the RIAA is two-fold. The first is to build a large database of music-listeners (in the form of a list of Mini-Sellers) and their listening preferences. In the future, if a listener was found to possess music not matching the Bayesian prediction of their tastes, it would be deemed pirated and they would be prosecuted.
A second pointed noted by consumer advocates is that while it appears that the RIAA is acting to maximize the listening pleasures of consumers by motivating them to listen to alot of new music, there is a different purpose in play here. The actual goal of the RIAA is to harness the labour of the music-lovers to get them to rip the music to MP3 format, and to further use them and their paid-for bandwidth for the purpose of distribution of the music. At a later point in time, it is expected that the RIAA will then use it's list of music-consumers to effect random checks for pirated MP3s and prosecute them, much like the BSA (Business Software Alliance) does for software now.
I buy a shrink-wrapped CD. Label gets their $, label rips artist off of their $.
A couple of years pass and I get tired of the genre, the artist, whatever. I trade a couple of CDs to a used CD shop for another used CD I want. The record company and artist aren't out any money - the CD was already sold at retail. They got their $.
I have tons of .mp3s, all carefully ripped from my CD collection. Most of the music I listen to is found in used CD shops or on cheesy compilation CDs you see advertised on late-night TV 'cause it originated on another format. Very occassionally do I ever buy a new CD, then usually as a gift for a friend. Why?
Well, because I have about all the music I ever want to hear, legally owned on CD and ripped to my exacting mp3 standards. I listen at home, in the car, and at work; and I'm not paying extra.
I already paid about $5,000 for my music collection, plus all the music that I have on tape or LP that I bought on CD specifically for ripping to mp3. And my collection is wimpy by the standards of audiophiles. That's over a CD-and-a half a month for fifteen years bought at retail. And the music industry doesn't think that's enough?
Well, they can suck my bearded cojones. Punish me for being legal? Fine, screw you guys, I'll keep my money.
Similar in concept..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Record Industry (Score:99, Greedy)
I'm a 2000 man.
Duh! That was an intelligence test and you flunked!
You're supposed to live in Washington (no income tax) and shop in Oregon (no sales tax).
"Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy".
What ever happened to investigative journalism (i.e., PROVE it). It is irresponsible for a journalist to state this as fact, without (unbiased) proof, not just by quoting numbers from some industry press release. He's just paraphrasing some record industry hype. It is my contention that some large reason for sales being off are
1) Ridiculous prices
2) Crappy content
3) Lack of choice
4) GOTO 1)
And who, other than the wall street snake oil merchants, said that industries have a constitutional right to annual double digit growth anyway?
Of course, good investigative journalism these days is almost non-existant. Most so-called journalists just toss off industry pr, bs, and hype as news. Of course, most of the mainstream media is business first, so what should one expect?
Once the product has been sold, they can't exercise any control over its further sale according to the first sale doctrine.
I'd almost be willing to abandon first sale to go with this plan, as a kind of, "Here's your check, now go away!" You want to throw out two hundred years of common law, fine. Here's your royalty. You don't want to refund it when it's sold? Fine. Then quit whining if people keep the mp3s.
Of course, it would never last. It might be worth it if they never came back with their hands out, but they'll always want more.
for a while i laid off of file sharing. i'm going to start back up. we need to dump their tea into the harbor.
In Canada, they convinced the government that everyone who buys blank CD's is a thief of RIAA intellectual property. So they got the government to impose a 'levy' on ALL blank CD's a few years ago. And the percentage is going up year to year! It doesn't matter that I've never used any of my blank CD's to burn thier IP, nor have I ever downloaded or copied any; I have to pay the mf'ers a levy anyway. It just burns my ass! But the response by the average well-trained consumer here, used to being f'd over by big business, is "Go ahead and screw me, as long as I get Air Miles".
Aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahhahahahhahahahahahha!
One thing these guys have is an extreme entertainment factor.
From the article:
Total sales last year were about $13 billion, unchanged from 2000.
Sales have been hurt largely by a surge in piracy, which the National Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates has cost the music business $4.2 billion in lost revenue last year.
...now that is some darn good journalism...
If the big record industies stop producing regurgitated and unoriginal music music sales may pick up. The key to increased sales is inovation. A new movment, trying to bing more of the underground scean in to the commersial arena ie. bring back the janis joplins and the jimmi hendrix and not try and force feed us briney spears.
piracy is over rated.I know that if I really like an album I will buy it (hence a fairly extensive hendix collection) produce music worth buying and people will buy it. All this royalties on second had music is crap all the companys wanna do is milk a bone dry cow. next thing you know they will be charging you to lend your cds to you friends.
Don't worry! Everything is getting nicely out of control....
This is business. Owners always assign taks to their hired help. That's what they pay them for.
As far as present law goes, you are right. Almost a century ago some book publisher tried to put a sort of EULA on the flyleaf, forbidding resales among other things - and that's when the First Sale doctrine was enunciated. They sold it, you bought it, they cannot tell you what to do with it.
But in the article, the record executives were discussing (going to Congress to get) a law to ban used sales. There probably is no constitutional ban on such a law - it's a ridiculous overreaching of the interstate commerce clause, but so are tens of thousands of other laws and regulations that the courts have upheld. The real question is, whether they'd have the nerve to do it, and whether they could buy enough idiots in Congress to get it through.
I almost hope they do. It might finally wake up the American public that (1) their "representatives" aren't representing anyone but the campaign contributors anymore, and (2) the media companies are bloodsucking monsters, whose power must be restricted - by kicking out the incumbents and getting new people in Congress who are aware that the Constitution doesn't give anyone intellectual property rights - it just gives Congress the power to grant as much IP rights as seems like a good idea, and right now chopping way, way back on copyright and patent rights seems like a good idea...
Well, I took a dump earlier today and it looked like a CD, do they want royalties on that too?
Well, that decision would also fly in the face of EULAs which have at least been partially enforced. This is not a change for the better.
Sorry I am not registered but could not stop the urge to make my point.
I'll let them charge o those used CDs, but make damn sure these "F*ers" reimburse me on the rights I already paid on CDs I am selling to these shops!
This would be a perfectly valid complaint if it wasn't posted to a forum that regularly argues that a) music swapping should be legal, and b) copyright shouldn't exist. The beauty of such a forum is that people can advance their mutually contradictory arguments, and yet everyone can still agree.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
Can't see how muderous thugs in the South China Sea comandeering ships and their cargoes would hurt music sales.
Dunstan - still fighting for the correct usage of words
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
As long as I know double taxing is a forbidden practice in almost any countries' law doctrines. It hurts the production so much that the State begins to feel a reduction in the tax amount. Or a little more clearly, they shoot their own foot.
:) ).
...
Not that RIAA may have a clue on it but we are watching the "Rise and Fall of the Record Industry". Their actions are making people angry, the artists are the same and (let's call flames) Britney Spears, for example, is not a very "talented" artist (that depends on where you look, but I was really talking about singing
Let's talk about 4.2 billion. Wow, after that really awfull day 11 I thought USA would really get a submersion on the seas of recession. But that patetic industry could keep the last year figures even when almost all other business falled in sales. 11 billion for a 3 quarters effective year seems nice to me.
But let's see some nice statistics in action: we buy a Big Mac and only I eat it. Statistically (using mean) we both ate half a Big Mac, but you keep hungry. It remembers me of a sage teacher who said: Lie is just a statistic badly calculated.
Just my thoughts
the automotive industry is concerned about the growing retail presence of used-car dealers and number of private used car sales. the industry worries that the expanding used-market is cannibalizing the new-car sales.
one proposed remedy being debated by the industry executives is federal legislation requiring used-car retailers to pay royalties on secondary sales of cars.
want in on this too....give me a break
By that logic, then if I buy a share of Sony, and then sell that share to my friend, Sony should get some money from both sales (and every sale after that). Do they really want to crash our ecconmic system?
I suppose they could do limited runs of, say, 1,000 of a given book or CD title. Then you stick them in a warehouse and do another run whenever you begin to run out. You'd have to charge a higher price than items that are more popular but it's technically doable, and there's probably a market. Problem is, all those stored books and CDs are inventory you have to pay taxes on.
Baring tax reform, the best solution would be electronic distribution, which eliminates physical inventory. Except that publisher don't care for that -- they want to maintain their control of their "intellectual property" On that point I can't say I'm sympathetic. IP was invented to encourage creation, not hoarding.