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CD Copying Kiosks Endorsed in Australia
Iron Sun writes: "While the story is somewhat misleading in stating that the plan legalises piracy, CD copying kiosks have been given the go ahead here in Australia. It will be interesting to see what the Australian Recording Industry Association says about this. Supposedly the plan involves royalty payments to ARIA, but where artists stand is not discussed."
with superior sound quality to home burners and able to outwit anti-copying devices
OK, Apart from $5/burn (or a whole 30CDs before you've paid for that burner), HTF am I going to get better than 44KHz out of a CD? The only interesting thing is that someone decided the copiers weren't illegal in and of themselves.
I have seen these around for a while in Australia. The first one I saw in Melbourne in January, the second in Perth at my university.
In the article it mentions they are superior quality to home burners - I wouldn't have thought there was a difference..?
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
In the article, we have this comment,
Michael Speck, of ARIA's anti-piracy investigations unit, said: "Any request or application that is made of the industry is not just point-blank rejected. This is very much a case of watch this space.
"There are many legitimate uses for CD burners. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."
So, when music sales are down, it's because of those damn pirates, but when we can get somebody to pay us, regardless of our principles, then it's a legitimate use.
Yeah, riiight...
If ``music piracy'' is defined as something similar to ``the illegal copying of music'', then how can the sentence ``plan that legalises music piracy'' be parsed? Once its legal, its no longer piracy.
Yet another case of taxing everyone for the deeds of the few. Unfortunately, Australia has no laws about fair use (ok, they do have exemptions in their version of the DMCA, but only if the material wasn't copy-protected in the first place) so I guess it's better than expected.
Since we're paying royalties, does this mean we're entitled to copy and give these copied CDs away? After all, the artist is being compensated so it's not stealing, is it?
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
I thought it was indescribably cool. The floorspace taken up by the dancing routine is a bit wasteful, but if you figure that you can replace several racks of CDs with one of these units I think it is well worth it.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
world- first plan that legalises [sic] music piracy.
If it's legal, it shouldn't be called "piracy." Copying a CD as a backup is not piracy. I've always accepted the definition of piracy to be "illegally copying a tape/CD/book/game so you don't have to buy it yourself." Perhaps my definition isn't in synch with the rest of the world's, but piracy is inherently illegal, and there are legal reasons to copy a disk.
Of course, this guy may just be buying into the RIAA rhetoric that CD burners are only used to illegally burn CDs. I really hope nobody is that dumb.
The second reason this article looks amateurish is the technical specs.
with superior sound quality to home burners and able to outwit anti-copying devices
The last time I checked, my CD burner could create perfect copies of a CD. The Australian dollar may be weaker than the US dollar, but I don't think the same thing applies to CD burners.
Finally, there's this odd line:
"It is yet another angle in a technological nightmare the music industry is finding unstoppable."
At this point, I'm beginning to think the author is largely uninformed, but knows how to download music and burn it to a CD. His quote seems like wishful thinking, but the industry has had a number of successes stopping digital piracy (Napster, mp3.com, etc...).
In all, a poorly written article, but an interesting issue. There are some major questions left unanswered. What do the artists get out of it? And the AIRA? Is the technology really any superior to home burning technology? What does this legalization to Australia's status in international copyright treaties?
Finally, how are these copiers any legally different from a Xerox machine?
Since this has turned out to be more of a review of the article than I expected, I feel obligated to give it two stars out of five.
Hey, if I were flogging these kiosks I'd have one outside every music store in the country.
:-)
Customer walks in to music store, looks for suitably copy-protected CD, pays his money, leaves the store, turns left at the doorway, pays his $5 walks back into the store with original CD in one hand, the dupicate in his left, steps up to the counter and says "I want my money back, it won't play in my CD player."
Money changes hands, customer walks out with his new $5 CD.
Six months later the RIAA can't understand why the guy who operates these kiosks now has a bigger house, faster car and larger boat than any of the recording company bosses
As an independant artists I would like to know how/if we could contribute music to these kiosks.
If so it would be a great distribution medium for us indy artists
// The fastest Alt-Tab in the West
There are always extremes.
At one end of the spectrum you have the RIAA who have the ball and won't share unless you pay them a fistfull of cash (repeatedly in the case of streaming audio).
At the other end of the spectrum you have those who think that copying music without payment doesn't deprive anyone of anything.
Neither perspective is really rational in today's world where people deserve to be compensated for the value they create and the creators an marketers have to realise that the value of their product has changed significantly due to advances in technology.
The sensible people here aren't pro-piracy, they're simply advocating that the recording companies wake up to the fact that if they don't start to see sense pretty soon, the pirates will overwhelm them.
What we have here is a typical case of supply and demand demanding an adustment to pricing.
Thanks to digital duplication, the (illegal) supply is now endless. That means the price must drop if sales of (legal) products are to be maintained.
"Wake up or die" must be the message drummed into the thick skulls of the RIAA.
I'm not in favor of piracy -- I'm in favor of paying a fair price for a good product. Unfortunately that seems to conflict with the RIAA's agenda right now.
... they can always add a Internet connection to the kiosk and check with the common cd databases (like cddb). If the CD is found it's probably a audio CD and they could ask more money to copy it or give a disclaimer about copying such cd's.
I am not against copying audio CD's but am also not for it; it's the best of both worlds it should happen for private usage but it should not happen for piracy.
my 2 eurocents.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Unfortunately they aren't likely to wake up anytime soon. These days its a lot easier to litigate than to actually come up with a new business plan.
The way I see it, the music industry et al are likely to expend millions trying to block the increasing piracy, which in turn will be passed onto the consumer as increased CD prices, which of course will lead to more piracy. The musicians themselves won't see any of the price increase, it will simply go to further line the pockets of record company lawyers.
Just another sign of the decline of the human species. Money always wins out over common sense.
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
So this kiosk will be paying royaltist, and its being put up there legally. So why do they use the word pirate (or other variation of the same, pirating, etc) 10 times? This is not piracy. Its legal! HELLO! Get a clue people.