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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."

30 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Great by Theo+DeRaadt · · Score: 4, Funny

    As if I needed more people ripping off my OpenBSD ISO images and giving them to their friends.

    --

    --
    Theo DeRaadt
    Founder, OpenBSD project.
  2. Better Quality? by Random+Data · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Cornered, eh? by hkhanna · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...the industry has been cornered into a compromise with the unstoppable pirating of music

    When will this industry wake up and realize you're not being cornered into anything! Accept the digital future and capitalize on it! I bet the RIAA/MPAA was "cornered" into accepting VHS only to find out now that it's one of it's biggest cash cows. They never seem to learn from their history. I bet once the conglomerates see how well this works in Australia, we'll see some relaxation on the lobbying from RIAA/MPAA.

    Hargun

    --

    Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
  4. targeted at technophobes by call+-151 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Apparently, this is targeted at people who can't figure out how to make their own copies. From the article
    Music industry consultant and former copyright lawyer Owen Trembath said: "The only ones whipping down to Woolies to make a burn will be parents. Mum has become the pirate."
    Since at $5/burn is steep enough that anyone who doesn't already have a burner would probably come out ahead buying their own (about 20-30 disks worth should pay for it) it seems like the people springing for this are ones who don't have a computer setup or the knowhow but don't want to miss out on all this CD duplication...
    --
    It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
  5. Choosing your truth by jon_eaves · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

    1. Re:Choosing your truth by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 4, Funny

      "There are many legitimate uses for CD burners. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."

      Let's replace the piracy issue with something else:

      "There are many legitimate uses for cars. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."

      "There are many legitimate uses for back packs. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."

      "There are many legitimate uses for knives. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."

      "There are many legitimate uses for money. However, experience has shown illegitimate uses as well."

      I'm rather impressed with their ability to find illegitimate uses for CD burners ... wow ... how much time did they spend comming up with that.

      --
      We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
  6. geez, bias enough??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    anyone else notice the article says 'cd-pirating kiosks' (italics mine) all the way through?

    wtf ever happened to integrity, or better yet just proper use of the english language? it's called 'copying' because i get a COPY, i don't go into this thing and walk out holding a pirate...

  7. definitions? by Eythian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:definitions? by intermodal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Answer: it was never piracy. Nothing is actually taken. it's copyright violation. The idea of "theft" or "stealing" is incorrectly labelling the act. Anything other than:

      1 : an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery
      2 : robbery on the high seas


      is a blatant misnomer which has become popularized to demonize fair use by labelling all copying of content including that protected/allowed by law. What actual "piracy" that goes on is simple copyright infringement, not piracy. People need to get their terminology straight. This is how the term "hacker" became demonized by the media, too.

      --
      In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  8. Re:Great! by Oily+Tuna · · Score: 5, Funny

    and book a flight

    Don't waste your time and money ... CDs burnt in an Australian kiosk won't work back home, they spin the other way.

    --
    Mmmmmmm ... sushi.
  9. Royalties by serps · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "...AMCOS said it would endorse the CD-pirating kiosks for a standard royalty of about 6 per cent."

    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
  10. More public domain by martyn+s · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now that the first step is being implemented, we only need to take care of a few more steps.

    1) lower copyright restrictions to 12 years.
    2) require that if any work wants to have copyright protection, that it must submit it to a database for safekeeping
    3) Open up all the works in that database that is older than 12 years old.
    4) Network these kiosks to allow anyone to download and burn anything they want from the database
    5) Now you have a library system that the founding fathers would be proud of.

    1. Re:More public domain by martyn+s · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ok, first of all, let's lay down some of the theory and history behind copyright. According to the constitution, copyright is supposed to be for limited times, and only as long as it is furthering progress in the arts (and sciences).

      Now, the consitution didn't actually have any copyright law in it; it was just an enumerated power of Congress, since congress, at least in theory, can only use the powers given to them in the Constitution.

      So the first copyright act basically made copyright 14 years. Not 70. Not 30. Just 14. This was because, people at the time understood that copyright was designed to enrich the public domain. You use the word "freeloading" and I will not contest that accusation. This is the purpose of copyright. To eventually enrich the public domain so there is free art available for everyone.

      Until now, however, if you went into any bookstore, there was hardly any difference between a copyrighted and a public domain book. Maybe a copyrighted book costed a little more, but for the most part, no one was hurt by having copyright extended. There was no such thing as getting a book "for free" or a movie "for free". There were printing costs.

      But, now we have this extraordinary ability: we have the ability to copy and distribute any form of art for virtually no cost. The reason why libraries have traditionally only "lent" stuff was because it costed money, a significant amount of money, to make a copy of anything, so since there were a limited number of copies, they had to be shared among the community, and therefore people could only "borrow" it.

      So here's the meat of the question: how much will artists lose if copyright is reduced to 12 years?

      Well what if I told you that any given piece of art only makes 10% of it's revenue after 12 years. That means if some book was going to bring in 500,000 dollars revenue in 150 years, on average, it would bring in 450,000 in 12 years. So basically we are locking up all forms of art for 138 more years, just to squeeze out an extra 10% revenue. That doesn't really make any sense, and it goes against the spirit of the first copyright act, and against the spirit of a truly open society.

      In the year 1930 over 10,000 books were published. Of those 10,000+ books, only 175 are still in print. Don't you find that tragic? 9,825 books are locked up forever to protect those 175 books, books that probably don't sell that well anyway, and books that would've been written even if copyright were only 12 years.

      Copyright is not a natural right. It's something that we, as a society, offer to maximize the art produced.

      I don't care what you hear, but copyright is not intended as "incentive". People's passion for their art is the incentive, copyright is just designed to let people devote their life to their art and still have money to live. The money itself is not the incentive.

      But that is really inconsequential. Even if people are just making art just to get rich, they'd still get nearly as rich with just a 12 year copyright.

      In 1790 copyright lasted 14 years. Since 1790 the following things have happened

      1) The cost of printing has decreased
      2) The time to market, time for people to learn/hear about your product has decreased
      3) The available audience has increased, therefore a greater potential sales.

      All these things indicate a need for *less* copyright. Yet all this things have increased since then. Why?

      Just like shakespeare is free, I believe art of our own time should be free, at least while it's still relevant. It's not about being too "cheap". It's just incredibly wasteful to lock up art that no one is buying anymore, but that many many people will watch/read/listen to if it were available for free.

      If you read the dialogue between the founding fathers about copyright, they were suprisingly prescient about where things were going, and the discussion is very relevant today. They were very clear about it, and at the time they decided on 14 years. The fact that it became longer was because it didn't really affect anyone negatively before it was too late.

      This I can assure you: If this technology was around before copyright was extended, it would never have been extended. And the world would be a richer place for it.

    2. Re:More public domain by DarkZero · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The concept of copyright was meant to be permanently attached to the concept of the public domain. Since allowing authors, musicians, etc. to claim their work as "intellectual property" undermines the free flow of information within a society, copyrights in the United States were originally attached to the idea of the public domain. After about 14 years (I believe it was fourteen), anything that was copyrighted would enter the public domain and thus could freely be used, copied, and reworked by anyone.

      Because the public domain has been unintentionally halted by Congress (as well as legislative bodies all around the world) through copyright extensions throughout the last century, the value of the public domain has become unknown to the average person. For instance, most Disney movies could not have been made without the public domain, because Disney would not have been allowed to rework and rewrite previous literary works like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Sleeping Beauty, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc. into new movie classics.

      Also, libraries only let you borrow books because books are physical objects, and thus are in a limited supply. Librarians across the country are now in favor of distributing e-books and giving them out permanently, because that was always the idea behind libraries --- the most free flow of information possible. Lending books was not a purposeful idea, but instead a necessity of the past.

    3. Re:More public domain by martyn+s · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I didn't even take into account all the cannibalization that goes on in the entertainment industry. Actors, being so valuable, manage to suck up all the extra revenues that the movie studios manage to bring in with extensive copyright. Music and movie studios cannibalize each other with advertising.

      I can't really back this up entirely, but this is my position: If there were less money at stake, there'd be less money to pay actors, less money to waste on advertising, but the output, would remain the same, because the public demand would remain the same.

      Think about advertising. If I spend 100 million dollars on advertising, and you spend 100 million dollars on equally effective advertising for a competing product, we end up where we started. Advertising is a necessary evil, but I believe that will be the first thing to go, along with exorbitant actor's salaries if reduced copyright led to reduced revenue for the entertainment industry.

      Plus, read this:
      creative motivation

      Of course, it's always important to consider the source; I don't think Richard Stallman would post any studies which didn't support his theory. But still, this cannot be ignored, and adds a whole new dimension to this question.

    4. Re:More public domain by thales · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Personally, I think that (unless the artist choses otherwise) copyright should last until the death of the artist. Don't forget, in 1790 the average life expectancy was a lot lower than today"

      Why limit the gravy train to artists? I would like to continue recieving payments from my employer of 14 years ago for the rest of my life. Why shouldn't I be able to avoid the 9 to 5 grind. 14 years ago I was maintaing Radar systems at a base where the US Navy trains pilots, and some of these pilots are still flying Naval aircraft so the Navy should be paying me "royalities" for the rest of my life.

      Sorry "Artist" is just another job field. It's special nature of payment IS deserving of a limited copyright protection, but NOT a lifelong mealticket. 14 years of automatic copyright protection covers this for most works, perhaps with an aditional ONE TIME 14 year extension upon payment of regestration fees but that's as far as it should go. Certainly not life plus 70 years so that the grandchildren of the "artist" can continue to collect long after they bury Gramps.

      --
      Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
  11. These things are pretty awesome by Sheetrock · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Over in Japan, I've seen the same thing they're basing these kiosks on. Essentially, they'll copy a disc from memory while you stand there, and finish the average CD in about 30 seconds (match that with a CD burner!) I don't have a golden ear, so I can't say whether the quality is better than home burning, but I don't think they're burning from MP3 but from the real disc which is probably where this claim is based. A laser printer spits out the cover art and a robotic assembly actually composes a replica of the real CD, such that after this thing gets done it gives you a shrinkwrapped CD similar to what you'd buy off of the rack. Then, it plays what is preset as the best track from the CD as it dances around the floor for a couple of minutes as an advertisement to other people in the store.

    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.




  12. undocumented features include... by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 4, Funny

    -a spring loaded fist that punches you if you try and copy any eminem cds

    -a spring loaded built in lawyer that will automatically sue you if you try and copy any microsoft OS installation cds

    -a beer holder (this is australia)

    -australian friendly instructions such as "insert the bloody cd here!"

    -anti-croc certification of all machines from the crocodile hunter

    --
    GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
  13. Location, location, location by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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 :-)

  14. Ha ha ha, "better sound quality" ... :) by forged · · Score: 4, Informative
    Listen to this truckload of shit:
    • "Experts told the Herald Sun the CD-pirating kiosks -- with superior sound quality to home burners and able to outwit anti-copying devices -- will be a winner with older users."
    1. I wonder who these so-called experts are
    2. I wonder how they can pretend that a digital copy can have a better sound than another digital copy, if both are identical bit-per-bit
    3. How about the "...able to outwit anti-copying devices" ? Heard of CDRwin/CloneCD/<insert CD-copying program name here>, anyone ?

    Please, can we have a break from sensasionalism.

    BTW I think this such is a cool idea. Way to go, Aussies !

  15. Would this help independant artists? by detect · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  16. Re:Who's the Author? by Disevidence · · Score: 3, Informative

    Again, i state. The author is a Music journalist, and is largely clueless on technology, pointed out by this article and other articles written by the author in my city newspaper.

    --
    Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
  17. Copyright in Australia... by qbed · · Score: 3, Informative


    In australia the onus to avoid copyright infringement in on the user. So photocopying and CD burning in public and in private are treated the same. Oddly enough there is no need for some changeable, "fair use" docrine since you can copy whatever you like. If at a later date you are found to have breached copyright you can have the book thrown at you.


    This approach has the benefit of being enforceable at least.


    (one biased aussie's opinion)

    --
    imagination is more important than knowledge --Albert Einstein-
  18. Newsflash! Foobaria endorses photo-copying kiosks by jukal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Rioters News: Foobaria supports piracy!
    After a hot debate, the Government of Foobaria decided to legalize self-serve photo-copying kiosks. Famous book authors are shocked.

    CD burner, photocopier, what's the difference? Why does a CD- burner automagically become a piracy tool and at the same time a photocopier is considered just a necessity ?? Is it because the journalists just know how to operate the other one? :))

  19. Re:DigitalPiracy.com by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  20. Re:Who's the Author? by DarkZero · · Score: 3, Informative

    world- first plan that legalises [sic] music piracy

    It's spelled "legalizes" in America, but it's spelled "legalises" in Britain, Australia, Canada, et al. There is no need for the "[sic]".

  21. Re:Price Clarification by aebrain · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Since at $5/burn is steep enough that anyone who doesn't already have a burner would probably come out ahead buying their own (about 20-30 disks worth should pay for it)

    That's $5 Australian, between $3 and $2.50 US per burn. ($1 Aus this morning was 57c US, but it's been less than 55c US for most of last year). But since according to here CD writers in Oz are only about $125 Aus, then you're right.

    --
    Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
  22. Little Ripper by mmerlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a double meaning for the company name "Little Ripper".

    In Australia the word "ripper" is slang for excellent or great.

    You often hear someone exclaim "you little ripper!" when they hear good news.

    Guess it now also describes the 5-year old burning Wiggles CD's for his mates ;-)

    --

    smile, it makes everyone else wonder what you're up to :-)
  23. They copy the bips/blips in hardware by DABANSHEE · · Score: 3, Informative

    I assume we are talking about the CopyCat CD burning kiosks , made/sold by Multi-Tech Australia .

    These kiosks copy the bips 'n blips on the CD track directly through hardware, they have no software to read the track, or the formating information on the CD, for that matter.

    So any errors or copy protection gets copied too & it doesn't matter if its a non-ISO or part non-ISO formated CD being copied.

    They will copy HFS, BFS or packet formatted CDs, no problem.

    I remember reading a a blurb about these kiosks (some supermarkets in Adelaide have them) & the CD reader just records the bip 'n blips on the CD being copied & the burner just copies those blips 'n bips onto the new CD in realtime.

    Really they work more like punch-card copiers than tradition PC CD burning apps.

    Consequently there's no way for these copiers to tell if the CD is copyrighted or has copy protection, as such there's no 'by design' copy protection by-passing software/hardware built in. Plus as there's no way for the machine to tell if a CD is copyrighted there's no 'moral perogative' to reject such CDs.

    In a way the machines get arround the copyright laws the same way the Kazaa P2P network did in the Dutch courts. Like Kazaa it has legit functionality (backing up personal data or tranfering personal data, as is the case with Kazaa) & like Kazaa the design from the start has no ability to tell what's being copied & whether it copyrighted or has copy protection.

    Hence AMCOS only choice other than a 6% levy was a long court case that they'd most probably lose. Really multi-Tech (or who ever) just decided to agree to the 6% levy because it saves a long drawn out court case & its easily passed on.

  24. Just an update on an old story by oliverthered · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's not much new here, only the roylaty payments stuff.
    Here is the earlier story from april.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.