Predicting The End Of Digital Copying

prostoalex writes: "Christian Science Monitor warns about approaching era of digital prohibition. With FCC requiring the use of copy prevention mechanisms in future generations of television sets, soon 'Americans may not be able to copy a song off a CD, watch a recorded DVD at a friend's house, or store a copy of a television show for more than a day'. Of course, no article on this topic can go without a mandatory quote from Jack Valenti, who points out: 'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'."

Comments

Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[bcilfone]

You *cannot* prevent copying. You can't make it illegal and you can't prevent it technically.

I would however expect that we will see more **AA taxes such as the ones already in place on CD-R and radio broadcasts. 5% on your cable modem bill, 3% of your hard drive, 6% of your compactflash card.

If this money were actually distributed to all affected copyright holders and not just those that belong to the **AA, this wouldn't be the worst solution in the world.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[dgmartin98]

Here's my beef:

I agree with the absurdity of the proposal, and with any current levies. In my opinion, if the government plans on charging us fees on the 'assumption' that we're going to be breaking copyright laws, then in those cases IF and when we do break copyright laws, we should consider our debt as paid in full. Otherwise, if the record industry decides to sue someone on the basis of lost sales, we could easily point out that they received compensation for their music, in the form of a fee from the sale of the blank CDs.

So what if the gaming industry decides later this year that they want to get a piece of the pie, too? They'll be asking for their $1.23, or $2.27 for the lost sales of games, because someone copied a PC or Playstation game onto a CD. Then the literary world will get wind of the idea, and decide they want some $$ for their lost sales of e-texts, pdf documents, etc...

There are far more legitimate uses for CDs than there are illegitimate uses. And my guess is that the majority of CDs sold are for legitimate uses. Looking at my stack of CDs, I see some photo CDs that I made, dozens of backup CDs for my hard drive, a collection of MP3 CDs for music that I already own, software backup CDs, temporary storage CD-RWs, various document CDs, etc...

BTW, I think the record industry should pay the same levy on the blank CDs that they use for distributing their music to consumers. This would, in effect, take money from the smaller record labels, and distribute it to the largest label. They may whine, "But we're using these blank CDs to distribute our music for which we own the copyrights." Tough shit ! I want to buy some blank CDs to distribute to friends a set of photos for which I own the copyright!

And those RIOs.... how about someone just using them for storing music they already own, to listen to while they're out for a jog, or a bike ride, etc...

And don't get me started on the flash memory levies. What the hell !?!? The record industry wants me to pay them because I take use flash memory for my digital camera !?!? I don't own a stinkin' flash-based MP3 player!

Grrrrrr....

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[andrews]

Any time consumer owned hardware/software is part of the copy protection scheme, that scheme is doomed to failure. Reverse engineering is a highly advanced art and it's just going to get better. Ask DirecTV how many generations of access cards they've gone through trying to "secure" their signals. Each one was supposed to be unbreakable.

The goal for commercial content protection has to be to stay ahead of the curve just enough to assure current profitability. They realize that sooner or later the copy protection WILL be broken. It's inevitable, even if it's a hundred years from now (but more likely less than one year), that any copy protection will be defeated and the content plastered across the Internet. But that doesn't matter to THIS year's balance sheet.

What's going on with the RIAA, MPAA, Etc. is the industry trying to stay ahead of that curve any way they can. They don't have to stop everyone, just most everyone and they do that by making it just difficult enough that most people won't bother. Like insurance, it's a numbers game.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[AntiNorm]

If this money were actually distributed to all affected copyright holders

But here lies another problem: How do you determine what an "affected copyright holder" is? And how do you determine to what degree a particular copyright holder is affected?

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[dslbrian]

Thats a ridiculous proposal. Why should I pay tax to a -company- !?!?!

Companies don't fund the schools that my kids will go to, or pave the roads that I drive on. In fact those companies don't provide any -public- services at all. You have to pay for their products and services.

If I start an entertainment company, does that mean I can suddenly start collecting taxes?? Imagine the possibilities for corruption of such a system. Suppose a company collects a tax based on how many artists they sign. You can bet every name in the RIAA register would be signing every no-name retard on the planet to increase their portion of the pie.

Sorry, but I'm not interested in maintaining the RIAAs bottom line. If they can't find a real way to make money in the digital age then they should get another job just like everyone else...

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Technician]

You can't make it illegal and you can't prevent it technically

Wana bet?? Check the recording specs for SDMI compliant hardware here.

http://www.sdmi.org/

Sorry about the documents in PDF.

They are making it very hard to record anything of your own creation that isn't Monural voice grade bandwidth limited. This is collateral damage limiting indi creation using new hardware.
Watch out for this to become mandentory instead of optional and anything else not legal.

In the USA, having a lockpick is illegal if you are not a locksmith. Expect audio and video recorders to have the same restrictions soon.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[guttentag]

I realize that this happens in Europe right now. Before it can come to the U.S., here's what needs to happen:

the explicit legalization of all copying of copyrighted works, and the explicit endorsement of copying by the industry that will be the beneficiary of the tax revenue

If we are being charged (financially) on the presumption that we will engage in copying of copyrighted works, it has to be legalized. You can't tax an illegal activity any more than you can have your cake and eat it too.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[rainwalker]

On the subject of lockpicks, I don't believe that they are illegal to posess in the US...I bought a set about a year and a half ago, and no one hassled me or asked me if I was a locksmith. Neither my friend (who also owns a set) nor I make a bit deal out of owning lockpicking tools, as people tend to assume that you are a criminal, but I use it fairly often to let people into their (own) houses, dorm rooms, cars (if possible), and so on. The laws in your state may vary, but I don't think this is the case in Wisconsin. You are correct, though; very soon all audio/visual equipment (at the consumer and prosumer level, at least) is going to have severe DRM hardware, at least according to current trends.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[pthisis]

On the subject of lockpicks, I don't believe that they are illegal to posess in the US

At the very least, mere possession _is_ illegal in many states. Big ones. And in others, only possession with intent to use criminally is illegal, but possession itself is enough to construe criminal intent (ie the burden of proof is shifted to the defendant once such implements are found). California, New York, and Texas are among the states with anti-lockpick laws.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

Sumner

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Ryan Amos]

I didn't know the MPAA had started trolling slashdot.. but I digress.

Yeah, producing movies and music and whatever is a legitimate industry. I recognize this and respect it by buying CDs/DVDs I like. The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection. I don't put my CDs in MP3 format to impress people or to share them (I do neither.) I like having all my songs at my fingertips. This way, I can rip all my CDs to MP3 and find a specific song or album in seconds by searching my collection. I don't have to spend 10 minutes digging through my CD collection just to find I lent it to a friend or it was lost/stolen (a good number of my CDs were stolen from my car a month ago.)

Yes, music piracy may be a threat to the RIAA's bottom line (the data doesn't support this, but I'll be favorable to them and accept their claim.) It's not government's responsibility to prop them up by becoming their enforcement arm. The music industry is a rather recent invention. This nation functioned fine without them. The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.

Add to this that music and video piracy is often NOT a threat to their bottom line. Look at their sales records, in the days of Napster (when music piracy was totally rampant) they enjoyed RECORD SALES. This is the RIAA's own data here. Sales have since dropped.

Maybe this drop in sales is not because of music piracy, but because the vast majority of music released (read: shoved down our throats) is total crap. Nobody's buying this shit because we're all tired of Britney Spears, Creed, Eminem, N'Sync, and all these tired, shitty bands they keep trying to milk for all they're worth. Most of the music I buy now is not from RIAA members but from small, indie labels. Many of my friends are going the same route, because honestly, the major labels gobble an indie label and the music turns to shit as the major label puts pressure on the bands to produce stuff that they think the American public likes.

If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product. I don't want another rap CD where Dr. Dre laid down the beats (he's good, but when he does EVERYTHING, it all starts to sound the same.) The record industry should be no different than any other, you have to innovate to be successful. Right now, that's not happening, and sales are slumping.

As a side note, the prices for CDs are insane. I went CD shopping the other day and was apalled to see that a CD I wanted had a sticker on it for $20. $20! That's roughly $0.50 a minute for a normal CD! Phone sex lines give better rates than that. I didn't buy the CD. The sad thing is, if they were $10 each, I probably would have bought 3 or 4. The record companies have lost touch with their customers, and rather than try to refresh their offerings and fight the piracy in a way that really works, they're trying to crush it, which will never work. The government tried it with drugs, and drug use is as high as it ever was.

</RANT>

Anyway, stop trolling here and tell your board of directors that they need to make products people want to buy if they plan to sell them.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[tuck182]

You can't tax an illegal activity any more than you can have your cake and eat it too.

Actually, according to Kansas you can.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

I think you repeated every single commonly-used /. argument. How quaint. Fortunately, since I already know all these arguments, I also know all the rebuttals.

It's not government's responsibility to prop them up by becoming their enforcement arm.

What is the government's responsibility anyway? I mean, I'm sure you have your own fantasy about what a government does, but the actual real government does spend quite a lot of its effort propping up industry. And I know you probably think that's only because they're in the pocket of industry, but it might also have something to do with the fact that a healthy economy is more likely to get them re-elected.

The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.

Except you left out a major difference between telegrams and music. The telegram was rendered obsolete by the telephone. Music isn't becoming obsolete; CDs are. That's a huge distinction.

Look at their sales records, in the days of Napster (when music piracy was totally rampant) they enjoyed RECORD SALES. Sales have since dropped.

I always love this one. As if the relationship between piracy and music sales is so direct and immediate that you could turn Napster on and sales would immediately skyrocket. By that same logic, Dubya is directly responsible for the economic slump and it has nothing to do with the boom-bust cycle that began in the 90s.

The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection.

Oh look, a red herring. We weren't discussing DRM. We were discussing piracy specifically. Don't try to confuse the two.

Maybe this drop in sales is not because of music piracy, but because the vast majority of music released (read: shoved down our throats) is total crap

You have music shoved down your throat? Poor you. I listen to music mostly at home, at work, and in the car. I guess you spend most of your time in elevators and shopping malls or on hold.

If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product.

This is the most specious argument of all. Firstly, you are basically justifying mob rule. Secondly, people obviously people want the product or they wouldn't be pirating it. I don't listen to N'Sync but millions of teenaged girls do. Although I'm sure there is some kind of conspiracy out there to suppress the music you like, I will at least acknowledge that some of the bands I like just aren't mainstream enough to have huge followings.

As a side note, the prices for CDs are insane. I went CD shopping the other day and was apalled to see that a CD I wanted had a sticker on it for $20.

And you didn't buy the CD. Congratulations, that's the way capitalism is supposed to work. If all you want is music, there's plenty of music out there for $10 or less, even from popular artists. I picked up most of Rush's back catalog for $8 a pop. Heck, if quality isn't your number 1 priority, check out the 99 cent bin at your local used CD store.

$20! That's roughly $0.50 a minute for a normal CD! Phone sex lines give better rates than that.

Hey, that's some bargain phone sex. Anyway, how is that a fair comparison? Is it that you listen to the music CDs once and throw them away or do you tape your phone sex calls and listen to them repeatedly?

Oh wait, you didn't repeat *every* single commonly-used /. argument. You forgot the bit about the labels ripping off the artists. Strange... very few people forget that one.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Aceticon]

I agree with some points and i disagree with others. Just a couple of comments:


> It's not government's responsibility to prop them up by becoming their enforcement arm.

What is the government's responsibility anyway? I mean, I'm sure you have your own fantasy about what a government does, but the actual real government does spend quite a lot of its effort propping up industry. And I know you probably think that's only because they're in the pocket of industry, but it might also have something to do with the fact that a healthy economy is more likely to get them re-elected.


It is not the responsibility of the government to prop-up any specific industry.

In order to improve the quality of life of the citizens, a government should act to improve THE WHOLE ECONOMY. From a purely economical point of view, when passing laws a government has to consider the impact of that law on the overall economy - if a law provides a local increase in wealth (say to RIAA and MPAA members) but a decrease in the overall wealth of a country, then that law should not be passed.

On top of this there is also the discussion about the influence of social (read non-economic) factors in the overall quality of life of the citizens of a country - the extremes of optimizing ONLY economic factors or ONLY social factors do not lead to the maximization of the quality of life.

------------------


> The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.

Except you left out a major difference between telegrams and music. The telegram was rendered obsolete by the telephone. Music isn't becoming obsolete; CDs are. That's a huge distinction.


Telegraphs are "one way of sending information over long distances"
CD's are "one way of distributing music"

Telegraphs have become obsolete but the need to "send information over long distances" is still there and has been satisfied by new products

It can be argued that new (superior) products (internet distribution) are now offering competition to CDs in the area of "distributing music" and that they are being hold-back by the legal manouvers of RIAA.

-----------

>The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection.

Oh look, a red herring. We weren't discussing DRM. We were discussing piracy specifically. Don't try to confuse the two.


Mandatory DRM is being sold by the Music and Cinema industries as a response to piracy. If THEY say it's related to piracy, who are we to say it isn't???

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[zbuffered]

I want to, and am currently able to, record TV shows (World Rally Championships, World Superbike, and Formula One, to name a few) to my computer in MPG format, burn them to CD, and take the CDs and watch them on another computer. They say they're not taking any rights away from me, but you think I'll be able to do this with their new TV laws? If not, I'll resort to piracy, and won't feel bad about it.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Pig Hogger]

In order to improve the quality of life of the citizens, a government should act to improve THE WHOLE ECONOMY.

Not just THE economy, everything else too.

There are other things beside THE economy; it isn't everything there is, you know.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

In order to improve the quality of life of the citizens, a government should act to improve THE WHOLE ECONOMY... if a law provides a local increase in wealth (say to RIAA and MPAA members) but a decrease in the overall wealth of a country, then that law should not be passed.

As you mentioned, there are social issues as well. One of the important functions of government is to protect the majority from a tyranny of the minority. Another important function is to protect the minority from a tyranny of the majority. In this instance, it is not merely a simple economic tradeoff. If we consider the RIAA to be the minority, we must not allow the public to stomp all over their rights as copyright holders [disclaimer: above comment does not apply to anti-copyright zealots]. That would be mob rule.

It can be argued that new (superior) products (internet distribution) are now offering competition to CDs in the area of "distributing music" and that they are being hold-back by the legal manouvers of RIAA.

Okay sure, but the key point remains that the core item in demand (the message, the music) remains constant as the medium changes. And no, in this case the medium is NOT the message :-)

Legitimate Internet distribution (where the copyright holders get a large cut) is fine, but you have to pick a side. You can't argue for legitimate Internet sales, and then attempt to extend that argument to unregulated P2P networks.

Mandatory DRM is being sold by the Music and Cinema industries as a response to piracy. If THEY say it's related to piracy, who are we to say it isn't???

DRM is a response to piracy. It is not an argument for or against piracy, which was the issue at hand. The OP said something asinine like "if you can't make a profit selling music in the digitial age then do like the rest of us and get a real job" as if selling music is not a legitimate job. I contested that idea and he tried to bring DRM into it for some reason. I'm personally of two minds about DRM. I think it could be done properly or it could be done poorly.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[naasking]

By that same logic, Dubya is directly responsible for the economic slump and it has nothing to do with the boom-bust cycle that began in the 90s.

lol. I'll buy that. Everyone is so depressed about their president, they're just sitting around at home mumbling to themselves instead of going out and spending. ;-)

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[WNight]

Knowing the rebuttals to common /. arguments might be helpful if your rebuttals made sense.

It is the business of government to enforce laws, but it's also the business of government to make reasonable laws. Propping up an industry by trying to legislate against the tide isn't reasonable. It also ignores the fact that as long as an industry dies gracefully (not overnight) it doesn't hurt the economy. People get new jobs, factories make new things.

The telegram industry was replaced by the telephone industry, and the music distributors are being replace by direct-to-consumer music sales. Music promoters are being obsoleted by online music distributors. No longer is paying for airplay the only way to be heard, so the monopoly owners of that gateway aren't as important.

You claim that the ability (or lack thereof) to buy MP3s directly is a red herring. It's not, it's the central issue. The music industry is refusing to sell MP3s to people, with the excuse of rampant piracy despite all indicators to the contrary, because their whole business model is based on selling physical disks in physical stores after hyping them on the radio. This is the dying industry that we're being asked to prop up, despite better alternatives.

The issue of the companies improving their product has nothing to do with hiring better talent and everything to do with offering their product in a form that consumers want. Millions may love Britney, but these days sales of MP3 players are surging, cutting out the market of CD-Audio players. The consumers of these products only want the music, not the shiny disk.

Of course, the lack of monopoly control over promotion and distribution would likely mean that there would be more famous musicians and less manufactured stars like Britney, but that's a by-product, not the goal.

Finally, capitalism is supposed to work in a free, open, market. CDs are in the $20 range now simply because there isn't competition. The airwaves are "owned" by two major companies in a duopoly, selling promo space for huge fees and usually only to insiders anyways, to better protect their closed economy. Distribution chains also have exclusive contracts that often prevent them from selling indie music. (The "indie" music seen in most stores comes from a few large supposedly "indie" studios that aren't much different from the big guys, much like Fox bills themselves as so much different than "The Networks".)

If the industry wasn't being propped up by government these companies would quickly drop their exclusive contracts to avoid being pulled down by a dying industry and they'd branch out, or as proper in a capitalist world, be replaced by someone who changed faster.

Finally, you seem to disapointed that the previous poster left out the labels ripping off the artists so I decided I'd bring it up.

It's the job of government to protect industry from certain unforseen swings, like bailing out the airlines for terrorism losses (ignoring for now that they got a lot more money than they needed for just that and that it was handed out unfairly). It's not the job of government to pick an industry and protect it to the detriment of all others. Artists are being ripped off, having unfair contracts forced on them, often retroactively, by a monopolistic industry.

Likely the public's eternal demand for music (It's been around longer than most other products) would result in the same ammount of money being spent on music. It'd simply go to different people, people who are now being prevented from creating a product by the unreasonable financial conditions. It'd likely actually provide more, better, product and in turn, bring in more money, with less "waste" like CDs which aren't really any more useful than jewel cases, or the plastic wrap they come in, to the music-listening consumer.

People recognize that monopolies provide lousy products and service for inflated price, that's why there are laws regulating big business. So why do you seem to think the music industry works better as a government protected monopoly?

You repeat the same shill arguments defending business, while at the same time trying to destroy any potential competition in your supposed free markets. Sounds like astro-turfing to me.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Ryan Amos]

Hah, and you just repeated every stock RIAA rebuttal for every argument. Unfortunately, half of them dodge the issues and the other half are stock right-wing/republican answers. I'm surprised you didn't throw in a link between abortion and Marilyn Manson. You chide one of my arguments for supporting "mob rule" then 3 sentences later you support it by saying "this is how capitalism is supposed to work." Believe it or not, capitalism (at least our system) was supposed to protect against a couple of fat cats sitting at the top allowing no competition and thinking they have a license to print money. The RIAA is just that, it's a few companies who buy up their competition before it gets too big and then charge exhorbitant prices for something that should be a part of our culture.

Ah well. As long as there is music, people will pirate it. God bless the Chinese. :)

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Wraithlyn]

"If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product."
--
"This is the most specious argument of all. Firstly, you are basically justifying mob rule."

Democracy \De*moc"ra*cy\, n.; the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

(I know.. you're going to argue that a "mob" isn't an "organized group", but that was your word, not mine. The sentiment is sound, however.)

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

Knowing the rebuttals to common /. arguments might be helpful if your rebuttals made sense.

Do they not make sense or do you just disagree with them?

Likely the public's eternal demand for music (It's been around longer than most other products) would result in the same ammount of money being spent on music.

Now that's a completely unjustified assumption. Industries work on price points and they adjust those price points to maximize the amount of money they can suck out of you. Every industry has its high volume/low cost players and its low volume/high cost players. The bean counters have analyzed the industry and they have decided that they can make more money by selling X CDs at $20 than Y CDs at $10. Often they try to capture part of the low end market as well (e.g. by offering some CDs at a discount or by selling through record clubs). But they have to set up some kind of barrier (inconvenience, limited selection, etc.) to prevent the low margin business from canabalizing their existing high margin sales. This ability to maximize profits is maintained via industry cartels and economies of scale. Your idea that there is some fixed amount of money to be earned from any given industry is silly.

CDs are in the $20 range now simply because there isn't competition.

I think there is competition, although it is limited. This is where the cartels and economies of scale I mentioned above comes in. Let's face it: For the most part, indie music isn't cheaper. Indie music costs more to manufacture and distribute, plus it has a limited audience. That's why the major labels can afford to keep their margins high. On the other hand, in my experience, mainstream new releases vary in price from $13-$20. You may not be able to find any particular CD for cheap, but you will be able to find some CD for cheap. In the local supermarket, I often see CDs for $8. It's not the latest and greatest stuff, but you can get 10 year old CDs from popular bands at a reasonable price. It's a bit like buying a car. You can buy last year's model at a discount, even though there's probably nothing really different about this year's model. Plus if you're really desperate there's always the 99 cent bin.

People recognize that monopolies provide lousy products and service for inflated price, that's why there are laws regulating big business. So why do you seem to think the music industry works better as a government protected monopoly?

Hey, I'm all for revamping the system. Forget all that stuff I said above. As I've stated many times, I see the Internet as a vehicle by which the artists can wrest control of their music away from the labels by direct-marketing their albums online instead of working within the RIAA system. I don't think there will be as much money to go around, but at least it will go to the right people. I already know some bands that do this; I found out about them by word of mouth or from hearing them on Internet radio. But it's equally clear to me that this system can't work as long as consumers hold onto the idea that pirating music is okay. While it's not good for a few major retail chains to have a monopoly on distribution, it is perfectly justifiable for the copyright owner to have a monopoly on distributing their own works. Frankly, I don't see how some people can get so hung up on arguing this point.

So in conclusion: It's not as bad now as you think it is. There is competition, but you have to get over the idea that you have to have a specific CD at any cost (where that cost is frequently $0). We need to encourage new bands to sell music on the net instead of signing with a label (and we need to buy/pay to download CDs from the good ones instead of ripping them off via P2P).

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

(I know.. you're going to argue that a "mob" isn't an "organized group", but that was your word, not mine. The sentiment is sound, however.)

Nope. I'm not trying to be pedantic here. Mob rule is generally a bad thing; think back to the days of public lynchings. As I pointed out in an earlier post, it is the duty of the government to protect the majority from the tyranny of the minority, but also to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Democracy \De*moc"ra*cy\, n.; the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

You can't convert every facet of life into a episode of "Survivor". I once attended a journalism conference at which the lecturer reminded us to be wary of loaded terms. To use his example, while it would be perfectly democratic for Quebec to vote to secede from Canada, it would be equally democratic if Ontario voted to annex Quebec.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

Hah, and you just repeated every stock RIAA rebuttal for every argument.

Ummm... did not! Please post links to where these rebuttals were published by the RIAA or its minions and I will reciprocate by finding you 2 links (on Slashdot) to each of your stock answers.

Unfortunately, half of them dodge the issues and the other half are stock right-wing/republican answers. I'm surprised you didn't throw in a link between abortion and Marilyn Manson.

Umm... that's funny about all those guesses you just made because I...

a) am not an American.
b) wouldn't be a Republican if I was.
c) am pro-choice on the abortion issue.
d) am not a big fan of Marilyn Manson, but Iam a fan of Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden, and pretty much every other band that has at some point been accused of Satanism.

You chide one of my arguments for supporting "mob rule" then 3 sentences later you support it by saying "this is how capitalism is supposed to work."

Whatever. I applauded your decision to exercise your judgemnt as a consumer by not buying a CD that was overpriced. You didn't state that you proceded to pirate the CD, and I didn't assume that you did.

The RIAA is just that, it's a few companies who buy up their competition before it gets too big and then charge exhorbitant prices for something that should be a part of our culture.

I don't support the RIAA. I want consumers to stop pirating music so that bands who decide to work outside of the RIAA system (by selling their music online) can do so with a hope in hell of making a decent living.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[Wraithlyn]

Well, you make a lot of very good points, but I still have to vehemently agree with the statement:

"[The RIAA] should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product."

People want convenience. They want to have a vast, flexible digital music library. The RIAA, which has a stranglehold monopoly on mainstream contemporary music, is still trying to force everyone to buy overpriced Shiny Plastic Disks.

Why can't they offer their entire music catalog in high quality MP3 or Ogg, and sell em for 50 cents a pop from their web site? Think of the revenue!!! But they won't, for fear of piracy, (which is ridiculous since everything is available on the net now ANYWAY) and they'd rather cripple our technology than try to take advantage of it. I think the quality of their foresight has already been proven by the whole VCR spectacle... ie the "Boston strangler" is now providing them with more than half their revenue.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

Well, you make a lot of very good points, but I still have to vehemently agree with the statement: "[The RIAA] should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product."

Well I can argue with you if you'd like, but I think you ought to know that you are taking the OP's comments way out of context. Read below for a clarification:

Maybe this drop in sales is not because of music piracy, but because the vast majority of music released (read: shoved down our throats) is total crap. Nobody's buying this shit because we're all tired of Britney Spears, Creed, Eminem, N'Sync, and all these tired, shitty bands they keep trying to milk for all they're worth. [...] If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product. I don't want another rap CD where Dr. Dre laid down the beats (he's good, but when he does EVERYTHING, it all starts to sound the same.)

So you see, the OP wasn't even making remotely the same argument you are. I'd like to see the RIAA offer a bigger variety of downloads as well, although I doubt they'd spring for the 50 cent per track price you suggest (keep in mind that not all tracks are created equal).

I think the quality of their foresight has already been proven by the whole VCR spectacle... ie the "Boston strangler" is now providing them with more than half their revenue.

I have to say that you're way off base here. The movie industry never made a dime off of VCRs; they make money from the Video Casette Player that is conveniently included with each VCR. As it happens, you can even buy 'VCP' units that don't record. If VCRs had been ruled illegal, I speculate that a lot of people would have still bought VCPs. (After all, people bought CD players back before you could record your own CDs.)

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[WNight]

This round of responses make sense, but my guess was that you were quoting out of the "Responses to /.er's responses to ..." book last time. I disagreed with the conclusions, but I also thought you jumped to them for incorrect reasons. This time while I disagree with some of your points, they seem to be your honest views and as such they carry more weight.

As to the optimum price point... Yes, I agree that $20 CDs, or whatever price they have, are the "optimum" price, by the company's standards. But what I was saying is that the public is probably going to spend roughly the same ammount, as most people I know hit their music budget without buying everything they want.

Currently the studios get this money by promoting a few big artists and selling expensive CDs. I can easily imagine a less star-dominated industry where prices were lower and people listened to more groups, thus spending the same ammount.

That "optimum" price calculation isn't the whole story. It's calculated based on the current industry, the insane cost of promoting someone, the easy cost of milking stardom when promotion pays off, thus the balace to fewer larger stars.

As to competition, a duopoly or cartel can often be looked at as a monopoly for purposes of assessing its influence of the markets. OPEC is made up of multiple companies and yet they price similarly and are usually seen as a single entity.

This is especially true with vertical monopolies, where one companies owns the means of production (the stars) and the distribution systems (the radio stations and CD stores) or is in such a tight, exclusive, relationship that new competitors face the same obstacles.

There are some alternatives, the $.99 CDs you mention, and the odd ones in the middle ranges, but these aren't real alternatives. If someone wants party music a $.99 CD of elevator music, or ocean sounds, isn't the same product. And a 1/2 price CD of a failed band isn't going to be half a good, for party purposes, as a current CD of a star.

If it wasn't for clear channel, the "indie" promoters (anything but), and the exclusive agreements with CD stores, the monopoly wouldn't be so bad, but the barriers of entry (abuse of the monopoly) prevent what competition there is from making a dent except in certain abondoned markets, like the $.99 CDs of uncopyrighted insturmentals and ambient sounds.

Contrast this to the car market you mentioned where last years car is essentially indistinguishable from the new one, where the performance is identical, and you don't suffer social disgrace for driving it. I don't think it's a fair analogy.

As to the morality of unauthorized copying, I think we mostly agree. As long as copyright is used in the way it was originally intended instead of the way Disney uses it, I think it's wrong to cheat an artist. It's more along the lines of not typing a street performer than it is of stealing his shoes, because he "just" loses a potential payment, but I think it's still wrong when used in bulk.

I don't think copyright was meant to give someone monopoly control on their ideas, just to ensure payment, so I don't see downloading test music to be bad, if it wouldn't have been bought anyways they aren't being hurt by a real loss. So, I'm in the air over file sharing. I think I'm entitled to my Simpsons episodes because I watched them on TV and could have recorded them; downloading them now seems equivalent. But for me to feel right about downloading Babylon 5 which I didn't see, I'd want to pay for it.

However, my moral views (artists should be paid) are the primary reason that I dislike the current system. Because they've got a near monopoly on the the industry, artists are forced to sign unreasonable contracts if they want to be professional musicians and they are then, imho, cheated out of the money they deserve.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

If you make music sharing legal then all bands will suffer. You may buy CDs from band X because you are a diehard fan but most people won't. The fact is, two wrongs don't make a right. You should be buying music from the independent bands instead of pirating the signed ones, not in addition to it.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

This round of responses make sense, but my guess was that you were quoting out of the "Responses to /.er's responses to ..." book last time.

Don't get me wrong. When I said I know the rebuttals to all the common /. arguments it's only because I've debated this subject before. I am simply repeating rebuttals that I've used before; I'm not merely copying someone else's opinion.

But what I was saying is that the public is probably going to spend roughly the same ammount, as most people I know hit their music budget without buying everything they want.

Do you have a music budget? I don't, but then again I have always lived within my means since age 5. Anyway, I completely disagree that people are going to spend X amount of dollars on something no matter what its cost is. If you charge $10 instead of $20 people may buy a second CD, but they might also spend that $10 at the movie or buy clothes or blow it on the stock market. The other disadvantage is that for those people who will buy 2 CDs, you fill up their CD racks twice as quickly. By the time I was 25, I had bought around 300 CDs. Now I hardly buy any; I simply don't need any more music. For the few that I do buy, cost weighs heavily in my decision. There's a few that I wouldn't mind having, but I don't like to get ripped off. I check every now and again to see if they're available for less than $20.

I can easily imagine a less star-dominated industry where prices were lower and people listened to more groups, thus spending the same ammount

You may think that pop superstars exist only because of massive promotion, but I think you underestimate the public's need for celebrity. People need to have something in common to talk about or even to comiserate about. It's part of the human experience. Conforming is easy. It would be much easier if I knew people with the same musical tastes as me; it's tough to convince a friend to take a 6 hour roadtrip to see a band they've never heard of. But for all their criticism of Britney and Creed, the /. crowd is celebrity obsessed. Once you take away profit, fame becomes a driving force behind OSS. In a way, Linus Torvalds is every bit as much a manufactured star as Britney. Don't overlook the public's need for celebrity.

As to competition, a duopoly or cartel can often be looked at as a monopoly for purposes of assessing its influence of the markets. OPEC is made up of multiple companies and yet they price similarly and are usually seen as a single entity.

While there have been some cartels that conspired to fix prices, many times the consistency in pricing happens automatically via game theory. If each player reaches similar conclusions about the optimimum price point, they will each choose a similar price. They may be able to profit by undercutting the competition, but it only helps them gain market share in the short run. In the long run, all the players suffer reduced profits. In fact, when one of the larger players cuts their prices, they are usually the ones who are accused of "predatory pricing" in an attempt to drive the competition out of business, thereby establishing a monopoly.

There are some alternatives, the $.99 CDs you mention, and the odd ones in the middle ranges, but these aren't real alternatives.

The $.99 CDs I see at used stores aren't so much elevator music, but struggling bands who never became successful. The /. crowd wants there to be a free alternative to everything. There is free music out there, but you're not going to find it in stores. Go to MP3.com and you'll find a ton of bands who are peddling their wares for peanuts. I imagine some garage band has even released their songs under the GPL (although I don't know of any). But the fact is, most bands aren't diehard socialists, and given the choice, they would sell their souls for a record contract. I'm sorry, but if you want quality you have to pay extra.

In fact you do have a free alternative: the radio. Radio payola may be corrupt, but what did you expect from an industry that is providing you with a free service on a shoestring budget?

Contrast this to the car market you mentioned where last years car is essentially indistinguishable from the new one, where the performance is identical, and you don't suffer social disgrace for driving it. I don't think it's a fair analogy.

There are plenty of people out there who can't afford *any* kind of car. And they do suffer social disgrace. You know what they do? They ride the bus to work, go to night school, and save their money so that some day they will be able to afford a nice car.

However, my moral views (artists should be paid) are the primary reason that I dislike the current system. Because they've got a near monopoly on the the industry, artists are forced to sign unreasonable contracts if they want to be professional musicians and they are then, imho, cheated out of the money they deserve.

I agree that the artists are getting ripped off, but think of it from the labels' point of view. If you are right and they can take any yahoo off the street and turn them into a superstar by paying off radio stations and promoting the heck out of them, why does the artist deserve a big cut of the money?

I don't think copyright was meant to give someone monopoly control on their ideas, just to ensure payment, so I don't see downloading test music to be bad, if it wouldn't have been bought anyways they aren't being hurt by a real loss.

There are plenty of legal ways of getting test music. The labels realize that giving out free samples is necessary, which is why they pay off the radio stations. If you go to almost any band's website or to one of the big online music stores, you can almost always download some free clips. You can also preview the music in a CD store. I don't think the labels are against test music; they just don't want to support a system that is being used for both test music and piracy. On the other hand, keeping copies of test music that you "wouldn't have bought anyway" is unethical. That's what I call rationalizing piracy.

So, I'm in the air over file sharing. I think I'm entitled to my Simpsons episodes because I watched them on TV and could have recorded them; downloading them now seems equivalent.

Except it isn't, any more than copying music off the radio entitles you to that music. Or if you rent a movie from the video store, does that entitle you to a free copy of the movie? There's a reason why renting a movie costs $5, whereas buying it might cost $20.

Because they've got a near monopoly on the the industry, artists are forced to sign unreasonable contracts if they want to be professional musicians and they are then, imho, cheated out of the money they deserve.

That's why I think the Internet can be a good marketplace for indie music if we can convince people that file sharing is wrong (doing so with the artist's consent would be okay as long as they are the copyright holder). Think of an artist as an entrepreneur. You can work as a salaried employee of a major label or you can start your own business. You may have to take out a loan to buy studio time, and if you fail there is no safety net. But that's the way the world has always worked. If you want to go for the biggest rewards, you can't take the easy way out.
-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

I'm neutral on the subject of DRM. I think it could be done right or it could be done wrong. However, I am not neutral on the subject of Napster. Napster was clearly created with the express intention of stealing copyrighted music, and for all the hot air about fair use and all the things Napster could be used to share, that's pretty much all it was ever used for. There is a longstanding precedent that people who create new industries which may facilitate criminal acts are responsible for helping to monitor and prevent said acts. Napster didn't do that, and the only thing I can't figure out is why it took so long to shut them down.

I can see why people would be upset about DRM, but too many of them are trying to argue both sides of the coin. On one hand, they are upset that DRM might disable legitimate copying (backups, etc) but at the same time they still want to claim that file sharing should be legal because it is free advertising. On a forum like /. the majority opinions don't have to be consistent. Most people here seem to be anti-copyright, and yet most people are also pro-GPL even though the GPL relies on copyright. Yes, copyright is a practical tradeoff, but both sides need to be pragmatic. The ability to make backups is important, but too many /. examples sound something like "I was listening to Internet radio when all of a sudden this song came on that I needed to include in my scholarly essay. Damn you, DRM."

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[WNight]

Oh now you're just trolling again.

Your silly comments about rationalizing are the call of someone who likes the status quo but can't defend it.

*Everything* is rationalized. Man is the rational animal. If we don't rationalize, we irrationalize. What you deride as rationalizing is what I call "examining and judging".

If I buy a DVD I'll use DeCSS on it to watch it if I move overseas, as I would if I bought it overseas and came here. If I can do it with a book, which I bought with the same (ie, none) prior contract, and at the same store, why should I think one is my possession and the other not?

Furthermore, "rationalizing" often leads people to avoid legal, though immoral actions. If I feel it's bad to steal something, I'm going to think about it and decide not to try to trick someone out of their possessions either. Had I not "rationalized" I'd be just like the CEO of Enron, breaking the spirit of laws and ruining lives, but trying to stay just on the side of technical legality.

You could make the argument that blind acceptance of the law is preferable to everyone making up their own minds as to which laws to follow, but I disagree. The history of the Western world is full of example of people who fought against unjust laws and won, thus becoming heroes to their fellows. Our whole society is based on reasoned (rationalized) acceptance of societal rules. Based on informed people making informed choices. We even have it enshrined in law that blindly following the law, despite obvious moral consequences is an offense. ("I was just following a legal order" isn't a valid defense against heinous crimes.)

My views of copyright law are based on the idea that it's a social contract, the people provide a temporary monopoly on the duplication of a work *for the purpose of making the author money*, and the author makes the work publicly available in trade. Society grants a right above and beyond "human rights", and expects certain things in return.

Based on this, I feel I have the right to follow the spirit of this law when the letter isn't reasonable. An alternate example is that audio recordings of someone without their knowledge, in a private place where they expect privacy, is forbidden in the US (in most states.) But this law was written in the 70s when video cameras were large and they didn't see a need to write a law for video recordings. One landlord was taping young women in the shower in his apartments and he ended up getting off (pun?) on the charges because he hadn't recorded audio, just video.

To any reasonable person this is still an offense, a worse one in many ways even. Had he been moral and examined this, he would have realized that despite a loophole, his actions were viewed as criminal and damaging by the majority, especially the women he was taping, and he wouldn't have done this.

I feel that as long as I follow the spirit of copyright law, to not deprive authors of sales of their works unfairly, that I'm justified in downloading them for sample purposes. I could call a friend and get him to play his copy over the phone, or try to find it on a website, or drive to a store to listen, but in the end, if I buy the song if I like it, what's the difference?

Copyright law was never intended to control access to the work, the whole idea that it goes into the public domain after a short time supports this. Once the author released a work, it was public. The law was only concerned with making sure the author got paid, and thus was encouraged to produce more. The fact that I copy the work without the author's permission doesn't seem relevant, that's not the point of the law, nor can I see damage being caused by my doing it.

Furthermore, as to the "right to record a copy if I'd watched it on TV", this is a right. The home recording act supports it. You are allowed to record television programs, but not to trade in them. That "trade in them" to me is, conduct business in trading in them. If I get a friend with two VCRs to record something for me, because my VCR is broken, how does that hurt the copyright holder? How about if the friend records a copy for me later? Now what's the difference if I download them?

One real difference is that shows are currently supported by commercials. But watching the Simpsons episode, I paid fair market price for that recording. By downloading a Babylon 5 episode without commercials (if I haven't seen it on TV), I haven't. (Not that I think you have to watch commercials, I think they provide the shows on the assumption that you will have the choice to watch them, and will usually be lazy. They know people ignore commercials and they still decide they're worth paying for, they must think they have value.)

This is how I justify what you may see as a crime, but the same thought processes keep me from using some still-legal drug on your sister without her knowledge and taking advantage of her because of a legal loophole.

I'm not going to adress the rest of your points. If you honestly don't believe people have the power and right to judge the morality of their actions and act accordingly, there's really no point in continuing.

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

Oh now you're just trolling again.

I thought trolling was when you posted inflammatory statements that you don't believe in an effort to provoke knee-jerk responses. Also, I thought trollers didn't reply to a thread they started, since the intention is to waste others' time and not their own. I'm not doing either of those.

What you deride as rationalizing is what I call "examining and judging".

Rationalizing is when you use logic to support a pre-ordained belief. Psychologists have learned that the way the human mind works is that we make an unconscious decision and later justify it with logic. The tougher the decision, the more convinced we are that we arrived at it by logic. Self-deception is an essential part of human reasoning.

Rationalization [m-w.com] 2b: to attribute (one's actions) to rational and creditable motives without analysis of true and especially unconscious motives [rationalized his dislike of his brother].

You could make the argument that blind acceptance of the law is preferable to everyone making up their own minds as to which laws to follow.

I never said that, and I disagree with that statement. Sometimes, laws need to be changed, and the only way they will be changed is if people refuse to obey them. But the respectable way to change a law is to make yourself a test case. Do like Scopes and teach evolution; do like Bruce Perens almost did and stage a public demonstration; do like Martin Luther King and refuse to ride the bus. In doing so, you hope to change the views of society (or at least the courts) without presuming that you are omnipotent. You can choose to not follow whichever laws you like, but you cannot expect society not to punish you for breaking them. Otherwise, you have just granted sociopaths license to commit murder.

My views of copyright law are based on the idea that it's a social contract, the people provide a temporary monopoly on the duplication of a work *for the purpose of making the author money*, and the author makes the work publicly available in trade. Society grants a right above and beyond "human rights", and expects certain things in return.

Many /. readers seem to hold the "original" definition of copyright from the constitution (and its 7 year lifespan) to be sacred. Aside from the fact that I am not an American so I don't care what the US constitution says and the fact that it was written 300 years ago and it could have hardly anticipated modern circumstances, what is so special about 7 years? Why can't authors have 50 years in which to profit from their creations? (Fair use laws were written less than 30 years ago and they failed to anticipate modern technology.)

BTW, I also don't believe that there is such a thing as "basic human rights". As far as I can determine, all rights are artificial and are bestowed upon us by society. Also, keep in mind that copyright still exists, even if you don't make a work available to the public.

I feel that as long as I follow the spirit of copyright law, to not deprive authors of sales of their works unfairly, that I'm justified in downloading them for sample purposes. I could call a friend and get him to play his copy over the phone, or try to find it on a website, or drive to a store to listen, but in the end, if I buy the song if I like it, what's the difference?

I am all for discretion, but I feel that on /. it's too often all take and no give. The law has built in loopholes for discretion. If you perform an act that is technically illegal but mostly accepted by society, you are unlikely to get more than a slap on the wrist. Many all-encompasing laws are on the books in order to deter people from finding loopholes, but in practice there is a lot of discretion in law enforcement. I believe that grey areas are vitally important to the legal system and I am categorically opposed to any kind of slippery-slope argument.

A lot of /. readers think in very black-and-white terms. For example, I'm in a discussion right now with a guy who has some very odd (yet precise) views on what exactly constitutes theft.

I feel that as long as I follow the spirit of copyright law, to not deprive authors of sales of their works unfairly, that I'm justified in downloading them for sample purposes. I could call a friend and get him to play his copy over the phone, or try to find it on a website, or drive to a store to listen, but in the end, if I buy the song if I like it, what's the difference?

That's fine. No one is going to get upset if you copy a song here and there. But you have no right to demand a worldwide system to make it easy for you. Even if they may tacitly approve of small-scale file swapping, the labels have to be against large-scale piracy. As I mentioned above, that's the way the grey area works. You ignore minor offenses that are technically illegal, but they remain technically illegal so that the courts can exercise their discretion when someone tries to use a loophole to abuse the system.

Furthermore, as to the "right to record a copy if I'd watched it on TV", this is a right. The home recording act supports it. You are allowed to record television programs, but not to trade in them.

You're allowed to record stuff off tv, but not to store it in perpetuity. TV broadcasting was designed to give you the ability to watch a show once, providing you also watched the commercials or paid a monthly fee. The home recording act gave you the right to time-shift that experience. The studios argued that this feature would breach by allowing people to skip commercials and pirate their shows, which it did, but not to any great extent (but there were compromises, such as the feature of VCRs that you can't make good copies of recordings of tv shows). However, circumstances have now changed. If the same court case had taken place today, the results may have been very different.

Anyway, I find it funny that you are presenting legal evidence after arguing over the irrelevance of laws except as general guidelines. You say you don't feel guilty because the copyright owner still gets paid. Doesn't it matter how much they get paid? If you make a copy of a movie on TV with the commercials removed, you may be getting a $15 dollar value for an amortized cost of $1. I ask in all seriousness because a lot of people I talk to on /. seem to think that profit is a Boolean variable.

(Not that I think you have to watch commercials, I think they provide the shows on the assumption that you will have the choice to watch them, and will usually be lazy. They know people ignore commercials and they still decide they're worth paying for, they must think they have value.)

They make the assumption that an insignificant fraction of the population have TIVOs. As that changes, you will find that more and more commercials will be superimposed over the shows in very intrusive ways. And then /. readers will complain about that (as they already have).

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[WNight]

Ok, so "rationalizing" is picking a belief first and supporting it later, but how do you distinguish this from examining an issue rationally and choosing what you feel is the best solution? You can't, it's an exercise in semantics. If I do something you don't agree with, I'm rationalizing.

You say I've got curious issues about theft, but I can't see how the idea that if you don't take something away from someone, or hurt them, it's theft. Freeloading perhaps, but not theft. Dictionary definitions don't count for anything either, as they were all written before there was anything you could take without removing the original and will thus be irrelevant.

You ask why I'm attached to the early US version of copyrights. The answer is that I'm not, or not to the letter of it. (I'm not an American (to use the USA meaning of the term) actually.) Their definition of copyright spells out the give and take, and has the phrase "limited time" which I feel to be of paramount importance.

The specific ammount of time authors have doesn't seem important. 7, 12, 15, all fine. Even 50 would be somewhat acceptable if some concessions were made. But the trend towards longer-than-human-lifespan terms makes the "limited time" clause seem ridiculous.

I'm not even sure I support the idea that people can control an idea, certainly not an unlimited government-backed monopoly on them.

It's like patents. I recognize that they have their uses, and they in some cases are very helpful to society. But the way we let people patent business models, and final goals, not just specific methods, seems ridiculous. Especially if you consider different industries. Pharmecutical companies often go through five or more years of government mandated testing on top of the R&D, patents need to last long enough to benefit from actual market time. Lifecycles in computer companies are closer to three years for design, testing, and bringing a product to market. The whole "computer industry" is barely twenty years old. To allow the same terms for patents in both industries is harmful.

In the same way, copyright can serve a purpose, but if misapplied it hurts everyone. Why accept the existance of a law like this as given, regardless of the particulars and the effects?

This is an example of my "rationalizing". I'm trying to examine the purpose of a law and how it can be applied to benefit everyone. My "existing bias" perhaps is that the government my taxes pay for should be looking out for me as well, but that does seem reasonable.

In many cases I see that the laws don't benefit me directly, but that they help society as a whole and I accept that a disadvantage to me is worth it in trade for a better society. (Socialized health care, patents, etc.) In other cases I see abuses like Disney's bribing of politicians to extend copyright well beyond any possible give and take. That's an abuse of the system and I don't see why I should bother following what I see as being an unjust law, created by bribery.

You say that people should change the law by doing as Scopes did, breaking it in a very public way. It's all well and good to talk about, but for every Ghandi, or Rosa Parks, or Scopes, there are hundreds of people in dank jails for life, or beaten to death by the roadside. Or, simply financially ruined and unable to get work in their industry. Changing the world is all well and good, but I don't wish to martyr myself for it. You've seen what happens, Dmitry could have ended up in a foreign jail for longer than the Enron execs will collectively be behind bars.

The problem with your question on profit is that it assumes any movie is worth $15 to all customers. If watching a movie once is allowed "for free" because I recorded it, is charging $15 justified because I want to go back and watch the end again? That seems somewhat boolean as well. Of course, full repeated access for $0 isn't fair either. Somewhere in the middle though you come to something that's fair.

And yes, the broadcast model assumes people can, but don't bother, to skip commercials. If that changes, so will the model. (Hopefully... maybe they'll just mandate a policeman for every TV, to enforce the current model. Skip more than every 1/3rd commercial and get a truncheon in the ribs...) But how much does commercial airtime cost, ammortized across the number of people who will watch? How much is the studio being paid per viewer?

I assume that when pay-per-view replaces broadcast, that the prices will skyrocket. Look at the downloadable MP3 deals from the big studios. You don't require any physical media, shipping, or retail costs, and yet they want to charge more per track (usually) than current retail prices. Does this suddenly mean the song is worth more?

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[God! Awful]

Fuck am I pissed off. I wrote a long reply and /. expired my session so I lost it. Fortunately it's still fresh in my mind:

Rationalizing is not so much picking a belief and supporting it later. Rationalization tends to have an underlying current of self-deception. Of course it's subjective, but you can tell when someone is rationalizing their beliefs. Look for strained metaphors or arbitrary distinctions. Look at how Christian Scientists explain science.

Rationalized opinions don't have to be self-consistent. Look at a site like /. where the popular opinion is anti-copyright is and pro-GPL. Both of these issues have to do with authors maintaining control of their works. These would appear to be mutually contradictory opinions, and yet any /. reader worth his salt can come up with an excuse why the rules should be different for the GPL (ask 5 readers, get 5 different reasons).

The law (which was written after 1776) supports the idea that copyright infringement is theft. I fully believe that leeching can be theft. If you don't think it's theft unless you deprive someone of property, what about the grayscale of a) copying a CD, b) sneaking into a concert without paying, and c) commissioning services and then refusing to pay? In each case, you are stealing someone's time.

I think copyrights need to have a lifetime on the order of the lifetime of the author. I see no reason to create a dynasty. I think patents are necessary too, and I agree with you that the lifetime of the patent should vary for different industries. I think the case for copyright is much stronger than the case for patents. Patents stimulate research. When you invent something, you accelerate the progress of human reason, but there is a good chance that someone else would have eventually discovered the same thing anyway. When you create a work of art, you have done something unique. If you had never created it, it would never have existed. Therefore, you deserve much more control over your work.

In a capitalist society, not all laws can benefit everyone. Some laws have to benefit the individual. It would benefit 99.999% of society to pass a law that appropriated all your property and shared it among everyone else, but it would be eminently unfair to you.

I find it unlikely that people are going to end up in Mexican prisons or beaten to death by the side of the road for violating copyright. Financially ruined, maybe. BTW, the problem with Dmitry is that he was not as much of a saint as the EFF made him out to be.

I believe that businesses have the right to choose what price they sell their product at. When you pay $15 for a movie you get more value than if you rent it for $5. If you pay $30 a month flat rate for cable you don't get to choose exactly what and when you watch. You have to pay for choice and convenience. Movies are hardly the only industry where this applies.

The most likely effect of Tivos is that the quality of programming will go down. This is due to the twin effects of a) an increased number of channels and b) less ad revenue to go around. The public won't tolerate huge rate increases (and they prefer flat rate to pay-per-use), so the budget for each channel is going to go down.

-a

Re:Copying will be allowed, but taxed

[WNight]

Heh, quality of programming will go down? That's a nasty prediction. The TV arguments are actually a little distant for me, I haven't watched TV in almost a year.

Could you have just gone 'back' and gotten your reply? Mozilla is pretty good about keep the contents of forms, but I'm not sure about other browsers...

By the way, I don't think you need to be self-contradictory to be anti-copyright and strongly pro-GPL. The GPL is intended to subvert copyright, to use the ever increasing strength of the copyright laws against the robber-barons that keep increasing it's length and strength. In fact, I think the people most opposed to copyright should be the strongest supporters of the GPL.

I'm not against copyright, but I think the foundations of our most important technology shouldn't be locked up by even many corporations. I think specs and source-code for implementing a basic compatible computer, or car, or performing surgery, should be available for everyone. I see the GPL as a means of enforcing this, of making copyright law which recently has seemed very anti-user as working for 'us', but I'm not anti-copyright. I just advocate a balanced copyright.

On the subject of balanced law, any law that targets a class of people directly is likely to be unjust. I'd benefit from a law that said 'WNight gets Gates' money' but it's as unfair as a law that says the opposite. Extending copyright law without limit is one of those unbalancing factors that targets a certain class of people (those who own Mickey Mouse).

Few people are going to be tossed into mexican prisons for violating copyright, but people may be imprisoned for a "crime" half a world away. A crime like letting someone watch a DVD outside of the continent where they bought it. Copyright laws are fairly lenient but the supporting laws like the DMCA which could forbid pretty much any sane application of our right, aren't. Dmitry might not have been a saint, but then I'm with the ACLU, if a child molestor has been unfairly treated he deserves his rights as much as a nun would, were she to be arrested. The "crime" he committed was in allowing people to copy copyrighted materials, something they have a legal and moral right to do. Except, in this case, the legal right was superceeded by a dirty law full of impossible-to-use exceptions.

I do believe (DVD pricing) that anyone should be able to sell anything for any price someone will buy it for, and that they should even be able to sell two identical things for two different prices. But I don't believe they should have any control on the things they make after they sell them, other than to in the case of copyrighted works, forbid you to make your own copies for sale. This way if they want to sell the good DVDs, with all the extras, for less money in the USA and Canada than they sell the crappy ones for in France another business could be formed taking orders in france and sending the Region 1 product to Europe. This would also fix discriminatory pricing, where southern businesses would sell to Blacks for twice the price, or where MS-owned MS-Ford wouldn't sell cars to known open source developers, or whatever. If you want a capitalist market economy, you accept that it's a free market and you don't get any protected markets.

I think my views on copyright violation and on theft are fairly consistent. Re: your examples. 1) No loss, except a potential sale. 2) Ditto, as long as the freeloader isn't denying a seat to a paying customer. 3) The contractor had their time wasted, clearly unfair.

Now, I think that taking advantage of the no-harm aspect of CD copying is unfair in the long run, it's basically the trajegy of the commons. If everyone takes everything they get, for as little as they can pay, all pleasantry is gone and everything is a fight. If however everyone plays nicely, taking a little extra only every now and then when it won't be missed, people can share more efficiently.

An example is crowding on a subway. If people crowd on while people are getting off the first few people in the crowd get a better seat, but everyone else is held up and suffers. If everyone waited their turn they would all get seats an equal percentage of the time. And if they really needed a seat, people would probably give them one if they were polite.

The analogy to CDs is that if I copy a CD to listen to and decide even to listen to a few songs every now and then, it won't hurt anyone if I do it sparingly and honestly do purchase everything I really do want to listen to. The artist is no worse off because I wouldn't have paid for the music, and I get a small gain. If everyone did that, all the time, they'd kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The musicians wouldn't have had anything taken from them but they'd decide music wasn't profitable in a society of jerks and they'd get day jobs.

Just as any substance is harmful in large enough doses, any activity can be harmful it everyone does it to the exclusion of all other activities. If nobody bought CDs, using Napster would be harmful overall. If everyone bought CDs and used Napster to choose which ones to buy, it wouldn't be a problem for anyone except bad musicians with deceptive advertising, and for the most part everyone would benefit.

screw this off (litterally)

[Scrameustache]

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission approved regulations that would require television manufacturers to include anticopying technology in the next generation of televisions.

Did they also pass a law banning screwdrivers? 'Cause if not...I plan to use one to exclude anticopying technology in my next generation TV.

Re:screw this off (litterally)

[jsse]

Did they also pass a law banning screwdrivers? 'Cause if not...I plan to use one to exclude anticopying technology in my next generation TV.

Nope, but I'm afraid you are in violation of DMCA in doing so.

In the process of removing the screws you need to turn each of those with a screwdriver n-turn anti-clockwise, where n is the exact number of turn the manufacturer has turned to put that screw in place. By reversing the process you are effectively doing reverse-engineering on it and violate the DMCA.

Re:screw this off (litterally)

[guttentag]

It's not illegal to own a screwdriver, but it is illegal to screw with the MPAA, the FCC, or their anti-copying technology.

Re:screw this off (litterally)

[Orangedog_on_crack]

What do macrovision, divx (the failed product, not the codec) region encoded DVD's, copy protection in game consoles, cable boxes and DSS dishes all have in common? Anyone....? Anyone...? Bueller...?

We all know the answer. These were, in their day, the big boogie man of fair use and everyone rung their hands over. Well guess what? If the build it, we will hack it. And as far as running afoul of the laws that prohibit distribution of the tech or knowledge thereof, anyone smart enough to defeat these systems will be smart enough to do so on websites overseas, far from the reach of Jack Valenti and Senator Disney. What is the definition of DRM...? If you're ready the correct dictionary, it should translate into the word "challenge."

Get a grip! How many of us have a game console with a mod chip? How many people have an emulation rig hooked up the their dish? How many people have a test chip in their cable box? All the RIAA and MPAA are doing is raising the bar for us. Well see their DRM and raise them a flood of hacks.

Re:screw this off (litterally)

[poot_rootbeer]

Whimsical descriptions of how regular everyday activities constitute DMCA violations are NOT CLEVER ANYMORE. They're as bland and predictable as the endless Natalie Portman hot grits Beowulf cluster goatse first posts.

Let it die, already.

Good to know..

[sylvester]

'Americans may not be able to copy a song off a CD, watch a recorded DVD at a friend's house, or store a copy of a television show for more than a day'

Guess that means they don't need any new laws. Which, in turn, means they can stop buying congress critters. I'm sure their accounting departments will be glad to hear that.

(Point being, this is as transparent as usual for Valenti. The things implied by this quote don't bear out at all.)

-Rob

But were doing out best

[Sabalon]

'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'

But we will be working our butts off to have most of the things you are doing today classified as illegal.

Of course we'll be making small changes as not to conflict with the constitution.

What about TVs not made in the U.S.?

[paladin_tom]

From the article,

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission approved regulations that would require television manufacturers to include anticopying technology in the next generation of televisions. The technology would identify programs that broadcasters do not want consumers to copy without first paying a fee.

So what's stopping companies from countries other than the US from making a copy-protected version of their hardware for the US market, and a non-copy-protected version (possibly at a higher price) for the non-US market?

Sure, companies don't like having to support multiple products, but I'll bet there'd be a market for this. Wouldn't the FCC's new regulation just push American companies out of this market?

Re:What about TVs not made in the U.S.?

[Citizen of Earth]

The shit's going to hit the fan when Joe Sixpack presses 'Record' on his remote control and his fancy new home-entertainment system says "Permission Denied". There will be a bloody rebellion when the DMCA starts to directly impact most consumers.

Re:What about TVs not made in the U.S.?

[fluxrad]

lmfao. which american TV manufacturers would you suggest this will be pushing out of the market?

Hrm...

[RomSteady]

My question is this: there is nothing legally wrong with space-shifting my CD collection, so what is legally wrong with space-shifting my DVD collection?

I copy my CD's to MP3 format and take those into work so that I won't have my CD's stolen. I do the same with my DVD's, except I convert them to Windows Media 8 format.

As long as you own a copy of the video in question, aren't you basically doing what is already legal to do with CD's? (Aside from the whole DMCA riff, which is OK, because I have several region-free DVD's.)

I'm not talking about distributing those copies. That is, of course, illegal as hell. I'm talking about using a copy of your own item for personal use.

Re:Hrm...

[Alex Belits]

My question is this: there is nothing legally wrong with space-shifting my CD collection, so what is legally wrong with space-shifting my DVD collection?

Nothing. Valenti just pulled that out of his elderly ass.

Re:Hrm...

[PhilHibbs]

I'd mod it down as "Another inapplicable analogy comparing information to physical goods", but there's no category for that.

My point is, copyright law is infringement of my liberty. I'll accept it to a certain degree, but when the law stops me from doing very reasonable things with my own property, just in case I might also do something illegal, then that's where i draw the line.

Re:Hrm...

[richieb]

I'm not talking about distributing those copies. That is, of course, illegal as hell. I'm talking about using a copy of your own item for personal use.

Let's see. If I lend my friend a DVD that's OK. But if I lend him the copy, I go to jail. Right?

Re:Hrm...

[Genom]

Putting copy protection on products is identical to putting anti-theft tags on pocketable good, with mirrors and cameras and pickups by the door to stop shoplifters.

With the exception being that copy protection only hurts the honest - it does nothing to prevent the piracy groups from doing thier thing. For real examples of this, take a look at the gaming industry.

Warcraft 3 (and many other titles) use a copy protection on the CD called SecuRom. This copy protection puts invalid data on the CD, with the intention of "tricking" burners. That's all well and good, except it also hinders the ability of certain drives to READ the CD. This is causing problems with legitimate owners of the CD not being able to play the game they paid for. It doesn't, however, seem to have prevented the warez groups from releasing a non-protected ISO. It's kind of funny, actually, that in the first couple of weeks, the most user-suggested workarounds for Warcraft 3 problems (on Blizzard's "Open Support" forum) were "Try the no-CD", and "Try to find the warezed version and see if that works". Blizzard, of course, couldn't condone either one of these, and instead pointed to a general system-tweaking checklist that had little to do with actual game issues.

Re:Hrm...

[Pig Hogger]

That is, of course, illegal as hell.

HR 209392.3049

An act to prohibit the establishment of a place of repentance for sinners

Sens. Guzwald (ZA), Hotckiss (DU), Punkadiddle (IE).

Be it established that within the confines of the United States of America, it shall henceforthwith deemed illegal to establish any kind of establishment, subterranean or otherwise, for the purpose of punishing sinners by way of exposure to extreme temperature, combustion without consumption up to but not limited to epidermic puncture by the use of pitchforks yielded by devilish critters, no matter cute or BSDish they may look.

Re:Hrm...

[richieb]

If you lend your friend the DVD: nobody knows, nobody cares. If you lend your friend the copy: nobody knows, nobody cares.

Not if your DVD player is on the net and it reports the uses to RIAA. Or better yet, it checks if you have the license to play it and will only play on your home player and nowhere else...

Re:Hrm...

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

Putting copy protection on products is identical to putting anti-theft tags on pocketable good, with mirrors and cameras and pickups by the door to stop shoplifters.

Exactly! Why don't more people see this? Just yesterday I purchased a new set of expensive headphones. To help ensure that the headphones weren't stolen, they were designed to only work with stereos in North America. And nothing helps prevent shoplifting like the build in ASS (audio scrambling system) that ensure that the headphones can only be connected to certified stereos. And I shudder to of how badly ravaged the electronics industry would be if people were free to disassemble or modify headphones!

Hmmm, wait a minute. Now that I think about it, anti-theft tags are nothing like copy restriction technology. Once I've paid for something with an anti-theft tag, the tag is removed and I'm free to enjoy my purchase however I want. Once I've paid for something with technical copy and use restrictions, it follows me home and limits my use forever.

Re:Hrm...

[homer_ca]

In this interview with the President of the RIAA he spouts the party line.

Eric Olsen: How are you actually going to overcome the "fair use" doctrine? It's already a fact that "archival" copies are allowed, so why is "space shifting" not archival and thus "fair use"?

Cary Sherman: ... It is not a fact that "archival" copies are allowed. Copyright law specifically allows certain kinds of archival copies of software, but not of music, movies, books or anything else. In fact, in the Texaco case, the court held that making archival copies of scientific papers was not a fair use. As for space shifting, I don't think any court has actually held that it's a fair use. And a couple have specifically ruled that it isn't.

Now compare and contrast with Orrin Hatch questioning Hilary Rosen in the Senate- here:

''Can I make a copy of a CD that I buy and put it into a car?'' asked Hatch. When Rosen hemmed and hawed, Hatch muttered, ''The answer is yes.''

Re:Hrm...

[Aexia]

There's also the debacle with Morrowind. The CD copy protection program kept running even after the program started and significantly impaired game performance. Pirates using a no-CD patch were getting a better experience than paying customers.

When Bethseda issued their patch, they made it so that it would patch the no-CD patched version as well because so many people were using it to get around the performance issues.

Re:Hrm...

[bluGill]

This is old. I remember back in 1983 that people did the same thing with the Atari. Honest bought a game, and never even opened the origional package, just found a warzed copy without all the copy protection.

I had one game I could only load one out of 7 times, because my disk drive happened to spin 1 rpm faster than most (still within specs).

Eventially companies learned that copy protection pissed off the honest people more than it prevented the dishonest copies. So make sure if you are an honest person that you complain at the first sign of copy proection related trouble.

Re:Hrm...

[WNight]

Valenti is just assuming that you need to break CSS to copy a DVD, and thus it's against the DMCA he bought. (Along with a few judges like crooked Caplan, but hey...)

He completely ignores the fact that you can do a bit-for-bit copy, with copy-prevention still intact, and press a new DVD. This is legal, if done for legal reasons (space shifting, etc.)

So really, he's prevented legal users from exercising their rights, meaning the only people capable of making a space-shifted DVD are the Asian illegal duplicators. (Or anyone else with $100k+ of machinery.)

Bleh, ignore him and his law. There's nothing reflecting morality (personal or societal) in it, it's just to protect a dead business model.

Re:Hrm...

[WNight]

If region coding vanishes it will be because the rest of the world (regions 2 -> 7) realize they are being screwed. Their governments will give DVD-player making companies the right to ignore certain aspects of their contracts with the DVDCA, specifically region encoding, etc.

Then this will trickle back into the US when people realize that foreigners are getting better hardware. When it's no harder to go to Amazon.co.uk to order a DVD player than to go to BestBuy.com, people will, and eventually region coding will be as good as dead.

Hollywood will *NEVER* give up region coding, it's a great price-fixing scam. The same thing that pisses off other countries makes Hollywood a ton of money. But they'll eventually make themselves irrelevant.

Anyways, they'll never plug "the analog hole" and it'll get worse the more they push. Right now I buy movies and music partly because I support the artists and partly because I'm lazy. Piss me off too much and even if all digital methods are out, I'll bring home studio-quality equipment from work and make tripod mounted high-definition, 5.1 sampled, copies of my movies and I'll distribute them. The more they push shit like Palladium, the more people will fight. Like the Star Wars quote.

There's no way to prevent analog copies of video or audio displays. There's no way to make a "perfect" watermark because you can't make something only a specific device with a specific private-key will recognize (or it's useless) so they can always be found an removed. Their battle is a losing one, but by fighting it, they earn the hatred of people who will them specifically attempt to cost them money instead of just doing so inadvertantly.

Re:Hrm...

[WNight]

That's exactly what happened to me with Diablo 2, a birthday present I got a few years back. Blizzard told me to buy a new CD-ROM (yeah, right) and I tried to return it. That didn't work (of course). So I told Blizzard they'd never get another sale from me again.

I don't play WC3, but I've burned 20+ copies and given them out, hopefully many to people who would have otherwise bought the game.

The funny thing is, when D2 was new, I got kicked from the IRC channels for asking for a No-CD for it, even though I explained why I needed it. Today the help forums have people openly telling everyone to use the cracks, or, depending how pissed they are, to just warez it and play locally.

Blizzard's overly strict copy protection, and blaming users for its failure, has cost them a ton, both money and respect.

And through all this, the people who always warez things didn't notice a thing. They always use cracks, and their copies always worked.

Re:Hrm...

[WNight]

That makes a ton of sense. I'm willing to accept large infringements on my liberty when they help society in a way I believe in, murder laws for example, but when the laws just exist to help a few and to help them screw everyone else... No.

Re:Hrm...

[sparty]

Um, doesn't the CD Audio spec already call for a copyright bit?

I think that metadata is already there...I remember when I first got into ripping CDs (on my dad's P166 that was slow-as-molasses and jittered so badly I couldn't ever get a completely clean track) and I had to pass an additional command-line parameter to cover the butt of the person creating the utility (parameter said basically, "Yes, I know the copyright bit is set, ignore it.").

The sky is not falling..

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

More has always been accomplished under prohibition than not. Enterprising young 'uns will always be a step ahead.

Besides Jack, you can't live forever.....

Re:The sky is not falling..

[SlugLord]

speaking of Prohibition (yes I know I'm taking it out of context), To the best of my recollection, alcohol is legal again. Why? Oh sure some of it had to do with the public interest in ending Prohibition, but more had to do with the fact that they simply couldn't stop it. What did they do instead? Tax it. Fair enough.

Hey Jack!

[loraksus]

And everything that people are illegally doing today, they will be doing tomorow, same goes for whatever you and your whored congresscritters decide is illegal tomorow.
Get with the fucking program.

This sucks!

[nfras]

If my kids are watching a DVD in the living room and I record my show on the DVD recorder in my study I won't be able to watch it on the DVD player in the living room.
This is insane nonsense. The truth is that most people won't realise that they are being butt-fucked until it is too late.

Valenti's quote should read "Grab the Vaseline and bend over, here comes the MPAA."

No prevention...

[jlrowe]

Laws do not prevent crime. They merely provide punishment for those who disregard them. And if they are *stupid* laws, it is a virtual guarantee they will be disregarded.

Laws also mean nothing to the 'good' citizen. That citizen would behave properly whether the law existed or not, providing it is a proper and just law.

Not does the law mean anything to the criminal. He will break them ( or rather, do what he wants )whether or not they exist.

Again I say, that laws merely define a punishment. They do *not* control behaviour.

Re:never has been

[charnov]

Since I was present at the Kinkos landmark fair-use trial and worked for the company through the courts remedy, I guess I am qualified in reporting that it is (Constitutionally) legal to make copies of just about anything under certain circumstances (including DVD's). One of those circumstances being to be able to make copies of things for personal use so long as no substantial financial harm to the copyright holder and no substantial gain to the copier (or others) occurs, eg. backups of your own purchased goods.

I DO make copies of my DVD's mr Valenti...and I will fight for my right to do so.

So much for my SuperDrive

[myov]

It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now

Since when? I can't use my SuperDrive to copy the content that I create on my own?

Valenti is a liar.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow," says Valenti.

Umm, actually, shit-for-brains, despite your consistent propaganda to the contrary it IS, in fact, perfectly legal to make a copy of a DVD.

Sell the copy? No. Give a copy away free to anyone who asks for it? Probably not. MAKE the copy in the first place? LEGAL.

"It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now" is a flat-out lie. Someone in the mainstream media needs to call him on this crap.

Yeah right, Jack!

[serutan]

This is the same guy who proclaimed a couple months ago that television viewers who don't watch commercials are guilty of stealing programming. Sure, I'll believe whatever he says about DRM.

Don't watch tv. Don't buy music.

*Shrug*

[NanoGator]

Too bad they won't supply my demand for music in MP3 format.

Re:*Shrug*

[mochan_s]

Well, there are plenty of artists and bands who are selling thier music in mp3 format. The problem is you are not hearing or interested in those artists because they aren't on MTV or hyped in magazines (which they mostly own).

Hence, the point never ever has been of demand and supply. When you have advertisment and product differentiation, there is no point talking about demand and supply. You either buy ("you favorite band or musicians")'s CD or live a miserable life without it. There's no substitue product.

Re:*Shrug*

[NanoGator]

"Well, there are plenty of artists and bands who are selling thier music in mp3 format"

So? The artists I want to listen to don't do it, otherwise I wouldn't be bitching about it. Music isn't like buying chocolate (few ppl are picky about chocolate), it's like buying paintings.

If the RIAA wants me to buy their music, they should be saying "What does this guy want?" instead of saying "How do we make sure this guy doesn't give his music to everybody."

Geez they act like I'm interested in giving my crap away.

Re:*Shrug*

[kubrick]

(few ppl are picky about chocolate)

They should be, though -- the difference between good and bad chocolate is about as big as, say, the gap between Bach and Eminem.

(Many thanks to Dubious-Analogies-R-Us for that one.)

The digital world exposes flaws in copyright

[Dr. Awktagon]

The interesting (and disturbing) thing is that this stuff was never legal to begin with.

Copying a CD, making a mix disc for your girlfriend, having a group of people watch one copy of a videotape, loaning CDs to friends, these are all legally fuzzy.

These things have been going since the beginning of consumer recording devices. I have stacks of home-copied tapes and Apple II games from my high school days. But not until the internet have the Media Corporations been able to actually *see* the data flying around. And not until the internet have they even considered the idea of *monitoring* your recording devices.

So to them, this is great. Now they can finally fully and completely enforce all those laws that were drafted in the phonograph era and patched here and there whenever a new technology comes out.

But to the rest of us, it shows just how much power copyright law gives the copyright holder.

What to do? Well the obvious thing is to never ever buy anything from those corps again. And avoid new technology until the appropriate "DeCSS-esque" hack is available (no matter what the article says, the technology will be cracked and the information will be relatively easy to find). That way you can always remain in control of your own possessions. I don't see any other solution. The government believes "copyright" and "capitalism" go hand-in-hand, even though too strong copyright is decidedly anti-freedom and anti-capitalistic.

Re:The digital world exposes flaws in copyright

[Lumpy]

Copying a CD, making a mix disc for your girlfriend, having a group of people watch one copy of a videotape, loaning CDs to friends, these are all legally fuzzy.

Ahem, you are kinda right, and this is the thinking that the "take away rights" goons love. you grouped legal activities with illegal activites in order to indemnify the legal activities you listed.

Copying a CD, I can make 900 Billion copies of every Cd I own. it's my legal right to make copies for myself and I do so with EVERYTHING I buy. Why would I want to you ask? The only people that ask that have never had their car broken into and had 30 Cd's stolen, or scrateched a CD in the car. The origional CD get's carefully used for making the copy and then is stored again, not used for anything but making my own LEGAL personal copies.

Making a mix disc for your girlfriend: This IS illegal, you are distributing music that you don't have the right to distribute.. Everyone knows this. it's the "Hey, can I have a copy of that?" dilemma, everyone knows it's illegal or plain wrong to just get a copy of something they didn't buy.

Everything else is 100% legal, you CAN loan a Cd to a friend.. Nowhere in the laws does it state that "You must not ever loan your personally purchased items to anyone under PENATLY OF LAW.. that is a key phrase there... I dont care what the scumbag lawyers tell you, Lawyers words are 100% worthless, and lawyers are trained liars and manipulators. They cant make laws, only judges and your government can..

Stop demonizing things that are legal. Yes you can have friends come over and watch a movie, you CANT charge for it... as it says, Private viewing only... and that isn't a law BTW... only a EULA term that you really didn't legally agree to.

Except for the obvious making copies for a friend example... everything else is 100% legal. and you should be outraged at anyone that tried to tell you otherwise.

Re:The digital world exposes flaws in copyright

[Pig Hogger]

Copying a CD, making a mix disc for your girlfriend, having a group of people watch one copy of a videotape, loaning CDs to friends, these are all legally fuzzy.

Where is that? Here, I'm perfectly allowed to borrow a CD from a friend - or the library - and make a copy for myself.

Re:The digital world exposes flaws in copyright

[Lumpy]

Legally? you bought the right to listen to that music. So if you had proof that you purchased it? Yes.

Now, how many of you keep all your recipts?

I have the liner notes and the recipt of my tape copy of Jonathan edwards album, Johnathan Edwards. i lost the Tape years ago and I downloaded the entire album in mp3 format.. I have proof that I bought the rights years ago, so hey :-) I'm legally downloading mp3's and listening to them. Note: it was by pure luck I found the two items, I must have put the recipt (which shows the disc name) in the liner notes when I bough it... It's purely accidental but is enough for proof of ownership.

EFF Case Analysis

[RomSteady]

This is the EFF's analysis of the SonicBlue case.

A quote:
"The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or 'space-shift,' those files that already reside on a user's hard drive." In its reasoning, the court stated that this type of format conversion falls within the personal use right of consumers to make analog or digital recordings of copyrighted music for private, noncommercial use. According to the ruling, "Such copying is paradigmatic noncommercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act."

So again, my question: what is so fundamentally different between DVD's and CD's that I can space-shift one legally, but not the other?

Re:EFF Case Analysis

[DarkZero]

So again, my question: what is so fundamentally different between DVD's and CD's that I can space-shift one legally, but not the other?

This may sound cynical, insulting, and typical of /., but I think it's the true answer to your question:

The advent of each new content medium is an opportunity for the media companies to re-fight a battle that they've already lost. Because the space shifting of CDs and the space shifting DVDs has a one word difference, judges and congressmen, out of willingness, stupidity, or an error in the legal system, do not simply brush off the **AAs' complaints by saying that the courts have already ruled that such activities are legal. This seems stupid when you look at it from the perspective of the average /. geek that is highly educated on the histories of copyright, fair use, and the like. However, from the perspective of a congressman that handles hundreds of different votes on a huge variety of subjects each year, the fact that the courts have already covered the subject matter of the bill in front of him a decade or so ago isn't so obvious. (Note that I'm talking about the average congressmen that vote on the copyright or technology bills that are introduced, not the paid stooges that are writing and introducing them.)

Re:EFF Case Analysis

[seaan]

So again, my question: what is so fundamentally different between DVD's and CD's that I can space-shift one legally, but not the other?

Good question. The difference comes from the RIAA's interpretation of the DMCA. Unfortunately all the lower court decisions to date seem to agree with the RIAA's interpretation. The reasoning goes like this: DVDs are copy protected. It is illegal (with certain very narrow exceptions) to circumvent the copy protection. Thus if you made a copy, you could only have done that by circumventing the copy protection, an illegal activity.

Under this interpretation, it would not be illegal to make a copy of the CD, because the CD is not copy protected. If the CD is copy protected, than it would be illegal to make a copy by circumventing the copy protection (hence the recent stories that black pens are an illegal device under the DMCA, because they can be used to circumvent Sony's CD copy protection scheme).

The reason the RIAA's interpretation of the DMCA is being upheld by the courts is the totally inadequate authorship of the DMCA (some might propose this was on purpose, and I won't disagree with them). There is a clause in the DMCA which is supposed to protect fair-use. In the first DMCA related case, the DeCSS (MPAA vs. 2600) the judge ruled that the fair-use clause did not apply to the copy circumvention sections of the DMCA.

There have since been a number of rulings that manufactures and publishers are not obligated to protect fair-use. Aside: one judge said the DVD did not limit fair-use, because you could still take pictures of each still frame, at least until Fritz chips appear in all the camera and sounds recorders. The copyright rules as written force copy protection down the publics throat, but put no limits on the use of them. So that is why we are in the situation we are now, the DMCA essentially grants the copyright holders the ability to remove any right a citizen would normally have, so long as they can claim the citizen using it had to break copy protection in order to use it.

Re:Al Capone anyone?

[Scrameustache]

er...AI C4p0n3?

Re:Christian SCIENTISTS!!! We can't trust them

[Big_Breaker]

Regardless of the religious organizations fanasty beliefs the Christian Science Monitor has a long tradition of "agnostic" reporting.

Concerns about Technicalities and PBS

[Mirell]

Seeing as the sheer stupidity of the basics of this proposal, I wanted to bring up a point that no one may have thought about before...

The article states that some Television manufacturers might include anti-"theft" copy prevention systems, to deter users from recording shows on the TV. What makes me wonder about this, is what about such things as "Cable in the Classroom", a public service for the education of elementary students. I have seen it used quite often in public schools. (Whether or not the usefulness of this program is worthwhile, that is left out of this discussion)

You also have other stations such as PBS, and at times school districts and colleges may have their own channels. As a few college radio stations do around where I live in Arkansas, everything they broadcast is part of the NPR (National Public Radio) program, or locally done programming, which is all in the public domain.

An arguement can be said from people that such things as books and movies which have entered the public domain (Silent films, ne?), you still have to pay for the cost of publication, even if it is only $.75 for the Dover book version of Plato's works.

But the point is that such things as PBS, et cetera, are broadcasting free of charge, as a public service, and intend for you to be able to record these shows, for either your own children, school, et cetera. Therefore, would the television industry require them to use some encoded stream on the SAP to allow the television to record these shows? Or would it just ignore this altogether and basically say Screw you, PBS.

Just thought it would be an interesting viewpoint on this issue...

Re:Concerns about Technicalities and PBS

[guttentag]

But the point is that such things as PBS, et cetera, are broadcasting free of charge, as a public service, and intend for you to be able to record these shows, for either your own children, school, et cetera... Or would it just ignore this altogether and basically say Screw you, PBS.

It's un-American to give away anything of value unless an American company is making a profit (ask the NSA). PBS is an un-American institution that will be liquidated in the New World Order TM.

Actually... WHO CARES?

[tweakt]

...this will be pretty damn funny. I'm not really that worried since I know whatever they try will ultimately fail. There *IS* no perfectly secure system... haven't there been enough examples yet?

My only really paranoid fear is all this crap will eventually lead to the entire US as a Police state. Yeah ok, so thats a little extreme. But either they will just fuckin' give up already, or they will keep getting laws passed till you need to have goveremnt issued DRM compliant occular implants so you are deported from the country.

Re:never has been

[SlugLord]

perhaps "certain" would be a better word than "special," but my point remains the same. It's illegal to copy anything that's copyrighted and give it to your friend. It's illegal to copy something and give it to everybody in the universe

The problem with digital technology is that there is no degradation of quality and that makes the potential for abuse staggering. That is why the industries are overenforcing copyright laws and making silly new laws to try to protect their intellectual property. If people didn't abuse their ability to copy IP, there wouldn't be any laws against it, but if you provide people with a situation where there's very little stopping them from committing a crime and no immediate consequences, the vast majority will not care that it's immoral or illegal and the rest will simply forget because everybody else is doing it. The problem is not a legislative one, it's a moral one: "Thou shalt not steal." Not that hard and you don't have to be religious to see the social benefit of it. (I'm not religious, but I try to avoid theft and murder and adultery and the like)

Legality

[Louis Savain]

Jack Valenti: Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow

There is a flip side to this coin. Most of the things people are doing illegally today, they were able to do legally yesterday.

The solution is simple: repeal the freedom-destroying laws and put a moratorium of new ones and most people will be law-abiding citizens. An added benefit is that there will be fewer blood-sucking lawyers. Add more freedom-destroying laws to the hundreds of thousands of laws already on the books, and help create a growing criminal society.

And Then Jack Valenti Will Have Lost

[Greyfox]

And once they remove all the things that make digital media useful, live plays and shows will enjoy a resurgance. Digital media will have become just as short-lived and expensive as a live show and taking in a play will be a welcome escape from the constant barrage of advertising that you are already increasingly subjected to in digital media. The MPAA and RIAA will take their declining bank accounts as proof that more laws need to be passed to prohibit digital piracy and the less convienent they make the use of the digital media, the more customers they will lose.

Completely legal to copy a DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Under fair use laws, what Jack Valenti and his cronies at the entertainment cartels are trying to change through "drm" legislation, it is legal for you to copy vhs cassettes, cd-roms, dvd discs of movies and music.

For the specifics, go to NYFairUse.org and learn what right you have, and what Jack Valenti, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Vivendi, and many others in the entertainment cartel and digital camps promoting drm are trying to ban. And find out what your legislators position on the issue is, then call them, and let them know you'll be voting on this issue this November.

For a NYC based organization that promotes Linux use, Fair Use rights, freeing Dimitry, and many other issues important to the community, see NYLXS.com and if you are from the area, drop in at our next installfest or in-service demo, or CUNY Linux demo, or our boat cruise around Manhattan on August 24th, or join us in Washington DC at our next protest against drm, and attacks on our fair use rights.

Of course....

[Lonath]

J. Valenti: Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'

Hmm... He conspicuously failed to address the day after tomorrow and all subsequent days.

Re:Of course....

[Lonath]

ROFL Valenti probably doesn't get induction. We're talking about the land of lawyers where what they say gets interpreted very narrowly and literally. Later on if they do make things illegal that are legal today and we point to this statement, he would probably argue that he only meant for one tomorrow. Never assume that things make sense when you're dealing with people steeped in legalese.:)

Read my post...

[silentbozo]

regarding public domain material and accessibility.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38224&cid=4095 027

In a nutshell I argue current interpretation and enforcement of copyright has to be reexamined in the context of the intent of copyright (which is a GRANT to the originator by power of law for benefit of the greater society, not an inherent right to be exploited to the detriment of greater society.)

Yes, I'm karma whoring, damnit!

4-600,000 film downloads a day?

[upper]

From the article:

According to Viant, a Boston-based market-research firm, 400,000 to 600,000 films are illegally downloaded from the Internet each day.

How many broadband users are there worldwide? I believe I've heard numbers around 10 million. Does the typical broadband user download a full-length movie every 3 weeks? Or are most movie downloads in a very-low-quality format that is plausible to download over at 56K?

I suspect BS.

Re:4-600,000 film downloads a day?

[pla]

A quick calculation, assuming those figures represent "typical" mpeg-4 cd-length content (~650MB), I get a total of 372TB/day, at that rate (possibly double, since to get any reasonable quality a full-length movie takes two or more CDs).

Based on this site (and extrapolating, they only have the numbers I wanted for 2000), the total internet traffic amounts to only 2700 terabytes per day. So fully one seventh of the total internet traffic results from pirated movies? That strikes me as somewhat unbelievable.

Or, to put that in perspective (since one seventh doesn't really "mean" much), according to this site, by the end of 2002 the world will have a total digital storage capacity of 12 exabytes. Yet we somehow transmit that much data, JUST IN PIRATED MOVIES, every month? I don't think so!

Copyright and money printing

[Advocadus Diaboli]

I live in Germany. Also here the entertainment industry is very much concerned about illegal copies of their material.

So recently a sort of law passed that says that manufacturers have to pay 6 Euro for every CD writer they sell because there is the possibility that this device is used for illegal actions.

Practically that means, that I as the customer have to pay a penalty for not doing anything illegal. I'm not able to purchase a CD writer for my downloaded ISO images of a Linux distribution or for making backup copies without paying the penalty for illegal copying.

In acient history there was a motto "in dubio pro reo" that means that you can't put a penalty on somebody if you are not totally sure that he's guilty. Nowadays it looks like its enough that the entertainment industry complains a lot about illegal copies and that its not controllable what a man does with his CD writer and so they are enabled to charge every user for illegal copies without any evidence that he really does it. Its like they got permission to print their own money.

I wonder when its time to send the male part of the population to jail since they all are carrying the tool with them that could be used to rape somebody...

For me that means that I will get my 6 Euros back by NOT buying CDs any more. After around 1000 CDs the entertainment industry convinced me that I'm probably a bad guy and that they don't want to make any more business with me.

Anti-DMCA Candidates

[Drew_Arrowood]

The way out is to support candidates who oppose the DMCA (we are looking for more). See the site of Tripp Helms, who was profiled in Roll Call this week. Contribute through PayPal and help one of Coble's North Carolina buddies retire.

Incorrect attribution

[diaphanous]

The claim that skipping commercials is stealing was made by by Jamie Kellner, CEO of Turner broadcasting>

~Phillip

I'm afraid it'd affect other area too

[jsse]

It's perfectly legal to backup your software as long as you own a license of it don't distribute it. With their logic computer software should make no exception and we must beg the vendors for replacement when you lost your own copy, which would at least take a week. It'd be awkward if your life/business depends on it. :/

as price rises, consumption will fall

[Wansu]

The economy is in bad shape. Lots of people are out of work. As such, they have fewer dollars to spend on non-essential items like entertainment. If the price of entertainment goes up, they'll consume less. So, Jack Valenti may get his way. But it probably won't be the outcome he wants. He should be careful what he asks for. He might just get it.

"Innocents in a jungle"???

[mcfiddish]

According to Viant, a Boston-based market-research firm, 400,000 to 600,000 films are illegally downloaded from the Internet each day. "[These films] are innocents in a jungle, ready to be ambushed by anyone," says Jack Valenti

This from the man who makes fun of anyone who says "information wants to be free".

No timeshifting == no more TV

[FlyerFanNC]

I'm not about to rearrange my schedule for my favorite TV shows. I hope the TV broadcasters understand that if they make it illegal, or at the very least a pain in the ass, to record shows a la Tivo, then I will be watching very little TV in the future. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.

DRM is Theft

[MrBrklyn]

NY Fair Use and NYLXS have worked really hard at preventing this. Your COngressman in Town this week!!! Pay a visit with your lug to the office this week. We have to keep hammering it just like that, line for line on these arguements, just as they are laid out.

Jack Valenti and July 17th, Washington DC, Department of Commercie DRM Workshop:

"A little Demagogary Never Hurt anyone"

Jack agian in 1982: "The VCR is to Movies like the Boston Strangler to Young Women"

Ruben Safir: President of NYLXS and Co-Founder of NY Fair Use August 2002:

"Jack Valanti is to Private Ownership and Property as the Boston Strangler to the VCR"

Jack Valenti again at the DRM Workshop:

"If this body connot find a way to agree to find a way which will protect private property from Theft then we'll just have to go to Congress and get it done"

Ruben Safir at the Press Conference after the Workshop:

"I completely agree with Jack Valenti. Congress has to step in and protect our private property from theft. It's my damn disk, my damn computer. If someone breaks into my home and steals my computer and my DVD's, who calls the cops and files the police report?

Me or Universal Pictures?

DRM is Theft. Congress must pass a law which will protect the property of every owner of a computer and purchaser of Digital Information by outlawing anything which prevents the full enjoyment of their property. We don't need prior aproval of Warner Brothers, Jack Valenti, or Barry Sorkin to use our computers to augment our enjoyment of our property. There is no forced contract to a cash sale. Forcing a contract on the public which they didn't negotiate as equal partners is a form of slavery no free citizen can put up with.

That's why we propose a New Fair Use Bill, one which guarantees that Copyright is secondary to the Constitutional Right of Security in ones Home and with one's pocessions. Because Copyright is secondary to my property rights in my home and Congress has to make it clear.

If anyone should be forced into a license, then Bertleson should be forced to License to Listen.com. That's why we gave them the limited exclussive Monopoly in the first place, to make sure the material is published. If they don't want to publish, too bad, make them do it anyway or strip them of their Monopoly.

How can we can we continue to expect to maintain a free society if we can't accumulate, copy and archive on our digital systems and information. How are we expected to be able to publish from annotated facts, with references to the original works when everything on the internet can expire or disapear. We have to be able to copy to archive. It's essential to our politcal speech, or for that matter our abilty to have party music mixed to our own enjoyment on Saturday Night."

Anti-piracy is not the real goal of these laws!

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

I especially like how Congress has started making the adoption of Digital Television and Broadband the stated goal of this legislation. This angle of the debate doesn't get talked about too much, and I think that this is more interesting than the simple "piracy" rant we hear daily out of the MPAA and RIAA. From the article:

Such protections, proponents say, would give Hollywood an incentive to offer more entertainment in digital format, thereby spurring consumers' adoption of such technologies as high-definition TV and broadband services.

WHY? Why should they give a f*%k if consumers are buying new digital televisions and getting broadband? What does that really have to do with the economy? The way they talk about it, it was as if this were THE ANSWER to all of our economic problems....yeah, I can just hear the fat bastards and their groveling, whiney lobbyists now....

"How can we turn the American public into even greater couch potatos and better consumers at the same time...we need to have a fast pipe into their homes so that we can sell them even more "George Forman grills"! We need to make it so they CAN'T turn it off! We need an avenue to push even MORE commercials!"

But don't even think about creating your own content though...that's forbidden in the "Acceptable Use Policy" for most broadband providers (no servers, and if you post on their hosted machines, you give them all rights to the content). They only want you to consume, not compete. Most AUP's only allow information to travel ONE direction....from the marketeers to you.

But don't answer yet, if you liked broadband policies, you are gonna love "Digital Convergence"... when your computer is prevented from doing anything usefull (like running software that you wrote and/or compiled yourself) and is morphed into a constant movie trailer machine....that you can never fast forward through!

The way things are going now, I'm not going to be purchasing a "NEW DIGITAL TELEVISION" and I hope that others don't either! Keep your old set! Stay analog!

TVs are not made in the U.S.

[Kelmenson]

And they haven't been here for ages. IIRC, Zenith was the last brand to manufacture here, and I think they stopped at least a decade ago.

Aha

[AntiNorm]

Of course, no article on this topic can go without a mandatory quote from Jack Valenti, who points out: 'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'."

I just noticed a subtle thing in what Jack Valenti said that can make a pretty big difference, and knowing him, may well have been intentional:

You'll notice that instead of saying "they'll be able to do tomorrow", he says "they'll be able to do legally tomorrow." What he is saying is that what is legal today will be legal tomorrow; what he is not saying is that what is legal and doable today will be doable tomorrow. Saying that one will be able to "legally do" something does not necessarily imply that the same act will actually be doable, just that it won't be illegal to do.

Think of the CHILDREN!!!

[Inexile2002]

"[These films] are innocents in a jungle, ready to be ambushed by anyone," says Jack Valenti.

Those POOR films! I can just see "The Matrix" walking "When Harry Met Sally" home after a nice night out when all of a sudden out jumps ME, ready to ruthlessly make a copy of innocent old 'Harry Met' for my own use. We're animals, you hear me, ANIMALS!!!

Oh, wait, Jack was being mellow dramatic... ah... I get it now. Never mind.

Seriously, they can legislate, tax, rant, criminalize and encrypt all they want. They'll never win and they'll still be Hollywood so they'll still be making billions. They can spend millions of dollars figuring it out and push people's freedoms to the limit. People will still 'pirate' songs for their own use, third world distribution pirates will still get away with it, good artists will do well, bad ones won't and life will go on.

Pay them no mind, help with the circumvention when you can and support the people who are standing up to this non-sense. But never will there be an underground file sharing 'le resistance' and no matter how hard or illegal it becomes, we'll still be listening to our mp3s at work.

Underestimating the power of social systems.

[Inoshiro]

Murder is illegal because practically everyone can agree that it is wrong. Those that don't agree have the threat of imprisonment to stop them.

Copying data, on the other hand, is something that a lot of people like to do. Having a few people lobby about not copying data may work in the short term, but in the long term enough people who are doing copying legitimately will run into the barriers artificially imposed by the lobbyists, and the backlash will be resounding.

Why are region free players so popular in Europe and Asia, etc? Because people want the most feature-filled releases, and are willing to pay for it. The money is there for those who want to provide the access, legal or not. And enough people want it that, like prohibition, it will eventually be overturned.

Social systems at work may take a while to correct, but they will correct, and the tryanny of a few trying to get more money by selling less will end.

Re:Mathematics Vs Copyright protection

[philipsblows]

I guess you didn't read this one

Most of us don't get algebra, much less this proof craziness!

Re:never has been

[SlugLord]

I suppose in the betamax wars (yes, before I was born), widespread may have been only widespread if you were Jack Valenti, but the fact is that it IS widespread NOW. You cannot tell me that if you remember the betamax wars that you've lived in a college dorm since kazaa was introduced. I know people with tens of thousands of stolen songs and I know maybe 2 or 3 who haven't illegally downloaded music. I have. I'm not saying that the MPAA has any good solution or that there is any good solution; I'm simply explaining why the MPAA is making stupid laws.

Coincidentally, listen.com is NOT competing. Approximately 40 million people have stolen music with a filesharing program. Listen.com, oddly enough, doesn't advertise the number of users to whom it provides service, but I'd hazard a guess of less-than-40-million. Even the record companies wouldn't sneeze at 40 million times 10 bucks a month.

Another Chapter in "Been there, done that"

[Mulletproof]

Yes, that digital prohibition like bootlegs cassette? VHS copies? Sure, their maybe a prohibition, but I cannot think of one damn thing that would prevent file sharing without turning the PC into a very limited piece of hardware stripped of most of it's useful capabilities. Major PC developers would die on the vine as their profits dwindled along with it's usefulness. They're making lots of money. Think they're just going to roll over and let themselves be dominated like that? Bill Gates won't be the only one that can play the governement...

Re:Another Chapter in "Been there, done that"

[alizard]

Major PC developers would die on the vine as their profits dwindled along with it's usefulness. They're making lots of money. Think they're just going to roll over and let themselves be dominated like that?

Evidence indicates that they're doing just that.

Otherwise, they'd be doing political organization, throwing in megabucks into an industry PAC, and calling on the community for help.

What's really going on is that they are putting even less effort than MS did into "Trustworthy Computing".

Re:never has been

[UncleFluffy]

It never has been legal to make copies of copyrighted works

Really ? I thought it had never been legal to make copies of copyrighted works and give them to someone else

The industry is taking the wrong approach

[guttentag]

Any good college textbook on "oppression and how to make the masses scream for it" will tell you that the following pattern must be followed:

1. Introduce oppression as a theoretical idea. Guage the response.
2. Make oppression optional. Depending on the opposition to the idea (you did remember to guage the response to the theoretical idea, didn't you?), offer some worthless token that the masses believe has some great value and tell the masses that the oppression is the "tradeoff" needed to obtain the token. Highlight the fact that it is still optional -- if they don't want the token, they don't have to accept the oppression. Some people will buy into it; others won't.
3. Make oppression mandatory for some things. It is essential that you create the appearance that the masses have a choice. Only instead of pointing out that those who do not choose your oppression are missing out on exclusive benefits, paint the opposition as a deluded group of sadists who are "depriving themselves" of "basic rights" to your worthless tokens. This will win you converts, because no one wants to be seen as depriving himself of anything.
4. Make oppression mandatory across the board. If you have followed the above steps, you can now claim that the oppression is the de facto standard that has not only been "accepted" but "endorsed" by the masses. Anyone who questions the oppression can be refuted with this claim, which will strengthen the masses' belief that the oppression is "right" and "good." At this point, you may withdraw the worthless tokens or advance your oppression, because the masses no longer have a choice -- they have already made it and must trust their own judgment.

The industry seemed to be following this pattern pretty well.

DIVX was its theoretical idea, which created a backlash that was carefully guaged.

The masses who bought DVDs (which are optional -- a superior alternative to VHS for those who like the finer things in life) congratulated themselves on defeating the sinister premise of pay-per-view disks, but gave no thought to the copy-protection and region-encoding incorporated into DVDs. "At least we're not paying to watch our own disks!" And people can still tape movies from cable/broadcast TV, so they feel secure because they have that option.

Consumers are all too happy to pay more for the superior picture and sound on a disk that actually costs the industry less to mass produce and ship than VHS tapes. The higher price and the mandatory five-minute commercials (which one could FFWD through on a VCR) are accepted as the "tradeoff" for these great benefits. The industry sweetens the deal by offering special features for PCs (worthless Flash games that could be reused from disk to disk by slapping a new front end on them -- anyone play the Bowling Game on the Shrek DVD?) and chides non-converts for "depriving themselves" of their basic rights to the superior picture quality and sound of DVD. Meanwhile, DVDs that work with your PC now install software on your PC, connect to industry Web sites (sending who knows what information back) and some even require you to register to use the "features" on your disk. "Why not," people shrug, "I already bought the disk. I'm not going to deprive myself of features I paid for just because I'm afraid to give out my name and address."

Here's where Valenti fucks up. He should have killed the consumer's ability to record when it was in its infancy. He certainly tried, but failed, and people became accustomed to being able to make and share recordings (share as in "bring a movie to a friend's house," not Napster).

Since he failed to kill the consumer's ability to record, he should have conceeded that victory to the people -- then they would continue to follow him blindly, satisfied with their little VCRs. Now that he tells us we've been been breaking the law all this time, that we are not only morally but legally wrong, he may lose the trust of the sheep. If he mounts a serious effort to inform consumers that they cannot watch movies at friends houses, that they cannot tape movies off their TVs, the sheep may wake up. And they won't be happy little sheep anymore.

Re:The industry is taking the wrong approach

[pmz]

The steps you outlined are exactly how Microsoft is trying to get Passport, .NET, and, eventually, Palladium, adopted.

It is very interesting--and saddening--that large groups of people respond so predictably to this recipe. This fact truly blurs the distinctions among social psychology research, mass marketing, and cult recruitment techniques. I fear greatly that Microsoft and the media companies behind things like DVD have become so good at brainwashing the public using these techniques that the point of no return is long past. Let's hope that this fear is unfounded.

Re:The industry is taking the wrong approach

[Abcd1234]

Just a note that, yes, National ID cards are bad... privacy issues and all that. But putting this in the same group with the anti-gun lobby is really pretty ridiculous IMHO. Guns are much more of a gray area, in that there are arguments both ways. Self-defense versus putting dangerous weapons in the hands of average people. Invading the privacy of your country's citizens, OTOH, is a pretty cut-and-dry issue, if you ask me.

Frankly, I think you placing the anti-gun lobby in the same group as National ID cards and digital censorship is a subtle ploy to sway people's opinions. It's no better than an anti-firearms supporter placing guns in the same catagory as nuclear or chemical weapons.

Re:The industry is taking the wrong approach

[gmhowell]

Do you have kids? Go rent "Elmo's Wild Wild West". Mandatory advertising for other videos.

Re:The industry is taking the wrong approach

[seaan]

Mandatory five-minute commercials? You're kidding, right? I watch probably five new DVDs every week (NetFlix [netflix.com] rules), and I've never seen a mandatory commercial.

The Disney animated "Tarzan" DVD is the worst; it disables the "fast-forward" and "menu" features during 5 minutes of previews and commercials. By experimentation, I found the "skip" button still works. More recent Disney DVDs tend to disable "fast-forward" and "skip", but leave the "menu" option accessible ("Toy Story 2", "Tarzan and Jane").

The new method is targeted towards young children, old enough to load movies and do basic DVD operations. Most of this target audience ends-up sitting through the ads unless parents help out. I would call all of these cases of mandatory commercials (even in the technically proficient can find some method of reducing their impact).

Finally, you have probably sat through hundreds of mandatory commercials that disable all controls ("fast-forward", "menu", and "skip"). These are the studio logos and FBI Warnings (granted they are 5 seconds instead of 5 minutes). You may not realize it at first, but studio logos are a commercial! What makes showing the studio's logo so important that you can not skip it? Nothing except the built-in controls that Hollywood put into the DVD format.

Re:never has been

[PolyDwarf]

One of those circumstances being to be able to make copies of things for personal use so long as no substantial financial harm to the copyright holder and no substantial gain to the copier (or others) occurs, eg. backups of your own purchased goods.

Well, that settles it.
Of course there's substantial financial harm.. After all, if you couldn't have made that copy, you'd run out, be a good little droid^H^H^H^H^Hconsumer and buy a second copy. That 20-30 bucks they lost out on is substantial!!!

Note for the sarcasm impaired - Duh.

IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[Louis Savain]

There is no forced contract to a cash sale. Forcing a contract on the public which they didn't negotiate as equal partners is a form of slavery no free citizen can put up with.

How true! Here I go again. This bears repeating over and over even if I get modded down as a troll:

Intellectual property laws exist only because we have a slavery system. Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land. Income property is owned by a few and the state. The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and inventors depend on their work to make a living. Can we blame them? We all depend on our labor because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our remaining liberties, one by one.

Let's face it, if you cannot put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Makes no difference whether it is ideas, writings, software, music or what have you. Once you've released it, like the air, it belongs to nobody and everybody.

Intellectual property owners (such as Microsoft, Adobe, and the music industry) will fight freedom with everything they've got. Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP laws and powerful police states to enforce them. But those who yearn to be free also have a formidable weapon, the internet.

The internet and other communication technologies (e.g., file sharing systems) are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, the system will eventually collapse. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless?

[And Jack Valenti, what will the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) do when all human actors are replaced with virtual actors? Do you think they are going to sit on their arses? Should SAG follow your example and lobby congress to pass laws prohibiting virtual actors? Not that Valenti cares about actors, mind you. He seems to only care about insuring that the cash flowing into Howllywood Inc.'s coffers never stops.]

And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.

We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for everybody.

Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children and their children. It's the only way to guarantee freedom and a truly free market in a world where human labor is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.

Demand liberty! Nothing less.

Re:IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[MrBrklyn]

We hope to have this Bill written in the next few months, and can use help in this matter from a lawyer. NYLXS hopes to fund this process. The basic outline is as follows:

Consider it a Digital Bill of Rights for the New Millennium:

The legislation to be drafted will accomplish the following main stream objectives which all reasonable people can expect:

-All copyrights to individual scores, writings, and recordings will be returned to the original artist after a period of 10 years.

-No technology can be deployed which spies on, wiretaps or discloses privately owned information which is stored on digital devices by any government agency or private 3rd party without the issuance of a publicly pronounced and disclosed warrant limited to a specific criminal investigation.

-All copyright cases must prove, prior to a judgment of guilt, proof that the actions in question did not infringe on Fair Use, and the individuals rights under the 4th and 1st amendment of the Bill of rights US Constitution.

-Ownership of all physical media, and devices to read such media, is the sole property of the purchaser of the media, without an expressly negotiated and signed contract between both the copyright holder and the purchaser.

-No technological software or hardware method can be deployed in a digital product and made available for normal retail sale which inhibits, in any way, the full enjoyment of the property by the purchasers, regardless of any agreement between the designer of the hardware or software products. Such agreements are null, and not contractible.

-Copyright is an exception to Fair Use as it limits the ability for individuals to enjoy their private property and express themselves with the use of such copyrighted materials. Fair Use is a doctrine to be based on the 4th and 1st amendments of the US Constitution.

-Individuals have the right to express themselves to others about the means, mechanism and workings of all digital devices, including but not limited to, discussion on how to make fair use of media, how to improve such devices, or to reverse engineer all such devices and the algorithms which are used to help them display, copy or run media.

We need to get as many big guns on this as possible and then relentlessly campaign, actively working to elect supporters and vote out incumbent opposition. In fact, we should look to defeat, not just the proposed spyware legislation, but also defeat Senator Hollings

Re:IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[Louis Savain]

God! Awful's first law of /. posting: Anyone who starts a post with "this will probably get modded down to troll but..." is probably karma whoring and is about to post some kind of libertarian/left-wing diatribe that they fully expect will be modded up.

In the past, the same message has been modded to troll several times. FYI, I am neither a libertarian nor a left-wing socialist nor a capitalist. I believe in freedom.

Stop being a spineless bastard

At least I am brave enough to use my real name. Here's my first law of spineless /. posting: be as God!-Awful anonymous as you can while accusing others of being spineless.

Re:IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[hyphz]

> Intellectual property laws exist only because
> we have a slavery system. Our livelihood
> depends on working for others so we can pay our
> taxes. The reason that we have to work for
> others is that 99% of people have been deprived
> of an inheritance in the wealth of the land.
> Income property is owned by a few and the
> state.

If everyone owned some, it would no longer be income property. Why pay someone else to use their property if you can use yours just as well?

> The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and
> inventors depend on their work to make a
> living. Can we blame them?

Not at all. Artistic talent, programming acumen and inventiveness are amongst the few income properties which can't be taken away by the rich. The fact that in order to realise the income they have to sell their souls to distribution companies *IS* a problem, but the fact they live on their work ISN'T.

In the system you propose, a talented musician would be unable to write music because he'd have to spend all his time maintaining his physical 'income property', and he'd have no reason to release the music to others because they'd be no extra income for doing so.

> Intellectual property owners (such as
> Microsoft, Adobe, and the music industry) will
> fight freedom with everything they've got.
> Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP
> laws and powerful police states to enforce
> them. But those who yearn to be free also have
> a formidable weapon, the internet.

I hate to tell you this, but it simply isn't true. The internet isn't run by 'those who yearn to be free'. It's run by big companies who have just as many interests as the IP owners. Lemme guess, you're posting this in Internet Explorer?

> What will happen to a slave-based economy when
> robots and advanced artificial intelligences
> replace everybody, i. e., when human labor,
> knowledge and expertise become worthless?

Everybody goes to work fixing the robots.

> We should all demand a system where everybody
> is guaranteed income property, a piece of the
> pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for
> everybody.

Then you hit the above problem - it stops being income.
A better one would be to pass a law saying that the owners of income property must use it to the good of society (although of course they can use it for their own benefit too if that is compatible). In my home town, many small businesses are being crippled by the fact that the big firms have bought big chunks of commercial land in the town centre and have let it lie fallow and decrepit. They only bought it so a competitor couldn't. Eugh.

> Communism confiscates all property and enslaves
> everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few
> and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land
> should not be divided for a price. It should be
> an inheritance for us and our children and
> their children.

These are incompatible, I'm sure you see.

Re:IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[catfood]

Amen! Testify, brother!

Re:IP Laws Are Necessary Only in a Slave System

[Hoi Polloi]

"The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land."

Actually we work for others because most of us used to be farmers but no longer are and due to massive population increases.

Remember Divx?

[robpoe]

Remember Divx? No, not the Mpeg video compression codec. The players.

Remember. Sales were slow - why? because the discs weren't portable. You registered it to YOUR player and YOUR player only. Your player broke? You had to call them and beg them to unlock the disc for another player.

There was an article in Salon bout 2 months ago with Courtney Love. this article where she talks aobut Record Labels and Piracy. A VERY good read. Even if you (like I do) think her music sucks.

I think, as she states, that we're going to see a big upheaval in the Recording Industry as a whole. Not by the consumers, but by the artists. Artists are out there to create something, and to have that something viewed or listened to by the public masses. Not to be censored down so far as to only PAYING customers by record companies that only have themselves to think about..

Wish I had the venture capital to start what she's talking about.

Boycott the MPAA in december

[global_diffusion]

What to do?

For starters, join the boycott of all commercial movies in December 2002. The Boycott is aimed at bringing public attention to the fact that these companies are buying our representatives and using them to take away our rights. It's unlikely that we'll be able to actually cut into their profits, but hopefully it will inform enough of the public that the MPAA won't feel so good about doing it anymore. So tell your friends and family not to go to commercial movies between November 30th and January 1st (non-inclusive). Take the time you would waste staring at a screen and spend it with your family and friends, read a book, or whatever - just don't go to the theatres.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[cwebster]

you'd do better to pick a month that didnt have the releases of the next star trek and lotr movies, at least with this crowd.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[global_diffusion]

you'd do better to pick a month that didnt have the releases of the next star trek and lotr movies, at least with this crowd.

Yeah, that's the trouble. It counts on people choosing what's best for the world over what's best for their obsessions. Hopefully people will be able to compromise and wait until January to see the films.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[Lord_Slepnir]

I'm not going to the theatres....I'll go to the internet and download those movies that are coming out instead.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[Windcatcher]

I still haven't seen AOTC.

I work in IT and depend on its continued growth for my livelihood. I'd have to be out of my mind to give money to an industry hell bent on damaging that growth.

- "Fight prime time. Read a book."

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[ShavenYak]

Hopefully people will be able to compromise and wait until January to see the films.

A one-month boycott by a few geeks (comparatively speaking) isn't going to be a blip on MPAA radar screens. Particularly if all those who participated in the boycott go see everything they missed in January.

If your ideals are really important, don't compromise at all. Miss the movies entirely. Instead, re-read your old copy of Tolkien and buy the paperback novel adaptation of the new Trek film. Don't just postpone your money going to the MPAA companies; cut it off completely.

Here's my official Bad Analogy: if a slave refuses to work until tomorrow, he's still a slave. To be free, he must never work for the master again.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[Elwood P Dowd]

No, no, no.

Sneak into the theaters.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[WNight]

It's an easy movie (and series, with PM before AotC) to boycoot.

I saw the first on .divx, and saw the second when my family took me as a suprise. I didn't want to be rude.

Now, if I was going to boycott LotR, that'd be hard. As is, it's the only one I'm going to see, perhaps ever again, in the theatre.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[global_diffusion]

Here's my official Bad Analogy: if a slave refuses to work until tomorrow, he's still a slave. To be free, he must never work for the master again.

That's kinda the problem. Americans have going to the movies so ingrained in them that it's probably a permanent part of our culture. The point of the boycott isn't to stop movie watching, but let the movie companies know that we know what they are doing and we aren't happy with it. We still have enough time to make this a general boycott and not just a geek boycott. I try to get people to join up by telling them that boycotts are easy -- you just have to not do something.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[global_diffusion]

December is the big holiday celebration.

Re:Boycott the MPAA in december

[global_diffusion]

err, big holiday movie season. Families go shopping together to buy crap and see movies.

There is no such right?

[mangu]

What about "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed"?

The Fouding Fathers knew that it was not enough to guarantee people's rights, because some morons would try to argue those rights away, they took steps to make sure the people would have the rights to *fight* for their rights. A copyright breaking device is a weapon against injustice, and it's our *sacred right*, according to the Second Ammendment, to keep and bear it.

People will know because of newspapers

[Chemical]

Newspapers: the last bastion of real, unslanted news. Newspapers are typically far less biased regarding these types of issues than TV news and they actually report the facts. Bay Area papers(the Chronicle and the Merc anyway) have stories regarding the DMCA, copy-protection, and other "right on-line" kind of issues all the time. They don't necessarily give an opinion, but they definatly report both sides of the story and all the possible affects. Just today in fact, I saw a story in the Chronicle about RIAA members suing internet backbones to block Listen4Ever, complete with quotes from both the RIAA and EFF (actually the story is from the Associated Press).

People will quickly find out who caused their VCR to stop working. Even if Joe Sixpack doesn't read the paper, when he mentions his VCR that wont record to the informed John Aged-Red-Wine or Stan Mountaindew at work, he will get an answer.

When someone at work asked me why his new CD wouldn't play in his computer, he got more of an answer than I think he wanted. I can get a little preachy at times.

They're right.

[Featureless]

And digital prohibition is a good term for it.

Stallman wrote a wonderful piece of science fiction on the subject. If you want to think about where this is going, it's worth reading.

When you think about how it's possible for such a small industry (content is infinitessimal compared to, for instance, consumer electronics) to have such incredible influence, remember that politicians have a unique respect for those who control the media.

It's a remarkably cynical viewpoint, but the television in some ways restored an old social order called the monarchy. Content actually is King. More specifically, those who control the TV rule the world. I mean, think about it; that joke doesn't quite get the laugh it used to. Anyone who'se ever worked for a cause and felt the crushing, inevitable apathy of the world around them knows what I mean. Five minutes on Oprah could mobilize tens of millions of people to vote or to read or to free Tibet, but at the moment its highest calling is to sell beer and diet drugs.

And the days when the media owners were innocent and principled are ancient history. They know what they're doing. The federal government's ONDCP editing scripts of prime time TV shows? Disney making anti-file-sharing propaganda cartoons? Oh, they know exactly how it works.

They may be doomed anyway, but the content trust will fight brutally to the end. They'll take whatever we wont fight to the death over. They'll leave a wake of ruined lives and an ocean of lost opportunity in their wake. If we're lucky, our children and their children will get to clean up the mess we make today.

Right to Read

[markw365]

RMS is right on the money. Right To Read

They have to compete with old material

[astrashe]

There's a ton of music out on CD that can be copied, and countless movies out in formats that can be copied. All of these things can be pirated, and will always be pirateable.

Let's assume that these new schemes, unlike all the others that have come down the pike, will really be solid.

It just means that people can't trade this year's crappy new content. Here's a tough problem: listen to The Beatles for free or to the latest manufactured boy band or Celine Dion type singer for $20 a disc, when there's only one halfway decent song on the disc?

The entertainment industry depends, in a very fundamental sense, on controlling access to the distribution systems. If you want your record at the Virgin Megastore, you've got to give a big label a cut. An unreasonably big cut, in my opinion.

They're acting as if they've got better music than people outside of their system. Ask anyone who listens to indie or underground music -- that's just not true. All they have is distribution. Even if they can build a closed and pirate proof system, THEY CAN'T KEEP PEOPLE FROM DISTRIBUTING MUSIC AND MOVIES IN OTHER WAYS. The ability to prevent people from distributing their art has always been the foundation of their power. That's why the mob was (is?) so important to the music business. They understood that, and they enforced it.

In other words, artists will be able to do an end run around them. They're going to go from having the best distribution to having a crippled distribution system, one that delivers a less desirable product, due to the heavy restrictions they're fighting for now.

Hollywood doesn't get it. You can channel a river, but you can't stop it all together, and the changes that technology is bringing down the pike are too big for anything but channeling. But they don't try to do that. The entertainment industry reacts the same way over and over again -- they try to litigate and copy protect their way back to the way things used to be.

Well, it ain't ever going to be the way it used to be. Until they start coming out with strategies to deal with the world as it is now, they're screwed.

Valenti is a dinosaur who is leading them to disaster.

This is a marketing ploy.

[plagiarist]

In these MPAA/RIAA IP control discussions, it's invariably pointed out that the movie and recording industries have, throughout their histories, fought every new technology that's come along - and each of these technologies has turned out to make even more money for them than before.

How can it be, then, that everyone knows this except the industries themselves?

Obviously, they must know they'll make money from everything from region-code DVD hacking (sells more DVD's) to song swapping (creates more popularity for the music and thus sells more CD's.)

So what is going on here? Why doth they protesteth so?

The answer is, they use Forbidden Fruit as a marketing device. Young people especially - the big prize money as marketing demographics go - love to break rules and challenge authority. So the Industries use some reverse psychology and vehemently protest these technologies and practices. This encourages people to partake of them out of rebellion, which in turn generates more revenue for the Industries. And if they're lucky, the Industries pick up some Tax(ation without representation) money to boot.

Nice, eh?

Wrong again, Mr. Valenti.

[jcr]

It is indeed legal to copy a DVD, for the purpose of backing up a legally purchased copy.
Mr. Valenti is as wrong this time, as when he claimed in congressional testimony that VCR's would destroy the movie business.

Why the FUCK does anyone even listen to that lying bastard?

-jcr

Anal sex is a failure?

[Inoshiro]

When the people involved in a transaction are consenting, and the consequences of their actions do not spread elsewhere, how is that wrong?

Yes, you can come up with reasons why you, specifically, may not do it, but freedom of choice is one of those Big Ideas that a lot of people have trouble dealing with.

Social groupings do work on the large scale, you just have to learn how they work. In the case of humans, we still scale up fairly well because our actual social groups are fairly small, and it is fairly hard to hide our actions from within them, unless we cut ourselves off from them. When you walk down the street, you avoid strangers subconciously. You have very segregated and well defined social groups: work friends, normal friends, best friends, etc.

The way humans have adapted from a small social-group climate to city life is very interesting if you study it. On the very grand scale, things like region encoding and the war on drugs won't stop something if enough people feel that it's not a crime, and enough don't care to enforce rules made up by the few people who actually don't like it.

Even the more moderate people see no problem with marijuana because it's demonstraited to be largely harmless, especially compared to the addictive potientials of nicotine or heroine.

Jack Valenti is _WRONG_

[mark-t]

You know, it is supposed to be completely legal to copy a DVD or any other media so long as the copy is commensurate with the provisions for fair use outlined in the copyright act.

So, mister Jack Valenti, try and prove in a court of law that my copies are *not* commensurate with fair use. I'll be happy to show you my originals sitting safely in their original boxes in my bookcase.

Just because I *can* violate copyright, doesn't mean I'm going to (well... I guess some might say I've violated the DMCA a few times, but if you look very closely at the text of it, you will see that it was specifically intended to *not* limit fair use).

Product and Piracy

[alizard]

The music product now is the CD.

The FM radio plays the songs that the record industry paid to put there. As far as the RIAA is concerned, you can record your favorite radio station 24/7/365. Why? Because they know that if you really like a song, you'll get the CD so you can really hear it. The reason is that given the compression, limiting, and the general limitations of an analog bandwidth-limited FM channel, there's a big difference between what you can record off a radio in cassette and what you'll hear if you play back a CD. The best you can say about the quality is "good enough for casual listening".

A few years ago, the product was vinyl records and people found out what was on the records by listening to tracks on AM/FM radio. Yes, people once listened to music on AM.

These tracks played on radio are and were PROMOTIONAL TOOLS. No promotion, i.e. if the people have no way to hear what is on a record, they won't buy it. Why should we pay the industry's promo costs, except as they are reflected in the price of the actual product?

An MP3 is in many ways comparable to an FM radio signal. Is it a "perfect copy"? If it is, why doesn't everybody but the totally honest download all their music? Despite what's been done to shut down P2P and Internet Radio, it's still possible to get almost anything if you know how/where to look. Why do people buy CDs?

It isn't just about supporting artists, it's just that CDs sound better.

128K MP3 quality isn't about getting every nuance of the music to your ears, it's about being "good enough" for casual listening.

The MP3 IS A PROMOTIONAL TOOL designed to get you to buy the CD. Anyone who mistakes MP3s for products has just fallen for the hype of the people who want to turn our computers into DRM-locked household appliances.

Why does RIAA care about MP3s and not FM radio? Because independent artists can distribute MP3s via upload to Internet radio networks and to P2P networks without having to pay a gatekeeper fee to independent promoters to get to FM radio. The RIAA labels keep the gatekeeper fees (aka payola) high enough to freeze out "just anybody".

Do MP3s as promotional tools work? There's a recent album that was released by an unknown band itself on MP3 for promotional purposes before they started selling the CD. They made a very nice profit off it.

Do MP3s work as promotional tools for major record labels? The evidence indicates that it works just as well as FM radio does.

What's the problem?

This isn't about piracy, it's about monopoly.

I wouldn't mind paying say, $1-2 for a CD-quality track I really liked, if there was any practical way to deliver a 50 meg download... this takes a while even with a broadband link... and I'm running 56K anyway.

Buy an MP3? I'm not interested in paying for music whose sound is "just good enough". If you're a musician, I'll repay your promotional costs when I buy your record. Don't expect me to pay your promo costs up front, if I can't find out whether or not your CD is worth buying by listening to some tracks at "just good enough" quality to figure out whether I want it or not, I'll find some artist who doesn't expect me to pay promotional costs in advance.

That's the real problem with the MP3 music services, regardless of vendor and regardless of the level of DRM built into the product/player.

People know whether they articulate it or not that there's a difference between sound worth paying for and freebie promotional tools whose sound is just good enough to tell you whether the CD is worth buying or not. What an MP3 service provider can do for you is provide you with lots of MP3 music packaged conveniently. . . so you can figure out what CDs you want to buy.

Why? Not because of artist loyalty or love of the RIAA, because CDs actually sound better, and if you've got a big bucks stereo system, you want to use it so you can listen to every little nuance of what your favorite artists do.

For an MP3 service, you are buying access to music, NOT the MP3s. This isn't to say that you want one-shot MP3s or time-locked, etc. You might decide to listen to your favorite new album on MP3 for a month or a year before you get around to buying. Maybe you're short on money and have to wait until your next check. But if you really like it, you'll buy the CD sooner or later. The artist and label make just as much money if you buy it a year from now after listening to the MP3 1,000 times as they do if you decide you've got to have it 30 seconds into the song.

The people who whine about PIRACY are the ones who haven't figured out what the RIAA labels know.

A product people will NOT pay for has a cash value of ZERO.

Sure, you'll rip the CD under "fair usage" afterwards if the RIAA's 0wn3d Congresswhores don't stop you, but generally where you can play it under circumstances where "just good enough" is good enough, e.g. your MP3 player when you're out jogging or doing other things where you don't have your full attention on the music.

The fair usage is what the RIAA/MPAA want to redefine out of existence.

Re:Product and Piracy

[WNight]

You should try MP3s encoded with lame --r3mix, they're so close to the original that I don't know anyone who can tell the difference, and they're only ~192kbps, for ~240kbps you can use the paranoid settings which even the creators of the encoder say is overkill.

And, if you don't like that, there are lossless compressors specifically designed for audio that get about 3:1, sometimes more. It's not as good as MP3 compression, but it's pretty good.

And then, I thought I'd mentioned OGGs, they're essentially as good as lame --r3mix, smaller and, of course, open source.

Gone are the days of bad MP3s, providing you encode your own or get them from someone of similar audiophile tastes.

Re:Product and Piracy

[alizard]

You and the others who said MP3 quality can be improved past 128K missed my point. As far as I know, Internet Radio and my last look at MP3 uploading to distribution points like MP3.com are generally limited to 128. Certainly, I can rip 256K for my own use and I find ogg rather interesting, that's why I've got a copy of the encoder. But my point was comparing MP3 as a medium for public distribution against FM radio.

While I'm not a musician, I am working with one. That's why I have rather pronounced opinions about these issues. For me, I'm not especially interested in downloading MP3s, I'm a person who is/will be greatly inconvenienced by the demise of US Internet Radio as a place to UPLOAD.

Who Copies WIth Their Television Set?

[clickety6]

Perosnally, my signal goes through my VCR and then to my TV Set. As long as i can plug a box between the source and the TV, I can copy the signal, so why should I worry about my TV set not being able to make copies?

Jack Valenti Doublespeak

[Tokerat]

Before you -1 Redundant I haven't seen this take on the Valenti quote yet, I think it reveals alot about what is *REALLY* going on here, and stands to somewhat prove the "Monopoly, not Piracy" theories kicking around.

Blockquoth the article:

Of course, no article on this topic can go without a mandatory quote from Jack Valenti, who points out: 'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow'."

So...what are these new laws for again? Basically that means they're spending million of dollars lobbying for...useless laws, in so many words?

If nothing is changing on the grounds of fair use, why are they fighting for all these proprietary DRM systems? Easy. Monopoly.

1. Establish customer lock-in
2. Produce mediocre content for pennies a day (?)
3. Profit, since you are the only game in town.

No WONDER they are backing Palladium, MPAA/RIAA are Microsoft's evil sibblings.

Difference = Home Audio Recording Act

[phr2]

So again, my question: what is so fundamentally different between DVD's and CD's that I can space-shift one legally, but not the other?

The difference is you can copy CD's because of the Home Audio Recording Act of 1990(iirc), which permits copying recorded audio for personal use. The personal use exemption in the HRAA was a deal that the RIAA agreed to in exchange for getting a tax passed on the sale of blank DAT tape, and nowadays "music capable" CD-R media. But the exemption is just for audio, not video. Without the HRAA, you have only whatever fair use protection the courts might give you for using copyrighted material, and Congress, prodded by lobbyists, are trying to take away as much of that as they can.

Re:never has been

[minkwe]

You buy the content of the DVD not the plastic its recorded on. It't not fair to the user to make them buy the content twice when the medium is destroyed.

Either provide free/very cheap ( like cost of medium) replacements for damaged Media or don't complain if customers make copies for safe keeping.

Re:never has been

[JaredOfEuropa]

"I DO make copies of my DVD's mr Valenti...and I will fight for my right to do so."

While you have a right to make copies for personal use, equipment and content companies are not obliged to provide the ability to make copies to you. Confused? Take Macrovision. The movie industry has no obligation to provide you with something to circumvent Macrovision so you can make copies for yourself. Macrovision does not take away your rights to make copies, and when you circumvent this copy-protection scheme to make a copy, you are still within your rights.

Now you can see why the battle is fought by the RIAA/MPAA on many fronts. Valenti is fighting a lost war: he wants to take away our fair-use rights. A bit silly of him: there is nothing to gain here and much to lose... much as the general public ignores the copyright issues, this is something they will not stand for.

The RIAA/MPAA are on the case though: they seem to be quite successful in mandating copy-prevention technology in next-generation equipment. Not only that, but they will make it a crime to circumvent these measures. They will say "Hey, we never took away your fair-use rights! You can still make copies, but we have had to put in these anti-piracy devices, oh and by the way: circumventing these will land you in jail. But sure, your fair-use rights still hold".

Re:TV Tuner Cards

[Queuetue]

They're talking about using DRM to take these solutions away. "Closing the analog hole" as it were.

New DVDs will only play on new dvd players which only connect to new tvs - all digital connections, all encrypted.

Read the article, and you'll see the FCC has already paved the way for them with the new TV mandates.

national geek strike

[oliverthered]

What would happen if all the geeks in the country went on strike for a week, would joe public the banks etc... notice what's missing?

Re:never has been

[ahfoo]

I think the biggest flaw in this "next time we're going to stop all this copying is that the justification for the next generation of equipment is exceedingly weak. The cat is out of the bag and was since the introduction of the Pentium class processors. I think those Play that Funky Music commercials that seemed a bit bizarre at the time summarize it quite nicely.
We just read a few days ago about Intel's lawsuit for marketing the P4 as a genuine improvement over the P3. As far as an MP3 listener or even Divx movie watcher is concerned, "improvements" have no longer been necessary since well before last year.
Besides, we've already seen that some of the BluRay DVD companies who are obviously getting fed up with the ??AA's foot dragging are convinced that exisiting security measures are all they feel are necessary. Let's see if they stay out of the martket as things get uglier in the next few business quarters. And it looks like it's going to get real ugly.

It's not theft

[richieb]

Approximately 40 million people have stolen music with a filesharing program.

Copyright violation is not stealing. You (and RIAA) assume that people would buy the CD of every song they download. This is not true. Just like they don't buy the CD of every song you hear on the radio.

There is not right to profit. If RIAA can't make stuff that people want to buy, they should reconsider the stuff they are making.

Do you think we should all stop driving fuel efficient cars because we are depriving oil companies of profits? Why not pass a law to make a car that gets more that 20 miles to a gallon illegal, and lets put all those "thiefs" who drive Honda Civics in jail.

Re:never has been

[per unit analyzer]

I may be totally off base, but I don't think the reason the entertainment industry is fighting digital technology is because they are worried about Joe Consumer copying CDs and giving them to friends. People have been making copies of stuff for the last 20-30 years, and while the Internet may facilitate the process some, I don't think it greatly increases the damage on individual consumer can inflict on the entertainment industry. When I was in high school and college 15 years ago, people copied records (remeber those?) and CDs all the time..it's something those who are perpetually low on cash do. The Internet extends an individual's reach to some degree, but how many people can I email my CDs to anyway? Widescale distribution through things like Kazaa can be abusive, but those people could be caught and dealt with accordingly. With extreme DRM technolgy measures, the ones who are seriously trying to stick it to the industry through piracy will find ways to circumvent the technology and Joe Consumer will be left paying over and over for what costs him once today.

The real threat that the entertainment industry is trying to fight off is the independent music artist or film maker. The Internet has the potential to completely bypass the people who control the entertainment industry today and they don't like it. If they lose control over how digital works are distributed, they lose their cut and they whither and die. They are hiding behind the facade of "piracy" to protect their franchise. If the draconian DRM measures take hold, you'll wake up to find one day that even distributing your own works will be defined as "piracy" since the entertainment industry hasn't sanctioned said distribution.

--z

Re:never has been

[platypus]

The problem with digital technology is that there is no degradation of quality and that makes the potential for abuse staggering. That is why the industries are overenforcing copyright laws and making silly new laws to try to protect their intellectual property.

Nope. This is completely wrong. Ok, not completely, but what you write there is what the music industry wants people to believe.

Their worst problem is not the storage technology, it's the transport/distribution technology. A single person can reach much more people via the internet than in real life, potientally leaking out the stolen music to the whole world.

But it's not as easy as that. Look at games/software, we know they are pirated a lot, and they lend themselves more to pirating than music/movies, but it seems the game publishers do get enough people to buy their games. Why?
Because of the packaging, because people think the price is adequate, because they want to play online and the server checks the serial of the game, and whatnot. Mostly it may be that online gaming fact today, and shows how the game publishers did turn the internet from their enemy to their friend, at least partly.
Now, the problem with music/movies is that there is not so much additional worth in getting the data you want in a physical container (jewel case). At the same time the prices are not adequate in the public perception. This gets people to warezing.

But the real problem for big music/movie publishers is that the internet makes a classical distribution channel obsolete, unfortunately for them this distribution is their only real selling point, it's the only real unique offer they have for musicians.

Think about it, everything else could be done with a musician/producer combo. The producer makes a deal with the musician, finances the production and sells the stuff over the internet. This new supply chain does not need a player like a global music publisher.

Re:never has been

[platypus]

Mod this up anyone.

They are hiding behind the facade of "piracy" to protect their franchise. If the draconian DRM measures take hold, you'll wake up to find one day that even distributing your own works will be defined as "piracy" since the entertainment industry hasn't sanctioned said distribution.

I think if the publisher industries' wet dreams come true, you'll not be able to distribute anything anyone else might be able to listen to. They can't be that stupid to believe that DRM as it is now will solve their real problem, namely that the internet makes them as obsolete as the car did to coachmen. But if they succeed in getting control over all consumer devices, it might be quite easy for them to prevent these from playing anything unencrypted.
Anybody should look at the region codes in dvd-players to see where we are heading.

Copying a DVD can be legal

[PMuse]

"It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now. Everything people are doing legally today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow," says Valenti.

Taken without context, Valenti's statement is just plain wrong. Let's go through it one more time, for all the recording execs who are just joining the class.

Copying a DVD can be legal (as far as copyright law is concerned) depending on how you use it. We call it "fair use." Technologically prohibiting all copying, therefore, prevents DVD owners from exercising some of their legal rights.

Perhaps Valenti's quote has been taken out of context (he appears to have been talking about making and distributing multiple copies). But, he may also have been revealing a vision of the future. "Everything people are doing [that recording companies approve of] today, they'll be able to do legally tomorrow [and nothing else]."

I'll Challenge That Assertion, and Raise You

[reallocate]

I'll take exception to your asssertion that theft of intellectual property did not exist prior to copyright legisltation. In fact, it did, because there was nothing to prevent any publisher from copying and selling a work created and published elsewhere.

• That said, I'll make my own assertions:
• The notion of fair use has been widely accepted and understood for decades.
• Typically, fair use does not extend to the reproduction of entire works and the distribution of those copies to a mass, and potentially unknown, audience.
• Copyright laws are rooted in a milieu of printed material. Widespread copying and distribution of printed material (sometimes known as counterfeiting) has traditionally been beyond the means of an ordinary individual.
• Copyright law needs to change to account for new technology and to protect the rights of individual authors.
• The entertainment industry wants to protect its own financial resources, not those of authors or consumers. It is a special interest group with the money and ability to sway Congressional votes. E.g., the several extensions of the copyright expiration date. No institution of comparable clout exists among those who oppose restrictive legislation. Their remedies are in the courts and, preferably, at the ballot box.
• Wholesale copying and distribution of works of IP without a means to deliver payment to the authors of those works threatens the livelihood of those authers and will eventually force many to seek other livelihoods.
• Constant focus on the alleged right to make unfettered copies of popular entertainment -- music CD's, TV, and movies -- weakens the case of those who oppose new restrictive legislation and technologies. No one in Congress is going to get reelected arguing for the 'right" of college students to post music on the web. No significant political constituency exists to support this activity. Focus on something of legitimate and lasting intellectual value.

Rebutting the Rebuttals

[TheConfusedOne]

Well, I'm glad you know the stock rebuttals, here's a few counter-claims:

The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.

Except you left out a major difference between telegrams and music. The telegram was rendered obsolete by the telephone. Music isn't becoming obsolete; CDs are. That's a huge distinction.

No, the analogy is quite apt. What really happened was that a content/information delivery mechanism was made obsolete. In this case, the RIAA member companies' power comes from controlling the current music distribution scheme. Napster and the Internet destroy that artificial choke point. Thus, the companies need to adjust to this fact or go the way of the telegram companies. (Or horse buggy manufacturers...)

Look at their sales records, in the days of Napster (when music piracy was totally rampant) they enjoyed RECORD SALES. Sales have since dropped.

I always love this one. As if the relationship between piracy and music sales is so direct and immediate that you could turn Napster on and sales would immediately skyrocket.

Actually, it's the RIAA that's been pushing this argument. They've been claiming direct sales losses due to piracy. Thus, "turning Napster off" should have stopped those losses. (The fact that they can't point to any statistically significant losses makes their argument even more specious.)

The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection.

Oh look, a red herring. We weren't discussing DRM. We were discussing piracy specifically. Don't try to confuse the two.

While the main issue is an attempt to prevent piracy, the result of the proposed legislation and current "anti-piracy" technologies are to prevent things like this scenario. Most DRM initiatives are directly aimed at restricting current fair-use capabilities. (Look at Valenti's claim that copying DVD's is illegal.)

If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product.

This is the most specious argument of all. Firstly, you are basically justifying mob rule. Secondly, people obviously people want the product or they wouldn't be pirating it.

No, he's advocating for consumers. Basically all sales are aimed at appealing to the "mob" (or a specific segment of it). If a company (or association) fails to please their target customers then they can expect to lose them. As to the pirating, there are some people who will always want stuff for free no matter what. Many of the users of Napster used it as a "try before you buy" service and to get tracks from out of print albums. (Yes Eminem was #1 with his new CD for downloads. Strangely, he was also #1 for actual CD sales. So, where's the cause and effect of downloads reducing sales? Ms. Rosen continues to be unable to backup her claims.)

Oh wait, you didn't repeat *every* single commonly-used /. argument. You forgot the bit about the labels ripping off the artists. Strange... very few people forget that one.

Now you're the one straying off subject. This particular debate is about "anti-piracy" measures. We already know that the RIAA's member companies are closer to slave traders when it comes to how they treat their artists (especially thanks to a little "edit" to a bill one night).

Re:Mathematics Vs Copyright protection

[hyphz]

It doesn't matter. If you so much as LOOK at a copyrighted work when producing something of your own, the result can be deemed to be a derivative work. In this new case, you have to look at J1 to work out your encoding scheme, so the encoding scheme is a derivative work.

What we can say with some confidence, though, is that sooner or later computers will be so fast and storage so massive that it will be possible to completely enumerate the space of digital IP in finite time. How fast do dedicated hardware counters count now?

Pirate from the MPAA in December. Arr, matey.

[zbuffered]

How about instead of boycotting the **AA, we just pirate everything for a month, instead? That would be an interesting experiment. Make it your business to give your friends CDs of your favorite music in MP3 format, only watch cams of movies, etc. etc... I'm not saying it would be right, I'm saying it would be interesting. Plus, I'm saying I don't think I can keep from seeing the new LOTR movie when it's on the IMAX screen in town. Wait until January and you'll be lucky to get Dolby Digital!

Did I miss something?

[gosand]

The article states:

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission approved regulations that would require television manufacturers to include anticopying technology in the next generation of televisions.

Did I miss something? What was this regulation, and when was it approved? I know of the one that requires TV manufacturers to include digital tuners in all new sets by 2005, but when was it regulated that they must contain DRM technology?

Or is this article just the Christian Science Monitor jumping to conclusions? Yeah, we all know that they will put DRM in there if they get the chance, but this article says that it has been mandated by the FCC. I don't think that is true.

Flawed Logic

[DerFeuervogel]

While you have a right to make copies for personal use, equipment and
content companies are not obliged to provide the ability to make copies to
you.

This logic is flawed. If you have the right to do something then they
can't make laws that completely prevent you from exercising that right.
If they make copying of digital materials impossible by technical means
and combine this with laws that make the circumvention of these means
illegal, then they have by definition taken a right away.

So if I understand you correctly, you agree then, that we should not
have fair use rights. If that is your position then the logic becomes
consistent.

Re:Flawed Logic

[JaredOfEuropa]

It is not flawed... By putting in place anti-copying measures, and outlawing circumvention of these, they have taken away your fair use rights, but they do not do so explicitly but indirectly. I wasn't describing how I think things should be, I was describing what is happening right now

And no, I do not agree to our rights being taken away effectively, in the name of fighting piracy. We stand to lose more than fair use rights; if DRM and these new laws are taking to the extend the RIAA and MPAA want, we will lose the right to determine what we run and not run on our own equipment.

Re:Flawed Logic

[seaan]

This logic is flawed.

You got it! The DMCA does exactly this: it is illegal to circumvent the copy protection, even if you just want to exercise your fair-use rights.

This what happens when congress rubber-stamps laws written by the industry. The publishers (including RIAA and MPAA) did not like fair-use, and they used the DMCA as a legal lever to allow them to eliminate them!

The laws are all one sided, they put restrictions on the consumers, but don't put any restrictions on the publishers. That is why Digital Consumer's "Bill of Rights" is so important! (http://www.digitalconsumer.org/)

Valenti is a Big Fat Liar

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

'It is not legal to make a copy of a DVD now'

um... what planet is he living on? the fact that a powerful media executive can even make this public statement without facing very, very stiff fines is a testament to how powerful he is. he is a bold-faced liar, trying to shift the truth, trying to dissolve hundreds of years of fair use law which point out to him, and us, that it is completely legal to make a copy of a DVD for personal use. through CSS, etc, Valenti et al attempt to make things difficult, but I am sorry, Mr. Valenti, all your technology can't change the fact that it is still, and always will be, legal to make a copy of my own DVD for personal use.

that is, unless Mr. Valenti and his posse manage to successfully continue buying politicians and changing the laws.

what laws has Mr. Valenti broken by this blatant, public lie? since it wasn't under oath, probably none. and even then, he could probably just say (in private), "Oh, I meant commercially copying DVDs for financial gain is illegal. That's what I meant."

but we still need to publicly call these thugs on it when they lie like this. if lies like this go unopposed, they become truth, because at least the MPAA has figured out that they need to win the war of public opinion, by portraying copiers as bloodthirsty thieves, and by blanket statements like "it is not legal to copy a DVD".

It's legal to copy a DVD...

[WebMasterJoe]

Valenti is wrong. It's not illegal to copy a DVD, it's just not possible to do it legally because the Hollywood mafia won't let anybody make a DVD copier. But making a copy of a movie I purchased is still legal as one of my fair uses.

I'm done being outraged. In order for Hollywood to change the world they'll need an audience. I'm not going to care what Valenti wants legislated any more; if all new electronics devices must have DRM then I just won't buy them. As far as I can tell there's no law that makes me get rid of my electronics just because a new generation of them has come out. I doubt they'll stop making DVD's and CD's just because they want us to move to DRM'd media - I mean, VHS is still pretty abundant and audio tapes are still kicking around.

Besides, nobody needs what Hollywood is selling. If the world were to stop watching movies one day, most of us would survive. It might even be good for us. Use the time you would have spent watching a movie doing something better. Draw. Play. Learn. Design. Create. All these things are better than watching 24 pictures per second.

Just did a check...

[Pig Hogger]

I just checked on my server.

On it, there are more than 2500 MP3s (10 gigs worth of them), of which about 50% have been downloaded with Napster and Gnutella. The rest have been made from CDs I borrowed from the library (they have that little sign that says "pirating music kills it" - I chuckle whenever I see it...), and which I copied for my own use.

All legally, of course. And my friends are quite welcome to make copies for themselves (still legally, of course).

Re:Just did a check...

[Hoi Polloi]

That's nothing, I copied the little sign too.

Re:Just did a check...

[Pig Hogger]

It's not legal because you say it is. Please point me to the law that says you can legally download mp3s from napster and share them with friends. Oh and the law that says teh same for library cds as well.

Sure! here it is. I can copy whatever I want, no matter how I do it for my private study.

A little information on the laws

[G00F]

The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 summary:
http://www.hrrc.org/html/ahra_summary.ht ml

Basicaly shows us, that most the stuff we do, is perfectly leagle, RIAA/MPAA and friends are looking to grab more momey. They don't want you to back up anything, because they can make money selling it again. They don't want your friends to watch your copy, they don't want you to watch it more than once w/o paying more either. They also don't want to have to produce anything, and just tax us.

Not quite

[drew_kime]

It never has been legal to make copies of copyrighted works

Really ? I thought it had never been legal to make copies of copyrighted works and give them to someone else

No. It's illegal to make copies of copyrighted works and sell them to someone else.

Re:Not quite

[UncleFluffy]

No. It's illegal to make copies of copyrighted works and sell them to someone else.

Really ? Then how come Napster got shut down ? Are you sure that an exchange of value is required for it to be illegal ?

Re:That's not quite correct

[pmz]

What is does outlaw is the *distribution* of these tools or the information about them. If we all figured out how to do DeCSS on our own it wouldn't be a violation. It is the distribution of the code that is the violation.

Would this mean that commercially-produced screwdrivers are illegal, but ones we forge ourselves are okay?

Self destructive industry move

[Hoi Polloi]

I can only see a few ways this could go if they got everything they wanted:

1. People stop upgrading their equipment to avoid having their cd/dvd/etc collections become unusable. The electronics industry chokes on the drop in sales.

2. People stop collecting lots of cds/dvds to avoid the hassles of registering them to a new machine, etc and instead carefully purchase a small number. The media industries choke on the drop in sales.

3. Since the media industries would have to support a licensing tracking service for the public they do a shoddy job of it since they figure they'll sell more anyway if people have to buy new cds/dvds every time they get a new player instead of being able to use the old discs. See the result of #2.

I DO make copies of my DVD's mr Valenti

[renehollan]

I trust my title was a fair-use extraction of charnov's post above..

I TOO make copies of my DVDs (and CDs), Mr. Valenti, specifically to archive the contents and eventually serve same from a central server in my home to the thin-client connected to the TV of my choice.

Who else? Speak up!

It'll be a good thing!

[Hoi Polloi]

Well, if he gets what he wants I'm looking forward to spending more time reading, exercising, cooking decent meals, and getting outside. Already my TV viewing, cd listening, and movie watching is at an all time low. Thanks Mr Valenti!

Re:never has been

[LarsG]

It never has been legal to make copies of copyrighted works except in special circumstances.

I guess people will always argue whether the firewall of copyright law has a default policy of allow or deny.

Anyway, the laws and technologies pushed by the *AAs in the US of A are having an effect on the rest of the world also. The US makes it difficult for legislators in other countries to make their own policy decitions regarding the correct balance in copyright law.

The Norwegian copyright law, for example, states that it is your right to make copies of a copyrighted work for personal use. CSS and other use restriction technologies makes it damn close to impossible to maintain that right.

The built-in inefficiency of banning

[Taco Cowboy]

For those who may be afraid of the word "Banning", please relax.

In this REAL WORLD we live in, the act of "Banning" something has a "built-in inefficiency".

Let's look at what has / had been banned, and how they have faired -

Books

Books are among the MOST FAVORITE thing to be banned. All it takes is for someone with power to initiate a book banning fest, with a list of books to be banned.

So, how effective are those book-banning campaign ?

Drugs

No matter it's aspirin, marijuana, cocaine or whatever, if the people in high places want drug "X" to be banned, they can always come up with excuses.

"Drug Czar" positions have been created. People being rounded up, and sometimes killed, in the name of "clean up the society".

But have you seen drugs been completely off the steets ?

I am not comparing addictive (mind-altering) substances like drugs to binary files. I am not saying that .wav files can do harmful things to one's mind as Cocaine.

All I am saying is that those higher up (no matter if it's that greedy son-of-the-bitch who lives in the White House, or MPAA or RIAA) can ban everything they want, but as long as there is a DEMAND for something, something WILL supply the means to satisfy the demand.

So what if congress dictates that EVERY TV MUST HAVE THE CIRCUITS TO DETECT AND PREVENT ANY DIGITAL PIRACY ?

If there is a DEMAND for the ability to COPY the file, no matter it's on-the-air or online, or from a simple CD to CDRW or whatever, someone will SUPPLY the schematics to DEFEAT whatever things that are inside our machine which hold us prisoners.

People in this world are a very vibrant kind. We don't like to be imprisoned by those assholes in high places.

So, to insure that you will continue have the means to copy whatever you want, whenever you want it, do this -

MAKE A LOT OF MONEY, and then use your excess money to PAY THOSE WHO SUPPLY YOU WITH THE MEANS to defeat the digital locks.

That's all.

Re:never has been

[platypus]

Then why haven't the producers and artists taken advantage of the Internet already?

Good question. I think changes of this dimension need time, much time.
Many artists are bound by contracts, many new artists don't think they could make a living without a record deal.
But ultimately, I'm sure it will go that way. One indication is the porn industry. They pioneered the use streaming video and seem to be quite far in using the internet for distributing their stuff, too.
Regarding music, I think artists doing electronic/underground stuff are on the forefront of this wave.

About the RIAA being too huge to go anywhere, well that could have been said for a lot of huge industry branches in the history. No branch can ever be sure that it will be obsoleted by changing circumstances. That too will need time, but I'm quite sure the RIAA is blind enough to not see that possibility.

Trust me, the RIAA wants to be the next big Napster, they loved it just as much as we did.
One minor addition, the RIAA wants to be the next big Napster in case this doesn't loose their stranglehold over the artists. And here we are again at the point of my first post, without complete control over this new distribution chain the RIAA will loose, and DRM etc. are their tools to hold this control.

And don't be sure that the CD format will never change, it just needs downwards compatible devices with DRM, and the right law can push these into the market.
Don't believe this? What about the laws in nearly all western countries mandating digital recievers for TVs and tuners? IIRC, europe will shut down all analog terrestrial broadcast stations by 2010, therefore making all old tuners obsolete, AFAIK the same happens in the us.

No, corporate greed will try anything it can do to stuff this shit down our collective throats, and until the broad masses get the message and revolt, they will succeed.

We can only hope that the same greed will cause this cartell to implode, further down the road. Be it manufacturers of consumer devices, or alternative publishers having big success with the new distribution channel internet.

Re:Christian SCIENTISTS!!! We can't trust them

[Elwood P Dowd]

Not entirely. Their whole Prozac-causes-self-mutilation thing was a bunch of hooey, and it definitely fell in line with their religious belief that psychology/psychiatry is evil 'n' bad.

I'm sure they believed what they were reporting, but they might have been influenced by belief. Maybe not. Iduno. I lost a lot of respect for them.

I am not saying you are wrong...

[cr0sh]

...nor am I saying JV is wrong either - in fact, you and he may be completely right!

Yeah, it is legal to copy those DVDs as backups, etc...

But then again, where are those DVD copying machines? When is GoVideo going to release a dual deck? I have yet to see even the dual DVD/VCR decks work to allow you to record the DVD playing (I wonder how many people have fallen for that one so far) - if they do allow it, it isn't prominently displayed on the packaging. You can't cobble up your own copier legally with DeCSS.

So, Jack, where are these DVD copier machines for consumers to make backups/archives with, again?

Copying a DVD is legal!

[seaan]

Note that Jack Valenti is actually wrong about it being illegal to copy a DVD (what Jack say something incorrect, what a shock!). His reasoning is based on the DMCA, the fact that all DVDs are copy protected, and that all VCRs have federally mandated copy protection. Hence the DMCA anti-circumvention act prohibits you from breaking the copy protection and making a copy.

There are at least two big holes in this theory. The biggest is that VCRs made before 1998 can quite legally not recognize the copy protection signal. It is therefore legal for me to copy a DVD to a VHS tape because I'm not circumventing any copy protection; provided my copying otherwise falls into the fair-use or unregulated provisions of the copyright law.

The second is that not all DVDs have copy protection enabled. Seems like a minor point, but don't overlook it.

As these older VCRs wear out and go away, this statement about it being illegal to copy a DVD are going to become more and more true. Those are your rights that are fading away, sold by congress and delivered by the DMCA!

digital prohibition...

[kesuki]

Would require a constitutional ammendment, as current laws are thoroughly unconstitutional. Digital Prohibition, like Prohibition will only push digital copying underground. The mafia will see the oportunity and reinvent the speakeasy. A private club where you can buy/sell/trade illegal hardware and freely trade software movies and music all over high speed private WANs.
People wanted their alchohol, and they want their mp3s. Any drop in record sales that can't be directly linked to the economy can be directly linked to public backlash against the record industry. None of it can be linked to peer-to-peer file swapping, as record sales were booming growing ABOVE inflation rates when napster, a simple and easy way to transfer music existed and was growing in popularity. the more napster grew, the faster record sales rose. People could finally seperate the wheat from the chaff, and they were rewarding the record instury with increased sales. Lesson learned, never bite the hand that feeds you. If only, now they want to virus all P2P users, and hack them, and DDoS their server nodes. Meanwhile, artists have learned that in the information age, you don't need a record contract to sell a million albums.
and if you sell a milllion albums outside a contract you stand to net 5-9 million in profit, depending on how you sold them. meanwhile, if you sell a million albums with a record contract, you make $0 a year, and live based on the freebies the label contract gives you in echange for your freedom.