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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'."
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.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
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.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Too bad they won't supply my demand for music in MP3 format.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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?
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
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...
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
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.
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...
Really ? I thought it had never been legal to make copies of copyrighted works and give them to someone else
What would Lemmy do?
- Introduce oppression as a theoretical idea. Guage the response.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
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.
/. argument. You forgot the bit about the labels ripping off the artists. Strange... very few people forget that one.
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
-a
How to rationalize theft.
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
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
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.
Well, I'm glad you know the stock rebuttals, here's a few counter-claims:
/. argument. You forgot the bit about the labels ripping off the artists. Strange... very few people forget that one.
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
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).
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.