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Protecting Your DRM Rights
A reader wrote to say:"There's an article on SiliconValley.com that talks about a new bill in Congress that will, if passed, mean that consumers can copy CDs, DVDs and other digital works for personal use, just as they now do with TV shows and audio tapes."
Someone, somewhere in congress finally gets it!
btw, FP?
He must have a hell of a broadband connection.....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I think there's some danger here in enumerating the right to copy CD's, etc. It's the same issue that John Adams had with the Bill of Rights. If you enumerate some rights, it implies that other rights don't exist until they're enumerated. Take for example the right to privacy. The Bill of Rights doesn't list it, and therefor much debate ensues about whether or not such a right exists.
While having a law explicitly naming the right to copy CD's is seductive, we risk having to always enumerate new rights in the future. Instead, I'd prefer to have the default be "of course we have this right, because it's not explicitly listed as a right that's not allowed".
I realize I'm dreaming here. Given where we are as a society, I'd be willing to see this bill passed. But a guy can dream.
``If this bill were to pass, it would render ineffective, worthless and useless any protection measure we would have in place to protect a $100 million movie,'' Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said of the Lofgren bill.
And we all know no one will go to the cinema to see the next LOTR movie, right?
It is our duty as citizens to disobey unjust laws and to push them through the judicial system to the Supreme Court. It is counterproductive to that duty to prop up the unjust laws with exceptions and clarifications. Further, between the DMCA and the proposed DFCA, all that has been accomplished is a wordy reiteration of the existing copyright laws. I'm no legal eagle, but I firmly believe in having a few concise and necessary laws rather than redundant spaghetti legal code.
Hmmm, (1 million * 4.7GB) / (24 hrs * 60 mins * 60 secs) = 54GB/sec bandwidth! Jack's cable modem must not have the download caps in place...
First of all, this bill is not an attempt to make so-called mp3 "sharing" legal. It merely seeks to ensure that the fair use rights consumers had for analog formats are held up for digital formats as well. i.e., it is perfectly legal for me to buy your CD, then burn a backup copy, burn another copy for my car, rip it to my hard drive, etc. However, if the DMCA or CBDTPA makes these activities impossible, then I effectively don't have those fair-use rights.
Anyway, the line we always hear is that artists don't make a significant amount of money from CD sales anyway, compared to income from live shows. Is that not the case for you?
Maybe you could strive to sell CDs directly at your shows, instead of making pennies per disc through your label.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
All you trolls on slashdot should pay attention and learn from Jack Valenti. He dishes out FUD with statements that are unsupported and wildly speculative (and in this case a complete lie).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
If you read the article, it says that it's not going to get through because congress is wrapping up its work for the year in the week.
I see this as something to push Zoe Loftgren's ratings higher. She is my congresswoman and was a full supporter of Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2002, H.R. 3482. I wrote to her about this and not only did she get my gender wrong (I'm female), but she also wrote, "I would note that this section in no way changes the limitations under current law on the emergency use..." which was a blatant and utter lie... or she was very mis-informed.
She took over a month responding to my email and her web-page was far less than impressive (unlike the congressional leader one district away who voted against keeping "god" in the pledge of allegiance.. I can't dig up who it is right now).
She's also scared by terrorism noting it first in the following closing sentence,"As we enhance cyber security to protect our vital infrastructure against both terrorists and the type of high-tech vandals who crashed Yahoo in February 2000..." and anyone who was still bothered by "terrorism" at the end of July of this year definitely is being pushed by an agenda or is pushing her own.
I'd publish the entire email she sent to me but there was recent discussion on slashdot about publishing correspondances that has me hesitating.
"Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said of the Lofgren bill. "You could download a million movies a day, and no penalty for it."
I can't believe that these people actually think like this. The legislation doesn't say anything about giving the user the right to share and steal the music without punishment. There will still be punishment for stealing a movie or music (if caught). It's unbelievable how these people think that just by having the right to have "Fair Use" of a product for personal reasons equates to mass piracy being legal.
I'm sorry, but you don't have a *right* to make a living. Don't you see that is exactly what some of us are railing against: the use of laws to protect outmoded business models.
Without the full text of the bills we can't know for certain, but it sounds as if these bills are simply meant to ensure that we retain our fair use rights with respect to digital media. Copyright law already protects you if someone makes a copy of your CD and gives it to someone else. These bills appear to be about ensuring that I can make a copy of your CD (which I legally purchased) for my own personal use, even if I have to break some sort of copy protection method to make these personal copies.
Rep. Lofgren even spells this out rather specifically: "This would not authorize someone taking their digital content and sharing it with a million of their best friends."
Kevin
That's like giving away 2 apples for every one you sell! Kind of a sad business model...
Apples for $24.99 each. Buy one, get two free!
I see what you mean. Noone's gonna survive giving away so many apples...
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
I think you're grossly overestimating his status as a musician. I'm pretty sure his income from this career stems from the selling of 5 dollar home made cd's after his show at your friend Jimmy's Barmitzfah(sp?).
"What's your band called? Memorex?"
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
The issue to me is that they (being the movie and record companies) want to have it both ways. They want to sell me a package that includes a piece of physical media (which I own) and a license to view/listen to what is recorded on that media.
I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the fact that 1. I legally can't back that medium up and 2. if that medium becomes damaged my license to view/listen seems to evaporate.
Case in point. I irreparably scratched a DVD from Fox (The Phantom Menace). My only recourse is to buy replacement media and a second license to view the movie. Clearly that license is the expensive part. I don't see how this is "fair."
Bottom line is that IMO when we lost the right to make copies for backup the copyright holders took on the responsibility to do at-cost media replacement, but they aren't living up to that responsibility.
Of course the bills mentioned in the article would turn the tide back, but neither seem to have any real chance of even coming to a vote.
-Peter
What right to make a living off your work? There never has been such a thing, and there shouldn't be. There are rights that are helpful in making a living (like copyright) but they don't give you a right to make a living. Nobody should make a law to preserve an old way of doing things just because some people might be hurt by the world changing. If you can't make money selling your CDs, you'll just have to get another job.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
When you say that because of some people who bootleg we should all have our rights stripped away (and that is what your saying) I dismiss any problems you might have because if you dont give a damn about my rights why should I give a damn about you career?
No, you don't. "Fair Use" allows me to copy my CD into MP3s and store them on mu computer so I can listen to them at my desk without toting my CD collection all over the house. It also allows me to put a copy in my portable MP3 player and listen to it while at the gym or on the bus.
It does not allow me to make copies and give them away.
The money from my purchase of your CD is still in your pocket. I'm not going to buy multiple copies of your CD just so I can listen to it at my desk, or at the gym or in my living room.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
True; but if someone buys a cd, hands some MP3s to some friends and they like your CD, then go and buy it, then you'd have multiple sales where with "sooper-dooper DRM" you'd probably only have the initial one.
Remember to look at all the costs and benefits. You don't have radio (most likely, since you said you didn't have a lable) to promote you. No MTV either. So word of mouth is it.
I would suggest that you try the following:
* Make your CDs a have very high quality "value added" cd booklets and such. You know, like vinyl records used to do. I find music much more enjoyable when you know the why and wherefores.
* Put up crappy (but reasonable) 64k mp3/oggs on your web site, or on a data track on your CD. Say it's free for sharing. Make sure the ID3 info is correct and have a URL for buying the CD. Include descriptions and photos of the CD (all those extras, you know).
You watch, you'll get people who:
* Like one song, they keep the crappy mp3 and are happy. Maybe someone else will hear it and be interested. These correspond to radio listeners and radio recorder people.
* Like a lot, and buy the CD
* Wanna have the CD, 'cause it's cool.
Remember, you aren't selling CDs, your selling *yourself*.
I realize, of course, that you may live off of this money, but I **really** want to see what happens when you try the above.
BTW: You forgot a link to where we could hear some of your music and learn more about you.
Ciao!
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
So Clinton was a republican? He signed [the Digital Millennium Copyright Act] into law
The DMCA and the Bono Act were both enacted by a voice vote of both houses of Congress; the bills had so much bipartisan support that nobody opposed either measure enough to bring it to a full recorded vote. Had then-President Clinton vetoed them, Congress would havejust passed the bills over Clinton's veto with a 2/3 majority of both houses.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Jack Valenti sees this as:
``If this bill were to pass, it would render ineffective, worthless and useless any protection measure we would have in place to protect a $100 million movie,'' Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said of the Lofgren bill. ``You could download a million movies a day, and no penalty for it.''
I think it is still illegal to distribute copyrighted works. The difference is, the DMCA makes fair-use illegal. This bill is to make fair-use legal (which should be legal anyway, but the DMCA is so vague it disallows it). The purpose of this bill is not to address the illegal uses of digital media, but to ensure the legal uses remain legal. The problem with Jack Valenti is that he has sold his soul and cannot see these things clearly. He does not want the public to have any fair-use, he and the big companies want to abolish fair-use.
Nobody is really saying "people should be able to illegally distribute media" they are saying "don't deny us our legal rights just to enforce these laws". If there was some magic technology that would allow me fair-use to my digital media yet not allow me to illegally distribute it, I would be all for it. I don't have a problem paying for things, I have a problem with companies making me pay for things when I shouldn't have to, or preventing me from using things I have already paid for.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Supposedly consumers will be allowed to circumvent copy protection for fair use. Great! But what about the programmers? Does each consumer have to write their own software cracker? Will creating a decoder or unlocker designed for fair use still get you thrown in jail?
What "right" are you referring to? The constitution certainly gives you no such right. Congress may, at its discretion, provide temporary copying monopolies when it judges that this will have the effect of promoting science or "useful arts". But there is absolutely no basis for claiming that you have some kind of "right" to this consideration.
For that matter, what "my work" are you referring to? If its the creative effort you are talking about, I can certianly respect that. But if its the result, then it was never "yours" to begin with. In this country, no one owns an idea, and that includes a song and/or its lyrics. You may be granted the exclusive copying concession ("copyright") temporarily, but that's it.
As for your inability to support yourself without the monopoly copying concession, loads of musicians are doing that today. Additionally, tremendous amounts of music (and many would say the best ever) was created before copyright was ever even thought of. Back then there were entire >100 piece orchestras to be paid too, and yet, they managed to eat and create. So I really fail to see how your lack of business acumen is my problem.
> I'd prefer to have the default be "of course we have this right, because it's not explicitly listed as a right that's not allowed".
That IS the default as I understand it. That doesn't mean that a law backing up and clarifying a grey area that's very much under assault from the other side is a bad idea. I'm all for it.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Selling and uploading bootlegged cd's are still illegal and morally wrong. I am one of the few slashdotters who do not pirate based on principal. If we demand fair use rights and upload mp3's to the internet, then we give the RIAA a good arguement to stop fair use. After all only thieves would want this right?
I also support copyright protection for free software via the gpl and would be pissed if someone did not follow it. We all need to stop pirating software and music so hollywood no longer has a good argument. This is why I use free software. If I can't afford it then I use an alternative like free software.
Anyway I consider my computer mine and not Microsoft's, not the RIAA's, or the governments. I put alot of money towards my computers over the years and I would like to do what I please. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else I am happy. Perhaps the answer would be to use some manditory filtering of some of the internet routers under an IT consorturium and not the riaa to help protect mp3 uploading mandating by the government. I know this might sound unpopular but perhaps we could all agree on a place for legal mp3's and the RIAA could check to make sure none of the files are illegal. I think it would be very bad to have the riaa as the policman but I would not mind a bi-partison government/IT corporate consorturium to oversee this. This madness needs to stop. This is the only comprimise I see that would satisfy both parties and not be the craziness of what the RIAA hopes by banning analog speakers and mics, to the other extreme of the wild west days of napster.
In the meantime buring mp3's would still be perfectly legal under this system and drm would not be needed. You just couldn't upload them. By the way I think drm in personal computers is very bad and would kill the internet more then just banning some ports. I would prefer to see some filtering in the net after a judge finds a particular file swapping service illegal rather then to have my output jacks banned and have my mic only record in encrypted data. We all should have the right to use your pc's as a recording studio if we please.
http://saveie6.com/
I think Hollywood has the idea that if one can copy a DVD, they're just going to give it away bla blah blah. I don't think they've considered that their own talent pool makes good use of copying technology i.e. ripping.
I'll give you an example: I know some peeps who are learning to do 3D rendering and animation. One test of their skills is to see how convincing they can recreate a scene from a movie. For example: Star Trek First Contact. That movie had some scenes shot using studio models of the Enterprise and other ships. One of these guys had a nice mesh of the Enterprise, then he wanted to perfectly recreate the lighting used on the studio model in the movie.
What he did was he bought a copy of the First Contact DVD, then he did a few screen-grabs on his PC. He had very clean pictures to use as reference. Using these images, he started figuring out where the studio lights were placed, and what effects he needed to achieve to minimize the differences. He gained some serious experience in learning how to realistically light a CG model to imitate a 3D model.
Is this an important skill in Hollywood? Oh most definitely! It is a frequent thing to cut from motion control model rigs to CG models. The better the lighting on the mesh, the less startling it is to go from model to CG. (Lost in Space comes to mind...)
This guy was legitimately copying from DVD to improve his talent, and Hollywood may one day hire him for it. However, if Hollywood had their way, he'd have no way to take screen grabs or download the video to his computer for further study. I don't think they have any idea how much damage they may end up doing to the next generation of their talent pool.
Tell me how copyright infringes against what YOU CAN SAY.
Overbroad interpretation of the "derivative works" clause does that. According to this article, there are fewer than 47,000 melodies, and each one has a copyright owner, making it next to impossible for a songwriter to create an "original" musical work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
From the press release summary:(I've added the bold...)
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS OF "THE DIGITAL CHOICE AND FREEDOM ACT OF 2002"
SECTION 1: Designates the title as "The Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002."
SECTION 2: Lists factual findings.
SECTION 3: (a) Section (a) clarifies that America's historic principles of fair use - codified in section 107 of Title 17 - apply to analog and digital transmissions...
...Section (b) seeks to restore the balance by adding section 123 to Title 17. Section 123 allows lawful consumers to make backup copies of digital works, and to use digital works on preferred digital media devices. It further protects consumers by prohibiting non-negotiable "click-wrap" licenses that limit their rights and expectations...
SECTION 4: Today, when a consumer purchases a book, they are free to lend their copy to a friend or family member, or to sell their copy to a used books store. Section 4 allows consumers to do the same thing with digital content by extending the first sale doctrine...
SECTION 5: ..."As the House Judiciary Report accompanying the DMCA stated: "[A]n individual [should] not be able to circumvent in order to gain unauthorized access to a work, but should be able to do so in order to make fair use of a work which he or she has acquired lawfully."
Section 5 reaffirms this intent, while also providing needed flexibility for the copyright owner. Under section 5, a copyright owner is free to employ technical measures to protect his or her work. However, the copyright owner must ensure that those measures allow lawful consumers to make non-infringing uses of the work... Since most consumers do not have the expertise needed to circumvent such protections, Section 5 permits tools if they are designed, produced and marketed to help consumers make non-infringing uses. Again, these tools are only permissible if the copyright owner fails to give consumers a choice by restricting legitimate uses without providing any solution for the legitimate user.
The Senate ALWAYS votes by roll call on legislation.
Are you sure? According to the bottom of this page, the U.S. Senate can voice-vote on a bill just like the House.
And because "a voice vote does not create a public record of how each Senator voted," it means that the bill didn't even have enough opposition (20%) to demand a roll call.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I wish Rick Boucher were my representitive so I could vote for him.
``The laws that have passed in recent years have imbalanced the historical balance between owners of copyrighted works and users of copyrighted works,'' Boucher said in an interview Tuesday. ``The balance has been tilted dramatically in favor of owners at the expense of users.''
This guy actually gets it! There really need to be more representitives and senators like him. I just wish that there were even any running in my district so I could put in my vote.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Here is an excerpt of my letter of support sent to my congressman:
I have one little quibble with the bill as it stands. In section 2. FINDINGS, paragraph (2), it states "Perfect digital copies of songs and movies...". This is an exaggeration that has been used by both the RIAA and MPAA to justify draconian copyright protection measures. They purposely confuse two different concepts: "digital copies" and "digital distribution". The reality is:
(1) Digital copies are far from perfect
(2) The quality of a copy has little impact upon non-commercial copyright infringers
Take an example from ten years ago, the mandating of copy-protection on Digital-Audio-Tape recorders. The only people who cared about quality enough to be effected by the copy-protection measures were audiophiles (who, by the, way effectively killed the format because of the restrictions imposed by congress). The irony is that audiophiles were also the least likely people to make illegal copies; on the contrary, many purchase multiple versions of a single recording. The more typical non-commercial copyright infringement was young teenagers buying $50 boom-boxes with abysmal sounding cassette duplication. The quality of the duplication was of minimal importance (you can't hear the poor quality on a $50 boom-box), as it had minimal impact on their decision to make illegal copies vs. buying legal copies.
I'd recommend striking the word "perfect", and putting to rest the urban legend that digital copies are somehow different from other method of copying. This is not meant to diminish the importance of digital distribution, which obliviously has had an impact on non-commercial copyright infringement. Confusing "digital copies" with "digital distribution" is how we got lousy laws like the DMCA in the first place.