Fast CD-R Drives Make For Twice the Piracy

Bowie J. Poag notes this Register story about an RIAA copyright infringement bust in New York. The RIAA claims the operation had the equivalent of 421 CD-burners, which, translated from RIAA-speak, means "156 CD-burners but some of them were fast". How they expect anyone to take their statistics seriously is beyond me.

Comments

THESE are the people they should be going after

[utexaspunk]

not the individual consumers. Not that individual consumers are pirating cd's any less, but these are the guys you can catch outright without creating new laws that restrict our rights.

Re:THESE are the people they should be going after

[EggplantMan]

... but these are the guys you can catch outright without creating new laws that restrict our rights.

Yes, and there is a reason for that, which is that copyright laws were originally created with these sort of operations in mind. Copyright law was designed, in part, to stop others from profiting from your material (sans agreement).

What we are suffering from today is a perversion of copyright; the notion of intellectual property, which has been regarded (legally) as actual property, and so we come to the absurd situation where someone can be considered to have 'stolen' intellectual property (and thus harmed the owner) without:

• depriving the owner of the property
• profiting from the property

Thus when entities such as the RIAA assert that 'theft' of intellectual property is costing them money, they are asserting that the following process is taking place:

• theft of intellectual property
• ???
• (LOSS OF) PROFIT!!!

Re:THESE are the people they should be going after

[Sancho]

Times change. Surely you don't think that as technology increases and new concepts are created, new laws shouldn't be made to govern them?
We live in a world where information has value. Laws have been created/altered to take that into consideration. Remember, IP laws were originally created to prevent stagnation--if someone can't make a living off of their IP, they won't continue creating it.
That hasn't changed. What has changed is the fact that copies of the information can be had for pennies. For some reason people can't seem to conceptualize the fact that there is something wrong with copying something you don't have the rights to. They seem to think that because they haven't actually taken anything away from the original owner, it isn't theft. They're right--it's not theft in the conventional sense. But it is still a violation of copyright laws. It is, to some extent, immoral because the creators of the IP had a good faith agreement with the population (through the government) that their IP will not be used without compensation. By living in a country which acknowledges and respects IP, you agree to follow those laws. You agree in the same way that you agree to obey any other law. You don't break the speed limit (or if you do, you deal with the consequences). You don't hurt or injure others. If you don't like a particular law, there are (usually) ways to go about trying to repeal them.

You say that the RIAA asserts that 'theft' of IP costs them money. Whether this is correct or not is up for debate (although I am inclined to believe that more people don't buy music they have downloaded than actually do, and I suspect that there are some people who would have bought the music if they hadn't had it available for "free"), however it is against their law and it is within the RIAA's rights to enforce their copyrights. They may actually lose money in these enforcement practices--it's impossible to say for sure--however it is within their rights to control their IP.

You can call them foolish, you can cite examples where they would make more money by allowing copyright violations, however that does not give you the right to illegally copy their property.

Actually this is a good thing right ?

[Archfeld]

Wholesale pirating and distribution is BAD. This is the kind of thing the RIAA SHOULD be pursuing and is the reason for them actually exsiting.

Re:Actually this is a good thing right ?

[SpookyFish]

Sure it is, and I agree 100% -- but when they try to pull this kind of crap with the numbers, they are losing even *more* credibility among the tech-savvy crowd (if that's possible).

If they keep this stuff up, eventually everything they do will be dismissed as wrong -- no one will even bother to look for the merits.

Re:Actually this is a good thing right ?

[drDugan]

why exactly is copying bad?

because it is illegal?
because the music industry makes less money?
because we won't have as nice music if the music industry struggles?
because someone is making money doing things that are illegal?

I have come to the point in my life where (right and wrong) and (legal
and illegal) are now completely separate, and surprisingly, not even
aligned completely.

Should we have laws that support a bloated industry that controls
access to information -- simply because they have existed in the past
and have enough money to have laws passed that perpetuate their
existence? I think not. after the repeal of some law in 1996 that
limited media channels to 40 stations, clearchannel now owns like 1400
stations (estimate) and have has one of the top 4 stations in like 90%
of all metropolitan areas. One source.

In fact, I think people like music, and people will always make nice
music and it will be available. we have the ability to make it
happen. simply fuck the money part. for all of you who start jumping
on me about how naive that idea is -- ask yourself first how much you
depend on the 'current context' of "it's just the way things work now"
to judge that idea.

However: regardless of legality, should we even have a centralized
organization that, in effect, makes decisions about what music is
popular and available, and at what price? I think not.

And if you think about it long enough -- and this one will draw flak
I'm sure -- I've also come full circle on the social contract for
intellectual property. In most cases, the contract is no longer
helpful to society, it's just benefitting the ip holders. In effect,
without much explanation here, I conclude we should scrap/eliminate
the majority of our IP protections, or at least change them
significantly.

If people are interested I'd be glad to share my views on why IP has
come so far its generals bad -- but that is much longer post.

As for my initial question -- I reject ALL of my hypothetical
answers. In fact, if you go even a very little bit outside our current
context, it's pretty easy to see that copying is NOT bad at all, at
least in the (right and wrong) sense.

Re:Actually this is a good thing right ?

[namespan]

The curious thing is that they could have come up with a completely legit figure: the production capacity of the operation in terms of some number of copies per unit of time (say, discs per day) based on the speeds of the burners and perhaps loading/latency issues.

Why would they issue some half-assed stat like the one given when they could have done this?

Two answers:

1) They're not competent enough to do that
2) They are, but have a motive that precludes them from presenting a clear picture.

It's alot like the Iraq isssue. I've read convincing arguments for an Iraqi invasion from German Marxists... and the stuff our right-wing hawkish administration presents "has a certain syrup, but just doesn't pour." (Gertrude Stein phrase, I believe). Why is it so hard to make a convincing case when there's a convincing case to be made? I think it's the wrong motives. They keep even otherwise adequately intelligent people from seeing the obvious.

Re:Actually this is a good thing right ?

[n0nsensical]

after the repeal of some law in 1996 that limited media channels to 40 stations, clearchannel now owns like 1400 stations (estimate) and have has one of the top 4 stations in like 90% of all metropolitan areas. One source.

It wasn't the repeal of a law, it was the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that deregulated the radio industry. It removed all restrictions on station ownership, and ever since then Clear Channel has been taking over. Accompanied by computer DJs, the same playlists at stations all over the U.S., and nothing on the radio that isn't paid for with what is essentially payola. It's one of the major reasons why CD sales are declining; people aren't being introduced to new artists, only the same rehash played by the Clear Channel conglomerate. And ironically enough, Clear Channel is still having financial problems.

Re:Actually this is a good thing right ?

[DarkVein]

why exactly is copying bad?

because it is illegal?
because the music industry makes less money?
because we won't have as nice music if the music industry struggles?
because someone is making money doing things that are illegal?

I have come to the point in my life where (right and wrong) and (legal
and illegal) are now completely separate, and surprisingly, not even
aligned completely.

Good and bad need to be quantified. They're inarticulate words for such maters. Let's substitute those for moral and amoral. Let's also consider "copying" to mean "propogating of idea or art", as this is the subject being discussed. We'll also ignore the fact that every action a computer takes is a copy.

Immediately with this defintion, most slashdotters will think "copying is good!" The reasoning is that all sciences and arts benefit when their practicioners are exposed to new ideas. Programmers and engineers are intimate with this notion, as their occupations firmly rooted in and built upon the idea. The paradoxal result is that value is attributed to information; information becomes valuable. These are seperate things.

So, here we have the two sides of the coin: Scientists and Artists can further their crafts by being exposed to new works. On the other side, the copyright side, Science and Art is furthered when its practicioners are given incentive to create and explore. Copyright, and Copyleft; Only one of them has federal backing.

The copyright side says that any copying diminishes the incentive to create new works. The RIAA says this penalize artists and society, but the RIAA also calls decreasing profit growth rates (market saturation) a loss. The first part is true, but only some times.

And there is your answer. Copying is "bad" as long as it removes the incentive to create new works. The great divide is between the letter and spirit of the law. The letter leaves interpretation open that the incentive for new works should come from the author, while the spirit is simply that "new works" be incented (not a Bushism). Progress is the spirit, and the spirit doesn't give a damn about ancestral authors, so long as they are given their due.

Society always builds on the works that came before. Cultural progress is retarded when access to previous works is restrained. Because these new works are built upon previous works, they compete with the ancestral work. Because this competition diminishes the author's incentive over time, the past always tries to control the future.

I feel this is evidence of a strong imbalance in the current system. The drive for survival is normal, but when it is given force over the struggling newborn, something is sick. Free societies must restrain the past from controlling the future.

Statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are missing is that these silly statistics aren't designed for the general public--they are designed for POLITICIANS.

The **AA doesn't give a damn what the general public thinks--this is all PR for bought-and-paid-for politicians. The lobbyists will show up, wave around these silly statistics, flash some money and boom! suddenly there will be more laws/levies/taxes on recordable media faster than you can type 'cdrecord'.

And you are surprised?

[Montreal Geek]

This is amusing.

I would think /.ers already knew our four letter friends (MPAA, RIAA, etc) lie through their teeth at every avaliable opportunity. They keep saying how p2p is running them into the ground (yet keep posting remarkable profits) and how nobody buys CDs anymore because of it (yet they manage to sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of carefully marketed trash from Dion and Spears).

The fact that they count funny when doing a "bust" of evil pirates is exactly what I'd expect. I'd be surprised if they came out with an announcement stating that

"A small copying operation have been shut down, with less than two hundred cd burners seized. While this operation ran for profit and is fairly unequiovocally bad, we don't expect it has significantly impacted our business either way and is basically insignificant compared to the much vaster amounts of copying done privately by millions of individuals which we can do nothing about and never will."

-- MG

I bet the RIAA doesn't use basic economics

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA says the damage could be as high as 90million.

These groups, I'm sure, don't use take into account "Opportunity cost". Just because I bought a pirated CD for $2 (or obtained it for free), doesn't mean I would also pay $20 for a legimate copy if no pirated copies existed.

Re:RIAA in a spin over CD copying bust

[Apreche]

Actually the Secret Service has 3 very specific jobs. One of those jobs is to bodyguard and protect important people. That is the most commonly seen job. Their second job is cathing people who counterfeit money. Their third job is catching h4x0rz and pirates.
If you are a computer criminal, depending on the exact circumstances of your offense you will either be visited by customs, secret service, FBI, or local police.

As for this whole 156=421 thing. Does this mean I can sell my burner on ebay? It's pretty fast can I say 2 CD burners! only takes up one drive bay!

There's nothing wrong with burning CDs for personal/fair use. However, despite the number of burner discrepancy, this was an actualy piracy operation. It's not only illegal but not right. People like that should get busted.

421 !=156

[WIAKywbfatw]

At least not until the price of buying 421 CDs has come down to the price that 156 CDs would cost you retail right now.

As Benjamin Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". We all know which kind were looking at here.

Re:RIAA in a spin over CD copying bust

[catbutt]

The Secret Service, we naively presumed, was employed to protect high-ranking elected officials.

The Secret Service's original purpose was to catch conterfeiters. That's why they are part of the Treasury dept (although this will change with Bush's re-org)

Another "Equivalence"

[Dachannien]

According to the RIAA press release - in the footnote:

"The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry."

Indeed. Well, their supporting facts to indicate that they represent the entirety of the recording industry includes this:

"RIAA® members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States."

So, you've heard it here, folks. 90% = 100%.

The proof of the corollary theorem, 1 = 2, is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:Another "Equivalence"

[Joey7F]

and 1=2 by:

a=b
a^2=ba
a^2-b^2=ba-b^2
(a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b)
divide by a-b
a+b=b
b+b=b
2b=1b
2=1

--Joey

Re:15 first posts

[WCMI92]

"This first post is being sent over a cable modem and is like 15 regular first posts!"

So if I download something with the T1 at work it's like stealing 1,000 songs? And if I burn them with my 24x burner, it's like burning 6 CD's?

Methinks we have discovered the formula that the RIAA/MPAA/BSA uses to come up with their "piracy" statistics...

Calculate what could have been copied on PC equipment circa 1987 and multiply by Moore's Law...

Re:RIAA in a spin over CD copying bust

[91degrees]

People like that should get busted.

But it was fair use. The guy clearly wanted to make sure he had a copy of each of his CDs in every room he may visit in the rest of his life.

Of course, you're right. They should just be more honest about the figures. Its not like this matters after all. And if they really want a big number that takes into account CD speed, they should say how many CDs could be burned in a day.

Re:Does this mean...

[yokem_55]

Actually, 4'33" isn't actually silence. It's all the "unintentional," and random environmental sounds that go on wherever its "played". As such, there is no real creative "composition" that can be copywrited and just making absolutely silent mp3's 4'33" long misses the point of the song. However, I do think that a recording of the "performance" of the song can be copywrited, but such a recording would not be completely silent.

Why exactly is the SS involved here?

[CaptainPsyko]

The Register article seems to have replaced a mistake with a mistake.

From http://www.secretservice.gov/mission.shtml

The United States Secret Service is mandated by the U.S. Congress to carry out two distinct and significant missions: protection and criminal investigations. The Secret Service is responsible for: the protection of the President, the Vice President, and their families, heads of state, and other designated individuals; the investigation of threats against these protectees; protection of the White House, Vice President's Residence, Foreign Missions, and other buildings within Washington, D.C.; and security design, planning, and implementation at designated National Special Security Events. The Secret Service is also responsible for the enforcement of laws relating to counterfeiting of obligations and securities of the United States, investigation of financial crimes including, but not limited to access device fraud, financial institution fraud, identity theft, computer fraud, telecommunications fraud, and computer based attacks on our nation's financial, banking, and telecommunications infrastructure.

I don't see anything there about IP law, Fraudulent CD's, or other Piracy or theft laws. The Secret Service protects the president, and investigates Counterfeit CURRENCY, Securities Fraud, Bank Fraud, and other Financial Crime Thats why they are part of the Department of the TREASURY

So what were they doing at RIAA's latest Bust exactly? Though the Register did get the SS's role wrong, they were right in presuming that they really shouldn't have been part of this bust.

OT: What's wrong with US law enforcement

[swb]

The Secret Service, we naively presumed, was employed to protect high-ranking elected officials.

This is the big problem with Federal law enforcement -- there's so many different law enforcement arms, and few of them like to cooperate with the others. I heard on NPR that they want to form yet another to combat terrorism! Why not have:

(1) FBI -- Enforce federal criminal statutes, including counterfeiting and narcotics, as well as felon apprehension. This gets rid of the DEA, the non-protective Secret Service roles and the Marshalls Service. Essentially focuses on criminal acts comitted in the United States.

(2) Homeland security. Immigration, border security, customs, counter-terrorism, counter-espionage and government protection, including Presidential Security. Eliminates border patrol, customs service, and the rest of the Secret Service function. Essentially focuses on crimes involving extra-national activities and government security.

The constitutional standards for (1), which would mostly involve US citizens, could then be kept higher without a risk to national security.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:repeat after me...

[LostCluster]

Yes, but the story here is that the RIAA would rather charge them with having more CD burners than they actually did, rather than charge then with distributing n pirated CDs.

CD burners are not a unit by which you can measure piracy, nevermind inflated "equal to" units of CD burners. The RIAA's purpose was to put the confusing math in the press release, so that hopefully dumb reporters would report that they had "over 400 CD burners" in their operation, rather than print the rather unimpressive number of CDs they distributed.

Re:Why not quote a "burn-rate" instead?

[LostCluster]

But having the ability to make 64,247 CDs per day is not illegal. Making 64,247 CDs per day is not illegal. Making 64,247 copyrighted CDs per day is not even against the law. It's only illegal when you are making CDs to which you do not have copyright permission and then distributing them.

It seems like the RIAA wants the CD burner to be equated with piracy, because they want to be the only ones who can legally make CDs of any kind, forgetting that other people can create and release music content too.

Re:I hope you're right

[curunir]

Maybe they should measure an operation based on something that is actually illegal...like, say, illegally copied CDs. The number of CD burners is about as relevant as the number of orange peels in their garbage can.

It's logic like that that allows the DEA to prosecute people for playing techno music and selling bottled water (something the DEA has officially classified as "Drug Paraphernalia")

Re:My CDR is really slow...

[NineBall]

It's real maths, all right, it's just that it happens to be a counting system used by politicians called 'bollocks', in which anything + adequate funding = anything else

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of shit. The silence isn't even silence, because your stereo equipment can't cancel out environmental sounds.

Not statistics at all

[MacAndrew]

I know everyone hates statistics, but that's not really the issue here -- it's basic arithmetic. I mean, they can't add and multiply properly, either by accident or design, but as soon as they're caught at it they undermine their already limited credibility.

This reminds me of virtually any tax debate in Congress, excpet there it is at least partly statistics -- trying to extrapolate from known values and economic relationships to determine future revenue. WIth the RIAA, at least in the present example, we see simple nonsense. Of course, this sould be the work of the PR people, a group not known for math skills. :)

As for "the idea of increased sales through increased exposure" that's a matter for speculation, and a decision I feel that is wholly up to sellers to determine, not the consumer. I imagine the relationship of publicity (earned at the sacrifice of some profits) to ultimate profits (the number they really care about -- not sales) is a curve of some sort, with diminishing returns beyond a certain point of giveaway music. More efficient piracy will not advance the game, rather it may give the beneficiaries an added sense of entitlement, and reduced obligation to pay the big bad record labels for anything. This is not so much civil disobedience as yielding to temptation while feeling justified for just desserts or educating the greedbags.

On the publicity point, recall that Napster and P2P are pull not push mechanisms; you have to request what you want, thus you already know something about it and probably like it. This is less likely to spur sales than push, where the studios would promote music that is not yet established, and which they believe need promotion.

Someone MUST have done a decent study of this question ... anyone have a cite? The biggest problem is estimating the returns from schemes that have never been tried. In other words -- statistics and, worse, speculation.

As an ethical matter marketing should be left to the sellers, with input from consumers but not pressure in the form of piracy. They have a right to be stupid; we do not have a right to coerce. If I were the seller, losing music to piracy would not immediately dispose me to start giving "samples" away for free -- I might go the RIAA route, even if it were illogical. Psychologically, it has to be a decision they feel they made on their own, or that upstarts demonstrate to be viable. Also, if the sellers can make more money not giving out free music, I can't blame them for a second.

Re:Not statistics at all

[Anonymous Coward]

"On the publicity point, recall that Napster and P2P are pull not push mechanisms; you have to request what you want, thus you already know something about it and probably like it."

More like, 'Hey dude, check out this band. You'll love them.' Person then goes and checks out the band, finds they love them, and buys discs.

I admit that not everyone out there is like this. However, if certain unsavory elements of society weren't stealing music online, they'd just steal it from stores - then again, I bet the RIAA would be fine with that, because the music store would be the one out of money. They already paid the RIAA for the disc.

"This is less likely to spur sales than push, where the studios would promote music that is not yet established, and which they believe need promotion."

Yes, Britney Spears and the rest of the boy/girl bands are so underpromoted! The studios won't bother promoting anyone who can't be neatly packaged and sold to teenagers. Why? Teenagers have limitless disposable income, because it's frowned upon to duct tape yer kid's mouth shut, and coughing up $20 every other week is better than having a stroke.

Re:RIAA Math: Add more examples here...

[DivideX0]

One MP3 on a P2P file sharing system = Infinite copyright violations

Acutally, infinite isn't correct. The number of violations would be limited to the number of people in the world - 1. Oh wait, I forgot, they need a seperate license for the song for at work, in the car, and at home. Oops, wrong again, everyone needs a seperate license for each device they use at work, in the car, and at home. Woops, would they also need a seperate license for the song if they ran a dual boot and wanted to play the song on each OS but on the same system?

I guess you were right, an infinite number of copyright violations are possible!

#s dont matter

[Bob MacSlack]

honestly, it doesn't matter how many cd burners they have, what matters is how many cds they can produce. i dont get why they would try to make it seem like there were so many burners when they say exactly how many they estimate they could produce. If they have 1000 1x burners, would they say thats only really equivalent to about 50 "normal" burners? somehow i think not.

btw, what is the burner equivalent of an actual pressing machine? :)

35,000 CD's? Or 32,500?

[FleshWound]

If the RIAA fudged the numbers on the count of burners seized, they could very well have fudged the numbers on the seized media count.

Perhaps the "35,000" CD's that were recovered were really 32,500 700MB CD's, but since they have a greater capacity, they "qualify" as being 35,000 650MB CD's.

Re:perhaps they used the same math..

[ncc74656]

Well, it comes from the same rule that says 2+2=5 for large values of 2.

In 1984, they kept trying to get Winston to believe that 2+2=5, if it suited the Party's purposes to make that assertion. We now have the RIAA trying to get us to believe that 156=421, if it suits the RIAA's purposes to make that assertion. Coincidence?

wait a second here...

[Anonymous Coward]

the real truth here is they busted the type
of piracy operation that they SHOULD be worried
about

their terrible statistical lies aside ... this was a group of people not downloading the music for personal consumption but to re-sell to stores and consumers

the guys who were running that show were real organized criminals and they should be put away ... i'm all for taking out the big fish