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Copy-Protected CDs Going Mainstream
bmarklein writes "According to this CNET article, Arista is going to start shipping copy-protected CDs in volume. Looks like the discs will include DRM'd Windows Media files in the second session. No mention of which titles will be affected, but Arista is the home of Santana, Whitney Houston, Pink, TLC and Kenny G."
"The people that whittle away your fair use rights are the people that think they're the ones with the power, take whatever they want, and fail to understand that the music industry isn't just going to sit there and let them pick its bones."
:)
I don't understand, the music industry is going to pick it's own bones?
Seriously, downloading music is only stealing because of an artificial creation of law. They don't have any inalienable rights to control what you do with recordings, it is given by law. Calling it "stealing" is subverting the language to fit your viewpoint, it implies there is more in common with downloading songs and shoplifting other than both being illegal. It is copyright infringement, nothing more. It is illegal, but it doesn't always have to be, nor was it always so. For example, there is new economic theory that proposes copyright isn't necessary and sometimes harmful to artists and innovators. If this was accepted as common knowledge, copyright would eventually cease to exist. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but pointing out that copyright isn't some inalienable right. It isnt in the same category as the right to own property.
Its also dubious about DRM not being dangerous. Regardless of who owns the copyright, what shape will our society be in when all art is locked up, and only accessed by those with the money? How much of history is taught out of copyrighted books? If these are all DRM, what happens when the DRM provider goes out of business on a series of books? Remember, it is illegal to circumvent the DRM as well. How many people have to go untaught or uncultured before it is considered harmful?
What do you think of bands like Phish and (formerly) the Grateful Dead that have made a great living off of concerts and the lifestyle that surrounds them?
What do I think of their music or their business practices? I don't care for their music, but I don't really have any opinion regarding their business practices.
It really doesn't matter what I think, or what I think would be ideal. What matters is what is, and what will happen as a result of actions the consumer takes in regard to the people and organizations that actually produce these goods.
What is going to happen, is I'm just not going to buy those albums. I never cared much for most popular music anyways, but considering the 2 places that I listen to recorded music is in front of my computer and in my car, this is a big problem.
There isn't much for "popular" music I intend to buy, either, but that doesn't mean that if I just go and take it along with millions of others, the record industry is just going to let me.
But you're making the assumption that it's the file traders that are keeping me from purchasing the music that I want to buy.
No, I'm stating that the recording industry isn't going to let it continue to be as easy for you to illegally copy their music. You want someone to blame for the corrosion of your previous fair use rights, it's the people that abused the current lax system so openly. They practically flaunted it in their faces, and several companies have tried to make money off of the business of allowing others to violate copyright law. What did you expect to happen?
Personally I don't care what keeps you from buying music.
But if my right to copy to make a backup or a duplicate which I, and only I, will use is violated, I will not have a part in that.
Which may eventually mean you won't be buying music. You can equally blame the people flaunting their power over the "broken RIAA/MPAA business models" for the increasing encroachment, every step of the way, that you currently blame those businesses for.
Only they will suffer for that.
That remains to be seen. We're still at the very beginning of all of this. Who knows the lengths they will go to obfuscate their content? Who knows what laws they will pass to further gain leverage over businesses and individuals? Who knows what influence they'll use to get the DoJ kicking in your door with a warrant?
You can't just yank something away that so many people have latched onto and not expect an uprising.
And that is precisely what those people abusing file sharing networks believe. They believe they have the power, and can just take away the media industry's control of their property. Well those industries have a lot of money involved and great political influence, and for the most part all those kids on Kazaa have are their large mouths and their ideologies.
If you're worried so much about your fair use rights, maybe you, too, should tell those file trading college kids to stop ruining everything for you. They're pushing around a dragon that doesn't care if you're the one taking it gold or not.
You have exactly 314 seconds to come up with a less retarded plot.
You need to drop from your moral high-horse for a moment; it's not going to get you overly far.
Companies responsible for producing media have large quantities of money and political influence, and they can wield it to far greater effect than your whining about fairness. It's that simple.
That is simply true. They are the more powerful force.
What they see, is a constantly growing trend of the youth of the U.S. and Europe freely replacing, in large quantities, the purchasing of media with the downloading of it off of the Internet and burning it to CDs and DVDs. If you don't think that generations being indoctorinated into the "It's ok to just download every piece of media" school of thought is "pushing them against the wall," then you're not very adept at thinking in particularly long terms.
They're going to do everything in their power to prevent and impede the easy distribution of their property. If that means stomping all over you, as long as it's done in a manner that isn't too inconvenient to enough people to harm sales, they're going to do it. You can bitch about it, and whine about it all you want, but they have the money and you have squat. Now if you want to preserve your rights you can either stop poking them in the eye with your Kazaa stick, or you can just watch everyone's freedoms with others' media evaporate.
They think long-term and not your boring terms "The CEO has severals nice homes." These companies are gigantic, employ very large quantities of people, and as with any business, always attempt to maximize the bottom line for investors.
You don't have to like it, for them to push you around. It's really time to accept that and to plan strategies accordingly.
You have exactly 314 seconds to come up with a less retarded plot.