RIAA Nightmare: Pro-level Portable Hard Disk Recorder

ratfynk writes "Anybody interested in creating their own MP3 or WAV recordings should take a look at this device. It is a compact hard drive recorder that looks like it is the next logical step beyond ADAT. My interest is fair use, the ability to record my compositions and performance with studio grade equipment at a reasonable cost. This device seems to fit the bill. Specs are available at micsupply.com. This device looks so good that the RIAA might try to make it illegal." For a not-cheap but cheaper alternative, check out the updated-weekly Core Sound page on their PDA-based recorder mentioned a few months ago.

Comments

The way of the RIAA

[Gefiltefish11]

I believe that the long rang plan of the RIAA includes a mandatory international registry for all individuals with any musical talent. This is how it will work:

A RIAA Official, wearing his dress uniform and goose-stepping, will arrive at the door of any family days after it becomes apparent that a child possesses any musical talent. The child will then be promptly escorted to an officially-sanctioned RIAA retraining facility for indoctrination. This methodology will prevent the production of music by any non-sanctioned source, which could be blamed for hurting profits.

/premonition

Re:The way of the RIAA

[concept14]

I believe that the long rang plan of the RIAA includes a mandatory international registry for all individuals with any musical talent.

Does this mean they are going to drop most of the people who are signed with them now?

The Underlying Problem

[aster_ken]

I posted this in the Dr. Dre article mentioned earlier, but it seems appropriate for here, too. It's a bit off-topic, so I won't mind it getting moderated as such, but moderators, if you feel the information in this is useful then mod it up so more people will see the resources I have listed.

Yes, the RIAA will hate this.

But that is not the problem.

The underlying problem is this: we have broken intellectual property laws.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has taken America's already stringent copyright, trademark, registration, and patent laws and forced them upon signing members in slightly revised format.

So now all of these broken laws are *entrenched* the world over. Dr. Dre, even as huge (no pun intended) as he is, will not make a difference changing these laws any more than you or I. I've said it before, people. The only thing that will finally fix these problems is getting a *huge* player - someone like AOL/Time Warner, General Electric, or Microsoft to stand up and say, "Hey! We feel that the current intellectual property laws are stifling competition, encouraging frivolous lawsuits with exponentially too large damages, and generally causes the state of mankind's advancement to diminish. Their reach should be reduced, and their protections should be diminished." then we will *not* get IP reform.

So that leaves the average Slashdot reader three choices:

1) Whine about it, do nothing, whine some more
2) Write your congress people, consumer advocate groups, and manufactureres of IP and try to educate them on the true damage that current IP laws are causing
3) Create and support a viable alternative that will gain momentum from consumer and commercial support that eventually can replace current business models and content-creator demand

There are several projects in all three groups that have been started already. Some links:

For item 1: Slashdot.org - seriously, there's more whining on here than just about anywhere else I go.

For item 2: Please note that these links are very US-centric. As I am from the US, I do not know the laws or government structure of other countries and cannot make recommendations on who or what to write.

http://www.house.gov - Write your representative. It is their *job* to voice the opinions of their constituents (though usually they voice the opinions of whoever contributes the most to their campaign fund).

http://www.senate.gov - See above.

http://www.whitehouse.gov - Write the president. Your letter may not be read, but please try.

http://www.aclu.org - American Civil Liberties Union. These guys *try* to protect your freedoms. Try to make this an issue of civil liberties rather than commercial interests.

http://www.eff.org - Electronic Frontier Foundation. DONATE! They need your money to continue fighting our fight!

http://www.futureofmusic.org - Future of Music Coalition. They're trying to come up with a compromise. I don't know if it'll work, but it's worth the reading.

http://www.lp.org - Libertarian Party. Support candidates that support you! The Libertarian Party believes in a system of government that doesn't restrict individual freedoms.

http://www.democrats.org - Democratic Party. Write to their leaders. Encourage their platform to support legislation that would reduce the life of a copyright or encourage the rejection of software and "method" patents.

http://www.gop.org - Republican Party. See above.

For item 3:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com - Discussions on getting the RIAA out of the picture. It's not totally productive, but some good ideas have come from their members.

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/6540 - A new peer-to-peer network that may actually get started. Developers and content-creators are especially encouraged to read this article AND the user comments.

http://www.azoz.com - GREAT site. It's the home page of the guy who wrote the previously mentioned article

Google Cache

[saitoh]

already /.'ed... Another mirror:

Google Cache

Re:They can try...

[squiggleslash]

Jeez. Will you people lay off?

In the UK, the popular comedians Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have a pair of characters called the "Self-righteous Brothers". Conversations usually go along the lines of:

First: Did you hear about that Linus Torvalds? He wrote an operating system and distributed to everyone for free
Second: Ah Torvalds, a master of his craft. His Linux kernel is widely regarded as one of the finest components of the GNU/Linux operating system, a superbly designed example of technical excellence
First: Oh yes. And if Torvalds were to come round my house, I'd gladly shake him by the hand.
Second: You're right there
First: Mind you, if he were to invite himself in, start making himself some tea without even asking if I wanted some, made a mess all over the kitchen, and ate all my biscuits, I'd be outraged.
Second: As well you might be.
At this point, both characters are seething with rage
First: I'd say "Oi! Torvalds! Noooo! You might be a superb C programmer, and your generousity distributing your operating system for free is well appreciated. But you don't start using up my tea, and making a mess of the kitchen, without my permission!" And I'd give him a slap.
Second: And you'd be well in order there. Bloody computer programmers, think they own everything.

You get the idea. Ok, Enfield and Whitehouse wouldn't choose such a nerdy subject, but you get the gist.

And the moment someone comes up with anything to do with music, Slashdotters go off and do their "Bloody RIAA, think they own everything" act, no matter how inappropriate.

We even saw that with the iTunes Music Store threads. That's the music service backed by the major labels. Those are the labels that fund the RIAA. Everyone saw that in the write ups and they still went into a frothing self-righteous quixotic rage about how the RIAA would try to shut it down.

The RIAA hasn't made any comments to the best of my knowledge about this particular piece of equipment. Nor would they want to. It's as infringing as an MP3 player. It's not a way of transporting music to masses of people anonymously. It'll make no serious dent in piracy terms. And it'll make music more valuable. The RIAA have done some bloody stupid things before, but they're not challenging Apple over the iPod - why would they try to make this illegal?

It gets worse. The writeup implies that the RIAA's solution to what it sees as threats is to go to congress and lobby for new laws. That's bollocks. The only new law the RIAA has lobbied for in recent history concerning copyright infringements has been a law allowing it to hack into computers. It's not a sane proposal - nobody would imply that - but it's a world away from proposing further restrictions on the use of content. For all the RIAA's faults, it isn't the MPAA. The MPAA got the DMCA through onto the statute books, I can't even say for definite if the RIAA supported that law, and it's not something they've encouraged their members to make use of, in the same way as the MPAA built the DMCA protected DVD CSS standards.

Can we at least do ourselves some favours and, if we consider the RIAA the "enemy", presumably in reality for being the representative of music publishers we feel have foisted too much crap on the public and who have treated artists with less respect than they deserve, at least criticise them for what they are, rather than some stereotype of what they might become.