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Lessig And RIAA Answer NewsHour Questions
Zeta writes "The answers are finally in! Stanford's Lawrence Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim have responded to all the tough questions on copyrighted music, many from Slashdot readers, for the online part of the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Take a look - some of the responses may surprise you." We ran the original call for questions a few weeks back.
It's probably a Microsoft conspiracy. This has been another Microsoft Conspiracy Update.
http://conspiracyupdate.microsoft.com
"just because a car is sitting idling and unlocked does not mean that you can get in it and drive it away for your own use"
The Riaa Guy
I'd let anyone make a perfect copy of my car and drive away with it if they'd like, I still have my car.
Better yet, dl the the show off kazaa and watch it anytime!
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
"I'd let anyone make a perfect copy of my car and drive away with it if they'd like, I still have my car."
Who'd want a copy of a Yugo?
"B. The record industry has been hit very hard in the last few years as a result of illegal downloading and piracy.
In 2002, unit sales were down about 11 percent.
In 2001, unit sales were down about 10 percent.
In 2000, unit sales were down seven percent. "
No, you jackass! Your sales are down for other reasons.. not illegal downloading.
1) Only so many bands can look and sound identical, before people need only buy ONE album and pretend it is five different bands.
2) Music sucks.
3) CD's are overpriced for what you get.. when Rush used to put out albums, five or six songs were GOOD and the rest were OKAY.. now your pablum barfing force fed musicians are wont to put out one hit, on a record that Im payign 16 dollars for.
4) see #2
5) ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID!
Thank you.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Haven't read it all so far, but this is just blaring...
Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical.
So...why do they say copying music files is "stealing"? Nobody loses any physical property, nothing of monetary value, but yet "copying" is equal to "stealing" in their minds...
From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Yeah, and from an ethical perspective suing a student for creating a search engine and letting him go for merely all he's worth is just dandy.
"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."
The Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued four students on April 3 for allegedly
operating music-sharing Web sites, accusing them of enabling large-scale copyright
theft. Although the RIAA initially asked for $98 billion in damages, it settled
the case on May 1, with the four students paying fines ranging from $12,000 to
$17,500.
Marking another victory for the recording industry, a federal judge
on April 24 ordered Verizon Communications to reveal the names of two Internet
subscribers accused of illegally trading music online. Since that decision, Verizon
received subpoenas for information on two more Internet subscribers.
Verizon
turned over the names of its four Internet subscriberson June 5 after
the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. rejected the telecom company's
request for a stay while it appeals the lower court decision. Verizon plans to
appeal that ruling.
Meanwhile, on April 25, a federal judge in Los Angeles
delivered a setback to the entertainment industry by dismissing lawsuits against
two file-swapping services, Streamcast Networks and Grokster. Judge Stephen Wilson
ruled that the two services were not liable for copyright violations that may
have occurred while people were using their software.
Although the ruling
does not legalize the downloading of copyrighted media online, it shields companies
that provide peer-to-peer software from liability for the actions of their users.
Does the entertainment industry has the right to prevent the "sharing"
and downloading of digital copyrighted media? What methods should it employ to
deter, or stop, the downloading?
Is music sharing tantamount to online theft?
Or is it the consumer's right to have unfettered access to online materials, including
copyrighted media? Should online music, film and other media be available for
public use?
Two leading experts representing the two sides of the debate
answer your questions about consumer rights and media copyrights in the digital
age.
John Wilcox from Arlington, VA asks:
(1) If physical communities can form libraries for the purpose of sharing copyrighted materials with community members, why can't virtual communities?
(2) If I can go to my local library and check out a CD for free, why can't I copy a digital CD from an online friend? And if I like a song enough to re-record it onto a cassette, why can't I copy the song from a digital server? What are the fundamental differences between the library setting and Internet file-swapping services that make the former both ethical and legal, and the latter unethical and/or illegal? Don't both the public library and online file-sharing services serve the same public interest?
Lawrence Lessig from Stanford Law School responds:
Let's distinguish "can" from "should." Simplifying just a bit: Why "can't" you? Because when virtual communities "share" materials, they make copies, and copyright law regulates copies; when real space libraries "share" content, they don't make copies, so copyright law doesn't regulate that. But should there be such a difference? No. Our tradition has always recognized the importance of balance in copyright restrictions; it has always recognized the importance of access.
There is no reason that the technical accident that everything online is a copy should mean the end of libraries. Obviously, libraries shouldn't become the pirates lair. But neither should the Internet obliterate libraries.
Matt Oppenheim from the Recording Industry Association of America responds:
(1) The idea of a virtual community that "shares" music is a great idea. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening on P2P [peer-to-peer] networks these days. Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music to millions of strangers simultaneously. Nobody
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The big thing I don't understand about the music piracy subject is why Napster was shut down and all these clones have sprung up, but none of them have been shut down. The Napster guy should have copyrighted P2P.
"You have no copyright, get over it."
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make.
Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer, but not capable of being distributed on programs such as Kazaa.
Has anyone encountered said technology? Seems like antother push for Microsoft DRM....
So, this guy's saying that we should let everything stand for a few years, and then all of a sudden companies are going to make things _less_ restrictive? No offense, but I'm not holding my breath. I wouldn't trust the major labels to do that for a second, much less years. If we let it go until then, the DMCA/UCITA-type laws will be firmly entrenched and fair use will have disappeared entirely in digital media. Anyone else want to wait for that to happen?
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0 rows returned
"We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing."
One industry you don't hear complaining about P2P sharing is the porn industry. Needless to say, you can get more videos and pics on file sharing networks, etc, than you can shake a stick at (not to mention posting on newsgroups). What's their stand on file sharing? It seems like they really could care less.
The RIAA is desperate because bands that used to make good records can't make any more. Why? Well, because:
1) they may not have been that talented in the first place, and/or
2) it's hard to be that inspired when you got 5 million bucks in your pocket.
Ever seen 5 million bucks? Most people, one they get that kinda money, go one of 2 ways:
1) they get super-greedy, and try to just make super-popular records, which flops hard at some point.
2) they just say "ok, i'm done" and that's it. The RIAA needs to realize that people are gonna listen to the music one way or another if 1) you can't hear it on the radio, and 2) the band's new stuff blows, or 3) if they want to hear something to see if the band's new record blows, which it most likely does. STILL, did Eminem go platinum? Yes. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING IF THE MATERIAL IS ALL THAT GOOD/POPULAR! People really don't want the hassle of the internet, unless the material is hard to find elsewhere, i.e. at stores, or if they are unsure of the quality of the material, etc. DUH.
stuff |
It seems to me that one of the big reasons for people buying fewer cds is that they have become a major pain in the ass. Why should I go spend $20 on a cd when i'm I can't even play it in my computer, nor am I sure it will play in my car cd player. But that argument aside, my friends and I simply paid for a lot more cd's when it was easier to copy them. We would basically each go out and buy a cd or two a month, and burn copies for everyone who did this, and we ended up getting 6 or 8 cds. If the cd was really good then we probably all ended up buying it. Now it's a pain in the ass and you can't always do that anymore, so we think "eh whats the point" and just download off kazaa. In the end we as a group purchaced fewer cds.
This is really a moot point anyway, because as many people have said before, music sucks.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Record companies don't want to lock music up -- after all, why would people buy it if they could not listen to it in the way that they wanted?
DOES THIS GUY LISTEN TO HIMSELF? If the RIAA wants us to listen to music the way we want, why don't they let us GIVE THEM MONEY for things like music downloads or at least some sort of "approved" form of media other than $25 CDs that we can listen to however and wherever we wish?
"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."
AMEN!!
Was he saying 'Amen' to the answer from the other person,
Or the question,
? ;)
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
I love the RIAA guy's response to every question about the DMCA...
"It doesn't stifle innovation, it just protects people from infringing on our markets! It was real innovative the way we avoided a press scandal when we paid off the senators!"
Could be the next topic for "Ask Slashdot"
I'm sorry, but did this person just say that my data isn't my property, and that rifling through it isn't a violation of my rights? Or did he maybe imply that if it's on the internet, it's open to the public? Gee, so I've found this MP3 on an open network (say, the world wide web, or a p2p network). Obviously, since it's just lying there, I should be able to access it (which, due to an 'accident of technology' happens to involve copying the data to my own computer) without violating anyone's rights. Don't you think?
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"If the RIAA wants us to listen to music the way we want, why don't they let us GIVE THEM MONEY for things like music downloads or at least some sort of "approved" form of media other than $25 CDs that we can listen to however and wherever we wish?"
You mean like Apple iTunes, and what Microsoft's coming up with?
Yes radio sucks, yes many riaa bands suck but there are definitely work arounds. I've bought more music in the last few months than I have in a really long time (mostly stuff from metropolis/different drum/emperor norton/spv and some european equivalents). Shoutcast has been a godsend for those of me , I buy records but the kids who run the radio stations on shoutcast provide a great way of discovering new music. Need decent non-riaa music for your car, leave a few shoutcast streams on overnight and rip to cd/rw while you shower and play it on your mp3 cd car player. Use opennap/gnutella/shoutcast whatever to find your new music but if you LIKE the ARTISTS and BUY THE MUSIC! Most of the smaller labels need you to do this to survive. I honestly don't think the smaller bands care if you've discovered them by browsing some kids opennap file share becase some friend of yours told you about some new ebm band called "brudershaft" and you want to know what the hype is all about. But listen to it, if you think damn this rocks, this shit should be on the radio, buy it, it wakes the radio stations up, it gets the peoples making all the cool new music the recognition they actually deserve and it'll make the radio stations not suck so hard.
-blo
It was kind of boring reading responses from Lessig and then from Oppenheim. I was hoping for more than just hearing them rehash the same old lines.
I would have much preferred hearing them debate. Now that would have been interesting. I'd like to see how each would respond to the other's various arguments. (Okay, so mostly I'd like to see Lessig rhetorically clobber the RIAA guy. But I don't think that invalidates my point about a debate being more interesting.)
I was loathe to read the RIAA response since its a given that the RIAA representative will lie like a spammer. But I was drawn to it anyway.
Every time the DMCA was brought up the RIAA guy said it was just fine because it promotes innovation, rental models, blah blah blah. And that there's that copyright office exemption thing that comes up every few years.
Of course, what he didn't mention is
1) The exemption doesn't do a damn thing for devices. Sure, you can break the copy protection mechanism... just don't build a device to do it.
2) The RIAA will lobby $trenuously against any proposed exemption which affects them.
Anyone else notice that when you surf the net for music files, you're messing with their intellectual property -- but when THEY surf the net looking for music files (and finding stuff which doesn't belong to them) it's not about property?
Matt Oppenheim (from the RIAA): Intellectual property should not be treated any differently than other property. Unless you buy it, you should not copy it for your own use.
Umm, the whole point of intellectual property is that it is treated differently than other property. If you buy something, absent copyright or patent law, you can copy it.
If intellectual property shouldn't be treated any differently from other property, why can't I take it apart and examine it without violating the DMCA? If they are to be treated the same, why can't I charge an admission fee to show it to my friends? After all, I could do that with my brand new Porshe, right?
The RIAA rep shot their entire propoganda campaign in the foot with this gem:
So, according to this guy, "sharing" only takes place when the lender doesn't have the shared book/CD/whatever available for their use. If the lender retains a copy, or the original, then it's not, "sharing," but, "copying."
However, the RIAA -- and, to be fair, just about every other intellectual "property" advocate -- often refer to unsanctioned copying as, "stealing."
Except... Wait a minute. Isn't stealing where you take a thing from someone such that, as the RIAA guys said, "the owner no longer has it?" Indeed, isn't the primary distinction between lending and stealing the consent of the owner?
So if, because the owner retains a copy, it's therefore not sharing, then how can they possibly make the argument in the same breath that's it is stealing?
Answer: They can't. They're trying to have it both ways. It's not stealing, it's copying, a distinct activity.
There's little question that it's illegal -- the lobbying dollars of the RIAA and like organizations have ensured this. Whether or not it's ethical is a question that is still being discussed, and is by no means a closed subject.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I am sick and tired of people comparing the sharing of music and movies as the same shoplifting or stealing a car. This is a ridiculous analogy on many levels, but my main gripe is with one level in particular: if you steal a shirt from a store, that store has suffered an actual financial loss. When someone downloads a music album from somebody else, the record company doesn't suffer direct financial loss to the same degree as if the product were physical merchandise that couldn't be digitally replicated. The record companies may suffer an "opportunity loss," if indeed that person would have purchased that album anyway (lots of people download music that they would never have spent $15/disc for), but that's not the same thing as losing the production cost and the opportunity cost.
The marginal cost of production for music, movies, software, and other intangible property is almost zero, and it's about time people took this into account before coming up with absurdly misleading analogies.
And when I buy it, I should be able to copy it for my own personal use, in the device of my choosing, and not encounter crippling technologies that prevent me from doing so.
Paying $0 for something that doesn't exist is theft?
It's merely a pattern of bits that causes my speakers to emit a sound wave.
It's worth $0, I'll pay $0 to get it. Now, it would be worth a few bucks to me to have a really nice, always available, searchable collection of very high quality patterns that I could download at a decent speed.
Artists make money touring. The only people who profit from CD sales are the Record Companies. It's a scam, and I'm done with it. I've turned my back.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I pay property tax.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
According to the constitution, however... $1,000,000 should be equal to 28,571 ounces of gold... notice the 10:1 descrepancy? Someone's been ripped off.
--Mike--
Yeah, yeah, I know... off topic
Matt Oppenheim from the Recording Industry Association of America responds:
Let me guess. This is why the new "copy-protected" CDs won't even play in a computer? I would like to see this statement backed by the actions of the RIAA's member companies.
"I mean, that's what humanity is about--sharing and loving stuff, right? "
Of course. You share your wife. I share my cookies. You share your house for a big all-night orgies. I share my potato salad. You share that wallet full of money. here have some more cookies.
Matt Oppenhein (RIAA guy): Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works, Congress has tried to keep pace with what it has believed is necessary to continue to incentivize creators and publishers.
And here I thought the problem was it was too easy to copy stuff.
Congress also was concerned that American creators should not have less copyright protection than is commonly provided abroad, and they therefore extended the term to match the copyright term in Europe and elsewhere.
Oh, right, the americans always do what the French and the Germans say...
Matt's "amen" was directed at the person asking the question. It seems that Oppenheim and Lessig's responses were made independently of one another, without responding to each other.
It's merely a pattern of bits that causes my speakers to emit a sound wave.
Better known as "music".
You're a fucking retard.
"Maybe, but if copying cars was as easy as copying music you'd probably have paid $15 billion for it. I don't know what the development cost for a car is but I'm pretty sure if Ford thought they had a market of one, then the price would be higher than it is."
And that is different from the present situation how?
Did anyone else besides me stop reading what Matt Oppenheim had written in response to these questions?
.05% of copyright holders!"
He should have just said:
"While lobbying for insane copyright extensions, suing kids, and whining about not milking that extra billion from teenagers over the last three years is generally not in the best interests of the public at large, it sure is helping us flog the last few drops out of a dying cow for benefit of the interested
And left me some time to read Lessig's well
thought out, poignant, and meaningful answers.
NMG
thats about what the artist gets from your sixteen dollars according to a musician friend of mine
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
No no no...it's "Intellectual Property."
You're a fucking retard.
Your claim that artists are being cheated out of their revenue is more of a popular myth than anything else. The vast majority of musicians are dying to get contracts with record companies.
Of course they are dying to get contracts with RIAA comapnies. The RIAA controls the talent, the means of production, and all the distribution channels (to speak of). They have no other choice than to make a deal with the devil. At least it looks as though this is starting to change with more indie networks cropping up to provide actual quality music (as opposed to the cookie-cutter crap the RIAA releases).
"Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works..."
This is obviously b#lls##t! Technology (internet, P2P, computers, software, electronics) have made it easier and less costly to produce and distribute ideas/music/etc. There are other things that I have found wrong in the arguments, but I don't want to spend all night typing them all out. Read carefully and question everything they say.
Question everything.
I'm in a band, and we give our music away for free, but that should be the choice of the copyright holder, and nobody else.
We can debate this back and forth forever. I agree that downloading CD quality music I did not buy is and should be illegal. If you're doing something shady, agree to the fact that you might get caught amd there might be consequences. And you don't get to set your own punishment.
An AC Karma Whore?
itunes's format can't be burned to cd, and i doubt microsoft is going to offer much better........
From Matt Oppenheim's comments:
On the Internet however, it is extremely easy to download and the audio quality is near CD. Millions of people now mistakenly believe it is legal. The RIAA, among others, has been trying to educate people that downloading recordings from unauthorized services on the Internet is, in fact, illegal.
Millions mistakenly believe it's legal? Do they really believe this, or is it just a good line? The truth is that pretty much everybody knows that downloading copyrighted music is illegal, and pretty much everybody figures it falls into somewhat the same category as driving five miles per hour over the posted speed limit, except that maybe speeding is a little worse, since it can actually hurt someone.
The RIAA isn't trying to convince people it's illegal; they're trying to scare people that they're going to go to jail or be hit with fines that are completely out of proportion to the offense.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"This is really a moot point anyway, because as many people have said before, music sucks."
And all across the land. People show just how disgusting the present day music is by downloading it and playing it over and over. In fact it's so bad that since misery loves company they burn copies on their $200 CD-burners for their friends to join them in agony.
Appropriate term. At least their own unique expression of art is slowly dying while they wait to have the chance for an audience. Not that this is the RIAA's fault totally - as any good conglomeration of companies, they merely react to perceptions about public interest, and perceptions about expectation of income. They have no place for promoting art in general, or offering a forum for untested or less-than-totally-popular art.
It's just sad that this indirectly puts them as such odds against any art that is not generating income for them.
Ryan Fenton
The main difference between these two:
Lawrence Lessig:
"The DMCA is an embarrassment to copyright law. Copyright law has always been about balance -- about the balance between restrictions and access.
The Constitution expresses that balance: it requires that copyrights be for "limited Times;" the First Amendment requires that copyright yields to "fair use." "
Matt Oppenheim:
"If you are attempting to distribute recordings that you own the rights to and the RIAA is in any way preventing you from doing so, you should contact us immediately."
Note how Lawrence Lessig focuses on balance, while Matt Oppenheim focuses on saying what consumers are allowed to do. (Lessig does not explicitly refer to people at "citizens," but Oppenheim does at least once refer to individuals as "consumers.") This shows their respective trains of thinking quite well.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
With people walking up and driving away with perfect copies, suddenly your car has no value.
If you are a car dealer, you're done for.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Screw kazaa, anybody have a bittorrent link?
IANAL
The propaganda term "Intellectual Property" is a creative fiction designed to confuse two separate types of limited control granted by government.
1. Patents - A limited monopoly over the commercial implementation and distribution of a novel concept IN A PRODUCT. Patents represent a trade-off to encourage open distribution of the concept after the limited term of the patent. Note that a patent doesn't prevent someone from using a concept for their own use.
2. Copyright - A time limited monopoly over the commercial distribution of an authored work. The term is limited and this is traded by the government to encourage the creation of a large public domain. Note that this is intended to prevent PUBLISHERS from making money off of other publishers works.
Note that in both cases the primary motivation is creation of goods for the public.
The fiction is that it isn't property at all... it's a time limited grant of monopoly, and it's meant to expire. Property is a durable item, not a lease.
</ANTIPROPAGANDA>
What I am reading in these reponses is a whole rash of rationalizations:
Let's face it: We like the music and we want to use the technology that enables us to copy and share it over the Internet for free. We want the product, but we don't want to pay.
You can put forth all kinds of hypothetical situations where illegal and unethical intentions are not involved, but let's be grown-up enough to admit that getting something for nothing is 99% of what this is all about.
You know what I think ought to be done about it? I think that the RIAA ought to start putting their product out there so cheaply that people won't object so vociferously to paying for it. If we could pay 5 or 10 or 25 cents for a copy of a song (I can already see pricing them on a sliding scale -- with the most popular stuff being priced highest, according to laws of supply and demand, kinda), I think that most of us would do that -- for a multitude of reasons:
So maybe I'm too naive about this stuff. But it seems pretty clear cut to me. Making copies of CDs for anything other than your own use is illegal. Does that mean that everyone who does it should go to jail? Probably not. I DO think it means that the RIAA had better wake up and realize that they have a MAJOR problem on their hands, and revolutionize the way they do business, if they want to stay in business.
The RIAA guy says, yeah, cool, copy the CD for home and office. But if you buy a protected CD to do so you need a circumvention device which is illegal⦠what? Its like the prostitution laws, sure your can have sex for money, but you cant solicit for sex for money⦠gah
From Oppenheim: "It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use." Yes, daddio, the RIAA just radiates coolness like an a/c unit. They've been the keen machine to millions of internet users. What the hell has the RIAA been smoking to think that they themselves are cool or can judge coolness? Back to cool school for you, fool!
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Sales are down over the last two years not due
to lost opportunities as a result of file sharing,
they are down due to the fact that CD TECHNOLOGY
HAS BEEN SURPASSED by magnetic media.
News flash: LP sales are down every year since
1990. You know why? Because CDs replaced them.
Well guess what? CDs are now yesterday's
technology... I can't fathom spending money to
buy a physical medium that's more difficult to
transport, less durable, skips, can't record,
etc. etc. etc. The combination of computer
digital media management plus affordable
portable digital music players have made CDs
OBSOLETE.
Jeesh. Wake up RIAA.
-Pez
I bet this has already been corrected by the time I post, but suffice it say that music downloaded from the iTMS can be burnt to CD.
For to end yet again.
"Personally, I agree with your comment about radio stations -- and I think that most record companies probably do too. We would love to have more variety on the radio."
f p_congress/ and other articles by that author.
This, at least, is correct -- sort of. According to Salon.com, the various companies pay $150 million per year to radio stations, through independent promoters, to decide what will get played on the radio. They're deciding to go for the same 40 hits, over and over again -- that's the kind of decision you can buy for $150 million -- but they hate it.
Why? Because payola shouldn't cost that much. It used to cost way less, but with Clear Channel holding a monopoly, the price per song has gone way up. They're trapped. No one record company can afford to stop unless they all do -- and if they all agree on that, it's collusion.
This leads to an interesting irony. The RIAA, as of the time this article was written, was lobbying Congress to mandate that pay-for-play be stopped -- "please order us not to pay $150 million each year to have our songs played on the radio." They were simultaneously lobbying Congress to mandate fees for streaming radio stations -- "please make sure we get payed whenever we let someone play our songs on the radio."
To my mind, the difference is choice. They'll pay a lot to make sure everyone listens to the same music; they see no particular benefit in having lots of different music available. This also indicates to me that, whatever this spokesman thinks, the individual companies have no desire for more diversity on the radio. They just wish they didn't have to pay so much to prevent it.
For more info: http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/06/25/p
it is legal to download a copy of that CD from Gnutella. Who cares if the RIAA guy thinks ripping the CD is easier - I find using Gnutella easier.
If all the mp3 downloading going on was just people downloading copies of CDs they own, would the RIAA be complaining?
smd4985
Lets call it...
"stock fraud
hooking up cable TV without paying
phone phreaking
identity theft
software piracy
etc., etc., etc."
That's so much more accurate.
There is one difference that echoes throughout the responses that both give to each and every question. At every turn, Professor Lessig gives deference to the needs and rights of the Artists and the Recording Industry in an attempt to find middle ground. At the same time, Mr. Oppenheim only recognizes the rights of the companies he represents, completely forgetting the concept of fair-use rights and the necessity of the public domain.
-R
their work became so popular (and a few pretty well known starlets got their start with these people) it spawned a newsgroup of it's own - a newsgroup that is pretty much dead now, because ALS sued the major carriers of that newsgroup, forcing them to police it or just remove it entirely. They've ALSo (har) been known to go after individuals who post their material. Occasionally you'll find some of their material in a newsgroup, usually either encrypted or renamed.
Ever heard of Suze Randall? Amateur & Teen Kingdom? Both these websites are (or at the very least were) enormously popular and they WILL go after individuals who infringe upon their material. One or two posts might not get one a DMCA complaint, but they produce prodigious volumes of porn and even a flood of three year old stuff (that's not even on their own website anymore) can land a poster in hot water.
This talk about the porn industry embracing p2p is only a half truth propogated, no doubt, by the industry itself as PR move to keep it in favor among its consumers. It's one thing in the public eye to steal from Mickey Mouse and the Olsen Twins - but another thing entirely when you're stealing from "lowlife pornographers." IOW they need to keep all the friends they can. Their "embracing" of the internet is largely in the form of limited collections with large banners and Microsoft (proprietary) format video and audio files that contain embedded links and scripts - basically just another form of popup ad (at least for the majority who don't disable such scripted security holes - er, I mean "features").
Hit a well maintained usenet server and globally search the binaries groups for PGP containers. If you look deeply enough (well, it doesn't take too much if you bother to read the peripheral discussions) you will find most of these PGP containers relate to the exchange of one of two forms: child porn, and commercial websites - like Suze Randall, ATK, and ALS. You do the math...
I know this. You know this. A lot of other slashdotters know this. Why is it that Matt Oppenheim doesn't get it?
read this and think the first few questions were _extremely_ scripted. "oh, Mr RIAA, I think I should be able to pirate as much music as I want...can you please tell me why that's wrong?". Next thing you know, they'll have elmo running their campaigns..."Elmo is sorry mr RIAA, elmo didn't know that p2p networks were bad...elmo will never ever share music again".
It's tempting to analyze everything from the RIAA's replies, however it would be preaching to the choir on this site, and rather unneccessary. However, this in particular stands out to me as a perfect example of how out of touch with reality the answers were:
"Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works, Congress has tried to keep pace with what it has believed is necessary to continue to incentivize creators and publishers."
By increased cost, is he referring to the fact that you can record/make your own music with relatively in expensive equipment in your home, and distribute it to millions of people over the internet for the cost of a dialup connection?
I guess in their minds, it was easier/cheaper to pay for recording studio time, copies, and promotion to hopefully get your music played on a local radio station, where less than 1% of the audience the same song could receive on the internet today would actually hear it???
The RIAA guy responds to the proposition that the RIAA's file scanning activities constitute trespass:
Excuse me? By the terms of the Berne Convention, adopted by the United States in the mid-1980's, once a work becomes "fixed" in a concrete form, it automatically becomes copyrighted, with the copyright held by the creator. Your rights are strengthened if you register it, but you hold a defensible copyright in anything and everything you write, draw, or otherwise create.
Copyrights are commonly lumped under ill-conceived term of, "Intellectual Property."
Oh, look, there's that word: "Property." The word the RIAA loves to throw around with such reckless abandon as it shrilly decries unsanctioned copying:
But, according to the Berne Convention... Everything is copyrighted -- therefore, everything is someone's property, including those Web sites the RIAA is scanning (without permission). So how is it okay for the RIAA to scan and make use of a Web site's copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission, while it's not okay for millions of peaceable citizens to do the same thing with music files?
"Consistent" is not a word that can be applied to their arguments.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Life can go on... without listening to stupid music...
If music is THAT important, suffer the consequences...
I reply to this in the spirit you are the parent poster which asked "Is the NewsHour the same length as 60 Minutes? " and did a typo, meaning "Is the NewsHour the same show as 60 Minutes?"
I reply giving you the benefit of the doubt, knowing you may not be in America or familiar with the networks..
The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour is run on the PBS network.
60 Minutes is run on the CBS network.
Although both are news shows, they are NOT the same show.
And, please, referring to the slashdot community as "fucktards" is kinda pointless.. it really doesn't solve anything, it just pisses folks off and if they have a mod point laying around, they will just be inclined to use it to drive you under the ground.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
"Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works..." Isn't hte lower cost in distributing music what has the RIAA all worked up? Oppenheimer is a real genius!
"We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights. We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing."
Whaaaaaat!!
If you are on my computer, you are accessing my property. I own the physical media, it is in my house, it is my property.
"Oh we'll just go in every open door in the neighborhood, after all, we aren't accessing anybody's property."
Back in the day music was cheap. Recording companies had few bankable artists and wanted to get these artists as much exposure as possible. This paradigm existed pretty much unchanged from the time of sheet music to the invention of the cd.
Ah, the cd!
The magical bandit that changed music forever. With the introduction of the cd, music distributers realized that people who already own a certain song (i.e. purchased the album or the single) would eventually pay to own that song again, in a slightly better format. I can't tell you how many people I know used to be music collectors. Owning every song ever released by a particular artist, every kind of album cover, misprint album cover, or censored record was a goal. And yet, when these albums, sometimes dozens of them, were re-released on CD, they purchased them all again...
RIAA: OMFG!!!! GOLDMINE!!!
While mp3/ogg/bla aren't as pristine and, in the mind of the audiophile, "better" versions of the same song, people want them because of their convenience and portability. They're the "CD format change" of the 90's to date.
What should concern the "end user" is that what the RIAA really wants to control is music's distribution format. They really want portable, digital (i.e. almost free to distribute) songs available. Their format. Their distribution method. Their profits all over again, every generation, same song, with endless copyright. A license to print money effectively.
You wanna buy the latest and greatest pop song, ok, it's -ALWAYS- gonna be $15 'cause some sappy sod in a business suit decided in 1987 that he just fucking -HAD- to repopulate his Gordon Lightfoot collection with those new fangled "CD"s. People have "proven" that's the going rate for music, and you can bet your ass the RIAA is computing all their "damages" based on the last "transistional" cycle, the "CD revolution".
That's why this is important and why music's expensive. Popular music used to cost $1 or $2/song, back when singles ruled the day. But noooo. Some dumbass had to pony up the big bucks to "upgrade" his collection....
-dameron
MP3s or nothing.
"Of course they are dying to get contracts with RIAA comapnies. The RIAA controls the talent, the means of production, and all the distribution channels (to speak of). They have no other choice than to make a deal with the devil. At least it looks as though this is starting to change with more indie networks cropping up to provide actual quality music (as opposed to the cookie-cutter crap the RIAA releases)."
Hold on a second. Is this "slice of disaster" coming from the same group that is all ra ra about the benifits of internet this, and internet that, and how all you have to do to make a living in the post-apocalyptic world of the RIAA's death is "Go clubbing", sell a few shirts, etc, etc?
You guys are going to have to all get on the same page, or get a new agent.
That being said, it would be interesting to see these two discuss issues with each other, rather then answering questions and not interacting with the other side.
Debates between two intelligent people like this are a relatively straightforward way of determining which argument holds up and which one was contrived for the sole purpose of masking another intent.
Interviewer: Doing this specific activity breaks the law. Right?
P2P-lover: Well, only insofar as the law is evil and wrong.
RIAA: Yes! You will all be sent to the Underworld!
------
Interviewer: I want to be able to do anything I want. What do you think?
P2P-lover: Sure, why should I care?
RIAA: No! We demand your cash in retribution!
------
Is there a *single* interview question here that asks an interesting question, or one that there's any question about the answer to? P2P person says that anything that stifles the free flow of information is bad. RIAA person says that anything that allows people to make illegal copies of music is bad. RIAA person makes no comments about whether the current copyright situation is for the benefit of the people of America or not, P2P person doesn't mention minor details like, say, what's actually legal.
I'm trying to see where the story is.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
And THIS is why there are black hat hackers. Watch the RIAA lobby and help pass some bogus law that lets them either 1) Hack "suspects" computers 2) shut down p2p Just like right after 9/11, the terrorist sites went down, if the RIAA did something that provoked people enough, their site would.. Cease to exzist.
OMG OMG OMG WTF OMG WTF BBQ STFU RTFM, OMFG OMG OMG OMG ROFL LMAO OMG WTF STFU ROFLMAO
When CD's were new they were introduced to the market at an extravogent rate. People were in shock how expensive CD's were.
I remember reading articles that simplyfied supply and demand and tried to explain how if people were only willing to pay those stupid high rates in only a few years CD's would be less expensive then tapes.
I think CD's costed something like $20 a piece.
So you see, when the RIAA makes a statement about things in the future they generaly know what they are talking about and don't lie at all.
Everyone here WHINES about lawyers. But wants to play with sematics here. If you do not know making a copy of copywrited things and giving them away violates the law (of the US anway, your milage may vary). the law assumes books as a starting point. If you Xerox one and give it away, you broke the law. If you copy it and give it away, you broke the law. If you copy it and paper your walls , fair use. if you fill your HD with scans on the pages, fair use. Give the orinional away, lend it to mom, sell it , fair use.
If you do not like the law. get it changed (fat chance)
for a bunch of people who work in bit you should not come up with lame resons why it is OK.
THAT Said
The record companies need to get with the times. I still can't make the best of Anonymous Coward CD, without buying a load of CDs and songs I do not want. The record companies know that if the sell the songs 1 at a time 3/4 of the songs on most albums will go unsold. Back in the 45RPM days you could buy 1 song. But they can make more $$ by selling the full album.
Like Prohabtion made most American law breakers. The Record Companies are doing the same. Sell it so people do not feel the need to steal it.
Movies are the industries lazyness. If the number each reel (in the film) The would find the problem theaters quick. There is an industry that whined about VCRs, but now make a forture from them.
Ludites repent, accept the technology and make Profit. It will not go away.
...and am not merely licensing it!
The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality).
Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version, you cannot download somebody else's copy of a recording.
If they were licensing the song/or whatever to me, they shouldn't care where I got it, as long as I have a license. This says to me that they are selling me the copy, to do with as I see fit.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Geez, looks like they could show the RIAA something about "declining sales".
Posted anonymously because this joke is lame.
Thank you for looking at this topic logically and not emotionally. Personally I wished for a question related to the price of CD production and how it affects sales and the use of P2P networks.
Recently on /. link it was discussed how the cost of production software has dropped ($495 for the home version or $15,000 for the pro version) but it does not appear to have made its way to consumers. This particular point seems to slip through the cracks along with other obvious points of interest. The cost of burnable CDs has reached levels of 5 cents a CD for the consumer. Shouldn't this cost saving be available to large producers of music?
Personally I'm very selective of CDs now days because the prices have remained high. I still purchase CDs, but only rarely. Do I download songs off the net? Honestly, very rarely. And the songs I've downloaded are often songs I own on CD - I'm too lazy or uninterested in ripping the song. Of course I have found songs I always wanted to record off the radio or have a copy of because I could never justify $18 for one song as most music (in my opinion) is piss poor and often repetative.
Not that I've contributed anything new to the topic, but at least I've gotten my thoughts out. chichichi-a
this is exactly like abortion, insofar as the feelings are all over the board and extremely strong.
:
myself, i totally agree with what 90% of the RIAA guy says. we should -NOT- forget that we did not
* write the music
* produce the music
* manufacture/ship/sell the music
now before i get totally flamed, i 100% agree that we should be able to copy/backup music WE PERSONALLY bought for PRIVATE usage. i doubt anyone here can argue with that. however, we honestly have -NO- right to give away the music on a transferable media (tape/cd/mp3/etc). it really is nothing except stealing.
i'm not going to disagree with the fact that cd's are overpriced. they are, no shit. however, running around screaming freedom like RMS on acid isn't going to change the price of cd's. we need to either start supporting stores like apple's iTunes, actually not buying cd's, or both. everyone on here rants saying they don't buy anything new, but i doubt more than 30% are honest.
fairuse is fairuse, but if there was an online suit about some small programmer getting ripped off by AOL, we'd be all over it like jackals. be rational, not radical. it's a money business, and although most of the pop music nowadays is fairly horrible IMO, people are buying it. so, stop.
Are you MORE than your SPINAL COLUMN?
Now, imagine that 100 people set these servers up.
1000.
10,000.
Not only would the RIAA's noise:signal ratio in searching rise, but if even one claim is successful, it opens the RIAA up to a world of hurt.
A thousand bee stings can kill a full-grown man, after all.
"In legislation enacted that year, they said that infringement actions cannot be filed against consumers who engage in copying using analog devices" Sweet all those mp3s I captured off my radio card I can now share legally !
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
I am gonna get all hypothetical here. Me thinks this could be done. But it isn't being worked on to the best of my knowledge.
Okay I have say 1000 tracks available on my hard drive. What if I built a P2P system that required you to 'borrow' tracks from my drive.
In other words my tracks would have some sort of DRM on them. When you checked them out you would be granted lets say 7 days worth of time, but I would be restricted from listening to those tracks via DRM for an equal 7 days.
The DRM would only allow the original owner to 'lend' (you couldn't lend your copy out).
According to what I have read the RIAA supports this (I am not buying that they do mind you, I am calling this guy a liar) and he says that they don't enforce copyright against people who borrow CD's from libraries and copy them at home, so I should not expect them to go after me (the original owner who is not cheating the system) because some jackass is making an audio dub of the file.
Now, for my analysis:
Matt Oppenheim : "So, if you buy a CD that you keep at home, you should feel free to make a copy that you have in your car. It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use."
So why are anti-piracy technologies making such a big push to keep me from doing that? The second I buy a CD with anti-piracy technology that actually keeps me from ripping it I think I will be pissed enough to call a lawyer and start discussing 'fair-use'. Sorry, but I'm pissed (obviously) about anti-piracy technology infringing on my rights. You should be too.
Lawrence Lessig : "The DMCA is an embarrassment to copyright law... the First Amendment requires that copyright yields to "fair use."... That [DMCA] is an extremism that the law should not allow..."
Well said. I'd have to totally agree with that one. IT IS an embarrassment and I can't wait until the Supreme Court gets ahold of it. I'd like my apology for stivling technology from the RIAA in writing please. Thanks!
Matt Oppenheim : "The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make. ... Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer, but not capable of being distributed on programs such as Kazaa. These technologies are still, in many respects, in their infancy, and they will become more and more flexible over the next few years."
So it's obvious to even the RIAA that the anti-piracy technology being implemented worldwide hinders 'fair-use'? Now wait a minute, if you know the technology sucks then why implement it? Improve on it first, please.
Matt Oppenheim : "We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights. We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing."
So that makes it okay? Two wrongs don't make a right. So is the RIAA saying they are being a crook to catch a crook? That's illegal by the way.
Lawrence Lessig : "So why don't we have more content available online? In my view the real reason is that the relatively concentrated content industry is not eager to welcome a competitive market for the distribution and production of content. No competitor likes competition. So it is completely understandable that they would resist technologies that increase competition."
Agreed. The "content industry" is clamouring to get the right model up and running and other companies are beating them to it (example: Apple). No one likes competition, especially stiff competition but everyone likes innovation.
Lawrence Lessig : "Software patents do nothing to promote progress in software."
Very, very true. Locking away code and selling it doesn't do much for improving that code or educating others on how to write better code. Now, Mr. Lessig, please write a letter to SCO and put this quote in BIG LETTERS for them.
Matt Oppenheim : "As a technical matter, it is illegal to download a recording from another that is not yours. As a practical matter, there is no reason to do it. It is easier these days to rip a recording from a CD than to download it. And, when you rip the CD, you do not open up your computer to all of the spyware and other viruses that are part and parcel of most illegal P2P services."
Even though the recording is identical you still can't do it? That doesn't make much sense but I'll let THAT slide. I would have to argue the point that ripping is easier than downloading though. Hardware (CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, etc.) is involved in ripping, easily downloaded and installed software is used to searc
Let's examine several of Oppenheim's outright lies or dodges:
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it.
The question is, would he then support a virtual library of music, which purchases music/etc at bulk price and so many copies of it, and if it has 3 copies of song X, it allows 3 people to listen to song X from it's server at a time? The answer, I think, will be no, which would make him a fucking hypocrite.
when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Nope, wrong. There's nothign that says the individual who downloaded a song for free would have blown away several bucks to get that song on a CD. So his statement is incorrect.
AMEN!!, [in response to Lessig's statement that although the sharing of copyrighted files is illegal under current law, technology can not be made illegal if it has substantial noninfringing uses]
I must admit, I was at first pleased upon reading this response from Oppenheim. However, if Oppenheim -- who is representing the RIAA -- really believed that, then the RIAA wouldn't be trying to stop P2P developers and shut down P2P networks, or destroy these networks by flooding them with crap.
There are quite a few ways that these technologies can incorporate safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.
What Oppenheim conveniently leaves out is that it is almost inherent that any technology that filter's out infringing use will also filter out non-infringing use. Computer's cannot determine whether or not something is infringing copyright. Sometimes judges can't even determine that. Any technology which very efficiently prevents copyright violations on P2P networks will very severely eliminate legitimate uses.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation.
Intent is irrelevant. It already has stiffled innovation and free speech.
All that aside, the DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision has specific provisions built into it that exempts true scientific research.
Which obviously weren't good enough. See Felton.
every three years, the United States Copyright Office reviews whether specific exemptions need to be added to the DMCA to address this issue.
In case Oppenheimer doesn't know, the scientific community doesn't operate on a 3-year basis. There is extremely rapid turnover in the scientific community. Current knowledge today will be old knowledge a week from now. 3 years is a long time to slow down science.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make...Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer
Never-the-less, the DMCA allows copyright holders to effectively circumvent fair use. It allows them to prevent something from ever being public domain (in addition to their bribery of Congress to retroactively extend copyright laws...fucking crooks). Simply allowing such an atrocity is inexecuseable.
irresponsible copyright holder makes a mistake, the DMCA has a process built into it for counter-notifications to be made in which an individual can dispute a take down notice.
This is Oppenheimer's response to the cease&desist questions. For the most part, I found his response here reasonable, but this is a half-truthed statement.
The DMCA may have such a process in it, but that's irrelevant. ISP's will automatically take down the sites of anyone accused of infringement, and they have to counter-claim etc to revoke that (because ISP's aren't liable if they do such). This is a bad
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
OK, this will probably cost me karma, but I gotta say it: I can't help but wonder if the last question, asked by someone who wished to remain anonymous, was posed anonymously to avoid admitting publicly to owning (and choosing to listen to) John Denver's Greatest Hits.
P.S. Volume 2???
I think discretionary income that people would normaly use to buy music is getting spread out in the music industry. Due mainly to the quick easy access to new artist.
It wasn't too long ago that RIAA would beg radio stations to play their artists of choice (top 40 anybody). Heck, they probably still do beg and pay kickbacks too. Remember when that was a scandal? They weren't too concerned about copying back then.
But radio airtime is a finite period to a finite audiance. While P2P sharing of music is a infinite period to an infinite audiance. (I use infinite quite loose here) I'm sure that back then, as it is now, it was cheaper to promote a big artist to concentrate in a few products rather then promote alot of artists across the board.
Now, with the P2P method of distributing music, I theorize that peoples tastes are diverging because of the easy access to non-mainstream music or even just older music. THey have more choice now and they are taking it. While tastes are diverging, the RIAA and the Industry still hasn't "got it". They still use thier old models in trying to promote a few stars. Look at the all the recent flops and huge contract dumps in the past few years.
They cannot control the tastes of music listeners anymore and their tastes are diverging. Making it more and more expensive for the Industry deliver. It will get worse before it gets better (read somebody in the industry comes in with new ideas). They are still trying to sell 10 million records of one artist, while what they really need to be doing is concentrating a couple of hundred thousand records each from a bunch of artists.
It's not even a fun show anymore... they've become complete bores; the tribe has spoken by the millions: it's time for the men in the sharkskin suits to leave the island.
direct quote from the RIAA guy:
"Intellectual property should not be treated any differently than other property."
SWELL! Let's do it! Right now, it's not, it's treated COMPLETELY different fronm any other product out there. With music, movies, software. Completely different.
If it's a product, where's the guarantee, where's the liability, where's the waranty? If someone buys a CD for the emotional experience of anticipation of joy from how fine it is-how it is claimed in advance- the just wonderful mooozak, and it sucks donkey nuts when you listen to it, can you SUE for false advertising, for damages? Where's the responsibility on the profiteers part? Oh, it's in the ear of the beholder? How are you supposed to know that in advance? How do you actually legally calibrate that, where's the "standard"? Go to the movies, you sit through the whole thing, you honestly really didn't like it. Where's your cash back, a pittance for your lost precious time? Rent a DVD,it turns out to be a waste of electrons, can you get your money back, plus damages?
They want it both ways, same as closed source propietary software. Maximum profits, every protection the law allows, with absolutely no warranty for fitness of service.
nuts to them
I don't copy, but I don't "buy" their non-product "products" either. They are "worth" what they are able to get selling cheap digitised copies now,a few cents max, not many dollars. Olden days,the real olden days, hard to reproduce and distribute, fine, higher fees maybe, now, they want to artifically hold back and limit technology to insure they always make the same as they always did. Screw that noise, that's instituionalised ludditism.
If they had done this 4 or 5 years ago, realised they needed to fast switch to selling online for wicked cheap, they would have double prospered over what they are claiming is lost now, they chose NOT to, they chose to not listen to what the customers wanted, they sought to monopolise technology and the ability of people to get a good deal, and they conspired with each other to keep it that way. Industry collusion to maintain a shared monopoly to the best of their ability, it lead to massive civil disobedience because it's so obvious they are nutso and crooks. They even co operate to monopolise the public airwaves, and have constantly been busted for paying bribes to on air personalities to only feature such and such music, yet they are allowed to stay in business. They get allowed-licensed-to offer programming to the public that has to first and foremost be of the public benefit and interest, the public airwaves are NOT primarily so something called whatever inc can make a buck, that is secondary, it's the price they are supposed to pay when GRANTED their FCC broadcast license. They monopolise the radio and TV spectrums with their canned top 40 crap and formula entertainment "shows". Same guys. They want top dollar for that stuff, and even want people to not copy, when they should be forced to pay you to listen to most of that stuff.
Why people copy all their stuff is beyond me, but they do, so be it. I think it's mostly a waste of disk space, but each to their own I guess.
And so that's what happens to nutso laws,and to nutso companies, they finally get so absurd that everyone ignores them and does what they want to.
I'm not even completely through all the questions and I've already counted at least 3 times where the RIAA guy has completely avoided the question and given completely bogus answers.
Not to mention the shameless plugs for services like PressPlay, Rhapsody, noOneCares, etc.
My spoon is too big.
There's little question that it's illegal -- the lobbying dollars of the RIAA and like organizations have ensured this. Whether or not it's ethical is a question that is still being discussed, and is by no means a closed subject.
The interesting enough thing is that copying for personal use - no commercial benefit, no money changing hands - is legal north of the border. We pay a levy for it that is unjustified in a lot of cases. If I'm being levied though, I'll be damned if I'm not going to take advantage of the benefits that the levy grants me.
My point is that the music industry hasn't fallen apart here, and we don't have vapid lobbying groups falling over themselves to take away those rights. I find the situtation in the USA somewhat confusing, but on the other hand, there is so much money at stake. No wonder people get crazy. You see the Eminem's with their money, but for every dollar they get - I'd guess the label gets 5. Or more.
..don't panic
So according to Matt (RIAA), we can all record songs off the radio to cassette and from cassette to mp3's and it will be legal and then the RIAA will go back to their hole and leave us alone? So then it boils down to a matter of quality? Or are they concerned with the conveinence (a lot easier to rip cd than go radio to cassette to mp3)? Their (RIAA) rational is about as screwed up as a soup sandwich.
Does "Lenny G. Arbage" seem like a fake name to anyone else? Lenny Garbage? I mean, it's possible that it's real, but considering that no one else with a question gave their middle initial, it seems suspect to me. I think we have an Anonymous Coward (I mean, besides the one who was actually anonymous).
>Record companies don't want to lock music up -- after all, why would people buy it if they could not listen to it in the way that they wanted?
gee...maybe that's why sales are down?
Incentivize? Is that even a word?
According to the constitution, however... $1,000,000 should be equal to 28,571 ounces of gold
The word "gold" only appears once in the Constitution. It relates to states being prohibited from making anything but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.
The RIAA takes very few of these questions head on:
We have asked [the p2p networks] that the infringements be filtered out of the system. By implementing these types of technological safeguards, those artists and copyright holders who want to distribute their works for free can do so, and those that would prefer not to do so have a choice as well.
This has been tried and failed miserably. The kids on the internet have more time and intelligence to beat any type of filter that has been put out to stop illegal file sharing yet not hurt legitimate file sharing.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make. Record companies don't want to lock music up -- after all, why would people buy it if they could not listen to it in the way that they wanted?
I could not believe this when I saw it. If only they could connect this statement with their declining sales maybe they would find the real reason why album sales have gone down.
As a technical matter, it is illegal to download a recording from another that is not yours. As a practical matter, there is no reason to do it. It is easier these days to rip a recording from a CD than to download it. And, when you rip the CD, you do not open up your computer to all of the spyware and other viruses that are part and parcel of most illegal P2P services.
For one, if you have broadband downloading a digital version can be faster and easier than ripping. Second, see above question. It is your anti-copy technology that is forcing people to download the digital equivalent to it. Oh yea, and almost all those P2P services have counterparts with no spyware.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision has specific provisions built into it that exempts true scientific research. Moreover, every three years, the United States Copyright Office reviews whether specific exemptions need to be added to the DMCA to address this issue.
Anytime a DMCA question comes up the RIAA doesn't address whether it is right or wrong, it just says that's congress' job.
He said:
In those instances in which there have been recoveries, such as the case against MP3.com, each individual record company pays their artists according to the individual contract that they have with the artist. There is no single industry rate or manner of dealing with this.
Does that mean that the artist gets some of the recovered money, provided that thier contract specifically gives them a share of money from lawsuits?
Twenties Retirement
from the RIAA guy:
To date, nobody has suggested that copy control technologies have locked up a work that should be in the public domain.
this seems like a completely rediculous statement considing what this forum and everything Lawrence Lessig has been fighting for and all the other crap going on for the last couple years. in fact he even talks about this earlier in the q&a. somebody needs to go over this carefully and pull out all the bullshit.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
The RIAA is desperate because bands that used to make good records can't make any more. Why? Well, because:
STILL, did Eminem go platinum? Yes. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING IF THE MATERIAL IS ALL THAT GOOD/POPULAR! People really don't want the hassle of the internet, unless the material is hard to find elsewhere, i.e. at stores, or if they are unsure of the quality of the material, etc. DUH.
The RIAA needs to realize that people are gonna listen to the music one way or another if
STILL, did Eminem go platinum? Yes. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING IF THE MATERIAL IS ALL THAT GOOD/POPULAR! People really don't want the hassle of the internet, unless the material is hard to find elsewhere, i.e. at stores, or if they are unsure of the quality of the material, etc. DUH.
I guess I knew all I needed to know about the RIAA's position when I read Oppenheim's answer to the second question:
Yep. It's basically a religious issue. Which means they'll be just about as rational and reasonable as fundamentalists are. Not that it's surprising, given the RIAA's history."Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Dressing up like a ninja & acting out scenes from "The Master" at a singles' bar ought to be a major chick magnet. Give that a try.
In review:
Recording industry says: Filesharing is killing the music industry.
General /. public says: Slow economy and lack of satisfaction with product (and price of) is killing the music industry.
Question: Is the industry right, or is /. right?
Answer: Yes.
To have constant drops in sales every year, who is actually naive enough to believe that one single action could be the cause of that? The industry is hurting because of the combination of many factors. Yes, the economy is down, yes, many people are buying video games and DVD's instead of CD's, and yes, some people are simply not buying CD's because they can download everything off the net. Any one of these things would not account for a catastrophe. All of them at once means the planets align and the tides change.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality).
Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version, you cannot download somebody else's copy of a recording.
So you're saying that the *exact* reason I cannot go from 8-track to CD is because the quality increases. Doesn't that logically mean that I would be allowed to go *down* in quality as much as I want? So why the hell can't I make VHS tapes of my DVDs, for those times I want to bring them with me to view with friends or relatives who may not have a DVD player yet? Aren't you implicitly saying that that's legal?
Sigh ... yeah, I do tend to confuse my terms on this issue. I suspect the point still stands, though -- that the way this market works, radio play is only valuable to the record companies if it's controlled and concentrated on a few artists.
When you buy a CD, you should feel free to copy it for your own use.
- Matt Oppenheim, RIAA
I'd love to, except that some nefarious individual seems to have "copy protected" some of my CDs.
Can someone explain to me what Oppenheim is saying here? Many new companies are making anti-copying technology, but they can't exist if they can't protect their protection technology? And if those companies go under, then there will be no business market? Wha?
At least I understand the last sentence. If there's no business market, only government and non-profits will be able to innovate in technology because those will be the only things left, dummy! I mean, who else is innovating now, besides business, government, and non-profit interests?
Am I missing something that makes these statements make sense? Like a lobotomy?
In 2002, dvd sales were up about 11 percent.
In 2001, dvd sales were up about 10 percent.
In 2000, dvd sales were up seven percent. "
Yay me!
Last night I was trying to decypher some song lyrics and I looked in the usual places, much to my dismay I found that some songs no longer had available lyrics. Instead i was poined here. An excerpt is below.
May 2003 - Azlyrics.com Team was contacted by one of the world's largest music print publisher "Hal Leonard Corporation", who exclusively control print rights for more than 6000 of the compositions listed on our website. Publisher demand us to cease and desist from offering these unauthorized lyrics for distribution via our website.
What a sad state of affairs it is when it isn't just the work itself removed from the public domain.
Okay, here's another one:
So, here's what you do: take the digital stream and translate the binary data to tones (hi, low) and convert those tones to analog, make your copy using only analog, band pass out the gibbs artefacts, convert the tones back to digital, run through a decoder with a touch o' error correction. Done.Yeah, right.
That was excellently put (put excellently?)
It's funny. Laugh.
If you're going to sue me for damages for my mp3 collection, it assumes that they lost the money I would have spent on the product. This is faulty logic if i never had any intent on buying their product. 3 scenarios:
1.If I like the song (and others on the album), I'll go and buy it. Thus, they've suffered no lost
2. I don't like the song very much after all or the rest of the album is bad. I'm not going to buy it. My actions don't result in a loss because I don't buy CDs based on one song on the radio to begin with.
3. I have zero intention or have zero ability to purchase the album. Maybe it's a joke song. Maybe its a crappy song I'm downloading to irritate my roomate. Maybe it is something out of print or not offered by any retailers I have access too. There was never an anticipation of the RIAA getting any profit from me, so my download has no net effect.
Now I don't exactly think this arguemnt will stand up in court or anything. The RIAA has purchased enough laws to prosecute anybody they want. But the fact of the matter, which is made very clear by the RIAA goon's statement, is that the RIAA just doesn't get it. They've stifled the public's ability to get a variety of music for so long and now the dam has burst and they're drowning. People like to hear music. It makes us happy, sad, romantic, nostalgic, etc. But when you charge people inflated prices for little discs, raise concert prices above the $100 mark, homogonize the radio, and protest at the slightest attempt at competition, people are bound to turn on you at some point. The fact that they still haven't figured that out is a testament to how screwed up the industry is.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
I mean shit come on. The first rule of business "LISTEN TO THE CUSTOMER" - Which leads to the second rule of business "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT". They're just pissing away their customer base, lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit, threat, CnD, lawsuit, threat, jabber, jabber, jabber and shit for innovation.
The most recent CD I bought "Evanecence", awesome music, the great part is that you can go out to their website and download samples of each one of the songs to check - "do they have one hit and 10 filler songs?". Well for me the answer is "NO" they have 11 great songs - addictive songs. But turn around and look at the rest of the major labels and you can't get anything but the one single they keeping passing and playing all over the damn place. Want the lyrics - that's extra, artwork - have to buy the album, video clips - buy the album and get a special "ticket" for "extras".
Here they are sitting on a wealth of material to lure people to their merchandise. Give a little free sample here and there, get some fan base giving work into the fray, and reap some cash. What a bunch of morons that they can't make cash off of something so very freakin' simple.
"The Apple iTunes Store is one of the most recent efforts by record companies to license their music to online distributors."
Yeah, right, excuse me while I put my hip waders on. Actually, this might be deep enough, that I need a snorkel. I'm amazed that Apple found some way to convince them to do it. I suspect that the record companies' reasoning went somewhat along the lines of, "We have to make some of it available somewhere, or the courts will nail us for failing to make an attempt."
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
A) [Why is it legal to record a song from the radio while recording a song from the Internet is considered theft and criminal?]
Way back in 1992, Congress drew a distinction between analog recording (on that tape recorder) and digital recording (the computer). In legislation enacted that year, they said that infringement actions cannot be filed against consumers who engage in copying using analog devices and certain types of digital devices on which royalties have been paid and which protect against serial copying of the copy.
So then copying this music is legal if it is stored on an analog medium? What analog mediums are there available? I heard about a drive that could record files to VHS tape a while back. Anyone?
It's a little ironic to think that musicians can live off the same one-hit-wonder for the rest of their natural lives, while a scientist could invent some sort of miracle device that does untold amounts of good for the entire human race (like, say, a lightbulb), as opposed to the artist, who only does good for his fans, can only live off of it for 17 years. Wow, nice priorities, there.
Part one of my post:
Record companies don't want to lock music up -- after all, why would people buy it if they could not listen to it in the way that they wanted?
There's something in here to be said about how I can't walk into a CD store, choose a CD that I think looks interesting, open it up, drop it in a CD player, and sample the product before buying it like we used to be able to do with vinyl recordings.
Part two of my post:
Your claim that artists are being cheated out of their revenue is more of a popular myth than anything else. The vast majority of musicians are dying to get contracts with record companies.
Considering that I am a musician myself, and that I understand that the music companies he is referring to means "The Big Five" and not "Any Respectable Music Company, Including the Indies," I would just like to say:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Continuing from that point:
Personally, I agree with your comment about radio stations -- and I think that most record companies probably do too. We would love to have more variety on the radio.
MAKE THE FUNNY STOP!
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Heh. Not accessing others' property and not violating anybody's personal rights... is exactly what every other infringer is doing. Can I take that as the go-ahead that "infringers" aren't doing anything wrong?
In the context of his point, he's essentially saying that the RIAA is justified in doing whatever they want, even if it's illegal, because they're not doing it for an evil purpose. So if I lost a watch, I'd be justified in looking in your house for it without your permission. Hell, that's not even right. I'd be justified in looking to see if you had the same watch as me.
Um, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but is he saying that all us P2P infringers aren't taking RIAA's "property"?
Co-founder of GerbilMechs
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical
and then From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music...
Yet using the same logic, reading a book checked out from the library would be just as unethical since you are "taking money out of the pockets..."
Those companies (including Pressplay, Rhapsody, Listen, etc.) are delivering to consumers high quality music online in a format and form that consumers have demanded.
Actually, a quick look at the subscription numbers of those services shows quite well how that is simply not true. Consumers have not demanded a crippled product that disallows most of the abilities they want.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make.
Yet it seems they have not discovered the magic way of discerning between those two, so will happily prevent both.
The record industry has been hit very hard in the last few years as a result of illegal downloading and piracy.
In 2002, unit sales were down about 11 percent.
In 2001, unit sales were down about 10 percent.
In 2000, unit sales were down seven percent.
During that same period, illegal Internet downloading has skyrocketed. On the FastTrack network alone, there are about 900 million files being distributed at any given moment. The majority of those files are music files. Polls confirm that those individuals who are downloading illegally online are buying less. That illegal downloading is decreasing sales is probably not a surprise to anyone.
Such a common, simple, wrong assumption at work here. A decrease in sales and an increase in music downloading have *not* been shown to be related. The economy as a whole has been hit very hard in the last few years. In fact, studies have suggested this effect can explain nearly all of the riaa members' decreased sales. It is handy to have a scape-goat, but as usual, the scape-goat is likely not the problem at all.
In any event, are you suggesting that a royalty dispute between an artist and a label is justification for stealing from both of them? Would you feel free to shoplift a CD from a record store based on that logic?
Hm, I wonder, is it ok to steal from a thief. You could just as easily frame it as 'how dare you steal my stolen goods!'
Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works, Congress has tried to keep pace with what it has believed is necessary to continue to incentivize creators and publishers
Increased cost? That seems to be backwards, progress has decreased the barrier not increased it. As for the second clause, bullshit. Congress has bowed to corporate lobbying. You can't honestly say with a straight face that any person needs life+70years' worth of fiduciary recovery as incentive.
Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version, you cannot download somebody else's copy of a recording
Again, apples and oranges. Stealing a DVD is depriving ownership of an object, Copying a song is depriving no one of ownership.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
He gets it just fine. However, he doesn't want to admit that his profession is becoming irrelevant, P2P or not. If I were him, I'd probably be saying the same things. It's just the natural thing to do.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, producing music is not that hard and no longer requires millions of dollars in equipment. The RIAA in its current form is irrelevant. In my opinion, artists will soon want less obtrusive labels who don't try to take over their copyrights and don't try to weasel out of contracts. I think that labels of the future will deal mostly with the logistics side of things -- printing and distributing CDs and music. The time when RIAA was the only entity capable of producing records is long gone. Given that the RIAA contributes virtually zero to the music production process, I don't see how they will have a job a couple of decades down the road.
"Note that in both cases the primary motivation is creation of goods for the public."
Partially correct, keeping in mind that the creaters of copyrighted works are under no obligation to create anything for the public. (It would be a form of slavery otherwise) No more than consumers are obligated to purchase said works when produced. It cuts both ways.
"The fiction is that it isn't property at all... it's a time limited grant of monopoly, and it's meant to expire. Property is a durable item, not a lease."
It has property-like qualities. It takes time, effort, and skill to produce. And it is as durable as people want it to be. (a lot of "property" we presently have is because someone protected it from the ravages of time).
Yes it is an agreement between two sides. Those who can produce the "I" in IP, and those who can not/ will not produce such. However like all agreements (peace in the middle east) it only works when both sides honor it.
As it presently stands one side is breaking it, and the other side isn't really doing much better.
Mr. Oppenheim remarks: "If art of any form is going to survive and flourish in our culture, we need to support it and protect it."
This is a cynical and ingenuous statement. Perhaps Matt believes that is the goal of his organization, but its aims appear now to have more to do with lining its executives' pockets than with the promotion of the arts. The music industry wants us to believe that without them there would be no more music, no more arts. What crap. People would still write, play, and even record & distribute music. People did plenty of that before there was a music industry. The only difference would be... no music industry ! Which of course means no more fat cats, no more industry control of popular culture, no more middlemen whose main purpose in all of this is to keep their jobs.
And yes, Matt, some of us have considered that whole infrastructure from Sheryl Crow to the clerk at the local CD store and everyone in between. The Internet indeed threatens the existence of that infrastructure, and it is in the way of such things that your industry would rather fight than switch. I find it still ludicrous that iMusic and similar services are being touted so loudly, when the total amount spent on a CD's number of songs still comes to what you'd pay for a CD in the store. Yes, we get to choose the tunes, but we actually get less (no packaging, no Easter eggs, no value added) for the same money. Which means your industry can charge essentially the same amount of money for the product while eliminating the infrastructure you yourself want us to care so much about. Hmm...
Here's a real idea, Matt: Why doesn't your industry get it together to place kiosks in my local CD store, kiosks that are basically high-speed connections to a content delivery service. These stands would let me select or even design the CD cover material, then I could download and burn the content to disc right then & there, I get the jewel case and all. Hey, if I spend enough maybe you guys could throw in a little extra value, kinda like all the bonus material you get from a DVD. You think a store with maybe twenty of those kiosks would do a bumpin' business ?
So there's an idea, Matt. I haven't copyrighted or patented it yet, so I'll let you have it for free. Go ahead, share it with your friends. I'm releasing it on the Internet under the GPL anyway...
Intellectual property also includes trade secrets that, barring the leaking of said secrets, can be held forever. Trade secrets can be sold from one company to another just like real property.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
"Your moral system differs from mine. I don't believe it is immoral to break an unjust law."
Are you willing to go to jail?[1]
[1] Big hint: Right way & wrong way to accomplish something.
Trespass is probably the best meatspace analogy. Trespass law and copyright law are both about legally enforcing control.
Laws about trespass are a balancing act, just like laws about copyright. Fair use is just like the UK laws that require rural property owners to let hikers walk through their land.
A DVD factory in Hong Kong is like building an apartment house on someone else's property. Napster was like inviting a million of your friends to walk across someone's farm. The DMCA is like outlawing a book about how to open a gate.
The RIAA in its current form is irrelevant.
Actually, I think there's still room for the RIAA in this day and age. Record companies are awefully good at marketing, after all. Sure, it won't make them as much as they're making now, but they'll still manage to make a nice hefty profit.
"To date, nobody has suggested that copy control technologies have locked up a work that should be in the public domain."
Heh. That's funny, considering copyright terms are now at least 70 years. It is a bit tricky to find a copy-controlled work from before 1933 to disprove his point, isn't it?
Clever bastard, that RIAA guy. I wonder when he's running for Congress?
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Are you willing to go to jail?
Of course not. But no one has ever gone to jail simply for downloading music off a P2P network.
The total cost of owning a car isn't just in the metal. Even with free cars, the car dealer will sell you insurance, and a maintenance contract. Then there's the cost of petrol, and those nifty satellite systems to track stolen cars (you did make a backup of your car, didn't you?). Overall, even owning a free car is expensive.
The one sure way we students have to recognize one another on the internet. I'll bet those 3 meals are also distributed over 3 days.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Woohoo! Where's the orgy at again???
heck, at least you read it. I can't even finish it...this red haze keeps appearing before my eyes...
Casey Muratori from Kirkland, Wash. asks:
Matt Oppenheim from the Recording Industry Association of America responds:
So, in simpler terms, the questioner asks:
To which the RIAA representative responds:
Very interesting Q&A session overall, I felt Mr. Lessig was quite sympathetic to the cause of limiting copyrights to the terms and purposes of their original creation, while the RIAA representative took the position of defending the industry's interests (though that "AMEN" comment was a bit odd for a senior vice president) as expected. It was a nice contrast and quite refreshing to hear respected members of their respective fields answer questions that haven't been excessively pre-screened.
-DAVEO
RIAA: "Intellectual property should not be treated any differently than other property." Yeah, but it *is* different than other property. Duh. Why are we having these discussions over and over? If they keep telling us this they hope we will finally believe it. Those claiming ownership of that which cannot be contained run to the regulatory agencies in hope of enforcing their position. They will win only if we give in to them. Let's back legislation that allows for *reasonable* profits and open access. Who decides what that means? We all do. I'm done.
A bit offtopic, but I found this interesting... In the case of Professor Usher at Penn State, we quickly withdrew the notice as soon as we were made aware of the mistake. In the course of the RIAA's internal investigation regarding the matter, we identified a temporary employee who had disregarded our policies and sent out that notice, and two dozen others improperly. We have corrected all of those errors, apologized to everyone involved, and fired that temporary employee. So they have temps identifying targets and sending out cease and desist letters? I guess they don't care that much about the artists if they can't hire at least part-time...
"Unfortunately for the RIAA, producing music is not that hard and no longer requires millions of dollars in equipment. "
I have an honest question for you. Every time I hear the above, a question pops into my mind. So don't be offended. Have you ever produced any kind of music that people would compensate you for it? Do you think that you're good enough to make a living at it? Did it take a lot of effort to create? Will it take a lot more to make a sustainable living at it? Why, or why not as the case may be.
The same to the audiance except substitute "movies" for "music".
Imagine the day a person can do with a physical object to what they can do with information. Download a replication plan for a Hershey's bar, a can of Coke or a new Porsche.
What effect would that have on the economy? Manufacturing would be very different, materialism would be less meaningful because physical objects would be far more disposable.
You'd probably hear a lot about viruses floating around in food plans, you have to know it's safe.
100 years from now, everything might just be energy consumption and intellectual property...
For now, I wonder if I'll get the first copy of Harry Potter 5 faster through the mail or over the Internet.
Who owns stolen property? The original owner, or the thief? If "fair use" privilege travels with ownership of the original media, then the RIAA loses either way.
You buy a CD, and rip it to mp3. This is legal, right? You own the CD.
I then steal your CD.
So: who owns it now? Who has the "fair use" privilege?
If I own it because I stole it (more precisely: you NO LONGER own it because you don't have it anymore), then I can rip it to mp3 legally even though I got the CD through illegal means. What you and I would do in this case is rob each other. You steal all my CDs and rip them, and I'll steal all your CDs and rip them, and aside from the crime of theft (and neither of us press charges, and "accidentally" leave our crates of stolen CDs at each other's houses next time we visit), no laws have been broken.
If you still own it even though I stole it, then you still have all your fair use rights, including making a new CD to replace the one I stole.
We can still rob each other.
How would the RIAA answer that?
My hunch is the only way out for them would be to claim that there is no "fair use" rights on stolen property, and that everybody loses their rights and has to buy new copies. (Which of course works out wonderfully for them.) I guess at that point your recourse is to consider my theft of your CD a "loan" so you can burn a new CD, claiming to still own it. So the theft victim's claiming ownership of the stolen property is the only way to retain their "fair use" rights.
Isn't this astonishingly stupid?
-- http://frobnosticate.com
The music industry loves to draw the analogy between stealing tangible products (shoplifting a CD, etc.) and making copies of intangible products that leave the original untouched, and of course they use the term "theft" to describe making those copies. For those who would mindlessly nod their heads and mumble about how correct this analogy must be, a simple definition of "theft" puts the lie to it:
(emphasis mine)
I'm not saying that making copies is not a violation of our woefully-imbalanced copyright laws, because in many cases it is a violation of the law (i.e., when no permission from the copyright owner exists, whether on an individual or advance license basis). But the "shoplifting" analogy should immediately result in derisive laughter until the person presenting it is silenced and never brings it up again.
Just my humble opinion, of course. :-)
No Laughing Allowed!
The Constitution expresses that balance: it requires that copyrights be for "limited Times;" the First Amendment requires that copyright yields to "fair use."
This is complete and utter nonsense:
The word "fair" does not appear in the federal constitution, and, as far as I can tell, the word "Use" appears only three times.Lessig is advocating the theft of private property, pure and simple. If we lived in an era in which jurists weren't a pack of marxist thieves, he'd be disbarred for signing his name to these remarks.
Ever stuck to an arguement even when you knew you were wrong, because it looked like you might be able to at least prevent people from finding the truth (image).
Ever seen the 8-year-old that told an unbelievable lie, only to compound it with more wild claims in attempts at justification... it's like digging your way out of a hole but piling the dirt on your own head.
The RIAA hasn't grown up. They're still in big-lie syndrome... and as long as some people believe that filesharing is the cause of their woes, they get some form of retribution/compensation/etc despite the shittiness of their own business model.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
I've suggested this before. I think that one factor contributing to the suck of music is record label contracts. They have gotten progressively more onerous as time goes on. Bands have to keep making music with each other, album after contracted album, until the contract plays out. Anyone who's done any serious creative work knows that you can't keep doing the same shit over and over.
People keep saying "all the bands suck" but this is clearly not true, because all these bands have hits that you've heard and liked at some point. They just can't sustain that creative energy.. they hit a configuration of art and artists that work for one song, or maybe one album, and based on that they are enslaved into a contract and forced to churn out crap for the rest of their lives.
Bands, like any creative labor, need to try different material to keep the quality of work high. They can even go back to their original stuff after a while, but to keep that engine turning they need to prime it with other sources of creative energy.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Homeless person A: "Anyone mind if I set myself up under this next bridge here"
Homeless person B: "Wouldn't recommend it. That's been the new headquarters for all the RIAA execs who hung on until the end"
Homeless person A: "Oh, well I don't want to associate with them. How about in this dumpster instead"
Homeless person B: Well, I think somebody from SCO was using it a short while back, but it might be free now.
Property is physical. It can be destroyed. It can be damaged. If stolen, the rightful owner no longer possesses that property. These rules do not apply to ideas. If someone has an idea, and someone else gets the same idea, the latter has not deprived the former of their thought.
We are (were?) on the precipice of a new era -- the end, or moderation, of scarcity -- information, education, knowlege, and culture all widely shareable, across great distances, cheaper than any other time in history.
What have we done with with our newfound resources? We've created artificial scarecity! We've invented whole new concepts, laws, and systems to contain the ethereal, replacing it with tired Machiavellian rules.
"Hey Albert, Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."
"Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music to millions of strangers simultaneously. "
Rubbish. Hardly anyone shares FLACs, WAVs or SHNs of commercial recordings - they're mostly MP3s, which are hardly "perfect digital copies".
"Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying.""
This definition of "sharing" is utterly flawed.
For one, sharing is not as simple as this guy is tring to claim.
Sure, sharing can be lending your friend a car.
But sharing is giving a recipe to a friend to copy. Or music for that matter
The bottom line is that $15 per CD is a rip off.
Any reasonable person understands it and thus
considers alternatives.
"You screw me - I screw you" kind of attitude.
Seems only fair.
People will create because people are creative. Moreover, some people will create and become very wealthy as a result.
Businesses will innovate because they must innovate or they will starve. The profit motive is all the inspiration they need.
The arguement that 70+ years of protection of works is necessary to motivate the creative process and to promote progress is absurd.
Yet.
Not entirely...because a trade secret as such isn't protected by any law; once the trade secret is out as public knowledge, anyone can use it, just as if a company sells it's trade secret to another, they can still use it.
A trade secret is basically something which you could (and sometimes should) patent, but which you don't because that means you can keep it secret for years and decades....a patent otoh runs out and reverts to the public domain, with you providing full disclosure on how your patented process works.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Powers-that-be that have legal power feel free to coin law that benefits them.
Other powers-that-be that have technical intellect feel free to coin technology that benefits them.
This discussion has gone on since recorded history.. even Plato, in his book "Republic", written some 370-380 years BC brings up the enigma of "justice" and whether or not it is just a construct designed by the stronger to retard the efforts of the weaker interest.
So, special interests enjoin Congress to pass Law.
And coders circumvent the law they don't believe in.
Of course, RIAA expects the legal system, funded by the public-at-large, to represent their interests as codified into the law they lobbied for.
And the people hold their own beliefs on what they feel is rightfully theirs, no matter what the RIAA or their lobbied Congressmen pass.
So, whats in a word? Shakespeare noted that " a rose by any other name still smells just as sweet."...
But we like to use powerful words that have a psychological impact... like "theft".
Like, does the Patriot Act have anything to do with Patriotism? Or is Patrick Henry ("Give me Liberty or Give me Death?") just some crackpot out of our history books?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
IIRC, it was reported for several years in a row (I remember 1999, 2000, and I sort of remember 2001) that CD album sales skyrocketed, hitting all-time highs each year. However, in his response the RIAA spokesman says sales declined in some of these years. How can both be true? Can someone provide references to actual sales data?
Now, something that raises my suspicion is the term "unit sales" are declining. Units of what? My suspicion is that CD albums are a steady and healthy source of revenue, but things such a cassette tapes and CD singles are a dying market. The P2P services really trump these markets (getting small amounts of music cheap). So, again, where is the sales data, preferably in some form we can infer which markets are actually declining.
I have no doubt that P2P services and the availabilty of cheap music online is putting a dent in their revenue, but I'm very skeptical of where that dent is being placed. It might also be interesting to correlate their sales data with national figures on how much we spend on "entertainment" and "luxury" items over the same years. I'm not sure how to correlate these things, but it would be very interesting to confirm and infer some more useful results than "unit sales are declining".
I always get the shakes before a drop.
Having fully read the article and read a number of the replies I'm quite amazed at how many people seem to think it is ok to download music, that they are doing no wrong. This idea that because something exists in a digital rather than a physical form means that by copying it you are not harming the industry is crazy. Imagine you are an aspiring writer and you've written a book in the hope you can quit your job to pursue your dream. Now imagine someone got a copy of that book and distributed it online and everyone read it, no one paid for it, and you still had to work in your crappy job. Sure the money is not the main motivation for an artist, but in our society when we find someone with talent we don't mind paying them (often greatly) so that they can enrich and entertain our lives. Someone else can pack groceries. If you think an album is over priced or a musician is untalented then don't buy it. But don't download it and claim some moral high ground. Yes the RIAA is rich and powerful, but that doesn't make stealing from them is right. Granted the DMCA goes too far, but using Kazaa all the time won't change that. You can pedantically pick apart some of Matt Openheim's sentences out of context all you like, but if you're listening to music, or watching a movie that you haven't paid for, how can you say with honesty that you are helping and supporting an industry? Peer to peer technology is great and can be used for legitimate reasons. Let's not be naive though, it's main use is for piracy.
"Having said all this about copy-protected CDs, as far as I know, only nine such CDs have been released in the U.S. The rumors of widespread use of copy-protected CDs seem to more prolific than the CDs"
Is he stupid or being purposely deceptive? Anybody been to fatchucks for a list of currupted CD's? www.fatchucks.com
I counted at LEAST 10 with a quick glance for the us alone but it's much wider in Europe.
Whatever the case, P2P is simply a good idea that is coming. The music industry will simply have to adjust or die. You may kill the industry but you'll never kill the music.
This is a discussion about the RIAA, so the focus is rightly on the USA.
However, I thought I'd try and inject a bit of perspective into the story by letting you know what it's like in New Zealand.
In NZ, we don't get the same fair use rights you do in the USA (I believe Aus/Britain are similar in this respect). If we buy a CD, we are not allowed to make a copy of it, put it on a compilation tape, or rip it to an MP3, even for personal use.
The permission of the copyright holder must be obtained even to do these simple things (they mostly refuse to give it too -- I have asked several times).
We haven't lost these 'fair use' rights, we simply never had them (NZ didn't even have a system of western law until after 1840; as for Aus/Britain, I can't comment on the reasons).
Anyway, the word is that we are now looking at moving closer to US intellectual property law (including software patents - yikes) so we have a stake in you preserving your fair use rights. If you keep them, we might gain them.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
Perhaps the reason that the RIAA is so bent out of shape about the distribution of music on the internet is that it paves the way to making them (the record companies) obsolete. Fundamentally, why do record companies exist? To take the creative works of the artist and distribute them to the markets.
In the case of a physical medium (CDs, for example) this involves actually producing copies of the CDs, packaging them, and shipping them out to retailers. This is an expensive process, so there are economic benefits to doing it collectively under a few big record companies.
Distributing music over the internet is a different story, however. In a parallel universe in which I had the slightest shred of musical talent, given some rather inexpensive equipment, I could record a song on my PC, encode it to mp3 and post it for sale on the internet. I wouldn't even need to know much about the technology, just how to use the pretty GUI.
Do you not think that artists realize that they are being ripped off by record companies? Do you think they like that? The truth is that now there is really nothing stopping individual artists from producing their own music, and selling it through an online music retailer. If they want advertising, they could pay an ad agency to get their name out (that's what they exist to do).
Record companies are desperate. They are desperate to hang on to their contracts because they see the writing on the wall. They figure that if they give the impression that they are protecting the interests of the artist, then artists will continue to sign with them. Ultimately, of course, they are just trying to protect their bottom line. Their problem is not that CD sales are dropping. Their problem is that they themselves are obsolete.
As for the article: It really proved nothing except that RIAA folk are proficient at reciting canned responses to various types of questions. Nothing profound or unexpected turned up there. The justifications given held little or no water. What else is new.
Mr. Lessig, on the other hand, provided somewhat more insightful comments. He made it very clear when he was speaking on the letter of the law, and when he was infusing his own viewpoint and opinions. He also didn't try to suck up to either the recording industry or people who share files.
As much as I disagree with how the RIAA is conducting themselves, and how they are apparently manipulating the US government (more so because, being Canadian, I'm getting screwed by laws made by politicians I don't even have a chance to vote against), but I really feel that record companies are simply in the process of self-destructing. They are now redundant, and at the same time are making themselves unattractive. Bad combination.
Hmm... that turned into a pretty long post. Sorry about that guys.
Now there's an analogy that makes sense! But it doesn't have the same impact as stealing a car, which is why the RIAA (and many other misguided netizens) keep using the same tired apples-and-oranges analogies. Thanks for providing one that actually depicts the behavior accurately!
Belushi (the later) and Ackroyd are on Carson Daily right now and Danny boy just said "we want folks to share this, burn it, download it - have fun. We're a small label now - if I was still on Universal I'd get in real trouble for sayin' that..."
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Yeah, but I'm making the point that it is therefore not intellectual /property/...it's just a process, but it isn't property and no rights can be had over it; it is therefore not IP.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Good rule to live by: if your going to argue for something you believe in (that *might* even be important) save the knee-jerks for the dining room table.
Rather then posting hysterically, why not listen to what he has to say.
"Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical"
"From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music..."
Maybe you should read the two sentences again. He's saying loaning something is different then duplicating something and giving it away (like say NFL sports jackets or Oakly sunglasses).
"Those companies (including Pressplay, Rhapsody, Listen, etc.) are delivering to consumers high quality music online in a format and form that consumers have demanded."
While I might agree with you in concept, what the hell numbers are you quickly looking at? You got a great reference: sight it. Otherwise as far as I can tell you pulled that out of your ass.
"The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make."
Bingo, this is the business world. They aren't there to protect your rights, just their interests. See the well know industry attempts at more percise crippling attempts: Palladium, Digital Rights Management
"The record industry has been hit very hard in the last few years as a result of illegal downloading and piracy.
In 2002, unit sales were down about 11 percent.
In 2001, unit sales were down about 10 percent.
In 2000, unit sales were down seven percent.
During that same period, illegal Internet downloading has skyrocketed. On the FastTrack network alone, there are about 900 million files being distributed at any given moment. The majority of those files are music files. Polls confirm that those individuals who are downloading illegally online are buying less. That illegal downloading is decreasing sales is probably not a surprise to anyone."
Finally, a reference. Here I'm just curious: does anyone really believe that as P2P becomes more common it wouldn't disrupt sales? The paradigm has shifted, thats the issue here. Does the Recording Industry have the right to limit our rights in order to protect an out moded business model?
"In any event, are you suggesting that a royalty dispute between an artist and a label is justification for stealing from both of them? Would you feel free to shoplift a CD from a record store based on that logic?"
Quack, quack.
"The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation"
Just like the Gatling Gun was meant to end wars quicker, not make the murder of huge numbers of people fast and efficient.
So what with intentions; It sure as hell IS stifling innovation, no matter what you say (See kid who wrote search tool, lost life's savings to RIAA). That it (supposedly) isn't meant to stifle innovation, but can, doesn't matter to large corporations that are so consumed by moneylust that they will do anything to turn a profit.
Well just between AC's you'll never see a near-term solution to this problem. Why? Well because people want easy and quick solutions to difficult and time consuming problems (Fermat's Theorem, Peace in the Middle East). Present day downloading and copying is no more effective than the colonists taunting the British from the safety of their homes. The difficult solution however involves a couple things. One resisting the temptation to engage in tactics no better than your opponent (One can not win right, by doing wrong). Two is knowing, and using the ways and means set aside in a society for change to take place (and be willing to suffer if need be, for a principle that doesn't hurt once in awile isn't a principle at all), and three being forever vigilent to prevent a repeat (everyone say hello to your parents for me).
before I get so angry I've got to post.
RIAA guy re: cease-and-desist letters:
We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights.
Really, you mean my copyrighted content on my website is not my property? Interesting, grasshopper, perhaps you should consider whether your own organization owns any "property" as you say.
In defending extended copyright terms, RIAA guy:
Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works...
Right, I forgot how much more expensive it is to post a single mp3 file than to press a million CD's. That certainly explains why my paper industry stocks are doing so well: it's just so much cheaper to print copies than put them online.
I know I'm nitpicking, but for the love of god, doesn't this guy have the RIAA-mandated filter between his rational mind and his keyboard/voice? I'm usually a lot more even-keeled, but this stuff is straight from left field.
Your magic box lacks one thing. Creativity.
And that is indeed Magic.
RIAA guy Openheimer says that the DMCA and all forms of copyright laws protects and promotes art and creativity?
The almighty dollar is indeed the true goal!
If the promotion of creativity is really the main activity here, why then do we have...
1) Filtering and editing to hell of voices to the point that they sound unlike themselves. Friends who work in the sound booths of concerts tell me that the majority of pop artists get filtered or lip sync. (Britney Spears Pepsi riff at the end of the commercials come to mind).
2) Movies that go through test/screening audiences before they're released to the general public. During this process, scenes are tweaked, added or dumped based on reactions which ultimately translates to how many people will recommend the film to others and how much the studio tends to make.
Creativity? Maybe in a cookie cutter sorta way.
If I want to hear and see the same thing over and over again I'll go on down to the local porno rental place and get myself something.
No pretences... it's going to always be the same plot (cough) re-hashed with different actors/actrices. However, I will get far more bang for my buck than I do getting confused over whether Britney or J.Lo sung that song this week... or {INSERT MOVIE TITLE} version 1, 2, 3...100).
In spite of being pretty young, the only music I can stand was made, generally speaking, thirty years ago and released on LPs. By any reasonable, useful interpretation of the concept of intellectual property, this music should be in the public domain by now and free for the taking. John Lennon is dead. Jimi Hendrix is dead. EMI and Parlophone making $14.50 off my CD purchase is not going to encourage them to make any more records. Intellectual property, to start with, is a fiction; back in the day some guys figured out that if they gave authors an artificial monopoly on their works for a limited amount of time, they would write more. There's nothing inherent to the rights of man about IP; it isn't even property so much as a promise by the government to break people's legs if they don't pay up. So I have absolutely no qualms about downloading Revolver off Kazaa; the artists got their incentive and are now filthy rich (or dead), and any royalties Yoko is getting now are a perversion of a system that was borderline extortion anyway. I'm a law-abiding citizen in every respect except this one, and if I ever get caught on it I'll tell the judge the truth: that I can only be pushed around by major corporations so far, and that I really couldn't give a damn anymore.
" Maybe people should stop trying to make a living producing things that can't reasonably be sold for profit.
There is no fundamental right to be able to earn a living by making music. "
I'm glad you said this. Now you and your fellow geeks please keep it in mind as your jobs are shipped to india [correction:vietnam], and you're on the bread line. Shhh.
"Unlike physical property[1], "intellectual" property is a total fiction of law."
If you want to get technical society is a fiction of law. Remember not all laws come in books.
[1] Actually some Indian tribes would disagree with you about the idea of a person owning the land.
You could "own" what you produced, or what others agreed to exchange with you.
Anything you might ever need to say about anything has already been said better by Penny Arcade.
RIAA guy on RIAA blunders:
"Of those less than one hundred mistakes, all of them, as far as I know, have been resolved... In the course of the RIAA's internal investigation regarding the matter, we identified a temporary employee who had disregarded our policies and sent out that notice, and two dozen others improperly. We have corrected all of those errors, apologized to everyone involved, and fired that temporary employee."
See. The RIAA is a decent organization that was at the mercy of some crazed temp employee! All this fuss for nothing. And now that they've fired the guy, this whole thing can start to sort itself out. Beautiful.It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use. (emphasis mine)
Thats right, kids. Pirating music is not only illegal, its, like, totaly lame.
Well, I can watch TV at home, right? As long as I have a television. And I can watch local channels for free, right? I don't have to buy cable in order to get something on the screen. And I can taperecord those programs, whichever I like, right? And I can copy my tapes over & over again & share it with my neighbors, friends, whoever, right? Anybody object to this and is gonna sue me? And I have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the artwork on my tape, right? But I doubt I'll get a court bill for 'distributing copies' of the programs I recorded. Why? Because it's freely available to the public. There is no need for mass copy distribution. And how do those TV programs make money at all? Through commercials. I wonder if something like that can be done to online music? After all, who'd lisen to the same music over & over again for the rest of his life? How often do you listen to the music you bought last week? Last month? Last year? 5 years ago? Do we really have to own that music? We just want easy access, that's all. If there's a magic music box @ home through which I can pull out whatever music I wanted to listen at any time, I don't care about owning anything. Those CDs take up space & weight anyway.
-N
The Cycle of Violence is to be seen as the invisible hand that maintains the balance of Man and Nature on earth.--M
"Many new technology companies are focused on developing technologies to protect content, whether that be music or genetic code, and those companies will not be able to sustain their businesses if they cannot protect their products. In the absence of a business market, technological innovation will be limited because only the government and non-profits will ever be able to support it." -RIAA Guy
The very idea that genetic code, a naturally occurring phenomenon, should be copyrighted, and/or copy protected is absurd. And he's trying to make the argument that the DMCA doesn't stifle technology etc. Rather contradictory.
I disagree with Lessig.
With all due respect for his work and a high opinion of the man I feel that he hasn't considered his library metaphor very carefully with respect to the text of the law.
He says nobody serious thinks that mass digital copying in the context of P2P is acceptable under the wording of copyright law. But I'm serious and I think I have a lefitimate point based on the wording of the law itself.
My point is that if you consider each node on a P2P network to be a publicly accessible and non-commercial archive in it's own right (rather than the metaphor of a single library serving patroms which would be much more like a database or Napster style service) then P2P is already fair use under the wording of the law according to subsection 108.
The question is: Is a P2P node an independent, publicly available, non-commercial archive? If it isn't, how could it be made more so?
Here's the text of the libraries and archives subsection.
108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives39
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if-
(1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage;
(2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and
(3) the reproduction or distribution of the work includes a notice of copyright that appears on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section, or includes a legend stating that the work may be protected by copy-right if no such notice can be found on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section.
However, society decides which laws are just and unjust. You'd better get convincing society.
Unfortunately, the big copyright owners control what American society decides because American society seems to base its mores on the content of news and entertainment programs broadcast by big copyright owners. For example, I don't think ABC (a division of DisneyCo, which led lobbying for the Bono Act) would let me advertise an anti-Disney activist site such as Losing Nemo. Heck, I don't think I could even mention Eldred.cc on ABC.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But, as I originally said, it can be sold, hence it's property. If you sell it to a comany that doesn't pay, you can sue them, hence trade secrets are not devoid of rights.
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
You went out and stole something that was NOT RIGHTFULLY YOURS, and when you get called on the carpet for it, YOU are the one who's being infringed upon?
What if you wrote a song and recorded it, but then as soon as your song hit airwaves, you realized what you had unconsciously copied when writing the song? A Beatle lost $1.6 million over exactly that case.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Information wants to be free!
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
If someone spends a year writing music
Then "someone" will get sued by the owner(s) of the musical work(s) that "someone" accidentally copied.
I'm putting finishing touches on a somewhat rigorous argument that uses copyright statutes, case law, music theory, and combinatorics to prove that it's nearly impossible to write a completely original song nowadays. See an early draft here; if you want to see the next draft, please reply to remind me to give you the URL when it's up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They've provided this handy contact form. Use It!!!
http://www.riaa.com/Contact.cfm
I would've paid $10 for a reformatted version, but now I've stolen it instead.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
From the 3rd question in the article:
B) Lenny G. Arbage from Billerica, Mass. asks:
I'm still laughing. Lenny, if that IS your real name, you must get a big kick out of signing things.
It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use.
However qualified Captain RIAA may be to comment on the legal or ethical status of copying, I can guarantee he's not qualified to comment on what's cool and what isn't.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music.
I know we've beaten this horse to death, but every time this argument is made I feel obligated to point out the untruth in it. I have pirated hundreds, perhaps thousands of songs over the course of my life. In doing so, I have NEVER, EVER taken money out of the pockets of any of the people who put their hard work into making the music. I rarely bought cds before I started pirating, and I've rarely bought them since. If I don't have access to pirated music, I just don't listen to music. Nobody is any poorer as a result of any act of piracy I've commited. No, they aren't out the cost of the cd, because the question is not whether they're poorer for me pirating than they would be if I had bought the cd. The proper question (in my case and that of many people I know) is whether they are poorer for me pirating than they would be had I just decided I didn't need to hear that song. Because I can guarantee you I wouldn't have bought the cd anyway.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
As for this article,
[peer-to-peer] networks these days. Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music
First off, mp3's aren't that great to begin with. Secondly, a lot of the songs downloaded are funny versions, or not very good anyway. Third, there has to be some noise that gets into the files as they are tranferred again and again.
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it.
This does seem to ring true to me.
From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music.
How much do the artists get from a $15 CD? A lot less than the record label. If they care so much about the artists, then why don't they lower the prices of the CD's? If CD's were $5, there wouldn't be any reason not to buy them.
It is not legal, ethical or cool to copy somebody else's CD for your own use.
WTF does the RIAA know about being cool?
as they develop, the vast majority of uses of P2P technology will be legal.
Do they know that we don't? Will they control what software, therefore, what P2P software, we use?
The DMCA is an embarrassment to copyright law
Can anymore be said?
There are quite a few ways that these technologies can incorporate safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.
.
.
.
We have asked that the infringements be filtered out of the system.
Who has the final say if a new product meets some safeguard, or if it filters out infringement? Would CD burners ever have gotten to market if they had to incorporate safeguards or limit what they would burn?
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation. Indeed, it is intended to spur it on by creating and protecting business markets for new technologies.
This is such a crock, what do they think, that they can control the technology industry, and that we are stupid enough to believe this horse shit?
That's all the crap I can take in a day. Maybe I will post more tomorrow :-).
I was a dispicable PIRATE! Me and my freinds used to COPY each others TAPES, and distribute them among ourselves! And I always thought that this was fair use.
I'm guessing that it was, because it wasn't digital, or observable, or trackable, or whatnot. Wait, scratch the digital part, some of mym freinds still send around mix CDs to each other, and the RIAA hasn't really said anything against that (have they?). Must just be illegal on the internet.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Those companies (including Pressplay, Rhapsody, Listen, etc.) are delivering to consumers high quality music online in a format and form that consumers have demanded. Those companies are harnessing many of the productive technologies that have been developed in the last decade. Hey! What about Apple's Music Store? "Etc"!?! Sounds like they don't like Apple's pseudo-DRM format.
So... Let me get this RIAA-d00d right... If the medium you buy gets more restricted and less widespread, it will magically be exposed to a new era of creativity and new forms of distribution?
The only new thing I see is DRM, and that's not progress. It's the opposite.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
it's like the dinosaurs. only in this case they think they can survive by arguing (actually lying, scaring,...).
has anyone seen evolution? we need it here right now...
no he has a license to the CONTENT of the 8 track edition.
He has a license to the content of the 8-track version, which includes all the noise of the 8-track version. He does not have a license to the extra bits of dynamic range included on the CD version.
And if you bought T2 on VHS, you should be entitled to reencode it and record it on DVD
Exactly. You have a license to the content of your VHS tape, but you don't have a license to the extra bits of dynamic range included on the DVD version.
The RIAA representative's position may look like cow manure to some readers, but I think I know where he's coming from.
Will I retire or break 10K?
P2P networks are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of NEAR-PERFECT digital copies of original recordings to millions of strangers simultaneously.
Subtract "to millions of strangers simultaneously" and you have exactly described pawn shops that carry Compact Disc titles. Even a CD is not a perfect digital copy of the recording; it usually has a lot of dither noise, hopefully noise-shaped into the 16-22 kHz range that grown-ups can't hear. The "perfect digital recording" is the 24-bit master, locked away in a label's vault.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You missed his point entirely. He just pointed out one of the most outstanding abbilities and qualities of P2P-networks, which makes it differ from all previous known types of networks. Which is: (tada)
On a P2P-network there is no immense load on one single provider/server if a particular file/download/article/whatever is extemely popular, requested or wanted. The load is distributed out trough the network, and (I'm allmost sorry to say :) there can be no slashdot effect.
(That's in theory, then we got Kazaa.)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I'm interested what will you bring up next, an axe or a mallet?
Think bigger than society and laws, think way bigger. We aren't born here to adhere to any given set of rules, we consider what is best for our interests, consider possible threats, consequences, etc. and make decisions and act accordingly. Like any other animal or insect with braincells. It's that simple. We think that recording industry is useless and doesn't provide us anything we couldn't live without so fuck it. It can fight back and it may succeed but that doesn't change anything, we still act the same, calculating our chances, benefits and losses, risks and advantages.
Where in the hell does society fit in this process? It doesn't, it's just a byproduct of large masses of individuals living in same, relatively small area. Laws are there just so that we could live even closer to eachother. But this is just my view, flame away if you like.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
You probbably also noticed that tiny distinction that Lessig made:
But that's probably obvious... (It was so blatantly obvious, lieing directly under my nose, that I for once couldn't think of it :)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
if people were only willing to pay those stupid high rates in only a few years CD's would be less expensive ... I think CD's costed something like $20 a piece.
Since the introduction of the Compact Disc format, the U.S. dollar has dropped in value relative to the value of a loaf of bread. For example, a 3 percent (figure pulled out of ass) annual inflation rate would mean that over 20 years, the cost of living measured in current dollars has increased over 80 percent (1.030^20 = 1.806), while CDs remained constant at $18 in current dollars. Converting to constant dollars (83$) shows that CDs did drop in real price from 83$18 to 83$10.
Will I retire or break 10K?
ExCUSE me? Are you trying to tell me that economies of scale have completly failed to decrease these costs? Are you trying to tell me that the RIAA and it's members have been continuing to spend more and more despite an INCREASE in per-unit cost? BS. Are you trying to tell me that most copyrighted material doesn't make 95% of it's profit within 14 years, and that quintupling the duration of copyrights to squeze out another 2 to 4 percent is FAIR to citizens? Or that some works aren't simply DISAPPEARING, never to enter the public domain because the only copies decayed waiting for copyright to expire? BS. And saying that US laws were changed to be inline with European copyrights is just a bald-faced lie. Quite the opposite; once the RIAA bought US terms up, it used that as leverage to do the same in Europe. Most of "The RIAA guy's" responses turned my stomach, but this one... oh, it makes me feel sick.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
itunes's format can't be burned to cd
Not only can purchases from the iTunes Music Store be recorded in Red Book format to Compact Disc Digital Audio Recordable media, but a given playlist can be burned three times.
iTunes Music Store is currently in a beta test and is scheduled for full deployment in December.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This of course means there HAS to be a cause-effect relationship! This has nothing to do with the fact that there was a market correction over the past few years, espeically in the industries that were bloated (read: Entertainment, Dot Coms, etc.)... Moreover, there is still no evidence that these people who were downloading would have paid money to listen to the songs on CD, had the ability to download not been there. There is no proof that the downloads cause a loss.
The cost to distribute is VERY low, in fact now any person can distribute "millions of dollars" worth of content illegally. Isn't that why you're sueing college kids, for distributing.
Why? How does this promote the progress of "scinces and useful arts?" Seems this only promotes warring extentions between countires. Can't you see the RIAA saying, "Oh, France is up to 10,000 years, better beat them by a few hundred...."
Moreover, I would hardly call Brittany, Back Street Boysm NSynch and the like "useful arts."
But is it legal for me to have a MP3 I ripped on MY server, so I can listen to it at school, instead of carrying a media device? Why should I be held liable if someone else "STEALS" it from me (moreover, they took it from me, and yet stole it from YOU?). As in:
But I am stealing a PHYSICAL thing, from the store. In this case 20th Centery Fox wouldn't get invovled, the store security would. I'd be fined, and you'd have your DVD back.
Unfortunately for the RIAA, producing music is not that hard and no longer requires millions of dollars in equipment.
You mean recording music has become easy and relatively inexpensive. This is correct.
But before a song can be recorded, it has to be written first. Writing original music without accidentally stepping on somebody else's copyright (e.g. "My Sweet Lord" by Harrison) seems nearly impossible, and I can mathematically prove it if you want.
Given that the RIAA contributes virtually zero to the music production process
The RIAA is an association of record labels, and I think of record labels as venture capitalists who invest in recording artists (advance) in hope of gaining a return (label's share of royalties). Just as with traditional VCs, many of a label's investments fail to recoup.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Matt Oppenheim:
"If you are attempting to distribute recordings that you own the rights to and the RIAA is in any way preventing you from doing so, you should contact us immediately."
Matt Oppenheim:
"Individuals are not permitted to make copies of their copyrighted recordings and distribute them to others without permission from the copyright owner. Whether or not you do it for free or for profit is irrelevant; the impact on the copyright owner is the same, they do not have the ability to sell their artistic work to others because they have received an unauthorized free copy."
Excuse me while I go distribute music that I own with Mr. RIAA's permission, then go get sued because of Mr. RIAA's decrees.
They took almost all of their storys from the public domain.
And some from other cartoons that were still under copyright. Atlantis == Nadia, and The Lion King == Kimba the White Lion or whatever it was called.
And now Disney's gone beyond stealing stories to stealing names. Before late May 2003, "Nemo" was a character from Little Nemo in Slumberland, an old comic strip by Winsor McCay. Now, "Nemo" is a clown fish. And right now, "Brother Bear" is one of the Berenstain Bears. But pretty soon...
This sounds like the basis of a suit aginst them
Tried that.
It failed at the district court level.
It failed at the appeals level.
It failed at the Supreme Court level.
The court of last resort is the Congress itself. If you haven't already, and you live in the States, please sign the Eldred Act petition.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's really useless even try reason with them because of that attitude of theirs. This whole subject has reduced to the point where we battle with analogies and try redefine words for our advance. RIAA has tired messing with this and only place where it's willing to bargain are courthouses.
All beacuse corporations won't change with the world without making big fight in every turn. What's worse, they are allowed to make trouble by law and majority of people still believe in law. If anything it's the largest ones which slow down progress because they tie progress with monetary profits. Maybe we need better indicators for calculating progress than GDP. I know slashdot isn't excactly the best place to discuss this since most of us prefer drooling over new hitech gadgets than women and basic values like food that make life so enjoyable.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
it's a creator's responsibility to make sure he's telling the truth when he represents a work as his own.
The question that's never been answered right: What specific steps can a songwriter take to exercise this responsibility and make sure that he has in fact created an original musical work?
The right thing to do in that case would have been to settle amicably with the offended party.
I've calculated that given nine million published songs, I'd have to settle for each and every song on an album.
Will I retire or break 10K?
RIAA-labels are producing fewer CDs, so there's less to buy. Hrm... How come their sales are down....
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Well, yes the term Intellectual Property is abused, however it comes from a perfectly justified phrase - 'Intellectual Property Rights' (IPR). Now, whether you agree or disagree with this naming, it's part of economics called (d'uh) property rights, which is the idea that you can improve the functioning of the economy by making certain people owners of non-standard items.
For example, if I owned the air over my house, it might mean that you had to pay for polluting it. If a town owned a local river, you might have to pay us to pollute it, or in fact we could deny you this. That's the concept of property rights, and IPR is in the same vein.
Not to say the term isn't abused - a purely economic term (and an idea designed to help the economy function better) has been hijacked as a perpetual right
Just a quation: :) have made the music they did make, if they didn't "waste" their money on drugs?
Would the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Miles Davis and Pink Floyd (and alot more
So drugs doesn't have to be waste :) (And there goes my karma)
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Everyone just stop buying music CDs and watch MTV for 3 months! :)... ...There goes RIAA bye bye. :)
So it is as specific as antitrust law or something similar. It is not a good idea to broaden it by making analogies of it with stealing.
man....saying that the reason why CD sales are down are because of piracy has the same logic as saying that the reason why 100's of thousands of ppl died in the month of August back in 1945 was because of polio (for those who've forgot, two atomic bombs were dropped in August, 1945 killing 100's of thousands of ppl).
RIAA needs to go to school and take Deductive Reasoning 101 and then proceed to take Econ 101.
The Loss of Revenue part got me thinking. A few ways to give the RIAA the finger:
1. Go to the shows. Support bands that come through your town. if you like the show, buy a tshirt or other merchandise. this is where most minor bands (that're indie or in the mainstream) make their money.
2. Buy vinyl. I only buy analogue, since most labels supporting the vinyl are indies and therefore non-RIAA. In case you get an RIAA-vinyl, you can still rejoice in better value/qualitylfie expectancy. This is becuz a CD will just stop working on you (as with a good 50 of the 450 CDs i own)
3. Support indies. Independent labels will usually have more equal distribution of funds, becuz they dont spend XX million $ promoting Britney/christina/eminem and all the other pop stars, and neglect their other artists. They have to wait for you to discover them, and you should, becuz tomorrows great artist will come from the underground labels, not the marketing machine of the RIAA. Besides, Roadrunner, Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords all offer free mp3s of their artists. Hobby Industries and its kin in electronic music also offer free sampling of the records, Hobby streaming its entire catalogue. So whatever you flavour, theyve got some treats for you.
Try it. Let the RIAA die and wither, we dont need them.
***i watched you change into a fly***
Your claim that artists are being cheated out of their revenue is more of a popular myth than anything else. The vast majority of musicians are dying to get contracts with record companies.
Sigh.
Of course they're dying to get contracts - it's the only viable way of making any money at all. They don't have a choice, if you want to make it big at the moment, you have to go through them.
Sure, artists on MP3.com may get an online following, but they're not exactly being played on Radio 1.
If Internet based music distribution really kicked off, maybe the MP3.com model could kick off some more. Music services will offer tracks from artists doing their own thing, as well as the big names, and they may get more recognition. When the record industry controls the music stations, the TV music shows, and the rest of the media, it's hard to get a break in the industry without their support. Artists aren't stupid. They'll go for it, even if they aren't happy with it, and it does not mean by any means that the revenue sharing is fair.
I was surprised, or maybe just hoping that they'd have a question about the RIAA taking students' money (life savings in most cases) just for running a search engine. I'd love to hear Mr. Lessig's response to something of that nature, and watch the RIAA guy dodge the question (like he did so often) or spout something about how it can be infringing anyways, and not mention how it was a search engine, very very similar in functionality to other search engines, such as Google.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
2. Let's face it -- taping off the radio is time-consuming and quality is lousy. On the Internet however, it is extremely easy to download and the audio quality is near CD.
3. The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality).
The RIAA dearly wants to be able to tap into the kind of upgrade-fervor that we saw during the rise of the PC. Enter routine quality improvements. The best part, of course, is that its all in software now, no more convincing consumers that they need to go buy a SACD deck, or hardware that supports the latest DVD-releated refinement. The trick is, the improvements must be staggered to reap fat sacks of cash money before people catch on (which probably never will if the RIAA playes their hand right, nice 5.1 system man, really brings out the punchy mids in that 320k AAC track). The problem they face is that the tech industry moves too fast to maximize profits. So they encumber it with legislation, and sue anyone who gets ahead of the game.
Don't like the idea of constantly having to re-buy your entire collection over again at the highest bit rate (taken from the masters so you know that shit is tight!)? No problem, they'll have a subscription plan.
Once again, the News Hour shows that they can present television news like no one else. Consistently, this program provides in-depth analysis of issues that get, at best, a 30 second report with useless graphics and video on other televised sources. Of course, for this, Jim Lehrer and Co. are rewarded with terminally low ratings. Thankfully, PBS accepts these low ratings as the payoff for integrity and thoroughness.
It is ironic that, in order to get a thorough and relatively unbiased presentation of the day's stories, one turns to a program partially funded by the US govt. Say what you will about whether there ought to be public television or not, a point which is obviously controversial. Whatever one's philosophical analysis says, at least PBS (and NPR, too) provide a valuable service in presenting news in greater depth (and with less dumbing-down) than can be found in any commercial enterprise.
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
too long;didn't read
" Just because you physically can check a CD out of the library and copy it does not mean that it is legal to do so. Similarly, just because a car is sitting idling and unlocked does not mean that you can get in it and drive it away for your own use. "
"Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "
Ah, so me going and driving away in an unlocked car is sharing!
According to Websters online dictionary, stealing is.
"1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice"
Sharing is "1 : to divide and distribute in shares : APPORTION -- usually used with out or with
2 a : to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others b : to have in common"
This means hes playing with words to confuse the public into believing stealing is sharing, and sharing is stealing.
Nice try Matt, but the dictionary doesnt lie.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
by Anonymous Brave Guy (457657) "If you built an inferior Ferrari lookalike and marketed it as a Ferrari, that would be damaging to Ferrari, whose efforts to develop a quality product have resulted in a valued brand name. If you did your own R&D, invested your own money in producing an original and attractive design, and then built a motor car of comparable specs, you can sell it for whatever you wish. But then, of course, you won't be able to sell it for $1000 any more than Ferrari could, because you, too, would have had to put something into developing it before you reaped the profits.
Ferrari have every right to offer their cars for sale at $100,000. If someone thinks that's a fair price, they can agree to buy one. If not, they're under no obligation. There is no price fixing there."
And this is the point, alot of people actually care more about the auto manufacterers than about themselves when the only purpose for auto manufacterers existing are to supply us with cars, when we have unlimited supply of cars why would we need them anymore?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This technology is already in the works and this is one of the main reasons why I'm against copyright.
Its actually beginning to slow progress down, Nano Technology can never work in a world with copyright, imagine someone patenting everything and selling patents, it would be absolutely ridiculous for us to pay for everything when we can produce everything for free.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
First you can make music at home on your home studio, using a computer, some hardware and some software, you dont need studio time unless you want to produce a movie soundtrack but for 128bit rate mp3 you cant tell the difference.
I'm a musician, I know musicians, most of the musicians I know play music outside for free and people drop money into their bucket.
Open Source programming was a success so we dont need Microsoft.
Show me an industry where theres no free works and you'll have a point.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The website industry including this site was started by amateurs who did it for fun, it became popular and alot of people got rich.
What makes you think musicians cant make money in the same way websites do?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Matt Oppenheim from the Recording Industry Association of America responds:
When the RIAA searches the Internet to find infringing recordings that are being distributed, it is looking in exactly the same types of places that anybody else on the Internet may go.
We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights. We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing.
I wonder why "doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing" is not considered illegal.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Your claims have no substance unless you have the guts to post under your real Slashdot username. Until you do, you are just an AC who is afraid to stand behind his words, probably because you know that you are completely off with your attacks.
You are the one who's got absolutely nothing to say. You know you've lost the argument long ago but you continue to harp on it. Give up and admit defeat willya.
Clever signature text goes here.
Say Lye Ow who is currently serving 24 months for a felony charge of trade secret violation would tend to disagree with you that trade secrets aren't protected by law. Look up the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. Here are the current cases.
Everything you described sounds fine to me. You should enjoy your John Denver 8 Track, and feel free to copy it to other media.
.mp3 copy to physical tape. Problem solved! Converting to .mp3 isn't CD quality anymore, and anyone who records digital to analog is going to get some loss and added noise (60 cycle hum, 133 cycle hum on my set).
The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality).
Great, I should enjoy my john denver 8-track. Well, I should but I don't own an 8-tack player! They don't make them anymore! And it's rather warped and distorted for being over played and a simple lack of lubercent. It got fucked up!
If the only issue is that a version from CD converted to MP3 arguably higher quality then the 8-track edition, then that would not be ok. Right then, download
This way... I get my john denver, and i'm not getting anything extra except for media that FUCKING WORKS RIGHT. It's no longer superior to the CD, everythings cool right!
Please don't confuse me for a john denver fan, or even an 8-track fan. 8 tracks sound pretty good only if you have properly aligned heads, and the right type of lubercent on the tape it self. However, no one knows how to align 8-track properly anymore as you can't buy the dignostic cassettes anymore. No one was told about lubercation, so they made a hell of alot of noise and broke.
This whole "better recording" concept is so freaking subjective it bugs the living crap out of me. So it's OK to download on online edition provided the audio quality isn't suprerior to what I own? This sounds fair but who makes that sorta judgement? There are still people who argue about CD vs vinyl to this day. 8-track vs cassette is a hard one for me to make a fair judgement on because I don't own a player, but i'm willing to believe it's in the same class as cassette tape under ideal conditions. But needless to say I'm not qualified to make a blanket statement which has the "better recorder" cause there are so many factors involved to record something.
8-tracks are the best example I can think of because you can NO longer buy pre-recorded media!
If that 8-track breaks due to normal use or neglect, you can't really buy another copy of john denver on 8-track! You could however, provided you are lucky enough to have an 8-track recorder in good working order, buy a blank 8-track tape, and make your own copy from CD, which isn't going to be anywhere near the quality of offical 8-track release.
It seems to be the RIAA attudude. "just buy another one". Buy another one my ass. How many times does one hae to buy a release before they own a copy of the music?
If I bought it on cassette, and my media breaks, and I make another copy onto cassette, I think that's cool! I'm not getting anything extra, just a working copy.
If I bought a copy on 8-track, and it gets fucked up, and I make another copy onto 8-track, I think that's cool too. Hard to get anything extra out of a goodwill 2nd hand improperly aligned 8-track recorder.
If my VHS or betamax copy of Breakfast at Tiffinies deicdes to rot, like tapes eventually will do... and I make a copy from DVD to beta / vhs... oh yea that's cool!
Problem solved!
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Even with replication of physical objects being possible, there is still an apportunity for profit by companies that make physical things.
For example what could happen is that all devices could come with something that wirelessly tapped into the internet and broadcast a unique key (unique to each copy of for example a food blender).
Now I can borrow your food blender and copy it, or download the data from the internet, but because I haven't got a unique key, I'm out of luck.
Then of course you will get people developing keygens for food blenders, and when that stops working they will just disassemble the food blender, hack out the controlling key parts, and put the design back on the p2p networks.
(Heh, can you imagine it: "I downloaded a food processor from the internet and there was a turd in it!")
Anyway, this is how, even with freely-copyable physical objects, companies can still make money. Of course people would find ways round it, but last I heard the RIAA and MPAA are still making lots of money...
graspee
See my new sig from this article. This is a *great* quote.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
A lot of producer types and otherwise get the benefit of this stuff dropping in price. BUT you make the mistake of thinking that just because prices on a few things go down, pricing of the whole should drop.
For instance, do you REALLY think $0.05 is all a CD is worth? Physicial medium has ALWAYS been the last part of the equation when pricing this stuff (that and you can't burn 100k CDs easily -- you generally use a glass master and dupe them in bulk using the same methods one always has).
As for price of the software -- yup the resording software has gone down in price, but that means folks can now afford the expensive microphones that help them sound professional, the analogue preamps they use to remove some of the edge off the digital recordings, they can hire folks to do specific tasks like being able to send their stuff out for mastering (and if you can find a professional that can do a decent job of mastering a disc at under $5k, let me know -- that price hasn't dropped and $5k is about the cheapest I can find for folks I've hear that have consistant ears -- we just priced a disc for an artist that is expected to hit the top 40 -- top 10, nah -- too adult contemporary for todays market).
The particular point that there are innumerable people parts of an album and they have always been a HUGE part of the recording deal -- and now far more so that equipment has gotten to the point where consumer is as good as pro (and has a word for it these days -- prosumer) is one that seems to have slipped between the cracks along with other obvious points of interest.
Honestly, until someone has worked on a top 40 album (not an indy) you REALLY don't know what goes into this stuff and thus have no basis to make judgements. Anywho -- maybe I should stop complaining -- I just got into it with my audio and lighting guys last week about costs (my show this weekend is going to cost us $25k for JUST lighting and audio) and as first time I've done production direction for anyone (always assistant, never senior) I just assumed things like lighting were now done with sequencers where ya didn't have to have a seperate person to take care of this crap. So yeah -- if you haven't done something before, its easy to expect technology to take care of everything without realizing that it only helps marginalize so much before the professionals realize they can use the savings and put them somewhere else that will give you even better production for the pricing of the old. In their minds its a nul sum -- it didn't cost any more BUT it sounds SOOOOOO much better, thus its expected these days...
clif
sonikmatter
What do you do with the RIAA? What shall we do with the RIAA, what can we do to the RIAA earl-eye in the morning?
Boycott their artists and make them wimper
Boycott their CDs and make them suffer!
Get your god-damed media elsewhere earl-eye in the morning.
What the fuck do you think you are doing?
...that I hear over and over in my head?
We already use physical printers for prototyping in the auto industry... you draw something up on a cad system, and it can be "printed" in almost no time. Yes, its just a mock up and unusable in a vehicle, put the technology is progressing. One day everyone will have a physical printer... a replicator if you will... and it will be soon (relativly speaking). What are they going to do when you can download a *car*? Society has to change or die. This world is going to get far worse before it gets better because of "asshats" like the RIAA, MPAA & Microsoft.
I wish I had mod points today!
Uhhh, have you checked vacuum tube prices recently?
-- I avoid spam by accepting only OpenPGP encrypted or signed email at this address. Clear-signed, RFC2015, heck, even
1) they may not have been that talented in the first place, and/or
2) it's hard to be that inspired when you got 5 million bucks in your pocket. Â Â Ever seen 5 million bucks? Most people, one they get that kinda money, go one of 2 ways:
1) they get super-greedy, and try to just make super-popular records, which flops hard at some point.
2) they just say "ok, i'm done" and that's it.
Here is the big piece you are missing: The record companies are only looking for hit artists. They don't stand behind artists who can't go platinum, or make hit singles. And once their 15 minutes are up - out the door.
I have read many accounts of this, where artists are promised all kinds of fame and fortune, how they are the next big thing, and if their album just does so-so, they are just left out. Sure, they might have a contract for 3 albums, but if that first one didn't hit big, then the record company can let them work out their contract, not promote them at all, and let them fade into obscurity. Why? Because the RIAA is the only gig in town! They have the power to be able to do that. So they have created this music market. They benefitted from Mariah Carey's bewildering success in the 90's, they created and profited from bands like N'Sync, The Backstreet Boys, New Kids, etc. They created Milli Vanilli. They saturate the market with what they think will sell, where selling is the only important thing. Now they wonder why people don't want to buy music anymore?
They have in front of them, a market where people want to listen to music all the time. With new technology, you can take tons of music with you. The more you listen, the more you want. They *created* the music market, and convinced people that they need more and more music, all the time. So now people want more and more music, and have found that it doesn't have to be expensive and difficult to get it. The RIAA refuses to accept technology, and instead of fostering the market with affordable alternatives to P2P services, they try to stop them. There is a proven market, with nearly zero-cost distribution, that ensures people will continue to listen to music. Ask *ANY* other business this question: If you could modify your business model to guarantee that people will continue to use your product, or even increase your sales, would you? Any sane businessman would do it. The RIAA chooses not to. Reap what you sow, motherfuckers.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
My only point is that is irrational to claim that illegal downloading does not impact on sales. It is blindingly obvious that some people will buy less music if they can get the same thing free or very cheap.
What you say certainly sounds like it should be an obvious truth. However, all I can say is back in the Napster days, I used to spend a fair amount of time prospecting for interesting and different music, and when I found it I regularly bought the CD. After Napster went down, I don't think I bought a single CD for over a year. I've been poking around a bit on Gnutella, which has revived my CD buying habits somewhat; however Gnutella is much less rewarding to spend time with because its performance is not nearly as good as Napster.
In essence, P2P was shopping for me; when Napster was shut down, shopping became more incovenient.
Of course, the question is whether I am some kind of anamoly; why would you buy a CD when you can download the best tracks? I think the argument that the physical CD doesn't matter at all takes things too far. There are many reasons to own a CD. The liner notes, the higher quality, the convenience of the physical format (I download e-texts too, but they still aren't as convenient as books), having the complete album instead of just a couple of "hit" songs, the satisfaction of ownership (looking a wall of CDs is more satisfying than gazing at a hard disk) and a desire to support the artist.
However, I am probably a pretty undesirable customer for the RIAA. Napster definitely increased the range of music I listened to; I went from mainly listening to jazz and classical to also buying country, rock, blues, latin, afro-pop. By broadening the public's musical tastes, and by making mit easy for people to copy just one good song from a mediocre album, P2P undermines the industry's ability to make a living off by producing a small number of hit songs that are reproduced over and over.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe I'm missing the point or something but mp3s are not "perfect digital copies" of copyrighted material because the compression is lossy. The original PCM data cannot be reconstructed from an mp3 so the loss in quality is permanent.
RIAA's Matt Oppenheim: "We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing."
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
If I carry out the following: and I pay for all the ingredients, the muffin cases, the mixer, the pans and utensils, the oven and the gas, then am I stealing from a bakery? That is the question.
The assertion that if people don't have a way of making money from their music, then they will not make music any more, is totally bogus. If you are only singing / playing for the money you can make out of it, then you're in it for the wrong reasons. Frankly, I don't think people like that would be a great loss to the world. Sir Joseph Swan put a lot of candle manufacturers out of business with his invention and it was tough titty for them then. When a new invention {cheap recordable CDs} makes an entire industry {manufacture and distribution of CDs} obsolete, why should it be any different today?
If the CD manufacturers still want a cut, they should buy shares in the cable companies and the firms that manufacture the blank media - because that's where most of the action is nowadays.
And I still haven't received a satisfactory answer as to why a pre-recorded CD costs more to buy than a pre-recorded walkman cassette of the same work, when the cassette costs more to manufacture than the CD.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why is the record industry working so hard to eliminate the support of its largest consumers? Pre-teen, teen, and college age students are the largest consumers of new music, and yet they are being raked over the coals, forced to dump their life savings, and otherwise tortured by the record industry for engaging in activities no different than those of millions of others.
My brother, for instance, has about 5,000 songs on his computer, but he also buys something like a CD a week because he will hear some band online that he would like to hear the whole album. If the record industry wants to pull itself out of its slump (which, no matter how much they would like us to believe it, is NOT caused by P2P), they should start selling CDs at something less than $18 per.
Guess what? I don't care about packaging. Jewel cases are small and ugly. If you want to sell CDs for $5-8 in a paper sleeve, I would actually buy a ton of music! Anyways, that's my thought.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Or did the RIAA guy dodge every question about the DMCA? It seemed every time a legit question about it was raise, he spoke about it's intentions, not about its affects.
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
Here are two questions I submitted to the experts. Two bad they didn't pick it.
For Mr. Oppenheim:
1.The value that the entertainment industry has traditionally brought to
the artist has been production and marketing. But costs of producing
artistic works has plummetted, and many would say that âoeviral marketingâ
(through the sanctioning of alternative/free distribution channels) is
cheaper and more effective anyway. Given the ever-shrinking royalty
percentages and restrictive nature of entertainment contracts, why does
it still make economic sense for artists to sign up with major media
companies?
For Mr. Lessig:
2. Nobody ever put a gun to an artist's head to sign an unfair contract
with the entertainment company. These contracts are freely entered into
because both parties believe it in their respective self-interests. Why
then is legislative tampering necessary? Isn't the problem
self-correcting? If enough artists get screwed or perceive themselves as
getting screwed by signing up, they won't sign up, or they will insist on
more favorable terms. Why then should Congress hamstring the ability of
artists and companies to enter into contracts? To justify legislative
intervention, it seems to me that you would need to demonstrate that
entertainment contracts are instrinsically predatory and exploitative.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
There is also an issue with "enhancement" because once you have scanned an analog source to digital, you can apply digital techniques to enhance it (i.e. OCR the text so it can be searched, or digitally filter and enhance the audio signal to make it better than the source).
Finally, you gotta love the way he slipped in the theft analogy, even though it doesn't fit the situation at all. The true analog would be that I have a VCR tape that I purchased and my friend has the DVD, which I make a digital copy of and use instead of the analog I own. Again, the DVD may have new content not on my tape, and if I was really scrupulous I would not copy those parts, but even if I didn't go this far, I would only be guilty of infringement, not theft.
Wow, are YOU naive! Musicians like Metallica, huh? Dr. Dre? Brittney? Eminem? All of which have come out in support of the RIAA and against their fans? Face it, as soon as anyone gets access to money, they get greedy. It's human nature, and there are very few people immune to that.
The only people who say otherwise are those like you and me who have never had the opportunity to be rich. It's damned easy to sit here and say "I wouldn't act like that if I were rich!" I'm sure Gates said it too when he was 18 and idealistic. Now he's in his 40's, rich, and stifles software innovation for exercise.
As a musician, I see no need to make money from my work. It would help, and I'd probably be able to focus on it more if money came back from it, but it is nowhere near nessecary.
Like I said, that's because you haven't seen the money. Your perspective might change then.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I think the RIAA spokesman does side work for Microsoft:
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is intended to encourage innovation,
As someone else said: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I would prefer if all the code I wrote was given out for free. Funny thing, people would still pay me to write it. If you can't write code that well, you don't deserve to make money doing it just because the law creates artificial monopolies.
Well, I know almost everyone else on /. will feel the same way, but I got bored of the corporate BS about 2 questions into the discussion. Lessig made some great points, even if I don't agree with all of his fundamental standpoints (I've read part of one of his books).
Matt Openheimer is a corporate whore... err... lawyer. ROFL!! Yes, yes, not all lawyers are bad, and I do know quite a few who are really really cool, nice, smart, caring people. It's that 5% that abuses their knowledge of the law (i.e. Matt Openheimer) that disgusts us all.
Does he even care how this might affect society, his neighbor, or his own children one day?! Banning tools that provide people the world round with nearly instant access to all sorts of entertainment, news, and other software tools is just ridiculous! It's potentially one of the best times in the world's history (yes, there are always wars going on in the world... and shutup u PETA freaks), and the RIAA is concerned about their declining revenues?!!?! It's called a FREE MARKET you assmunches! Yes, a $24.99 DVD with movie in 3 languages, cut scenes, different formats, and in crystal clear clarity is worth my hard-earned $24.99! The latest Britney Boobs CD for $17.99 IS NOT worth my hard-earned money. All Matt O. has to do is ask my law-student wife how his bending of those statistics and his faking 'correlations' between P2P apps and music sales would earn him a big fat F- in ANY statistics class.
Hell, even in my own corporate world, such flagrant abuse of statistical measures like that would earn me a pay decrease, not land me a fat job as a corporate lawyer at the top of the food chain. People see through that kind of BS VERY easily, Matt. It's no wonder sales are down... everyone knows you and your bosses are running a rotten business!
Yeah, because nobody would *ever* make something good and useful unless they could get strong copyright and patent protection on it, would they? *Cough*Linux*Cough*.
There's no doubt the business models would have to change. But really, is the 2003 model of a car really so much better than the 2002 model, or the 2000 model, or the 1990 model? There might not be as much incentive to spend time to develop new models when the old one is "good enough". On the other hand, if enough people have enough need for a new "X" they'll either make it themselves or pay someone to make it for them. Sure, they'll have to live with other people having it as well, but so what?
I think the incredible success of Open Source / Free software has proved that people can and will design and build amazing things even if they can't sell the design or the end product for much if anything. If the physical world of car manufacturing were similar we'd probably end up with some pretty funky looking cars, and a lot of cars might have some really odd UI "features" and some odd bugs, but so what? I, for one, would not cry if Ford had to close down because there was no margin in designing the newest Mega-SUV.
As for music and other artistic processes, there was music before copyright, and there would be music afterwards. There might not be an N'Sync because the margins just wouldn't be there, but there would probably be just as many, if not more, local bands. To make money, musicians would have to play gigs. Guess what? Most of them do that anyhow, and many of them really enjoy it.
I say, why fear change? Sure there's a downside to getting rid of IP laws, but it's pretty obvious there's a huge downside to keeping them in place as well.
I havent found anything worth downloading for the last couple of years. I stopped buying cds back in, 99? 2000? I dont rememeber, it was whenever they shut down my.mp3.com.
But there isnt anythig out there ive heard worth downloading form RIAA affiliates.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
You could hand-craft a car to perfection, leave it in plain site, and stand with a shotgun in the backseat waiting for the thing to be copied...
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I don't know about you all, but I find the whole deal a bit tedious. I love music and I used to think the P2P nets were great. All the good songs for free, top stuff.
:-)
But after here a couple of freinds who were artists points of view, I decided it's not so good taking advantage of them. So I stoped using the P2Ps.
Only problem I see now, is that I don't get to listen to the new Music I like, because at approx $30 per CD (here in AUS), I rerely have the money to spare.
So you see even if I don't use the P2Ps' I am still not helping my muso freinds, as they haven't sold a single extra CD.
The idea of the Music industry losing billions of dollars due to this type of activity is just plain stupid. I agree that they may not be selling quite as many as they would with out it, but if the people doing the downloading are doing it because they can't afford the restrictive prices they're asking, then it not a loss at all, as the sales would still not be there.....
It is sad that the Music industy is not thinking smart when it comes to these types of technologies. I could certainly afford to pay 1 - 2 dollars for a track that I liked. And if the companies were to use the net to make their entire catalogues available at a reasonable price and the choise of options (IE: pick individual tracks) I feel that I could and would once again become an avid music lover...
yammer factor 10....
RSC
The software industry was doing the same thing as the music industry for quite a while: it was pushing an effort to ban piracy. Did you notice that we don't see big corporations making as many attempts as we did a few years back? I do. And I think the reason is quite obvious, especially to slashdotters. Open source software.
Now what I would like to point out is that open source programmers aren't programming for money (rarely anyways), they are doing it because it's what they love to do. There are some fantastic musicians out there that make some great music, but not for money, but because they love doing it. Take for example Jim's Big Ego; they encourage copying and trading amongst friends. All they ask is that if you are going to pay for a copy of their music to please buy it from them, because they're independent artists, and quite frankly they don't need the money.
The point is that we can move away from the record industry's control. We just need to stop suppording the record industry itself, and start supporting great independent artists. Support those who are making music because they love making music, not because they love making money.
http://mediagoblin.org/
Can anyone point to any cases where this particular fair use was put to the test? Specifically where someone has bought a legal copy of a digital work which is no longer usable for some reason, and they "fixed" the problem by making a copy of the identical work "borrowed" from someone else. I'm guessing it is not settled as a matter of law, but your speculation is likely true since I can't imagine a reasonable person finding anything remotely unethical about doing it.
Just to illustrate how unfortunate that term is, one should know that it covers far more than just copyright and patent law. But even if the term "intellectual property" only covered those two parts of law, it would mislead more than it helped one's understanding of these laws.
Copyrights and patents are acquired differently, they grant different powers to the holder, they last for different amounts of time, and copyright covers specific expression whereas patents cover ideas. There is more dissimilarity between copyrights and patents than they have in common. Any reasonable critique of the problems with modern-day use of copyrights and patents should not gloss over these differences as if copyrights and patents can be talked about as a cohesive whole. Using the term "intellectual property" does not encourage understanding these distinctions.
Digital Citizen
So if somebody had a technology to really "check out" music, from say a consolidated source of millions of users with say a few hundred thousand legit copies..... think that would be OK with Mr. RIAA? Didn't some company have a technology similar to this, or was that for warez?
--D
albiet, taken a bit out of context:
"If you are attempting to distribute recordings that you own the rights to and the RIAA is in any way preventing you from doing so, you should contact us immediately. "
so they can eat all of those free-agents out there?
This really does mean the RIAA is after us all!
I am more inclined to believe that serious violence would ensue in controlling replication devices before everything became egalitarian like Star Dreck.
Control of the knowledge of creating the devices and the distribution of the devices would be grounds for some serious bullets flying. Ditto for the transporter--makes terrorism today look like a funny joke. Transport that nuke from 40,000 kilometers away with a one minute timer.
Nice.
I'd rather see stuff like self-driving cars so I can read the paper while stuck in traffic... there are people that are unaware of the fact that this isn't safe and do it anyway--just thought I'd preempt that response.
Laws are for people with no friends.
> Nobody these days makes a living manufacturing vacuum tubes
Ever hear of Sovtek tubes? They are used in guitar amps and effects pedals. Some people insist that tubes make audio signals sound "warmer" than the same signals routed through solid-state circuitry.
Ha! Fooled you, if you work for the RIAA, you already are a politican!
Fine post on one of the sections that stood out to me as well.
Radio isn't it? The quality isn't as good as the CD. So... why is the RIAA acting linke a bunch of idiots? We are living in a recession and the loss
of sales directly reflects the economy, pirating.
ALSO kids in the US are Raped over AutoInsurance.
That's right... even if you are a good driver kids pay over $2,400 / year for auto insurance.
So... You prioritize, Gas, auto insurance, Beer Money, money to take out girlfriend, and MAD Money. Yes CD purchases fall into mad money.. but it may take 6 months or so to have it.
And that money usually makes it over to beer money.
RIAA, it' not the 90s anymore. Money is tight.
While all of this legal maneuvering is interesting, and both sides have some valid points (although in large I agree with Lessig more than with the RIAA), I think the main point is this: the landscape has changed. The legal issues that are being argued here are either issues that relate to a business/technological environment that no longer exists, or are issues that relate to laws that were created to preserve that extinct business/technological environment.
File swapping is a reality and there is no way to prevent it. All of the legislation in the world cannot put the cat back in the bag. Not only is the DMCA a law that clearly benefits only those companies who's lobbying efforts created it, but it is a law that criminalizes the activities of millions of people.
File sharing will go on with or without the support of content providers like the RIAA or the MPAA. If these organizations do not see the writing on the wall and embrace this new technology they will swiftly be relegated to the sidelines in the new content economy.
AND HERE IT IS!! Let's gape them anuses.
The Dictionary (Well, several dictionaries, but anyway) disagree(s). The transitive verb shows up as "To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion." before "To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns." Share can mean either to give someone some of what you have, or to lend someone all of what you have, or anything in between. However, one nice thing about any kind of media (digital or no) is that you can give someone a copy which does not actually deprive someone of it. In essence, you are not stealing it, at least, not according to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: "To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You are not carrying anything away, you have a copy. You are not stealing, you are (at worst) violating copyright law.
However, it is legal to record music off the radio. How is checking a CD out of the library and copying it really any different? Either way you are getting the music from a public source and either way you are not paying for the album. Since you're usually only after one song, you could get it off the radio, but you can get a higher quality version from the library's CD copy.
From an ethical perspective, when a label pays the artist and engineers pennies for each album sold, just what is that? Meanwhile, if I copy an album I never would have purchased, am I depriving anyone of anything? Don't answer that question, son, it was rhetorical.
So, uh, what happened to Napster? (Another rhetorical question; they decided to play games with the Judge.)
However, for true peer to peer services like gnutella, or at least for unregulated and mostly p2p ones like Morpheus/Kazaa (Whatever that service is called, musiccity?) you can't filter because that functionality is not included. The clients talk to one another for the most part, and not to the central server, which only serves to connect users. So you can't filter without terminating them, and that means that you're asking that they be terminated. This is a non-answer.
Uh. This is just plain wrong. The law as it is written preve
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
frob
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Do you think copyright law is so broken that it cannot be fixed?
I believe copyright reform is possible:
Will I retire or break 10K?
Matt Oppenheim:
"If you are attempting to distribute recordings that you own the rights to and the RIAA is in any way preventing you from doing so, you should contact us immediately."
Matt Oppenheim:
"Individuals are not permitted to make copies of their copyrighted recordings and distribute them to others without permission from the copyright owner. Whether or not you do it for free or for profit is irrelevant; the impact on the copyright owner is the same, they do not have the ability to sell their artistic work to others because they have received an unauthorized free copy."
Excuse me while I go distribute music that I own with Mr. RIAA's permission, then go get sued because of Mr. RIAA's decrees.
There is no contradiction at all. Just because you disagree with Matt Oppenheim, that's no reason to take potshots, especially when they are way off target.
Matt's first statement says: let the RIAA know if it is preventing you from distributing recording you own the rights to. Given the RIAA's well-known politics, it should be obvious he is talking about the copyright. He means that if you are the copyright owner of a recording, the RIAA will graciously allow you to distribute your own music.
Matt's second statement says: the RIAA will not "permit" individuals to distribute copyrighted recording without the permission of the copyright owner.
In the first statement, the individual is the copyright owner. In the second statement, he is not.
A responsible person takes reasonable precautions in a given situation.
What precautions are reasonable for a songwriter to take against unconsciously copying a copyrighted musical work?
When a mistake happens, as they inevitably do, a responsible person does what is necessary to make it right.
What would you consider reasonably necessary in a situation of alleged unconscious copying?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I really don't like the idea of paying for songs. Emusic.com does it right. How about if the RIAA puts every one of thier songs in MP3 format on their web site and we just pay them $10 a month to legally download whatever we want?
Which is why increasingly I prefer the term GGTM (Government-Granted Temporary Monopoly) to the term 'Intellectual Property'. Ben
There is some deep truth in the statement that a, "majority of musicians are dying to get contracts with record companies."
On the surface, personally, I took this to mean, "most musicians want to get contracts with record companies", however it's also said that an artist often loses their creative control in such arrangements. So, in a metaphorical sense, musicians are "dying", to get contracts with record companies.
Really, there is no way to deny the music "industry" acts in it's own interests and not always and, perhaps, even rarely, in the interests of either the artist or the audience. If the "industry" was really on the side of musicians, the majority of musicians would be happy with their relationships with the labels. Even if we don't include all the musicians unfortunete enough not to have a "contract", the remaining paid musicians are not happy. My first point is, it is common knowledge that bands with contracts feel unfairly treated by the industry. Can anyone show that this isn't true? Matt Oppenheim said "The vast majority of artists who have contracts with the record companies have great relationships with their labels." A simple google will demonstrate this to be a lie. Simply compare the almost nonexistant praise to the massive amount of distrust documented by many, many musicians. In fact, there are entire anti-labels movements among musicians. So my point remains, musicians do not support nor want the music industry or it's contracts, really. Using a biased subset of a group as an example is not truthful. So, you see this is simply more propoganda.
This touches upon, as it must, the central and real issue. The real issue is the commercialization of mind and subsequently, society. In this regard the current P2P, file copying/sharing/trading is perhaps the clearest example of this current conflict.
On one hand, we have the creative and the community, which lives to share as it must to grow. On the other hand, we have industry which must profit or die. All industry depends on trade which depends upon exchange. The exchange is based on production which is based on man hours. Things cost because people spend time. Time is money. Modern (robotic) production removes the cost. Inevitablely, all produced, i.e. non-creative things will someday be free. Please, consider: limitless production = unlimited supply = no demand. Therefore, someday, all that will be valuable will be the artistic and creative. Art and service with be the only scarcity. Industry is struggling to commoditize both art and service, as it must to survive. It must and will try to commercialize and control people and thier products.
Indeed, Mr Oppenheim says it himself, "more often than not, our litigations are attempting to establish a legal precedent." The truth is, that precedent doesn't benefit the many, it benefits the few and it flies in the face of the spirit of freedom. The industry cannot claim to be on moral ground here. It's actions and intentions are clearly not ethical and, quite frankly, border the illegal. Actually, to many, it appears to be corruption of the worst sort, and yes, Matt, many do belive this justifies "copying" the music. In fact, to some, it demands it.
As far as, "worked out by the parties or by courts", I believe Bill Schneider said it best when he said, "People shouldn't be able to use the courts to turn their own stupidity into an asset.
On that note, Matt, when are you guys going to smarten up and halve the price of a CD and double your profit through volume?
Furthermore, the reason none of your "official" sites do well, is simple. Your prices are unfairly high. People understand it doesn't cost a penny to provide a copy of a file, yet you want want major dollars. We think you're out in orbit, which is why most people can't and won't buy music from you in any form.
As for variety on radio, tell me Matt, where do the playlists come from? Personally, this looks like just more propaganda. Let's face it, the majority of recorded music is bu
Words to men, as air to birds.
Music can't be owned.
It comes from inside all of us.
When you hear music you like, you are hearing a part of your own soul expressed by the musician.
Of course musicians want to eat, but when they are done eating, they want to make music, not money.
Treating music as property leads to ridiculous results like George Harrison being sued for 'unconscious plagiarism' and John Fogerty being sued for plagiarising himself.
I think I'll go play my guitar. I hope I don't get arrested for playing G C D G
PS: the crux of most of our problems goes back to the 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company which held that CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE AND HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS PEOPLE. But we all know that corporations are not people.
Is summed up here:
"Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music to millions of strangers simultaneously." (my emphasis added)
Ask any audiophile if a 128 kbps MP3 is a perfect copy and they will laugh at you.
The RIAA depends on this misinformation to make their caseif people are sharing "perfect" copies, they can call it distribution and seek punishment as such.
This is also the argument they made for levying fees against webcasters, but again, is a 40 kbps Real Audio stream anywhere close to "perfect"? Why do webcasters have to pay distribution fees while radio broadcasters don't?
As with various patent fiascos, attach the implication that digital is somehow different and you have a legal knowledge gap that the dominant industry will gleefully exploit.
The recording industry is a dinosaur that has met it's asteroid.
-- t_kiehne
Since I've never had a comment modded up, I've decided to only post 'soundbites' that can be expressed in the title of the post.
Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical. The RIAA Guy
v. shared, sharÂing, shares
v. tr.
To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion.
To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns.
To relate (a secret or experience, for example) to another or others.
To accord a share in (something) to another or others: shared her chocolate bar with a friend.
It speaks for itself and makes all other arguement on his part useless, being as he has already contradicted reality. It's like not allowing Kevin Mitnick to use a calculator, microwave, digital clock, or car because it's a "computing device" - I'm fairly certain he has.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Try reading all of Matt's commentary imagining his voice like the one of Agt Smith. Listening to the 'Reloaded' soundtrack certainly helps.
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
It made my blood boil as I read the comments made by the RIAA guy about compensation of artists. Terms like, "as due their contract" both completely ignore the intent of the question while answering the question verbatim to the meaning of words.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I agree, this is a classic quote and does seem to sum up the attitude of the RIAA.
It reminded me of the famous two quotes by Alfred Hitchcock. When asked what he thought of actors, he said "they were like cattle". When asked to clarify his remark, he said he was misquoted, what he meant was "actors should be treated like cattle."
Maybe its time for some renegotiation of where everybody is in the food chain or, barring that, maybe some musicians should read "Animal Farm".
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Thank you very much for giving the first straight answer I've received in a year of asking about unconscious copying. Have I understood your answer correctly?
Will I retire or break 10K?
...wouldn't people pay for at least some of them to continue their R&D work? If not, then I would argue that they were not truly missed and their job of creating new and better designs was really not valueable enough to sustain.
Likewise, I believe that people are willing to give money in support of promoting good designs (e.g. software, music, video) even if they can be copied at zero cost.
This is a very reasonable stance. Too bad it's not in line with RIAA policy to stifle all technology that lets people make copies for personal use, and whack with a DMCA suit anyone who talks of how to make this actually possible.
I don't think Oppenheim's answers in this interview are compatable with the actions of the RIAA for which he speaks. I wish somebody would have brought this up as a question directly to him in the interview. "You seem to think it is perfectly okay for people to make copies for their own use, even copies that transfer format (i.e. audio CD tracks becoming MP3 files on your computer, provided you don't give copies out to others.) You also state that P2P can have legal uses and the technology itself shouldn't be stifled. Why then does the organization you are speaking for, the RIAA, apparently follow a policy of trying to curb such technology, and enforce DRM techniques that prevent BOTH legal and illegal copying?"
I really wish someone would have asked that. The problem is that the questions were prepared ahead of time, before the seeminingly contradictory answers from Oppenheim started coming out.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Yes we have air powered engines and devices. Need proof? Here
A nitrogen powered car.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Does anyone make a soundcard with a built in D-A-D converter? How can copy protection schemes (the "business innovation opportunities" RIAA boy spouts about) be made to prevent the terribly weak analog link in their protection chain from breaking? Is it a matter of "oh, that's too much trouble for the average consumer"?
In the peer to peer context, sharing means something else entirely. It means that you are free to take a copy of what you want. In return, you are requested to let others take a copy of what they want from you.
There seems to be an obvious point of hypocrisy in the position that copyright violation is the equivalent of theft.
The major labels, which are publicly traded corporations, endorse the position of the RIAA that copyright violation, or 'piracy' is the equivalent of theft, and that the industry is sustaining major losses as a result.
If someone robbed their warehouse or 'stole their car', these corporations would be required to charge these losses against stated earnings as an expense on their income statement.
The fact that they do not write off piracy as a loss is indicative that they do -not- consider piracy to be theft when it comes right down to it.
To what extent are these these public traded corporations making false and/or misleading public statements about the degree of 'theft' affecting their financial health? Are they not violating some sort of SEC rules when they mislead investors into thinking that their financial statements somehow account for this 'theft'- implying that their earnings would be much higher if this 'theft' did not take place? Doesn't this artificially inflate the value of their stock by implying that their efforts to stop 'piracy' will have some sort of proportionally positive effect on their earnings?
Perhaps an appropriate response to statements from the RIAA equating copyright violation with theft is to ask them "Where on your members' income statements do they account for this theft?". A very simple question, but the answer is either "ok, copyright violations are not really theft, they are just potentially lost sales", or "we are commiting fraud by not accounting for the theft thus artificially inflating our earnings"
Princes Bride
I don't think Oppenheim answered the questions regarding the DMCA preventing circumvention after the copyright has expired. And how does extending a copyright a full lifetime beyond the death of the owner encourage innovation?
Why did Lawrence Lessig come off as so much more intelligent than Oppenheim? Because Lessig responded in detail, and with attention to detail, to each question. Whereas Oppenheim just recited whichever canned phrase seemed vaguely relevant.
An example:
Now, Oppenheim gave an answer to the first part of the question that was, if not factual (I highly doubt the factuality of it, given that he also invoked the "our sales are down and filesharing is the one and only culprit" canard) at least vaguely responsive: he claimed that an "increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works" accounted for why Congress kept extending copyright terms. In some cases this is clearly untenable (have books become more expensive to write?) and in others highly suspect (I think we're all aware that CDs are less expensive to produce than cassettes or vinyl) but hell, I'm willing to concede that maybe there are some new media that really do cost significantly more to produce, and that if Congress wants to see more works in these media produced, they cannot increase the profit margins or change the public's demand curve, but they can give the producers more time in which to try to recoup their costs. That follows at least somewhat logically from those premises, even if I question the factual basis of those premises.
But when it comes to answering the guy's question, how does the advent of new media and technologies change the copyright situation, what's Oppenheim's answer?
Agghh! What a blockhead! He's just argued exactly what this guy is asking about but all he can hear in it is another opportunity to demolish the RIAA's favorite straw man! He even makes it sound as if the guy asked specifically "duh, it's okay fer me to copy songs now dat we gots that Internet stuff, ain't it?" To me, that's one of the key indicators that you're dealing with sleaze: you ask them a question, and they give you an answer -- to a different question from the one you asked.
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
"In the US there is [a fundamental right to earn a living by making music]. It's in the Constitution."
Now who's trolling? Obviousy, there is no fundamental right to have people be forced to pay you for any particular thing you try to sell so that you can earn a living off it. Surely the poster does not really believe that I have a natural right to earn a living selling, say, very fine mud pies.
And even if he only means that there is a fundamental right to a monopoly on the copying of one's creations, he still shows a profound ignorance of the relevant Constitutional clause. If he enrolled in a course on I. P. law, he would learn in the first week that the Constitution is not recognizing a natural right in this area, but creating an unnatural, artifical right for the purpose of promoting creation of useful works. The passage even states its purpose explicitly, and further makes the point clear by requiring that it be limited in time, which it would not be if it were a natural right.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
What the fuck are you talking about you dumb fucking hick? Make some sense, fucko!
Q: Without anti-copyright devices, wouldn't that extend copyright terms for eternity?
Matt Oppenheim responds: The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is intended to encourage innovation, both in the artistic community and the technological community.
Yeah thatâ(TM)s it, talk about intent. Donâ(TM)t pay any attention to what it actually does!
Hmm, there were 3 or 4 complaints at the last Library of Congress DMCA review where people complained about public domain movies that had the full set of DVD copy protections. There were also complaints about electronic books that restricted use of public-domain stories (the classic "can't read aloud" setting for Alice in Wonderland). Iâ(TM)d have to call that statement an outright lie!
Of course the fact that NO works have entered the public domain recently (thanks to congressional extensions) has NOTHING to do with why this is not more widely noticed!
In all of this ..... there is a fact that shines out like a beacon, and that is that the concept of "intellectual property" is a fundamental one ..... something you either believe in or you don't.
..... Interesting Times .....
It's a matter of faith. On one side we have the RIAA believing that ideas can be bought and sold as though they were physical objects, and on the other side we have Lessig, RMS et al believing that ideas cannot be bought and sold because they are not like physical objects. These two fundamentally opposed ideas are never going to be reconciled, any more than say Judaism and Islam, or Catholicism and Protestantism, are ever going to be reconciled. And everybody belongs in one or the other camp - there is no moderate position.
Either all the fruits of all human endeavour belong to all of humanity, or every idea I think of belongs to me and you'd better get used to the idea lest we meet in a court of law. There is nothing in between.
We have copyright and patents as a compromise. Which would be fine, but for a subtle point; money. The RIAA and company have a lot of it. They're greedy and want more of it -- and not so they can share it. The believers in freedom of information don't see money as a prime motivating factor, and {coincidentally or not} they tend to have less of it.
And now we have governments that seem only to listen to money, it gets harder for anyone without stackloads of money to get their voice heard
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I believe the cost of production has gone down as well. More studios are popping up where a band can go to get their music professionally recorded at cheaper and cheaper prices. New computer equipment and software can let bands that have a little technical know-how (or have friends/fans that do) record their own professional sounding tracks.
Last but not least, if the recording industry would embrace the new distribution medium of the internet, the distribution costs would approach zero.
Sure, that's why I said that the RIAA will be severely transformed or even replaced.
No, I don't perform music. It is not my job. My point was that an artist does not really need a label's help in this day and age. Are you saying that, say, the Beatles became popular because the RIAA helped them and not because their music was good? Would a truly talented band need the support of a large conglomerate to record good music? The only real job that the RIAA does these days is marketing and promotion, and that could be done by smaller, more efficient companies that do not take over an artist's music with obstructive contracts.
By the way, the same does NOT apply to movies. Movies take far more resources to produce -- a good director alone is not enough, he/she would need millions of dollars to make a movie. That's the role the studio fills. Even then, independent movies are, on average, better than the mass-produced Hollywood ones.
You are the man's minnion!!!
Damn Republican!
That's nice.
matt, RIAA, etal is so fscking hypocritical...
r ight 2.html
p yright 5.html
;)
on one side he writes:
Intellectual property should not be treated any differently than other property. Unless you buy it, you should not copy it for your own use. on
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copy
and then later he writes:
When the RIAA searches the Internet to find infringing recordings that are being distributed, it is looking in exactly the same types of places that anybody else on the Internet may go.
We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights. We are doing exactly the same thing that every other infringer is doing.
on
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/co
when will people get the basics:
-- riaa, mpaa, et al are cowering behind absurd laws to maintain a market that is grossly out of balance -- with marginal costs 100x over market costs.
-- the issues of information and who controls it is the fundamental issue facing human society. music and movies are just the tip of the iceberg. the enabling of machines to enforce laws that have always been about balance and DIFFERNETIAL enforcement will wreak havoc, followed by totalitarian control. Just wait until the powers that be start telling you that you can't have access to certain job listings because you don't have qualifications, or you can't contact a certain person because you don't have the correct digital key signatures, or that the thought police didn't like the conversation they overheard in your bedroom
-- I'm stating a company to make telescreens. looking for funding now.
to be accurate, thoe WHOLE concept of property is a legal fiction... it's just a more obvious fiction for IP.
in most cases, that fiction has served mankind well. it allowes control of resources, locking up the food and common shelter, getting everyone to WORK for a living to make shit people don't really need (or even want, without unsolicited marketing)... yada yada yada
basically the legal fiction of "property" has enabled human culture for about the last 8000 years.
good? bad? -- all the answers change when you change your context.
Holy crap! FOOD GROWS ON TREES! why are we all working again?