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EMI and Sony Lose Lawsuit Over Crippled Music Disks
neves writes "A brazilian consumer has sued EMI and Sony, and won! The reason was a copy protection technology in the best seller album "Tribalistas" that didn't play in his car. You can read about it in Folha de São Paulo (babelfish translation here), brazilian biggest newspaper. They must be very afraid, since EMI vice-president defended the company himself in a lawsuit involving less than US$ 350,00. A more detailed report is in my music site Agenda do Samba & Choro (babelfish here), where we release some of the lawsuit files to make it easier for others to sue them. Since last year, we are calling for a boycott (babelfish) of copy protected albums. The companies appealed, and said that they will take the case to the Supreme Court, because it is a 'question of principles'. The consumer is sueing them again, because all new EMI albums in Brazil are being released with copy protection and won't work in his car."
how the the indutry's seep pockets didn't help them in court ( at least in Brazil).
so if I hook wheels to my G4, I can sue too?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Well, as you US guys don't matter for us brazilians, we too don't matter about you guys, so...
If you find that this process is little thing, the recorders you do not agree.
I'd like to read the articles, but...
--RJ
Yeah, but if selling these defective CDs becomes illegal in Brazil, USians could always import all their music from there if they want to be guaranteed error-free CDs.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
August or September is marked for the third album of Otto, already baptized "Without Gravity"
Well if you put Holy Water on your CDs what do you think's gonna happen when you try and play them!?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
This shows one of the main limitations of the laissez-faire capitalism that USia endorses over the more rational policies implemented in the rest of the world. When corporations are as unfettered as they are in USia, getting them to agree on things like CD-ROM standards is a herculean task - each corporation is assured that it has the One True path.
In Brazil OTOH they're more used to being told what to do by more socialist governments, and the idea of a standard is more easily applicable to the way they work within regulations anyway.
Thank God someone had the initiative to actually do something about this! My only contribution has been to vote with my wallet, not purchasing any music that comes in a crippled format and encourage others to do the same. As much as I hate the "just sue them" philosophy, it seems to have worked in this case. Perhaps the time has come for us to vote with our lawyers rather than our wallets.
..President George Bush has recently announced that the CIA and FBI have received "reliable information" from Microsoft and the RIAA indicating that Saddam Hussein has relocated to Brazil, hotbed of godless Communism and Linux supporters, where he is currently setting up WMD factories with funding from Osama Bin Laden, who is expected to be arriving there shortly to personally oversee the distribution.
The President has announced that he is specifically not taking the nuclear option off the table, though he declined to comment further on what exactly he meant by this.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
EMI has just lost a trial about copy-protected CD's in France too (and the consumer association behind it is now suing Sony and BMG).
you can read the complete article at : http://linuxfr.org/2003/06/26/13036.html/ (in french)
I hope it does go to the supreme court so we can get rid of these CDs that infringe on my rights.
I would be interested in knowing as to what the logical reasoning and the legal framework of the case was.
Was the winning based on something substantial, or could it be just overcome by the CD producer putting up a disclaimer sticker on the CD saying the "this might not work on certain devices." Basically the intention is to understand the depth of the victory.
Could somebody help with some links or any more info??
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Copy protection is like the war on drugs. It doesn't work. It's been tried for at least 20 years and the problem has only gotten worse. Remeber code wheels? And then the classic "page 36, paragraph 3, line 7, word 2". It only serves to make life more difficult for the legitimate user.
The real solution to stop piracy is to drop the prices on software, music, and movies to a reasonable amount. A friend of mine was offered a free copy of Windows XP and turned it down because he got such a large student discount (I think $20) that it didn't matter to him. Before anyone points out loss of profit from discounted prices, if more people acutally BUY these things at a discount instead of grabbing them off Kazza, these companies would make the same money that they do today.
----
Squirrel
The way I look at this
US$ 350.00 - A little bit of money, but waste of time
US$ 350,000 - A lot of money, well worth the lawsuit
US$ 35,000 - A fair bit, still worth the lawsuit
BUT WHAT THE HELL IS US$ 350,00
-isolenz
Maybe this is a joke, but... ... be considered, in all actuality, as a violation of the DMCA? you are informing people of a way to violate copyright protection schemes.
Wouldn't your posting this information on slashdot:
"buy your CD's from Brazil in order to get media that isn't crippled"
Just a thought.
FREENET=FREESPEECH
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
The companies appealed, and said that they will take the case to the Supreme Court, because it is a 'question of principles'.
It is difficult for me to read this sentence and not be a little angry at its blatant hypocrisy. "Principles" indeed:
The vice-president of EMI, Bannitz Luiz, affirms that she is inevitable will happen problems in situations of implantation of new technologies. "the consumer complains, we changes the product. But it is lamentable that certain people use this as extortion form "
Right, because not being able to listen to a CD in my car is an "inevitable problem." And suing them because I can't do this is "extortion." Exactly what principles do these companies subscribe to? (Don't answer.)
The only principle involved here is an affirmation of one's rights as a consumer.
The coolest voice ever.
I haven't read the story, but this bloke is on the right track. When we buy music CD's, we are in fact purchasing a license to listen to the audio content, along with a fee for the media the licensed content is supplied on. What we end up owning is the media, and a perpetual license to listen to the content. If the media becomes damaged, our license to listen to the content is still valid. Therefore, we should be able to duplicate the content ro protect our investment in the license fee we have paid to listen to it. In summary, we are paying to listen to the music, not the media it is supplied on. By not allowing us to protect our investment, we are in fact being ripped-off. I for one, wish that more people would realise this. If they did, then perhaps more people would start to take a stance to protect their rights, when they realise that we are in fact being ripped off. The real pirates are the companies who are forcing us to purchase multiple licenses to listen to music, for which we have already paid. We need to make the courts, and policitians aware of this double-dipping that is being snuck in under the guise of "protection from pirates" In my view "Media Pirates", are people who duplicate and sell for profit, not individuals who are simply trying to listen to something they have paid a license for.
Consumers are copying music ... No es nada
Music company puts in anti-piracy system ... Who cares
You can't play music in you car while trying to seduce the seniorita ... LAWSUIT! Revolución!
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
I said it before, and I'll say it again - there's nothing wrong with copy-protected CDs - as long as they're clearly labeled as such. Label them and let the consumers decide, I say. Cases like this should really fall under false-advertising precedents.
c-hack.com |
Babelfish translation too much in story is.
Reading article i not can.
Like Yoda speaking am.
Help.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
No.
Sec 103 of the DMCA amends Title 17 of the U.S. Code to prohibit circumvention of a technological measure that effective controls access to a work.
It then goes on to define the relevant terms thusly:
"(A) to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure 'effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work."
A copy-protected 'CD' is a contradiction in terms.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I went along to a show last week, where the artist was performing songs off his latest, copy-protected CD. After the show, there was a stall selling his CDs at the back, so went back to check it out.
Sure enough, out he came to sign copies of his CD for those who were going to buy a copy. I worked my way to the front with a copy of his CD in hand, and handed it over. I pointed out the copy protection notice, then said "although I really liked your show and your new stuff, I'm not going to buy a copy of your CD since I can't play it on my PC or in my car".
He looked a bit shocked, and asked what I was talking about. I said that the copy protection would prevent me from playing the CD on my PC or in my car, and that since that was where I listen to music 99% of the time, his CD wouldn't be much use to me. I handed him one of my business cards and told him to call me if he wanted to talk about it further - there was a bunch of people behind me waiting for their CDs to be signed...
I got the impression that he either didn't know his CD was released copy protected, that he wasn't sure what copy protection actually meant for a CD, or that he was surprised that someone like me (a 40 year old, normal looking guy, not an obviously raving half-wit) would confront him with something like this after his show.
I also got the impression that he was going to look into it further - he's a 40ish guy also, with a fairly niche appeal and presumably wife/kids/mortgage etc. like the rest of us. He probably didn't like hearing a fan tell him people couldn't play his music in the car or at their PC.
I'll check out his CD in the stores again in another month or so to see if it's had the copy protection removed.
It seems to be the developing countries that "get it" and make legislative and legal decisions which are in the interests of the public at large, as opposed to multinational cartels. What we really need is for many such countries to pull together and speak with one voice when it comes to international trade. Our system will only be fixed when you get a lot of people really pissed off. If the RIAA runs around suing college kids for astronomical sums of money, and enough people get stuck with CDs that won't play, then it will raise the visibility level enough to get this on the front burner.
I am strongly in favour of globalization, but it must be done with the interests of the public, instead of large vested interests. That means doing away with crap such as region coded DVDs and damaging tariffs. I should be able to travel whatever products I choose from anywhere I want, excepting only really offensive stuff like narcotics and weaponry.
My rights don't need management.
I used to run a register and I *HATE* people like you. Like the cashier has a damn thing to do with it. You put them thru more work for something they have no control over. Think, brother, think. Is he or she going to say anything to the boss? I doubt it, they are just there trying to make a buck on minimum wage and couldn't care less. By the end of the day, what you did will just blend in with the rest of the fools. Maybe you should find a better way of protesting.
If you seriously believe that the Democrats wouldn't do the same, you need to wake up and smell the fucking coffee.
Stop the partisanship and recognize that both parties have serious issues.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
What most people don't realize is the different reality that Brazil represents. Down here you better take care and protect your own business and interests, there's a lack of the sense of community, people and government are not part of each other and even the people side is formed of independent slices who live very different lifes almost like in parallel universes. Wages have no relation what so ever to taxes or the general cost of living, gasoline for instance is something that Brazil produces 80%+ of it's internal demand, yet it the government charges it's own people about DOUBLE the price you would pay in the US. Add to that the fact that the minimum wage is the amount which the majority of Brazilians have to live off is equivalent to about 1/10th of the American $5 / hour. Regarding the music industry, in Brazil over 70% of all CDs sold are PIRATED COPIES mostly found at street vendors or even at some very well known shopping malls. The situation is so out of control that is becoming somewhat difficult to find a music retailer like was so common in the 80's - early 90's. You can buy ANY CD down here for R$5.00 or about $1.75 US Dollars, that includes Brazilian and international music discs and any software or movie you can think of. That's all available in every street corner of all the major cities. Imagine that, it beats all the golden arches and 7 elevens put together. Now if you take that into consideration you might start to appreciate why artist and music labels down here are even considering that route. I DON'T think copy protection is the answer and I am not preaching for it, I just want to make sure some of you out there hear the other side of the story and become aware of that fact that we are talking about a country were every citizen and company are left to fend for themselves. Brazilian laws should not affect American justice and if it ever does you will all be in deeeeeeeeep 5H1T Sorry for the rant and the bad grammar.
Corporations inside the united states are also supposed to serve the public interest. that USED to be important. One of the reasons we had a revolution was because the english corporations were gouging the people here, so we revolted. check the history of the english east indies company and the boston tea party. Corporations are supposed to be GRANTED a license to incorporate, it's not an automatic "right" they have to a collective of people to form an artificial person with any "rights". INDIVIDUALS, human beings have born-with rights, organizations of people organized for the purpose of conducting some business have duties and responsibilities and it's a granted license after application, and do NOT have born with rights because their corporation is a fiction, it's an artificial person, and a long time ago a few judges got bribed by them for them to say their corporation was "alive" and had "personhood".
The deal is, it's too easy and hardly ever have corporations been dissolved, which is also the right of the government (meaning we the people) to do. IF we did that easier and according to law,when these artificial person corporations cease being of the public benefit because of excessive profiteering, we wouldn't be seeing all these abuses and gougings. We regulate commerce in this nation, so YES, we could easily decide if a company was violating the terms of the corporate charter by "making too much profit", ie, "gouging" the people and by so gouging would be in violation of being of benefit to society, and that definetly falls under morals and ethics. that's reason we have so many problems now, attitudes such as you espouse, where "profit" is the ONLY factor in an incorporation. It is ONE factor, but that's the one seized on, but it's not supposed to be the only factor.
For an obvious example, Microsoft needs their corporate charter dissolved, IMO, blatant long running gouging and selling broken software and committing felonius acts. These large music and movie companies, again, chronic serial price gouging and actually engaging in fraud and deceit and bribery (payola). They should have been dissolved a long time ago and the boards of directors chucked in the pokye and disallowed from being in any other corporations, ever. And corporations donating money to political campaio\gns? That's pure bribery, anyone can see that, illegal as all get out. Buying votes, it should be illegal as hell and the ones who engage in it strung up as traitors, both the recipients and the givers. I'm completely serious,struing up, hung, treason charges, this "bribery as legal" is insane, it's nuts, it makes a mockery of the vote, and now we have a professiobnal class of politicians who's sole job is to garnner as much bribe money as possible, then to use slick PR advertising and controlling the government as a shared junta to make sure they stay in their positions to be bribed. We need to lose that stuff, like yesterday, and rein in these out of control INTERNATIONAL -not "US" but international- corporations who gouge the US citizen. Do that to a few hundred or so of the most abusive corporations and corporate/government crooks posing as "leaders", and the honest ones could make the money then, still be profitable, and consumers wouldn't be taken all the time, and the nation as a whole would be better off.
The other way, the way it's run now, is some weird form of international corporate anarchy based on bribes and blackmail mostly, it doesn't exist inside our constitutional framework, much as some people think it says that. The US is not organized anarchy, it's a union of organized individuals and states, based around that union, organized for some modicum of common good and benefit, defense, and trade. But the trade is supposed to not only be profitable for the companies and indidividuals inside those companies, but ALSO good for the nation,it's SUPPOSED to be an equal deal there, ie, they are SUPPOSED to look out for the nation, not just their international "bottom line". That's not to say they can't make m
Unless a guarantee was made that these CDs would work in his car CD player (which there may have been, I don't know), this guy really has no room to complain. Companies don't have an obligation to make products that suit you
perfectly, you know
I disagree.
Consumers buying a disk that looks like a CD, smells like a CD and might reasonably be expected to perform like a CD, have the right to also expect that that disk will play in any machine that carries the official Compact Disc logo -- that's what standards are all about.
The fact that the music industry has deviated from the standard, yet hardly go out of their way to explain that customers are no longer buying a Compact Disc, is deceptive business practice -- something most countries' consumer laws consider to be an illegal act.
If it's good enough for a pack of cigarettes to carry a large, obvious warning, why can't music disks be tagged in the same way by law. The current fine print that says "Enhanced Audio Disk" or whatever just doesn't cut it.
"Brazilian" is a language mutually intelligible with "Portuguese".
To many linguists such as Dr. John McWhorter (author of The Power of Babel, ISBN: 0716744732), "a language" and "a dialect" are synonymous. Defining "language" as a set of mutually intelligible dialects fails because mutual intelligibility happens on a gradient. It's possible for A and B to be mutually intelligible, and so B and C, and so C and D, but not A and D. Chickasaw and Choctaw "languages" are mutually intelligible but called separate "languages" because they were spoken by nations with separate armies when they were first recognized by linguists of European descent. The reason English is a "language" and Ebonics is called a "dialect" is that Ebonics doesn't have a department of defense behind it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No, but id Software might sue you for trademark infringement.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Several replies to this article have mentioned the US's laissez faire capitalist system. It isn't. Capitalist, yes; laissez faire, no.
If the US system were laissez faire, then the government would keep its bought-and-paid-for hands off the economic system. We would have a Free Market system, which is at its core a laissez faire system. It means keep your hands off and let the marketplace decide what products and companies survive, and for how long. Capitalism is not synonymous with a free market, nor is a free market needed in a capitalist system. Actually, they are incompatible.
Folks, the Republicans don't want a free market or anything resembling 'laissez faire' approaches to capitalism. They want what the Democrats want, a system that favors their big-money supporters. The only difference is who those supporters are.
Please, when you bandy terms about, at least have some idea of how to use them in context, and how the real world works.
Have a nice war,
Mal the Elder
I said it before, and I'll say it again - there's nothing wrong with copy-protected CDs - as long as they're clearly labeled as such.
Though I see your point, I have several problems with your conclusion.
Through copyright, record companies have government-granted monopolies. The reason for this is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." If I cannot play the music, it is not useful. Record companies should have to choose between copyrighting music or releasing it in a copy-protected form. They should not be able to do both.
It's not like truthful labelling of a dishwasher. If the energy usage of a dishwasher you were considering was too high, you could just buy a different one. But music is personal. It stirs the soul. If the song that was playing when you and your wife met is only on a copy-protected CD, what do you do? Pretend you were listening to a different song? If you want the latest Goo Goo Dolls CD and find that it's copy-protected by Warner Brothers, you cannot buy a version that is not from some other label. Truth in advertising is only truly useful when the consumer has a reasonable alternative.
What if I buy a CD and the music falls into the public domain because the copyright expires (It's a theory because, by the time I die, copyright will probably be the life of the creator plus two millenia)? Does the copy protection magically disappear?
Discrimination. The record companies are actively preventing certain consumers from playing the CDs. What they are saying is "we think people with PCs computers steal music, so we will keep this from playing on PCs." It is analogous to deciding that blacks are more likely to shoplift CDs and then engineering the CDs so that they didn't play in a boom box or car stereo (because of the popularity of those devices within the black community).
Fair use. Why should a record company be able to employ a technology specifically to prevent fair use? What right do they have to prevent you, as a consumer, from compressing the music to MP3s, copying it to DAT, or making a copy on your hard drive?
Backup. A CD, like any media, is not impervious to damage. For that reason, people might wish to create backups. I play backups of irreplaceable CDs from my collection. If I cannot back up a CD and it is damaged, how do I replace it? If a sizeable percentage of the price I paid for the CDs paid for a license for me to listen to the music, why should the record company be able to charge me that same license fee again if the CD I originally bought becomes damaged?
I don't believe that this should be a simple truth-in-advertising case. Because of all of the above, it's far more complex than that.