Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Recording Industry Hopes To Hinder CD Burning

Posted by timothy on from the technical-details-not dept.

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "News.com reports that the recording industry is currently testing technology that would limit the number of times that a given CD (or copies of that CD) could be burned. The idea is to let consumers 'make a limited number of copies of their music -- enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example -- without allowing for uncontrolled duplication.' Currently, Macrovision and SunnComm International are developing competing versions of such 'secure burning' technology, with BMG Music Group already testing the latter company's software."

75 of 869 comments (clear)

  1. They just don't get it.... by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the article:

    The release gained some prominence after a Princeton student demonstrated that the protections could be easily evaded simply by pushing a computer's Shift key while loading the CD.

    The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."

    I think the RIAA has to make their case to their customers in a manner that is compelling and, yes, actually encourages voluntary compliance. You should be able to make copies of a CD that you bought. It is not right, however, to make 25 copies for friends. However, slippery a slope as it is, I think it is probably okay to make a copy for a friend or two. But, it's a slippery slope and many would take issue with me.

    The solution is sociological, not hardware/software.

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:They just don't get it.... by KoriaDesevis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."

      There may be workarounds, but there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds. It is a matter of convenience.

      Now, where it gets interesting is whether the duplicates will also have copy limits. If you dupe an original and the copy scheme does not transfer to the duplicate, then what has the scheme accomplished. Nothing.

      As for me, I like to dupe my CDs mainly so I can use them in the car without jeopardizing the originals. A copy limit would not hinder me in that regard.

      --
      A love beyond compare...
    2. Re:They just don't get it.... by The_Mystic_For_Real · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even with the best sociological solution there will be some who will do as they please without any regard. With any hardware solution, there will be many who will circumvent it. The goal is to eliminate the largest percentage of the population possible. Hardware/software solutions do this better than anything. What should the RIAA care if a small group at MIT can circumvent any copy protection? If they distribute it on a large scale, the RIAA can track them down with a group of lawyers. If they distribute it on a small scale, then the RIAA loses 100 sales, a drop in the ocean. Hardware/software solutions keep their property safe in the hands of the masses, at least until the general public becomes more tech savy.

      --

      _____

      Thank you.

    3. Re:They just don't get it.... by swordboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection.

      It already has.

      Right now, it is easy to pirate a CD because there were no anti-piracy measures implemented when the format was developed. The installed base has become too large to ignore so CDs are still distributed today. But then Apple came through with iTunes and all-of-a-sudden, we've got a new format that is gaining ground while the old stand-by is losing ground. When the old format has lost enough ground, the industry will drop it as a supported format and we'll be stuck with the new.

      Everyone on /. can see this coming but the general public could give a rat's ass, for the most part. They can still play their unprotected MP3s with their iPod so they could care less. However, they when they won't be able to create unprotected MP3s from unprotected CDs, they will finally see what's going on. But it will be too late. Of course, it will still be possible to make unprotected recordings using the "analog hole" that we all know and love.

      Other than my DVD player and my PC, I no longer own any native CD player device. It isn't necessary anymore. This is what the industry has been waiting for.

      --

      Life is the leading cause of death in America.
    4. Re:They just don't get it.... by ichimunki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds.

      Except that with computers the workaround can either be automated to be as easily used as the existing tools (look at how easy it is for a tech-inept fool like me to watch a DVD on GNU/Linux) or one person "cracks" the software/data stream/whatever and passes an unrestricted copy along (look at how easy it was for a peek/poke wannabe like myself to play games on my Commodore 64 back in the 80s).

      If it only takes one smart guy to destroy the restrictions, then those restrictions may as well not exist. We are looking at an industry where insiders are doing things like leaking Metallica albums and movies pre-release. Those copies don't have any restrictions built into the data or the software.

      But I have to agree, I bet most of us would barely notice a copy restriction that explicitly allowed the making of first generation copies (presumably as many first generation copies as wanted-- one to CD for the car, cabin, whatever, one to the mp3 server, one to the iPod or other portable, one for a friend here and there, etc). This is how it works for MiniDisc, I believe, and it's what I would expect here.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    5. Re:They just don't get it.... by jared_hanson · · Score: 5, Funny

      There may be workarounds, but there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds. It is a matter of convenience.

      yep, goddamn that stupid fscking shift key. that's why i never use capital letters, too inconvenient.

      --
      -- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
    6. Re:They just don't get it.... by Ateryx · · Score: 5, Insightful
      There may be workarounds, but there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds.

      This is the point that really needs to be driven home to the RIAA. I hate having to go through and make sure all tracks are in right spot through www.cdnow.com or some other online store if they aren't explicitly tagged on the files (which is usually the case). If the music industry would realize if they really dropped the price of cds down to a reasonable level, say under $10 after tax, their sales would sky rocket. As someone had mentioned in a previous article the golden sell for Americans is the $5-$10 range. This is where most fast food and other meals are priced and many of us rationalize spending around that amount because a cd seems much more of a better investment (can be used over and over) than a simple meal. Additionally we can easily avoid spending $5-$10 elsewhere by skipping some other impluse buy and therefore are still even for the week in our budget.

      --
      "The truth suffers from too much analysis"
    7. Re:They just don't get it.... by arkanes · · Score: 5, Insightful
      It's an interesting (but apparently little known) fact that the purpose of copyright law is not to generate money for copyright holders. Shocking but true! Therefore, there are a number of restrictions on the rights granted to copyright holders. For example, playing a CD where more than one person can hear it isn't automatically public performance. Likewise, limited copying and sharing with friends isn't copyright infringment! Gasp! It's when the copying becomes large scale (7 million anonymous friends on the internet...) or commercial that it becomes infringment.

      It's interesting that you make the point of scanning and reprinting. How many people do you know will photocopy an interesting magazine article or newspaper clipping to give to a friend? I certainly have seen it plent of times.

      This is the important point: The rights of the copyright holder are LESS IMPORTANT than the goal of getting the information to the public. It's a balance. The copyright holder does not need to be paid for every single copy that takes place, no matter how much record labels whine. It's about reasonable compensation as an incentive to release works to the public, NOT about guaranteeing a revenue stream.

    8. Re:They just don't get it.... by Mattcelt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's an exceptionally ridiculous analogy, even by slashdot standards. How can you compare a profit margin for a non-living entity to the psychological, physical, and spiritual health of an innocent?

      CD burning technology has been widespread for years now, as has file sharing. And it is a fact that CD sales continued to climb, despite illegal price fixing on the part of the record labels, until the demise of Napster. Let's face it, most people aren't making enough copies to warrant this sort of action by the labels.

      Do you realize that for all the moaning and complaining the labels do, they are still making profits that would make any small business jealous? Never ever forget, that this stopped being about money a long time ago. Money is a secondary issue now. What these companies are really after now is control.

      The most interesting bit is that in the grand scheme of things, speaking from an economic theory standpoint, it doesn't matter if consumers share music with 1 or 10 or 100 people. Most consumers will share less than 2% of their CDs with less than 5 people, and a portion of that sharing will generate new sales. So it all becomes a wash in the end.

      The time, money, and energy the labels are spending trying to shut down music sharing is a utter waste, and won't even pay for itself in the end.

    9. Re:They just don't get it.... by TejWC · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you really want to get cheap prices, why don't you "outsource" your music to India. I heard bollywood music is getting pretty good ;-).

    10. Re:They just don't get it.... by The+Conductor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      whether the duplicates will also have copy limits.

      Well, back in the 80's the TRS-80's TRSDOS operating system supported a scheme like this. Your floppy could be "backup limited" and the system would permit only, say, 3 or 5 copies, after which the OS's disk duplication software would flag an error. In that case the OS would not copy a back-up copy.

      How much this copyright protection helped Tandy realize its destiny as a world-class computer maker is left as an exercise for the reader.

    11. Re:They just don't get it.... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "I think the RIAA has to make their case to their customers in a manner that is compelling and, yes, actually encourages voluntary compliance. "

      I don't think they even need to do that. Lemme quote something else you said here:

      " It is not right, however, to make 25 copies for friends."

      Despite how fast CD burners are, they're still not fast enough to make 25 copies without wanting to tell your friends go buy it you cheapskate. CDs are cheap enough that this really isn't worthwhile. It's one thing to make that occasional copy for a friend, but 25? Ugh. I couldn't even stand burning 25 discs to backup my precious porn.

      "The solution is sociological, not hardware/software."

      I respectfully disagree. The solution is economical. A good deal of what the industry calls piracy is really an expression of demand. People want individual songs, people want lower prices, and they want an easy way to try out new tunes. If they want people to be 'legit', then a.) they need to market iTunes, Rhapsody, etc a good deal more and b.) If those aren't enough, then look into what else people want, maybe CD kiosks where you can make a custom CD.

      People are not, by nature, dishonest. People are happy to pay for something as long as they enjoy what they're getting. If they stop treating them like thieves and start treating them like a new market to cater to, they'll enjoy higher profits and fewer dishonest trades.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    12. Re:They just don't get it.... by overunderunderdone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's an interesting (but apparently little known) fact that the purpose of copyright law is not to generate money for copyright holders.

      Well really it is. The purpose of copyright law is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" but the WAY that this progress is promoted is by.. (wait for it)... generating money for copyright holders(!)

      You are right though that making money for the copyright holder is the MEANS to the end and not the end itself. Copyright law needs to be extensively reformed. The current time limit (70 years after the death of the artist) is FAR too long, so long that it is becoming a BARRIER to the "progress of useful arts"

      The copyright holder does not need to be paid for every single copy that takes place,

      No, they DO. I make my living as a "copyright holder" - I am an illustrator and a designer. I sell copyrights on my work to my clients, I have often had people "steal" my work, using it commercially without compensating me... my clients competitor is getting my work for free. Art for it's own sake may be a labor of love (product illustrations on the other hand never are) but I still need to eat (thus the product illustrations). When my clients competitors just use my work without compensating me, I'm sorry but that IS and SHOULD BE a crime.

      There is a certain amount of hypocrisy here. If Microsoft just lifted GNU code wholesale and turned around and sold it without honoring the terms of the license there would be outrage. But why? doesn't information want to be free? Why can't they just do what they want with it freely (making their own alterations and selling the binary result for a profit)? Free software is only possible with Intellectual property law backing it up. You can give it away under CONDITIONS because you OWN it (at least for a time).

  2. Cool, corporations control our freedoms now. by garcia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Record labels in the United States have been sensitive to these consumer concerns, worrying particularly about earlier versions of copy-protection technology that had difficulty playing in nontraditional CD players such as game consoles or car stereos. They've released many protected CDs overseas, but only a small number in the United States and United Kingdom, where perceived opposition has been the highest.

    Oh please, they are unconcerned with how we feel. They are only concerned with how much money they will make. I don't see how not releasing a copy-protected CD because people will balk is being concerned w/our feelings.

    I wasn't aware that free-use included allowing a limit to be placed on something you have purchased. Making a few copies for home use sounds good but it's all bullshit. They are trying to limit one of the few "freedoms" we still have.

    "I think the labels have been relaxing a little in terms of usage rules," said Liz Brooks, vice president of business development at Buy.com's music division.

    I realize that this quote comes from a VP at Buy.com but I wasn't aware that the labels got to decide what rules we had to follow regarding fair use. Wow.

    Just remember all this when you are supporting the cartels. Your money goes to developing methods and laws to limit your freedoms and to supporting suits against your fellow man.

    1. Re:Cool, corporations control our freedoms now. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh please, they are unconcerned with how we feel. They are only concerned with how much money they will make

      Correct. Just like any other corporation, they are concerned with the Profit and Loss statement as priority #1. If they aren't, they need to be fired. The reason why they don't care how anyone feels is because those same people that hate them continue to purchase the product; so obviously public opinion doesn't make a gnat's ass of a difference. (in their minds)

      Right about now, everyone hates the oil companies, but do you think they are going to trip over themselves to lower gas prices so everyone will like them again?

      These simple realities are lost on Slashdot.

      By the way, it's "fair use" not "free use." The copyright holder still owns the work, not the public. There is a subtle difference, but an important one.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  3. This would be very easy to defeat by CreamOfWheat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This technology sounds like it will be easy to defeat. You might just have to rip your CDs to Wav and burn a CD from the Wav files instead of a direct copy. They're rather limited in what they can do and have compatiability with CD players. This would work for most cd's

    1. Re:This would be very easy to defeat by julesh · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have. They write all sorts of shit calling it the "analog hole" and talking about what they'd like to do to plug it. But of course it doesn't happen because everyone would have to dump all of their current kit, right down to the loudspeakers, and everything would have to be redesigned from ground up with encrypted digital links. It'd cost them millions to set up, and they would lose customers in the process.

      And then some bright spark would crack the encryption and they'd be back to square 1.

  4. Further erosion of the value propostion won't help by SYFer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally, I don't think further hobbling of the traditional product will improve their sales. The recording industry needs to wake up and make fundamental changes to their model that:

    1. Embraces and promotes the downloading channel (a la iTunes, et al).

    2. Finds more ways to diversify and vary the traditional physical product (CDs). Packaging, boxed sets, picture disks, collectables, etc. The music itself has to be just one component of a well-integrated marketing. Every 10th CD will include a certificate for a second free CD!

    3. Uses their distribution and marketing clout to create and promote stars--revenues then come from a variety of marketing and event activities (the Grateful Dead made most of their money from touring and even allowed "bootlegging'). The product has to evolve from being bits to being the magic of the music experience (or whatever).

    The cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. For better or worse, the ripping and online swapping thing will simply never be defeated. Its kind of like the "bazaar" model of development that ESR speaks of and no matter what the industry does, the "community" will find a way to crack it.

    They can either die a slow painful death or evolve. In the new age, the viable product is the "rock star" (or interesting composer or beautiful diva), not the bits they spew. It'll take some work.

    --
    "...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
  5. Analog Hole, but nice try by Gothmolly · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I can hear it, I can rip it.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:Analog Hole, but nice try by ThomaMelas · · Score: 5, Funny

      They have plans to defeat that now. The goal is to produce music that the masses will listen to, but that makes geeks and audiophiles sick. Those with the skills to use the Analog hole will become violently ill when listening to RIAA produced music. ;)

    2. Re:Analog Hole, but nice try by binaryspiral · · Score: 3, Funny

      >The goal is to produce music that the masses
      >will listen to, but that makes geeks and
      >audiophiles sick.

      Too late, they've already done it. This would explain why music sales dropped through the floor when all the good bands stopped getting radio time, replaced with this garbage we have now.

  6. I have a better idea... by TheShadow · · Score: 5, Funny

    To limit copies of CDs made, the recording industry should just keep producing the same old crap that nobody wants anyway.

    --

    --
    "What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
  7. Survey Says... by calebb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Survey says... people don't like DRM.

    2002 Lawsuit againts SunnComm

    Good discussion on DRM
    The problem with trying to protect information with technology is that it has been shown repeatedly not to work. It only takes one person to crack the protection, and a million people can get a digital copy of the cracked work in days. During DEFCON, a digital security conference held in America last year, a Russian programmer called Dmitry Sklyarov illustrated this by showing how easy it was to circumvent the protection on Adobe's "E-Books". For this service to the public and to Adobe he was arrested and tried by the FBI, under the provision of the DMCA, the American version of the EUCD already part of US law since 1998.

    Obviously, the same problem exists with the technology Macrovision & SunnComm are currently proposing. It just takes one person to create a DRM-less digital copy & post it on the latest P2P network...

  8. I guess it's time... by Microsift · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To repeal the tax on media. If the record companies develop a scheme to limit cd burning, it makes sense that people who buy blank media shouldd not pay a tax that reimburses record companies for people making copies of music. Since the labels can control how many copies of a CD are made, they can factor this into the price of a CD.

    --
    My other sig is extremely clever...
  9. Don't mind if... by Lysander+Luddite · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What I would prefer to see is my current ability to make unlimited dups of my *original* CD. I don't mind creating "mules" that is copies that then can't be copied, but if I bought it, I shoudl be able to make as many copies as I want/need for personal use and not have them tied to a physical machine.

  10. Bizarro-World by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    We am RIAA. We am hyping new protection scheme which also don't work, just like old protection scheme. We am again forgetting protection system depends on software to co-operate. Since software not co-operate last time, we am trying again.

  11. Uh-huh by RickHunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right, I'm sure this will work wonderfully. What do they plan to do, replace my CD-burning program? And how, exactly, are they going to do that? Is this just going to be another "corrupt strategic sectors of the CD" strategy? I thought they learned last time they tried that and discovered that a lot of CD players wouldn't read the CD at all. And never mind the fact that one could just rip to WAV files and then burn from there...

    In short, it sounds to me like more snake oil salesmen peddling their wares to a desperate industry with a failed business model. I can't see any way to do this that's compatible with existing hardware and doesn't require control of the software. Which they most definitely don't have, no matter how much Microsoft wishes they did. To say nothing of the fact that anything implementing this "technology" would, by necessity, violate the Red Book CD Audio standard and run afoul of the same labelling laws as existing "methods".

  12. What is the threat they are trying to defend by color+of+static · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's face it, any self respecting pirate will make a binary copy (bit for bit) of any digital media. Once you have the bits, no technology will limit the numbers of copies you make. They are targetting the little guy who makes a few copies, etiher under fair use or slightly beyond. Someone who just casually wants to make a copy, but isn't going to try really hard before shelling out for another CD.

    This isn't about limitting piracy, but boosting sales. May seem the same thing, but in this case I don't think it is.

  13. They never learn by CaptainZapp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A brief analysis' of the industries feeble efforts to regain control and protect their turf (basically the distribution channells)

    You guys sold corrupted and crippled disks to your customers.
    Did it work? No

    You tried this super duper water marking scheme.
    Did it work? No, in fact Prof. Felten and his team broke it within a week

    You're attacking your customers, insult them and threaten legal action..
    Did it work? No, in fact you're pissing your customers off

    You tried yet different approaches to "copy protect" the medium.
    Did it work? No, in fact you piss people off, since the can't play their legally purchased product on their legally purchased car cd player

    Is there no more new material available since you tried to force all those smart schemes on your customers?
    Hell! of course! within minutes after availability on "cd"

    So here's a free hint for you:

    Why don't you make a product available, which is of good quality, cheap, readily available and doesn't force us to give up our privacy and suck your ducks just so that we can listen to a song? You know, sort of like Apple did it (and which rumour says you're in the process of killing by higer prices and enforced bundling).

    Provide us with a convenient, realistically priced product, not being throttled by rediculous schemes (region coding anyone?). Stop insulting our intelligence and integrity and stop treating us like criminals and I'll promise:

    We buy!

    NB: Focusing on a good products might help sales too. There's only so much Britney and Back Street Boys you can listen to before throwing up.

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk

    1. Re:They never learn by hackstraw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why don't you make a product available, which is of good quality, cheap, readily available and doesn't force us to give up our privacy and suck your ducks just so that we can listen to a song? You know, sort of like Apple did it (and which rumour says you're in the process of killing by higer prices and enforced bundling).

      Provide us with a convenient, realistically priced product, not being throttled by rediculous schemes (region coding anyone?). Stop insulting our intelligence and integrity and stop treating us like criminals and I'll promise:

      We buy!

      I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I would love to be in the business where I had a monopoly on a product that everyone from 12 to 25 is willing to go out of their way to get, and my only problem was to figure out how to get people to pay for the product.

      It is quite clear that the market wants more music than they can afford to obtain legally from a store. I hate to break it to the RIAA, but we all know that recording a CD and distributing it costs practically nothing. How many CDs would you buy if they were $2 a piece? How many new artists would you try if they were $2 a piece? How many CDs would you pirate if they were $2 a piece?

      We are in a time where aquiring entertainment is relatively easy, and we have a decreasing attention span. Most Americans have at least 40 channels of TV to watch, upwards to 200 channels. We have the internet, where there is practically an infinite amount of entertainment that is instantly available. But I would guess that most Americans have less than 200 CDs. 200 CDs is only about 150 hours of entertainment, assuming that each CD is about 45 minutes in length, and that every track is worth listening to. I'm guestimating that people spend at least 5 to 7 hours a day on electronic entertainment in some form or another.

      So, keep doing what your doing RIAA.

  14. I really wish they did. by numbski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a poster below here that makes the comment that "if it ain't on the net, I ain't interested".

    Voluntary compliance is the key. Make it so that we want to comply, and stop fighting the consumer drive.

    It's been a while since I took Econ, but I will always remember the invisible hand theory. The market will ALWAYS force itself toward equilibrium.

    Laws, unions, anything that unnaturally hinders the market breaks equilibrium. Forcing high prices on cds. Suing your customers into submission.

    Why not let the market do what it does best, and go to that point of equilibrium where profit is maximized naturally? They're holding onto a cartel-type model and it's just not going to work.

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:I really wish they did. by chris_mahan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly.

      A good friend of mine is a music studio middle-manager and I bounced this idea off him:

      Imagine if you could go to a web site, select some tracks from various artists, click on: burn and send, and the whole CD was burned on high quality disc, and custom jacket with lyrics made, and the whole thing shipped to the customer's house, including shipping, for 3.99 (yes, the whole CD).

      He looked at me funny for a second and said: But we'd lose money!
      To which I replied: You're losing money now.

      Then it dawned on him that millions of people would love that, because for the price, it's cheaper to order it that way than to download off your favorite p2p, listen for quality, burn it, and go to kinko's to photocopy the artwork.

      I asked him what it would take for the studios to implement a system like that, and he replied, half jokingly: An Act of Congress.

      Supply and demand are where it's at. The market laws apply to all industries and all countries for all commodities. What makes music industry execs think they're immune to it?

      They should go jump off a tall bridge and see if they're immune to the laws of gravity.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    2. Re:I really wish they did. by mwood · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The labels should consider selling their product the way DEC used to sell software: licenses and copies on media are two separate products. Then I could:

      o buy a package deal (license+1medium) in the store and just use it;

      o buy a license and make my own copy legally, from someone else's copy or a download;

      o buy additional licenses and make more copies when I want 'em;

      o make licensed copies on any medium which suits me.

      All with the blessing of the copyright owners.

      Yes, I would buy licenses if they were sensibly priced.

    3. Re:I really wish they did. by misterpies · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>Why not let the market do what it does best, and go to that point of equilibrium where profit is maximized naturally?

      Perhaps because the record companies have a better grasp of economics than you: what the market does best is _minimise_ profit. Free markets benefit the consumer, not the producer. If someone is making a profit on something, then in a free market someone else can sell the same thing for less (but still making a profit), and gain market share. The result is that in a perfect market, prices will stabilise at a level at which nobody makes any profit.

      Of course companies know this and that's why they do everything they do to distort or escape the market. Fundamentally there's only three ways out: either gain a monopoly or join a cartel (microsoft, OPEC), get the government to bankroll you through subsidies (most western agriculture), or stay ahead of the game through innovation and/or strong branding (Apple, BMW).

      Once your business gets stuck in the commodity rut, then your margins are so low you can only hope to make money out of massive volumes. That's why you don't find any small companies manufacturing non-specialist consumer electronics (eg TVs,DVDs): margins are too low. The RIAA is scared shitless that if they lose control of the music business, music will head down the commodity path and prices will collapse. Since they're acting to protect the interests of their shareholders, you can't really blame them for doing everything they can to prevent this. You CAN blame your legislators for failing to stand up to them, though.

      --
      The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
    4. Re:I really wish they did. by dabadab · · Score: 3, Informative

      But - what license?
      You know, none of the stuff that you have listed needs any license since the right to do so is already granted by the current copyright laws (or at least in most countries - the UK may be an exception)
      The "content industry" is trying to brainwash us into thinking that we do not have any right to copy. But we have.

      --
      Real life is overrated.
    5. Re:I really wish they did. by chris_mahan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Profitable: Per CD sold, they are profitable. Of course. But they are selling less CDs.

      If you have 2 options: Net $10M doing A and net $8M doing B, and you chose option B, even though you are $8M richer than before, you still lost $2M.

      It's the difference between accounting and economic profit.

      Music is a tradeable good. Tradeable goods follow the laws of the market.

      Competitive pressure exists: I have 5 gigs of music. They are competing for my time. I want to listen to something new more than I want to listen to something I already have? I have 50+ hours of music already (plus a 5 foot high stack of CDs I haven't ripped yet). When I want to listen to something, I don't rush to the store to buy the latest and greatest. I launch winamp and scroll. If nothing catches my fancy, then I look in my CDs. If nothing there either, then I figure I'm depressed and I go get a book and sit down to read, or call a friend. I rarely if ever get the urge to go buy music at $16 bux a CD (or 9).

      This is their competition: existing, already sold music.

      Just like microsoft and office: people don't want to pay $399 to get new software since the old software is already bought (sunk cost) and does mostly the same.

      Music is the same.

      If people build their 2000 track music collection off p2p, then the music industry has a hard time enticing them to buy anything new at the store.

      For me, the price has to be $4 or less or I won't even consider buying.

      And it's not because I can't afford it, it's just that new music is not that valuable to me anymore, since I have so much music already.

      (I plan to spend 30 on LOTR's ROTK, like I did the other two, since there's nothing like it out there. I'll even buy the original star wars trilogy DVD)

      I haven't bought a music CD since Sting's "Desert Rose", and even then I was not extremely impressed.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    6. Re:I really wish they did. by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful
      1) You are incorrect about "The result is that in a perfect market, prices will stabilise at a level at which nobody makes any profit." You ignore the fact that even in a perfect market different producers have different costs. As such in a perfect market prices stabilise at a level where only the lowest cost producer, at each desirable quality level, makes any profit.

      2) This means you can also make money as the lowest cost producer at a desirable quality level instead of being a monoplist/unethical company.

      3) Your interpretatino of commoditty businesses is ass-backwards. You do NOT need mass quantites. Instead what happens is the company that is the lowest cost producer at a given quality level drives everyone out of business, because only they can profit at that price. So they quickly GROW to be huge. Later on they take advantage of some scaling advantages, but that is secondary, not primary. Only companies in small markets (i.e. specialist markets that you excluded.in your example) can not grow that big because their pond is so small. If you personally come up with a better, cheaper business model then Dell, then you could start up a lower cost producer that will within 5 years be bigger then Dell. That is after all what Dell did against the big boys that had all the "economies of scale" advantage.

      4) Music is ALREADY a commodity market. The RIAA wishes it isn't, but their wishes are meaningless. They have tried to use laws to block the free market from treating it that way but their efforst are doomed to failure. Songs are worth less than $1 / song, and the market will eventually force the RIAA to realize this.

      5) The RIAA is not a producer of consumer goods. They USED to be a producer of retail consumer goods (stored music), and as such they abused their serfs (musicians). They are now a producer of commercial services for their freed serfs(advertising, legal rights, etc. etc.) . They are scrambling to try to provide more and better services for their workers, but have a history of abusing them, so are having a tough time making the transistion. Worse their profits as a producer of retail consumer goods was huge and they are being babies about accepting the much lower profit margins they deserve as commerical services companies.

      --
      excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  15. Very Interesting by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, frankly, it can't be done... At least not within the CD. My only guess is that the CD has software that auto-loads, tells a server that the CD has been burned n times and that it now can no longer be burned. If I change my hosts file, EAC is not going to care what the CD is doing. In fact, all "copy protected" CDs I've been able to rip or make copies of for myself using EAC (including this very excellent one:Soulive's Turn It Out Remixed ). Once you rip the WAV files and copy that, the little auto-run software is gone.

    That's the problem(?) with DRM. You need to implement it in hardware AND software at the same time for it to be able to "work" (see: DVD Region Codes) and even then it's not really going to work (ibid).

    Now TO BE FAIR, this idea has its heart in the right place. I don't think anyone but the most extreme zealots would argue that a person should be able to make 10,000 copies of a CD by another artist. But where is that number? It's higher than "just a couple" but probably around "several".

    Or, this could be a way to make DRM seem friendly and logical, have everyone implement it, then change it so it's what we all know it's going to turn out to be: crippling and crippled.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  16. So... how does this work? by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Seriously, unless they lockdown ALL current burning software/hardware there is no way to apply this for current generation CD burning technology. This is why macrovision can be defeated simply by using an old VCR. Unless they force firmware/software upgrades to everyone (in which case most people will never do the upgrade given how well they already deal with patches), there is nothing that would truely work.

    I mean really, think about it. The only storage mechanism they have available is the local hard drive or the CD itself. Well, the CD itself would only work as a method IF the CD is actually in the burner. I sure don't use my burner READ the CD I am making a copy of, it goes into a DVD-ROM, hense no write laser. That leaves the hard drive, and unless they lockdown the CD to only be used on that 1 computer (which would actually mean it is no longer a CD), you could just:
    a) delete the storage file with the current data causing it to believe the CD was never copied before
    b) use a different computer
    c) wipe your hard drive
    d) use linux
    e) use BSD
    f) make an iso image of the CD and transfer that across the net...

    This does nothing at all to stop actuall pirates (as can be proven by letter "f" in the above options). How long do you think it will take our current firmware hackers to do a diff on the updates and remove any "protection" from a fireware, especially in this day when people already have dual layer DVD burner firmware for DVD burners which the companies are not releasing the firmware for 6 months in order to get people to buy their $200 dual layer burner instead of their $80 single layer burner which has the same hardware...

    --
    We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  17. Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h by RickHunter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can name four fundamental changes to their model which will stop most piracy overnight.

    1. Drop the price of a CD to $10 US or even close to $5 US.
    2. Give a greater percentage of the money to the artist, and take the costs for the things the label supposedly provides (marketing, production, distribution) out of the label's share instead of the artist's.
    3. Stop treating your customers like criminals. If you treat them like they're criminals, they're going to disregard the law. If you're tolerant of them making as many copies as they want to, of them ripping and sending favorite songs to friends, etc. they'll be more inclined to obey just laws. And you'll make more money.
    4. Destroy ClearChannel. Utterly. Simply refuse to deal with them. Replace them with small local stations that are in tune with their audience. This will allow people to discover music that they like.

    Of course, none of the above will ever happen. It stopped being about the money a long time ago. Now its about control - control over culture. Any of the above changes would reduce their control, and effectively eliminate their ability to dictate who becomes a "phenomenon" and who is relegated to back-shelf status.

  18. Re:Convenience factor negation... by calebb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >> There may be workarounds, but there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds. It is a matter of convenience.

    It only takes one person to create a DRM-less digital copy & post it on the latest P2P network... convenience factor negated.

  19. CD Copy Software Support? by randomErr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wouldn't your CD burning software have to support this 'limit copy feature' already? Doesn't most burning software first make an ISO or a BIN of the CD(with encryption) and then burn the EXACT copy of the original CD? So if I'm making an EXACT copy of a product, never changing a bit in the process, how is it going to know I'm making copies?

    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
  20. OK, you changed my mind. by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 3, Funny

    The concept of self-limiting propagation of Britney Spears music is highly alluring. I now support this copy protection scheme wholeheartedly.

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  21. stupid, out-of-touch motherfuckers... by sootman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The idea is to let consumers 'make a limited number of copies of their music -- enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example...'"

    I don't have a vacation home. I do, however, have a job.

    Reminds me of this quote from Jack Valenti: (Discussing the plausibility of anti-piracy advertisements featuring wealthy Hollywood figures) "I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs, the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that." (Entertainment Weekly, 18/04/2003) http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Jack_Valenti

    As for limited copying, it sounds more and more like we're buying licenses to listen to music, not a shiny 5" disc. Tell you what: if I can buy a CD once and get free replacements for the rest of my life if the disc gets lost, stolen, or damaged in any way, and update it to new formats as they come out (I know a guy who has bought "Dark Side of the Moon" on 8-track, LP, cassette, and twice on CD) then maybe I'll start accepting the idea that you can dictate how I can listen to it. (PS: assuming the hardware is heavily DRM'd and otherwise useless, I'll expect free updates for my car and home systems to handle each new DRM scheme.) Until then, kiss my ass. As long as I'm buying the hardware and the discs, I do with them as I please.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  22. Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    The copyright holder still owns the work, not the public.


    Um, no... the copyright holder does NOT necessarily own the work (e.g. if they decide to sell it to me), they own the sole right to copy (that what copyright means) said work. They do NOT have a right to tell me how/when I can use their work, except in the case of me trying to distributing that work (or work derived from it) -- they do NOT have any rights beyond that.
  23. Example of WHY copying should never be limited by JoeKeegan123 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a SICK collection of CDs....I started buying CDs back when there was more QUALITY music than there is now. As a result, I have more OLD CDs than NEW CDs. (Everything that comes out today is the same as every other band, with a handful of notably unique artists like Nora Jones, etc...).

    So here's my point....I have a large colletion of CDs, and I like to do a lot of outdoor sports. So, I carry my CDs around in one of those large BINDERS. This comes with me in the car, camping, etc...

    One summer, I brought my CDs to the beach, and sand got in the binder. As anyone can imagine, 3/4's of my collection in the binder got scratched beyond use.

    Since then, I've learned my lesson, and I copy my CDs and use the backup CDs to carry around. When they get scratched, I re-copy them, and put them back in the binder. Heck, for $30 for 50 blank CDs, it's a lucrative way to guarantee the usability of my collection.

    But now, with this article, they're saying that I should only be able to make X number of copies...meaning that after I've screwed up my CDs say, 15-20 times, I have to buy it again, or take the original with me. How is that fair? Seriously folks, this is a real life example of how this could hinder someone. I REALLY do this. What is their answer going to be, "be more careful with your CDs?"

    The only way this is going to ever get fixed is to have the artists have a LARGE revolution and stop using these companies to markey their materials. As simple of a solution as that is, there are so many facets involved to make it a reailty that....it probably will never happen. Especially since the artists that proliferate these schemes are multi-BILLION-dollar (Dr. Evil pinky to the lip) contract holders.

    Anyway, thought everyone would like to see a real example of how copying works for me, and what it helps me be able to do. These limitations serve nobody. There will always be software that can RIP tracks, and once ripped, they will always be able to be burned again and again, so they really should just give up.

    One word of advice: Don't get rid of your old programs that perform RIPPING. They don't have DMCA/copyright protection/DRM built into them yet, and will continue to work into the future. They might be slower, they might not be as pretty, and they might not have burning capabilities built RIGHT INTO THEM, but they will continue to work. KEEP YOUR OLD PROGRAMS ON ARCHIVE. My .02

  24. Re:this is for canada by Lehk228 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think the Audio CD-R's exist only as an excuse for the CD-R manufacturers to tell the RIAA to go fuck themselves.

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  25. where is the real piracy? by Pastis · · Score: 3, Informative

    I am sick and tired of seeing things like that. Where is the real piracy?

    I am currently in a country right in a center of South America. It's been impossible to find a real DVD. CDs are hard to find but it's possible.

    You can find a reseller of pirate material every 10 meters in the street. Students in schools sell copies of duplicated material to pay for their studies, or to make parties.

    E.g. Troya sells for under a $.

    Here nobody buy original content. So I maybe am a pirate because at home I have some copies of CDs I didn't buy. But it's not many and I don't even use use them that often. The CDs I like, I have original versions of them. I have my share of paid CDs (over 200). Does that make me the bad guy? Not sure when you see what's happening in 90% of the world.

    Yes I see the argument of those saying: but you have the money to buy the CDs. People there don't have it. I will answer to that that they have sufficient money to get as drunk as us, to buy themselves a CD player, a DVD player or a VCD player.

    I don't even have a real DVD/VCD player at home, appart from my computer's drive.

    I think all the piracy talk is bullsh!tt.

    They cannot change the mentality there, but can send us to jail or pay heavy fines if we break the law once.

    --
    Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
  26. OK, and how is this supposed to work? by MacBorg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok, the RIAA is having a flaming hissy fit these days, but exactly how do they plan to make something like this work? Are they going to insist on "blessed" computers or will they try to encode a copy protector on the cd its self? Pretty much, any way they do this there is a very simple work around - play it on any piece of hardware and then just record the sound on your computer. I mean, how are they going to block that? Will they lobby to outlaw 1/8" headphone jacks? Good grief. The RIAA is just nuts.

  27. they're still livin in 2000 by golgafrincham · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The idea is to let consumers 'make a limited number of copies of their music -- enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example -- without allowing for uncontrolled duplication.'

    i mean, yeah, the buzzwords have changed, but it sounds exactly the same as all this revolution rubbish some years ago.

    but what these morons don't get: as long as a cd player actually plays a cd, it can be copied. every soundcard is able to record it's own output stream. the only way this would work is via new devices. oh wait, it won't. i forgot, every stereo has analog output. and every soundcard is also a D/A.

    nay, morons everywhere. they're way of thinking reminds me of something...ah yes, they think like machines.

    --
    beer as in "free beer"
  28. click on: burn and send by dpilot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about this as a model for the music store?

    One cost the RIAA complains about, that is legitimate, is the cost of distributing the recordings of CDs that turn out to be poor sellers.

    Most music stores have a means to sample their catalog today, from small gizmos. That implies some form of readily accessable electronic storage. Now imagine that the record store of the future stocks only high-demand CDs, and the rest of the stock is stored, perhaps even on a cache basis. The store also has a (more expensive than consumer) machine that can burn CDs, apply high-quality artwork, print labels, and the like.

    Want a high-demand CD? Pick it up, pay, and walk out with it.
    Want a more garden-variety CD? Find it in the catalog, listen to a sample if you wish, and order it. (deposit optional part of the business model) Browse for 5 or 10 minutes, or go to another store. Come back, pay, and take it home.
    Want something obscure, like the namesake of "It's a Beautiful Day"? Just like the garden-variety CD, except it may take a little longer to get the full contents into the cache from a remote server.

    Oops, I should have patented this Business Method.
    Wonder if a /. post constitutes prior art?
    IMHO something this simply thought-up should NOT be patentable. Iff there's some devil in the details that's not easily worked out, THAT may be patentable.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    1. Re:click on: burn and send by chris_mahan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree entirely with your post.

      One should be able to do this kiosk-like, in a store. Or at a drive-through, or at a Starbux, a Border's, or while waiting in line at the bank.

      Just like a photo booth.

      Put in 3 dollars, select 12 tracks, wait 30 seconds, and voila! Your CD.

      --

      "Piter, too, is dead."

    2. Re:click on: burn and send by tsg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Granting them the benefit of a doubt, you just may not KNOW if a new artist is going to sell, because there's no experience. Nor can you be timid if you're really going to PUSH a promising artist, because the chain to stardom has many links, and breaking one breaks the chain.

      No one can know for sure whether a new artist is going to sell. But their job is to try to predict it the best they can by doing market research and having informed opinions on what a profitable artist is. Television studios, movie studios and book publishers all have to decide what to produce and what not to, and these industries aren't complaining about the "cost" of being wrong. Why should the music industry be any different?

      --
      People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
  29. What About International Piracy? by the+pickle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like to see some statistics -- preferably from an entity NOT controlled by the RIAA -- comparing the projected "losses" due to piracy within the United States versus piracy within Southeast Asia.

    If you stop a bunch of high-school kids in the US and Europe, big fugging deal. Put up enough obstacles to fair use, and the Britney-obsessed drones will politely shut up and pay their money.

    But there were monstrous cartels of professional pirates in SE Asia before Napster was even an embryonic thought in Shawn Fanning's mind. There are still monstrous cartels of professional pirates there, and there will continue to be monstrous cartels of professional pirates there, no matter what sort of fair-use restrictions the RIAA tries to throw at the problem.

    The solution is not a greater impediment to copying. The solution lies in driving the professional pirates out of business. Of course, the RIAA (or the BSA, or the MPAA) doesn't pWn the governments of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and China, so I don't expect they'll ever actually admit this is where the real problem lies, because they can't do anything about it.

    p

    --
    In Korea, long hair is for old people!
  30. Workaround by FictionPimp · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Step one, do not allow windows to autorun CD's.
    Step two, rip to lossless format.
    step three, burn to CD.

    Wow, some copy protection.

    Wait I got anotherone. Step one, run the out of my soundcard to the line in. Or use audiograbber to just grab soundcard output digitally.
    Step two, record.

    I may get some quality loss, but not even as much as a mp3.

    Or wait, couldn't I even make a ISO of the disk and burn it that way instead of track by track?

    What happens if I use linux, or a mac?

    What happens when I just download the mp3's of someone who already did this and burn them to CD?

    The RIAA needs to stop with the nonsense and focus on a digital distrubtion network. I think ITunes has already shown people are willing to pay for quality digital music. Take that model, make more quality music, and make it more profitable.

  31. What you say? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Drop the price of a CD to $10 US or even close to $5 US.

    It didn't work for DVDs. It certainly won't work for music.

    What the hell are you talking about. You can get most DVD's now for between $10 to $20, and people are buying a HUGE number of DVD's, with copying issues being only a footnote. Consider how much work goes in to producing a DVD (never mind the movie) vs. producing a CD, and that the prices are generally worse for CD's than movies!

    DVD's are showing EXACTLY why reducing prices would work for music!

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:What you say? by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's worse is that, many times, the DVD for a movie costs less than the soundtrack for the same movie! That just blatantly shows how inflated the cost of a CD is.

  32. Re:furthermore... by Delphis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Okay, someone tell me how a bit, a 1 or a 0 can be made 'less good' .. with digital it's either there or it isn't. If the pit or bump isn't as well defined, okay.. but it still is read as a 1 or a 0, so I don't think the situation is 'analogous to analog'.

    --
    Delphis
  33. Re:furthermore... by carlos_benj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure I'm tracking with you here. How does the data degrade? I'm assuming you're talking about the original CD and not the copy. By what mechanism does the CD have the intelligence to render progressively worse copies and yet not progressively worse replays?

    --

    --

    As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.

  34. Re:furthermore... by RevDobbs · · Score: 3, Informative

    man 1 dd

    How is a raw, bitwise copy of anything going to degrade over time?

    ... and when this turns out to be the solution, how long will it be before some one ports dd to Win32 & adds a nice GUI to it?

    CD's aren't 'secure', and I don't see how they can be made 'secure' and backwards compatible. The (industry) perfered medium for distributing music is going to have to change before they can really enforce any kind of non- or limited-copying scheme.

  35. Acceptable DRM Scheme? by Macgruder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why not a copy protection scheme that gives you unlimited copies, but a) requires the master, and b) can only make one copy at a time (preventing the use of multi-burner arrays)?

    Joe Schmo can make copies for his car/boat/pc/mp3 player, but none of those can be distributed any further. And the large pirate groups can't just crank out unlimited copies from the master, not without investing huge amounts of time, limiting their profits.

    (the really professional groups use presses, stamping their own CDs, not burning them. As far as I know, there's no protection against that tactic, once you have the physical media)

    You can use your purchased CD or d/l tracks as many times as you want. But you're prevented from widespread distribution to others. And hopefully, it's a transparent-to-the-user scheme.

    I could go for something like that

    --
    I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
  36. Re:furthermore... by RevDobbs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and you know what? If these fuckers would only do something to make people want to buy the CD, say by lowering the price, or maybe actually producing good music, then there wouldn't be an issue. But no, it's easier to spend billions of dollars on R&D than it is to actually find and develop artists, instead of just spoonfeeding us the trite crap that they are now. BAH.

    <singing>But I'm just preaching to the choir...</singing>

  37. Sub-$10 range by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been arguing this for years.

    When the MPAA first released titles on DVD, they were in the $20 range. They lowered prices when releases of older movies came out on DVD, many to the $10-$12 range, and low and behold, people buy them. They buy them in droves! I know people who bought their first DVD player a year ago who are already up to eighty titles, and they don't even watch movies nightly.

    As much as I hate region coding, their prosecution of Jon Johansen, CSS, and the like, I can justify buying their products because I still get my money's worth most of the time. The $5.99 bargain bins at Walmart, Target, and many of the movie/media stores only help the matter. They understood that the prices they charged for Laserdiscs ($30-$70 depending on the title and the packaging method) just was not going to work if they wanted widespread adoption.

    I know that it's not entirely fair to compare DVDs and CDs, because of the size of the content of most DVDs, but they're still little flat discs that are packaged and sold similarly. While CDs take up less space, if they were cheap enough they'd have a hard time keeping them on the shelves. Everyone would have that new hot CD because they could justify spending a little more than a meal on it, versus a week's food budget.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Sub-$10 range by tsg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I know that it's not entirely fair to compare DVDs and CDs,

      From Amazon.com: High Fidelity DVD - $14.99 New, $7.99 used. High Fidelity Soundtrack CD - $14.99 New, $8.99 used.

      When the prices are that out of whack, the comparison is entirely fair.

      --
      People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
  38. Is it just me... by jdunlevy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    or does it sound like the "recording industry" spends an inordinate amount of time and money on unworkable copy protection schemes as compared to the effort they put in on actually releasing desirable recordings?

  39. Uh... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, the logical fallacy of thinking that because that you don't like today's music, it means nobody else does.

    This is Slashdot, where people think The Who is still a relevant band.

    Your argument makes no sense anyway. If today's music is so crap, why do so many people pirate it? It's a copout to say, "Well, maybe if they would just produce good music." That's not even the issue. Piracy isn't right just because you aren't a member of the MTV demographic anymore. You're implying piracy will go down if they make good music, which begs the question--why are people pirating music they think is bad?

    Oh, that's right, it's an irrelevant issue and you're just scapegoating the music industry in order to justify piracy and ignore artist rights. Slashdotters have yet to legally or morally justify pirating an artist's music.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
    1. Re:Uh... by untaken_name · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slashdotters have yet to legally or morally justify pirating an artist's music.

      So does the RIAA. They 'give' artists up to a buck a cd sold. They take 9 at least for themselves. Yet there's rarely bitching about that. You people claiming that 'pirates' are stealing from artists are only partially correct. They're mostly stealing from record company executives. I don't personally think it's ok to steal music from anyone, and I think any artist who gives up 90% of their earnings to some record company exec deserves to get screwed, but really it isn't the downloaders who are exhibiting 'pirate'-like behavior. Who cares if the music is good or bad or indifferent? If it's distributed by the major labels, a.k.a. head ripoff practitioners, I don't buy it. I buy only from independant artists because they get more of my money. If you want to truly support artists, rather than help some exec buy his second hummer, buy independant. Many terrific artists, such as MC Frontalot for example, give you their music for free. I personally would rather give my money to someone who paradoxically isn't making music to make money. I realize that's a twisted view, at least from the RIAA's perspective, but it's how I see things.

      --
      http://xkcd.com/386/
    2. Re:Uh... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Ah, the logical fallacy of thinking that because that you don't like today's music, it means nobody else does.

      That's actually a pretty accurate statement. Not so long ago, most music appealed to most of the population. Call it cheezy or corny, but entire families would listen to the stuff they now play in Branson. I'm sure there's always been "kid music" that adults hate, but that was the exception rather than the rule.

      Now, however, I challenge you to find any mainstream music that is halfway palatable to anyone over the age of 30. The music industry has completely abandoned two thirds of the population with the excuse that older people don't buy music. Newsflash: I have a lot more money than 99.99% of teenagers. I think nothing of dropping cash on a nice satellite TV system, so what makes you think that I would steer a few of my entertainment dollars your way if you made music that I actually enjoyed?

      I will never buy anything by Usher, 50 Cent, or Limp Bizkit. As long as the major labels market to kids, they won't receive a penny from me. Do you really think that I have a radically different opinion than the majority?

      You're implying piracy will go down if they make good music, which begs the question--why are people pirating music they think is bad?

      Most people aren't. A lot of kids are pirating the junk that they hear on their local ClearChannel affiliate. Trading music has almost always been a "youth thing"; older people tend to buy the things they want to hear. It's almost like saying that most people love Bud Light because they'll happily pay $5 for admission to a keg party; it completely ignores the huge portion of the populace that stays home and pays full price for the good stuff.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  40. Re:Logical flaws in your argument by XryanX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Oh, I forgot, we're scapegoating the RIAA here and ignoring the artists in this equation. You know, those nameless people who actually rented the studio and spent a couple of months recording the music."

    Actually, artists make very little money from record sales. The majority of their money comes from huge signing bonuses, concert revenue, merchandise sales, etc.

    One could argue that file sharing allows more people to hear their music, and thus more people to be interested in going to their show.

    I heard something really interesting the other day on NPR. Apparently, the record companies willingly withhold royalties from their artists. In the event that the artist actually notices that (s)he is missing money, they have to spend thousands of their own dollars to hire a lawyer to get an audit, and even then, they only settle for a fraction of what they deserve.

    I'm not trying to justify "piracy", but I have a hard time sympathizing with a company that's fucks its employees over that much. Instead of getting Britney Spears on commercials condemning file sharing, they should be giving her what she rightfully earned according to her contract.

  41. Re:The blank CD taxes should be doubled by LocalH · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Occasionally, my ass.

    What if I'm using blank CDs to transfer content THAT I AUTHORED, to a mastering plant? Besides, they already get their money from Music CD-Rs, leave my Data CD-Rs alone plz.

    --
    FC Closer
  42. Re:The blank CD taxes should be doubled by LocalH · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The way I look at it, it's not right to assume everyone is a criminal just to pay for the ones that really are breaking the law.

    As long as I am within the law, I will continue to buy data CD-Rs, and if I hear plans of them actually adding a 'music tax' to data CD-Rs, then I'll stock up on a few spindles before they can sink their claws in.

    --
    FC Closer
  43. Re:Convenience factor negation... by SpecBear · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And what the recording industry doesn't seem to realize is that by using these two-bit copy protection schemes, they're making the piracy problem worse.

    The people who are most likely to be deterred by these measures are those who have the least to gain by circumventing them: the people who have already purchased the CD. The real pirates have a great deal to gain by breaking the DRM, and they won't be stopped. The worst case scenario for them is making a digital copy from the analog output.

    You're pretty much guaranteed to get DRM free copies distributed by actual pirates, so the music will get out there. Except now you've inconvenienced your paying customer, who can no longer burn a CD for his car, or download to his MP3 player. Now your paying customer, who in giving you his money has already indicated his desire to be honest and do the right thing, has an incentive to seek black market sources for the music. "Damn, I can't make a copy if this CD I just bought!" "Haven't you heard of Kazaa? Just download it from there." And he'll do so guilt free because he's already paid for the music. Maybe he didn't know how to get pirated music before, but now he does.

    Next time, will he go through the song and dance of fighting the DRM restrictions on the CD, or just click that little icon on his desktop?

    I think today I'll go to my boss and propose spending millions of dollars developing a technology that annoys our customers, doesn't effectively protect our IP, does nothing to improve our profit margins and exposes us to legal risk. Let's see how long I keep my job.

  44. Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h by RickHunter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is an excellent point. DVDs loaded with extra features are now, often, cheaper than the soundtrack CD for the same movie. And compared to the DVD content, the CD content's trivial to track down on any P2P service.

    So you're charging more for something with less value which the black market can provide more easily. And you expect anyone to buy your product WHY?

  45. Re:furthermore... by shotfeel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But the big question is, how does the CD know how many times its been copied? How can a read-only CD know if its being "read" for playback vs. "read" for duplication?

    And as for the copies, how does it know what generation it is? AFAIK it has no way of telling the copy software to decrement a counter or anything like that.

    I'm really just trying to figure out how this whole scheme is supposed to work without relying on a centralized "DRM Server" to keep track of copies.

  46. you got it by zogger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    you have it exactly. They COULD have been making money on volume, by selling CDs with music or video for like 2$ retail-and everyone knows they could do it, too, with economies of scale. And they would still make profit. Same with software. A LOT of people wouldn't even bother downloading and copying and burning if they could go into any store they normally go into and pick up a dozen CDs for real cheap. They should also have pick and chose and burn your own kiosks set up, for the same price, pick your tunes or vids from a menu, burn it, check out, split, for cheap. The way they are trying to do it now is a rip off, that's the main deal most people see. I know I never buy new Cds, never, but I probably would have been all along if they were 2 bucks or something. The music guys lost me as a customer a LONG time ago with their ridiculous prices. I would pay an hours pay to go see a live concert, but for a 25 cent copy on a plastic disk? Not happening. Screw 'em, they are going obsolete anyway, although there will be a flurry of pretty strange legislation and schemes they try before their buggy whip pseudo industry finishes it's crash and burn.

    As far as I am concerned, they are economic terrorists, using bribe money to get laws passed, and other general goonish behavior. And they have always been that way, too, as far back as I can remember, always using bribes, black mails, pay offs, etc to maintain a lucrative monopoly.

    So, I just boycott paid for music in general. I just quit. I listen to it on the radio, maybe there's some advertising during the music shows that will get me to go check out a product, but as for paying for copies-I just "say no". They want to get real on what stuff really coists, get a clue on a real business model, I might reconsider, but so far, everything they do has pushed me further into the "I won't buy it anymore" camp.