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Britons Frustrated by DRM
thesp writes "The BBC is reporting that UK music lovers are 'frustrated' with DRM restrictions and pricing of online music purchases. The confusion over file formats and player compatibility are being compounded with the desire to 'own' rather than 'license' an album or track, leading to widespread concern. This debate has recently been the province only of the technologists and the media companies, with the consumer being regarded as unaware and unwitting. Is this a sign that this picture is changing, with consumers begining to realise and leverage their own market power?"
There is a British Phonographic Industry association, but the Recording Industry Association of America has no legal power here.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
The various record companies own the rights to the music: they made it a condition of allowing Apple to sell it online that it had to be DRM'd. Apple had a simple choice: DRM or no music.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
>Now, circumventing encryption is still
>authorised in Europe. The problem would be a
>DMCA-like bill at the European level (such as >EUCD).
As far as I know and have read, the directive only deals with circumvention protection for copright related issues, which would primarilly be protection that prevent copying. Accessing is NOT a right for a copuright hodler, hence protection that simply deals with accessing a work is not covered by the directive. Encryption does not in anyway prevent copying, it is about access, and hence ccould be "circumvented". Of course, some countries have gone further and added in access into their copyright laws, but that is then not due to the directive.
They have no DRM controls and have always had top quality mp3s. They are now starting to implement FLAC as well. If you like the type of music they provide, indie electronica / rock / hip hop etc, then I thoroughly recommend them.
Useless fact: The Irish drink more tea per person than the British (or anyone else, for that matter).
Not so with DVDs, though... A very recent judgment by the french appeals court forces the removal of copy protection from a specific DVD for somebody who wanted to copy it for personal use. See: http://www.lapresseaffaires.com/partenaires/nouvel les/reference/index.php?id=8,2017,2019,042005,1006 934.html&ref=reference
The thing is, there is nothing to stop you going to france/spain and getting it for the cheaper price, and so its ok.
Even if you were to go to France, you couldn't use the French iTunes store, as it won't let you without a french registered bank account. Thats whats infringing.
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
Cory Doctorow Doesn't RTFM.
My iPod manual explicitly stated that I want to deregister any old machine that I won't be using when I move to the new one. You can only use protected AACs on 5 machines, but that's 5 machines at any time. There's a specific iTunes menu option to deregister the machine so your files will work on the new one.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
It's not quite that simple. All directives from the European Union must be incorparated seperately in all the member nations.
I don't know how far the UK has gone in implementing the European Copyright Directive. Norway is in progress. (Though we're not actually members of the EU, we have a trade agreement which obliges us to implement all the directives without having any influence of the making of them. Since we're dependent on that trade agreement, I think we might as well join as full members. But that's quite off topic.)
In Norway it's been quite a debate about this, and it has been widely covered in the media. Especially concerning the consumers right to choose which kind of player media he wants to use to listen to the media he has bought. The law in question is whether or not it should be illegal to crack restrictions of the manufacturer.
I've usually considered the Norwegian consumer as docile, but if the British only recently has taken the new restrictions into account, they are even worse off. I sincerly hope this is not so.
>Do you have a source for the claim that the
= PROPARKIV0405&$%7BTHWIDS%7D=8.49%5D11145200291088& $%7BHTML%7D=PROP_DOK&$%7BTRIPSHOW%7D=format=THW&$% 7BTHWURLSAVE%7D=49%5D11145200291088
>directive only deals with copyright related
>issues?
This is mostly from the text of the proposed copyright law changes in Sweden. It is a VERY large documnet (the pdf is split into two 250 page documents). Below is a link to a text version. I can post the link to the pdf tomorrow if needed. It is in Swedish of course. Also note that I mostly read the initial proposal from last year, there are some changes in this one. The relevant chaptr would be 11.3 I think, or perhaps all of 11.
http://rixlex.riksdagen.se/htbin/thw/?$%7BBASE%7D
I recall from the original proposition were this was discussed and detailed. The reasoning was that the whole directive is about copyright only. Circumvention can only be in regard to copyright related "rights" for the copyright holder. They specifically mentioned region coding as not applying since it had nothing to do with copyright.
Then they raised the question about protection mechanisms that protected both copyright related rights and non copyright related ones. To give such combined protection also protection for circumvention would be to give to much power to the copyright holder. They thus had the option to either make a protection only for copyright related issues and get protection versus circumvention, or to add more and lose the circumvention protection. As I said, I have not read if there is any changes to this in the current proposal. I would say it would be minor changes only.
The EU directive seems to be attached to this text version but from a quick look looks like a mix of swedish and english.Its name is if I am not mistake "2001/29/EG" It is not THAT easy to actually interpret the directive correctly though, hence why I have mostly relied on reading the swedish proposal for its implementation were they argue on how to interpret and apply the directive. After all, it is the actual law of my country that is relevant to me.
>I figured I'd give iTunes a try having read that their DRM isn't nearly as draconian. Well, it's basically the same issues though not to the same extent. And the sound quality sucks.
Either you found a badly-encoded file (or a file that had a crappy source), in which case you should report it to Apple.
If that's not the case then I hope you never listen to MP3 or WMA files.
Apple are being taken to the European Court because they prevent UK downloaders from using the French and German iTunes sites and getting cheaper downloads.
Yeah, except that to do so would violate the law in each of those countries, or require Apple to raise prices to the highest countries royalty rates. Great deal, everyone pays more. The EU also directed the music licensing organizations of all European countries to agree to licensing across Europe, so far they have completely refused to comply.
a person from one EU must be able to buy something from another EU state as if they were living there - no discrimination can be made on grounds of nationality
So here is the problem. As the law stands in the EU, a license to music in France is not the same thing as a license to music in Britain. Both have different prices and restrictions. If this lawsuit wins against Apple they will have to charge people in France a higher price so that it is the same as the license cost in Britain. Tell me again how this is a win for anyone?
I've seen this same issue brought up here before. You have to remember Apple wants to charge the lowest possible price for music. They just use it as a way of selling ipods, and don't make any money off of it. Your argument makes it sound like Apple execs are sitting around and figuring out which countries they can gouge the most. In truth they just want to sell the music as cheaply as they can without losing money so that people will buy more ipods.
The standardization of licensing across Europe would be great, but there is not really anything Apple can do to make it happen. This lawsuit is completely misdirected.
You don't have rights to listen/copy/play in your cd unless I give you such rights.
Copyright covers copying, not listening or playing.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The EU is a single market; by law, there should be no restriction upon buying goods from different countries that are in the EU.
There is no restriction on buying goods. But this is not a material good it is a license to intellectual property. You can buy a license for a copy of music from France in England, unfortunately it is useless in England since in England the rights to the music are owned by a completely different person. The problem is consumers don't understand copyrights and the fact that copyrights are per country and copyright owners have refused to make the agreements they were ordered to to make this simple for them.
In the long term, prices will settle to an average, because the EU shares a common market.
Wrong! It is not the same product in each country even if it seems the same to consumers. This is because the laws in Europe grant copyrights to different organizations in each country. In each country the rights are owned by a cartel. This lawsuit, if successful, will just allow any cartel to hold all of Europe hostage.
This lawsuit isn't misdirected; the music industry is forcing Apple to illegally create trade restrictions in the EU.
Sue the music licensing organizations, not Apple. Apple is just complying with each country's laws which makes the copyright for a song cost a different price and have different restrictions in each country.
If the EU allows this, then more companies will jump on the bandwagon and the EU's single market will start to fragment.
Then maybe they should enforce the order they already issued to mandate cross country licensing. Suing the people who purchased from the people who are ignoring your edict and causing problems is not going to do any good. It just forces Apple to either not sell in Europe or raise prices. The market will not even it out, since in order to comply with the ruling they need the buy in from every EU member's copyright holders, and some of them are not about to miss a chance to funnel money from wealthier parts of Europe to themselves.
Boycott Britney and Lars and BUY INDIE! Look for CDs with the statement "please feel free to burn copies for your friends."
They're out there, all you have to do is look.
Also, used CDs provide no revenue to the RIAA companies that originally made the record.