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RIAA Trying to Copy-Protect Radio
doctorfaustus writes "The EFF is reporting that "the RIAA has been pushing the FCC to impose a copy-protection mandate on the makers of next-generation digital radio receiver/recorders (think TiVo-for-radio)." According to Mike Godwin, "Never mind that digital audio broadcasting is not significantly greater in quality than regular, analog radio. Never mind that its music quality is vastly less than than that of audio CDs. In spite of these inconvenient facts, the RIAA is hoping that the transition to "digital audio broadcasting" will provide enough confusion and panic that they can persuade Congress or the FCC to impose some kind of copy-protection scheme or regulation on digital radio broadcast." "
In other news, the RIAA is pushing the FCC for copy-protection on vocal cords.
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
shoot RIAA, and take them out of our misery.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
From Ronald Eagleye, our on the spot reporter, Fenwick Finster was apprehended while recording FM radio broadcasts on his digital video camera at the public swimming pool, after RIAA informers tipped off police. Finster claimed it was clearly a misunderstanding, though he refused to explain why he was in the women's locker room with the video camera under his trenchcoat.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I ran tens of thousands of dollars of radio ads this year for my retail stores (focused on 10-22 year olds). Few people heard them.
Why? Radio is dead or dying for most younger people. All my employees under 21 podcast or listen to playlists. The RIAA doesn't really have any idea what they're chasing. Putting a Band-Aid on a corpse is useless.
I'm not fan of music piracy (I used to run a warez pirate BBS 15 years back) anymore. Why? There is nothing worth pirating. The radio doesn't appeal to the market that likes that music. People used to go to concerts, too, but my last concert was $95/ticket for an fairly-unknown electronica band -- the crowd was thin.
Let them DRM everything valuable to them. I'm fine with it! I have no desire to bootleg what I can afford to buy if it pleases me enough. I'll continue to go to $8 Indie bar shows, buy the bands' $10 CDs and $10 T-shirts, and ignore my car radio. My house hasn't had a radio for 10 years.
As it gets harder for consumers to consume, they switch to something easier. I feel bad for record shops and radio ad sales people. The end is coming, but they don't see it.
As for quality, who cares? Radio-friendly music is already fidelity-free from excessive compression, gating, and over mastering. Even my MP3'd music is only 96k, my noise floor in the car and outside that I don't mind the loss of resolution.
Don't hate the RIAA, they're already not a concern. It's like hating VHS Macrovision.
I could see this in the form of an XM like device, with PPV radio on demand, but I'm not sure the concept of tivo for radio will really pay off. It's not worth the effort. That's what music on CDs is for. As far as programs go, most people are perfectly happy turning the radio on and playing whatever happens to be on at the time.
I could tivo my radio now with the capture card in my computer and dump mp3 files of shows I like but never happen to catch such as Car Talk, to disk and play that in my car right now. The odds of me actually doing it are very, very small.
Never confuse volume with power.
killed the radio star.
But the RIAA is killing radio.
Same as email received is the property of the owner, isn't signal received property of the receiver?
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ClearChannel has the patent on this, by airing music not worth copying in the first place.
"My ears! The earmuffs do nothing!"
I don't care about this in the slightest.
I gave up listening to radio regularly years ago when my favorite station in Minneapolis turned into a Dianna Ross style station for 3 whole days. And now in South Dakota, the stations aren't much better, 90% country! *shudder*
These days if I remember I might listen to some Prairie Home Companion, Love Line, or Bob & Tom in the Morning.
Other than that... I no longer care what goes on on the radio as I've got my iPod wired into my deck and am quite happy with commercial free, hi-fidelity commutes!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Legislate a way for us to survive.
The recording industry has proposed that the FCC (1) prevent redistribution of recordings onto the Internet, removable media or to other devices; and (2) limit searching and automated copying such as by artist or song title so that individual recordings cannot be separated from surrounding content.
Good for them.
Vague solution, so are they saying that they want the recording to somehow STAY on the recording device? They must have some magick or something that will accomplish that! And that you cannot just record a song, without,say, recording the lead-in from the DJ and the commercial afterwards (surrounding content)?
They just don't get it. If people want your songs for free, they will get it. One way or another. Goddamnit, how long will it take them to realize this so I don't have to see the "**AA is trying to steal our rights again" versus "Our revenues (and even the hard working music store clerk too!!) are going to be devistated! Waaah!" get rehashed over and over and over.
And the sad thing is most of whats out there on commercial radio I wouldn't care about even if it was truly FREE from the get go.
Blah.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
iBiquity is the company that created and licenses the HD Radio technology and they say that it is CD quality. I would not expect the broadcasters to be that interested in spending millions of dollars to roll out something that sounds equivalent to what they have now.
...really disturbing. Whatever my bias may be, it is hard not to consider that the riaa is simply trying to control everything. What about college radio stations that play indipendent music, or when the radio plays artists that arent really concerned about piracy issues? It looks more and more like the riaa are becoming control freaks...
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
I just took a micro cassette recorder, and recorded myself farting onto a snare drum. I wonder how long it will be before the RIAA says that is copyright protected.
I know nothing
The differences between analog and digital can seem numerous and great - especially if you get a couple thousand on the side from the people presenting these "facts" to you.
I got to the point a little while ago where I'm not completely blaming the RIAA etc for pushing stupid legislation but for the politicians in accepting it. If stupid legislation gets passed, we really only have a small group of people to blame.
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Even if it doesn't make sense. That way, when they whittle you down to something less, they feel like they've accomplished something. Meanwhile, you get what you want.
We all know the tactic. It's like salary negotiations during an interview.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I don't own an XM radio. I can't see buying one and then paying for a monthly subscription to listen to crappy music. If the RIAA succeeds it'll reduce the value proposition even further.
1) Kill off all the distribution channels for your product.
2) ????
3) Profit!!
[Insert pithy quote here]
People who pay for digital radio arent the ones pirating material.
In fact, this is probably just gonna piss people off - I've heard of people who record digital radio, then put it onto their ipods in batches, so they can listen to new music all the time, and its portable.
The purpose of digital radio is to eliminate the need for owning so much music, and that means you dont need to pirate OR buy tons of music! The point of digital radio was to get decent quality, original material on an ongoing basis - its like Napster, only you dont have to do all the research (look for good bands) on your own - they do the work for you.
What they really need is portable digital radios! And bundle it in with another service, like cell-phones or cable TV!
Really Incompetent Assholes of America
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
Ok, I have no motivation whatsoever right now to adopt any new form of radio, and this further demotivates me.
These people keep thinking they can control everything that we think, do, or say. When the founders of the USA wrote the bill of rights and drafted our first laws, they had no intention whatsoever that they would be abused this way.
Software patents? Now I cannot program an application that is an interface for presenting and displaying playback information on a portable device because microsoft owns the patent? Come on. Lame.
Music? I'm sorry, but I have no realistic alternative to buying the CD if I want to listen to music. Radio sucks (ok, the commercials more than anything else), and I have no good reason to pay 99 cents for a song on iTunes. I, for one, like the pretty box.
I have no doubt that HDTV might have been pushed forth a lot sooner if anyone settled on a standard. Instead, they've been debating the different ways to present the media, and most recently the biggest qualm is with the feared broadcast flag. If it weren't for things like broadcast flag, I'm sure I could have been watching Sonic SatAM in HD 12 years ago.
Need another point? BluRay or HD-DVD? Nope. The biggest debate I've seen is piracy control. Encryption schemes, manufacturing processes, etc. The studios are leaning away from HD-DVD because they basically utilize the same technology as existing DVDs, but BluRay didn't have the must have CSS (Consumer Screwed Severely) version 2.0.
Bloody hell. Instead of promoting innovation, this system promotes stagnation. I for one, am sick and tired of it. And anyone who questions that... I'd like to point out that, while aural recording techniques have dramatically improved over the past 20 years, we're still using the same basic late 70s/early 80s tech to record most of the world's CDs. I know there's nothing wrong with the proven tech, but why do CDs still run $16 a pop?
Deja Vu
n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
One of the many possible misuses of these broadcasts, given the many audio editing software tools out there today, would be the recording and editing of these broadcasts to make broadcasters appear to take positions (political, ethical, or other) that are the exact opposite of what they actually represent.
Listen to the Don and Mike radio show and sooner or later you will hear edited audio of Govenor Arnold S. of California espousing positions exactly opposite of his stated ones.
Like him or not, copyright of digital broadcasts could give originators of content the legal protection they need to limit others from profiting from or generally smearing their reputation.
With respect to not copying the music--- go buy the CD if it's that good. The owner of the product determines the license agreement.
Cogito Ergo Sum
My wife is a big country fan. She has gotten me hooked on one of our local radio stations. It is a small town station that is sometimes hard to pick up but it is well worth it.
They actually like music at that station!
Not only that but they are part of the community. They have a show called DialnDeal every morning where people call in to sell and buy stuff and they broadcast the local high school games football games.
Even the ads are not annoying. They are for local stores and they also seem like part of the community. Clear Channel is what is killing radio. The small town stations that are still independent can still be gems.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I ran tens of thousands of dollars of radio ads this year for my retail stores (focused on 10-22 year olds). Few people heard them. Why? Radio is dead or dying for most younger people.
Wrong. Few people heard them because most radio stations run commercials for what seems like 5-10 minutes at a stretch, so that they can advertise "50-minute non-stop music". They don't realize that most people, when they hit that eon-long commercial break, just switch to a different station with a similar format.
It's not like TV, where you'd end up missing half of a half-hour program--it's one self-contained four-minute song after another. (Talk radio and similar shows are the exception, natch, but you did specify 10-22 year olds.)
There's a station here in Chicago called NineFM. Tagline: "We play anything" -- they're one of a growing number of what I think of as "iPod Shuffle stations". What really distinguishes them, though, is that they have more but shorter commercial breaks -- usually three or four ads max -- which the listener is more willing to wait through. It's a win-win situation, ad-wise. Honestly, it's half the reason I listen to them almost all the time.
To those who say "No one listened to my ad" as proof that no one listens to the radio, I have to ask when was the last time you actually listened to an ad? Radio tends to be background noise; I certainly don't make an effort to listen to an ad. Shoot, in the car I'll often quickly switch the station for the duration of the ads in my primary station (I find radio in the car much easier than swapping out CDs, XM receivers, or hooking up an iPod - besides, sometimes I enjoy listening to NPR).
Radio may have diminished since its heyday, but it's certainly far from dead.
Notice it says digital broadcasts, not just the songs that might be part of the broadcasts, because it'll certainly be cheaper to make the whole bitstream uncopy-able than to add a circuit to the receiver to turn protection on and off at the beginning and end of each song.
So, if I were still working as an announcer, I wouldn't even be able to record a digital aircheck of my own voice unless I took the post D/A converter analog audio and converted it back to digital, and we can all guess how easy that will be once the RIAA can dictate design and features to manufacturers.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"Well, we've got it for radio, why not for CD's? Or cable TV?"
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I mean, honestly, they don't seem interested in distributing music, just denying people access to it.
They have taken ANY modern form of music distribution and ignored any possiblity of adapting to a new industry of music NOT distributed in a physical state like tapes or disks.
What I don't understand is why musicians don't just dump the RIAA period. There is no legal reason for the RIAA to exist and I really doubt they are a comittee acting in the best interests of the muscians, just suits looking out for their own bottom line.
We have reached a point in time when ANYONE can set up a decent digital recording studio, I think musicians should simply start going independent, record and distribute their own stuff and bypass the whole corporate music world.
You don't need to distribute music on CD any more, and even if you do, CD mass production is cheap and affordable, a few thousand to master a glass disk and produce copies. But you can still offer better quality digital files online (straight from the recording studio, unmolested by "CD Quality") and sell them like any other eCommerce product. Sure, your going to get those that simply rip you off and distribute the file for free, but if your a band that makes good music, you will develop a following of fans that will want to pay you to ensure you continue to make good music. How many independent artists out their are far better then the cookie cutter bands and fluff singers that the corporate world dumps on us. Who in their right mind would (or should) pay for another Britney spears disaster? Also, with a large fan base you will get them coming out to concerts and performances which cannot be pirated, you have to pay to watch them live.
I think that the "artists" that support the RIAA are just in it for the money, happy to whore themselves to the music industry to make a quick buck. Any self respecting musician should start looking into indepenent labels and not care about music piracy. They would be happy to make enough money to earn a decent living ( more decent then I can earn ) and not worry about potentially losing millions through piracy, any artist that does is a corporate kiss ass sell out!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Dear Sir / Madame,
It has come to our attention that you have illegality produced and recorded a reproduction of track 5 on the 2005 release "Brittany Spears Favorite Outtakes"
If you do not comply with the following within 48 hours, we will pursue legal action against you to seize all properly listed under your name and garnish your wages for damages.
Send all recordings to us.
Destroy the snare drum used in the creation of this track. Send us the remains.
Send us the micro cassette recorder.
Send us any and all hardware you possess capable of recording audio, video or still images in an analog or digital format.
Pay $30,000 in damages for each copy of the recording produced.
Pay an additional $90,000 in damages for each copy of the recording distributed by yourself or others.
Have a nice day.
The RIAA
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
All your bass are belong to us?
Had to be done.
Come on, you laughed!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Name a song from those played on the radio that is "much the same" as those punk fans are calling awesome, and don't blame me if someone tells you that you have a tin ear.
Fuck Them.
First of all: how dare you suggest that the grand kids of the current teen idols should have to work?
Second of all: greed is a significant part of our culture.
The only independent radio station still around DC (not counting college stations) is 103.1 WRNR out of Annapolis. Which is a great station, but I can only listen to it for about 15 minutes out of my hour drive due to location.
So I listen to NPR mostly now. Crap, I'm my parents already.
College radio is great listening too, and most college stations have online streams. I like WTBU out of Boston University -- amazingly eclectic programming schedule.
What! I won't be able to record those 30 minute commercial special anymore? Dang, that sucks, I loved those!
Whereas the music on the radio is utterly horrible and repetitive enough.
Whereas any kind of recording of radio broadcasted media utterly blows in relation to CD quality.
Whereas you(Congress) know shit about technology.
Proposal:
Please stop listening to the people making money and start listening to the people paying money, for once.
- The Doctrine of First Sale - you bought it you can, sell it to some one else.
- Fair Use - there is some leeway even for items with restricted distribution, e.g. citing excerpts or sampling
- Freedom of Information - the US recently took a step away from this and towards the British secrecy-by-default model
- Common Carriage - nondiscriminatory access to any customer willing to pay the standard tariff
If these don't make any sense to you in an electronic context. Think what you can currently do with a paper book or land line telephone. Rules of commerce haven't changed and still apply to electronic resources and services just as they do to physical ones, even if there's a push by MPAA/RIAA/MS/DIsney to propagate a meme to the contrary.Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The only reason is to lock the broadcast. Any other excuse is just that. A marketing excuse to take control.
And i grew up not trusting the government for these reasons, but they are amateurs compared to the 'media'.
Sad state we have reached, really.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well, not in the UK. Digital Audio Broadcast (aka digital radio) has much better quality than FM - and that's assuming you can get good FM reception, which is rare here.
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