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Playing CDs a Privilege Not A Right
Brett writes "Tommi Kyyrä, of IFPI Finland has said that being able to play music on a Linux or Apple computer is a privilege not a right, and that those that can't because of DRM'd CDs should just go out and buy a CD player. Is switching the debate to rights and privileges really where they want to go when we're talking about something we pay for?" From the article: "If the public and 'their' politicians believe that the entertainment industry is on the verge of collapse, they'll be much more likely to accept restrictions on use of content that they've paid for. For this reason, most industry talking heads keep their comments in check when talking about DRM schemes, but from time to time we've seen people truly speak their mind."
According to TFA, his translated quote is:
Funny, I was just thinking something kind of similar, but slightly different:
Now, we need to understand that listening to music in your car or through your home stereos is an extra privilege. Normally, people listen to music on your computer. If you are a car or home stereo user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.
Given that when I pay for a CD, I'm paying for the music, not the plastic and mylar, can any RIAA person please explain to me why my position is any less valid than Tommi Kyyrä's?
Re: the "go out and buy another CD player", I wonder what Philips' stance will be on all of this. Haven't they denied the right of DRM and copy-protected "CD" distributors to actually call them CDs? Call the new "machines" what they are, DRM/copy-protection capable CD-like players.
All I can say is I am sorry for the next generation of people who are introduced to the entertainment marketplace. We who have so long been able to enjoy CDs as they were originally defined, CDs that would play in our cars, would play in our home entertainment centers, and on our computers. It seems that era may be ending. Sigh.
I suggest a meme, (hate that word)... start calling "DRM'ed CDs" something else. Say, maybe non-standard-and-playable-only-on-certain-player-t hingies resembling CDs.
Yet another sordid chapter in the DRM saga...the insulting attempt to redefine our relationship to content we have purchased as a "privilege."
Here's the actual quote from Tommi Kyyrä himself:Tommi, don't you dare try to tell me that playing content I've purchased is a 'privilege'. I paid for that content, and I have the right to enjoy it. If your ridiculous DRM schemes get in the way of my legitimate use of my content, it's up to you and your cronies to remedy that, rather than try to redefine my rights as 'privileges'.
By the way, Tommi, your site seems to be down, but don't worry....I guess having a web site that's up all the time is a 'privilege' as well.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
those that can't because of DRM'd CDs should just go out and buy a CD player.
And they wonder why there is so much animosity directed at their cartel from consumers.
Trolling is a art,
No, it's not inherently a right.
I'm suprised the RIAA isn't charging 25 cents a song for DRM "enabled" music, and subsidizing the cost of DRM players. That'll encourage market penetration, and once they've got a certian portion of the market unable to play anything else, they will finally have their freedoms.
Not like their employees (Congress) will do much to stop them, at least for a while.
Music industry execs need to remember this one simple thing: When they sell their music to us, only one side is bringing any money to the transaction. At the end of the day, it they don't offer something consumers will pay for, they will sell none of them. I don't own a Windows PC so I won't be purchasing any of their WMA only crap. Period.
This discussion is very similar to the Jobs v. Music Industry debates over $0.99 song pricing and Jobs is right on the money - I am not going to pay more than a dollar for a song when I can get it for free using another application that is also on my computer.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Customer sales for the recording industry is a privelege not a right. Profit is a privelege not a right. Just cause the recording industry has a failed business model and crappy product, doesn't mean government should create a 'right' for them to be profitable.
[Insert pithy quote here]
From the redbook standard information from wikipedia:
Recently, some major recording publishers have begun to sell CDs that violate the Red Book standard for the purposes of copy prevention, using systems like Copy control, or extra features such as DualDisc, which features a CD-layer and a DVD-layer. The CD-layer is much thinner, 0.9mm, than required by the Red Book, which stipulates 1.2mm. Philips and many other companies have warned them that including the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on such non-conforming discs may constitute trademark infringement; either in anticipation or in response, the long-familiar logo is no longer to be seen on many recent CDs.
Any company can make any product and sell it for how much they like, but if they are going to make a "CD" then it must be a CD, which in turn will play on a Mac or Linux or any CD player with the CD logo on it. If a company wants to create something else, say SACD, DVD-A, it must be labeled and sold as such, and not as a CD.
End of story.
No, seriously, I mean it. Fuck them and their stinking business model that's based around parasiting off talent and screwing the pressure down on young artists to be as commercially successful as possible. BTW I speak as someone who worked at a music publisher for a couple of years. I thought I was pretty cynical when I started there, by the time I left I was a physical and emotional wreck (this was partly caused by my trying to live on 140 quid a week in Notting Hill Gate [expensive & flash area of West London] and partly by trying to reconcile their world view with my own and manage to build myself a career in the industry that didn't involve fucking artists over, lying, cheating, and generally behaving like a dick. (This was over ten years ago, by the way. )
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Because CDs, by definition, follow a standard, and play on all devices that conform to that standard.
He should say "Playing music on a Mac from silver coasters that happen to play music in some CD players isn't a right."
It has consistently been my position that technologies like "Digital Rights Management" are less about preventing piracy, and more about finding new ways to nickel-and-dime customers.
This is so true. Also, one thing that doesn't come up a lot is how much of this money actually makes it back to the artists? Artists have to constantly audit the record labels to get their fare share. They're not just nickel-and-diming the customers, they're nickel-and-diming the artists on the other end.
Bradley Holt
Stance 1: They're selling you a CD.
If you buy a CD, you buy the limitation that it only plays on limited devices. You can't play it on your phonograph or eight-track, and it may not work on hardware that isn't Trusted. However, anything you can do with it (under fair use) you must be able to. Play it on your walkman, with audio out to the audio in of your linux box, and wash it through Audacity to get it on an MP3, if you like. You have that right because it's YOUR CD, and format-shifting is fair use.
Stance 2: They're selling you a limited license to listen to a collection of music.
If you buy a license to music, you have the right to hear that music. Copy protection that prevents your accessing your licensed music on devices that are Audio CD compatible (note the little "compact disk" logo on all standards-meeting CD playback devices) is an infringement on your rights to access your licensed property.
They don't want to sell you a CD, because they lose control over it, but they are not letting you use the material you are legally licensed to when you 'buy' a CD's content for personal use. It'd be nice if they'd make up their minds beyond "give us your money, and up yours."
Rip and burn from one of these DRM'd pieces of plastic, then make lots of copies on audio CD-Rs, which can be purchased for less than $1 each. Give (do not sell) those copies to all of your friends. It's all perfectly legal in the US.
When you buy audio CD-R media, you're automatically paying a royalty tax (3% of wholesale) by law. The RIAA should be more careful about what it wishes for - they pushed for the legislation which allows this.
18 USC, Chapter 10, Subchapter A, Section 1008 specifically states:
[emphasis added]
So, copy and distribute (noncommercially) all you want!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I used to buy a lot more music before the whole Napster thing. I don't buy much music today because I get an unpleasent feeling when I think about the fact that the RIAA is behind much of this. I still get indie music (mostly from folk singers who own their own record lables), but I buy a whole lot less music.
Why should I feel guilty when I buy the latest Andrea Bocelli album? Isn't it better simply not to buy it?
I don't pirate music either for the same reason. I would rather give mindshare to independant artists.
So, most of the losses aren't due to piracy, they are due to people making a decision not to support the RIAA.
Hello RIAA: Getting my money is a privilege, not a right. You are not entitled to get my money simply because you think that I should buy your product. I don't buy Microsoft software either for the same reason-- that they treat their customers as criminals for the simple reason that they use their product.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Case I: You buy a movie theater ticket. But because you can't make it to the theater that night, you instead set up a video camera on your seat
You must note that you own nothing in this case. The movie theater sold you a service, not a product. Thus this case is not covered under copyright law. (Until you try to "steal" the movie, that is.)
Case II: You buy some ephedrine, some lithuim batteries, some drano and some Acetone. You decide to whip up a batch of Crack. Are you allowed to do this? NO.
Actually, I'm a little fuzzy on this one. I'm not certain that whipping up crack is so much the problem as to what your intent is with it. If you were using the resulting chemical for non-biological scientific experiments (not sure what you'd do with crack, but hey) you probably would not be liable for criminal actions. Of course, it always helps to get a hazmat license to prove the fact before you begin your experiments.
Case III: You own your car. You decide it would be cool to remove the windshield wipers and seatbelts. Can you do that?
YES!
only if you don't put it on the road or try to sell it for such a use.
Again, this is a matter of services provided. The public as a whole is providing you with a service (public roads) which comes with terms of use. You agree to those terms in exchange for use of public roads when you get your driver's license. That's why a cop can fine you for having a vehicle that isn't up to code.
BTW, you can still sell the vehicle. You just can't claim it's road worthy. Otherwise, how do you think junk yards can take damaged cars?
case IV: you own some swapland. You want to drain it. can you do that? Not if it's considered a protected wetland.
This is probably a valid case, but it gets back to your rights ending when they begin to reasonably interfere with the rights of others. In the case of draining wetlands, the environmental impact will affect others. e.g. A bit like if you diverted a river farther up stream.
You own a peice of DRM'd music for which you contracted to play on a single computer. Can you sell that to someone else. NO. you contracted for that.
Actually, if you never signed a contract (or at least a click through agreement), you can sell it all you like. I remember a fellow attempting to sell his copy of an iTunes song just to prove he could do it. It's allowed by copyright law, so without a pre-existing agreement you are not restricted from sale.
Case VI: Your a farmer and the govenement tells you you can grow so many bushells on your land. You grow more but you plan to use them only for internal consumption on the property. Can you do that? seems like you could but infact you can't
I'll have to look up this case, but that is a rather serious issue if it's as simple as you state.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The interview from which this was quoted is about the new Finnish copyright law, which is basically a Finnish version of the DMCA, following the EU directive on national copyright laws. (The interview was originally published in the Tietokone magazine; rumor has it that Mr. Kyyrä was less than amused at being quoted verbatim, and a cleaned up version was put up a few hours later.)
The high points of the law include (these are mostly quoted from Electronic Frontier Finland's FAQ on the law at http://www.effi.org/tekijanoikeus/laki/tekijanoike us-faq.html (Finnish only)):
- prohibition on sale, distribution, possession and "organized discussion" (yes, it says this; no, "organized discussion" is not defined; yes, it's hard to see how this isn't against the Finnish constituion) of products whose purpose is the circumvention of DRM (this would include all non-sanctioned DVD players using something like libdvdcss);
- prohibition on copying of "efficiently" protected music or other copyrighted material to, for example, MP3 players; this is sort of allowed in one clause and expressly prohibited in another (this has been the major point seen in public discussion in the last few days);
- prohibition of "parallel" import of goods from outside the EFTA; individuals can still order goods from outside the EFTA, but all (including private) resale is prohibited; it doesn't actually matter whether the import is "parallel" or the only import, it must still be sanctioned by the copyright holder;
- possibility of expansion of the "cassette tax" (currently paid for recording media such as audio tapes and CD/DVD-Rs sold in Finland; money goes to the record labels based on how many records they sell, IIRC) to other media that "may be used to store copyrighted material"; this potentially includes all hard drives.
"Efficient protection" is a key concept in the law, but is not actually defined. According to the committee responsible for the law, protection is "efficient" if it was "meant to protect the copyrighted work from being copied". So it could be said that this law makes the shift key an illegal circumvention device.
The law was written pretty much behind closed doors, with only "experts" from the record label trade bodies and similar organizations heard. Also the head of the committee, Jukka Liedes, sits on the board of ESEK, a sub-organization of Gramex (a trade association which represents record labels in Finland). The Ministry of Education, which is the ministry responsible for the law, has also been forwarding press releases penned by the abovementioned organizations pretty much verbatim and quoting them in interviews.
It is a matter of discussion whether the committee responsible for the law is actually evil and corrupt, or just so incompetent that they have no actual idea what the rules proposed by the industry actually mean in practice.
The law was accepted in its current form today, with an official (but not having any power of law) note attached effectively saying that "there's some stuff in there that should be fixed". I understand that the law will be headed for the final yes/no vote in the parliament in the near future. In my opinion, it's very likely that it will be pushed through; the recording industry has put their rather powerful propaganda machine in high gear and (I assume) also their lobbying machinery after the outcry from the public began.
The minister of culture Tanja Karpela (who is the "owner" of the law) has refused to admit that there are any problems with the current version of the law, even though it has obvious internal contradictions as well as contradicting the constitution. When opposition to the law first started making headlines, she stated her suspicion that it was a result of "machinations by certain parties" (that's a pretty much literal and verbatim translation). It would appear that she is mostly repeating statements prepared by someone else regar
Hello RIAA: Getting my money is a privilege, not a right.
Great point. Consider that RIAA "pirates" money in a multiplicity of ways.
-If you buy ANYTHING advertised on radio, part of your purchase price goes to RIAA and the labels, because the station has to pay ASCAP licensing in order to play music. Therefore, you pay and kiss rapstar ass EVEN IF YOU HATE THE MUSIC.
-A similar scenario exists in stores which play background music. The store has to pay for a license and when you buy anything in there, you kiss RIAA ass, EVEN IF YOU HATE THE MISIC.
-Furthermore, when you go to clubs and restaurants, part of your bill goes into RIAA pockets. At least here you have a choice to go to places which play music you like. But still, a disproportionate amount of money is diverted away from productive local businesses.
-RIAA thinks you should buy recordings over and over because there is no replacement policy. For instance, I bought Pink Floyd on vinyl LP, and again when it scratched, then cassette tape, (anyone remember the RIAA freak-out in the 70s about tape), then CD, then CD again when it no longer played, then CD again as they came out with the Gold Edition and then the Millenium Edition and then the Aluminum Edition and there is no end in sight. Pardon me if I download a copy because I am too lazy to rip.
Of course the RIAA doesn't think any of this is gravy, and that is why they don't live and think like normal people. It was a beuatiful business model for the 1950s, when the equivalent of megabytes could only be delivered via fragile media, but times have changed and quite simply they don't do enough to justify charging $15 for albums any more. I'm not saying their product should be free. What I am saying is them need to be satisfied with less cocaine, uglier hookers and last year's Bentley.