Music Industry 'trying to hijack EU data laws'

sebFlyte writes "The recording industry is trying to hijack the EU's data retention directive, which is being brought in to fight terrorism, to try and get their copyright battles fought for them. As previously reported, the EU may be making copyright infringement a criminal offence, and the Creative Media Business Alliance is lobbying hard to stop the European laws on data retention being restricted to cover terrorism and organized crime (as is currently proposed). In essence, they want to be able to get police to search through newly extended records from ISPs to look for evidence of illegal filesharing. In the words of the executive director of the Open Rights group, 'the music industry's attempt to hijack this legislation is a travesty and a gross affront to civil liberties and human rights.'"

Comments

Re:I guess it's important to talk about it

[Pig Hogger]

I honestly firmly don't care about music, songs, movies and enterntainment in general. But I do care about things like biological/technical/scientific advances. But for those advances I am against patents, not copyrights. In fact I am pro-copyrights because they let me control how my work is distributed. So for me what music industry is doing sounds reasonable.

Reasonable? Did I read properly? Reasonable? Reasonable?

You call "reasonable" breaking customer's computers by stealthily installing crippling software?

You call "reasonable" (sic) levying a special tax on blank media, "just in case" the media is used to "pirate" music?

You call "reasonable" blackmailing people who MIGHT have shared music into paying multi-thousand dollars "settlements" without any proof of wrongdoing?

You call "reasonable" (I'm not making this up!) trying to force all society to use specially-designed hard-disks that will check whether the data they are writing is copyrighted?

You call "reasonable" treating your customers like criminals?

You call all the abovementionned **ARROGANCE** "reasonable"?

I'd hate to see what you call "unreasonable"...

Consumer drons are teh problem

[a_greer2005]

Consumers seem like mind numbed robots for the most part, I understand that the music industry has the right to control the distrobution of their property, however, they have a total monopoly and are abusing it and the end users dont give a care.

the industry bullies tech companies (who oddly enough make as much money in a day as the RIAA makes in a week) and keeps down and/or lockes any new tech innovations and somehoe gets to dictate exactly how they work.

The RIAA could litteraly stop all analog radio, CD sales, net streaming, napser, itunes and so on, and offer a propriatery DRM as the ONLY way to get music, and the consumers would just take it accept for the 2% that go rouge, one of which will get a 60 minutes interview from prison just to scare the rest.

We have NO power as long as consumers continue to suck the Industry conglomerates' collective tits, and as long as they are the only place to get the milk...

Re:I guess it's important to talk about it

[nattt]

Copying music is not always stealing. For instance, here in Canada it's perfectly legal. In many countries, it's perfectly legal to copy music for your own use, for the car, to a media server etc.

Copying music just to avoid paying for it, is illegal in many countries, however.

Whatever the rights and wrong of copying music, some of the "solutions" are worse crimes than the problem - ie, crippling people's computers and making them open to hackers, or taking away people's privacy.

Of course, piracy, is not schoolyard copying, but commercial copying of music, and of course, that is illegal everywhere, and could be stamped out as soon as enough effort is put into it. Commercial piracy needs pressing plants, needs sales outlets and you can track these places down and shut them down.

Re:The EU is "better" than the US

[TubeSteak]

The quote about using records to find evidence of illegal filesharing... Reminds me of a Business Week article I just read. About half way through the article:

...business groups contend that the Patriot Act, as written, gives the feds carte blanche to rifle through corporate records. One worry: Like police searching a car trunk after a traffic stop, the feds could discover evidence of unrelated crimes or securities law breaches when they rummage through business records.

to Summarize:

• EU music groups want the police to search through records for crimes unrelated to the law under which the records were obtained

• U.S. Companies are afraid the police will search through records for crimes unrelated to the law under which the records were obtained

I think this this really insightful comment (from the thread about DMCA Abuse) sums it up.

Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible.

Out to kill their own market

[HPNpilot]

Sounds odd but that's where I think they're headed.

The music industry needs new artists to keep making money but how to promote this new talent? Spitzer and other AGs are watching over their payola schemes making it harder to get radio airtime. Concerts are good, but getting to be very expensive undertakings. So how does the public get to hear the next great bands?

One way, even though they don't want to admit it, is by P2P networks. It is easy to listen to a song by some new artist you heard about. Very few people have enough money to just go out and buy CDs all the time and the risk of a lot of duds is too great, but downloading has much less adjusted risk, even with the much-publicized lawsuits.

There is a balance that must be achieved: all P2P downloading and no buying means no income for the publishers and artists, yet no downloading cuts off a very vital marketing channel.

With draconian copyright laws it is becomming a more serious offense to make a digital copy than to steal the CD from a store. Worse yet, governments seem all too willing to abdicate enforcement and police powers to these corporations. When the government and RIAA/MPAA have control of our computers and own all our data, it will be too late, the battle will have been lost, and we will enter a new historical period of information slavery.

All attempts to equate P2P with international terrorism must be soundly rebuffed. A threat to failing business models is *NOT* the same as the threat of killing innocent people. How bad to these proposals have to get before the RIAA/MPAA are kicked the hell out of these legal processes?

Re:Boycott

[kesuki]

I beg to differ RIAA Radar will help music listeners Find out if a band or artist Should be boycotted or bought and supported ;)

so instead of just boycotting the artists of the lobbying group formed by profiteering labels.
you can do Much better if you Acutally Support smaller artists who don't want to have anything to do with those evil profiteering exploitative labels.

That way musicians can continue to sing, people can continue to enjoy music, and only the fools who believed they were entitled to the ears and pocketbooks of everyone in the world will suffer..

Re:good news

[cnerd2025]

As far as I know, the RIAA and other music cartels around the world have not yet made it illegal for independent artists to do it themselves.

It might as well be illegal. So many indie artists would use filesharing ("legally") to spread their stuff to the world. The RIAA wants to bring all file-sharing down because it is "illegal" or "unethical". It's a load of cold, hard crap. Consider this: indie artists get very little (if any at all) air-time on radio. Even the artists who do get air-time are made to pay for it (the studios subtract the fees against the artists' profits). Now let's say someone wants to create an indie radio station. Too bad, gotta go through the FCC, pay fees, and yada yada. And what about playing indie music on regular radio stations? Not gonna happen. The radio stations are put under the fingers of each studio. The (RI/MP)AA have this sick, twisted, and tyrannical view of art, science, and media. They infest the masses with this idea that an abstract idea or representation can be copyrighted. They have this idea that "to benefit artists" the exclusive right to copy, play, or use the song/art/media is given to the "artists" ::cough cough::ahem, studios::cough cough::. Anyone with good experience with the Constitution should cringe at this. For those blessed souls who do not have a baboon as president, the US Constitution provides that copyright exists a) for limited periods of time and b) exists only to be used for the progress of art or science. NOT for the benefit of just the "artists"...er...studios. Since the Constitution supercedes all US Law, much (if not all) of the US Copyright Law is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

These facts haven't stopped the (MP/RI)AA from spreading their propaganda and their lies. The Media is allied with these cartels, and the sad state of American media has a) led to indoctrination and b) led to crackpot journalism. "News" with little analysis, incorrect analysis, or the complete lack thereof is rampant in American mass media. The news networks present these stories about "illegal file-swapping" or "filesharing bandits" which are completely one-sided. When I was younger and had no idea about the truth, I believed what they said about Napster. It sounded like some sort of evil plot. Until I learned the truth. I learned that the truth truly does set one free. I learned that the Media (as any group with power) only wants more power. They think the world would be a better place if everyone just did everything the way the media wanted. Most likely, this would only benefit the media. That is the state of things now. The Media is on this self-appointed crusade. Yet now they have experienced the bulk of their power. The news relics of the cold-war are no longer adequate. People are actually becoming disgusted with the media. Movie viewership is far below projected estimates this year. The MP/RIAA claims that this is the underhanded dealing of filesharing "pirates". Since these cartels have so much influence, they dance about unchecked, weilding lawsuits, subpoenas, and red tape. I hold the opinion that the MP/RIAA hold much less wealth than we are led to believe, and that is why they have begun these attacks. They are desperate, and they know that copyright provides enough leverage for the MP/RIAA to become some state-sponsored thing. They'll get their money (somehow they'd get it; energy research is willingly cut out of the budget, but the MP/RIAA must get their new subsidy) and they'll be happy...at individuals' expense. Their rights end where ours begin.

To those filthy corporate bastards: Sorry, we left our eyepatches at home. Cartels are much more piratical than we. We the consumers are being alienated. Why not make something that we like? Capitalism is founded on the principle that competition forces innovation. Capitalism does not induce bitching about consumers. F^** you!