New RIAA/MPAA "Customary Historic Use" Plan

Random_Transit writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the EFF has dug up plans by the RIAA/MPAA to stifle the consumer electronics market by replacing it's "fair use" policy with something called "Customary Historic Use". This new policy would effectively keep anyone from inventing any new type of media device without the RIAA/MPAA's say-so."

Comments

Been there, seen that, bought the T-shirt

[Sique]

I've grown up in a country with a law defining the legal devices to replay recorded music. In this case it wasn't for home use though, but for public play like in a club or at parties. In this case it was probably to enable the state authorities to check the music for subversive content.
But the idea is the same: To control the situation, forbid any not yet controlled entity to enter it.

Re:Bring it on!

[ozmanjusri]

you're not going to be able to enjoy your independent music in the ways you'd like to

I won't be allowed to wander down to the pub and listen to them play?
Seriously though, the RIAA has already lost this. The cat's out of the bag, the worms are out of the can. Right now, they're playing a stall game to buy time for a response, but I think in the long run they'll be too fat and unwieldy to adapt, so they'll wither, if not die.

There's already too many ways out there that'll allow talented people to make and distribute music for the RIAA to retain their stranglehold on the market. We're already seeing that here (in Western Australia) where our remoteness meant local musicians have had virtually no chance of getting signed with a label. There's a great buzz of talent starting to realise they can do it all themselves with a few thou's worth of recording gear and a friendly web host.

I'm looking forward to it.

What I Would Love To See...

[s7uar7]

...is a new technology that becomes hugely popular in Japan & Europe, but that is banned in the US because of some law introduced at the request of the *AA. Maybe then people will wake up to how these things really effect them.

Neo-Luddites

[Decker-Mage]

So the scribes are going to go crying to mama-government to get a law passed to prevent Gutenberg from using his printing press. I do hope this bill never goes anywhere but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. They do have very deep pockets and it is an election year after all which means the politicians need lots of cash. If it does pass it will come down to the courts weighing fair use against historic use and I don't put much money on fair use as you can be sure the law will remove that privilege (it was never a right, just another provision of the law).

Let the techno-war begin. Hackers (the good kind) on one side, Neo-Luddit RIAA/MPAA on the other. I think I know which will win (us), but it's going to be messy.

Re:Bring it on!

[pallmall1]

you're not going to be able to enjoy your independent music in the ways you'd like to

Also, you won't be able to enjoy any personal recordings the way you'd like to. The hardware will only play the content if the content is tagged with explicit permissions, even if the permission is "unrestricted." So if I record something on my own equipment, much of it home-built from the chip-component level, I will have to include special "DRM" code if I want to play the recording back on ANY commercial device. And you can be assured that the "DRM" code will require a non-free license.

This legislation would allow record companies to receive money on ALL digital content and playback devices, whether they produce (via their phony "artists") or distribute it or not.

Further, if the "DRM" scheme requires periodically checking in with a remote database to verify a digital key, the entity in charge of the database could UNIVERSALLY disable any content they deem "inappropriate" any time they wish. The legislation may not explicitly state that, but in order for a scheme like this to work, these adjunct capabilities would have to be present. This legislation goes way beyond copy-protection.

Going around this

[Gnaythan1]

If I was a small manufacturer of electronic devices, and stupid rules like this were the law of the land. I'd make my devices with firmware that can easily be modified on a USB connection.

I sure as hell would not officially make if open to all formats... but the day I started selling the machine, somehow would be the day the hacked firmware version was available on the internet.

I'd also not hold press conferences on exactly how to install and upgrade to this hacked version. That would be wrong. I'd probably yell at some consultant who used to work for us(and was paid handsomely) when he held the conference. I'd probably re-hire him at some point, because I am forgiving that way.

I'd denounce this hack publicly, calling it by its accurate name, so people wouldn't mistake it for some other, double-plus good firmware upgrade.

I'd even denounce my loyal and faithful software partners, who somehow seem to be giving this firmware upgrade away, in multiple formats for different operating systems, and with no spyware whatsoever... I'd make sure to expose exactly how this upgrade gets to the public. Of course, this bad behaviour by my partners would not interefere with future business relationships, all water under the bridge, really.

It would be an act of kindness of course, not to press charges on anyone who would hack their device in this way... and a demonstration of goodwill to pick up the legal tabs for anyone sued by some other party who didn't like what the consumer did to our device. Keep it in the family, as it were.

Or maybe something like Henry Ford's "lawsuit insurance" is an alternative plan. http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/catalog/display.p perl?isbn=9781400050093&view=excerpt

Re:One step forward (backward)

[j0nb0y]

While fair use rights are not specifically in the Constitution, the US Supreme Court has ruled that they are implied. Free speech implies that you have certain fair use rights.

There is a lot of confusion about this, because fair use rights were detailed in the copyright act of 1976. Previous to this however, fair use rights were protected by Supreme Court rulings.

IANAL

Re:In other news...

[AlterTick]

A list of "suggsted" automobile laws:

"Rules of the Road" published in a bulletin by the Farmers Anti-Automobile Society included:

"All motorists must carry sugar to make friends with the horse. When a horse approaches, the motorist must drive into the nearest meadow or forest and cover his vehicle with a camouflaged blanket."

"If a car should cause a team of horsed to run away, the driver shall be fined $50 for first mile and $100 for each succeeding mile until the horses are stopped."

"Cars at night must send up red rockets every mile and wait 10 minutes for the road to clear. Speed shall never exceed 5 miles an hour. And the motorist must proceed with caution, blowing horn and shooting off Roman candles."

"Upon approaching a corner, the car must be stopped not less than a mile from the turn. To ascertain if the road is clear, the driver must sound his horn, rind a bell, fire a revolver, hallo, and send up three bombs at intervals of five minutes."

"Cars must be painted to merge with the scenery-green in the spring, golden in the summer, red in the autumn, and white in the winter."

"Speed limit on country roads this year will be secret and penalty for violation will be $10 for every mile the offender is caught going in access of it."

"When a horse approaches, the driver of the vehicle must take the automobile apart and conceal the parts in the grass or bushes alongside the road until the horse has passed.

Ridiculous, right? Not at the turn of the century, when the rules of the road condemned the motorist and pampered the horse! In the early days, the motorists were a beleaguered few, hemmed in by a variety of animosities and jealousies. Admirers of the horse, together with all industries that had grown up around horse-drawn transportation, and the diehards who wanted no change in the easy tempo of like, had little trouble persuading rural-dominated legislatures and city and town councils to adopt highly restrictive laws and regulations.

Cars were not permitted in city parks. They had to dump out all gasoline before going aboard a ferry. Still on some statute books are laws requiring a motorist to come to a halt, turn off the engine, and give whatever assistance was required to get a skittish horse to go by. Roads were pathetic. A motorist had to buy new tags and driver's licenses to cross a state line-in some instances, even a county line. Some states required registration fees in each county through which a vehicle passed. Missouri charged $30 to cross the state east-west and $50 north-south.

There were laws requiring a motorist to send a warning sentinel with a red flag one-eighth of a mile ahead of his vehicle. In Urbana, Ohio, vehicles were limited to a speed of four miles and hour when crossing another road, at the same time ringing a bell or gong. In Flint, Michigan, a law read: "It shall be unlawful for any person to drive an automobile on the streets of Flint, Michigan, while being subjected to the embrace of any other person."

(NOTE: above work not mine. I found it in a discussion forum, poorly attributed as being "from an article")

Re:Bring it on!

[ZachPruckowski]

That just begs for the mother of all monopoly suits though.

I make a movie, and plan to distribute it free to increase buzz about my company before moving to the standard "pay for DVDs or theatre showings" on future movies. If the RIAA requires me to use copy protection, it's certainly hard to me to encourage sharing. Thus aren't they impeding a competitor's business in an unlawful way?

Re:post-mp3

[tepples]

Millenniumman: Most people won't be able to notice higher fidelity [than MP3]

allelopath: O rly? mp3 is barely tolerable to me.

At what bitrate? LAME at bitrates close to 192 kbps produces MP3 files that are near transparent to most adult ears. Frankly I don't give a shit if your codec cuts off frequencies above 17500 Hz because at age 25, I am incapable of hearing them. And do you listen to music alone, or are you listening on top of house noise, car noise, or bus/train noise? Ambient noise can reduce the required bitrate for perceived transparency.