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."

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Bring it on!

[ozmanjusri]

Great, this is what I want to see from the RIAA. The more they restrict how people can use their commercial crap, the more encourage independants who'll value their listeners.

Re:Bring it on!

[MaelstromX]

You're missing the point. When the RIAA uses its influence in D.C. to regulate technological progress (or lack thereof), you're not going to be able to enjoy your independent music in the ways you'd like to (i.e. anything that doesn't fall under "customary historic use").

Though now that I see it, you live in Australia, so please allow 6-8 weeks for the lunacy to reach your shores.

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.

Re:Bring it on!

[lachlan76]

Though now that I see it, you live in Australia, so please allow 6-8 weeks for the lunacy to reach your shores.

6-8 weeks? Pfft...Real ID made it over in under 3.

Re:Bring it on!

[Paraplex]

Yeah I agree completely. The RIAA or any other such organisation no longer offer us *anything*. They used to have control because they had the equipment, the studios, the distribution and the promotional powers, but their time has come to an end. My group Children in the Game are giving their album away free for whomever wants it, in an attempt to help topple the RIAA's power.

Once music stops being hugely profitable, people assume music will stop being made. This is complete RIAA propaganda. They suck the life and soul out of musicians, milk them until they are dry and then move on. IMHO buying albums through these huge companies is feeding these parasites to the detriment of anyone who cares about music.

We're battling formats? We're debating HD vs BluRay while these swines continue to fuck us? fuck them! Release your films/music in an open format and i'll record it onto any fucking disc or other storage medium I want!

Another model will be created that links consumers to the artists directly. An open infrastructure that doesn't require middlemen (i'm glaring at you itunes) will be created, but until then, I, and others like me will continue to create music without the promise of riches and bitches and whatever else music has been raped and disfigured into being about.

Re:Bring it on!

[geminidomino]

The RIAA or any other such organisation no longer offer us *anything*.

<mode=cynical>

No, but they offer the wannabe rock stars promises of fame, riches, pelt, and doing blow off hookers' asses. No matter how many bands give thier "it's all about rocking/the metal" spiel, it's very rarely about the music.

Until we breed musicians who are immune to the cha-ching factor, the RIAA or it's replacement will continue to have us by the balls.

</mode>

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.

Re:Bring it on!

[Kjella]

Great, this is what I want to see from the RIAA. The more they restrict how people can use their commercial crap, the more encourage independants who'll value their listeners.

You think it's a good combination to have a state-granted monopoly (copyright) and at the same time let that monopoly gauge you any way they want? That is roughly the worst combination ever. For all the talk about independent music and movies, that doesn't matter to a fan because they're not interchangable. And the mainstream music does have a large fanbase, even though some slashdotters will get on their high horse like an art critic looking down on "The fast and the furious" or a porn flick. So simple, so crude, so stereotyped and yet so successful, so entertaining, so appealing to a broad segment of the population. That's almost a crime when it comes to art.

My point is that this isn't something the market will "fix". If that was the case we could just wipe out all consumer protection laws, all anti-trust laws, all fair use and whatever. The only thing that would happen is that the customer would stay with mainstream media and get even more shafted than he is today. What we're seeing is nothing more than a gross invasion of the privacy and not least the soverignity of my home. They want to be able to tell me what my machines can do to my movies, my music in my living room. Not that anything except the living room seems to be mine anymore.

I want to see LotR in HDTV. And that I'll probably have to pay a small fortune in a player, HDTV and the movie itself in that format is fine. Obviously I wish it was cheaper, but that is simple supply and demand, maximization of profit. I can live with that. What I don't want to live with is all the rest, and I don't see why I should have to or even have to boycott it. The law should restrict the number of latches, catches, hooks, limitations, restrictions, activations, verifications, crippling, self-destructability and so on a product can contain.

One of the greatest evils is that you no longer seem to be purchasing anything, and the courts are ignoring it. Why would anyone sell you anything, if they can license it and unilaterally apply catches at will in the fine print, yet in every way it otherwise acts as a sale? You don't need to license it, copies of books have been sold for centuries without selling the copyright, music and movies are no different. If the courts had any balls, they would simply throw out the RIAA/MPAA/BSAs licenses and say "This has the characteristics of a sale, thus it is a sale. The sale is goverened by common law and your EULA is null and void."

Re:Bring it on!

[Jasin Natael]

We need listeners who don't seek out the latest crap from the RIAA, but actually seek the good stuff, and care about the product they pay for

I'll go one step further and say that one of the reasons for this is that people are, in fact, consumers in that they don't seek out *anything*, choosing instead to be spoonfed music from broadcast radio. It amazes me how many people are so passive in their listening that they are uninterested in any ways of discovering music except radio. Even if a friend highly recommends a band, they'll say "Cool". Then the CD their friend burned for them sits under the seat of their car until they hear one of the songs on Top 40 radio a year later, and the friend has to burn the disc again.

Radio is still, despite all its flaws, the major means of discovery for Joe Public. And the current lockout imposed by the RIAA's payola workaround doesn't just hurt us, it allows them to effectively dictate what music will become part of our popular culture.

Here's hoping that all the new Satellite-Radio gadgets and Internet Radio via iTunes and others start to loosen radio's grip on our music culture. I've lost faith that the government will do anything substantial about it.

Jasin Natael

Re:Bring it on!

[LocalH]

Yeah, but this legislation could also ban unrestricted media formats, since it's possible to use them to store unauthorized copies of media.

Re:Bring it on!

[Yartrebo]

This legislation goes way beyond copy-protection.

I must have missed that part. I see no error correcting codes or titanium disks or requirements for the seller to provide a replacement copy at cost if yours breaks or gets scratched or any other provisions that would protect your copy.

Re:Bring it on!

[idunno2112]

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.

I completely agree: the RIAA was good to set standards for the recording industry when studios were expensive to build and maintain.

Today, any band can put together a decent compilation of songs (a.k.a. album or CD) and distribute it themselves. A little word of mouth advertising and playing local gigs, and if the stuff is good, it will get out there.

How do I know it will get out there? Because of sites like slashdot, digg and delicious: the digital "word of mouth". After all, if some loser's blog about his pet kitty's bowel movements can get hits, I'm sure good music can too.

For example, not that these guys are losers or rant about kitty poo, I ran into Beatallica on digg and it's pretty funny and good: they supposedly even have Metallica's blessing, but there's an issue with the record label which prevents them from putting out an album, but doesn't prevent them from distributing their songs in mp3 format... strangely enough. BTW, "Hey Dude" rocks... ;)

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:Bring it on!

[vettemph]

>>>they can do it all themselves with a few thou's worth of recording gear and a friendly web host.

Sadly, the RIAA thinks they will be able to limit the supply of microphones, analog to digital converters and Digital to analog converters and perhaps speakers.

Microphones are just air pressure sensors that produce a relative voltage.
ADCs are used amost anywhere any sensor would get used to convert voltages to numbers.
DACs are used for controlling various mechanical devices and optical systems by converting numbers to voltages.
Speakers are just voltage controlled solenoids with a cone attached.

Everything between the ADC and DAC are just data points. (voltage levels that change at a moderate frequency.)

If you look at a stock chart, you are just looking at data points over time.
Recorded digital music is the same thing, Just data points over time.
(usually 44.1 thousand data points per second)

Not only will this be technically imposible for the RIAA to enforce, But it will never go though because it would allow the RIAA to be the ONLY Recording Industry Association in America. As much as our Government and lobbiest would like that, they wouldn't be so bold.

  This would also be pointless unless the RIAA could become the Recording Industry Association of Earth. Currently we can get our MP3s and OGGs from France. :)

Re:Bring it on!

[FLEB]

I'd say the problem rests with radio. DJs that actually played music are replaced with talking heads and remotely-programmed playlists from the Central Office. The problem is that with radio regulation (and the underlying fact that there is only so much bandwidth between 88 and 108), broadcast is a nearly impossible arena for new players to break into, and assembly-line LCD radio, as sad as it is, has the competitive advantage.

Sure, there are new media out there, such as XM or Web radio, but they lack broadcast's "critical mass", so any buzz they might generate is a flicker at best. Broadcast, in its simplicity and 88-108 limitedness, does have the advantage of being a single-point resource for getting content you know is up to a certain standard. The problem is that radio stations have taken that to an extreme, producing lukewarm mush that won't revolt anyone enough to change the station, but as such lacks any meat or substance. On the other end, there's web radio or other alternative delivery: Edgier music, but the more involved method of delivery and the much smaller, more geographically diffuse market means that they'll rarely have radio's ability for listeners to converse over what they "heard on the radio", and word just won't get out in a big way.

A fair amount of people could really care less about finding higher quality music, once it reaches a certain acceptable threshold... it's just not their interest. As such, the simple delivery method, easy categorization, and common shared cultural references airplay music gives make a whole lot more value than something obscure that might have an edge on quality.

Re:Bring it on!

[Alsee]

If the RIAA requires me to use copy protection

But the RIAA isn't requiring you to do anything. They are lobbying/bribing the government to create laws restricting what you can do and to deny the free market from providing any unapproved products and technology.

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

I don't think you can sue congress under anti-trust laws. :/

-

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Automobile banned for violating historic customary use laws for the wheel.

Re:In other news...

[jc42]

Automobile banned for violating historic customary use laws for the wheel.

Funny, yes, but also similar to a lot of real history.

In a lot of places, when autos started appearing, laws were passed that were attempts to ban them by making them useless. For example, there were laws limiting them to 4 or 5 mph, about horse speed. Some places had laws requiring that a motor vehicle be preceded by a rider on horseback.

Needless to say, these laws didn't last long (though it turns out that they are still on the books in some places). But for some years, they were a good way of collecting a bit of toll money in the form of fines from visitors.

Anyone have any good early anti-auto laws from your vicinity?

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:In other news...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If I read it right, it's more like walking being banned because it's not customary historic use of a car*.

*Available from all major auto dealers, starting at $10,000.

Some of provisions cited in TFA sound like they could affect people's ability to play and record their own original compositions, even if there was no connection to any of the major record labels at all!

One step forward (backward)

[Southpaw018]

This isn't even in the same realm, is it? That's why I say one step...perhaps the better term would be "away" and not forward or backward. Our constitution doesn't cover the issue of fair use rights as far as I'm aware, but shouldn't legal precedent prevent anything this insane from being upheld on challenge?

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

funny

[realTremens]

"At the height of their cultural power, the samurai were authorized to kill peasants for an insane number of reasons, including 'acting in an other than expected manner.' So look on the bright side: at least we don't live in feudal Japan... yet." haha

Is anyone here an Oregon voter?

[MaelstromX]

Please contact your lamebrained Senator to let him know what you think of the bill he's introducing.

Will this eliminate Software Patents?

[ArsenneLupin]

Indeed, by definition, a patent describes something "new" (at least, in theory, it should...).

If it's "new", it cannot be "customary historic". Thus, at least in the area of multimedia, this law will mean that from now on, no algorithms may be patented.

Either they have to admit that their algorithms are not "new", and they should not be patentable. Or they must admit that they are "new", and thus cannot be "customary historic". Now settle that among you, RIAA and patent sharks!

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[advocate_one]

don't use teabags... I know what you're getting at, but , instead, chuck DRM'd CDs and DVDs into a furnace... in public, with the media present, and explain to them exactly why your NOT gonna take it anymore...

reminds me of the movie Tommy, where the disciples were made to wear earplugs, blindfolds and put corks in their mouths and told to play pinball... in the end, the disciples told him where to shove the cork...

we, the consumers, have the ultimate power... we can just stop buying or watching their crap... don't pirate it though, just don't buy it or subscribe to stations which force this on you...

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:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[TheSalzar]

We should have a boston cd party

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[BrynM]

I can't wait for these dinosaurs to kick off and shut the f*sk up.

People have been saying this for 30 years. It's not going to happen. It's a system. It won't just up and die one day, it has to be changed (which you also note). Young, ambitious people can be greedy too. Especially when they have teachers.

I think we're seeing the stranglehold on music being shaken, but there will always be greedy bastards trying to pull one over. For now it's an arms race between legislative gaming ("them") and consumer education ("us"-ish). Sadly, consumer education isn't as easy as it sounds in a media based nation like the US. I personally have almost given up on spamming congresscritters. I'm afraid it's white noise to them by now. What worries me more than these individual battles is the signs of democracy being injured in the process. As a whole, we're not long-term fighting very much. We're putting out legal fires where/when/if we can.

20 years or bust

[mrshowtime]

"Customary Historic use" Something only a lawyer could come up with. Really, in 10 years everthing will be able to be downloaded relatively instantly and there ALWAYS will be rogue countries that will allow copyright infringement. Sites like Allmymp3.com will become a one stop shop for downloading media. Then, legislation will be introduced banning or making "unapproved" websites illegal to access. Heck, I would not even be surprised for the RIAA/MPAA to use whatever leftover version of the Patriot Act to stop people from downloading movies/music/media from "unapproved" countries in the guise of national security.

In a way, I don't blame the media companies for freaking out. In 10 years physical media will almost be on it's way out. You will see much more use of "keys" and "rights mangement" built into EVERYTHING. Valve's Steam network is a good example of things to come. I would go as far to suggest that there will be one world standard coming in the next 10 years for rights management. You won't be able to buy hardware that won't connect to the internet to verify the intergrated rights mangement.

The way they will get ya, is the "You can download -ANYTHING- now if you accept the new rights management built into everything." This sounds good, but the RIAA/MPAA are greedy a-holes as evidenced by the DIVX (the dvd player, not the codec) debacle; you won't own anything except limited rights that can always be revoked or blocked at any time. Let's say it's 2020 and you want to buy "A Clockwork Orange" only to find out it's blocked by your country for being subversive or obscene (like England did) Pretty much you will have no recourse, no bootlegs, no nuttin, except maybe that old dvd on ebay (if that has not been outlawed by reverse customary historic use).

I guess with the world going to a cashless society in less than 20 years, I can forsee an "all in one" digital rights card/chip that you carry around with you that will not only get you into the movie theater, but buy downloadable movies/games/music/books/etc. Find a chip/card too cumbersome to carry around? well don't worry the new ruler of europe, Anthony T. Christ, just decreed you must have a RFID chip implanted in you, for -ALL- Commerce and as a bonus will throw in digital rights mangement for free!

Re:20 years or bust

[stud9920]

and you want to buy "A Clockwork Orange" only to find out it's blocked by your country for being subversive or obscene (like England did)

like england did not. Some copycat crimes happened in the UK, Stanley Kubrick, in no way linked to her majesty's government, retired the film in the UKuntil he died.

Nerd Employment Preservation Act of 2006

[MillionthMonkey]

I'd like a law like this too. If technology ever makes my job obsolete, I plan to stay at home watching TV and receiving payments from my current employer, as mandated by a proposed law intended to preserve the status quo I enjoy today: the "Nerd Employment Preservation Act of 2006".

If we scrape together some money we can easily have this done. Republican Senator Gordon Smith, for example, the genius behind this fair use bill, can be bought for pretty cheap:

Between May 2001 and May 2002, Abramoff wrote three $1,000 checks to Smith, followed by a $2,000 check in June 2002 from one of his main clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaws. In late October 2002, right before Smith's reelection, while he enjoyed a large lead in the polls over Democrat Bill Bradbury, the senator accepted three more checks totaling $4,000, two from the Mississippi tribe and one from another Abramoff client, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in California. Since the election, Smith has received two additional checks from Abramoff's Indian clients, totaling $6,000.

Why should record companies get all the status quo preserving laws? If everyone in this thread were to donate $10 to a special PAC, we could probably get the "Nerd Employment Preservation Act of 2006" passed easily. And we could make extra money by taking short positions on the stocks of all our employers before Wall Street finds out about our new law.

Fair Use isn't an RIAA policy.

[jcr]

It's a doctrine of copyright law, which the RIAA and its predecessors have always fought against.

-jcr

Lovely.

[Jaazaniah]

When technology first came along and swept music into our lives, it did so en mass. Further broadening the broadcasts will cost someone, that's for sure, but locking codecs into laws, linking ridiculous software patents to laws that won't expire without being smited by a judge with common sense? Here's a funny story. When Phillips and Sony finalized Red Book in 1979, it was done based off another technology source, Laserdiscs. If someone tried that today, they would be swamped by roughly 30 letters of patent infringment warnings, and if this law passes a startup that builds it's own machine (and for arguement's sake avoids stepping on toes) based on HD broadcasts would get slapped with a violation of this new ridiculous bill. (by way of bypassing the Customary Historic Use hardware regulations) Not only is this a blatant slap in the face for creativity in business, but it is also a "Pay to use our patented broadcast flag technology in your hardware or get sued for not doing so anyways!"

And just so I don't fire people up without giving them an outlet, here's some useful links. We need to hound the government EN MASS to get this proposal squashed.

Contact List
U.S. Chamber of Commerce - This law is anti-competitive for the above reasons (and likely more). Let them know.

State-sorted contact list of state senators - Can you write effectively, and do you want to make a difference? Go here and DO it. There's no reason to sit idle if you, as a citizen here, have an objection. Get others to do it too. Send them the link. Mass email it, mail in an old fashioned petition. Senators don't read Slashdot, and don't consult geeks unless it involves upgrading computers. Go here.

Re: Bucket.

[Black Parrot]

> Maybe it's time for **AA to kick the bucket...

Sorry, but that's not a Customary Historic Use of buckets.

Downloading in Holland

[tsa]

In my country (The Netherlands) downloading for your own use is legal (sorry - the links you get are mostly in Dutch). I hope it stays this way for a long time; this prevents moronic laws as the one described in the article to enter Europe for a long time to come. Hopefully.

Quote from 1984 anyone?

[AHuxley]

So they want total control over the next generation?

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale--then the lie passed into history and became truth.

You will study a RIAA/MPAA approved course, work in a RIAA/MPAA approved media job and get your pension from a RIAA/MPAA approved company.

No lost 'clips' from the past - just one RIAA/MPAA view of the past - as they will have the only keys to all the press archives.
Political parties and families can be assured that all the bad stuff is locked away for good now.
No ghosts from the past to upset any political party 20-30 years on.

Images of young men and woman before the courts as minor officials will just not exist away as they move up the ladders of power.
Images of your now top leaders shaking hands with friendly dictators, giving testimony about arms deals or military excesses
will now all be encrypted.

OK by me!

[paiute]

I still have all my old wax cylinders. That damn punk Rudy Vallee - I showed him at last.

Prevent Americans, not anyone

[jemnery]

Sorry, but the article refers to American trade associations. I live in a country (the UK) that used to rule a large part of the world, and be by far the most advanced in industry and technology. This is no longer true. If the US wants to go the same way, just keep on stifling innovation in this way. There's nothing to stop China, India, Sweden etc etc from innovating with complete freedom.

This is not intended to start a flamewar; I've been to the US and enjoyed it, and I'd be the first to defend all the good things that have come from America (despite the current administration).

Re:RIAA

[d4nowar]

Yeah... it also lets you build houses/hotels on your property.

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.

Don't call them **AA, they are the MAFIA

[Timo_UK]

Music and And Film Industry Associations, or short MAFIA.
Sounds a lot more appropriate.

There won't be any more analog outputs

[KingSkippus]

This is covered, which is part of what makes this so evil:

The "secure moving technology" ensures that whatever you do with the signal that leaves the digital broadcast receiver, it definitely won't be anything you can't already do right now. Furthermore, even some things that you can currently do will be outlawed if those things could facilitate piracy. This probably means that such devices won't have much in the way of hi-fi analog outs.

In other words, since analog capture could possibly lead to piracy, new devices will be required to not have analog outputs any more.

Re:There won't be any more analog outputs

[Loconut1389]

so hook up to the speaker output.. or if speakers take digital outputs, hook up to the leads into the voice coil.. or if they move to some sort of servo controlled mechanism, hook up a digital micrometer and measure the change in the measurement..

or more simply, put a microphone in front of the speaker.

Until they can prevent sound from moving through air in compressions and rarefactions (is that right?), there will always be a way to get a copy- though perhaps not an exact copy. With good enough playback equipment and good enough recording equipment and the right type of room, theres no reason you couldn't get a near-perfect analog recording.

My Customary Historic Use

[mcubed]

For more than a year in the historical period of 1999-2001, I customarily used the original implementation of Napster to download and share audio files. Therefore, Napster or any service that models itself along those lines is a customary historic use.

I'm fine with this. You go, Senator Smith!

Michael

Directive 10-289, anyone?

[Stormwatch]

Sounds a lot like Directive 10-289 from Atlas Shrugged...

Obligatory Anti-copyright rant

[dada21]

The slippery slope of government's renting of their monopoly on the use of force is being proven right here.

Copyright can't work anymore. I'd say up until 1995 or so, you had copyright laws that were degrading but still were enforceable. It can't be done. It is time for everyone who creates content to find new ways to market it.

My typical reply to "how?" is to move to live performances and tours -- with a push to sell official merchandise on top of it. Some other people in support of my No Copyright opinions have even thought up other great ways to promote art without copyright:

1. You can charge your fans for access to your studio creation time via the web.
2. You can record your live art performance real time, dump it to DVD and sell it to the fans that were at the performance.
3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist.
4. You can contract out with local pubs to be a regular live performance artist.
5. You can tour, often, using your cheap/free CDs or free MP3s to promote your music syle.
6. You can play cheaply in order to promote your real job: teaching others to play an instrument.

Copyright has one intent: to enable the cartels to retain control of the distribution. There is no other use for copyright enforcement longer than 3 years. I even think that 24 months sounds too long for me.

I've been debating copyright in real life for 2 years now, and I'm working on opening No Copyright Studios in Chicago, IL this spring. If you have interest in beating down the RIAA, move away from the law that supports their cartel -- copyright. If you're a band, a painter, a web designer, a sculptor or any other artist, there are ways to sell your art face-to-face for a profit and skip turning over your rights to a cartel middleman.

Re:Obligatory Anti-copyright rant

[amper]

Adam,

I thought I'd mention that I've added you to my "Friends" here on Slashdot because I find you posts here, and some of the information on your web sites provocative. I disagree, however, with much of your content.

In this particular post, you again assert the idea that, "Copyright has one intent: to enable the cartels to retain control of the distribution." You've made this assertion multiple times recently, and I have to tell you, you couldn't be more wrong. Copyright does indeed have "one intent", but that intent is, to quote the Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Unfortunately, this provision in the Constitution, which might I add, was developed by men who possessed a great deal of both insight and foresight, has indeed become polluted by moneyed interests to the point where the restrictions available to copyright holders outweigh the public interest in progress, but I wholeheartedly disagree that, as you put it, "Copyright can't work anymore." Copyright can work, and has served well for the past 200-odd years of the history of our nation. The problem we currently face for copyright is that the barrier to infringement of the copyright privilege has been dramatically lowered by the availablility of low-cost digital reproduction. People who would otherwise remain honest have, in the face of the pollution of the original intent of the copyright and dilution of moral priniciples in our society, begun to infringe upon the privileged grant of authorship because they can do so easily in a relatively anonymous fashion.

Your assertion that content creators must find new avenues of revenue generation may be a prgmatic reaction to the situation, but the end result is the destruction of a viable way of life for many artists. I find that, in general, those who advocate such measures for artists, and particularly, musicians, as you outline above, are generally not themselves the sort of artists who will find their livelihood placed at a disadvantage. It is all very well for you to advocate a life of constant live performance when you yourself do not seem to engage in such performances. Who are you to dictate what my lifestyle, as a publishing musician should be? Do I agree that the "cartels" have a disproportionate amount of power in the music economy? Certainly, but the answer, in my opinion, is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and relegate my fellow musicians to "walk the long road".

It may be that ultimately, it may become impossible for artists to make a living off of the proceeds of recorded works, whatever their form, but I predict that if this comes to pass, the end result will be a dramatic reduction in artistic output of all forms, with the added reality that under such a system of mandatory live performance, access to artistic works will very quickly become restricted to an elite subset of the population with sufficient means and lesiure time to enjoy them. Now, I'd like to examine some of your suggestions, specifically:

1. You can charge your fans for access to your studio creation time via the web.

Yes, I can, but this requires not only a large expenditure in equipment (as you yourself should know), but a large store of technical knowledge. This of course, does not take into account that artists may not wish to allow access to "unfinished works".

2. You can record your live art performance real time, dump it to DVD and sell it to the fans that were at the performance.

This suffers from all the same problems as #1, but adds the burden of live performance, plus fails to account for the ability of those DVD's to be pirated easily.

3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist.

Do I really even need to dissect this idea? A salaried artist? I can imagine the societal and artistic value of the creations produced by such a system.

Re:Obligatory Anti-copyright rant

[typicallyterrific]

3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist.

Do I really even need to dissect this idea? A salaried artist? I can imagine the societal and artistic value of the creations produced by such a system.

I don't know whether you're being sarcastic or not, but it seems Bach fared alright (they were called court musicians back in the day). Same deal with Mozart's earlier career working for the archbishop of Salzburg and pretty much every single Rennaisance artist.

Art has *never* been untainted by some form of commercial venue.

Re:Obligatory Anti-copyright rant

[amper]

I think you are diluting your own point by mentioning "salaried musicians" and "musicians who live only off their concert sales" in the same breath. I would ask you, are you a musician yourself, and if so, have you ever attempted to make a serious living off of the proceeds of your live performances in today's society? Have you considered the difficulty of enjoying many of the rewards of life that others take for granted while embarking on an endless series of touring dates, the least of which is to raise a family of your own? Or, do you draw a salary based on your musical talents?

As an aside, I am skeptical of the Warhol's ultimate benefit to aesthetics, I would argue that neither the Rolling Stones nor the Beatles had economic success as their highest goal in their early days, and we all know what happened to the Medici, don't we? Although I hear Lorenza is eking out a pretty decent living off her cookbooks...some of which I actually own. BTW, if you haven't done so, you should visit Firenze these days. Invigorating place, it is.

I am not saying that "salaried musicians" don't have a place in this world. I am only appalled at the notion that they could somehow become the only musicians capable of making a living absent the protection of copyright. Art is rarely well served by pecuniary interest.

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[HangingChad]

I personally have almost given up on spamming congresscritters.

Unless you're buying expensive dinners for them, or shuttling them around in your private jet or paying for travel to exotic locations, it's likely you're part of that pesky background noise your legislator's lobbyists are trying to shield them from. To them you're part of a well meaning but ultimately not very bright group of people called constituents who don't understand how things really get done.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/na tion/epaper/2006/01/01/a2a_bellsouth_0101.html

Let the RIAA keep their music.

[sticks_us]

Some points:

1) Of all the music being made out there, the standard industry practice guarantees you'll only ever hear an insiginficant fraction of what's available, and most of that is successful because it sounds like something else. What you get is the tiniest sliver of what's possible. Most of the greatest music being made will never make it to your ears.

2) Until recently, music was a social activity (people used to be able to play instruments and entertain family and friends, for example, and they'd also leave the house at times to hear others make music). Take off the headphones.

3) Enroll in a music class. Pony up the bucks, take some lessons, learn some techniques, and -- gasp -- make some of your own music. Music is OK when it's a passive activity (listening), but nothing compares to being able to make your own.

Music is something you make, share, and become a part of. When it becomes something you buy (like cereal or beer), it's *always* going to be fettered by copyright laws, etc.

Take it back, make it your own.

Re:Let the RIAA keep their music.

[melikamp]

So they are not, but the GP has a point. Before music became a consumer good it used to be a social activity. That does not mean that everybody was a musician, just that music was something you would do with your friends. If enough people follow GP's advice, you will have some friends who will play music for you, quite lovely. Only by personally participating you will make it your own.

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:Neo-Luddites

[amper]

Fair use is indeed a right, and has always been so. "Copyright" itself, is not in fact a right, but a restriction of publishing rights for any person other than the copyright holder. In fact, a true strict constructionist reading of the Constitution reveals quite clearly that anything not specifically restricted by either the Constitution or statute law is a right retained by the People. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has for some strange reason taken the stance that rights must be speciically enumerated in order to be protected...which is in clear violation of the text of the Constitution.

Re:RIAA

[acariquara]

Humor police

You have made a bad pun. Go straight to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

How?

[Jugalator]

How can RIAA/MPAA have any say in how electronic devices are made, and what they can support and can't? How can they even propose anything about it? They're just an organization, not owning electronics companies, and not a political party. I can understand *AA protecting their distributed discs as they have the rights to do so (because the record labels being so are members of *AA), and conversely they don't have any say in protecting discs where labels aren't members, but this is looking like power on a government level when not being part of the government.

Re:RIAA

[Heembo]

The record company visionaries are seeing the end of the road. In the past, you bought a record. Then an 8-track (only if you were hip). Then cassette. CD. Some moved to DVD, but many are getting mp3s' and the road is at an end. I don't need to move to the next latest-and-greatest way of listening to music. My imperfect transportable mp3 collection will follow me til the end of digital time without need to buy again.

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[Luigi30]

I don't think Tom Scholz would be very happy.

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[garyboodhoo]

The purpose of these organizations is basically distribution & marketing. Groups accumulate power, only to see it fall away when they become irrelevant: East India Company, the Steel, Railroad and Telegraph industries, any number of nationalistic world powers (Portugal was once feared!), the Soviet Union, etc...

While I suppose people have been hoping for the media cabal to "kick off and shut the f*ck up" for 30 years, only in the current era is that a reasonable expectation.

Straight up supply and demand really. The spice will flow whether the RIAA/MPAA have a hand in it or not. Ironically, while demand is as great as ever, proposed legislation of this sort only drives supply to other channels. Generally speaking, consumers prefer not to be treated as criminals.

Re:Oy

[Metasquares]

4b. Bill gets tacked on to other unrelated bill and is passed because everyone thinks they're improving hopitals or something by passing that second bill.

RICO

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I wonder how long it is going to take for some forward thinking prosecutor to take down the **AA orgs using the RICO law?

I'm kind of surprised it hasn't happened yet - IANAL, but these shitbags are clearly working a racketeering game.

Price fixing? yup.
Stifling competition? yup.

The list is long...

RS

"Piracy" is "customary"

[Dave21212]

It may not be legal, but it sure is embedded deeply in our customs.

Would this legalize file sharing ? !

Re:RIAA Mandate?

[arkhan_jg]

The RIAA is the Recording Industry Association of America - it's basically what it says on the tin. A lobbying and management group that represents its record company members by bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobbying the US government for new laws, and suing alleged copyright infringers of the RIAA members copyright for obscene damages. They are not a part of the US government, merely a corporate association.

Not all US record labels are members of the RIAA, though it often acts as if they are. Their list of members is rather lengthy, but they are largely sub-labels or labels for a particular favoured artist of the 4 big international companies - Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI group and Warner Music. These are the companies that control 85% of US music and 70% worldwide, and the RIAA is their mouthpiece in the US. They have other industry associations in other nations; the BPI is the equivalent in the UK, for example.

Remember, the RIAA itself is only acting on behalf of the big 4. They are the companies directly responsible for music DRM, retarding new music business methods and any technology that they don't control. If you wish to avoid purchasing music from these dinosaurs' stable of artists, use the RIAA radar to determine if the label on a particular CD is actually a RIAA member or truly an independant.

I haven't stopped buying music, I've just stopped buying it from the big 4. If we want music to survive in its current form, as opposed to windows-only DRM restricted versions backed up by permanent copyright, then only buy from true independent musicians and labels. For example, CDBaby.com is a big site for truly independant musicians, as is magnatune. As a bonus, you know most of the money you spend will go directly to the artists, rather than the tiny percentage they get when selling through the major RIAA member labels.

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:They can't kill you, yet

[ScrewMaster]

True ... but taxes can be a form of oppression (probably the most common) with religious tyranny next on the list. Frequently both are simultaneously applied to a given population. Any way you look at it, one hell of a lot of people came to the New World to get away from what they considered "oppression" by their former government. Many took insane risks to do so: insane by our standards perhaps, but that's only because we take for granted that for which they were willing to risk everything.

But that's what frontiers have often been all about: society's disaffected seeing both opportunity, and the possibility of escape from tyranny and persecution. What concerns me is that when America, indeed Western civilization itself, reaches the point that many of us will want to go somewhere else is that, well ... there isn't anywhere else. No new frontiers, no place to hide, no place to go for the chance of a better life. Unless we achieve some technological breakthroughs that open up space or the oceans for colonization on a massive scale there will continue to be no place to go.

Silly, really...

[Svartalf]

Since it needs to be made into an analog signal, somewhere along the line it needs to be put to a speaker. From there, it can be tapped off the speaker or recorded with a microphone. They won't put DRM in microphones because of the danger factor (already covered numerous times on this site...).

"Plugging the Analog Hole" can't. In order for you to be able to hear/see it, it HAS to go through an analog hole they can't realistically plug.

It's all friggin' stupid and we need to just remove from office all the twits pushing this BS as it's a waste of taxpayer dollars, etc. to be even discussing this as a law in Congress.

post-mp3

[allelopath]

I agree with you to a point, ie, after digital, no need to go further. However, I don't see mp3 as the ultimate in digital. Soon enough, there will be something with far more fidelity and occupying far less space.

Re:post-mp3

[Millenniumman]

Most people won't be able to notice higher fidelity, and computer storage space is becoming larger and less expensive, so it will be hard to convince people to re-buy all of their mp3 music to get these things.

Re:post-mp3

[FLEB]

Most people won't be able to notice higher fidelity

Who needs to when you've got marketing to tell you it's there? (And it sounds even better on my BOSE Wave!)

Re:post-mp3

[Millenniumman]

I have never heard anyone complain about mp3 quality, or even note it outside of Slashdot and similar sites. I don't notice a difference either. Now, I do realize that doesn't prove anything, but I think that it the opinion of the majority of average people. But are there any efforts to bring higher quality music download services? If there was much consumer demand I would think there would be. But your probably right in that expectations will change with new technology, or that people will just want what is better regardless of whether they can tell. I don't think taking up less space will ever be an issue. How much does it cost to fill up an iPod 60GB with music legally? ~$15000 . It might differ with mp3 rather than AAC or buying lower price CDs, but it would still be quite a lot. So with the new mp3 standard plus much bigger HDs the iPod 1TB with mp9 taking up one tenth the space you will be spending ~$3 million dollars to fill it up with music. Subscription services might change this but no one wants to wait 7 years to download all of the music on the music store and fill their digital audio player with it, even on their 1Tbps fiber optic internet connection. Especially when it will all stop working when they don't pay the monthly fee. At the risk of being "people will only ever need 64k"esque I think modern digital audio players already have all the storage that most people will ever need for music. Now digital audio/video players will need more storage space, and will probably replace DAPs.

Re:post-mp3

[heinousjay]

What bitrate are you using? 320 bps sounds like source material on any consumer level equipment, and if you're the type that feels like flinging your money at 'audiophile' equipment, then you won't want any kind of lossy compression anyway - if for nothing else than bragging rights.

Overall, given the general public's taste in music, wasting fidelity on their ears is pointless, in any case. They can't tell at all, and probably wouldn't care, as long as there was a beat.

----- under this line, I get catty. -----

By the way, calling people 'sheep' exposes you as an asshole. Manually linebreaking your text in an inconsistent fashion so that it's impossible to read doesn't help. Appropriate capitalization is a favor to your readers. And mp3 doesn't mean the 3rd version of some nebulous 'mp' spec, so mp9 wouldn't mean what you think it would.

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.

Re:post-mp3

[slashname3]

Overall, given the general public's taste in music, wasting fidelity on their ears is pointless, in any case. They can't tell at all, and probably wouldn't care, as long as there was a beat.

Based on the noise coming from the neighbor's kid's car they could use a much lower bit rate for what apparently passes for music today. And it sounded like at least one of his speakers was blown. Why people listen to music that loud and distorted is beyond understanding. Makes me wonder if you could package a white noise generator with a bass track.

Re:post-mp3

[Mal-2]

MP3s *can* sound bad, but that is almost always due to over-compression, bad settings (such as mismatched sample rates), encoders that can't handle certain conversions well, etc. I'm quite certain you can make an AAC or WMA suck just as bad. Any lossy format (audio or otherwise) can turn an input file to mush if it's set up to do that. The problem is that computers aren't smart enough to say "These settings will sound like shit. Continue? Y/N". Then the person hosting the file either has a tin ear, or has never listened to it, or perhaps just can't find any better rip, and it propagates.

Mal-2

Re:post-mp3

[Weedlekin]

"If I have a CD full of 0's it should be played as silence. If I have a CD full of maximum amplitude sound it should be played at the maximum amplitude the system is capable of, given the current volume setting."

If the system was implemented as you seem to think it is, then there would be noticeable quantisation effects -- piano notes for example would initially decay smoothly until a certain volume level was reached, after which there would be perceptible steps. The reason for this is that our perception of volume is logarithmic, so we are capable of distinguishing minute differences in sound pressure level at the low-volume end of the scale, but require progressively larger differences as the pressure level rises, and it is the quiet end of the scale that would suffer if one attempted to represent ranges larger than 96 db with 16 bits. Note that quantisation effects would be quite noticeable even with pop and rock music, because they still contain instruments (e.g. drums) with envelopes that are susceptible to "steppiness".

"Your ears (and eyes) have a tremendous dynamic range, but they can't distinguish that finely between individual levels within that range."

Ears and eyes are completely different organs that are processed by separate areas of the brain. You cannot therefore make assumptions about one based on the other, any more than you can make assumptions about touch based on what you know about the sense of smell.

"We can hear a whisper and a jet plane taking off, but we can't distinguish between the loudness of jet plane A and jet plane B because the difference is too small."

Ears are logarithmic: we can distinguish between the relative volumes of two quiet sounds with great precision, but require progressively larger volume differences as the overall sound pressure rises.

"The original point was that I think the music industry hit the ceiling when they issued CDs. Almost everybody realized that there was little point in paying to go higher than that."

What you said was as follows:

"44 KHz (22 KHz Nyquist frequency) gives a decent safety margin. 16-bits is quite a bit finer than people's senses can reasonably register as far as intensity goes, certainly for light and I suspect for sound as well, particularly in an environment with noise (and every environment has some noise)."

Neither of those points was correct. Our ears are perfectly capable of handling a lot more than 90db of dynamic range, and sounds well above 22KHz can interact in ways that result in waveforms at audible frequencies.

As to whether it is worth paying for something better than CDs, that depends on many factors: what sort of music one listens to; how good one's audio system is; how well one's brain has been trained to listen instead of just hear; etc., etc. In my case for example, CDs are perfectly adequate, because my musical tastes are mostly based around recordings that were made on equipment which was in most respects inferior to them, while the vast majority of others are limited by the quality of the equipment used to play CDs, not the CDs themselves. It is in essence much like the HD TV debate: there's no point paying for a high-definition playback system and the media for it if you are going to view them on a TV set which is only capable of standard definition, or has a screen that is small enough to make the differences largely imperceptible.

I have a better idea

[penguin-collective]

Why don't they stop publishing content altogether? Then nobody can steal it anymore, and the rest of us can go on with our lives. The independent stuff is a lot better anyway, and I'm happy to finance that by going to concerts.

Where's the ACLU and other Civil Rights groups

[JoeCommodore]

Looking from the performers side it looks pretty dicrininatory, it give the power to the "performing rights organizations" which are not really organizatons but corporations instead. Sure limits the ability of the poor struggling artist from making an honest dollar.

I think some legislation to abolish the MPAA and RIAA and create some more fair public organization is in order if these things go into place.

but everyone does it...

[E8086]

Unlike in their paranoid delusions, everyone doesn't "pirate" their crap, I mean content, no I really mean crap. There has to be something more than blind greed here. I've been saying they want to use DRM to turn everything into a pay-per-view box. Pay to record or buy(I mean rent a limited license change/revokable at any time for any or no reason with no chance of a refund), then pay to watch and continue to pay to rewatch everytime you want play it again. And they'll probably want to ability to remotely delete any or all of your recordings. Will they ever learn that everyone don't download everything that's not free for free. Like most(I hope) people I pay for the content I have. I got a cheap usb tv card, after about an hour of recording the audio gets noticably off, fine when I'm also watching an can stop and restart the recording during the commercials and combine later. I've legaly recorded many dozens of TV eps this way. My DVD collection is over 150 disks, of course I'm inflating the number by including bonus disks and counting TV seasons by number of disks. Compared to my small pile of 19 CDs so you can see where my interest lies. I'm considering getting a TiVo to aid in the inital recording and for shows I'll want to watch once then delete, the re-encoding/compressing (yes I have a legal copy of DivX) can wait.

Instead of trying to ban all the fun new toys before they've been fully developed maybe they should encourage their developement so the price drops and everyone has one and downloading will stop because everyone can legally record things for their own personal time-shifting use. But that's just for stuff on tv.

'permit' not 'limit'

[alphakappa]

Quoting directly from the linked article:
(b) permit customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law;

Nowhere does it mention that the devices should be limited to customary historic use. It states that customary historic use should be permitted provided that it doesn't break nay applicable law. I'm not an *AA defender, but crying wolf over something that's not there does not help the fight against them. In this case, the ArsTechnica article simply states a line out of context (Notice how the same quote in the first paragraph of the story conveniently edits out the word 'permit' to completely change the tone of that line)

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[masdog]

Well, I could go to Washington, stand outside the office of my Congressmen, and try to talk to him every time he comes and goes. I don't think I would get too far with that idea, and the Secret Service/Capital Police might have a problem with it.

I could also try to start an organization in my congressional district and organize people, but then I have to come up with the funding and time to get my message out.

The problem isn't people. There are tons of people who care. But this type of thing, even if you care, generally doesn't rank too high on priorities because of things like work, family, education, and church (if one chooses to participate in that social organization). To add to this, the inflationary economic policy of the United States makes budgets tighter, so people have to work more to keep their lifestyle.

So in the end, my best bet end up being a boycott.

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[HangingChad]

And what are you doing to change it?

You should try the "search" feature before putting your dick in the dirt in front of thousands of people.

Yes and what do we do about it?

[Phoenix666]

The corporations keep getting more powerful, and the average Joe keeps losing more, and democracy is vanishing down the tubes. What do you do about it? File a lawsuit? Really. When an administration can torture and spy on you with impunity, what good is the rule of law going to do you?

The only thing that does any good whatsoever is to get together 5-10 friends, and go make a personal visit to your Congressman's office. Not Senators, mind you, since they all think they're little potentates and don't give a crap what you think. But House members can be influenced, especially by a motivated group of citizens in their district.

Why is that? Because in the eyes of a politician none of us is just one person. Rather, we're a node in a network of an average of 150 friends, family, and acquaintances. They piss you off, and you become a message repeater to that network telling them not to vote for that politician, which in turn could echo from each of those 150 people in your network to the 150 people in their individual networks. That sort of math adds up quickly. Sure, it could be no more than a person two or three hops removed from you saying, "Yeah, I heard that guy was a real dickhead." But you'd be surprised how many people vote based on such vague hearsay. Definitely enough to cost someone an election.

Then you throw in the possibility that you might be the niece of their biggest campaign contributor, or that you might be one of those people Malcolm Gladwell talks about who has a personal rolodex of 5,000 contacts, and suddenly the math takes off even faster. They don't know, so better for them to play it safe and not piss you off.

House members have a much smaller pool of constituents than Senators, so they're much more vulnerable to the math. For state and city elected officials, even more so.

And what happens if they do piss you off? You and your 5-10 friends make up a simple flyer, go out to the Walmart/supermarket/mall whatever for a couple hours on an weekend and hand them out like crazy. Guarantee you'll get action then. I did it with three friends for two hours on a Saturday outside a supermarket in Greenwich Village last year after a snotty state senator told us she wasn't going to support legislative reforms (like being required to actually vote) in Albany. Next day I got a nasty call from her Chief of Staff asking us what the f*ck we thought we were doing. Apparently they had gotten 2-300 phone calls from their constituents asking her to change her position. I asked her if I could quote the senator on that, and forward it to a friend at the Village Voice (a widely read paper in NY). I also said we were prepared to do the same every weekend until she changed her mind. We heard through the grapevine that the woman was so panicked that she complained to the chairman of the state party; the story pretty much reverberated throughout the state. Ultimately when the reforms came to a vote, she voted for them. 4 people, two hours, vote changed, reforms passed, worst legislature in country cleaned up.

You can make a difference, but complaining about it on Slashdot doesn't do anything. Writing letters to congressmen does make more of a difference than you think, but it's still not much. Small groups of people can make a big difference if you do it right. I'm no expert, but I've been through lots of experiences like the one above and have some idea about what works and what doesn't. Drop me a line at dakong27 at yahoo.com.

license, registration, and buggy whip

[scotty1024]

Just imagine if the buggy whip people had been this greedy, we'd either still be using horses to get around or we'd have the police checking to make sure we have license, registration, and buggy whip.

Re:Thought Police are patrolling the 'hood

[jc42]

        I can't wait for these dinosaurs to kick off and shut the f*sk up.

People have been saying this for 30 years.

Actually, it's more like a century. Since the first recordings came out, there have been new technical advances in recording and playback equipment every few years. It's hard to find a single advance that didn't get this reaction from the companies making money from the older technology. Almost always, they try to ban the sale of new equipment to anyone except themselves. The idea of a government-enforced monopoly is nothing new, and that's what this proposed law really is.

Hollywood came into existence basically as a way of fighting Edison's controls. At the time, travel and communication were sufficiently slow that operations in California couldn't be controlled from the East Coast. If you set up shop there, you could produce something and make a bundle from it before the Big Guys could stomp on you, and you'd have the money to fight them. This helped turn California into the powerhouse that it is today.

The current rearguard action against new technology by big American corporations is only forcing innovation to move to places outside the reach of American law and its enforcers.

(BTW, there is some really good music being produced outside the US, often in countries that most Americans couldn't find on a map. Check it out.)

How is this worse than the DMCA?

[plasmacutter]

The DMCA already does this.

I have a modded xbox. This is illegal under the DMCA, but it plays every format, open or closed. This would have been available as a cheap set top box under every manufacturer if the DMCA were not there giving these greedy ****s complete regulatory control over the consumer electronics industries.

Why do they need this law, and why do we need to oppose it? after all, these jerkoffs in hollywood already have complete regulatory control over all devices used to access their releases, and after the transition to HDTV will have complete regulatory control over all devices used to access tv (and don't say the broadcast flag is dead.. cable has rules stricter than the flag and has an 80% market penetration in the US). So exactly how does this make things worse than they already are.

Going on the Offensive

[zotz]

Going on the Offensive.

I think we need to stop just defending and reacting to these sorts of issues.

We need to go on the offensive. We need to think of some initiatives that we could push for that would help or just not affect the little players too much and yet would put a monkey wrench in the game plan of the big boys who are constantly trying to pull these stunts.

Push for this change for instance:

No more taking works from the Public Domain and making derivatives with all rights reserved types of copyrights. You can sell public domain works fine. You can make derivatives and put them under a copyleft license fine. But you cannot make a derivative of a public domain work and lock it up as you can if you had made something completely new.

I think something like this might give them the kind of scare that their stunts give us.

Any thoughts on this idea. Any other better ideas to go on the offensive?

all the best,

drew
-----
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/145261
Record a "copyleft" song and you could win a thousand dollars.

This is anti-competitive and worse than you think.

[twitter]

Since it needs to be made into an analog signal, somewhere along the line it needs to be put to a speaker. From there, it can be tapped off the speaker or recorded with a microphone.

Woot, then you have a crappy analog copy of commercial shit. Nicer than nothing, but that commercial shit is going to get worse and worse as the world's big publishers use this legislation to eliminate their competitors. Moreover, I don't even think you will be able to make that crappy copy for yourself long if the RIAA gets it's way. The analog plug will work to drive up your costs and prevent you from co-operating legally to get around the obstacles thrown in your way.

Don't you think the RIAA would love to return to the days when only experts with expensive equipment could make recordings? That's what this is really about. The proposed legislation would ban recording devices that don't respect the broadcast flag. This essentially bans general purpose recording devices.

If you think you can get around it with all the cheap, high quality sound cards you have today and free software, forget it. Sure, you will be able to do what you do as long as your equipment works but that's not forever. Consider DeCSS and what will happen to distribution of free recording software if it is similarly outlawed. Overnight, Windoze and Apple update "their" software to outlaws general recording and all you are left with is a few "experts" who are able to do it. It will be very difficult for you to to compete because your software and hardware will remain frozen in time, while the "official" studios will get the latest and greatest for their royalties and obedience. "Consumers" like you and me will be able to edit quarter vga movies with 8 bit mono sound on non free platforms with more bugs than South Florida.

On the customer side, your stuff won't play. That's the other half of the lockdown. The vast majority of future audio equipment will refuse to listen to anything but "authorized" content. While there are easy ways around that, few people will bother because most just want their device to turn on and "work". Every playback device will be like a record store is today: All RIAA or nothing.

The industry thought long and hard about this and their proposed legislation will give them what they want. That's to extend their early 20th century domination of popular culture forever.

All of the above applies the same way for video as well. The only difference between the two is that video is already horribly locked down and may never be liberated. The primary difficulty in making a free movie editor is not that video is hard to do, it's that non-free containers dominate. There's a raft of secrets and patents between you and free movie editing that you can share with your family and friends. The same tricks and more can be applied to audio.

Prepaid music subscriptions

[tepples]

How much does it cost to fill up an iPod 60GB with music legally?

It's a lot cheaper than $15,000 if you fill it up with music videos, as you allude to later.

Especially when [all-you-can-eat music rental] will all stop working when they don't pay the monthly fee.

Say you keep such a device for 3 years. Then at $5/mo just add $180 to the cost of the device, and you have the entire top 100 for the last n years at your fingertips, which could be a strong selling point to many buyers.

Ogg will not necessarily save us

[tepples]

And why We* invented .ogg.

Nothing stops electronics companies working at the behest of major multinational record labels from wrapping Vorbis audio or even an entire Ogg stream in a digital restrictions management layer, except possibly the so-called analog hole.

Controlling ADC

[tepples]

ADCs are used amost anywhere any sensor would get used to convert voltages to numbers.

But it might be a violation to sell a bare ADC circuit with a bandwidth of 32 kHz or greater and an SNR of 60 dB or greater without a business license.

Re: Controlling ADC

[Thomas Shaddack]

But it might be a violation to sell a bare ADC circuit with a bandwidth of 32 kHz or greater and an SNR of 60 dB or greater without a business license.

Two words: black market.

Alternatively, sell measuring instruments that are very easy to convert to audio input devices. With high enough demand, digital oscilloscopes with USB interface will become dirt cheap.

MP3 Quality

[wwphx]

You must have a good ear and good speakers if MP3 is barely tolerable to you. I have 6gig of music on my laptop, I use it in the school's darkroom & studio and in my car when driving long distances. In both cases, it's not possible for me to have better speakers (i,e. audiophile-grade), though we will be upgrading the car stereo so that we'll have a receiver with cabled MP3 input instead of FM transmitter. I'm not going to put $1000 worth of speakers in a Toyota Matrix, it ain't worth it.

I have a very nice audio system: B&W speakers, Marantz receiver. It sounds wonderful (though it's not hooked up right now since I moved last year). For me, running my Creative Nomad into it, the audio is just fine for lowish volume level party background music. If I'm working in the living room wirelessly with my laptop, I'll frequently kick on iTunes. It doesn't sound fantastic because of the laptop's speakers, but it is adequate.

Admittedly I'm now 44 and have a hearing loss in one ear. Still, MP3 is definitely good enough for me.

Not all bands are live

[tepples]

My typical reply to "how?" is to move to live performances and tours

How would this work for people who produce music in the genres that are commonly called "electronic music"?

2. You can record your live art performance real time, dump it to DVD and sell it to the fans that were at the performance.

This is patented.

3. You can get a job with a larger company and be a salaried artist.

This is the record label business model.

4. You can contract out with local pubs to be a regular live performance artist.

And watch the bouncer tell most of your fans "Go away, you're not 21."

In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The cat's out of the bag, the worms are out of the can.

Also:

• Elvis has left the building.
• They are attempting to close the barn door after the horse has escaped.
• Clinton is out of Monica.
• The Dodgers are out of Brooklyn.
• Bush is out of his mind.
• At sixteen, Bart is out of the house.
• We're out of options.
• The store's out of X-boxes.
• You should get out more.

No, it's not very funny.
In fact, it's pretty stupid, but I'm posting it anyway.

RIAA-owned countries?

[trawg]

This new policy would effectively keep anyone from inventing any new type of media device without the RIAA/MPAA's say-so."

Umm, how many countries are there that are out there aren't owned by the RIAA yet? I can't imagine China (or stacks of those other Asian nations that have been cranking out mp3 players for years before the ipod became cool) suddenly stopping. In fact, surely the opposite will happen - they'll produce more of them.

The big issue for people living in RIAA-ruled countries (ie, where the RIAA have spent enough money to buy the politicians that are helping shape the laws) will surely be import laws on items like this (ie, no importing of items that don't enforce some sort of DRM). Then we're really fucked.

"Customary Historical Use" == "DoubleThink"

[ClickOnThis]

Several others in this thread have suggested that the parent should be modded "Funny." No way -- maybe it's a little exaggerated, but it's not entirely far-fetched.

Listen folks: DMCA, DRM, DVD region-encoding, malware-laden music CDs, ... none of this is about protecting copyright. It's about controlling access and it always has been. One way or another, people will be able to copy digital content, and the RIAA/MPAA know it. They just want to make sure they remain the controllers of what you can do with it.

The parent post's comparison to 1984 is entirely appropriate. The RIAA/MPAA wants to buy legislation to place itself in the role of Big Brother. Replacing "Fair Use" with "Customary Historical Use" is part of the plan: in order to change the way the consumer thinks about her rights, you have to change the way she talks about them. Big Brother has increased our rights from "Fair Use" to "Customary Historical Use". Praise Big Brother. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Knowledge. War is Peace.

We need to stand up and Fight!

[David Webb]

The RIAA and MPAA have declared WAR on all consumers! War!We did not ASK for this war. So now that we know we are at war what do we do? We retaliate and fight back. Media is produced for the consumer. How do you ask someone to buy your products when you behave in a heinous manner such as this? Let the examples of SONY BMG and BLIZZARD software not be forgotten.Nor the lawsuits brought about by greed and fear. This is yet another clear example of tyranny. Write to your senators,congressman and any other politician you think will listen. Boycott thier products and sign petitions against these villianous houligans.Support the EFF. We must band together and do everything we can to win this WAR!