RIAA: Ripping CDs to iPod not 'Fair Use'

dotpavan writes "EFF has this article about RIAA saying that ripping CDs and backing them up does not come under Fair use. Ars Technica also reports on this, by quoting, "The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future. Myriad online downloading services are available and offer varying types of digital rights management alternatives. For example, the Apple FairPlay technology allows users to make a limited number of copies for personal use. Presumably, consumers concerned with the ability to make back up copies would choose to purchase music from a service that allowed such copying. Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices. Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights.""

Comments

Big surprise

[nagora]

An organisation whose entire business model is now to resell the same product over and over again is hardly going to say that buying it once is enough. But in a world of "one dollar, one vote", who's going to stop them?

Re:Big surprise

[Agent00Wang]

It seems to me that the arguement in the article is just further incentive to not buy CDs. Even if you have a DRM protected file that you've downloaded, you can still play it on your portable device, in your car (through an audio input), or just about anywhere else. With a CD, you are essentially limited to only playing it in a CD player. For the majority of consumers (particularly the biggest target market, Gen-Y), not a very good deal.

Re:Big surprise

[nagora]

It seems to me that the arguement in the article is just further incentive to not buy CDs.

Which is exactly what the RIAA wants; they make far more off a download than a CD, at least on a per-track basis. Ringtones even more so. And for a lower quality product.

TWW

Re:Big surprise

[Xymor]

Actually each one of these places you can play your files is one copy, and since you have a limited amount of copies, you're gonna have to re-buy the same song you already own once you have no copies left.
In my understadnding, once you buy a CD, you have a license to play it's songs in any format, in as many devices as you want and as many cars you have.
Another problem is iTunes proprietary format not being compatible with all media devices(or devices not compatible with DRMed media in general).

Re:Big surprise

[jmv]

It's actually the opposite. With a CD, you can do whatever you like in terms of portable player (no matter what the RIAA wants you to believe). With DRM-protected music, you'll end up buying the same music several times, which is *exactly* what the RIAA wants. That's probably the only way they can sustain your business. If you don't produce anything new, your only hope is to keep selling the old stuff.

Re:Big surprise

[montyzooooma]

Downloaded tracks cost relatively more than the CD version and you have less control over what you can do with them. With the CD you can rip it, lend it, play it or turn it into a shiny coaster if you want. Just because the RIAA doesn't think it's fair use to rip your CD to your iPod doesn't mean they are right. The only downside to the CD is that there are often only a half or a third of the songs on it that you'll actually listen to. That's a big downside though.

Re:Big surprise

[jocknerd]

I respectfully disagree completely. In my opinion, buying a CD that has no copy protection on it is the only way music should be purchased at this time. Forget what the RIAA says. I can rip my CD's to my iPod. Why? Because the technology is there and the courts have granted me Fair Use rights.

And why do I want to own CD's instead of songs from iTMS? Several reasons. One, its a physical copy that can be resold. And two, because legally purchased music from online stores such as iTMS have DRM built in. Sure, Apple's Fair Play DRM is the least restrictive measure of DRM there is. But its still restrictive. How? Try playing your music through TiVo's desktop software. It can't play DRM'd AAC files. But every CD player in the world can play a true CD. And that CD can be legally ripped to a format of my liking regardless of what the RIAA's lawyers want to say. And the Fair Play DRM is also on Apple's videos on iTMS. But guess what, unlike the music, they won't let you copy these videos. So, essentially, you are locked into using iTunes and Quicktime for these videos. Which brings up the real reason for DRM. Vendor lock-in.

Sure, the RIAA pretty much insisted that Apple use DRM when they opened iTMS. But it has screwed the RIAA ever since. Had they not insisted on DRM, iTMS would not have the upper hand in their battle with the RIAA. Apple may not have wanted DRM then, but I guarantee you they want it now. Why? Because if the music on iTMS doesn't have DRM, then it would be much easier for you to purchase music from iTMS and play it on any player out there. With the DRM, you are pretty much forced into using the iPod. Do you think that Apple would give up the vendor lock-in now? And what if an independent artist wanted to put their music on iTMS but didn't want any DRM. I wonder if Apple would go along with that or would Apple insist on DRM. Has anybody tried this? I'd be interested to know what Apple said. This would tell once and for all Apple's stance on the DRM issue.

Re:Big surprise

[revery]

But in a world of "one dollar, one vote", who's going to stop them?

if you are talking about the power of money in getting a Senator to vote on a bill, you are at least somewhat accurate (though this has much more to do with the fact that post-Civil War, we have two popularly elected houses of Congress)
If, instead, you are talking about "one dollar, one vote" in actual elections, you are out of your mind. There are many, many examples of political races where the loser had a much better financed campaign (The Forbes campaign is one perfect example of a phenomenally well-financed campaign failing miserably.) Poltical connections and negotiable values are much more valuable than money in our current political system.

Re:Big surprise

[hattig]

All very true, but you're preaching to the converted.

Instead tell your (if you are American) government to stop the RIAA riding roughshod all over you in the name of profit. Or do the equivalent in your area of the world.

And start supporting unencumbered music not sold by RIAA members, and give artists money by seeing them live.

Re:Big surprise

[msobkow]

The **AA has spent the past 20 years trying to change the rules. You used to be able to send back cassettes or albums for replacements when damaged; the only charge was shipping.

Now they tell you it can't be replaced, because that version has been replaced by a "new" release, even with relatively-recently purchased media.

Currently they're trying to cut it back further, so that it's not even legal for you to listen to your media on a portable device without paying yet again.

To hell with the greedy bastards. Once or twice at the trough was more than enough -- no more.

Re:Big surprise

[toph42]

Yes, and then they can cry about piracy causing a slump in CD sales and call for even more draconian "reforms." Copyrights were provided for in the Constitution as a neccesary evil, only to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." When the copyright laws stifle rather than promote that progress, then they need to be repealed.

Re:Big surprise

[gstoddart]

I respectfully disagree completely. In my opinion, buying a CD that has no copy protection on it is the only way music should be purchased at this time. Forget what the RIAA says. I can rip my CD's to my iPod. Why? Because the technology is there and the courts have granted me Fair Use rights.

DRM is irrelevant really; at least for some of us. Until they change the entire format and insist everyone in the world must chuck their CD players for a new format (good luck), the CDs must still work on the installed base of CD players, as you pointed out.

While it may be true that a Windows PC will try to execute the extra crap they have for DRM, my FreeBSD box keeps happily ripping CDs to MP3 for me. Usually, a new CD gets put into a CD player maximum of three times -- to sample it at the store, maybe on the way home from the store, and then into my FreeBSD machine to be ripped. Thereafter the CD goes into the rack, and the MP3s are what I use for playback -- either by burning mixed CDs or playing on my iPod.

As I've said elsewhere, the media levy here in Canada (which was applied to my iPod, and any recordable media I buy) says that I don't give a crap about how they think I can use their songs. Because I've already been charged for the right to use the tracks on alternate media. I buy a fair amount of music, and being treated like a child who might steal from his mom's purse doesn't impress me much.

Re:Big surprise

[cayenne8]

"With a CD, you are essentially limited to only playing it in a CD player. For the majority of consumers (particularly the biggest target market, Gen-Y), not a very good deal."

Does no one any longer care about the loss of fidelity? I mean sure, a lossy format copy of music is great for a portable player in a gym or even in a car, a couple of the worst possible listening environments.

but, for home use...would you not rather have the best possible sound in your better listening environment? I don't mean you have to spend tons of dollars on super high end audio, but, at least maximize the sound for your enviroment?

On a slightly different note, I do like fairly high end stuff...but, it isn't like I built my system overnight. I've worked, saved and bought and replaced componets over many years. Do people just not know or care what really good sound reproduction is?

Re:Big surprise

[soupdevil]

Much of the music on Emusic is from RIAA labels. They're still taking your money.

Re:Big surprise

[freedom_india]

If RIAA sells a media (a CD treated like a chair) then they have no FUCKIN right to tell me whether i resell it, rip it, or use it to wipe my ass if my toilet paper runs out.

If they treat it as a license to listen to something (like Windows CDs), then they MUST replace a damaged CD.

They can't have it both ways.

Courts have ruled for past 150 years that the concept of reselling something is sacred. In other words if RIAA sells something to me, i have every right to make a second sale of it to someone i like. RIAA loses the right to dictate whether i can sell it or not once they have sold it to me.

On the other hand, if they license it to me, then we ALL should send back Akon CDs to them (even perfectly good ones) and ask for replacement. That would bankrupts them.

Re:Big surprise

[maraist]

Why? Because if the music on iTMS doesn't have DRM, then it would be much easier for you to purchase music from iTMS and play it on any player out there.

Right idea, wrong direction.

It isn't that the music is selling the iPod, the iPod is selling the music. Apple is doing just fine w/ the iPod, DRM or not.. BUT, the clever part is that by having the iTunes player exclusively operate w/ their store-front, they have verticle integration. Similar to an MS platform. They can leverage one revenue stream against another.

If apple didn't have DRM in two forms, one that an iPod player is tied to a PC, and that iTunes is tied to the player + PC, then it would be easy for someone to use non-iTunes software, thereby breaking the vertical integration.

iTunes may or may not be lucrative (relative to profits from the iPod). But it's a stable platform of lock-in. Once you have $50 worth of iTunes (call it $25 of profit; less than the likely $100 of profit for a high-end iPod), then a person will be hesitant to throw all that away by moving to another PC software package (which doesn't support the DRM).

Throw in gift certificates / parental allowances for music purchases etc, and your invested interest grows and grows until lockin is inevetable.

Their store-front (visa v iTunes player) is like the AOL desktop of the 90's or IE/firefox toolbar or the google-task bar or of course the immensely lucrative stock windows desktop. It's real-estate as in central manhattan.

Re:Big surprise

[Dunkirk]

No, no. That's the entire point of DRM. Piracy is a straw man. What person, having bought an iPod, and collected some music tracks, is going to say, screw it, I'm throwing away this investment, and going with some other service? No, they want to be able to access their whole collection on whatever device they have. That means they stay with an iPod, and with iTunes. It's classic Microsoftian tactics. DRM keeps people locked in APPLE'S DRM-ed vertical stack. That's EVERYONE'S strategy with DRM.

Re:Big surprise

[Ironsides]

Does no one any longer care about the loss of fidelity? I mean sure, a lossy format copy of music is great for a portable player in a gym or even in a car, a couple of the worst possible listening environments.

Most popular music doesn't require high fidelity for people to get the highest quality of it. Take most pop music for the last 10 years as an example. A compressed 128kb MP3 of that sounds like the original, at least to 99% of the population. The remaining 1% I'm willing to bet don't listen to that crap. The main types of music that (to me) need the higher fidelity are Classical and Jazz. Few others need high quality music. Actually, most of the beatles songs probably sound fine in MP3 as well.

I myself prefer music in high quality. However, outside of Classical/Jazz I can't tell the difference. This is mostly due to a poor frequency hearing range.

Re:Big surprise

[kalbzayn]

They may make more money per track, but if I'm only buying one track instead of the 12-13 on the album, then they are probably losing some profit on the overall product. I haven't bought a CD in over a year now. I just download the individual songs I want. I use iTunes because I've decided that .99 for a song that I like is a fair price for me. The last whole CD I bought, I downloaded. The only reason I bought the whole CD is it was a present for my wife.

Re:Big surprise

[mOdQuArK!]

They can't have it both ways.

If they get the right laws passed, sure they can.

Re:Big surprise

[Jaseoldboss]

then we ALL should send back Akon CDs to them (even perfectly good ones) and ask for replacement.

You're not going to like this then are you.

Coldplay's latest CD X&Y comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. Of course, these rules are only visible after you've paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc's rules say, "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund," so if you don't like the rules, that's tough.

(Emphasis mine). This basically means that it's your job to ensure that you CD player can play non-CDs which are nobbled to within a hairs breadth of not playing. They will only replace it if it's been pressed improperly not if the DRM causes it not to play.

Re:Big surprise

[homer_ca]

This is an old assertion by the RIAA. Repeating it now doesn't make it any more true. Even Sen. Orrin Hatch, architect of the DMCA, disagreed in a 2000 Senate hearing:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010531100247/http://g areth.membrane.com/leflawnet/hatch.html

A skeptical Hatch then turned to the Recording Industry Association of America president, Hilary Rosen, a surprise addition to the roster of witnesses. Wedging herself into a space next to MP3.com head Michael Robertson, whom the RIAA recently helped to sue, Rosen found herself subjected to the kind of puzzled questions about fair use -- a notorious legal morass -- that millions of music owners have been asking themselves for the last few months.

"Can I make a copy of a CD that I buy and put it into a car?" asked Hatch. When Rosen hemmed and hawed, Hatch muttered, "The answer is yes."

"Is it fair use to give the copy to my wife for her car?" Hatch continued. "Is it fair use for me to rip a CD? Is it fair use if (a computer network) decides for efficiency reasons that one copy is sufficient to serve for storage, instead of keeping 200 separate copies, is that fair use?"

"None of these is fair use," Rosen eventually replied. She argued that musicians' willingness to "tolerate" people making copies was an instance of "no good deed goes unpunished."

Re:Big surprise

[uradu]

> They can't have it both ways.

Actually, musical rights are governed by a special version of a well known quantum physical law, the RIAA's Musical License-Property Duality. This law stipulates that the rights to musical works depend on the situation: if music is to be resold to a third party, the rights to it behave like a license, thus disallowing such sales. If however the music medium becomes damaged and unplayable, its rights take on the shape of those to physical goods, making medium exchanges impossible and unfair to the manufacturer. It's a very strange and fascinating area of quantum (musical IP) physics.

Re:Big surprise

[Conception]

"In my understadnding, once you buy a CD, you have a license to play it's songs in any format"

This is actually a big problem in understanding. You don't have a license to play songs anywhere. YOU OWN IT. You can do anything you want with it. It is -not- licensed to you. It's like saying the apple you buy at the store is licensed to you. No. You just bought an apple. Same goes for CDs. The RIAA is trying, and seems to be winning, the idea that you are buying and owning something. That's the battle they are fighting, and winning I think.

Re:Big surprise

[kimvette]

Are they independent labels, or are they "independent" labels which are simply shell companies owned by the big 5 labels. You cannot assume that Sony, EMI, etc. don't own the label just because it doesn't say Sony, EMI, Capitol, BMG, etc. on the label.

http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/record. html

And:

http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/whoownswho2.html

This one is THE best single not-so-independent "independent" label family tree I have seen. There are yet more "independent" labels owned by the big guys that are not in this diagram, but from this you can't assume that an "independent" label is independent.

Another page on that site ( http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/ - "Some of your friends are already this fucked" ) is a great read.

If you want to get into music, you're best off fronting the cash yourself to record, produce, and master your record, and then find a good independent PROMOTER and work out a contract on that basis. That way, you go into it making money (not an advance, another word for "loan") right away and the record company cannot charge you inflated costs for recording, engineering, and mastering your music - and this is also the best and sometimes ONLY way to retain full ownership of your work.

Queen didn't set up Queen Music, Ltd. for no reason. Pink Floyd didn't set up Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Ltd. on a whim. They got fucked over at first, then got smart about how they dealt with the record companies. Acts like MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice weren't so savvy - especially Vanilla Ice. Because he was in hock to the record companies, they called the shots, and when they made up the whole "gangsta" bit he had no choice but to go with it. A lot of artists who hit it big on the charts are getting f'd over royally in the process, and generally only the ones who produce hit after hit become savvy enough to know how to deal with the record companies. Heck, Prince was in so bad with the record companies (on the creative control aspect, not so much financial in his case) he changed his name and pulled a lot of other crap in order to try to get his label to drop him so he could work out a better deal with a different label.

Re:Big surprise

[TomRitchford]

"In that case stop driving a car, stop using the phone, stop using the internet, stop watching tv, stop using electricity, stop using heat, hell pretty much stop using just about everything you have.

"By the /. definition, every company is a greedy bastard."

What poor reasoning. "Because no company is perfect, it's pointless to criticize any of them." This is particularly stupid in this situation, where we do all have a perfectly good mechanism to bypass the record companies for the most part (p2p or just ripping your friend's CDs).

Re:Big surprise

[Grishnakh]

What the hell are you talking about?

Car: I go to Honda and give them $20k or so, and they give me a nice car that's extremely reliable and fuel efficient. They also honor their warranty and repair the car when there's a problem during the first 5 years. The car works great for 10-15 years. What's the problem here? There's no blatant greediness; just a good product for a reasonable price.

Internet: I pay $50 per month for my cable modem service, and it works just as advertised. The price hasn't changed in two years, and they haven't been trying to force me into paying more money for the same thing (yet). Just another simple business transaction.

Electricity: Same as cable. I pay x cents per kilowatt-hour. The power stays on, I haven't had any brownouts or blackouts in 5 years since I moved here. What's the problem? This isn't greed, it's simple business. Provide a good service for a fair price.

CDs: Buy a CD, and find out it isn't really a true CD, and doesn't play correctly. Try to return it and they won't accept it. Buy a normal CD and they tell you that the content isn't really yours, you can't resell it, but you can't use it the way you want either (on your iPod). So is it licensed or not? Neither; it's whatever way they'll make more money, even though this isn't actually backed up by any laws. This is greed, plain and simple, and it's evil.

There's honest ways to earn money, and there's dishonest ways of taking money. The music industry is doing the latter.

Re:Big surprise

[spirality]

Here here. We're supposed to abhor a monopoly. Copyright and Patents grant a monopoly for a given time. We tolerate that because it is useful, but copyrights and patents are not an end in and of themselves.

It suprises the hell out of me that something like Star Wars or the Beatles, things that have become part and parcel of the culture, are owned at all at this point. After something becomes that wildly successful it no longer needs monopoly protection.

Re:Big surprise

[IAmTheDave]

And if that extra $0.51 per track is a major obstical to you, you might want to spend more time on education and job hunting that listening to tunes.

That's not cool man. I make a good salary as a developer, and an extra $.51 on the 14k or so tracks I own would equal a cool - and quite cost prohibitive - $7k.

Re:Big surprise

[Mark Hood]

f RIAA sells a media (a CD treated like a chair) then they have no FUCKIN right to tell me whether i resell it, rip it, or use it to wipe my ass if my toilet paper runs out.
If they treat it as a license to listen to something (like Windows CDs), then they MUST replace a damaged CD.

They can't have it both ways.

Of course they can, you just have to think like they do. Luckily I had the decency bypass operation, so I'll clue you in.

You're buying the RIGHT to listen to the music, not the ABILITY. So when your CD gets scratched, stolen, chewed up by the dog, you are still just as ENTITLED to listen to it as you ever were... Easy! Of course, you're not allowed to back it up, so it becomes a little challenging, but that's hardly their fault, now is it?

Same thing with the copy protected CDs that won't work in cars, computers, some DVD players, some CD players, some parts of the house.... just because you're ENTITLED to play it, doesn't mean you actually CAN.

That's their logic, as far as I can tell.

So in that case, if my CD gets broken I can download it for free from the Internet, right? I already 'bought the license to listen' ....

Mark

Re:Big surprise

[TheSpoom]

While on the whole your argument has value, there are a few problems, the main one of which is this: in order for such a model to exist, the IRA or a new IRA-like government institution would have to exist to keep track of when you made your money back from said product. Also, I don't think "investment + 10%" is enough of an incentive for companies to use this model. Investment + 50% maybe, or perhaps investment * 2.

In the end, I think copyright should exist, but be vastly more limited than it is now, especially in time span; life + 70 years is WAY too long, especially considering that 50% of businesses fail in their first year of operation. Something like the Creative Commons Founders' Copyright would do much better and allow things to enter the public domain naturally, while still allowing businesses to be profitable as long as they're providing value to the public.

Buy it again, Sam.

[IIDX]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

Thanks, so I'll just buy another copy. Great solution.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just print your own money to pay for them with. If anyone complains point out that "replacements are readily available (from banks) at affordable prices".

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Maximum Prophet]

Um, I have several CD that are no longer available, except perhaps, used, at higher prices than I paid for them. Changes One and Two by Bowie come to mind.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Rev Wally]

What about those CDs that go out of print?

About 10% of the CDs that I own, I would never be able to find again.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your own silly fault for not buying several copies of the same CD the first time around, affording you a level of redundancy!

I feel so sorry for the poor RIAA, having to deal with you tightwads with limited storage space, and welcome the day when they can download whatever they want directly into the back of your brain and charge it to your bank account.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[bloodredsun]

"Affordable prices"

Which in the UK would be 15 quid for an album with probably 3 or 4 good tracks and the rest as fillers, so there's no way that I'd be buying another copy. Frankly, the Recording Industry Ass. of America are having a laugh.

I'd rather back up all my CDs (and of course rip them to my iPod), leave the originals at home and put the copy in my car/take to work, so should one get damaged/be stolen I haven't lost anything. At no point have I engaged in file trading or selling of pirated copies, I've merely protected my (costly) investment. Now that's fair use, and to complain that it's not is why the Recording Industry Ass. of America are labelled "Pigopolists".

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

False. There are many recordings that have gone out of print and probably won't reappear, especially in the classical genre. Try finding Philip Pickett's recording of Susato's "Dansereye" (released 1994, just twelve years ago), or Horenstein's recording of Mahler's Third, considered to be one of, if not THE best, interpretations. (Yes, it's available from Amazon.uk, but not in America.) The Boston Symphony Chamber Players' recording of Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale", with John Gielgud, Tom Courtenay, and Ron Moody has never made it onto CD from LP. THAT is an awesome interpretation. And on the Celtic side, the early LP recordings of the Boys of the Lough are unlikely to ever appear on CD. And those are just a few examples from my own library!

So unless you buy nothing but popular crap, you had better back up your recordings or they will be lost to everyone forever if the RIAA wins this fight.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[elmegil]

Exactly. $18US for the average album is NOT "affordable prices". I already re-bought a lot of my collection from vinyl to CD an I refuse to be gigged again.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[idonthack]

My friend's house burned down, and most of his three thousand CDs had major smoke damage. They were unlistenable. Estimate fifteen dollars per CD.

3,000 × $15 = $45,000

Right, right. Very affordable prices.

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Billosaur]

As we say in Joisy, if a member of the RIAA board becomes, shall we say, "damaged", replacements are available at a reasonable cost...

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[jpellino]

... or the properly mastered & recorded Katy Lied that Mobile Fidelity did...

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[Anonymous Coward]

I figure you were going for cynicism there, but currency is physical property, not intellectual property. The laws treat them differently, and for a very good reason.

CDs are non-physical now? Cool!

Good to know that walking out of a store with a dozen under my coat isn't theft of physical property.

Or perhaps I should stand in the middle of the shop aggressively rubbing the shiny side of their stock with a sheet of 50 grit while explaining to the irate staff that "replacements are readily available at affordable prices"? Hey, it ain't physical damage, you know!

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[defile39]

Sadly, this is exactly what the RIAA wants us to do . . . buy it again. There is (obviously) a market for digital (mp3, mp4, etc) music copies. By ripping CDs, even for our own personal use and enjoyment, we are affecting the market for digital music. Granted, charging people for the digital copy as well as the physical copy seems highly dubious, ripping, or digitally backing up our music might not be a fair use. Take a look at this Stanford site http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use _Overview/chapter9/9-a.html describing the nature of fair use. As a person who regularly rips CDs for personal enjoyment on my ipod, I sure something . . . a court decision, legislation . . . ensures we don't have to pay twice. What a sad world that would be . . .

Re:Buy it again, Sam.

[elrous0]

if a member of the RIAA board becomes, shall we say, "damaged"

You can't kill someone who's already dead inside.

-Eric

No CDs

[Agent00Wang]

So are they arguing that you have to buy music from an online dealer (something akin to iTunes) if you want to be able to use your portable device? Sounds like just one more reason not to buy CDs.

Re:No CDs

[Lord_Dweomer]

"So are they arguing that you have to buy music from an online dealer (something akin to iTunes) if you want to be able to use your portable device? Sounds like just one more reason not to buy CDs."

Gee...that couldn't be at all what they want...could it now? Remember, they're not in the business of selling CDs, they're in the business of selling music...over and over again on as many different forms of media as possible. I'm sure they'd love for the CD to become out-dated so they can cram a much more 'secure' format down our throats. And also remember that they make more money and have more control with online downloads.

Re:No CDs

[Dr. Blue]

Sounds like just one more reason not to buy CDs.

You say that like the RIAA would think it's a bad thing. I know someone who works on some of the infrastructure issues with iTunes, and he tells me that Apple makes extremely little money off an iTunes sale. Most of the purchase price goes to the record label and RIAA. So they get money coming in, they don't have to worry about physical distribution or even paying for the electronic distribution infrastructure, and the music is locked up in a DRM format so you can't even do things like buy "used music" any more. Just sit back and rake in money. And they can even complain that CD sales are down, so they must be being cheated -- sniff, sniff... pooor widdle RIAA.

I'd bet the RIAA would love it if you didn't buy CDs any more.

Re:No CDs

[karnal]

OK, it's been a long week and my math is a little off.

An early apology to anyone who may be offended.

What about...

[orderthruchaos]

a boycott? Seriously... it seems the only way to get the attention of hostile businesses is to deny them income.

Re:What about...

[Merenth]

People have been unofficially boycotting music companies for years because the product sucks, hence the declining profits.

Music user: I heard that new song by and it totally sucks, no way I'm wasting money on that.

RIAA: People aren't buying this new CD that everyone hates.
They must be pirating copies, because they bought the last one that everyone loved.

Boycotting only works if the people being boycotted don't live in a fantasy world.

Re:What about...

[pNutz]

You could just buy music from people who respect your fair use rights, you know.

emusic.com
audiolunchbox.com
bleep.com
calabashmusic.com ... and some others that sell MP3's of independent music.

It can be annoying, like how you can only get the first two Green Day albums, or Rev. Horton Heat's 2 indie releases (out of 10 total or so). No Nirvana, Beck, mainstream rap and country, or basically anything that plays on the radio.

Then again, you can get The Dismemberment Plan, Pinback, Modest Mouse (older), Death Cab for Cutie, Sufjan Stevens, MF Doom, Ninja Tune, Classical, Jazz, world music, blues, etc.

Backup and preservation of investment?

[richardoz]

When I was a kid my, my friend's dad has an audiophile turntable, cassette deck and reel-to-reel setup. When I would purchase and album, I would take it over to his house and copy it to cassette and sometimes reel-to-reel. I would never play the album again unless I lost or damaged the cassette. What options would I have today if the RIAA has their way?

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Lumpy]

What options would I have today if the RIAA has their way?

Recording devices would be illegal and all legal turntables would have a surface scratching device right behind the needled to ensure that you could only play it once and then have to buy it again in the name of "protecting the copyrights of the poor poor artists."

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Overzeetop]

You clearly don't have a three year old in your house.

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever hear of disc rot? You wanna see the pile of CDs I have that have degraded to the point of non-playability? Its not disc rot, and I'm not sure what it is, but I even have a bunch of CDs that have developed random pin-holes while sitting in their cases after I ripped them to MP3. They are now unplayable. I've never been able to track down a cause, but I spot checked a few friends collections (who also ripped them long ago and don't use them any more) and they are starting to see the same thing on some of their older CDs.

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[thegnu]

I think you can still take it to your friend's dad's house and turn it into a cassette, if that's any help. :-)

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[Lazarian]

This brings up something that's been puzzling me for a while. When recordable CD technologies were first starting to come out, one of the major benefits that was being touted was the longevity of the media. When Tandy Corporation first introduced their THOR CD technology, it supposedly had a lifetime of decades, and it was an immature technology at the time. I remember reading articles about early CD based storage systems that actually boasted a guarenteed lifetime of a hundred years or more. (I don't recall the manufacturers, and it could possibly have been a more unusual system, like magneto-optical.)

Now we have CD rot and all other sorts of failure modes. It would be unwise nowadays to have anything less than two backups on CD or DVD for important data, and it would be smart to check the integrity of the backups on a regular basis and reburn them as necessary.

Perhaps it's just cheap mass production and poor quality control. Premium quality media would stand up better, but it still seems that, at least to me, most CD and DVD recording media is almost engineered to fail.

Re:Backup and preservation of investment?

[thatguywhoiam]

Ever hear of disc rot [brainwashed.com]? You wanna see the pile of CDs I have that have degraded to the point of non-playability? Its not disc rot, and I'm not sure what it is, but I even have a bunch of CDs that have developed random pin-holes while sitting in their cases after I ripped them to MP3.

The answer is the acidic dyes they used to print the discs early on. Anything prior to 1991 (afaik) used inks that were not safe and started to eat the discs after 10 years or so... later discs used more benign vegetable dyes. That's why you noticed the pinholes, probably starting around 2000 on, I'm guessing?

Very affordable

[Anonymous Coward]

" Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

No duh. When my "The Wall" CD was wrecked, I found the music on Kazaa Lite, and it as at an extremely affordable price I could not refuse.

Re:Very affordable

[Hogwash McFly]

We don't need no litigation
We don't need no rights control
No play restriction on our iPod
Execs leave us buyers alone

Enjoy?

[ShadowsHawk]

" Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights."

Since when did enjoy == screw the customer for every last dime?

Re:Enjoy?

[ettlz]

Since when did enjoy == screw the customer for every last dime?

Silly! Screwing is an inherently enjoyable activity!

I think this has been said before...

[iogan]

... but this is simply going too far!

And to all the people who laugh when you tell them that the record companies would rather have you pay twice or more for music that you already bought, well here's proof. They really, honestly, do believe that what you bought is not yours. It's still theirs to do with as they please.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to start bringing my CD's back, even old ones. Nothing of this was mentioned when I bought them, and I don't think this is fair. Hence I want my money back. I urge everyone to do the same.

Re:I think this has been said before...

[walt-sjc]

Generally you can get exchange for defective within 30-90 days on CD's and DVD's. That's not the point. CD's and DVD are fragile media, and are easily damaged (as any parent with children understands all too well. My 4 year old once moved her Little-Tykes table in from another room and used it to get at her "circles" which were stored out of reach. There goes the widescreen version of "Finding Nemo.")

Backups are DEFINATELY fair use and should be protected be law, regardless of what the Recording Industry Asshole's of America think.

I hope this comes to court

[mwvdlee]

With that particular declaration under oath in the Grokster case in mind, I hope this comes to court.
The only question that remains then is "which of the two statements is perjury?".

Re:I hope this comes to court

[lost_packet]

technically, only MGM admitted as much

At least some of the Justices, Scalia in particular, seemed troubled by how an inventor would know, at the time of inventing, how its invention might be marketed in the future. How, some of the Justices asked MGM, could the inventors of the iPod (or the VCR, or the photocopier, or even the printing press) know whether they could go ahead with developing their invention? It surely would not be difficult for them to imagine that somebody might hit upon the idea of marketing their device as a tool for infringement. MGM's answer to this was pretty unsatisfying. They said that at the time the iPod was invented, it was clear that there were many perfectly lawful uses for it, such as ripping one's own CD and storing it in the iPod. This was a very interesting point for them to make, not least because I would wager that there are a substantial number of people on MGM's side of the case who don't think that example is one bit legal. But they've now conceded the contrary in open court, so if they actually win this case they'll be barred from challenging "ripping" in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel. In any event, though, MGM's iPod example did exactly what their proposed standard expressly doesn't do: it evaluated the legality of the invention based on the knowledge available to the inventor at the time, not from a post hoc perspective that asks how the invention is subsequently marketed or what business models later grow up around it.

from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tka/2005/03/29#a53

buffering...

[muftak]

Ripping a CD that you own to an mp3 player, is just like your CD player reading the cd ahead into a buffer. Are the RIAA saying that CD players with buffers are illegal?

Let me get this straight

[Snarfangel]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

I thought I was "licensing the content," not "buying the CD." Shouldn't I be able to put my licensed content wherever I want?

Until the companies offer free download replacement of the music I am (ahem) licensing, so I can store that content on a blank CD or wherever else I want, why should I care what they consider "affordable"?

Re:Let me get this straight

[Snarfangel]

Actually, that was me, but when I hit submit the screen went blank, and when I refreshed the Slashdot page it didn't show up, so I retyped the comment under my user name rather than AC. Since I own the copyright, I'm free to copy it to another location, albeit accidentally. :)

Re:Let me get this straight

[tinkerghost]

I HAVE IT
CDs are like particle waves.
CD's obviously have 2 mutually exclusive, but simultanious behaviours - just like photons.
If you do the math one way, photons are a wave. Use different criteria, and poof they are particles.
CD's are no different, we substitute law for math, liscense for wave, objects for particles, and CD's for photons.
The result: if you do the law one way, CD's are a liscence. Use different criteria, and poof they are objects.
WHOOT - PATENT TIME: Quantum Law.
Now if I can only work out a theory of relativity that shows how software is relavent to patents...

What rights?

[Miros]

If you ask me, the RIAA "enjoys" its copyrights a bit too much already. They're trying to transform the music industry from one in which you "buy a copy of a song" into one in which you "buy a limited licence to play the song" under which you have no fair use rights (since you dont actually own the copy, only the right to play it). This is bad for all of us, and I would suggest that companies like Apple really helped pull off the bait and switch. At this point, if people stopped using the online download services and started using CDs again instead (for the rights) the record companies would probably pull the CDs or encrypt them somehow so you still had to be bound by their overrarching licensing agreements.

Sorry guys, but I think the age of "my music" or "owning music" is dead, and currently in the process of being burried. This is just the latest shovel of dirt.

Re:What rights?

[pla]

Sorry guys, but I think the age of "my music" or "owning music" is dead, and currently in the process of being burried. This is just the latest shovel of dirt.

Last shovel of dirt, yes - But on the RIAA, not on our right to own our culture.

Slashdotters (and all people) need to keep in mind the difference between a major country's legal systems saying "fair use does not include a right to backups" and the RIAA spewing yet another round of customer-repelling male cow feces. The former means a lot of people turn into criminals overnight by the wave of the magic wand-of-exclusive-law. The latter means... Nothing at all.

Affordable

[maniac/dev/null]

Metallica's Black Album - $18.98.
How affordable.

Audio Home Recording Act of 1992

[NutscrapeSucks]

Look it up. RIAA sued Creative in the early days of MP3 players and lost.

Re:Audio Home Recording Act of 1992

[superid]

It's here

Now IANAL, but from what I've read it seems that you really DO NOT have the right to make copies of anything you buy/own. The act states that you will not be prosecuted for doing so.

That's simply not true

[91degrees]

Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.

I have several CDs that I couldn't replace easily. Sometimes they go out of print.

Re:That's simply not true

[Vo0k]

We had a damaged legal copy of Windows CD at the university. The replacement disk costed over twice as much as the local (commercial) pirate charges for the CD and over 1/3 of the full licensed version.
We bought the CD from the pirate and later claimed it was a backup copy from before the original got scratched.

Re:That's simply not true

[mwvdlee]

I have a number of promotional give-away CD's.
These are perfectly legal, but some of the companies which distributed them no longer exist, so I cannot get copies from them even if I wanted to pay full price.

Sometimes entire companies go "out of print" too!

Re:That's simply not true

[Zangief]

That should fuck them up. They should be forced to keep selling those replace at affordable price.

And by affordable I mean the same price the discs were sold originally.

The logistics of that should stop them right on the tracks.

What a ripoff...

[IcePenguin2001]

RIAA Goon 1: Okay, so we want to make a bunch more money because we're greedy bastards. How do we do it?

RIAA Goon 2: Let's sell CDs covered with heroin! Then they'll need to keep buying more CDs to get their fix!

G1: Although we're above the law, I don't wanna use heroin. It's expensive.

G2: Hmm... I've got it! Let's charge them for something they ALREADY OWN!

G1: Great Scott!! Like what?

G2: We'll tell those suckers that ripping CDs to MP3 players (especially iPods!!) is illegal and that they'll need to buy DIGITAL (ooooh the d-word) music for their MP3 players.

G1: Brilliant! Except, we already said that was legal when we sued Grokster.

G2: Well, say now it isn't!! The dumb consumers bend to us!! We are above the law!!

G1: Well, all right. Good idea, Jim. I'm gonna go now, I have $2.4 million from Britney Spears' latest album to roll around in and wipe my ass with. See ya!

The end of CDs and albums

[Charles Dodgeson]

If they persuade me or the courts that they are right, then I believe that I've purchased my last CD. Surely they must realize that they are putting an end to the CD business this way, and therefore albums. As they say, we'll all use alternatives to buying CDs.

One possibility, however, is that they want to argue that we don't automatically have the right to make such copies of purchased CDs, but that they will grant us limited rights to do so. Or maybe they just aren't thinking.

Legally speaking...

[MaestroSartori]

...they could be correct. I don't know the law well enough to say - if memory serves correct, it gives some examples of things which are fair use, none of which include anything like backing up or shifting from one media to another for personal use. So yeah, technically they could be correct.

But I think most people would agree that fairness is also a moral concept, and in that sense it's obvious that it is indeed fair use to copy something you already have to your MP3 player or PC to listen to in a more convenient way.

Here's a hint to the lovely people at the RIAA and similar bodies around the world: if people can't use CDs in this kind of way, they won't buy them.

Re:Legally speaking...

[trezor]

No they cant. Noone has ever heard the word "licence", no one has ever been verbally informed of conditions under wich the CD is bought, noone has ever been asked to sign a paper with the text "licence" on it when buying a CD. Noone. Never.

This licence bullshit is just that: namley bullshit. Just because the cokeheads at the RIAA main office would want it to not to be so, and has repeated the same bullshit for a few years now, doesn't make the bullshit real. Stop spreading fud.

Oh. And you're a tool. Now kindly fuck off.

Karma to burn. blah blah.

Music CD-Rs?

[ect5150]

Am I missing something here? Don't the RIAA get a cut from the music variety of CD-Rs (the kind that only work in the settop boxes, not PC burners? What are those for then? Those were sold to use as a way to make custom CDs by taking tracks from discs you already owned and mixing a perfect CD for yourself. Now, this isn't allowed? They need to get their arguments straight.

Congress was not impressed with their arguments

[lheal]

January 24 on C-SPAN there were hearings on Senator Smith's Broadcast Flag bill.

The RIAA spokesman said the Broadcast Flag was needed because with HD radio
(which is just digitial radio), now people could record music off the air
without paying for it. They want to stop that. They put forth the CD ripping argument, too, saying there was nothing to prevent people from copying songs willy-nilly and sharing them, denying royalties to the struggling artists.

The Senators didn't like his view at all. It seems that many of them have
IPods, and like to grab songs, interviews, and other audio so they can listen to
them on the plane! They like their Dean Martin as much as the kids like their Ice Masta Jam.

I was pleased to see liberals and conservatives both on the side of fair use,
rather than on the side of corporate profit. I think they've been getting mail.

Re:Congress was not impressed with their arguments

[SharkJumper]

In fact, you can bribe your senator with an iPod.

Seems that someone noticed that Senators with iPods ask tougher questions when faced with "content industry representatives" at hearings. This group is asking people to donate money to buy your senator an iPod. From their site:

Plus, we're going to pre-load each one with examples of the cultural richness made possible by sharing and collaboration - public domain content, Creative Commons content, and audio messages about the importance of balanced copyright policy. It will be engraved with the words "listen to the people." And it will arrive at each Senator's campaign office with a letter of explanation and a list of all the people who helped pay for it.

Interesting idea.

SharkJumper

Re:These people really don't get it do they?

[Miros]

That isnt their goal at all, in fact, it's quite the opposite. They're trying to kill the CD market in favor of the online download business. Onine downloads do not give us the same rights that buying a CD does, in fact, we get less rights (seemingly only the limited right to play the song, and copy it to another medium a limited number of times). By making CDs more expensive or difficult to acquire, or incompatible with portable music players, they can cause the market to shift itself to mediums that they can better control, even before the CD becomes completely obsolete.

Oh. Thanks for letting me know.

[MartinG]

I have been buying CDs and ripping them to play on my iRiver. I may as well just download them instead of buying in future if its just as illegal.

What are we buying?

[plumby]

I'm a little confused. When I buy a CD, am I buying the physical disc, in which case I surely get the right to do with it as I see fit, or I'm buying the right to listen to the music, in which case the media that it's on should not be relevant.

I can fully understand (assuming that I am only buying the rights) that I can't legally copy the music and give/sell that to someone else, but I'm no longer clear on what 'buying' a CD actually buys me.

Re:What are we buying?

[Overzeetop]

I'm going to say that you are buying a "single format license to a copyrighted work, which is embodied as a physycal artifact, the destruction of which terminates your license. The pyhsical nature of the medium affords you certain limited rights (first-sale doctrine), but the content contained therein must remain, or an infringing action has occured."

Now, you're bull-shit-o-meter should be registering pretty high right now, but I'm guessing that's what the RIAA would claim. The RIAA is claiming that the replacement cost is so low that there should be no need to back up the media.

Re:What are we buying?

[dogolopee]

If you only buy the rights, the nhow cna music stores buy used CDs? Are they buying the licence from you or is it considered an illegal sale? Also why couldn't msic companies simply include mp3 versions of their songs on the dic. Then they could have the songs already covered under something like Apple's Fairplay oe some other copy limiting drm.

Re:What are we buying?

[grimJester]

Let's perface this with the good old IANAL. You are buying the disk. You can use it any way you see fit; make backups, copy it to your computer, play it on your Linux-running toaster, whatever. The only two limits are:

a) You cannot distribute it to others. Public performance, giving copies to friends and family, uploading it on the Interweb etc are out.

b) You cannot break eny encryption or bypass any protection measures on the CD. In practice this means any use of the CD can be prevented. It would be perfectly fine for the music industry to sell CDs ROT-13 encrypted without providing any way to listening to them. Except:

c) Selling you a CD that you cannot use in the way you expect to be able to use it is fraud. Any limitations not normally present on CDs must be reasonably communicated to you before you make the decision to buy the CD.

In essence b) is being used to expand the copyright protection given by a), testing the limits of c). In addition, RIAA are lobbying to expand a).

Dear RIAA,

[Jerk City Troll]

16 million iPod sales in 2005 alone. Nearly one billion songs purchased from iTMS. 90% and 70% market share respectively. Just thought I'd remind you that the market has spoken and you're old. In closing, screw you.

Sincerely,
Everyone

Affordable?

[keyne9]

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

Let's see here.

Original CD price: $16.99
Backup CD price: $0.30

Any specific reason I should be required to pay approximately fifty-six times more money to replace a scratched/mutilated CD?

Is my iPod different from a cassette deck?

[cob666]

How is ripping a CD I bought and listening to that music on my iPod different than recording a CD I bought onto a cassette and listening to that out of my boom box? Didn't the RIAA already have a 'fair use' tax placed on blank media that takes this into consideration?

What the RIAA doesn't realize is that there are quite a few people like me that ONLY purchase CDs so I can listen to them on my iPod. Before getting a portable mp3 player I would purchase perhaps one CD per year (I listened to the radio in my car and at work). Now I buy CDs so I have new content for my mp3 player.

The RIAA will be shooting themselves in their collective FOOT if they turn a CD into a 'limited playability license'. I for one would not buy another CD if I didn't have legal 'fair use' rights to the content.

I haven't bought a physical CD in years...

[HaloZero]

...and now I'm certainly not going to.

'Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.'

Next, I'm sure they're going to say that copying the contents of a data CD (Microsoft Office, or Frontstep CRM) to a network software repository is infringant use on that license. Just prevents me from having to

1. Find the CD once I know that I need it...
   
2. Determine that the CD isn't being kept in the master disc binder...
   
3. Determine which of my coworkers was the last to use it...
   
4. Try to root through their crap in an attempt to find it.

Back to music discs, though.

So I'm not allowed to store the data on a networked disk drive to enjoy throughout my own personal network, nor am I allowed to play it on my own iPod, iPod Pico, or Rio Karma, or whatever the hell it is you kids have nowadays.

Am I breaking the 'license' I bought when I play it in a CD player with 120second or 300second skip protection? Technically, the data has been encoded to digital media, and is therefore must be mutable into a file format.

Online alternatives would seem like the solution. Because then I can just download an album, burn it to a disc, rerip it without copy protection, and REMEMBER THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

Seriously, this shit has got to stop. Maybe satelite radio is where it's at...

Replacement copies?

[jesterpilot]

So, would the honorable representant of the RIAA please explain me where i can get copies of albums by the Cranes and other musicians who were dumped by record companies for making music which was not commercial enough?

What they are really saying

[James McGuigan]

What they are really saying is that they don't want to be relagated to the role of ISP, or even "content" provider - as these are fields that are becoming too comoditized and thus not profitable.

What they want to be is end to end "entertainment solution" providers, marketing a very specific "solution" for you entertainment needs, that can be specially tailored and marketed to your demographic defined needs. Unless they can control their product from end to end without any interference, redirection or alteration on the consumers end. Otherwise they cannot ensure that you obtain the full enjoyment of the product and maintain their marketing image.

A music CD is only meant to be played in a genuine, authorized and trusted music CD player. If you want to play the music on an iPod, then you must purchase the iPod comptable iTunes version of the song which is available at a reasonable price.

If you happen to want to access your content on a Linux PC, then you will have to wait until Linux users become a profitable and mainstream demographic that is willing to accept our Digital Rights Management software.

Media levy ....

[gstoddart]

Well, here in Canada, a media levy has been charged on recordable media -- ostensibly to compensate the artists for 'stealing' their music. The only music I have has been purchased legally -- I have every single original CD. Somehow I doubt under their funding formulas any of the artists I listen to are actually being compensated under this levy. It probably all goes to the big mega acts; the smaller artists and the ones who have been long dead are probably ignored from this formula.

The only things I burn to disk are data, and mixed CDs for playing in my car. As far as I'm concerned, I've never stolen anything from them, and they're the ones stealing me by charging me this levy under the assumption I must be comitting theft.

They will never convince me that I don't have right of first sale on my CDs, and they will never convince me that I can't buy a CD and then listen to it on whatever device I wish to.

Someone really needs to stop this absurdity with the recording industries.

direct attack

[saboola]

direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights

And I am experiencing a direct attack on my ability to enjoy my music. This is the exact reason I have stopped buying music in the first place.

Contradictions...

[morgdx]

From Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios v Grokster, Donald Verrilli representing the petitioners:

...and let me pick out the iPod as one, because it's the most current example, I guess. From the moment that device was introduced, it was obvious that there were very significant lawful commercial uses for it. And let me clarify something I think is unclear from the amicus briefs. The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod...

Funny how I can't find this on anyone's website anymore

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argum ent_transcripts/04-480.pdf

Re:Contradictions...

[cthenkel]

Well, its still up on their website. Someone should let their webmaster know that their site needs updating to reflect the RIAA's new position on ripping CDs.

http://www.riaa.com/issues/ask/default.asp#stand

"If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail."

hookers: having sex at home is not fair

[stirz]

sncr :-)

This is too much...

[ursabear]

[rant]

I understand copyrights and piracy and all the issues around all that. That isn't my focus for this article...

If it is indeed the RIAA's choice to try to prohibit putting one's music on one's portable, this latest thing is lunacy. It IS fair use to listen to one's music on alternate devices that one owns!!! Every artist I know (including myself) WANTS people to listen to their music!!! How is this latest thing going to PROMOTE music? How is it going to create or keep FANS interested?

I don't normally get hot under the collar about this stuff, but this isn't very smart on their part. When you've bought a CD or bought tunes from some service, the listener has every right to want to listen to it! Putting a copy on a portable (or putting it on a backup CD) doesn't amount to piracy - it is normal use.

Many of us give away music in an effort to try to get people to discover our sounds. MOST of us WANT people to jam/groove/listen to our music while doing things that are important to fans (music is a part of daily life for most folks, and me, personally, I'd like to be a part of that - my musical friends feel the same way) and portables are a ubiquitous means of "being there."

You CAN'T forget about fans, RIAA! Period!

[/rant]

Sorry for the rant post, Slashdot. I feel better now.

What about citizens enjoying the public domain?

[Luscious868]

Thanks to likes of the RIAA and MPAA, citizens are no longer able to enjoy the benefits of works entering the public domain in a reasonable period of time. The original intent of copyrights and patents was to give the copyright/patent holder a reasonable but limited amount of time to profit from their work before it became avaialable in the public domain to benefit everyone.

The RIAA and MPAA have essentially trampled on all of our rights as citizens in order to make some more money. Now, I think most of us are reasonable people here and we want to see people get rewarded for their work but the current copyright laws are just plain stupid. I'd prefer 25 years but I'd be willing to let that time limit be doubled. 50 years is more than enough time for any person or corporation to reap the benefits of their creations. After 50 years, copyrighted material should enter the public domain.

Remember that copyrights and patents aren't some inherient right. Copyrights and patents are contracts between creators and every other citizen of this counry. We agree to give the creator an exclusive right to control who can reproduce a work with the understanding that after a certain limited amount of time the work will enter the public domain so that everyone can benefit from it.

IN CAPITALIST AMERICA...

[Jerk City Troll]

I'm no longer clear on what 'buying' a CD actually buys me.

...music buys YOU!

At affordable prices?!?!

[kneeslasher]

Something I never understood:

i) If one is buying the *rights* to the data when one buys a CD, doesn't that mean that if one breaks/scratches the CD, one should be able to ask the store for another copy at the cost of the media since the data has already been "bought"?

ii) If one is buying the CD as an object similar to how one buys a car, then surely what the hell one does with it is nobody's business, even if one makes a million copies and seels them. After all, Ford cannot sue you for customising your car so that it runs on air or water and telling others how to do the same.

Now it seems to me that record companies want to have it both ways. Either (i) is true. Or (ii) is. Both cannot be. And it seems to me that if it came to the crunch, most companies would choose (i) since it protects the business model. Fair enough. But has anybody ever gotten a replacement CD for the cost of a CDR? No? Didn't think so...

"Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."

It is exactly wanton comments like this which, I am sure give many downloaders a warm glow and pleasurable feeling whenever they download a song. Indeed, they probably feel it a duty after hearing this type of thing. It is exemplary of the record companies wanting both (i) and (ii) leaving the customer with nothing.

And those who are happy about buying DRM/iTunes only tracks are selling themselves short. CDs are in every way superior since they allow (i) and leave (ii) up to your own conscience. DRM music does not allow (ii) and only supports a limited form of (i). Not to mention the cost advantage.

To throw more fat into the fire, if (i) is true, then one should be able to "sell" the spare tracks on the CD which one doesn't like?

Listening to music no longer considered fair use.

[TangoCharlie]

Today the Record Industry of Ameria (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) released a joint statement regarding the fair use of Music CDs and Movie DVDs. It states that listening to music CDs using CD players was immoral, illegal and said that people who listen to music are thevies and criminals. Similarly, people to buy motion picture DVDs and the proceed to what them are scum and should be sent to Guantanimo with all the other enemies of the state. The two organisations provide a helpful list of those activities which are considered acceptable and those that are not.

Acceptable
~~~~~~~~~~

Buying CDs and DVDs.

Not Acceptable
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Copying (read pirating) music CDs to MP3 players (especially those f**king iPods!)
Copying (read pirating) music CDs and movie DVDs to audio and/or video tape.
Lending music CDs and DVD movies to your friends.
Listening to CDs.
Whatching DVD movies.
Downloading divx movies from Limewire.
Buying pirated CDs/DVDs.

The RIAA and the MPAA state that all these unacceptable actions help crime and support terrorist organisations such as Al-Queda and must be banned, and the perpiTRAITORS should be shot (preferably by Dick Cheney!)

Either one or the other

[Britz]

Either they sell you a license and you can loose your copy but still get it back, because you own a license, not a copy.

Or you buy a CD as a "thing" and can do whatever you feel with it, as long as you don't sell the content to someone else.

At least that is how it should be and how it used to be in Germany, but we are working to get to where the US law is now. And we are pickung up speed.

My Music

[Anonymous Coward]

in Windows Vista this directory will be named:

Their Music
Their Pictures

Well...

[moultano]

Maybe stop giving them our dollars?

Re:Well...

[numbski]

There's just one problem with that.

If you're over 19, you're no longer the RIAA's target demographic anymore. Quite literally:

"It's not you Marty, it's your kids! We've got to do something about your kids!"

We've got to educate our 10-19 year olds not to give any more money to the RIAA.

Good luck with that. :(

Re:Well...

[StalinsNotDead]

We've got to educate our 10-19 year olds not to give any more money to the RIAA.

Good luck with that. :(

Just tell them that, as a parent, you think the RIAA is cool, or whatever the positive slang word for good is nowadays.

That might work.

Re:Well...

[cayenne8]

"Try telling that to the record labels. Their catalog sales for artists like David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. are a HUGE money maker."

I find it amazing, that these are the big money makers, not just off us older farts, but, to the younger kids today.

I'm amazed that teens I've talked to are AC/DC fans, or think the Zeppelin DVD that came out a couple years ago is the greatest thing. I guess the dearth of good new music put out today by the record industry is to blame.

Hehehe...well, at least no one give me a strange glance for listening to 'old' music blaring out of my car...

:-)

Why does no one get it?

[athlon02]

It's so obvious people...

You need to buy a copy of the song for EVERY piece of hardware. See you get the CD for your CD player. You buy the songs online to put on your MP3 player. You buy a DVD-Audio copy for your DVD drive. You buy the songs online again for your MP3 CD's for your car stereo. Oh, and lest we forget, you write a check to RIAA for the copies of the songs that are in your head. Wait, you HAVEN'T written your check yet? You should be ashamed!

CD price structure

[mevets]

The retail price of a CD includes the money siphoned in the distribution channel. The IP value of a CD (performer + composer + producer) is about $5, the residual is marketting + distribution. Apparently CDs follow the movie industry model of loading the cost into the distribution channel, where it is safe from the grubby hands of artists. These essentially free distribution channels are a direct threat to this model.
Being able select individual tracks permits you to pay only for the oats, leaving the turd on the road; thus killing another well established profit model.

Re:CD price structure

[phiwum]

The IP value of a CD (performer + composer + producer) is about $5...

Fascinating. Now, how did you calculate that?

Re:CD price structure

[phiwum]

Royalties don't give IP value, which is what the original poster said was $5.

Royalties say how much the publisher is willing to pay per CD and how much the artist (and others) agreed to accept. I wouldn't call that "IP value".

I am also not sure where the figure of $5 per CD for royalties comes from. Maybe it's pretty close, maybe not, but I'd like some hint of how it was calculated or where it was published.

RIAA trying to do....

[HangingChad]

...what MSFT has already done. RIAA is trying to implment the same type system for music that MSFT was able to successfully employ for software. They're angling for product activation. Where you activate your music content before it will play on a device.

Why is that so far fetched? You went along with it for software and they're using the same basic talking points. It'll cut down on piracy and everyone will enjoy lower prices on music. And if you believe that I have a bridge in San Francisco you can buy cheap. MSFT increased their prices in the wake of product activation, so will the music industry.

And while RIAA's running the propaganda campaign in the media they're quietly sinking millions into lobbying efforts to get the few in Congress they don't already own, like Orin Hatch, to go along with what they want.

You put up with it in software, you voted for the people selling you out to corporate lobbyists. I realize this will be an unpopular point, but you get what you tolerate.

AHRA

[omeg]

"In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." (House Report No. 102-780(I), August 4, 1992)

See Audio Home Recording Act for more information.

you FUD-spreading tool

[RMH101]

iTunes ripped CDs have zero DRM in them. nothing. nada. iTunes *downloaded* tunes do.

Re:you FUD-spreading tool

[Nemi]

iTunes ripped CDs have zero DRM in them. nothing. nada. iTunes *downloaded* tunes do.

How many conversions does the music have to go through for this? If you want the file in a non-drm format you have to, at the very least, go from a lossy AAC->CD->lossy mp3. Just like with a jpeg image, the more times you save it in a lossy format, the lower quality it becomes. One conversion from lossless to lossy (the conversion to AAC in this case) is the max you should expect, imho. Anything more to get it to a non-drm lossy is going to cost you, so to speak.

All the more reason to buy in a lossless CD format, imo. This way you can convert to any lossy format you want (AAC, MP3, OGG) multiple times with the least amount of degradation.

Re:you FUD-spreading tool

[Pauley_24]

That's actually exactly what he meant, I believe... If you buy a CD, and rip that into the iTunes player, even in AAC, there's no DRM on the file. The only DRM-wrapped AAC files in iTunes are ones purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

-- Pauley

Last straw for me.

[moultano]

I'm never buying a piece of music from the RIAA again. I'm not going to give money to companies that use it to assault my rights in court.

Vote with your dollars people.

/. riaa site

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody ever consider something that might get some attention....such as seeing what the /. effect has on the riaa site? http://www.riaa.com/default.asp

not under oath, not perjury

[spiritraveller]

Neither statement is perjury, because neither statement is made under oath... These statements are just arguments made by the lawyers. One is made in a brief and the other was made in oral arguments in a completely different case, with different parties.

As a lawyer, I can say whatever I want to a court, and the court knows that. If I make a bold statement that turns out to be false, it may affect my credibility with the court; it may cause me to be found in contempt of court; it may ruin my reputation and cause me to hang my head in shame... but it ain't perjury.

Realize also, that these are statements of what the lawyer believes the law to be. They aren't statements of "this happened" or "that happened". It's the same as when the Independent Counsel asked Clinton "Is it true or not that you are the highest law enforcement officer in the country?" It's a question of legal opinion, and not a factual matter, so it isn't perjury.

Now, when you get sworn in and you say "I didn't have sex with that woman (koala bear) (llama) (whatever the case may be)." That would be perjury.

They're killing their base...

[jsoffron]

I'm their target audience - I actually bought my music collection, which is somewhere over 1500 cd's, not to mention my small vinyl collection and cassettes from my youth. Also, I (was) a regular buyer from iTunes. My collection of *legitimately* purchased music is large enough that it doesn't fit on any available iPod. Yet because of all of this crap, I have stopped buying any music that is from an RIAA-affiliated label, and I have to imagine that others have done the same. It is obscene to say to me that I can't backup the collection I paid some $20,000-$25,000 on over the past 15+ years. They are nauseating, greedy, evil corporate whores.

Vent vent vent... :)

-jake.

Fair vs. Fair

[Opportunist]

I'm a fairly fair person. Treat me fairly, I treat you fairly.

Is it fair to prevent me from enjoying my right of "fair use" by installing copy protection mechanisms that keep me from doing what I legally could do, but can't because I may not circumvent copyright protections?

Is it fair to still charge a "copyright fee" on CD-Rs that I can ONLY use for writing content that I do have the copyright for anymore because of the forementioned copy protection mechanisms?

Is it fair to install rootkits on my computer, without asking or at least informing me, without giving me the ability to get rid of them even if I cease using the product it came with?

Is it fair to dictate what devices I can use to play the music I license?

Is it fair to prevent me from copying content I do have the copyright of because the same copying mechanism could be used to copy content belonging to someone else?

Is it fair to put pressure on politicians to tip the balance between producers and consumers more and more in the producers favor?

Is it fair to assume that I don't give a rat's rear what someone treating me like that considers "fair"?

Which question do you think would deserve a "yes" as an answer?

This won't hold up in court

[Mistshadow2k4]

From TFA:""The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

They said this in front of the Supreme Court. Legally, they don't have a leg to stand on.

Death of an industry

[Wardie]

I really do think the age of the record company is coming to an end, I would think in 10 years time the concept of buying a small disk with music on it will seem a little bizzare. Musicians will suddenly realise that publishing an album purely on the net means a record company is redundant and thus more $$$ directly for them. I think sites like iTunes will eventually turn into music brokers, dealing directly with the artists. For the bigger artists, promotional activities will just be down to a marketing company, not a record company as such. Anyway, thats my 2 cents, what do i know....

Re:Death of an industry

[lennart78]

This is allready happening. Various 'aggregators' allow musicians and/or indie labels to publish music on iTunes and Rhapsody, against a hefty sum that is. Tunecore (http://www.tunecore.com/) offers the same, against much smaller costs.

Record companies had 3 monopolies which allowed them to firmly control the recording industry:
* To record an album you need a studio, which is expensive. Record companies paid band to use studios, tying the bands to the record company.
* To publish an album, you need to put it on CD (or LP), and get it out to record stores (distribution). Both of these activities come with huge expenses upfront.
* Finally, you need to promote and plug a band, which requires a network of people you know.

Nowadays, as a musician, I can record decent quality productions at home with the aid of a computer, at a fraction of the costs it would take if I were to do it in a studio. Distribution can take place via the Internet, (e.g. Tunecore), and for promotion/plugging, web2.0 like community networks and a well designed website can get you somewhere.

Basically, there is no more need for a record company. Their days are over, and the general public should realise that there are plenty possibilities to make do without them.

Re:Death of an industry

[AeroIllini]

Basically, there is no more need for a record company. Their days are over, and the general public should realise that there are plenty possibilities to make do without them.

While I agree with your sentiment, that record companies in their current form are now obsolete, I would have to say that the days of the record companies in general are not over yet. However, their purpose and place in this business is quickly changing.

Sure, you can do all that stuff yourself, recording on your home PC, publishing online, marketing through deli.cio.us or whoever. But that just gets you "good enough." In order to get a GREAT product, you really should use a professional recording studio with extremely high-end microphones, a professionally trained producer, and marketers who actually went to marketing school. All of that stuff is expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars, and that's where the record company comes in.

The record company should really be thought of as a venture capital firm for musicians. They front some money to the artist to pay for all the recording, producing, distribution, and marketing fees, and then the artist gives them a percentage of their earnings from that album in return. In other areas of venture capitalism, the risk is shared by both parties, the VC firm and the startup. If the idea is a flop, they BOTH lose money. However, in the last 30 years or so, the record companies have gotten so powerful that their cut of earnings has steadily gone up, and they started adding clauses about the band having to pay back all that up-front cost as well, with interest, out of their cut. The net result is that the record companies will sign just about anybody, because the deal is so one-sided that the band will go broke and declare bankruptcy long before the record companies ever lose money. They just sit back and get rich off other people's music, and this worked because they were the only game in town. It was either them or printing flyers and posting them on street corners.

The next generation of record companies (and I am fairly sure a new generation is coming) will succeed because they will play nice. The deals they cut with the artists will be fair to both parties, the IP rights will be shared, and everyone will get rich if the band succeeds. When the risk is shared like that, there is pressure on the record company to only sign good bands that will be good long-term investments. The flavor-of-the-month approach only works when there's no risk to the record company, since there are 3 flops for every superstar. Signing bands with appeal AND musical talent is a long-term investment: the band will continue to grow and create more great music, develop a loyal following of fans, and be very visible. Marketers call that "building a brand"; musicians call it "fandom". Either way you look at it, it's good business: the record company has performers and albums they are proud of, the fans get better music on average, the musicians actually make money, and everyone gets to keep their soul. Good times.

People that rip CD's are not the ones stealing...

[aka_big_wurm]

People riping CD's are not the ones out there shairing music.

They want to sell CD's but more and more people are using MP3 players. Some people like to still have the disk but rip to MP3. Make that illeagle and sales go down even more.

My current anwser allofmp3.com

Quick, RIAA, fix your website!

[yeremein]

If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail.

Source

True colors shining through

[Steve525]

... but this is simply going too far!

I'm glad that the RIAA has made these statements. Before when their arguement for stronger copywrite protection was "Look at what Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, etc. are doing", they had an arguement that the politicians/judges could be sympathetic to. Now if their arguement is "Fair use; people don't need no stinking fair use," I don't think the politicians and judges are going to be as sympathetic. It doesn't necessarily mean they won't still get their way, but at least it's a lot easier to argue against them.

Unfortunately, unlike you (if you are actually going to do what you claim) I don't think too many people care enough to do anything about it.

Both culpable

[Tony]

You are so right, my rights-oppressed friend. But *AAs are culpable for buying the laws; Congress is culpable for selling them.

Both should be punished severely, and I'm not talking swatted across the bare backside by Mistress Trish in her beautiful leather attire, either. I'm talking Smite.

I hate the business of politics.

Shenanigans! Officer Barbrady ....

[Compulawyer]

Quoth the summary:

"...replacements are readily available at affordable prices..."

In other words, because the RIAA thinks CD prices are "affordable," consumers should be forced to repurchase music, thereby further adding to the industry's profits, instead of being able to protect and preserve the investment the consumer made by making backup copies for personal use. This is the worst argument I have ever heard.

When you buy a piece of real estate, contrary to popular belief, you are not buying the actual land - you are buying a bundle of rights to use the land. Your ownership of that bundle of rights is evidenced by a deed. If you lose the physical deed, you don't have to buy the real estate again - you GET A COPY of the deed from the local registry of deeds. Here, when a consumer has damaged media, the consumer, in my humble opinion as an intellectual property lawyer, HAS EVERY RIGHT IN THE WORLD UNDER THE DOCTRINE OF FAIR USE TO SIMPLY REPLACE THE MEDIA WITH A BACKUP COPY.

In fact, I would go so far as to take the position that forcing consumers to repurchase music is a misuse of the copyright associated with the piece of music involved.

crap, there are NOT easily replaceable CDs

[swschrad]

I have a bunch of music I treasure that is NOT availiable on CD, and is NOT readily availiable, or availiable at all, on CD any more. RIAA is just so full of crap that they rot the floor behind them wherever they go.

Replacement CDs

[JustNiz]

You're not buying the CD, you're buying the rights to play the music. Furthermore their mechanisms DO prevent you from copying CDs (unlike their argument goes). See the Sony case.
Therefore:
If you're not allowed to make your own backups then the music industry should accept that providing you have proof of original purchase they have to provide you with replacments on demand when the original gets lost, scratched or whatever.

Lets not even get into what happens if (like me) you emigrate to a different country and your whole DVD collection (hundreds) won't play anymore because of the purely artificial restriction enforced by region code.

Small Change needed to Copyright Law

[mgpeter]

Congress needs to ammend the copyright law to allow ANY distribution to yourself.

Although this may kill most "Software Licenses" since most of them rely on the "Distributing from the CD to your computer" (or "Distributing from the Hard Drive to the Memory") to add ungodly amounts of restrictions "over and above" copyright law.

Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Viewsonic]

Apple specifically tells you to back your songs up the moment you purchase them by burning them onto an audio CD with the iTunes software itself! At which point you not only have a hard copy of the music you just bought from iTunes, but it is now DRM FREE. You can rerip that CD as many times as you want with NO DRM on the actual files. You can even do this with iTunes itself!

Your whole point about CDs costing less than iTunes is also bunk. Nearly every album on iTunes that can be bought as an album costs quite a bit LESS than any copy I can find in the stores on CD unless they are clearencing them out.

Your DRM tin foil hat theory is disturbing.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[soupdevil]

But CDs created from iTMS files are inferior to regular CDs in several ways. They are CDRs, with higher fail rates, they are lower quality audio, and they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Indras]

But CDs created from iTMS files are inferior to regular CDs in several ways. They are CDRs, with higher fail rates, they are lower quality audio, and they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

Not to rain on your parade, but does anyone really care about artist's notes and track listings? I can make a track listing myself, one that doesn't include 90% crap music like most CD's released today.

The only thing I ever wanted to find in a CD case was some freaking LYRICS!

It's so annoying to have a song stuck in my head and not even know what the words are, just a few scrambled words and a tune. So, you'd think the best place for the words to the song would be the artists themselves, right? You can't exactly call them on the phone, the best you can do is buy the CD. The last four CD's I purchased did not contain the lyrics to the songs inside. That was about six years ago.

Now, if a song gets stuck in my head, I download the MP3 and look up the lyrics in google, then play it a few times until I learn all the words, and *poof* it's out of my head.

As a side note: I seriously think the only reason songs get stuck in my head is because I get stuck on a verse and don't know what comes next, so it backs up and tries again. Once I learn all the words, I stop thinking about it.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[jocknerd]

Dude, I never said anything about CD's costing less than iTMS music. But now that you bring it up, many times new CD's do, in fact, cost less. And forget about buying their videos. A lot of the videos cost more than the equivalent DVD's. For instance, Schoolhouse Rocks just got released. But only half of them. At $2 each, it will cost you more to download the videos from iTMS than purchase the DVD which contains all 27 videos I believe. And I think there are only 11 videos for sale on iTMS. And its a lower quality as well from iTMS.

Sure, I can back up the music I purchase from iTMS. And I can burn it to a CD. But it is now a lower quality than what I purchased which is already a lower quality than what I could get from a CD. Doesn't matter if I can detect it or not. The fact is, its a lower quality.

There are ONLY two reasons to purchase from iTMS rather than buying a CD:

1. Buying individual songs
2. Convenience

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[vertinox]

Apple specifically tells you to back your songs up the moment you purchase them by burning them onto an audio CD with the iTunes software itself!

Yeah... Ermm... Well, this isn't a great backup method as it sounds. Firstly, you taking a lossy codec and recoding it back to 16-bit 44khz (from whatever audio you original have). Then if you want to get it back to your iPod (after a catostrophic computer crash and you formatted your iPod by accident) you have to re-encode it back to a lossy format (in which you loose a crap load of quality). I've done this way before iTunes when a computer crashed and the only backups of songs were... ermm... audio cds that I burned from Music Match from mp3s. I can tell a difference in the audio when I get it back to MP3 (even at 256kps).

Secondly, this is a big painful bitch to go back and rename all the mp3s since chances are the cds you burned aren't the exact albums and they don't match anything on Gracenote/CDDB etc and you have manually guess what each track is from and type the song and artist etct in the mp3 tag and file name.

A really big big royal pain in the ass when your computer crashes and you have a dead hard drive.

I believe you can backup the auido to a data disc of AACs or mp3s, however this does not remove the DRM from the files. So you still can't get the files to non-iPod audio devices and if you hose your computer and reinstall and in the process appear to hose you iTunes account those DRM'd files on your backup cds might be worthless.

Personally, I buy cds and rip them at highest quality (huge mp3s) so I can play them on my iPod and share out my iTunes folder to my Turtlebeach Audio Tron so I can listen them on my stereo. The Audiotron can't read DRM'd iTunes files so its kind of pointless for me to buy from there even though I have been tempted on trying to get a song out of my head. Chances are the next day I've gone to the local indie record store and bought it anyways.

The only thing I can see DRM doing for me is removing features with my listening experience and forcing me to buy the same song twice.

No thanks. I'll be old fashioned for right now.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Panfist]

I have no idea how you got rated a 5 interesting. Music downloaded from iTMS comes in 128kbps AAC. If you burn it onto a CD, it gets upconverted into a CD quality wave, but the information that was lost when it was originally compressed to 128kbps AAC doesn't magically reappear. All you have is a huge, lossy wave file. If you then try to re-rip it to whatever format you want (mp3, ogg, whatever), you're applying lossy compression algorithms to a file that already sounds worse than CD quality. The end product sounds like you're listening to it from a radio that's submerged in a bathtub.

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[rizzo420]

back in the day, album releases were about more than just the music. the album art was a big thing. look at albums by pink floyd and the beatles (sgt pepper). the liner notes were also big and on occasion contained extras (think beatles white ablum). of course this was when they were vinyl. however, they can do the same thing with cd's.

that's part of the reason i buy cd's. the other part is because if they're DRM free, they're probably the most open and highest quality format to get music in these days (dvd-a isn't widely available enough for me).

Re:Baloney. How did that get modded up?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

. . .they don't come with reference materials like images, track listings, artist's notes, etc.

How many real CDs come with anything more than half-assed attempt at these anyway? Considering the crushing heel of the RIAA, those incentives have lost their appeal for many people I imagine.

Speak to the RIAA with your wallet...

[Evil Shabazz]

The more the RIAA does this kind of petty crap to try to claim moneys they may or may not have gotten, the more I want to download music illegally, just out of spite. Heck, I download any Metallica song I see as a result of the Napster thing, and I don't even listen to much Metallica anymore (they've sucked donkey toes since that black album with the snake on it)

But back to my point - this is a capitalistic country (mostly, friggin gov't.. but I won't get into that here) and in such an economy the consumer can best voice displeasure with a company by no longer purchasing their goods. We, in the US, take this power too lightly.

Stop buying CDs. Tell the RIAA you don't like their business practices by reducing their bottom line.

Not Fair Use to rip CD to MP3?

[jlsheldon]

Isn't a CD just a container for PCM WAV files? Isn't a CD player a type of computer? Next, you are allowed to backup hard drives. You are allowed to compress hard drives. They contain software and other protected media, don't they? Why would it follow that we could not back up a CD and even compress it? Most software is okay to install on one computer at a time. My CD's are in storage once I rip them. The ripped songs all fit on my Archos. I listen to them thru that in my car, thru headphones, or attache via USB to any PC and listen there. What is the problem?

Anyone read RIAA.com?

[Kcowolf]

From the "Ask the RIAA" section of their website (http://www.riaa.com/issues/ask/default.asp#stand) :

What is your stand on MP3?

This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right. (emphasis mine)

Sounds Like the RIAA is Trying to Screw Apple!

[fir5t psot!]

There is currently an antitrust suit filed against Apple alleging that Apple has monopolized the markets for online music distribution and for portable mp3 players by making songs downloaded from iTMS only compatible with iPod. If the RIAA's Fair Use argument is upheld, then Apple's defenses in its antitrust litigation would be significantly narrowed. Without the ability to rip CDs to use on the iPod, the iTMS' market share is greatly increased. Thus, the RIAA's position is well-timed to injure Apple. Maybe this is an unintended result by RIAA, though. I can't see why the RIAA would want Apple to have to do away with its DRM.

The RIAA can eat...

[SnuffySmith]

... the backup copy of that stromboli I had last night.

Indie labels?

[eltonito]

I keep seeing comments to the effect of "I'm never buying music again..." and I think this is very short-sighted.

I'm here to tell you the solution is to buy *more* music...

...from non-RIAA member, independent labels. There are indie labels out there for nearly every genre. They tend to treat their artists more fairly and nearly every indie label respects their customers and treats them like... well, customers instead of cattle or criminals.

I could give you a million positive experiences I've had with indie labels, but I don't want to waste too much time on an RIAA post. A really great summary example is that I've never IM'ed with a major label owner about how I included their music on a compilation for my friends and had the major label be excited that I was helping to promote their bands and label.

The best way to piss off the RIAA isn't to pirate their music or simply stop buying it. The best way to piss them off is to shift the market by taking your patronage and your money to non-RIAA indies.

The RIAA can go to hell.

[MaWeiTao]

I haven't yet bought an MP3 online and I don't plan to. I'd much rather buy a CD where I have something physical that I can hold onto for years. I make MP3s from it, allowing me to listen, conveniently, to all my music at work or on my iPod. I don't have to put any wear on the CD either by playing it or carrying it around everywhere, but I've always got the CD on hand if I do want to pop it into a CD player. And I don't have the hassle of having to back up MP3s, if it's even possible with they way their use is restricted.

I made the copies for my own convenience. I almost never copy anything for anyone else and if I get my hands on some MP3s I really like I go online and order the CD.

But then I don't listen to popular music at all; anything close to mainstream I completely avoid. And after years of buying CDs and occassionally ending up with crap, I no go out of my way to ensure that at least half the music on the CD I enjoy. So far I haven't really encountered any copy-protection nonsense, but we'll see how long that lasts.

Of course, the more I see this sort of bullshit from the RIAA the less I want to buy music. Why should I have to buy multiple copies of the same music? It's simply about convenience. I've got a PC, cd player at home and in my car, and an mp3 player. Why shouldn't I be able to transfer my music amongst all these platforms?

Every time some new technology is developed people talk like it's going to be a great enabler. It's going to make things easier for everyone, without any of the hassles we've dealt with in the past. Until the scumbags show up, suddenly everything we use is crippled, hindered by absurd licensing agreements, restrictive contracts and all kinds of ridiculous fees and charges that border on extortion. If there's any way to make a few extra cents these companies will figure out how to do it. Kind of like the mobile phone industry in the US.

The RIAA can go to hell for all I care. Unfortunately, by trying to screw the music industry, it's not the executives who feel it, it's all the regular people like the rest of us who feel the consequences. Regardless, something needs to be done about this sort of garbage.

Yup...

[Greyfox]

They're gearing up to do their best legally and technically to kill the secondhand CD market. I suspect that a lot of people now buy a CD, rip it and then sell it to a secondhand CD dealer. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's a lot safer than pulling your music off the Internet (No lawsuits) and cuts the RIAA out of all sales except for the first one for any given CD in that system.

If you don't like it, write your local Congressman, point him at this story and tell him that you like your ipod and copyright issues are high on your priority list when you're considering who to vote for in the next election. Also don't buy CDs that benefit the RIAA. Go browse the International section of your local music store. Chances are you can find a lot of independent artists in there whose music is new and interesting and which cost half to a quarter what the latest RIAA produced crap does.

Re:Yup...

[C0rinthian]

I would imagine that if you sell the original copy, you would be expected to destroy any backups you had made.

The point is that you purchased the work, and made a backup copy for yourself. Because you own the original, then the backup is a legit copy. Both copies are in the possession of the original purchaser.

When you choose to sell your original, things change. Because you no longer own the original, any copies in your posession are no longer legit. Now two seperate parties have possession of the work, but only one was paid for.

That's the key to fair use. Who has access to the work vs. who has paid for the work. I'm a strong advocate of fair use, and I fully agree that the *IAA are overstepping their boundaries. However, I don't agree with abusing fair-use to get something free. IMO the scenario above (keeping a copy and re-selling the original) is an abuse of fair-use.

Their Way

[Renraku]

If they had their way, CDs would be copy protected and require a CD key to play (a la Windows or PC game keys), would require an internet or modem connection to phone home on each play (like Steam), and would occasionally be completely unavailable to play due to server problems..

They would completely have no problem with forcing this upon the customer. When confronted, they would shrug and say that it allows them to serve their customers better. By the way, if you buy the 'Special Edition' CD, its authorizations are listed on a different server that doesn't go down quite as often.

And if you play the CD in another computer, the key is invalidated and you must purchase a new one.

Re:Their Way

[robertjw]

CDs would be copy protected and require a CD key to play (a la Windows or PC game keys)

Unfortunately, they don't seem to be aware that the methods you mention are are largely ineffective. It's typically a matter of days from the release of a game before the thing is cracked and downloadable.

would require an internet or modem connection to phone home on each play (like Steam)

Might be a bit hard to play in the car.

What the RIAA wants is for things to go back to the way they used to be. No Internet, no Satellite radio, no iPods, no iTunes. They see their revenue model slowly but surely slipping away and they can't do anything about it, so they flail around and make a lot of noise. This whole article is just posturing. What are they going to do? Start suing people that rip CDs they've purchased? Suing downloaders was bad, going after your customers that actually PAID for the CD - doesn't seem smart to me.

The real answer for all of us here is to not buy or listen to RIAA music. There are thousands, maybe millions of independant artists out there on the web. Go out and support these people. Buy their songs of iTunes, or better yet, buy the CDs directly from their website. Don't know any indie music? Try listening to some podcasts for some ideas. The Association of Music Podcasting has a large list of music podcasts. Personally I think the Eclectic Mix has a good selection of different music and Coverville is a great podcast featuring many indpendent artists.

It appears that the RIAA have backed into a corner

[GuyverDH]

And have nowhere to turn.

They've sued their customer base.
They've spent millions on ineffective marketing campaigns.
They've pushed labels to cookie-cutter their music and bands.
Now they wonder how they're going to raise profits?

If they move forward with restricting our right to backup a flimsy media so that we can listen to the music that we've purchased the right to listen to, then we the community need to fire back.

ie - counter-sue the RIAA/MPAA on the grounds that we pay money for a product that is INTENTIONALLY DEFECTIVE.

They produce a products that are brittle, easy to break. They produce products which require a scratch free surface to play properly, yet the products are made of a material that scratches almost by air flowing over it. They produce products which illegally extend copyright, by making the encryption never ending.

I'd say there's enough there to start a massive world-wide class-action lawsuit and force them to refine their product, at no additional cost to us, so that they are scratch resistant, and have an encryption method that turns itself off after the legal copyright limit.

If they cannot do that, then they'll have to retract their position, and allow us to make backups of their defective products.

Readily available?

[rnturn]

Hah! I have a ton of CDs that are no longer "in print". I've made copies to protect my investment since RIAA members no longer see enough profit to continue making these older CDs available to me any more.

Running at Cross Purposes

[jasonditz]

I'm getting the sense here that the RIAA and the online downloadable music companies which are going to be their major source of future revenue are running at cross-purposes here.

The downloadable music companies like Apple have always tried to argue that deep down we knew there was something "wrong" with using the illegal download services... that it was not just marginally illegal, but immoral. The RIAA's ever broadening definition of what violates their copyright keeps cheapening that concept.

To be honest with you, once affordable legal downloads became available I started switching over to them for convenience sake, and also for the added bonus of not being in violation of any laws. But now the RIAA comes along and says "guess what, that Culture Club CD you bought 10 years ago and ripped onto your hard drive because you don't own any audio CD players anymore... that was a crime". Well, at this point I'm breaking the law anyhow. So my choice is to either shell out a few grand to replace ever cassette tape and CD I ever bought with iTunes, or to keep playing the ripped, but legally owned stuff, knowing that the RIAA is still going to bitch.

But you know what? This probably does have an effect on how I'm going to buy music in the future. If the RIAA is going to argue that downloading a bunch of Bjork songs off a P2P service is the legal equivalent to going to Best Buy and buying the CDs and ripping them to my hard drive... there's no good reason for me to shell out the money anymore, is there?

If you can't listen to music anymore without being a criminal, then why pay for the priviledge?

Fuck the RIAA

[alfredo]

I can appreciate some restrictions on use of copyright material, but they want too much control over products we pay inflated prices for. They say we are hurting the artist, but what really hurts the artist are the draconian and deceptive contracts the artists have to work under. You can have a Platinum recording and end up in debt to the record company because they shift the financial risks to the artist and assume none for themselves. Many of your favorite artist barely make a living wage even though they are generating millions for their labels.

Ask Toni Braxton. She made millions for her record company and ended up being in debt to her label.

You can have my CD ripper...

[J05H]

when you pry it from cold, dead fingers, Jack. In a world where the best music is on used, imported $30 CDs, you're frickin' right that I'm going MP3s every one of them. You want to steal my VCR, too?

I think we *should* give the RIAA what they want.

[ysaric]

I'm going to be honest here, nothing would make me happier than for the RIAA to hire someone who comes up with an absolutely foolproof copy protection mechanism that totally and completely prevents backing up CDs, and whatever other copyright protections they want to build in. Let the entire industry adopt that copy protection scheme. Nothing will kill their CD game faster than giving them exactly what they want. Let them put the product they want on the market, and people will flock, in droves, to alternatives. One of the main reasons people haven't migrated is because of ineffective copy protection that allows them to make copies and the like. Close down all the loopholes and suddenly electronic music distibution systems start looking a lot more promising. Sure, the RIAA will then start focusing more on electronic music distribution, but at that point the previous paradigm has already cracked and IMO their credibility regarding the benefits of their copy protection plans would have taken a huge hit.

Bypass the RIAA

[Vejadu]

You can continue to buy CDs, just seek out artists that are not part of RIAA labels. Support real musicians, not the mass-market garbage that's force-fed to us through corporate radio and MTV.

I think the problem is that existing DRM sucks

[kostaki]

Why can't DRM tie the purchased song or movie to a particular owner? Why can't playback devices also tie themselves to the same owner? Once that is accomplished, devices can play any song or movie their owner has legally purchased. Why is this so complicated? Later CZ

Broken Media

[nurb432]

If I'm just licensing *content*, why isn't the replacement CD free? If I'm purchasing media too, then i can make backups as i see fit.

If im licensing content, why is it wrong for me to listen to my purchased content on my ipod? I can only listen to one copy at a time.

What a scam... Next they will say listening to my content more than once isnt 'fair use' either.

Re:weird Question

[ryusen]

My understanding is the RIAA is a joint industry group or many different record companies (most of them owned by the big five). They are responsible for lobbying nad various legal wranglings. This gives the actual record industry a slight buffer from the inane actions of the RIAA.
They are of course looking to lock out ALL copyrights, because that's what benifits their members the most. That it might harm or hurt other eneties is meaningless.