30 Days of DRM

sonofollson writes "Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor, in the middle of a 30 Days of DRM project, which is targeting the planned introduction of the DMCA in Canada. Each day, the project identifies an exception or limitation that is needed to address the danger of anti-circumvention legislation. Issues covered so far include interoperability, privacy, region coding, and reverse engineering. The project is also supporting a wiki version for broader participation."

Comments

Cool movie

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy tried to live one month on nothing but copy protection systems but choked on a dongle after 9 days.

Great idea

[magictiger]

This is a great idea. Unfortunately, the only people likely to find this are those that already know the need for exceptions to DRM laws. I hope the Canadians pass this along to their legislators and that someone actually bothers to read the blog.

Maybe if we'd had something like this before the DMCA, we could have made it a little less restrictive. (No way in hell the **AAs would have let it die)

Re:Great idea

[kimvette]

FWIW, I'm not Canadian, just pointing this out so Canadians here know to contact their reps:

OK, if DRM and the equivalent of the DMCA is introduced in Canada, effectively eliminating their equivalent of Fair Use, will the levies on blank media be repealed?

Re:Great idea

[Deadguy2322]

Nope. As a Canadian, I assure you that he cash-grab levy wil continue. Canada, land of no rights, insane taxes and a totally fucking broken electoral system, yet STILL inexplicably full of smug assholes who take any opportunity to bash the USA.

Re:Great idea

[Safiire Arrowny]

I would prefer to have the blank media tax, and to just be left alone in peace to do what I want with my media.

Re:Great idea

[CastrTroy]

As a Canadian, I can tell you that there are no such levies on CDs or DVDs, because they are argued as being used for computer data. This is why you can go to Walmart and get 100 DVD+/-Rs for $30. There was at one time, or maybe still is, some CD-Audio CDs, which are the same as regular CDRs except that they cost about $5 each an do contain the levy. I think they only cost so much because they are so wildly unpopular, due to the fact that they cost more than the regular CDRs, and do not offer any extra features. Some stand alone CD recorders will only record on this type of media.

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

As a Canadian, I can tell you that there are no such levies on CDs or DVDs, because they are argued as being used for computer data.

This is wrong. There are levies on blank CDs, because they are commonly used to record music, whether they are "CD-audio" or not.

See the current rates here.

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

Canada has no equivalent of Fair Use. Our Private Copying right is quite different.

I'd say there's a good chance that the Private Copying right will go, because the multinationals don't like it any more. I think the Private Copying levy will go at the same time, because it is specifically put in place to reimburse copyright holders for the Private Copying right.

Personally, I like Private Copying, and think the levy is a reasonable rate to pay for it. However, I don't think it's really sustainable in the long run, because it can't really keep up with technology.

Re:Great idea

[nsayer]

In the U.S. the reason there are "music" CD-Rs that cost more than data CD-Rs is because of the American Home Recording Act. This was the grandfather of the DMCA. It requires a levy to be placed on all blank media for standalone digital audio recording devices. It was the AHRA that was used to attempt to bludgeon the Diamond RIO out of existence back in the day (it failed, because the Rio was judged to be a computer peripheral). The AHRA does not apply to computer peripherals, so that's why data CD-Rs are sold that are cheaper, even though you can record Red Book audio track disks with them. The AHRA was what killed the DAT as a consumer audio component back in the day and relegated them to studio audio and computer data applications.

Re:Great idea

[CastrTroy]

They can be used, does not they must be used. There are so many other uses of CDs that it's pretty much impossible to charge a levy. When you look at audio cassettes, there are very few uses apart from recording audio, so it's easy to argue that a levy should be charged. If there is a levy in Canada, how much is it? Because I can go to the local discount computer store and get 50 CDs for $12. That works out to $0.24 for each CD. The Canadian copyright board states that they levy on CDRs is supposed to be $0.21 per CD ($0.77 for CDR-Audio). I find it highly unlikely that the levy is being charged, and that I'm only paying $0.03 per CD including retail markup, transportation, manufacturing, and all the other costs of delivering CDRs to the end user. Also, to reiterate, there is absolutely no levy on DVD+/-Rs.

Re:Great idea

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

I have a CD recorder / player (Yamaha) in my component stereo system, and it will only record on the "CDR Music" type discs that carry the extra fee. Of course, there is no way around this fee if I am recording, e.g., a session of my own band's rehearsal from an old cassette tape or whatnot. I've also not yet heard of any way to see the cashflow from the extra fee, in order to verify that it is indeed making it to the artists for which it was levied in the first place.

Lastly, if the manufacture of these discs ever ceases, I am stuck with a play-only unit in my stereo rack. Nice, eh?

Sure hope somebody reverse engineers these and starts manufacturing them independently one of these days. I'd actually pay *more* for a product if a portion of its cost supported anti-DRM organizations.

Re:Great idea

[Jardine]

Because I can go to the local discount computer store and get 50 CDs for $12. That works out to $0.24 for each CD. The Canadian copyright board states that they levy on CDRs is supposed to be $0.21 per CD ($0.77 for CDR-Audio). I find it highly unlikely that the levy is being charged, and that I'm only paying $0.03 per CD including retail markup, transportation, manufacturing, and all the other costs of delivering CDRs to the end user.

That store is doing one of two things. They're not paying the levy or they're selling CDRs at a loss to get you into the store to buy other things that they will make a profit on.

Re:Great idea

[Feyr]

that's wrong. canada does have a fair use. it's called "fair dealing"

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/copy_gd _protect-e.html#6

Re:Great idea

[Paul Slocum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_media_tax#Canad a

Re:Great idea

[crossmr]

I've written my MP 3 times.
Though I'm not sure how much of this is FUD. The Conservative government is in a very precarious position. The wrong move and the victory they let the Liberals screw up so badly for is gone.
Turning everyone into criminals isn't going to benefit them during the next election when they go for a majority government.

Which I've reminded my MP of in the last 2 letters.

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

Fair dealing is much more limited than fair use. For example, it wouldn't allow you to make a copy for time shifting, or media shifting. But you might be right that it's closer to being "Canada's equivalent of fair use" than private copying is. I just tend to think of "equivalent" as being a black and white relation.

Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the differences between fair use and fair dealing.

I could have said "Canada has no equivalent of Fair Use. Our Fair Dealing is quite different.", but the private copying levy has nothing to do with fair dealing.

Re:Great idea

[CastrTroy]

Yet I still don't think that the levy is being charged. Almost every store sells CDRs for around $0.30 or less. This would mean that all these stores are losing money on CDRs. Also, the CDRs are the equivalent to what you would pay in the US for blank media, accounting for exchange rates. So, I guess i am wrong, and that there is a levy, yet i fail to see any instance of a consumer actually having to pay a levy. It's impossible for me to believe that they are charging a 21 cent levy on a product that only costs 24 cents for me to buy. And I'm not even trying to find the lowest price, just finding a low price that I know they can be bought at.

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

It is not always being charged,, but it is supposed to be. You can find more links about this case here.

Re:Great idea

[bigpicture]

A New World Order will require a completely new mindset, and completely new institutions. Especially about the understanding of the functions and workings of creation and creativity. The outmoded concepts about source and ownership of creativity will have to go.

Everything comes out of the earth, including every atom in the human body, you either grow it or you mine it, but it all comes out of the earth upon which we walk. And on the larger scale it all comes out of the cosmos.

If the earth is the source of a fruit or vegetable, does that mean that the earth "owns" that fruit or vegetable? Or has that potential always been in existence, and the fruit or vegetable just comes "through" the earth.

If I am the source of an idea or a creative work, does that mean that I "own" the idea or creative work. Or was it a result of the atoms in my body that originally came from the common earth, and the social and educational environment on that earth to which those atoms were exposed? In other words was the potential always there, and it would have expressed through someone else, even I never existed?

How can society ever be right, if corrupted and self centred mindsets do not eventually abate?

Re:Great idea

[masterzora]

I've written my MP 3 times.

Ha ha ha "MP3" I get it!

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

That sucks, but CD recorders for a computer are so cheap now that it likely wouldn't kill you to trash the Yamaha and do all your recording with a sound card on a computer. This will save you the extra cost of the levy on the audio discs, and the cost of recording crap, because you can edit that out before committing to media.

Re:Great idea

[CastrTroy]

That's one case. I can find multiple retailers with the same price, all over my city. So either every retailer in the city isn't paying the levy, (which I find hard to believe), or they are paying the levy for me, which I also find hard to believe. I was very much under the impression that becuase of the low cost of CDRs, that there was no levy. Apparently there is one, yet I can't see how it's being accounted for.

Re:Great idea

[RealGrouchy]

There is an exception to having to pay this levy.

In order to avoid paying this levy, you have to be an eligible organization (e.g. businesses who legitimately don't use it for ripping CDs, churches, NGOs, etc.). You then have to pay a $60/year ($15/year for non-commercial) registration fee with the CPCC, and you can only buy levy-free CDs from CPCC-certified manufacturers and distributors (NOT retailers).

So essentially, either you pay the levy to the CPCC, or you pay the CPCC other money so that you don't pay them the levy. Either way, you're paying more, and they're getting your money, all because they preemptively convict you of stealing music.

(Organizations for the perceptually disabled can get a rebate on their levy from the CPCC.)

Source: www.cpcc.ca

- RG>

Re:Great idea

[djmurdoch]

"So essentially, either you pay the levy to the CPCC, or you pay the CPCC other money so that you don't pay them the levy."

No, you also have the option of using media with no levy, e.g. DVDs, or the disk in your MP3 player.

"they're getting your money, all because they preemptively convict you of stealing music"

No, that's not why you pay. You pay in order to have the right to make private copies. If you do that, you're not stealing, you're making legal copies. If you use the discs for something else, you're being taxed for the benefit of someone else. If you make the copies on media that have no levies, you're getting the benefit without paying for it.

Re:Great idea

[saskboy]

I've written my Conservative MP 3 times too, and have yet to get a reply.
I've posted it on Slashdot several times, so dig it up here or on my blog. Just search for "Garry B."

Re:Great idea

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Very true, and in fact I've set up a media PC with optical & S/PDIF audio IO for just those reasons. Given that, I don't find much use for the Yamaha's recording capability anymore, but that fact pisses me off more than it soothes me. I mean, I naïvely spent several hundred dollars on a piece of equipment on the basis that it was capable of digital recording. Unfortunately, I bought it quite a few years ago, before I had any real awareness of DRM issues, or the wherewithall to grill the salesperson about such.

What this leaves me with is an artificially handicapped machine. I own the equipment, and I happen to own a majority of the incoming signals that I wanted to use it to record. Nevertheless, I have the permission to record audio digitally only if I pay the RIAA a commission for such privilege. Now if the incoming signal is from my own band, does the RIAA forward that commission to me or my band mates? Hardly. Matter of fact, as an independent recording artist, I cannot even find out where to register for a share of the commision.

Call me militant, but the way I see it, the RIAA owes me the CD-R commission for whatever number of discs have been purchased to record my band's material onto. Failing that, they owe me the manufacturing blueprints to make discs for doing same without filtering currency through their hands. Failing both of those, then their CD-R scheme amounts to extortion and/or price fixing, and should be treated as such by the courts.

Yep, I can digitize FLACs and 320kbps MP3s all day long on my PC, but I'd also like to be able to use my rack equipment exactly as it says I can on the box, and the box doesn't say anything about paying a commission to the RIAA. Until then, I suppose I have enough past-due receivables on the RIAA account ledger to share quite a few MP3s at $750 a pop.

Re:Great idea

[KDR_11k]

In other words, abolish property?

Re:Great idea

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

"You pay in order to have the right"

That said it all right there. A Purchased Right is an oxymoron.

Re:Great idea

[suv4x4]

I would prefer to have the blank media tax, and to just be left alone in peace to do what I want with my media.

Right now they get both of those. Why step down?

Re:Great idea

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

I don't know about Canada, but in the US, I can buy CD-Rs dirt cheap (i.e., at similar prices to those you mention), but I can only buy *CD-R Music* discs at a significantly higher price. Only the latter will work in my rack CD recorder (made by Yamaha). The difference in price goes mostly to the RIAA.

The only difference between the discs is a simple flag specifying the type. It is allegedly illegal to sell an audio CD recorder (non-computer peripheral) here that allows recording onto a non-taxed disc.

If it is currently legal in Canada to deal in such equipment, please let me know, because I would love to be able to use cheaper spindles of CD-Rs for those audio recordings that I do not make through my computer. What's more, I would love to keep whatever money possible out of the hands of the RIAA, and as much as it shocks and dismays me to find myself saying this, I am willing to break United States law if it means exercising my fair use rights while reducing their influx of cash. Not long ago I would not have gone that far, but I'm afraid the time for mealy-mouthed opposition to these crimelords is long past.

Re:Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

That said it all right there. A Purchased Right is an oxymoron.

Are you implying rights are not to be purchased? Rights are goods, exactly as everything else is. Or are you so naive to thing that some "gawd" gave them to you?

Re:Great idea

[Captain_Chaos]

I would prefer to have the blank media tax, and to just be left alone in peace to do what I want with my media.

And let me subsidize your music and movies? Tempting, but no thank you...

Re:Great idea

[shutdown -p now]

Well, why stop at abolishing copyright only?

Re:Great idea

[jwo7777777]

But thankfully the DAT didn't make it and something with a much faster seek (CDs) was asopted.

Re:Great idea

[jwo7777777]

...errr...adopted.

Re:Great idea

[nsayer]

CDs predated DAT by many, many years.

Re:Great idea

[Champion3]

The levy is indeed in effect, and furthermore, organizations who are outside the scope of the levy may apply for an excemption, however they must also submit to audits.

Re:Great idea

[bigpicture]

No, No, just redefine what owning really means, so that it can be applied equally to everyone. Either everyone is somewhat creative and has the exclusive rights to their creativity, or no one has. If I create things where I work, do I own the results of my creativity or does the company that I work for own it? So why can I not copyright my work even though I created it, yet others can copyright theirs. Why is the concept of ownership and IP applied differently, in different scenarios?

For instance the origins of copyright is from the original printing press days. The King could control information, and at the same time grant favours to his buddies, by granting them only the right to own and operate printing presses. (copyrights) Why do we continue with this anachronism?

Either properly apply equal human rights to all human endeavours and move into the 21st century, but don't pretend that human rights are equitably applied when exclusivity is still possible. This is the result of a non-logical corrupted mindset.

Re:Great idea

[KDR_11k]

If I create things where I work, do I own the results of my creativity or does the company that I work for own it?

Depends on what you were hired for. If your job is to create copyrighted works for the company then of course you can't take both the works and the money home. You agreed that any works you make (usually at work, sometimes at home depending on the contract) belong to the company and that the company gives you money in return. Don't like the contract, don't sign it. Look for another job that doesn't have this requirement.

Re:Great idea

[jhylkema]

The Conservative government is in a very precarious position. The wrong move and the victory they let the Liberals screw up so badly for is gone.

Here's how I, an American would-be Canadian and regular CBC Radio One listener sees it:

You are right, Harper was in a precarious position to start. The only reason the Tories came to power was the sponsorship scandal. Now, he has made his "settlement" of the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. a confidence issue. If enough MPs realize that Harbush folded a winning hand against the U.S. ("Bushie, you're doin' a heckuva job, and you only hafta give back 1/3 of what you stole, eh?"), his government could very easily fall. Plus, the Canadian involvement in Afganistan is unpopular. For these and other reasons, he's on very thin ice (pun intended) and the Liberals and NDP are looking for the first opportunity to take him down. Anyone who doubts this needs only realize that his campaign-promised revisit of gay marriage is now off the table.

Re:Great idea

[bigpicture]

I was using that more as an example, and not as such a personal experience. I was alluding to the need for social change through change of mindset. The old thought patterns around IP, copyright, patents etc. needs a big shake up, because if you observe, this is now detracting more from, than it is adding to social and economic progress. If the effort and money that is spent on maintaining these institutions, was spent on developing useful products and processes, society would be much further ahead.

It is the fast pace of change, and today's technologies that is making these so called protections less relevant, they now only slow progress down. There is probably a lot of patents in a typewriter, but where are all the IBM Selectras today?

"If you keep thinking what you always think, you will keep doing what you always do. If you keep doing what you always do you will keep getting what you always get".

Re:Great idea

[KDR_11k]

There are quite a few things that would increase efficiency if removed. Not just IP but the whole capitalism deal. The problem is that the efficient alternatives are impossible to maintain without a serious change of mind in the general populace, never mind the international agreements. If people were motivated by a strife for excellence instad of pure greed (humans are naturally competitive, you'd need to train them that progress for society is the best thing for their "alpha male rating" and they'd make the world better just for the bragging rights) you could put them in a communistic system and they'd keep the rate of progress the pressure of competition caused in capitalism except they could actually work together instead of spending time reinventing the wheel because a competitor patented it. Unfortunately money is curently seen as the highest measure of alpha male worthiness which obviously creates a lot of friction in the process of advancing society.

I'm not sure you'd really need to force every last lazy slob to work since nowadays you don't need a 1:1 coverage of workers to general population to get sufficient supply. Look at all the waste of perfectly good products society is creating. Paying farmers to not grow plants?

Money also creates huge energy inefficiencies. I mean, does a US farmer really use more energy to produce the same amount of food as a south african farmer? Do workers in outsourcing countries really work more efficient than those at home? It's mostly the difference in purchasing power that creates these cheaper alternatives but they are really less efficient energy-wise than simply producing at home and avoiding the shipping. There are or were tribes that didn't require any currency or trade at all yet they were self-sustaining.

But yes, that'll probably remain an utopia (although it might even involve loss of some things/rights we hold dear and as such would be considered a dystopia by people conditioned by the current system) for at least a few centuries, if not till the end of humanity. You'd need some serious conditioning to make people work in such a situation and I don't think the transition would work well.

Re:Great idea

[bigpicture]

Not a bad analysis, I agree with most of what you got here. Except I am still hopeful that people will eventually tire of the consumer and greed based economy and merry-go-round, and look at alternative and more equitable economic and social structures. Without having to experience any traumatic events, such as commodity shortages and resulting major wars. Not to mention possible weather increasingly traumatic events. As I see it, the IP, copyright, patent thing is only one step, and tiny part of the required total mind change.

Maybe I'm An Idiot...

[Anonymous Coward]

But from the site, a better summary of what this is about:

The 30 Days of DRM highlights some of the exceptions and limitations that the government should include if a Canadian DMCA is introduced. Contribute to the discussion through the 30 Days of DRM Wiki.

the most important

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM doesn't expire, so the media never makes it to the public domain
by design of course

Re:the most important

[jb.hl.com]

Bullshit. I would be incredibly surprised if analog/not inherently electrical (e.g. tape, paper, film) copies of music, books and films are not kept by studios, publishers etc. Just because something is in a DRMed form does not make it suddenly never public domain, and if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you, or a record company in the land that would sue you.

Re:the most important

[aussie_a]

if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you, or a record company in the land that would sue you.

I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:the most important

[magictiger]

Just because something is in a DRMed form does not make it suddenly never public domain, and if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you, or a record company in the land that would sue you.

Are you referring to the USA or Canada? Because if it's USA, you know better than to think something will become public domain here. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic)

I don't know enough about the Canadian legal system or their legal history to be able to comment, but based on US history, I think you're wrong on thinking nobody would sue you, and as long as that somebody is important enough, they will bend reality to their whims and win.

Re:the most important

[jb.hl.com]

I'd really love to know how a record company would extract damages from you for cracking the DRM from something they no longer have copyright over. They'd be laughed out of court, DMCA or no DMCA. That and there'd be no point, what with the subject matter being public domain and all. Not much point having PD things DRMed.

Re:the most important

[wall0159]

"if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you"

Uh huh - and what happens when your media player *only* accepts DRMd media? where will you be then?

The way things are going, this will happen - especially as more companies become both vendors of hardware *and* media...

Re:the most important

[Anonymous Coward]

if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you

Doesn't matter. The law is very clear. In the United States, it is a violation of the DMCA to circumvent DRM of any kind. Cracking DRM is a criminal act by the clear letter of the law. U.S. websites have had injunctions upheld against them simply for telling others where to go to find information about circumventing DRM. So, your guesses as to what would happen if someone were to be accused of DRM violation do not do one thing to put at ease the minds of those who would like to view public domain content which has been put under DRM seal. But it is good that you believe the public is against this application of the DMCA. Feeling similarly, perhaps you can work to get bad law overturned.

Re:the most important

[EsonLinji]

But that's the problem. When you make the act of circumventing DRM a crime, it doesn't matter what content it was protecting. You still break the law by circumventing it. Which is exactly why such laws are bad. You should be able to make a copy of something in the public domain, but you can't. And don't rely on the record companies to let you off easy. It took mass negative media coverage for them to let a dead guy off the hook.

Re:the most important

[Reziac]

I agree absolutely that DRM on public domain material is inherently an oxymoron, but that doesn't make the law see it that way. IANAL, but I think it would depend on whether there is a sunset provision in the DRM law itself. As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK) still illegal to crack the DRM. The two facets are, unfortunately, separate legal issues.

Beyond that, one would have to trust to the fairness and common sense of the courts, not always the best bet. :(

Also, it would be best if such a case went to conclusion and set a precedent (hopefully of "Death to DRM"), rather than being dismissed to be tried another day, possibly with disastrous results.

Re:the most important

[tepples]

I'd really love to know how a record company would extract damages from you for cracking the DRM from something they no longer have copyright over.

Two methods:

1. Sue you for making the circumvention device that you used to crack the uncopyrighted work but which could in theory also be used to crack copyrighted works.
2. Prevent works from falling out of copyright by repeatedly extending the copyright term. See also Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, the first U.S. copyright statute that reextended copyright terms that had already been extended once.

Re:the most important

[MP3Chuck]

Unfortunately, by the time anything DRM'd becomes public domain, most will likely have forgotten what public domain is!

Seriously, what's copyright up to now ... 100 years past the author's death?

Re:the most important

[Kaenneth]

The problem is, that corporations keep lobbying to extend the duration of copyrights retroactivly, and for longer and longer terms; when with the increased pace of creation and distribution I think the terms should be getting shorter (at least for Software, and such).

Re:the most important

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever it is, it's too short. Until it's amended to become permenant, it's too short.

And before this gets modded troll, think about GPLed programs. Once they become public domain, there's nothing stopping anyone from closing the source or doing whatever they want with them.

If you want to keep open source open, you'll want perpetual copyrights. Anything else means the author's wishes get trampled all over.

Re:the most important

[penix1]

You wouldn't be prosecuted for copyright violation but for DMCA violation (copy protection circumvention). It has already happened with a professor and a programmer ans a slew of others.
(see: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/20020503_dmca_consequen ces.html for more info).

The DMCA was and is a bad law. It is vaguely worded and exceptions in it are few. A violation of the DMCA is a felony in its own and shouldn't be taken lightly.

B.

Re:the most important

[CastrTroy]

The record company doesn't have to extract damages if the laws make it a criminal offense to break copyright protections. At that point, the record company doesn't even have to make a complaint. You local police could come and arrest you if they had significant evidence that you had broken the protections. I am unaware of the circumstances, but I think that copyright is a civil issue, whereas the DMCA makes it a criminal issue.

Re:the most important

[lucas teh geek]

think of a piece of software that's even just 10 years old that you still use today, and i mean something released in 1996 or earlier, not something first released then, and then updated in 97, 98, 99, etc. having trouble? if the copyright on a piece of software has expired it is 99% likely useless, GPL'd or not

Re:the most important

[penix1]

"Are you referring to the USA or Canada? Because if it's USA, you know better than to think something will become public domain here. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic)"

Although you are being sarcastic you are also telling the truth. Jack Valenti the head of the MPAA, has stated, "The constitutional definition of "limited time" to me means the end of the universe minus 30 seconds". He has also stated that if people want to back up their copies, they can damned well buy the backup. Another gem from him is his belief that the public domain is useless unless you can profit from it.

See http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002065.shtml for more enjoyable quotes from this sock puppet..

B.

Re:the most important

[mrchaotica]

I would be incredibly surprised if analog/not inherently electrical (e.g. tape, paper, film) copies of music, books and films are not kept by studios, publishers etc.

Do some research about all the irreplacable old movies, etc. that are deteriorating into nothingness while sitting in un-climate-controlled warehouses becasue they're "too expensive" to save, and prepare to be surprised!

if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain I doubt there's a court in the land that would convict you, or a record company in the land that would sue you.

That doesn't change the fact that you shouldn't have to break the encryption in the first place!

Encrypting works that inherently belong to the public is what should be illegal, not decrypting them!

Re:the most important

[ConceptJunkie]

What difference does it make? Anything produced today won't be in the public domain until well into the 22nd century. In fact, anything produced in our lifetimes will be covered by copyright until probably long after any of us are dead.

This will only increase when Disney sees fit to buy another Congress. Orrin Hatch call your office.

At the rate this is going, I can see Senators having to use scientific notation for something other than how much money they are squandering.

Re:the most important

[AJWM]

Then be incredibly surprised.

More stuff these days is being shot direct to digital, as it's far easier to get it into editing suites and post production that way. Also, film and paper decay, media goes obsolete, etc.

Just because a studio or publisher retains a copy, do you really think that they're planning on hanging on to it for ninety years and then digging out that copy and saying "here, this is in the public domain now, it's all yours". I doubt it. Ninety years is a long time, and storage space costs money. Sooner or later studios, etc, just toss the stuff out - especially as studios go out of business, or are acquired through mergers or buyouts by companies that may not care about those particular assets.

if you were to crack the DRM on something that was in the public domain

Big if. That's assuming you can even find something to read the media and that the media survived the 90 years until it goes PD.

Re:the most important

[Kaenneth]

I think there is an expression, that begins "Wish in one hand..."

Copyright is not just for the authors, Copyright was at one point designed partly for the public benifit, to encourage authors to release their works instead of keeping them secret, locked away in coded books or vaults.

If something is registered and properly Copyrighted, it does not need any protection mechanisms to allow the author to file suit against infringers. Making software that bypasses DRM illegal is an unneeded burden on public resources, consuming the time and effort of Law enforcement and the Courts, using public funds to protect private interests that are sufficently protected by tort law. The RIAA is doing well enough by suing people without the need for criminal charges, for something that does not even measure up to a 'public nuisance', Person A giving Persons B and C a copy of a song does less harm to the public than a teenager skateboarding in a public part.

Re:the most important

[Amazing Quantum Man]

As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK) still illegal to crack the DRM. The two facets are, unfortunately, separate legal issues.

I think the key point is cracking it without the copyright holder's permission. If it's in the public domain, then there is no copyright holder, and hence, no violation of the DMCA.

Disclaimer: IANAL, and I don't play one on TV.

Re:the most important

[StillAnonymous]

Unless the DRM itself is still copyrighted by some entity, like Macrovision. I'm not sure if they could take you to court in this situation and win, but they could sure try. And they'd likely bankrupt you in the process regardless of the verdict.

The point stands though: You wouldn't legally be permitted to break the DRM in order to get to the now-copyright-expired material.

And what if the situation were so grim that the DRM was not (or could not be?) cracked by anyone? The public is cheated by the previous copyright owner of the source material. Remember, copyright is a trade off. To not give something back to the public after X years of protection is to renege on the contract of copyright.

Re:the most important

[Pofy]

>As it stands now in the US, something could be out of copyright, yet it is (AFAIK)
>still illegal to crack the DRM.

Ehh, the circumvention applies to works that are protected under the copyright act. If it is out of copyright, the circumvention part doesn't apply either.

Re:the most important

[Pofy]

>The law is very clear. In the United States, it is a violation of the DMCA to
>circumvent DRM of any kind. Cracking DRM is a criminal act by the clear letter of the
>law.

No, it is not, the law is quite clear that it has to protect a "work protected under this title". If there is no longer any copyright to the work, the DMCA doesn't apply any longer.

Re:the most important

[Pofy]

>When you make the act of circumventing DRM a crime, it doesn't matter what content it
>was protecting.

Yes it matters, it must be a "work protected under this title".

Re:the most important

[megaditto]

Don't worry, in time, Darwin will sort it out.

DRMed societies will stagnate due to the luck of innovation, restrictions on the exchange and development of ideas, etc. In time, 'North America' will be 'liberated' by a more advanced nation, and while some of our children will lose their lives, we will all be arguably better for it under our technologically superior masters.

History is full of examples: 16th century Spain stagnating after expelling freethinkers and Jews, middle age Arabs imposing a religious DRM of sorts on mathematics and philosophy (after inventing numberals, discovering monumental laws, etc. they started chopping off people's digits for heresy). Japan 'DMRing' their culture until 1850s. Chinese hiding behind their Great Firewall after initially inventing gunpowder, philosophy, paper/printing, and flight.

DRM or not, the Human Race will go on (whether it be our children or China's children). Darwin sorts it out in the end.

I for one welcome our future DRM-free overlords.

Re:the most important

[KDR_11k]

The DMCA says "without consent of the copyright holder". No idea how that gets treated for PD works though I think it means the copyright holder of the copy protection, not the work (so even un-DRMing a file you encoded yourself using someone else's tools is a felony). On the other hand that could mean that if Macrovision/other DRM provider went out of business and the copyright wasn't bought up by an RIAA company you could break files using their DRM system. In that case, let's hope Apple goes out of business :p.

Re:the most important

[KDR_11k]

Dunno if it was the same guy but I recall a top executivwe from the RIAA or IFPI stating things like "of course we pay the bands badly, after all it's our effort, not theirs that makes the money".

Re:the most important

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

IA(definitely)NAL, but I picked this up from The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998:

Each of the WIPO treaties contains virtually identical language obligating member states to prevent circumvention of technological measures used to protect copyrighted works, and to prevent tampering with the integrity of copyright management information.

It seems to only applies to copyrighted works, not to the public domain.

Re:the most important

[Dachannien]

Also, it would be best if such a case went to conclusion and set a precedent (hopefully of "Death to DRM"), rather than being dismissed to be tried another day, possibly with disastrous results.

I guess we'll never find out.

Re:the most important

[KDR_11k]

Well, are you using a multiuser-capable OS like Windows NT or Linux? Then you've already got DRM on your harddrive. What else do you think user permissions are? But as the name says, DRM defines what a user can do with a file and you're free to set a file to "copyable and modifiable by everyone". DRM your files without any restrictions enabled and it's just another file format.

Re:the most important

[jb.hl.com]

Precisely my point. Record companies or the government would have no reason and would most likely not bother suing you over something they have no jurisdiction over anyway.

Re:the most important

[lucychili]

BBC dumped a whole lot of its old programs a few years back.
I bet theyd like to still have the old episodes of Dr Who now but they dont.

Most organisations keep paperwork for a statutory length of time and then ditch it.
If they have a digital copy paper stuff is likely to be ditched even sooner especially if the stat requirement is met by having the material retained in a digital form.
Why keep the paper form as a large unweildy pile of stuff that is expesnive to store when they have their nifty DRM digital version anyway.

There is no sunset clause on the DRM or on TPM technological protection measures.
So presumably if I was confident that I was the only entity with paper copies I could stop things from reaching the public domain at the same time as reducing storage costs...

Think about this in terms of hardware. If there is a TPM on hardware it will be forever illegal to interact with that technology without the manufacturers permission. Makes recycling and rewangling old tech a bit more sporting. It will be tech with a halflife. Out of license for the original purchaser - ie not useable in its originally purchased sense, but illegal to do anything else with.

DMCA is a folly, but it seems to be one that is being adopted world wide.
With that much momentum you can be sure there will be plenty of DRMers looking to test out their new found mousetraps on user and developer fingers.

We need to define the responsibilities that companies need to comply with to make their DRM defensible/compliant.
eg
- responsible sunset clause
- not to be used for storage of public data such as medical records
- not to be used on digital voting systems or any systems where transparency is required
- not to be used on critical systems where someone could need to decide between risk to life or becoming a criminal
- not to be used in space where people need to do on site repairs
- clear branding indicating what drm is applied and what actions are not permitted.
- drm is void if it gets used to squash competitors rather than to address piracy
- and the list goes on - will be looking out for the rest of the 30 days. =)

Re:the most important

[milal]

..which is actually a really important quality. Though there is a lot of negative stigma surrounding the use of DRM for media files, it is also the backbone of email anti-theft software, which protects your outbound email after it has been sent (not just in transit, like encryption!). Because DRM does not expire, your files are protected for their lifetime. So the glass is either half empty, or half full... depending on how you look at it... because this exact capability can prove to be priceless in the email world.

Re:the most important

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Geez, stop with the shilling already. At least fake a posting history about something else. Does this pay enough to be worth being exposed as a corporate whore with each post? Or (heaven help us) are you a principal in this evil little company?

Region coding? About reducing sales

[krell]

From the article: "Region coding is not about copyright, it is about market controls and a loss of consumer property rights. It should not benefit from additional copyright legal protections that would come from anti-circumention legislation."

How about the idea that region coding is all about reducing sales and increasing unauthorized duplication of DVDs? I run into so many DVDs that are not sold in any form for my region, and will never be sold for my region. That leaves me the options (a) not buying it at all, or (b) buying it and cracking it or perhaps getting a more usable pre-cracked version (barring the ability to get a DVD player that does all regions).

Re:Region coding? About reducing sales

[10101001 10101001]

Region coding is not about copyright

Sadly, region coding is about copyright in part. This stems from the fact that the import/export of a copyrighted work ends up falling under the jurisdiction of each country to decide just how "legal" it is. One can read about Parallel Import to have some idea on the questionable legality of it. And while I agree from a logical standpoint, it doesn't make sense that a copy of a work should revert back to copyright law when it's being merely physical moved about, it's not the case that governments have come to this case in various countries. Just another reason why copyright is bad.

Re:Region coding? About reducing sales

[Eivind]

It's not only DVDs. Same for games.

My wife loved Shadow-Hearts. (the PS2-game). The day after renting the first one to try it out, she was in the shop, and happily paid top-dollar (well, euro, but you get the point) for the game. We had v2 -- covenant -- on release-day and again paid full retail, happily.

Now there's v3 -- "from the new world". Not sold in europe. Guess what motivated us to get a chipped PS2 ? (that in itself legal in our jurisdiction) Guess how motivated she was this time of paying full retail for the game -- after having had a a lot of hassle bypassing *deliberate* incompatibilities (which is what region-coding is) ?

Thougth so.

Why...

[SSGamer]

Why couldn't they just leave it the way it is, Instead of wasting time on stupid issues when they could be using that time for something else. Anyhow I think I saw this Michael Geist guy speak somewhere in person, I can't remember where, he looks oddly familiar.

This is great, but....

[Valacosa]

I think this is great and all, but I've only heard about Michael Geist here and on BoingBoing. The real trick is getting Joe Sixpack to care.

How does one get the general public to care? From what I've seen, most computer users are short-sighted, datawise. "This DVD/Song/Program works right now, so it'll work forever, right?" How do we get everyone else to read this?

CAPTCHA: signify. How appropriate.

Re:This is great, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

You could start by not calling him Joe Sixpack
Just becuase our ancestors breed with Alpine Nehanderthals does not give you the right to mock us for our drinking habits and low low income

Re:This is great, but....

[CastrTroy]

Joe Sixpack does care, to the extent that it starts to bother him. My GF recently got an iPod, and despite me telling her not to, still bought a couple tracks off iTunes. She quickly learned that she was unable to burn an "MP3" CD, to listen to them on her stereo. She also got quite a big scare when she deleted all her music and thought she had lost the music (she had just deleted them from the library, and they were still on the computer). She also gets quite annoyed when she plugs her iPod into another computer to charge it, and all the tracks get erased because that iPod isn't registered with that computer. She would also love to be able to just drag and drop from windows explorer right onto her iPod, but it seems as though that doesn't work either. Once DRM starts to infringe on people's rights enough, they will start to care. I'm still waiting for an MP3 player to come out that's actually better than the iPod, then watch all the iTunes users rise up, because they don't really own any of their music, but rather just own the right to play it on an iPod (yes i'm aware you can burn and rerip, but that loses quality on an already inferior quality copy).

Re:This is great, but....

[Jack Action]

Michael Geist writes a weekly column on law and technology for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper. The Star is a significant venue because its middle brow (not tabloid, but not the New York Times), and always has a populist favour.

He is also frequently called on as a commentor on CBC radio (the public broadcaster, which by law can be heard by Canadians anywhere in the country). CBC radio recieves no ads and no coporate sponsorship (unlike PBS), so is generaly balanced on controversial issues.

In Canada at least, someone like Geist has a greater chance of reaching Jaques Six-Pack than he might have elsewhere.

Re:This is great, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I never cared much for the iPod, but I'm starting to like it for one reason: DRM on iTMS. They'll buy a couple DRM'ed songs from iTMS like your GF did, and soon after find out it doesn't work with anything else/anything non-apple (doesn't work in winamp, foobar2k, xmms, xbmc on xbox, or other software mp3 players - or any other portable mp3 players for that matter). Hopefully it'll get enough people to realize how bad and problematic is DRM.

I want my information (databases, emails, documents, sound, video -- EVERYTHING!) in a format that's *open*. It doesn't have all to be free or open source, but I want interoperability - be able to use my data anytime (that also means a few years down the road), on anything (any device or OS).

Something as trivial as lossy compressed music that requires hardware or software from only one specific vendor to work? I'll skip. As much as I dislike MS' business practices, I find their approach to DRM BETTER! At least you can buy players (a very wide selection of very different ones) and also DRM'ed contents from MANY different vendors. Heck, you can even "rent" songs like you can do today with DVDs -- like napster to go; thousands and thousands of songs for a month for about the same price as renting one single ~2h long movie/DVD at blockbuster (it's really not that bad - and you can find lots of good new stuff to buy as CDs later on -- kind of like you would using pandora). There's countless stores: Napster To Go, Rhapsody To Go, Yahoo Music, MSN Music, etc (well, all these, except for the iPod, where you only have one place - iTMS, and it's "buy-only" too). That the rental model is DRM'ed is not too bad, as it's only temporary, I don't really want it forever. If I want to buy, I buy plain old DRM-free Audio CDs. It still doesn't work with every OS or device, but it's still better than only a single hardware player brand and only one software app that's not very good except on their very own OS too - that also happens runs on their own hardware platform... It just doesn't get any more "single-vendor" than this! Apple-DRM'ed songs on an Apple mp3 player, using an Apple software mp3 player, on an Apple OS, on an Apple computer. Worst interoperability and lock-in EVER.

Re:This is great, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

The Star is a significant venue because its middle brow (not tabloid, but not the New York Times), and always has a populist favour.

Really? It is?

CBC radio recieves no ads and no coporate sponsorship (unlike PBS), so is generaly balanced on controversial issues.

Really? It is?

Re:This is great, but....

[RealGrouchy]

He is also frequently called on as a commentor on CBC radio (the public broadcaster, which by law can be heard by Canadians anywhere in the country). CBC radio recieves no ads and no coporate sponsorship (unlike PBS), so is generaly balanced on controversial issues.

CBC radio has no ads, true. But CBC-TV has plenty of them, more, I'd say, than PBS, which has far better quality analysis (see pbs.org/frontline).

Just because CBC doesn't (in your world, at least) receive ad money doesn't mean it's completely impartial. For one, it deals with musicians, and I suspect has to deal with their record companies to a degree. Also, it receives most of its funding from the government, and there is always a question of whether it can actually objectively report on the hand that feeds it.

There was a campaign recently advertising CPAC (like Canada's C-SPAN) as being better able to report on government matters [than the CBC, implied the ads], because it is funded entirely by cable companies (well, and the users, after a recent move). However, being a frequent viewer of the Daily Show, I don't see how that fact is supposed to play in their favour.

The only TV I watch now is what I can stream and/or download from the internet.

- RG>

Re:This is great, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

I much prefer the www.cbc.ca

Try netcraft on their webservers...the Toronto Star is using Solaris/Netscape
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:/ /www.thestar.com

but the cbc.ca is using linux (in fact, LAMP) all the way!
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:/ /www.cbc.ca

Go, CBC, go! :-)

If an attorney falls in the woods...

[nurb432]

Seriously tho, who is going to listen? Not the people that can make a difference. They have already been bought.

anyone can edit the wiki.

[macadamia_harold]

Issues covered so far include interoperability, privacy, region coding, and reverse engineering. The project is also supporting a wiki version for broader participation.

The wiki version seems fairly insistent that the number of elephants has tripled in the last six months. Interesting.

Oh no!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

planned introduction of the DMCA in Canada

Oh, f*** no!!

That better not get passed.

Re:Oh no!!!

[mrbcs]

Every time they try this shit up here, we end up getting more rights. This ain't america. We don't do everything they want. Could also turn into an election issue.. we do have a minority gov't right now.

Re:Oh no!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I only wish Harper saw it your way. Bend over boys

Study the political background

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching for tools of resistance to one policy that is but one tiny part of a vastly bigger underappreciated change in Canada's political environment is futile; much better is to seek to understand by detailed examination the broader context of why the politics of Canada was re-aligned towards different socio-economic interests, and to what purpose those interests are really leading, beyond the apparent business issues. There is a bigger picture, but many commentators do not realize it is there because they focus too narrowly on Canadian politics, whereas the causes, which have existed for a long time, originate much more broadly and deeply across certain other countries' political systems. Read widely. Historians.

Reverse Engineering ...

[Gopal.V]

Different standards exist for reverse engineering. For example, reverse engineering a binary is illegal, while reverse engineering a protocol (for compatibility purposes) isn't.

But the real question to ask is, a .doc a binary file or a protocol ?

(and then there are EULAs ... which have started saying "You shall be responsible for anything any user does... to cover shared envs")

Great, more angrying up of my blood.

[w33t]

I am glad that Michael Geist is forcing a very close examanation of the limitations a DCMA - but why is a DCMA even needed in the first place?

In a way it feels like he's discussing ways to make a noose more comfortable and less abrasive to the victims throat.

The thing is, whenever DRM is discussed I cannot help by attempt to prognosticate into the deep mysterious future. Imagine a future (not too distant perhaps) in which we have direct brain interfaces of some sort. How would it be to have certain thoughts blocked? How would it be to not be able to think something?

Thoughtcrime - in other words. Oh, it's disgusting to me.

After all, DRM is basically a way of locking-down information. But information is so close to just thought. It's one step away from a pure idea.

When I hear DRM I think "Idea Stopping" - and being an idealist as I am, this is deeply disturbing to me.

DMCAs are so prehistoric to me - they seem to hail from the time in the past when the distribution of information required printing presses and tape-duplication facilities. When information distribution liked physical mediums for distribution.

In those ancient times of the 20th century only the wealthy could afford these behemoth machines. There was no way a consumer could copy a novel and send it to 20 or 100 of their closest friends.

Of course nowadays I can find the entire works and easily distribute them without all that mucking about with the physical constraints that plagued the old.

DRM and DMCAs seem analogous to a cart and buggy and wagon industry forcing automobile owners to not drive faster than the horse-drawn carriages because of their "right" to the road.

It is old-world philosophy being artificially forced into the modern mindset.

Re:Great, more angrying up of my blood.

[Zarxrax]

Well, it's true that the best solution would be to simply not have a DMCA at all, but often, this simply isn't possible. The people who don't want it are not as powerful or persuasive as the people who DO want it. Completely stopping something like this can be difficult--but lessening the impact that it has can often be more easily obtainable. Compromise sucks. The side that compromises is the side that loses something. But when it comes down to it, its a lot better to lose something than to lose everything.

Re:Great, more angrying up of my blood.

[lucychili]

There are some people working on alternatives.
This is a digital access rights charter
http://www.adelphicharter.org/

This is a digital rights treaty being developed by both creators and users of information
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/
(link on the left for draft of treaty)

Re:Great, more angrying up of my blood.

[AeroIllini]

DRM and DMCAs seem analogous to a cart and buggy and wagon industry forcing automobile owners to not drive faster than the horse-drawn carriages because of their "right" to the road.

It is old-world philosophy being artificially forced into the modern mindset.

This is more true than you realize. Let's think back to the last time there was such a major shift in our society...

To the 1860s. In addition to disputes over the morality of slavery, there was a tremendous economical divide between the northern US and the southern US, with the South preferring the "old" style economy of wealthy plantations with cheap slave labor, and the North preferring the more recent concept of free market labor. The South's economy was based largely on the export of agricultural goods produced on slave-owning plantations, and the owners of those plantations were fabulously wealthy and powerful because of it. The new system of free labor threatened that power, and the plantation owners fought to their last dying gasp to retain it. They simply could not fathom how paying their workers would earn them more money. We know now, however, that a thriving economy depends largely on paying workers decent wages.

Fast forward to today, where the giant media companies are fabulously wealthy and powerful based on an old, and soon to be outdated, model of artificial scarcity, where if I own a copy of some content and give it to you, I no longer have it. There is a new system brewing where there is no scarcity on information, because of digital transmission and the Internet. Right now there is a struggle going on between the content creators, who are clinging to their old model of artificial scarcity and current powerful stature, and the content producers, who see a new world in front of them where paying for media means paying for value, not the content itself. The content creators will fight to their last dying gasp to preserve the old way of doing things, because they simply cannot grasp how they will make more money by allowing free copying. DRM is the physical manifestation of that fight; they are forcing an old model on a new market, and it's failing.

We are at the cusp of a true Information Revolution, which will be written about many years from now as a turning point in our society. The last time we had such a revolution, it lead to the bloodiest war in the nation's history. Let's hope this time it won't come to that.

Cold Mexico just doesn't get it

[ColdWarrior]

From the eschewing of media at soldier repatration ceremonies to the introduction of a Canadian DMCA, I have started to surmise that Harper is one of those fallocrats who is totally out of touch with his citizenry. Now, before you Harper-loving people start saying "But... but... but... the Bern convention requires this sort of thing". I ask you, when was the Bern convention signed. In my mind there is no coincidence that all these "harmonizations" are going on under Mr. Creepy-eyes reign. This is just one more sign of the coming North American Union .

Re:Cold Mexico just doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness to Harper and his Conservative government, Bill C-60 was on the table when the previous Liberal government was in power, and it included several DMCA-like anti-circumvention provisions, so you can't blame Harper. Furthermore, though I'm heaping some blame on the previous government for including anti-circumvention legislation at all (I consider it superfluous to copyright law -- if copyright infringement is already illegal, what more do you need?), I'm also applauding the inclusion of stipulations in those DMCA-style provisions that would have protected Canadians from some of the stupidity of those laws -- namely, if there wasn't copyright infringement in the first place, then there wasn't anything illegal about the circumvention either.

The big question, now that Bill C-60 has died, is when the new Conservative government will try their own copyright law revisions, and what form they will take. There are various things that legitimately need revision (besides the one-sided stuff the media companies want), so it is coming someday. So, will they do something similar to the previous bill, or will they do something supremely stupid like a one-sided USA-style DMCA bill written by the ghostly hand of the media lobby lurking in the background? Who knows?

So, don't bad-mouth Harper yet. Well, not for this anyway. Wait and see what's in the legislation, which people are expecting for the next session of parliament in a month or so.

There's nothing stopping you from writing to your MP about your concerns. It doesn't really matter which party your MP is in, because A) given the minority status of parliament, I'm sure the media companies are lobbying all of them for support, B) the previous bill C-60 was drafted with loads of multi-party consultation, and C) the Liberal opposition can't legitimately complain about anything in the new legislation that was already in their C-60, and I'm sure that includes anti-circumvention legislation of some kind. So, do it now.

If I am the copyright owner

[tepples]

Uh huh - and what happens when your media player *only* accepts DRMd media? where will you be then?

If I am the owner of copyright in a work, why don't I have the authority to apply true and correct copyright management information to the work? Or are you basing this on yerricde's hypothesis that it is impossible to create an original musical work?

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[wall0159]

I think you misundersand me.

Imagine an ipod in the future. The ipod doesn't play mp3s anymore - it *only* plays Apple's DRMd music. I'm a musician, and record my band playing music, but I can't put it on my ipod directly - I have to implement DRM on the music for the ipod to play it.

This could happen.

"If I am the owner of copyright in a work, why don't I have the authority to apply true and correct copyright management information to the work?"

I don't know exactly what you mean by this, but I think you're looking at it the wrong way around. If I pay you to experience your creation, by what right to you seek to regulate the way I experience it? Will you try and tell me what colour shoes I may wear, for example?

Note that there are two issues here. The first is artist renumeration. This is important, because without it people will be less inclined to produce art. The second is control, and it has nothing to do with renumeration for the artist. Instead it's about power for the distributers of the art - power over both the artist and those who wish to experience their art.

Remember that copyright is not a 'right' per se - it's a TEMPORARY incentive given by the government to help people to profit from their creations, thereby encouraging creation for the benefit of humanity.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[dryeo]

Because in Canada the people have the right to copy your copyrighted work (just not to distribute it).

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[penix1]

" This is important, because without it people will be less inclined to produce art..."

I challenge this concept. Nowhere has it been proved. In fact, there are several studies that show that those things that are pirated also enjoy a higher profit margin. To say that all media content will dry up if copyright didn't exist flies in the face of logic as well as human nature. The only one that benefits from copyright is the distributors.

I'll go one step further....

I say to fix the copyright problem, disallow the transfer of copyright except to the public domain. All rights to a work belong to the originator of that work. Then what the **AA is touting (namely that artists suffer when copyright is violated) would be true. Make it so that the only place an artist can relinquish copyright to is the public domain which is the purpose of copyright to begin with.

This is just my take on it. Reality differs dramatically.

B.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[wall0159]

"I challenge this concept"
-I agree with you. I don't think it's simple. However, this is the reason touted for copyright - correct or not.

"disallow the transfer of copyright except to the public domain"
I think this is an interesing idea, and have suggested it on /. before ;-)
In some ways, this makes more sense, because IP isn't really 'property' and so perhaps this would help differentiate between _real_ property (which is transferable), and a granted temporary monopoly...

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[John Miles]

If I am the owner of copyright in a work, why don't I have the authority to apply true and correct copyright management information to the work?

In the US, copyright terms are limited to a specific duration. DRM that does not include a sunset provision is, therefore, incompatible with US copyright law. It effectively grants a perpetual copyright... something that is wrong on so many levels that even the Supreme Court would agree.

In Canada, your mileage may vary.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[cpt kangarooski]

I say to fix the copyright problem, disallow the transfer of copyright except to the public domain.

Honestly I fail to see how that would help. Transfers would just be replaced with exclusive licenses, and nothing would really change. In fact, I think it'd make things more annoying in that transactions would be somewhat more complicated for no good reason.

Frankly, there's no single magic answer. Good copyright reform is going to require us to make sweeping changes throughout copyright. And because it accomplishes basically nothing, I doubt that your suggestion will be on the agenda.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[MerrickStar]

Imagine an ipod in the future. The ipod doesn't play mp3s anymore - it *only* plays Apple's DRMd music. I'm a musician, and record my band playing music, but I can't put it on my ipod directly - I have to implement DRM on the music for the ipod to play it.

Further on this point, what if you wish to personally sell or even give away said music. Why should you be required to implement DRM on a product in order to utilize functionality? Isn't that completely backwards? That would be akin to someone coming along and telling an open-source developer to protect his source before he could distribute it.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[saskboy]

I expect your prediction to come true too. Vista will have PVP, to make sure unDRM'ed video doesn't play. YouTube will be killed by that if it isn't dead already by then.

And Apple will make a Happy Fun conversion utility to turn those nasty MP3 files into ACC for use on any iPod player. Suckers will eat it up like candy.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[Pofy]

>In the US, copyright terms are limited to a specific duration. DRM that does not
>include a sunset provision is, therefore, incompatible with US copyright law.

What makes you think that? Circumvention for example applies to a work protected under the copyright act. It doesn't apply to something not under copyright. Hence, when the copyright runs out, that no longer applies.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[shark72]

"In fact, there are several studies that show that those things that are pirated also enjoy a higher profit margin."

I have never seen studies linking profit margins to piracy rates. Can you post a cite to one of them? Profit margins on a product-by-product basis are often closely guarded secrets (ie. Adobe will tell you their end of year profit margin, as they are a publicly traded company, but good luck learning the profit margin on PhotoShop) so I would love to see the methodology of said studies.

"All rights to a work belong to the originator of that work."

The way it works now in the music biz is that the composer and lyricist maintain the rights to the words and music, but the record company has the copyright on the recording of the words and music. Sometimes the copyright is shared with the engineer or the producer.

Now, although a lot of Slashdotters think it is so, a sheet of paper with words or music on it is not the same as a finished, engineered and produced recording. The nerds on the other side of the glass often make all the difference. They put their creative heart and soul into the work, and the recording is often a collaborative effort. In your vision of fixing the copyright problem, to whom would the copyright on the recording be assigned?

Do I also understand you correctly that you would like to abolish work-for-hire? That is, if I were a small business and I hired a graphic designer and a programmer to create my web site, the copyrights would remain with them, even if they left the company?

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[KDR_11k]

Keep in mind that copyright applies to more than just music. Making copyright completely untransferable would mean you cannot hire a programmer for a software project because he could decide to take his copyright with him any day, possibly to a competitor. So you'd either need provisions that ensure that doesn't happen or a sneaky lawyer who can do the same. Net effect: Zero.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[Anonymous Coward]

Source code can be held as a trade secret, rather than a copyrighted work. Effectively it is already: you need an NDA and license to see SharedSource code.

And who says that we need the same copyrights on everything? Dictionaries are not copyrighted because they are not expressive. However, object code is not expressive either, but IS copyrighted.

My idea is:
1) If you hold the copyright, you MUST produce copies if you have provided copies before
2) Copies must be made for reasonable terms (regarding market norms)
3) The copyright can be transferred but the responsibility to produce copies is transferred with it
4) The only way to stop the responsibility to make copies is to transfer to public domain
5) When copyright expires, a copy must be made available publicly by the copyright holder

Also, for software, the code must be provided if you provide a binary, though this doesn't need to be licensed for compiling.

#1 means that if you have single piece of art made bespoke, you don't have to make copies, because it was only the original work made. If replicas are made (need a license or be the creator), the *replicas* need to be made available in perpetuity, though the original is still a singular item.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[jb.hl.com]

Two things:

1) Vista's PVP only applies to already DRMed videos.
2) Apple already has that happy fun conversion utility. It converts MP3s and CDs into un-DRMed AAC, which can be played on many players, many devices and many operating systems. "Suckers" already do eat it up like candy, because AAC offers better sound quality than MP3 (at least when ripping from CD).

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[wall0159]

I know very little about Vista, so won't comment on that, but..

"It converts MP3s and CDs into un-DRMed AAC"
well yes, but that's hardly the point. AAC is also known as mp4, and is the successor to mp3 - an openly documented standard (though not a _free_ standard, as ogg is). On a Mac, these files appear as m4a. The files from the iTunes music store are m4p, and are DRMd. The difference between the two is that anyone can play any m4a file. an m4p file can only be played on Mac or Windows, because it encrypts usinng DRM. Note that this is a layer on top of AAC/mp4 and is *not* part of the standard.

""Suckers" already do eat it up like candy, because AAC offers better sound quality than MP3"
This is simplistic and is debatable.

At low bit rates (below 160kbit/s) maybe, but once one gets to 192kbits, particularly if using the excellent LAME encoder, the differences are less obvious. Many people think that lame --alt-preset standard exceeds the quality of the iTunes AAC encoder at comparible bit rates.

In any case, this has absolutely *nothing* to do with the (de)merits of DRM.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[lucychili]

If you are the music composer you have a very tenuous hold on your asset with DRM.
If you want your music to be played on a DRM player you will very likely need to sign over your copyright to the company that owns the copyright of the DRM system on the player.

DRM is not a means for protecting composers, it is a means of devising a booby trapped package or mousetrap on music so that the
distributors could make more money from each variant of use instead of selling the song to the person once.

The composer could well end up having trouble removing their own music from these formats legally, particularly if they decide to change distributors after the music has been locked into the DRM format.

So unless you compose and develop the hardware, software and distribution channel DRM is not safe for composers.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[qwijibo]

Those things may sound good on the surface, but they can't be realistically implemented in laws. Any definition of "reasonable" in a law will most certainly be one sided. Do you want the same legislative forces that passed the DMCA to determine what is reasonable? Maybe I'm a cynic, but I think the chances of a law doing more harm than good are usually around 98%.

Responsibility cannot be legislated. Laws can only be used to harm, never to help. Laws can't give you a big hug if you're nice. However, they can stick you in some dark pit indefinitely. If you want to force people to act in the best interests of society and contribute to the public domain, the laws must have very severe penalties for failing to do so. There will be a price point at which it's cheaper to ignore the law than to follow it. Microsoft has demonstrated how this works in the real world. You can't require an action of the copyright holder after the copyright expires. There is a high probability that the copyright holder will not exist at that point in time. The only reasonable way to get a copy for the public domain would be to require the unprotected version be made available in the copyright application process.

While it's not a key focus of anyone's interest in the laws, abandonware is a prime example of what the laws you propose should cover. If a program was previously sold for $40 retail and the copyright holder is not willing to make a copy available at any reasonable price ($400 is reasonable considering that you're asking for some ancient archive, $1,000,000 is not), it should be put in the public domain. The problem is that in many cases, the copyright holder is unknown or otherwise is legitimately incapable of finding a copy to put into the public domain. The application for the copyright for a digital product should include a charge for keeping the program stored in a recoverable digital form indefinitely. If the cost were distributed over millions of contributors, the cost of setting up and maintaining a permanent, distributed archive would be pretty reasonable. If the public domain is really the driving force, the archive should also integrate everything that is released directly into the public domain without copyright protection.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[jZnat]

Just to be pedantic, I'd like to mention that the "--alt-preset" option in lame has been deprecated and superceded by the "--preset" option.

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[John Miles]

The goal of DRM is to make circumvention impossible. Eventually, that goal will become feasible. (It may already have: no one ever cracked the triple-DES encryption on the original Divx DVDs, and AFAIK there has never been a successful attack on the latest Videocipher implementation.)

So, if circumvention requires me to leave my codebreaking machine running until the heat death of the universe, wouldn't you call that a de facto perpetual copyright?

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[Pofy]

>The goal of DRM is to make circumvention impossible.

Circumvention of what type?

> Eventually, that goal will become feasible. (It may already have: no one
> ever cracked the triple-DES encryption on the original Divx DVDs, and AFAIK
> there has never been a successful attack on the latest Videocipher implementation.)

Which, if you want to make a copy is relatively irrelevant since encryption doesn't prevent copying, only access. Access of content is sort of the whole point when you sell it and hence not a problem, not even for a copy since the copy will of course be an encrypted one (since it is a copy).

Re:If I am the copyright owner

[John Miles]

Circumvention of what type?

That's a good question. DRM is sold as "copy protection," but as you point out, its effect is "access protection." CSS does nothing to stop DVDs from being copied, for instance. It's an important distinction for users, but not from a legal standpoint. The bargain encoded in US copyright law is that protected works must eventually be made available for both public-domain access and unfettered copying. A company that uses DRM is evading its half of that bargain.

There should be no basis for legal protection of works that already carry in-perpetuity technological protections. Publishers should be able to distribute their works with either perpetual DRM or copyright protection, but not both.

This DRM experiment is useless

[Khyber]

There will always be a way to circumvent the DMCA.

You cannot close the "analog hole" because we are purely analog-sensory beings. We cannot reliably have digital information put into our brain and decoded into a usable form without reliable biological-neurological wiring. With that simple logic, until neural wetware becomes commonplace (scary world that'll be,) the DMCA is absolute bullshit. I can simply circumvent your protection by going to a friend's house to watch a movie they bought but I never paid for. I can store that entire movie in "memory" (if I'm capable of that type of photo-auralgenic storage like other 'geniuses.') and tell others what the whole movie is about, which may/may not discourage them to see the movie, thus resulting in a loss of profit for the movie, or even after-movie DVD/VCR sales. Kiss your "unauthorized" use clause good-bye. We can hurt the **AA cause thru that means alone, and I'll bet with the current shit crop of movies coming out (Like Talladega Nights, compared to The Descent,) the sales are going to drop even further. I can simply watch a movie, tell everyone what it's all about, and they'll decide for themselves whether or not the movie is worth watching, in their opinion. And speaking technically, I didn't pay for it, so by going to a friend's house to watch a movie they paid for, I'm getting a public performance (because they explicitly state with a sign on their property "This is not private property, whatever happens here is public and sent to the police,") without paying for the rights to view the money. Now what are you going to do, RI/MPAA? Sue me for visiting a friend who happens to be showing a movie they paid for? You've tried twice already, let's go for a third strike so we can wipe you out legally.

I apologize in advance for potential double-ranting (restating the same rant twice in the same post,) but I felt the need to drive this into people's heads. Even if the general Slashdot crowd knows about this stuff, there are many others that join every day, and are rather ignorant, as I once was before I got some extra education from more knowledgable people on Slashdot. We need to keep this type of information flow happening, in my opinion. Let's keep it up so less knowledgable people have more plain-english definitions for the layman to understand, guys.

Re:This DRM experiment is useless

[StikyPad]

Technically, we're digital as well, as "digital" seems to mean storing or sampling information in discrete units rather than in a continously variable manner. This is most evident by the fact that a light flashing fast enough appears to be steady once it exceeds our internal "sample rate", and by the fact that there exists a threshold above which a "digital" audio signal is also indistinguishable from its analog counterpart. (Arguably it may not be 44.1Khz, but CDs do exceed that threshold for most people). Obviously we already know that matter is made up of discrete units, which means that any recording media is -- at worst -- an imprecise digital media, and since time might be discrete as well, everything in the universe may, in fact, be "digital."

I know what you meant though. Barring implants, all sound will eventually need to be converted to pressure waves, and all video to visible light or light-reflective material, in order for humans to perceive it, and as such it can then be captured by an external recorder.

Re:This DRM experiment is useless

[Khyber]

Well, digital in our current sense isn't so "discrete" because nothign but ones and zeros is hardly anything discrete. We have a known translation system for that binary stream, and go further than that. Our brain doesn't work in ones and zeros, it works in highly differing chemical reactions. We can't call biochemical reactions binary because binary implies digital which implies silicon. Until we get true, flawless neural wetware, we cannot even dare call ourselves "digital"

Re:This DRM experiment is useless

[RPoet]

We cannot reliably have digital information put into our brain and decoded into a usable form without reliable biological-neurological wiring.

For christ's sake, don't give them any ideas!

DVD players: collect all 6

[tepples]

That leaves me the options (a) not buying it at all, or (b) buying it and cracking it or perhaps getting a more usable pre-cracked version (barring the ability to get a DVD player that does all regions).

(c) DVD players: collect all 6 while supplies last!

Music and DRM

[SniperClops]

I hate DRM. I downloaded some music files from a online music store that where in wma format and I couldn't change them in to MP3's. I payed for them, I should be able to do what I want with them.

Re:Music and DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

http://mike.anselcomputers.com/upload/FairUse4WM.z ip

De-regionalize your DVD player

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Many/most DVD players can be made to play any region by accessing a hidden menu. 5 minutes with Google should find you the magic keystrokes.

Re:De-regionalize your DVD player

[CastrTroy]

But under the DMCA, isn't that illegal? Isn't this what were arguing against here? Not the fact that it can be done, but rather something as honest as playing a DVD you own, in a player you own should actually be illegal.

Re:De-regionalize your DVD player

[KDR_11k]

DVD Region Coding has been ruled to not constitute a copy protection measure in several legislations, no idea if anyone tested it in the US but most likely the courts will find the same.

The problem isn't just with Harper.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't just with Harper. Recall that Bill C-60, an earlier effort at DMCA-style legislation in Canada, heavily involved the Liberal Party. The problem is that both the Conservatives and Liberals, the largest two political parties in Canada, are opposite sides of the same coin.

It's much akin to the problem in the US, where the Republicans tend to be very pro-business and against individual rights, and the Democrats are a slightly less-extreme version of the Republicans. The general public misinterprets the situation as them being opposites, or them being competition for each other in some fashion. But when both have platforms that are nearly identical, and neither truly represent the interests of the general public, shitty legislation starts getting proposed (and often passed).

Canada has the same situation going on. You have the Conservatives, who like today's Republicans are better classifed as neoconservatives. And then you have the Liberals, which are just slighty more moderate than the Conservatives. Regardless, they both have significant industrial ties, and little in common with most Canadians. At least there are some NDP and Bloc representatives in Parliament to actually represent the interests of the general public.

Unfortunately, enough of the public (mainly in the rural areas) have been mislead into thinking that the Conservatives are actually conservative. Likewise, many in the western provinces believe that Harper is one of them, but failing to realize that he hailed from Toronto and has little true connection to the western lifestyle. It's almost a mirror of the Bush situation, where he owns a "ranch" in Texas and thus manages to trick many into thinking he's a Texan (when he actually is a New Englander).

The best possible situation for Canadians with regards to legislation like this is a parliament that's split evenly among at least the big four parties (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc), and even better if the Green Party holds some seats. At least then the interests of enough different groups would have to coincide in order to get any legislation passed. That legislation would tend to be of a high quality, and a fair nature.

Advise ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... don't do it!

Truly yours,
Toodles!

Easy way to circumvent audio DRM.

[Travelsonic]

Here is an easy way to circumvent audio DRM: Wave_out_mix or mono_mix (whatever you have as an option) in the program Audacity and hit record. So much for DRM. ^_^

Fry, that's the ONLY thing about being a slave!

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know what the worst thing about being a slave is? They make you work hard without paying you or letting you go."

The RIAA's argument is that you didn't pay for the tunes, you paid for a license to play the tunes. DRM inhibits your actual rights on the assumption that if it were easy to do so, your legal downloads would immediately be copied to your "kazaa" share folder. You're complaint ranks up there with "murderers kill" on redundance-o-meter scorings.

For DRM-free tunes, check out eMusic, but only if you're into indie. (By indie, I mean independent label, not that mumble-and-strum stuff we see labelled "indie" on the billboards. If you want to download the latest "Avril Lavigne", "Dave Matthews Band", "Evanescence" or other pop music, don't bother with eMusic. It'll be a waste of your time. If, on the other hand, you recognize names like Sufjan Stevens, Belle & Sebastian, The White Stripes, The Decemberists, Dashboard Confessional, Spoon, Ying-Yang Twins, Moby, The New Pornographers, The Pixies, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Bloc Party, MIA, Lady Sovereign, You Get The General Idea; eMusic may be right up your alley. If you're a metal fan, it could go either way. If you're into that whole third-gen-goth Nightwish/Lacuna Coil sound, you will find the new Tristania album as well as some Sirenia and other goodies.)

Easy, but flawed

[jdbartlett]

This is very easy (for someone with only a few DRMed songs) to do, but is a flawed technique. Not only is it a breach of T&C (and possibly of some laws; a "fair use" argument may depend on what is done with the resulting MP3), you will experience a loss of audio quality. With a handful of exceptions, music sold online is already heavily compressed. However done, recording audio output and saving to a lossy format will result in further loss of audio quality.

OP, if you only purchased one DRMed song, you're best to consider it an ill-advised waste of 99 cents and cut your losses. Just think, you could have spent that money on 1/4 of a Frappuccino. Instead you had to waste it on something as transient and insubstantial as music. Tampering with the file you downloaded (which, according to the RIAA, you don't "own" and did not purchase) may have legal penalties. You purchased a license to listen to the music; you can listen to it. Contractual obligations have been fulfilled.

Talking about DRM... FairUse4WM strips WMA/WMV

[dark-br]

How about being free from WMV/WMA 10 & 11 then?

Well just go for it -> [url]http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/25/fairuse4wm -strips-windows-media-drm/[/url]

Dodge this Microsoft! ;)

Re:Talking about DRM... FairUse4WM strips WMA/WMV

[assassinator42]

Working link.
They had a few download links for a day or so as well. I do know the program works. I wonder how long it will be until Microsoft fixes it? More importantly, can they make it stop working without making people install an update?

Last election

[saskboy]

In the last federal Canadian election, Dr. Geist can take at least partial credit in helping to defeat the Liberal's MP that was pushing a Canadian DMCA through the House. It would be wise of geeks and nerds from around the world to support his effort on educating politicians on the implications of DRM protection in laws.

Disclaiming digital restrictions

[tepples]

The ipod doesn't play mp3s anymore - it *only* plays Apple's DRMd music.

Such a situation is unlikely to come about unless and until Apple has a complete monopoly on pocket digital audio players. The current lockout situation in video game consoles is due to Nintendo having the monopoly in North America from 1985 to 1989.

I'm a musician, and record my band playing music, but I can't put it on my ipod directly - I have to implement DRM on the music for the ipod to play it.

And what would prevent you from applying DRM to the music on behalf of your band?

If I am the owner of copyright in a work, why don't I have the authority to apply true and correct copyright management information to the work?

If I pay you to experience your creation, by what right to you seek to regulate the way I experience it?

"True and correct copyright management information" might include something to the effect of the work being covered by the Free Art License or one of the six Creative Commons licenses. It need not include any requirement for royalties, buyouts, restrictions on the number of copies, etc. The digital restrictions management would just disclaim restrictions.

Re:Disclaiming digital restrictions

[ultranova]

And what would prevent you from applying DRM to the music on behalf of your band?

The price, of course. You can't allow people to just record sound to the DRM'd format on their own, since that allows for the analog hole; no, you're going to need to have Apple sign it. And both Apple and the RIAA will benefit from making the signing price high: Apple in the form of increased profits, the RIAA from locking out competition.

How long is it...

[doesnothingwell]

Sooner or later to keep control of DRM the **AA will begin to look at programming tools. ... and then they came for MY compiler.

Re:Talking about DRM...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh... let me finish my free napster trial before they find out and break it.

Restrict Programming

[BerkeleyDude]

I can imagine that in a not-so-distant future, we will have a law that forbids writing programs without authorization. After all, doesn't programming give you too much power - the power to crack DRM, make illegal copies of information, and so on?

So you won't be able to download or buy a compiler anymore. You will only be able to license it, after getting approval for your idea. The executable you create will also have restricted capabilities and will only run on your machine. In order to make a "real" program, you will need yet another approval - for the actual source code. Then, your code will be compiled and signed, and ready to use by other people.

Now, everyone will be happy - no more music stealing and no more hacking...

Re:Restrict Programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, good luck with that. I'm sure if programming wasn't allowed without license, there would be an uproar of anger and hostility toward this government. Not to mention people like myself would simply ignore the empty threats by lawyers and the government.
You cannot stop someone with knowledge of computers from doing whatever they like with it.
Making such a rule would simply bring down the DRM's faster than you can SAY "DRM".

This reminds me of hydroponics dealers...

[shark72]

...who will discuss just about everything about their equipment except its suitability for growing pot.

I dislike intrusive and prohibitive DRM as much as everybody else, but it's clear to me that if the magic wand were waved tomorrow and DRM disappeared, the immediate effect is that people would be pirating a lot more.

Re:This reminds me of hydroponics dealers...

[Anonymous Coward]

But would the "piracy" be in areas that would realise any more profit? I.e. making a copy for your children? You wouldn't buy a new copy for your kids, just let them play the original. No change in profit when that is easily done. Copy DVD's so the children don't scratch the original Disney classic. OK, they would have to buy a new DVD here, but this isn't profit as much as profiteering. Notice how Disney DVD's don't go down in price much over time, whereas the mature market DVD's often drop to £5 from £18.

Re:This reminds me of hydroponics dealers...

[fregaham]

If the magic wand waved and changed the copyright law to allow non-commercial sharing between people, there would be no more piracy.

Re:This reminds me of hydroponics dealers...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol do you honestly think DRM has left any dent whatsoever on pirating?

Wretched idea

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Uhm, you do realize that the blank media tax would eseentially fund organizations that spend every waking moment finding ways to keep you from being left alone to do what you want with your media, don't you?

I did a little experiment..

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to travel quite a bit, and I was once in Thailand. While there I bought both a legal DVD and a pirated copy of it.

No guessing which one I could play without having to resort to region coding changes when I retured home.

What gets me is that I'm OK with spending money on a legal version, but it seriously pisses me off that I then cannot watch it at home (legally, that is). Whichever jerk dreamt up this scheme was obviously not much into travelling, and (in addition) didn't realise that it specifically stops revenue from anyone who's got enough income to travel in the first place.

Unless this jerk now runs a piracy setup?

WMP DRM Cracked Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

All this could be a moot point if DRM systems are as crackable as Windows Media Player's is. I heard via Boing Boing that someone's created a program that blows a great big hole in the subscription model of music downloads.

Alternatives to DMCA

[lucychili]

This is one of those issues which pokes pretty close to home. Its also an issue which is best understood by people with some technical background who can unpack the difference between content and the DRM or TPM around it. This means its not easy for non tech consumer groups to defend people's rights on these issues without support and explanations from their local geeky community.

There are plenty of different things we can do - from an email only approach to face to face talking to people.
Tell people and politicians about the kinds of access rights that make invention, creativity, research, humour,
exploration, tinkering, critique, reverse engineering, remixing, adapting and restoring possible.

Get into promoting digital access rights like these:
http://www.adelphicharter.org/

Check out the Access to Knowledge Treaty developed by creators and users:
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/ (link on left Draft Treaty)

Don't be afraid to lobby at the UN level. These things are being promoted through international trade organisations so do check out
what is happening at WIPO and other international forums.
http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions_for_1st_I GF.htm

And Software Freedom Day is on 16 September
http://softwarefreedomday.org/

Competition?

[tepples]

And both Apple and the RIAA will benefit from making the signing price high

And makers of other players will benefit from being more friendly to independent bands, or the Department of Justice will benefit from prosecuting Apple for antitrust violations.

You are speaking from ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

"because AAC offers better sound quality than MP3"

That's an ignorant statement to make.

First of all because it isn't true in general, it's only true in specific cases, and more importantly, in the environment these songs are used, it's irrelevant.

Let's go through it...

1) For songs recorded at a specific bitrate (i.e. 128kb/s), there is no difference in song size.

2) At lower bit rates, AAC will sound better than mp3 at those same low bit rates. So if you crank your mp3 down to 128kb/s and your aac down to 128kb/s, the AAC song will sound better.

3) At higher bit rates that would normally be used for CD quality (192kb/s and above), there is little difference between the formats, and it is debatable as to which is better.

4) MP3 is useful in every portable music player, well, except for Sony.

5) AAC is useful in itunes and ipods.

6) Transcoding your songs makes them sound worse. So you can't take a 128kb/s MP3, "convert" to an AAC and have it sound better. It doesn't work that way.

7) AAC wasn't chosen by Apple because it "sounds better", it was chosen because the format was easier to bolt the ironically named "Fairplay" DRM system to. You can't do the same to MP3 because of legal restrictions with Fraunhaufer.

8) You're welcome.

Re: Rights are goods

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Wow, that's a pretty fringe conception of "rights" there. But sure, I'll cop to being pretty naïve as you implied -- or at least, I'll admit that I share the naïveté of the school of thought that produced: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

Re: Rights are goods

[djmurdoch]

certain unalienable Rights

There are some rights that shouldn't be bought and sold, and that's what those guys were talking about. But contracts specify rights all the time. If you buy a ticket, you have a right to go in and see a movie. If you rent out a room in your house, your tenant has a right to use it in certain ways.

Perhaps legal jargon has some adjective to distinguish between the two kinds of rights, but saying that rights obtained in exchange for payment aren't rights is just dumb.

Re: Rights are goods

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

I can see your point, but "just dumb" is a little harsh. The word "right" can work in the examples you bring up, but it lacks some precision compared to, say, "license" or "privilege." Of course, I was not speaking to those subclasses or special cases of a Right proper in my previous comment.

Re: Rights are goods

[djmurdoch]

I can see your point, but "just dumb" is a little harsh.

I can't think of a better adjective. A longer description would be "pedantic, but incorrect".

it's over

[McGiraf]

I guest I just have 30 days left to laught at you DMCAed Americans, soon the joke's on me to.

Circumvention device

[tepples]

Circumvention for example applies to a work protected under the copyright act. It doesn't apply to something not under copyright.

But a circumvention device suitable for a DRM copy of a work whose copyright has expired is also useful for a DRM copy of a work whose copyright has not expired. If you make a circumvention device and use it to crack a DRM copy of a PD work, then the work's publisher will likely sue you for manufacturing a circumvention device capable of cracking a DRM copy of a different work, still copyrighted, published by the same publisher.

Re:Circumvention device

[Pofy]

Not nessecarilly, since there is no such strict definition. There is added requirements of it having to be primarilly designed for it and so on. Hence if your device can also be used for other things, what you say is not nessecarilly true. Similary, anyone introducing a system for which there would allready exist decvices (thus for other purposes) that could circumvent it would not instantly ban all those in existance. If my new protection can be circumvented by, for example using Winzip (just an example, substitute for whatever other program you like if that feels better), it doesn't turn Winzip illegal.

I don't buy DVDs

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an Australian who understands Japanese with a Chinese girlfriend.
Right then, let's try this:
Several of my DVDs are from the US. All English, except one.
Several of my DVDs are from Japan. You can't buy them outside of Japan.
Three are from the UK. At the time it was the one place to get them.
A collection are from China.
The rest - Australia.

Now, here is the fun bit: The first DVD player we had couldn't be multiregioned. Ok. So, we did this: We have three computers and two DVDs (a PS2 (region 4) and a DVD player) in the house. Set each one to a region.

Why? Well.. I broke one DVD player trying to region free it. Attempting to explain why the patch screwed the device to my better half didn't go very well. It's just easier to set several devices to a region each. Since this incident I haven't purchased any DVDs. She won't let me. I don't particularlly want to, mostly, but if they are $10au I tend to buy. Depending on what is available. Serenity was $14 :)

In any case, the DVD player broke. So, we got another one. It is now dead (weird issue with the sound fading in and out). Yes, I know what you will say: go buy a new player and make sure it is multiregion. The point here is that if 'regions' never existed I'd probably have a big DVD collection by now.

Price is another issue. I can no longer justify $30 to $40au on a DVD. $15 - maybe. $10 - yes.

Boxed seasons of old TV shows are other rort. At least MASH was priced better.

Captcha: Impudent
How appropriate :)

Lack of case law can prove expensive

[tepples]

There is added requirements of it having to be primarilly designed for it and so on.

Nobody knows what these requirements actually mean because there haven't yet been any edge cases decided in a court of law. For instance, there haven't been any DMCA cases that have revolved around CSS DVD releases whose video portion consists of pre-1923 Charlie Chaplin films. So make sure to put away enough money to pay some really good lawyers. This in itself shuts out hobbyists within the United States and other countries whose legislatures have adopted counterparts to the DMCA.

Re:Lack of case law can prove expensive

[Pofy]

But there must be some text, discussion and explanation on the law when it was put forward initially, no? That should give a hint to how the law makers saw it and their intent, no? Or is that of no importance in USA? I know that here in Sweden, that document is actually a very important one and should be seens as almost a part of the law or at least a guide on how to interpret it.