Slashdot Mirror
Senate Bill Again Aims to Restrict Internet Radio
JAFSlashdotter writes "If you enjoy MP3 or OGG streams of internet radio, it's time to pay attention. This week U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander, Joseph Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and Lindsey Graham decided to reintroduce the 'Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act'. An Ars Technica article explains that PERFORM would restrict our rights to make non-commercial recordings under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and require satellite and internet broadcasters to use 'technology to prevent music theft'. That means goodbye to your favorite streaming audio formats, hello DRM. The EFF said pretty much the same when this bill last reared its ugly head in April of 2006. It's too soon to get the text of this year's version (S.256) online, but it likely to resemble last year's S.2644, which is available through Thomas."
Say hello to Internet Radio {From anywhere in the world other than the US}
For fox sake, copyright infringement is *not* theft!
Say hello to Internet Radio {From anywhere in the world other than the US}
That is just what happened to crypto development when anal laws came in. The good thing is they will loose as the World now owns the Internet. I guess these politicians have too much spare time to come up with goofy unenforceable laws.
But the best solution is a consumer revolt. For example I don't buy Sony any more, between their support of DRM and it's very own root-kit I decided my last PC purchased 3 years ago was the last Sony product I will ever buy. It is now running a DRM free Linux.
IDK; IANAP.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
Of all the problems in the US, and around the world, they decide that this is something they should work on. Ignore all the letters from the people they represent, and take care of special interests. This is what is wrong with our government. I am sure each and every one of these people have received thousands of letters on Iraq, and healthcare, and numerous other problems from everyday voting citizens. I would love to see the letters they have received that convinced them that this was an issue that needed their attention over all these other issues. I doubt they can produce even one that came from a private voting citizen.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
I read the article, yet, as is almost always the case, it is unclear why the bill sponsors have committed their names to it. Clearly there is only one benefactor: recording industry groups obsessed with piracy. The radio stations do not benefit, the listeners do not benefit. However they [the lobby] are probably well aware that Internet Radio area is, most likely, not a common place for piracy.
This leaves us the option that they are trying to push this through as an attempt to soften the ground for a larger blitz on personal freedoms on commercial products of a digital nature.
But can anyone say for sure why these alleged representatives of the people have deemed it necessary to impose a law that most people will not need, understand and be worse off for in the long run? I can think only that, someplace, there is a trail of money, or of gratuity, or of favours and deals or offers that are the real reason that any member of the nation might even acknowledge the phantom problem of audio piracy.
A point by point back and forth isn't needed here. The "Slashdot Perspective" is very simple and very straightforward:
1. We are technologists. Like any other sort of craftsman or artist or artist, we have a deep respect for the tools and methods of our trade.
2. The effect of these laws is to either blunt our tools into uselessness or turn them into convoluted black boxes that only a privileged few are allowed to completely understand and manipulate. Blunting a knife so that you can't cut yourself is morally equivalent to how the interest groups want to solve the issues you brought up.
I have little trouble understanding why Morimoto thought Bobby Flay an ass for standing on his cutting board. In the same vein,
Frank Zappa didn't think much of the stage theatric of smashing a guitar on stage. Both are merely tomfoolery however. What the xxAA and the politicians want to do is send thugs into our hardware stores to remove the beautiful and useful in favor of stunted ugly things "Da Boss" approves of.
I doubt the 'technological community' [sic] is quite as homogeneous as you give it credit for. That being said, I think you're giving said community the short shrift.
I suspect a wide range of people, 'technological' or not, would agree that:
What the 'technological community' — and I would argue it's really more the 'tech-savvy consumer community' — is reacting to is the fact that the deck appears stacked in favor of the RIAA/MPAA/patent trolls side:
The 'technological community' therefore tends towards promoting anarchy (e.g., turning a blind eye towards 'pirated' music) as an easy means of providing a check and balance to the entrenched powers, even if such anarchy tends to run counter to the ideals of the 'technological community'.
Your goal — finding a reasonable middle ground — is noble but too soon, particularly since your suggestions smack of asking the 'technological community' to unilaterally disarm.
If you really want to get to a reasonable middle ground, here's the windmill I'd tilt at:
Admittedly, this is probably 10-50 years in the making, and so from a practical standpoint it might not have much of an impact over the specific issue of IP rights in the digital era. Personally, I'm more concerned with fixing the over-arching system (raising citizens' voice in government) than fixing individual problems (IP rights in the digital era). But, that's just me.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
What should be done about it?
Come up with different business models to respond to changes in tech, instead of trying to enforce systems that were created to deal with very different technological/business environments.
When copyrights were invented, it was unthinkable for one person of modest resources to be able to quickly a cheaply send unlimited copies of a written work across the world at no charge. Now nearly every household in the western world can do this. I don't think we can abandon copyright, but I do think some different understanding is required.
I think of the movies Cars, for example. My kids really like that movie. We have the DVD, but I'm sure Pixar have made more from us out of merchandising than by the DVD sale. I'm pretty sure that financially succesful movies could be made even without ever doing anything to stop downloaders. Commercial pirates could still be prosecuted, but have liberal fair use for non-commercial purposes. If they went so far as to promote it as free to download (a reasonable time after the cinema release) they could potentially gain a much larger market share and therefore merchandising revenue.
Looking at software: Microsoft use copyright violation to sustain their market share. It is a part of their business model, they don't openly admit it, but it's not a secret. If personal copies were permitted, but copying for commercial use forbidden, in reality it would not destroy their profits. Most people buy their computer with software on it, and would continue to do so. Most people simply don't want to install their own operating system. Redhat seems to remain a viable business, despite CentOS. Probably CentOS helps Redhat retain market share in much the same way that pirated windows does for MS, but without requiring the law to be broken.
In short:
1 - There are currently viable business models that don't require changes to copyright law/enforcement. Use and improve on these.
2 - Accept that some businesses may have to operate with smaller profit margins. Deal with it.
3 - Accept that some industries may have to become smaller. Deal with it.
4 - Acknowledge that there is much "content" produced today that would not harm society in the slightest if none of it ever got made again.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Dear Amy:
As a content creator in my own right, and a Copyright holder of both written and recorded content, I do not see the PERFORM Act legislation, put forth by Sens. Alexander, Biden, Feinstein and Graham as being conducive to protecting the pre-eminent rights of "fair use", encouraging competition and creativity in the marketplace, or protecting the rights of copyright owners from substantial losses.
In 1996, I authored a paper on internet music distribution as a student conducting research at the University of Minnesota. It was clear then that the world is moving into an age of internet distributed content. What was not clear, least of all to the senators who enacted the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was that the negative reaction to internet distribution from the recording industry had little to do with losses from piracy.
The truth is, RIAA is scared to death of the internet. It threatens a distribution monopoly they have held since the 1940s (see Shemel and Krasilovksy's "This Business of Music"). The internet represents an opportunity for individuals such as myself to gain audiences worldwide without resigning to the fiefdom of a recording contract in which the recording artist is made a debtor to the recording company. In the 1990's, fewer than 15 percent of recording artists from major recording labels sold enough copies to break even on the recording advances paid to them to cover the COSTS of recording the album being produced for the record company's gain and to a lesser extent their own. This means that 85 percent of the recording artists then did not see a dime of royalties for their creations.
The world is on the edge of a revolution in independent film making and music making... and the recording industry wants to stop this under the guise of antipiracy legislation. Note that I discourage people from supporting illegitimate downloads because that only solidifies RIAA/MPAA's case to lobby senators just like you to enact such unnecessary legislation... putting a clamp on internet distribution. RIIAA throws lawyers at every grandmother and twelve year old and from my experience employed in internet security enforcement, I can see they're ice-skating uphill. Again, I refuse to support their business case by piracy and instead voice my support of internet distribution by purchasing exclusively through legitimate services like iTunes to show this IS a profitable channel of distribution. However, they're ice-skating uphill nonetheless... but they know it. They have no choice because when artists realize we don't need to subject ourselves to the modern form of indentured servitude, record company executives will be forced to either think innovatively or find another business to work in.
I urge you to condemn the PERFORM Act which seeks to stifle the rights of consumers IN THEIR OWN HOMES, rights which were established by 17 USC 1, 107, and further reinforced by the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act which protected the consumer's right to record broadcasts for their own, personal use. There are already laws protecting piracy and illegal distribution, and these cases should follow due process of law and have their days in court... but this legislation is, like DMCA, aimed squarely at attempting to stifle the inevitable decentralization of RIAA's distribution monopoly and seems to make criminal even the recording of content from individuals such as myself who have created our own material on our own dime, in our own studios, with our own equipment, our own imagination, and hoped that the internet would give us a chance for our creative expressions to be heard.
The internet is the common man's greatest weapon in the information economy against the tyranny of a majority or minority... and it is every Senator's duty, under Oath to the Constitution, to protect our pre-eminent rights from being eroded in this manner.
Thank you for your valuable time and consideration.
The US will strongarm other countries into alignment with its own laws.
It's about "level playing fields" until the US has to make a change, when it becomes about sovereignty.
Wikileaks, no DNS