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RIAA wants to assassinate MP3
Cicero writes "Wired News has an article about the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) plans for killing the mp3 format. It basically involves having the major record labels release music on a yet-to-be-defined, proprietary format called SDMI. The kicker -- require software and hardware companies that license the format to include some sort of kill switch which would prohibit the user from downloading and playing mp3 files. " I'd insert a snide comment here, but...I don't think I need to.
I suppose next we'll be handing out chastity belts to the computers so we can't download pr0n.
This will just make things worse for the record companies. It's still won't actually be illegal to use the mp3 encoding format, inventive hackers will crack whatever stupid blocks they have in the way, and mp3s will be cooler than ever. Still annoying that they think they can push this on us, though.
The RIAA and SDMI vs. MP3 is the same old battle as DVD vs Divx. DVD is an open format, and is winning, as is MP3.. the RIAA needs to take a rest on this..
I haven't seen a need to buy any of the portable mp3 players, yet, but I'm going to now.
:) )
And perhaps it's now time to start giving them as gifts. With this sort of direct manipulation, it's time for consumers to react, in an organized fasion.
Go Support the mp3 industry. Vote with your $$.
(if you have any! I know there's alot of students here!
So they're going to kill the ability to play MP3's in hardware? Hmm... interesting. Just like Sony stopped anyone from playing out-of-region games or copied games on the Playstation, eh?
Is it me, or does this reek of using of unfairly shutting out competition? Apparently, if RIAA has their way, this new format will be ALL you can use, unless they decide differently. That's like Sony saying, "If you want to have a recording of a song, you MUST use Minidiscs. End of story."(note: nothing against minidiscs)
Also, from a technical standpoint, how do they propose to do this? Release a new version of Windows that automatically searches and destroys non-RIAA music files on bootup? FTP clients that refuse to download *.mp3? I think not.
--John Riney
jwriney@awod.com
Let them do this. They will all be sent to jail and/or heavily fined for releasing a known virus into thousands of peoples computer systems.
Gee, shows how well people THINK eh?
Just to say it one more time, MP3 has already
shown itself to be the defacto standard. There
is no disputing that. Companies can release all
the different formats they want, but it is just
TOO LATE for anyone to bother using them.
Use MP3 or lose money. Thats the bottom line. Like it or leave it.
See yah, RIAA, time to die.
The world of the major labels is about to be wiped out by the mp3 supernova. When a group like TLC can sell 10 million albums, yet only be paid $250,000 EACH, and they have to file Chapter 11, there is something very very wrong with the business model.
Considering that the only way this will work is if the 'technology companies' run out of money while fighting the suits, and considering where most of the money is these days (checked the market caps of the 'internet stocks' lately?), methinks the RIAA may be in for an unpleasant surprise. It's tough when you find out you're not the biggest kid on the block anymore.
Ahh, it's refreshing to see technology ridding the planet of a horrible evil. The record industry has had it too good for too long; They can see the end and they're trying their old tricks to put off the inevitable. I don't know who their technical consultants are, but they obviously don't have a f*cking clue what's going on.
Reasons why the RIAA is toast, or, mp3 is dead, long live mp3!
#1: It's the Recording Industry of AMERICA
Last time I checked, there were a lot of other countries, with a lot of music besides the good 'old (free?) USofA. Mp3 lets me get music that never makes it to the border in conventional format. And there's lots of coutries that have a skeptical view of american politking.
#2: Mp3 is Open. And out there. Too bad.
I have source code to players and encoders. 'Nuff said. I'll give those up when you pry them from my cold dead hands. And, any EE worth his salt could hack together a DSP mp3 player in a few weeks with little or no problems. Patents or no patents, mpeg technology is here to stay.
#3: You have to listen to the music
Unfortunately for the RIAA, you have to be able to listen to the music at some point. This is the downfall of all secure executable/information copyright enforcing schemes. At some point the information is viewable, and you can always resample it. Decks with phiber outs and pure digital signals make this an almost lossless proposition. Take your music and resample it to mp3.
Does anyone remember DIVX? If the consumer doesn't want it, then it ain't gunna happen. This is a demand economy!
"Do it, do it now kids! Stick it to the Man!" -- Duckman
Audio out is analogue, which is lossy. Once the signal hits the audio out socket, it has already been through the D-A converter. You can redigitise it, but that introduces degradation. After a few generations, the results will be as dismal as a Nth-generation bootleg tape.
/dev/dsp to an arbitrary file, in effect providing a software-based digital audio out. Someone has written something like that for Windows as well, though since Windows is a closed specification, MS could hobble it easily.
Under Linux, it is possible to hack the kernel to redirect
Wonder whether the RIAA will push for a ban on music decoding software for open-source OSes as well; it seems logically consistent with their attitude.
Hmm. what will prevent Joe Average from ripping songs off his CDs? nothing. But... if the next standard that comes out (I know this is being tossed around for DVD-audio) uses an excrypted format, then when Joe Average tries to buy the DVD and encode it, he'll just hear a bunch of garbage, because the music cannot be listened to without the key. I'm pretty sure that several companies are working on a standard for this. I know that InterTrust is working on it, because my neighbor across the street works for them. Check out their site. It might answer a few questions for you.
"The SDMI format will be open, the RIAA will not own the format."
I'm old enough to remember when Dolby-B noise reduction was introduced.
The RIAA went bonkers.
"Cassettes recorded with Dolby-B will allow people to pirate and trade albums! This will be the end of the music industry."
They tried to outlaw Dolby-B.
Now cassettes encoded with Dolby-B are the music industry's bread and butter.
When television came out, the movie studios went bat s**t. "No one will go to the movies anymore!"
Didn't happen.
When VHS tape came out, the Movie studios went bat s**t again. "This will kill the movie industry."
Now the sales and rental of VHS movies represents the most profitable aspect of movie making.
When DAT came out. RIAA went nuts again. "This will kill the recording industry."
Didn't happen.
You'd think by now the people in the entertainment industry would have learned not to be so damn PARANOID!
Why can't they embrace MP3 like they eventually did the cassette? THEY can distribute their product in MP3 format!
New consumer recording formats and distribution means have NEVER measurably hurt the recording industry! Why can't they look at their own history and learn from it?
They may not be able to make you want it, but there are ways to make you "choose" it anyway. Right now, the major format is PCM (audio CDs). All they have to do is sell SDMI music at $1 per song, and raise the price of a 10-song CD to $40. Which will you buy then?
And suppose you stubbornly buy the $40 CD. How are you going to feel when you find out that it comes with a "free" license for the SDMI music? You'll have bought into it anyway... You'll ultimately be faced with a choice of either giving up and letting RIAA win, or pirating.
I know it seems silly to take RIAA's threats seriously, since it's so easy to have faith in the market. Just remember that these people can buy your elected representatives and pass all kinds of weird legislation (oops, too late, they already did, last year) to pretty much legally force you to do things their way.
By all means, dance on their graves when it's over, but until then, watch out. I think the best thing to do right now is encourage good musicians to examine the possibilities of using formats like MP3 to bypass the labels/RIAA altogether, in order to increase their own profits. If the "prime movers" of music stop giving power to RIAA, then we'll win.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
from the article:
"Steve Grady, vice president of marketing at MP3 retailer GoodNoise, said that if the record labels don't put the consumer first in their architecture plans, piracy will only increase and the industry could ultimately lose out on new business opportunities on the Web."
What's this? An industry honcho with the consumer in mind? The RIAA and the companies it represents should take a lesson from this man.
I'm not worried. If people want MP3, it will always be around. Plain and simple. As soon as SDMI starts becoming popular w/ the record companies (and it will) i'll find a cracked player (cracked not to take away from the developer(s), just not to fund the RIAA) and record the SDMI files to wav w/ total recorder as they pass through my soundcard. After all, that's how i've been converting the liquid audio and a2b "secure" foramts all along.
Look at Caldera vs. Microsoft. The stuff Microsoft did was just as shady (and as subject to litigation) as this. Caldera may end up getting some hefty damages back, but it's too late: Microsoft controls the market.
If RIAA can poison the environment for MP3 long enough to create a market for their format, then it won't matter if they get slapped with fines, class action lawsuits, etc. They'll pay out a few million dollars and do it with a smile. By then, Joe Schmoe (the same guy who bought Windoze in 1990) will have a collection of SDMI music, and will only buy players than can play it, whether those players can do MP3 or not. He'll outnumber clueful people 100-to-1, and his purchasing decisions, combined with economy of scale, will decide what products are available. Sound familiar?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The way I understand it (and this is just what I picked up from the article), this kill switch is embedded in SDMI software/hardware (ie portable music players); it is NOT some magical switch that prevents you from playing MP3's on your computer permanently.
Instead, the hardware manufacturers are allowed to sell players for MP3 with the option of SDMI. As SDMI actually becomes a viable standard, the RIAA says "okay, now hit the switch" and now your portable MP3 player no longer plays MP3s (or at least the ones sold after that date).
Competing music compression formats which acheive 10:1 reduction in file size will be irrelevant when the average user has 10x more network bandwidth and storage devices with 10x the density.
So in 5 years when it is feasible to FTP entire albums of uncompressed 44.1kHz 16 bit stereo sound to your home PC and write them onto flash cards which hold 2-10G of data, who will care if the RIAA supports a proprietary compression format for music distribution?
Wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow refund the artists without having to pay through the RIAA? Any ideas, people? Come on. Open standards might be cool, but cheating musicians out of their reward isn't.
-- Micah Lionette
...and mount a "grassroots" campain similar in tone as DVD enthusiasts did when DIVX came out. If and when this SDMI pans out, we need to constantly bombard the media/reviewers/retailers with the facts about the two formats and make sure they understand how much SDMI hurts consumers while MP3 is what benefits consumers.
Because it is ultimately consumers that will decided the outcome of this "war". If we allow the RIAA to convince consumers that SDMI is right for them, then MP3 will be marginalized (note nothing can _Completely_ destroy a format).
DVD should be hailed as the biggest success that consumers have had over corporations trying to tell them what they want. We should use the pro-DVD/anti-DIVX campain as a model for our own.
The kill switch (which some have called a simple virus) will be embedded in songs so that playing can only occur a finite number of times. Does this playing mean digital recordings of the said tracks with said encoding or does this mean overall playings of tracks with said encoding?
I ask this since I can fire up something like sound recorder in windoze and hit the record button pretty much simultaneous to playing the music. Then I get to encode it with my mp3 encoder and voila, new mp3. Sure it's a long process, but it escapes the evil therein. (if you don't count the fact that I used an ms product as my example.)
Will this destroy my tapes that I make to listen in my car oh great RIAA gods?
Sounds like a bunch of smack talk that hasn't been fully engineered.
ALL HAIL BRAK!!!
>The kicker -- require software and hardware companies that license the format to include some sort of kill switch which would prohibit the user from downloading and playing mp3 files. " I'd insert a snide comment here, but...I don't think I need to.
This is illegal in three different ways, if indeed, it is as stated.
1: If implemented in software, and it affects other programs ability to play MP3's, then the consumers can sue them for damages. What if I use MP3's as part of my job or work? Hmmmm?
2: Same as above, the makers of programs that play MP3's can nail them for anti-competitive practices.
3: If implemented in hardware, most hardware manufacturers (talking about, say.. soundcards, for example) would nail them for anti-competitive practices.
Basically, it won't happen.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
These clods are killing themselves. This is REALLY funny! The encryption guys there are pulling their chains. They KNOW this is all BS, but they smell money. The RIAA will pump in mega-bucks and get jack in return.
Meanwhile, we will keep right on ripping and jamming.
Before their new "standard" gets out of the lab, we will all have tiny, wearable PCs with standard sound chips. Who needs a proprietary player when your pocket PC does so much more?
They are not worried about piracy. Well, not much. MP3 presents a new threat that didn't exist in any of the examples that you mentioned.
Cassettes, CDs, DATs... these are physical things. They were never a serious threat to labels, because a musician still needed someone to mass-copy the media and distribute it to brick and mortar stores.
Formats like MP3 make the labels obsolete. That's why RIAA is doing this. You can bet your ass that the one most important feature of SDMI will be that it is not open. A musician will not be able to encode his or her music as SDMI unless they sign something and give up some of their rights or a percentage of the profit. If SDMI is open, then it is useless for RIAA (and possibly useful for everyone else).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
After the movie industry did its ever loving best to shut down the Betamax machine, taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, no less, what happened?
Losers, losers, losers.
The Supreme Court made clear than unless Sony was actually inducing people to pirate videotapes, there could be liability only if the apparatus had no lawful noninfringing use. Since the Court found that using a VCR for time-shifting of broadcast television would constitute fair use, this meant that a customer COULD be making lawful use of the VCR, and hence there was no liability.
[Deep irony, of course, is that SONY couldn't manage to persuade the world to accept a seriously closed format, even though the alternative was technically inferior in many respects. At the end of the day, SONY owned 100% of nothing, and litigated the film industry into what was probably the most profitable legal result for a loser in history.]
It seems apparent that opportunities for non-infringing use of MP3 format abound.
Accordingly, what matter of this supposed "willing[ness] to fight for [RIAA's] interests in the courts[?] It has the money and the muscle to try to convince technology companies and Internet music vendors to see things its way."
How? Sue who? For what? In the face of blatant Supreme Court authority? Fine. Time will put that threat to bed, although someone will have to suffer for awhile, with a probable award of attorney fees at the end of the day for a prevailing defendant.
Boycotting the format? Well, for that to work, they'll have to accomplish what even OPEC could not -- a boycott on a prodigious format means ceding a potent market, and hence, as soon as one company decides to make a buck that way, it will take balls of steel but a mind of mush to ignore it. Record industry is no longer a lock -- alternative labels do and can "make it." Can RIAA's boycot?
RIAA may be a formidable force. However, a free market is a far more formidable force. The natural and inexorable flow of capital flows harder and more forcefully than any dinosaur trying to protect a dying turf. Witness: OPEC.
At the end of the day, RIAA's best hope is to find a magical alternative format that people will *WANT* to use. Anything less will not be enough. Any other strategy is losing.
If TLC sold 10 million albums and only got $250,000 per person then TLC is to blame.
Unless, of course, that was the best deal being offered. That's the crux of the MP3 vs. RIAA war. RIAA hates MP3 because it offers a new route from the musician to the listener, one that so far, gives each a better deal. For the listener, do I want to pay 8.99 (or so) to MP3.com for new music, or 16.99 to an RIAA member. For the musician, do I want 50% of 8.99 with MP3.com, or 10% of 16.99 from RIAA?
Also, from a technical standpoint, how do they propose to do this? Release a new version of Windows that automatically searches and destroys non-RIAA music files on bootup? FTP clients that refuse to download *.mp3? I think not.
Technically, this could be quite easy to do. Basically, the SDMI software would hook in at the object broker level and would register itself as the handler for MP3 objects. Under Windows the standard object broker is Microsoft's COM, and since the Win 9X version doesn't implement any form of security, it's quite easy for any piece of software to invisibly take over any object type and also for it to check if it's the registered handler for any type. I don't know if there's a formal name for the object broker on Macintosh but applications can register themselves as creators and editors for certain types. Under Linux, the nascent standard is CORBA (used by GNOME; I'm not sure about KDE or Netscape). While it would be easy under Linux to fool the SDMI software, I'm sure the RIAA can live without SDMI support for Linux.
Anyway, the SDMI software would check to make sure it owns the MP3 type whenever it's invoked and would refuse to launch if this condition were not met. It could also possibly arrange for some sort of notification if other software tried to register itself as the handler for MP3. Under Windows, this would be possible by sitting on top of the OLE DLL's, or Microsoft could quietly slipstream such behavior into their object broker.
While one could still have MP3 content on one's system, it would effectively be useless for the average Joe who's used to clicking and pointing at files. It would also render useless MP3 as a streaming format. I'm sure the average Slashdot user will have no problems in circumventing these mechanisms, but that's not whom the RIAA is concerned with.