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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.
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
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.
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?
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
TV was a "free" version of the movies. Did it destroy the film industry? No -- it just changed the film industry. Instead of pushing double-features with newsreels and cartoons (providing evening-long entertainment that could be gotten from TV), it had to start pushing relatively short movies that attracted large audiences.
That said, there's still a need for major labels, and will always be. If I'm a musician, I don't want to have to deal with setting up recording studio time, or merchandising, or setting up promotions, or shooting music videos, or all that other crap. I want to have somebody do all that stuff *for* me, to buy me coke, and give me a limo, and hand me empty whiskey bottles to hurl at my fellow band members.
Plus, people are still going to buy records, just as they buy software CD-ROMs today. Who wants to sit and download the white album? People thought the Internet would make books obselete, and that hasn't happened. Physical media is just too damn convenient.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
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.