Canadian Recording Industry Ass'n Lets DJs use MP3s

Yannick writes "Wired is reporting that Canadian [mobile] DJs are now (legally) permitted to use MP3s in their 'performances'. Seems that there's CA$200 cover charge (and further fees per additional hard disk). The whole thing has some interesting implications for the music industry in general..."

Comments

Stupid law

[crow]

Uck.

Why do they need some special law for this? If they own the CDs, they should be able to repackage the data anyway they want, as long as they're only using it the way they would use the original media.

In the United States, a DJ can already do this, and he won't have to pay any special licensing fees. It's only illegal if he distributes copies, or if he doesn't retain the originals.

Re:Stupid law

[fishbowl]

Unauthorized duplication and distribution is illegal. But the doctrine of "fair use" creates
a situation where certain rights of the consumer
are not taken away by license, and they cannot be
taken away. This is why it's ok to backup your
music by copying it to tape, or backup your book
by writing it out longhand, but not ok to broadcast the copy (e.g., in a jukebox in your bar, or as a pro DJ) for profit.

Law in the USA is not a binary state, it's an interpretive struggle between the letter and the spirit of the laws, with great latitude tending towards individual rights.

Regardless of what you read on slashdot or alt.redneck.conspiracy-theorists, individual rights are alive and well protected in the USA
for the most part.

Re:Stupid law

[Logan]

I don't know where you get your information, but ANY reproduction of copywritten media is illegal in the US. You are not even legally allowed to make a copy of a CD to tape so that you can listen to it in your car, you are supposed to by in on Tape as well.

Well, I don't know where you get your information, but it is perfectly legal for an individual to make copies of digital recordings for personal, non-commercial use (assuming the original recording was obtained legally). http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/100 8.html even indicates this ("... or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."). The obvious difference in this case is that, in the case of some DJs, this is a commercial use. Thus the recording industry's magnanimous offer.

logan

equipment?

[PickldPlur]

i'm curious as to what kind of equipment (hardware and software) they're using.

there are pro sound cards i would trust to do the audio out, but i've never seen anything but 1/8" and POS d/ac's on laptops. the d/ac doesn't matter THAT much for live playback, but i don't trust those 1/8" cables in a mobile situation at all.

i've done it before with some success, but not at the level they're talking about. and every 1/8"->RCA cable i've ever used has flaked. i do suppose a pro 1/4" stereo to RCA or just a 1/4" stereo to dual 1/4" mono would work and be convertable... but something still strikes me wrong about it

oh yeah: yes, pro vs consumer cables REALLY matter for this stuff. not for audio quality, but for durability. even heavy duty 1/4" cables short sometimes when you move them around that much, and have dancing people around.

i'm also curious as to what software he's using. the only dj software i've seen for windows in virtual turntables.. which has been kinda iffy with me... a big problem is that you can't cue (listen to one song while playing another) unless you do a setup where the right channel out gets the cue and the left channel out gets the signal, which just isn't acceptable to me. anyone found anything better?

ps. i'm sticking with my 1200s ;)

Re:equipment?

[Hanno]

Same question here. Is it possible to scratch an MP3?

------------------

Re:equipment?

[Capt Dan]

Not that I have ever done anything like this ever. But I think it would happen like this...

Unless you're on crack there is a table of some sort set up for all your equipment and the cables run along it somehow. No-one should be touching your cables, much less dancing on them. The real worry should be if the cable will be given a sharp tug in the wrong direction, not it's transmission quality. You give the RCA a quick yank and you can break/crack the connection solder within your mixer or soundcard. To damage a cable requires cutting it or bending it so sharply as to crack/cut the metal wire within the sheath.

Standard 1/8th to RCA work perfectly fine. They should be treated as well as you treat the rest of your equipment. But they're still cheap. Always carry a spare.

As for laptop sound cards, good, cheap, 16bit DACs have been standard for years. If you can find 20 or 24 bit DAC, even better.

Cueing is a serious issue. Linux can support multiple sound devices. I do not know if other OS's do. Worse comes to worse you use two laptops connection to a mixer. Cueing by default.


"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein

Re:equipment?

[beme]

Finalscratch looks kind of cool. I can't get to the n2it site, though. Not sure if it's still available or not.

-beme

Re:equipment?

[Coward, Anonymous]

Is it possible to scratch an MP3?

You can use FinalScratch. You can use a turntable-like device hooked up to your machine to get the same effects you'd get with a normal turntable (scratching, speed up, slow down, etc.). It's only available for BeOS.

Re:equipment?

[rdl]

Sadly, the group developing the Final Scratch
seems to have fallen apart over internal issues
during the commercialization process -- hopes
for final scratch production now hinge on a
random large company picking up the idea and
running with it, from what I've heard.

I still want one, even if the label on the
side says "Pioneer" :)

So, where can...

[DanJose52]

...the RIAA get the .mp3 of "Blame Canada!" ? I'm sure they'll need it in a few hearings :)

Dan

RIAA & MP3s

[Chemical Serenity]

The RIAA doesn't have a problem with mp3's per se, just what people are doing with them.

I'm working on a project right now to stream .mp3s while remaining in RIAA guidelines (quite a steaming pile of some nasty-ass legalese... I've been on the phone with them and my contractor's lawyer more than a few times trying to get it all straight).

What appears to be the RIAA's biggest worry (as evidenced by thier legal stuffies) is not that people have .mp3s, or even that they're broadcasting them over the net (or at a party or dance or whatever), but that their use is allowing people to bypass buying CDs. Take, for example, this snippit from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (one of the documents one must adhere to for compliance), which states:

Sound recording performance complement. A Webcaster may not play in any three-hour period (1) more than three songs from a particular album, including no more than two consecutively, or (2) four songs by a particular artist or from a boxed set, including no more than three consecutively.

This is designed so that people can't simply set up a recording device of some sort and 'recreate' an album just by tuning in an pushing the button with the red dot. Other entries in there also seem geared towards non-copying things (some outright, others more hidden).

Under the circumstances, it seems pretty unlikely that DJs using mp3s in the field are going to be doing so for copying/trading purposes, so the RIAA probably wouldn't really give much of a care... and even if they did, the ability to police every kegger, rave and school dance is an impracticality of enormous proportions.

BTW - The site is at www.quicktracks.com. Please note that in its current incarnation we're *not* compliant. I'm working on that software right now, so the beastie will be up and down a bit over the next week or so as I poke at it.

--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

Hold on a minute...

[Denor]

It's nice to see that there's at least some company that's not completely in the dark about MP3s (*cough*RIAA*cough*). But if I were a DJ in this situation, I'd hardly be happy. In fact, I'd probably see it as yet another way for the rather greedy record industry to line their pockets. Why? Some quotes from the article:

DJs can buy a license giving them the right to burn their own compilation CDs of "useable tracks," ... The license allows them to reproduce music as MP3s to be used at their gigs

and...

The CN$200 fee gives DJs a blanket license to make one reproduction of music released by most of the major record companies.

In other words, the AVLA is charging you for the priveledge of copying onto your hard drive songs that you already own!
It's a step forward for recognition of MP3s as not-just-pirated-material, but it's not exactly a great thing altogether.

Re:Hold on a minute...

[Trickster Coyote]

I too found this rather odd. If anything I would think that they would be charging royalties or licence fees for performacerights, not copying. After all why should care whether you transfer the music onto tape, hard drives or wax cylinders? It's the fact that you are playing the music in public for profit that matters. Also, as the AVLA acknowledges in the article, these DJ's are doing record companies a favour by made new music a heard when they can't get played on any of the "classic" rock or golden oldies station that dominate the commercial radio spectrum. So who are they to complain (or creating extra charges) if they won't distribute songs in a format or package that is easily usable by professional (mobile) DJ's. When I was involved in radio a couple of decades ago, record companies supplied records for free to most radio stations, just to be sure that the song would get airplay. (Although they did charge royalties for each play.) Nowdays it seems to be the other way around. Sure clubs and DJ's are making a profit by playing these records, but they are also helping to sell them.I think record companies need to lighten up a little.

TC

(This comment posted using Mozilla M11)

Re:Hold on a minute...

[David Gould]

My only problem with this announcement is that the industry's "permitting" this use of MP3s implies that it's their decision, when in fact (well, in my opinion, anyway, which is the same thing) they don't have any authority whatsoever even knowing or caring about it in the first place, let alone permitting or forbidding it. Where would they even have gotten the idea in the first place, let alone how would they justify it, to think that this would be illegal?

But DJ's don't own the songs, they own a round piece of plastic.

IANAL, but this is my understanding: they own two things: the round piece of plastic, i.e., a physical medium containing a copy of the copyrighted work, and a license that permits them to use the work in a particular commercial setting. Does the license actually specify the physical process by which the work can be used? I.e., does it say "You may use the song in live performances by placing this and only this particular disc in a CD player and pressing 'Play'.", or does it say "You may use the song in live performances."? I can't imagine that it would be the former. I mean, why, except for them being typically heavy-handed? Even for them, this seems ridiculous.

Here's a similar case: what if a DJ is at a party and someone requests a particular song. The DJ says, "Yeah, I have that," but then he looks through his pile of CDs and finds that, while it's true that he owns the disc and has a live-performance license for it, he has forgotten that particular one at home. Then the host interjects, "Wait, I have that album." He owns a CD of the album but he does not have a live-performance license for it. The question is, if the host lends his physical disc to the DJ, could the DJ then, under his live-performance license, use that disc to perform the song, even though it's not the same particular disc that he owns? I think the answer should be an obvious "Yes". Perhaps the industry sees thing differently, but I can't imagine what they could object to about this situation. Also, what if the DJ's disc is lost or destroyed? Does he have to pay for the license again, or just buy a new copy of the disc? What about the "for archival purposes" fair-use doctrine? (I realize that Canada != USA, so maybe the "fair use" thing is different.)

As it is, in the process of performing it, the information passes through any number of intermediate formats as it is processed by various pieces of equipment, e.g., (note that I don't really know anything about professional sound equipment) bits get read by the CD player and converted to an analog signal and this goes through all sorts of mixers, equalizers, amps, etc., before going to the speaker, where the analog signal is converted from an electrical carrier to an acoustic one. Does the industry presume to have any authority whatsoever over exactly what steps the information goes through on its path from the DJ's round piece of plastic to the audience's ears? Of course not, as long as the DJ has paid for a live-performance license and no durable copies are given to anyone else. What's the difference of the bits make an extra stop (i.e., being compressed by Fraunhoffer's (sp?) algorithm and stored on a more convenient physical medium) along the way, all the while remaining in the DJ's possession and not being given to anyone else in a durable form? It sounds like they are just trying to continue to brand anything associated with MP3 as "illegal", while appearing magnanimous in this obviously-trivial case.

From the article:

DJs can buy a license giving them the right to burn their own compilation CDs of "useable tracks," instead of having to cart their whole CD collections around to their gigs.

I don't see how this could possibly not be considered to fall under "fair use" (though, again Canada != USA), or why it would require a special license.

Under Canadian law, a DJ convicted of making unlicensed reproductions with any technology could face serious fines and the confiscation of his equipment. Though there haven't been any such cases lately, Heindl points out that Canadian authorities have made examples of offenders in the past.

I could see it if the concern were over such copies being passed around, but two points: first, why would it be any different for a DJ than for any person making bootleg (don't call it "Piracy") copies of normally-purchased albums. Second, here it is again: why are they so obsessed with how many copies exist, as long as they are all in his possession and not performed in any unlicensed fashion? What seems to matter is whether he has the right to possess and perform the song at all. The closest thing that seems reasonable to me would be if we were talking about DJs using songs off of albums that they just bought at the record store, without paying for a performance license, or, better yet, completely bootlegged copies that they downloaded or got from friends. of course that would be illegal, but nobody's talking about that.

Although the record companies will welcome the license fees, the small amount of revenue they will generate isn't the point at all, Robertson said.

"It's more a question of copyright control than generating revenues," he said. "It's important to keep things like copyright above board like this."

Ah, here it is! They are still trying to perpetuate the illusion that they should rightfully have complete control over the proliferation of physical copies of the data, and the perception of themselves as the one and only legitimate source for anything related to it. This is a very nasty tool that they use consistently in their propaganda: the equivocation between the concepts of licensing rights to information and the physical act of duplicating it. The two concepts are very different, but these guys jump back and forth at will, using each to "refute" arguments that are really about the other. The difference was not so important back when physical duplication was difficult and expensive, since they had an almost-but-maybe-not-quite monopoly on the ability to create copies. It was a service that they provided, along with granting licenses. Now, though, it's very easy to copy things, and there is no reason why people should need that service from them. They have absolutely no grounds for objecting to other people performing the physical copying as desired, as long as their licenses are respected.

They're acting as if they have both a patent on "a physical medium storing, in machine-readable form, the digital stream 0x6549cb5a67890f8460d..., or any data that represents the same audio signal", and a copyright on the song (both the composition and the performance) that is represented thereby. The patent would entitle them to control the creation of copies, and the copyright would entitle them to control the use of same. My sense is that they have the copyright but not the patent.

David Gould

$RIAA = \$EVIL; link("/tmp/riaa","/dev/evil");

[Plasmic]

It seems the key difference between the American music industry and the Canadian music industry is the existance of Canada's Audio Video Licensing Agency (AVLA). It's run by the CRIA (similar to RIAA). The AVLA can license music for specific uses if the record companies will agree.

I assumed that major record companies would be opposed to DJs' use of MP3s, as I always held the RIAA's opposition to MP3s as a projection of major record companies' opposition. However, the article says:

Most of the major record companies have signed on to AVLA's licensing scheme, although Universal Music -- which owns Polygram -- continues to hold out.

What does this mean? Well, for starters, it means that every major record company that sells music in Canada thought it was worth mentioning that MP3s even existed. In addition, they thought that it was just fine for some people to commercially use licensed music in MP3 format.

What does this mean?

The RIAA is more evil than the record companies they allege to represent.

The RIAA web site says:

Consumers, retailers and replicators can report suspected music piracy to the RIAA by dialing a toll-free hotline, 1-800-BAD-BEAT or sending e-mail to badbeat@riaa.com.

So call them and tell them that you spotted a geeky-looking DJ with a laptop possessing licensed copies of Top 40 MP3s run across the US-Canadian border to avoid capture by authorities. He's probably armed and dangerous.

But there's still The Tax

[FFFish]

It's important to remember that the Canadian government is still well on its way to imposing the asinine 50-cents-for-15-minutes tax on digital recording media.

The supposed rationale is that the tax will make up for the revenue lost by recording artists who have their works pirated. The monies collected are supposed to be distributed to those starving artists.

Unfortunately, the distribution will be based on the artists volume of media sold. The truly starving artists won't receive bugger all, while Celine Dion and Bryan Adams rake in yet more dough.

And never you mind that the tax is indiscriminate. You might never use your CDROM for music; you use it as data backup. You'll be paying the artists tax anyway, unless there's some sort of language that lets "For Data Use"-labelled CDROMs be sold taxless, while "For Music Use"-labelled ones be sold taxed.

It's a right cockup, in any case, and you can register your protest at http://www.sycorp.com/levyinfo.htm. Please do!

Hrrrm

[Signal 11]

You may read, view, or otherwise observe the contents of this post. You are also granted the non-exclusive right to copy this post to a information storage device such as a 'PC', however at no time may there be more than one copy of this post be viewable from the information storage device through any medium. Reader is further warned that poster hereby disclaims any responsibility that will result from reading this pseudo-legalise. Author of this post does not offer any warranty, either implied or otherwise....

Any fool can create legalise and obscure things, and any fool will mind it. Information has been, and always will be... free. The RIAA would spend it's resources better trying to make water run uphill.

--

Future

[sporty]

Imagine it. DJ MusicDealer caries around his magic machine with gigs of music, dodging the law. He goes to a party to deal out his music with a serial port board which interfaces with the Diamond Rio devices. They don't wanna pay $50 a cd (it's the future -- inflation). The cops break in, people scatter.

---

Re:Future

[vyesue]

either this laptop has a hundred serial ports or this is going to be a _really_ long party.

An update of an older issue

[Cplus]

I'm a dj in Canada and one of the great things about djing up here in the past has been that you can buy collections of licenced songs. You may have 600 albums that you've scraped pennies for but you probably don't have all of the songs that people would request (if you take em). I bought a collection of 200 cd's with my selection of songs on them. Covered everything and now when I n4eed neew music I only have to get singles updates. They're not for general distribution and are only available through dj supply companies, but sweet to have. THis mp3 licence is basically a revamping of the law that allows this in Canada.

Hard Drive?

[MtnMan1021]

The concept of limiting the license to one hard drive is quite limited, to say the least.
How does one define a hard drive?
Does a RAID count?
IBM now has 73.4GB hard drives (Ultrastar 72ZX). What is the point of limiting the storage to one physical hard drive?
Does the license apply to mp3's stored on other media?
How is the hard drive license enforceable and how are partitions dealt with?

Just a rant, ignore me.
----- --- - - -
jacob rothstein

Re:Hard Drive?

[Tom Christiansen]

How does one define a hard drive? Does a RAID count? [...] How is the hard drive license enforceable and how are partitions dealt with?

That's an interesting question. One us2them style translator notes that when technical neophytes say "hard drive", they can mean any of

1. controller
2. disk
3. disk controller
4. disk drive
5. drive
6. file system
7. logical disk
8. mount point
9. partition
10. physical disk

And doubtless a good bit more. I have no idea what they think of a striped or concatenated filesystem. Well, yes I do. They don't. :-) Essentially, "hard drive" is nearly always used in a sloppy fashion by non-technical speakers to mean something rather different than its technical meaning. I would strongly avoid the term, if I were you, considering how messily overloaded it is.

Re:hey now

[technos]

Your fine use of the English language clearly shows you to be of alternate extraction. However, one US-centric comment need not raise your ire to a stage such as this. Comments like that only serve to perpetuate the sterotype that we as 'foreigners' are stupid, insensitive, nose-in-the-air cads. Besides, most /. posters are 'American', as is the site itself. Don't like the company? I'm sure Argentina has an equivalent, perhaps even in a more familiar tongue. Go there, and leave us to /.

I don't understand why this is an issue

[EvlG]

Why can't the DJs just play the MP3s anyways, as long as they have bought the CD in the first place?

Is there a reason why a DJ here in the US can't buy a CD, MP3 it, and then take that somewhere to play it? He's already paid the record company (and thus the RIAA) and now he is just using his music.

Where's the problem? Why does he need a license?

(And yes I know this law exists in Canda, but the wired article implied US DJs can't use MP3s. I don't understand why.)

Was it ever illegal to use mp3s in the first place

[Kartoffel]

Since when were Canadian DJs NOT allowed to use MP3s in their performances? As long as the DJ legally purchased the original record or CD that the mp3 came from I see nothing wrong with spinning mp3s. What an absurd law.

The article in Wired gives the impression that it was previously illegal to use anything other than the original media when DJ'ing for money...as if! Even the most backwards RIAA toad would agree that it's OK for DJs to create compilations for use in performances, as long as they own the originals and never distribute the compilation.

The CN$200 fee gives DJs a blanket license to make one reproduction of music released by most of the major record companies.

And we're supposed to act like this is a good thing? DJs have used homemade cassette tape recordings in their performances for years without anyone making a fuss. Granted, most serious DJs use vinyl or CD these days, but there's nothing stopping them from using minidiscs or DATs if they wanted. It looks to me like Canada has lifted a restriction where no restriction ever existed, along with adding a convenient new source or revenuse (from the $200 license). However, IANAC (I am not a Canadian). Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong ;).

Using re-recorded media is nothing new. DJs have also been able to use samples of copyrighted media (within certain limits) for ever.

Better go turn myself in to the RCMP: one time I drove through part of Canada while listening to burned audio CDs made from mp3s. It's a good thing nobody else heard the music or offered to pay me for it, or I'd be in big trouble, eh!?

um... it's not a law

[turg]

This isn't a law. It's a lisencing agreement from the Cadadian Recording Industry Association
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht

I don't see what the big deal is.

[Kaz Kylheku]

People copy copyrighted material from CD's to hard disks all the time. It's called ``software installation''. Also, back in the days when software was shipped on floppies, it was acceptable practice to make backup floppies.

Copies that are made for personal convenience or backup purposes don't amount to copyright infringement.

The DJ already has legal master copies and is allowed to play them to the clients, so what does it matter by what means the music makes its way to the speakers?

What's surprising to me is that this wasn't previously allowed.

Re:Good and bad...

[schon]

they made a law to charge you for something that was already free.

That's not what is happening.

To my knowledge, it has always been free to rip music from CDs for your personal use, granted that you own the CD as well.

Yes, this continues to be true. Nobody is charging for personal use. The point you're missing is that playing songs commercially at someone else's party isn't personal use; it's commercial use.

An intresting connection

[In-Doge]

As a local underground DJ here in Vancouver, it's going to be intresting to see where this goes. Over in Toronto the CRIA assisted the RCMP in the seziure of DJ mixtapes from the shelves of undergroud record stores, and the proesuction of some of the shop owners. This caused the pulling of mixtapes from at least 2 well-known underground music stores here in Vancouver. Personally IMO the CRIA has no place doing this as a lot of the record labels that are on those tapes have no association with the CRIA (a lot of the record labels that make the music come from the UK.) At the worst I see the CRIA taking a crusade against underground media (DJ Mixtapes, bootleg remixes) like the RIAA has taken against the MP3 scene. I definitely don't think we've seen the last of the CRIA tho, since the last 2 times the CRIA has been in the headlines that I've heard, the word "DJ" has been in the sentence.

And anyways, personally again the CRIA should put thier hands in another cookie jar, this one may be tasty, but it's definitely not profitiable (at least on the level I'm on now.)

Re:The US music industry

[Haven]

I am wondering how the Government is taking all these "phillips Cd recorders" commercials. There was one where a guy burned a CD and brought it to a huge party, and gave it to the DJ. Isn't that illegal?

I want my MP3!

[Wah]

It's as simple as that. I've found it to be the best, most reliable, and open digital music option. Case in point, Real. I no longer use any Real products. I've also made it Company Policy (yup) that we not their products (that's also a bandwidth issue). Each site I visit that uses the format I send a concise, polite letter saying why I won't use Real and why I want MP3.

I also use Sonique and download MP3s streamed straight to 32mb files, which I then dump to a Rio. Simple, easy, open. Nobody messin' with my HD, nobody tracking me. And now I listen to a LOT more music (and NO fscking commercials), in wide ranging genres.

What the RIAA (and others) needs to realize is that the Internet makes control of digital media impossible. Their products have become (like software) inherently infinite. Pricing based on scarcity will become more and more difficult to maintain. The entire business model needs to change to take this into account. This is not being done. Enough ranting, sorry this is a bit off-topic, but if you have the bandwidth and sit in front of or near a computer for much fo the time, there are vast fields of interesting tones awaiting your inspection, don't let them be taken away from you. (/offtopic rant)

Red flags, trains, cars, horses and evolution

[Morgaine]

You've got it back to front I think. Despite throwing the occasional olive branch as in this case, the RIAA has a massive problem with MP3s, because they're fighting for their very survival, even more so than the musicians. There are a lot of possible scenarios for the future of the music industry in which the RIAA ceases to exist utterly, along with the studios that they represent.

Their current actions are like the red flags that pressure groups walked in front of locomotives, and their mega-industry is every bit as collosal as the one that used to be centred on the horse for transport and which now does not exist at all except in tiny niches. The lesson of history is that even the most extensive and solid of institutions is not as permanent as it may seem in its heyday.

In the case of music, that impermanence couldn't be more clear. Before the invention of recording, it wasn't possible to make money from replication of musical performances. Then recording was invented but replication required massive plants and capital, which created the opportunity for an industry to be born and collosal profits to be made. And now the wheel of technological progress has turned again: replication can be performed by anyone and costs almost nothing, and the window of opportunity for making profits from it has closed again.

Despite their self-righteous rationalizations, there is no law of nature that says that the music industry will always be as lucrative as it has been for the last few decades. There are no fixed points where technology is concerned, and MP3s are a sign of that. This newest chapter in the empowerment of individuals effectively means that the time for massive profits from replication and controlled distribution is over, that the RIAA is in the throes of extinction or at least severe mutation, and that the relationship between musicians and their audience is in transition. And so be it.

Bye bye RIAA. No one really expects you to die quietly, but die you will, just like other prehistoric giants who were too set in their ways to adapt to changing conditions. And that's not a bad analogy, because once again it's those pesky little creatures underfoot that are in the ascendency.

Re:Red flags, trains, cars, horses and evolution

[wilkinsm]

That's very inciteful - except the unlike the biblical Golaith, I don't see them toppling too easily. Money buys lots of power. Just look at the Cigarate companys, or Microsoft.

From my experience with MP3.com, I'm quickly reaching the point where I will buy $5 CD's from them. The whole entertainment medium is being force to speed up and to cut costs.

However I do agree that it's only a matter of time before BtoB distribution cuts out the middle man.

A Little Context

[Gray]

I'm a (radio) DJ on a collage station here in Ottawa.. IMO, AVLA is one of those self-feeding groups that has very little impact on your average working DJ.. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone I know who is a memeber, but I've never asked.. It's like the relationship between the RIAA to your average garage band.. And there are even less rich DJs then rich rock stars.

This decision is just a way to score some ink and political fire for a otherwise tiny and powerless group.. Of course it's already legal to make comps out of CDs you already own, they know that..

They seem to be addressing hardcore 'single' type DJing, where downloading the super fresh singles of the moment off the net and licencing them would be useful.. Maybe in the clubs in london or dancehalls in jamacia, but in canada that scene just isn't much of a factor. Besides, that style of DJing pretty much requires vinyl..

Of course, you can just skip the fee and do it anyway.. The record companies want the exposure anyway, club plays lead to album sales.. That's why they make white labels (pre-releases for DJs).. Our station gets a boat load of free promo-only music every week.. They'd happly pay us $200 to download and play their song, but that's illigal.. Instead they have to give away free trips and prizes and crap.. "Win a trip to blah to see blah contest." Guess who pays for those I'm sure Chris Sheppards life is a non-stop orgy of record company financed sin.

Labels don't care about DJs stealing their hot new singles.. On the other hand, DJs building up a few hundred gigs of mp3s by ripping every CD they can get their hands on and then using that for gigs, that might be a little worrying.. But still, there just aren't enough DJs in Canada for it to matter in term of sales.. DJs have been doing record pools forever..

So basically, this is totally meaningless to everyone I can think of, but I will admit, a tiny step forward and that's still good..

Re:whoah... do you actually talk like that?

[MattXVI]

Do you really think Queen Victoria would have encouraged people to talk context-free smack like that?

Anyway, you guys played. It's obviously the output of the ubiquitous Automated Rant Generator, with one or two words changed. Somebody is having some fun seeing if you guys can tell the difference.