As much as copyright holders would love you to buy multiple copies of their product for use in the home, car and mp3-player, all their crying about copyright infringement really has little to do with that aspect of it.
Virtually every DRM scheme people are toying around with has provisions for making personal copies such as use in an MP3 player.
It really doesn't matter what their intent is, the result of strong legally-enforced DRM is the same as if their goal was to force music and video to "wear out", to take control of people's own computers away from them, to prevent vital and critical and utterly legal activities, and for that matter to destroy much of the intent of copyright law in the first place.
Start by supporting some DRM scheme
Why? Strong DRM is inherently unworkable. This is fundamental to the discussion... you can not build a strong DRM scheme without taking away people's rights, and yet you can't build a DRM scheme that's strong enough to stop me from connecting a recorder to the audio-out of my computer.
On top of that... the medium that the industry is complaining about losing sales of... CDs... have no DRM protection at all. If they really want DRM, they'd be better off letting CDs fall off the applecart altogether.
Seems to me the ones being the most unreasonable here are the ones with the least vested interest.
I would agree. The ones with the most interest in a DRM-free environment are every law-abiding computer user and music listener in the world. And the vast majority aren't ripping off artists and sharing their whole music collection online, but you want to punish them just as if they were.
I wrote: "not to mention, you can use your iPod as a general purpose USB/FW disk drive, back up your data to it, store and view photos on it, and record your own music and audio notes..."
maglor replies: "Which you can also do on pretty much every other MP3 player out there"
I'm not getting your point here. Napster says "you need to spend $15k to fill up this iPod", I responded with a list of other things you may be using that space for, significantly reducing the space available for music.
What do other MP3 players have to do with it? Does the fact that other MP3 players can also be used for these things somehow force you to come up with enough songs to fill that space on the iPod? What are you getting at?
It might take $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention...... not to mention, you can use your iPod as a general purpose USB/FW disk drive, back up your data to it, store and view photos on it, and record your own music and audio notes...
If they really want to beat the iPod, give me a Palm with a hard drive...
They are right about DRM, by limiting the amount of time a user can view the file, they are just increasing demand for a cracked one.
Back when I was usingthe Apple II, most of the stuff I was working with was source code, software I wrote myself, but there was one game I really wanted to play... Wizardry.
Wizardry's copy protection was so strict and timing sensitive that if your floppy drive was a little bit out of alignment, you would get to the point where saving your game (on the master disk!) would lock you into ONLY using that floppy drive.
When that drive failed, the only way I could get back in was to get one of the local "crackers" to write a cracked copy of Wizardry over my real, legal, licensed copy on the master disk.
Is that really better for their customers than a set of binary drivers?
I would say so.
I haven't worked with SCSI RAID cards, but I have had to deal with ethernet controllers from companies that depend on their binaries to paper over flaws in their ever-growing list of chipsets (many of which are released with the same part number but require completely different drivers), and also with companies who release few chipsets and document them. The latter are much more pleasant to deal with.
The binary-only approach causes problems even when you are using their binary drivers. I've been in the unfortunate position of having the drivers shipped with the card not actually work, so I had to download new ones... but I didn't have another machine onsite so I had to drive back to the office, download the right drivers, stick them on a floppy, and take them back to the colo before I could bring the network up far enough to finish the install.
If Adaptec's change management is such that the only supported alternatives are binary drivers or "something [...] that is only guaranteed to work with a certain generation of cards with only a certain generation of firmware", then I for one will be sticking with software RAID.
Have you tried storing the batteries under a tantalum-wire scale model of the Great Pyramid ligned precisely 3 degrees off Magnetic North during the vernal equinox?
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know if they've managed to make posession of music without a license illegal yet, but I don't believe they have.
Certainly there's case law against it in many countries, such as the recent decision in France. I'm not at all sure that the artists suposedly being protected by the various proposed extensions to copyright law would actually approve of so rigid a regime, especially stated in such bald terms.
"The GPL isn't about consistent copyright law, it's about fair copyright law."
The GPL is about dictating a specific set of terms and conditions that RMS believes is fair.
Both of these are true statements. The GPL is about what RMS says it is about. I don't particularly care for the GPL myself, but that doesn't mean I'm going to put words in Stallman's mouth.
Defending one person's right to protection under copyright, while ignoring another person's right to the same, is nothing but hypocrisy.
There's the red herring again. One can be opposed to the current expansion of new copyright law without being opposed to Metallica being able to assert their fair rights under traditional copyright law.
If you are found with large numbers of albums ripped on your laptop and cannot produce the CDs, will they accept your honest statement that the CDs were stolen?
Under traditional copyright law if you don't distribute those songs from your laptop you're not guilty of anything. It doesn't matter how you got them, you could have recorded them from the radio (legal), from a TV broadcast or simulcast (legal).
I do have a couple of trashed CDs I keep as the no-longer-readable originals, but that's because I'm compulsive, not because I legally have to.:)
Under the copyright regime the industry wants, you might well be liable for something just because you have a lot of MP3s on your computer... but I don't believe we're there yet. They have scared people who have downloaded songs over p2p into paying fines and fees, but if they were leeching (not redistributing the music) they should be free and clear.
If they find the songs on your laptop over a share or over a P2P application, well, you're boned no matter where you got them from.
we could portray ourselves as "fighting to help ensure equal protection for the rights of the little guy", instead of "fighting the evil corporations."
Dude, there are many rights that are of no use to the little guy, and can only be used by big corporations. Consider software patents, for example.
"The rights the entertainment industry is demanding is the right to control the use of their "software", not just the distribution."
Yes, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that, so long as it's applied to all copyright holders.
Sure it is. Copyright is supposed to be a balance between the rights of people to use their property. And that includes the users as well as the creators.
I'm arguing for *consistent* copyright law.
That's why it's a red herring. The GPL isn't about consistent copyright law, it's about fair copyright law.
Those are actually good examples of what I'm talking about - fair and equal protection across the board. Drunk driving is a crime, that's true - but it's a crime for *everyone*. There aren't a special class of people for whom it's explicitly allowed. It's consistent.
"The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread." -- Anatole France.
I'm not arguing for or against strong copyright, just consistency; regardless of how strong it is, it should afford equal protection to all copyright holders.
Not all copyright holders are demanding "equal protection". The GPL doesn't demand all the "rights" that the industry does. Don't let them take more than they need, you're not.
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I tend to sign with my name *and* the name of the store and the date. I've only had a couple of cashiers even comment on it, ever.
Here's the article from Time's online archive (you need to pay for the full article, but the first paragraph matches).
Won't work on aliens any more than it'll work on humans.
If you send someone some information and the key to unlock that information then you haven't actually protected yourself.
As much as copyright holders would love you to buy multiple copies of their product for use in the home, car and mp3-player, all their crying about copyright infringement really has little to do with that aspect of it.
Virtually every DRM scheme people are toying around with has provisions for making personal copies such as use in an MP3 player.
It really doesn't matter what their intent is, the result of strong legally-enforced DRM is the same as if their goal was to force music and video to "wear out", to take control of people's own computers away from them, to prevent vital and critical and utterly legal activities, and for that matter to destroy much of the intent of copyright law in the first place.
Start by supporting some DRM scheme
Why? Strong DRM is inherently unworkable. This is fundamental to the discussion... you can not build a strong DRM scheme without taking away people's rights, and yet you can't build a DRM scheme that's strong enough to stop me from connecting a recorder to the audio-out of my computer.
On top of that... the medium that the industry is complaining about losing sales of... CDs... have no DRM protection at all. If they really want DRM, they'd be better off letting CDs fall off the applecart altogether.
Seems to me the ones being the most unreasonable here are the ones with the least vested interest.
I would agree. The ones with the most interest in a DRM-free environment are every law-abiding computer user and music listener in the world. And the vast majority aren't ripping off artists and sharing their whole music collection online, but you want to punish them just as if they were.
I dunno, if I legally own that stuff, you could assume that some of the people legally own what they download from you.
No, You're distributing it, even if you verify that every recipient is entitled to a copy you're still boned. That's what killed mp3.com.
I wasn't disagreeing with your main point, just noting that you were launching it from unsound footing.
1. Freshly install all OSes.
2. Install P2P programs.
3. Download all the songs THAT I OWN ON CDs.
4. Download all the movies that I own.
Yuo're missing step 2b, "turn off file sharing and go into leech mode", otherwise you're distributing that stuff and they've got you dead to rights.
I wrote: "not to mention, you can use your iPod as a general purpose USB/FW disk drive, back up your data to it, store and view photos on it, and record your own music and audio notes..."
maglor replies: "Which you can also do on pretty much every other MP3 player out there"
I'm not getting your point here. Napster says "you need to spend $15k to fill up this iPod", I responded with a list of other things you may be using that space for, significantly reducing the space available for music.
What do other MP3 players have to do with it? Does the fact that other MP3 players can also be used for these things somehow force you to come up with enough songs to fill that space on the iPod? What are you getting at?
The red herring here is your use of the word "fair" to avoid accepting the principle of copyright.
Where did I "avoid accepting the principle of copyright"?
Please document this, I would hate to have inadvertently implied such a thing, and I sure can't recall doing so.
*Any* local exploit is *also* a potential remote exploit
This isn't a local exploit, it's a local denial of service attack.
I'm not talking about using CSS for table layout, I'm talking about using a grid layout engine (like tables) for the overall page layout.
Actually no, in my case it would cause me not to puchase that "content" at all.
That too. I did say Wizardry was the only commercial game I played... and they had me hooked before I knew about the problem.
It might take $10,000 to fill an iPod with songs downloaded from iTunes or with music converted to MP3 from newly purchased CDs, but there's a lot of downloadable and legit free music out there, not to mention... ... not to mention, you can use your iPod as a general purpose USB/FW disk drive, back up your data to it, store and view photos on it, and record your own music and audio notes...
If they really want to beat the iPod, give me a Palm with a hard drive...
They are right about DRM, by limiting the amount of time a user can view the file, they are just increasing demand for a cracked one.
Back when I was usingthe Apple II, most of the stuff I was working with was source code, software I wrote myself, but there was one game I really wanted to play... Wizardry.
Wizardry's copy protection was so strict and timing sensitive that if your floppy drive was a little bit out of alignment, you would get to the point where saving your game (on the master disk!) would lock you into ONLY using that floppy drive.
When that drive failed, the only way I could get back in was to get one of the local "crackers" to write a cracked copy of Wizardry over my real, legal, licensed copy on the master disk.
Is that really better for their customers than a set of binary drivers?
I would say so.
I haven't worked with SCSI RAID cards, but I have had to deal with ethernet controllers from companies that depend on their binaries to paper over flaws in their ever-growing list of chipsets (many of which are released with the same part number but require completely different drivers), and also with companies who release few chipsets and document them. The latter are much more pleasant to deal with.
The binary-only approach causes problems even when you are using their binary drivers. I've been in the unfortunate position of having the drivers shipped with the card not actually work, so I had to download new ones... but I didn't have another machine onsite so I had to drive back to the office, download the right drivers, stick them on a floppy, and take them back to the colo before I could bring the network up far enough to finish the install.
If Adaptec's change management is such that the only supported alternatives are binary drivers or "something [...] that is only guaranteed to work with a certain generation of cards with only a certain generation of firmware", then I for one will be sticking with software RAID.
Have you tried storing the batteries under a tantalum-wire scale model of the Great Pyramid ligned precisely 3 degrees off Magnetic North during the vernal equinox?
If not, you better hurry, it's almost over.
What does access to Evercrack cost in Suadi Arabia?
I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know if they've managed to make posession of music without a license illegal yet, but I don't believe they have.
Certainly there's case law against it in many countries, such as the recent decision in France. I'm not at all sure that the artists suposedly being protected by the various proposed extensions to copyright law would actually approve of so rigid a regime, especially stated in such bald terms.
"The GPL isn't about consistent copyright law, it's about fair copyright law."
The GPL is about dictating a specific set of terms and conditions that RMS believes is fair.
Both of these are true statements. The GPL is about what RMS says it is about. I don't particularly care for the GPL myself, but that doesn't mean I'm going to put words in Stallman's mouth.
Defending one person's right to protection under copyright, while ignoring another person's right to the same, is nothing but hypocrisy.
There's the red herring again. One can be opposed to the current expansion of new copyright law without being opposed to Metallica being able to assert their fair rights under traditional copyright law.
Sorry, I got you mixed up with bsartist.
:)
If you are found with large numbers of albums ripped on your laptop and cannot produce the CDs, will they accept your honest statement that the CDs were stolen?
Under traditional copyright law if you don't distribute those songs from your laptop you're not guilty of anything. It doesn't matter how you got them, you could have recorded them from the radio (legal), from a TV broadcast or simulcast (legal).
I do have a couple of trashed CDs I keep as the no-longer-readable originals, but that's because I'm compulsive, not because I legally have to.
Under the copyright regime the industry wants, you might well be liable for something just because you have a lot of MP3s on your computer... but I don't believe we're there yet. They have scared people who have downloaded songs over p2p into paying fines and fees, but if they were leeching (not redistributing the music) they should be free and clear.
If they find the songs on your laptop over a share or over a P2P application, well, you're boned no matter where you got them from.
Cool, what if I keep the files after someone steals my original CD or LP, or if they are destroyed in a hurricane?
Are you really unable to generalise from "give someone a copy or keep the files after I sell the CD", or are you just astroturfing?
we could portray ourselves as "fighting to help ensure equal protection for the rights of the little guy", instead of "fighting the evil corporations."
Dude, there are many rights that are of no use to the little guy, and can only be used by big corporations. Consider software patents, for example.
Restricted use, restricted distribution, regardless
Ther's no regardless there. The distinction between those two concepts is a big chunk of why the GPL reads the way it does.
"The rights the entertainment industry is demanding is the right to control the use of their "software", not just the distribution."
Yes, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that, so long as it's applied to all copyright holders.
Sure it is. Copyright is supposed to be a balance between the rights of people to use their property. And that includes the users as well as the creators.
I'm arguing for *consistent* copyright law.
That's why it's a red herring. The GPL isn't about consistent copyright law, it's about fair copyright law.
Those are actually good examples of what I'm talking about - fair and equal protection across the board. Drunk driving is a crime, that's true - but it's a crime for *everyone*. There aren't a special class of people for whom it's explicitly allowed. It's consistent.
"The law, in all its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread." -- Anatole France.
I'm not arguing for or against strong copyright, just consistency; regardless of how strong it is, it should afford equal protection to all copyright holders.
Not all copyright holders are demanding "equal protection". The GPL doesn't demand all the "rights" that the industry does. Don't let them take more than they need, you're not.