I'm not sure that's exactly the case. In the article, both the father
of the accused cheater and a representative of Georgia Tech indicate
that the policy is pro-discussion but anti-collaboration. I think the
anti-discussion allegations are being largely injected by the author
of the piece, who is already coming from the biased viewpoint that the
accused cheater was unfairly nabbed. The author attributes the
anti-discussion policy to GT, but any actual policy quotes
don't support the anti-discussion notion (only the
anti-solution sharing/collaboration notion).
Anyway, try re-reading the article as if it was an editorial or even a
Slashdot post from a suspected troll. A lot of what's in there seems
to actually be the author feeding on his own sense of outrage. The
extreme bias makes me question whether or not the author had previous
biases with regard to either the student or Georgia Tech.
"Most movies are far more expensive to produce than a music CD, yet
they only cost a couple dollars more with many priced between
$15-$25."
Of course many movies have the luxury of being able to completely
recoupe their expenses before they hit video. For example, "Panic
Room" had a 48 million dollar budget, and made 30 million on opening
weekend alone (currently, it's at 73 million). Even "Van Wilder"
(currently clinging to the bottom of the weekend top 10 list) has
raked in 13.7 million versus its 6 million budget.
Still, you do have have straight-to-video releases. But these also
tend not to have the vast budgets for which theatrical releases are
famous.
"it's the point that CDs are so cheap to press and ship out that
AOL can do it on such a massive scale that everyone and their mother
gets two or three of them a month."
Hence my comment about rocking out to the "You've got mail!" sound.
The physical CD may be cheap to press, but you still have to come up
with desireable data to go on there.
As for where the money's going, there's payola (which would require
reform of the radio station monopoly), studio time, producers, song
writers (who apparently get compensated fairly well), and who knows
what else.
Still, I'll admit that there's probably some people who're becoming
richer over this. But an inherently overpriced product doesn't
automatically negate their copyright. If I decide to sell, "Slashdot
poster Erasmus Darwin screamed into the mike and did speaker feedback"
for $100,000,000 per copy, your legal choices are still the
same as if I were selling it for $1 per copy: Buy or buy not. There
is no copy. (Unless you're somewhere like Canada with more flexible
copyright laws. But that's tangential to the point at hand.)
"Communication and file distribution is at the point where we don't
need the middle man, the huge recording company with the distribution
channels."
That's all nice and good. However, that means you should be buying
music from independent musicians. That doesn't mean that you can just
ignore the copyright on existing music which the middle man has
essentially purchased the rights to from the original artist.
Similarly, let's say I walk into Walmart to purchase a Coleman lantern
because I think of them as the classic camping lantern from
back when I was a Cub Scout, and say my decision has nothing to do
with any of their advertising or Walmart's advertising (with Walmart
being chosen because it's the nearest store to my house). Now is it
fair for me to demand a discount on the lantern because I didn't need
any of their advertising? Is it fair for me to demand a discount
because I didn't need to ask an employee for help? Is it fair for me
to demand a discount because I'm willing to bag my own purchase,
thereby allowing the cashier to help the next person in line more
quickly?
The point is that the entire role of business is to take a bunch of
expenses and distribute them (and a profit margin) across a number of
products. In the case of the music industry, they've got expenses
ranging from television advertisements (which may've been how the
person who told you about a band heard about them) to studio time
(expensive!) to money lost on failed projects (which Ms. Love's
classic money thing fails to consider) to licensing fees for songs
that borrow heavily from earlier works.
But if you don't want to contribute to that, fine. But rather than
engaging in copyright infringement to obtain music which was financed
at the expense of the music industry, go with an indie-produced work.
That'd be comparable to me going the mail-order route for my lantern
above (and thus avoiding some but not all of the overhead I mentioned
in that example).
"But what do you do about it when a VERY large percentage of the
people that those laws serve (believe it or not, copyright law is
there to serve the people, NOT the record companies) decide they're
not going to abide by them anymore?"
The problem here is that those people're being short-sighted, as the
works that they want to copy exist primarily because of the copyright
laws. While the government exists to serve the people, it has to look
beyond the individualistic actions of even a large group of people.
For example, it'd be safe to say that most Americans don't want nearby
nuclear reactors. At the same time, most Americans do want cheap
power. Similarly, most Americans don't want pieces of their property
condemned for building roads. At the same time, most Americans want
to be able to travel from place to place with minimal amounts of
traffic.
In this case, most Americans want to be able to share music with the
friends at no cost. At the same time, they want the music made
possible by copyright to exist (otherwise they wouldn't be able to
share it).
"In the early 80's, video was heralded as the Death of Hollywood.
Hollywood looks rather not-dead to me."
I still don't think it's the same thing. There's a noticeable quality
difference between watching a video and going to see a movie -- even
the most unobservant viewer would be hard-pressed not to notice the
giant movie screen. mp3s, on the other hand, come much closer to CD
quality. Overall, I'd say a better analogy set would be: Theatrical
movie release ~= Concert; Video/DVD ~= Tape/CD; mp3 ~= DivX;-)
Furthermore, the DIY crowd has had no problem getting legitimate mp3s
(at least until the recent copy protection uproar). Personally, I
just pop CDs that I own into my CD player and then run a script that
handles all the effort of identifying the artist/tracks with CDDB,
ripping the CD with cdparanoia, and finally encoding the music with
LAME. I got what I wanted, and I paid for it.
Instead, the problem is in rampant duplication. Yes, if I'm patient,
if I have 2 VCRs, and if I can bypass Macrovision, I can make a copy
of a tape for a friend. It happens, but it's small scale. There's
also something of a quality degredation issue after a few
generations.
With mp3s, on the other hand, people have the resources available to
trade them far and wide. A 50th generation copy of an mp3 is
identical to the original mp3 (provided you don't reencode it). Also,
P2P lets me share it with hundreds of thousands of my closest
friends.
I dunno. It just seems that there's no clear win for the music
industry in this scenario. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. But I
don't think it's the same situation as before.
"If I could buy a quality MP3 of a song for.25, store it forever,
and burn it to my own CD's for personal use, I'd do it."
I'm not sure the U.S. price would be that low. It's 10 Rs (20 cents)
for an Indian mp3, but the regular CD there costs 250 Rs ($5). So if
the prices are proportional, it'd be 50-60 cents per song here.
"When a business model fails, it is not the government's
responsability to make laws to sustain it."
I see this argument over and over again in the copyright-related
threads, and it irks me. The laws are designed to combat something
that is already illegal.
Awhile ago, the government came out and said something to the effect
of, "Okay, we're creating this copyright thing. Yes, it's essentially
a legal fiction (then again, so are currency and government), but we
think it's good. Basically, we'll reward people who devote time,
effort, money, and talent to creating information-based works by
giving them a time-limited exclusive control over that work."
Now in the interim, we've had the government do stupid things related
to copyright, such as the Sonny Bono Act and the DMCA. However, that
doesn't change the underlying principle that people who venture into
the business of creating works for commercial sale are doing so
because the government has created an artificial system that allows
them compensation.
When it comes to P2P music sharing, the problem isn't that it's
invented a new loophole that isn't covered by copyright. Instead, the
problem is that it's a new form of massive copyright violation that's
nearly impossible to prosecute on an individual basis. When
something's already illegal, (allegedly) massively cuts into sales,
and unstoppable, that's not a failing of the business model, per se.
Anyway, getting back to the point of the article, it looks like an
interesting idea. I'm honestly curious to see whether or not it
succeeds. It's a service offering cheap, legitimate equivalents to
what's already available free on P2P services.
"If AOL/Compuserv/Freeserve can give away CD's in shops and with
hardware then why do i have to pay £20 for a music CD?"
If music CDs were like AOL CDs, music stores would give them away like
candy. Then, when you got home, you'd only be able to do anything
with it as long as you paid $19.95/month. And since it's online
authentication, you wouldn't be able to listen to them in the car. In
short, you're really comparing two completely different things
here.
Or to put it another way, if an AOL CD is really equivalent to a music
CD, you don't need music CDs. You can just get free AOL CDs instead,
and rock on to the groovy sound of "You've got mail!"
Besides, the price of music CDs has nothing to do with the physical
medium. It costs money to produce the information on a music CD. The
information on a music CD has value to many people. The physical CD
is just a way of getting around the problem of transferring that
information. In short, it's the information that has the value --
you'd think that out of everyone, Slashdotters would understand
this.
(And yes, I'm well aware of the "information wants to be free"
argument. Without supporting or condemning that philosophy, it
doesn't change the facts above -- whether it's a fully GPL'd Linux
distribution or a commercial, shrink-wrapped game, it still costs
money to produce and has value to the users.)
I'm dreading the easiest fix that publishers can use: Cheaper glue.
Cheaper glue makes books less durable, hindering resale. Cheaper glue
isn't inherently obvious at the consumer level, making avoid it
difficult. If the books of an author we're interested in are
published using cheaper glue, we have no real alternative means of
purchasing the same book with better binding, short of grabbing the
(relatively expensive) hardcover edition.
In short, publishers get lower cost and higher sales. Authors get
more royalties. Initial consumers get a shoddier product, and used
consumers most likely get missing pages.
"This is the kind of thinking that's often used to protect
fundamentally flawed or obsolete business models, much like security
by obscurity tries to protect flawed software."
First, one could argue that having an author help promote a sale on
which the author receives no revenue (the resale of a used book via
Amazon) is also a flawed business model. In fact, every time the mp3
debates roll around, someone usually brings up the issue of having the
artist more accessible to the people -- if they make a connection,
people will be encouraged to buy directly from the artist. So, I see
no reason why Amazon should expect authors to help promote buying
through their site when authors receive a better return on their
virtual facetime through a different book seller.
Second, it's possible that a "new and improved" business model will be
less consumer-friendly. For example, there's been discussion on
Slashdot over digitally restricted books that only allow themselves to
be read for a certain amount of time. Given a choice, I'd rather lose
book resale than have to deal with "book licenses". Also, as someone
who's generally uninterested in used books or reselling books I own,
I'd be willing to buy special "NOT FOR RESALE" copies provided that
said books were cheaper -- I'd be foregoing use of a right that I
don't exercise anyway in exchange for economic consideration.
I did some quick searching, and I came across fairuse.stanford.edu, which
seems to have quite a bit of information on the subject. I admit that
I haven't dug too deeply into the subject, but I did follow their link
to the US Code relating to copyrights.
Under Title 17 (Copyrights), Chapter 1 (Subject Matter and Scope),
Section 107 (Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use), they describe
the
criteria for determining fair use. Two of them are "the amount
and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted
work as a whole" and "the effect of the use upon the potential market
for or value of the copyrighted work."
Under the substantial portion criterion, you could argue that there's
a big difference between in how much is copied when you compare the
two cases. 3 pages out of a 120 page magazine is only 2.5% of the
material. 2 songs out of a 12 track CD is 16%.
Under the potential market criterion, we could point to CD singles.
Music companies sell individual tracks from albums, so there's an
existing market for the entire entity that you've duplicated.
Still, I'm not a lawyer, and it's impossible to understand how the law
really gets applied without looking into all the case law and judicial
opinions that've arisen afterward. But I lack the time and interest
to make this into an entire research project.
I'll concede the home software point (and that's what I meant by
commercial PC software -- software that was commercially produced, not
necessarily software used in a commercial environment), but I think
you're missing the point on the photocopier issue.
Even paying $.10 per page is a lot if you're thinking in terms
of piracy. That's $20 for a 200 page novel that maybe retails
for $7 or $8. Furthermore, even with a home copier, it's pretty damn
inconvenient to photocopy every pair of pages (assuming you can fit
both on a single sheet). If, on the other hand, you're only
photocopying a few pages out of the work(such as an important passage
for a research paper), that generally falls under fair use
provisions.
In contrast, the CD duplicator requires less human intervention
(insert entire source, insert blank destination, insert money, wait),
and it lets you make duplicates at a cheaper cost than the retail
price of the mass published work.
Your implication that you were going to mod me down over this two
issues makes me even more wary of Slashdot's moderation. I'm glad you
chose to post your concerns, instead. Having both potential sides
listed in the thread allows readers and other moderators alike to get
a more well-rounded picture of what's going on. Anyway, on to the
points...
First, I'm not sure what relevance your original CD comments have.
Even assuming the system will only copy an original, store-bought CD
(a claim which I can't find supported in the article), I don't see how
that changes what I wrote. I even posted an example of using the
system to pirate an original CD in this
comment.
Second, my educated assumption (which I admit is a bit of a guess)
that the machine doesn't do mixes is based on the descriptions
provided. It's possible the article just fails to mention it, but
everything I read implied it's operation consisted of "Insert CD X.
Insert blank CD-R. Insert money. Remove two CD X's."
"Can anybody explain what is wrong with copying/pirating
music."
That's a whole multi-gig flamewar in and of itself.
But the short answer is that copying material in violation of the
copyright means that you're enjoying the fruits of someone's labor
without contributing anything toward the initial cost that went into
producing the information content of the item.
"I can copy CDs for far less than $7 a copy and in a much more
convenient setting than doing it from this machine."
First, I was comparing the piracy convenience of the machine to the
extreme piracy inconvenience of a photocopier. Doing fair use(?)
copies of two pages out of a book using a photocopier is cheap and
easy. Attempting to photocopy an entire book takes quite a bit of
effort and usually exceeds the cost of purchasing the book.
Second, a CD burner carries with it quite a bit of overhead --
especially if the person doesn't already own a computer. Compare that
to $7/copy, which is approximately 25% of the cost of a CD in
Australia. Furthermore, if you're already at the mall or the
convenience store with friends, it's not a particularly inconvenient
setting. And the actual copying process is convenient in the sense
that it requires no on-going user interaction to facilitate the copy
(as compared to photocopying the individual pages of a book).
"I think you're a bit biased in your view. You look on information
as something that is owned and controled. That is not its natural
state, that is the state of information in the corperate age."
You present a number of legitimate, non-infringing uses. I'll even
admit that I dropped the ball by not mentioning them in my previous
post. The problem is that they aren't especially likely.
Most of the CD-based information people deal with is corporate
or commercial in nature. I think it's great that we have garage
bands, public access TV, and amateur films, but I don't think they'll
ever compete with the level of permeation seen by pop stars, network
TV, and Hollywood. Even Linux, with its many benefits, doesn't have
the overall marketshare of Windows (even if it is holding its own in
the server realm).
In short, I see this service being used similarly to how many of the
popular music-based P2P services are used -- despite the occasional
legit use, most of the traffic is Britney Spears, Linkin Park,
N'Sync, and System of a Down.
"For starters I'm not about to goto a public place to go and pirate
music. Specially when I can do it from the comfort of my own
house."
That's great if you have access to a CD burner or only use mp3s. I
suspect, however, that the machine will get a fair amount of use from
friends who're hanging out together and decide to play the distributed
cost game. (Following values are AUD.) With a $30 CD and two $7
copies, it boils down to only $14.67 (or roughly half price) per
person if 3 friends use it to get a CD.
Furthermore, there are many people who own music CDs but who don't own
computers. There are also many people who carry part of their CD
collections in their cars.
Finally, I seem to recall Australians complaining about some of the
bandwidth costs associated with home internet access. That could make
using a P2P service an expensive proposition.
"You can buy knifes at stores. That makes murder as easy as 1.2.3."
On the other hand, I have a much easier time thinking of everyday
legitimate uses for knives (cutting food, opening packages, spreading
butter) than I do for a machine that can only do exact CD
duplication.
The machine is limited or fails in many of the traditional legitimate
uses of a regular CD burner:
Personal file backups -- This obviously won't work, as the
machines only duplicate existing CDs
Commercial PC software backups -- I have to concede this one,
though PC software CDs (which generally sit in a box or in your
machine) don't incur as much of a damage risk as music CDs
Music CD backups -- This is reasonable at $1 or less per pop with
a regular CD burner. But when someone has to pay $7 per CD and
stand around while it burns, I think they'll be more likely to replace
the occasional damaged CD unless they really abuse them.
Fair use mix CDs -- Since it only does an exact duplicate, I can't
even combine my favorite tracks for 8 different CDs that I already own
onto a single, convenient disc.
I think overall, the majority of usage of the machine will be of a
copyright infringing nature. And unlike a photocopier, which manages
to prevent many improper uses through cost and inconvenience, this
machine would be a casual music/software pirate's dream.
"Gimme a break. This guy is *NOT* responsible for all of the spam
the we deal with today."
In addition to the infamous greencard spam, he later coauthored the
book "How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway" which
encouraged others to do what he did (and rationalized such actions as
being acceptable). So while he may not be exclusively responsible, he
carries significantly more culpability than you're giving him credit
for.
"If you are not a spammer then it could be that you happen to be
using an ISP that tolerates spammers (or is unable/unwilling to block
them), or you work for a company that spam, or you are near a poorly
configured and poorly maintained site that is abused as an open
relay."
...or you've got an IP address that at one point in the past belonged
to a spammer. The problem with a static list such as this is that
there's no procedure to get an address removed from it, even if the
original ISP eventually kicks the spammer off or even if the ISP goes
out of business.
Consider, for example, the position of PaeTec Communications.
They've been unable to kick a spammer off (Monsterhut), as said
spammer was able to obtain a temporary injunction. When the case is
resolved, PaeTec will presumably win. Until then, however, the
address range they lease to Monsterhut is getting added to numerous
blacklists. I see no reason to why that address range shouldn't be
removed after PaeTec succeeds in ridding themself of this spammer --
at some point in the future, that address will get reassigned to a new
customer. But if the people blacklisting that address are using an
uncommented, static, ad hoc list that the snarfed from Slashdot,
there's a decent chance that that listing'll be around
indefinitely.
In summary, I strong encourage sysadmins to stick to well-maintained
lists when it comes to spam blacklisting. They should carefully
evaluate both the criteria that gets a site listed and the
criteria that gets a site unlisted.
"Millions of drug users use this model quite happily."
Drug users are slightly safer. If a single Peek-A-Booty user of a
given node is compromised, the government can start watching
all traffic to that node and build a giant list of criminals.
If a single drug customer is compromised, there're practical limits on
how many other clients they can catch during a sting.
"What good is it to depend on reports of spam stopping after the
spamming server gets listed as a basis for delisting it?"
I believe SpamCop doesn't use an absolute block. So it's still quite
possible for users to file spam reports against spam that's been
flagged as spam.
Also, if SpamCop uses external lists, the initial SpamCop listing only
needs to last long enough for the spammer to get on a more
permanent/human moderated list.
"Except that it's obvious to anyone with a brain that Y (collecting
should-be-private user information) doesn't contribute in any way to X
(providing faster, more reliable service.)"
According to Comcast's statement, the information they were collecting
(Y) wasn't connected to individual subscribers. One very obvious
possibility that fits the criteria for Y and applies to X would be a
list of the most popular sites that users visit, so that they may
prioritize improvements in their networking infrastructure. For
example, if they discover 40% of user web-traffic is going to only 10
different sites, it might even be worthwhile to look into dedicated
connections to those sites. Another possibility is that they were
considering implementing a web-caching scheme and wanted to gather
statistics necessary to figure out the ideal cache size.
There's certainly a very real possibility that Comcast could've been
collecting data in excess of what they claim or that they were
commercially exploiting the data, but you've got to be particularly
close-minded to be able to rule out any possibility of legitimate use.
"For god sake, if you are an ISP, concentrate on providing good
bandwidth and good customer services."
Did you bother reading the article? Comcast's position was that they
were using the data to help them make performance related
improvements. You're more than welcome to attack the validity of
Comcast's statement, but you aren't doing that.
Instead, all you're saying, "Comcast should be doing X." after Comcast
has already said, "We were doing Y as a means of doing X." That
doesn't really further the discussion at all. A more valuable post
might cover, "Here's why it's better to do X via a means other than
Y." or "Here's why Y isn't necessary for doing X at all." or even
"Here's why I think they're lying when they say their only motive is
X."
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I'm a Georgia Tech alumnus.
I'm not sure that's exactly the case. In the article, both the father of the accused cheater and a representative of Georgia Tech indicate that the policy is pro-discussion but anti-collaboration. I think the anti-discussion allegations are being largely injected by the author of the piece, who is already coming from the biased viewpoint that the accused cheater was unfairly nabbed. The author attributes the anti-discussion policy to GT, but any actual policy quotes don't support the anti-discussion notion (only the anti-solution sharing/collaboration notion).
Anyway, try re-reading the article as if it was an editorial or even a Slashdot post from a suspected troll. A lot of what's in there seems to actually be the author feeding on his own sense of outrage. The extreme bias makes me question whether or not the author had previous biases with regard to either the student or Georgia Tech.
Of course many movies have the luxury of being able to completely recoupe their expenses before they hit video. For example, "Panic Room" had a 48 million dollar budget, and made 30 million on opening weekend alone (currently, it's at 73 million). Even "Van Wilder" (currently clinging to the bottom of the weekend top 10 list) has raked in 13.7 million versus its 6 million budget.
Still, you do have have straight-to-video releases. But these also tend not to have the vast budgets for which theatrical releases are famous.
Hence my comment about rocking out to the "You've got mail!" sound. The physical CD may be cheap to press, but you still have to come up with desireable data to go on there.
As for where the money's going, there's payola (which would require reform of the radio station monopoly), studio time, producers, song writers (who apparently get compensated fairly well), and who knows what else.
Still, I'll admit that there's probably some people who're becoming richer over this. But an inherently overpriced product doesn't automatically negate their copyright. If I decide to sell, "Slashdot poster Erasmus Darwin screamed into the mike and did speaker feedback" for $100,000,000 per copy, your legal choices are still the same as if I were selling it for $1 per copy: Buy or buy not. There is no copy. (Unless you're somewhere like Canada with more flexible copyright laws. But that's tangential to the point at hand.)
That's all nice and good. However, that means you should be buying music from independent musicians. That doesn't mean that you can just ignore the copyright on existing music which the middle man has essentially purchased the rights to from the original artist.
Similarly, let's say I walk into Walmart to purchase a Coleman lantern because I think of them as the classic camping lantern from back when I was a Cub Scout, and say my decision has nothing to do with any of their advertising or Walmart's advertising (with Walmart being chosen because it's the nearest store to my house). Now is it fair for me to demand a discount on the lantern because I didn't need any of their advertising? Is it fair for me to demand a discount because I didn't need to ask an employee for help? Is it fair for me to demand a discount because I'm willing to bag my own purchase, thereby allowing the cashier to help the next person in line more quickly?
The point is that the entire role of business is to take a bunch of expenses and distribute them (and a profit margin) across a number of products. In the case of the music industry, they've got expenses ranging from television advertisements (which may've been how the person who told you about a band heard about them) to studio time (expensive!) to money lost on failed projects (which Ms. Love's classic money thing fails to consider) to licensing fees for songs that borrow heavily from earlier works.
But if you don't want to contribute to that, fine. But rather than engaging in copyright infringement to obtain music which was financed at the expense of the music industry, go with an indie-produced work. That'd be comparable to me going the mail-order route for my lantern above (and thus avoiding some but not all of the overhead I mentioned in that example).
The problem here is that those people're being short-sighted, as the works that they want to copy exist primarily because of the copyright laws. While the government exists to serve the people, it has to look beyond the individualistic actions of even a large group of people.
For example, it'd be safe to say that most Americans don't want nearby nuclear reactors. At the same time, most Americans do want cheap power. Similarly, most Americans don't want pieces of their property condemned for building roads. At the same time, most Americans want to be able to travel from place to place with minimal amounts of traffic.
In this case, most Americans want to be able to share music with the friends at no cost. At the same time, they want the music made possible by copyright to exist (otherwise they wouldn't be able to share it).
I still don't think it's the same thing. There's a noticeable quality difference between watching a video and going to see a movie -- even the most unobservant viewer would be hard-pressed not to notice the giant movie screen. mp3s, on the other hand, come much closer to CD quality. Overall, I'd say a better analogy set would be: Theatrical movie release ~= Concert; Video/DVD ~= Tape/CD; mp3 ~= DivX ;-)
Furthermore, the DIY crowd has had no problem getting legitimate mp3s (at least until the recent copy protection uproar). Personally, I just pop CDs that I own into my CD player and then run a script that handles all the effort of identifying the artist/tracks with CDDB, ripping the CD with cdparanoia, and finally encoding the music with LAME. I got what I wanted, and I paid for it.
Instead, the problem is in rampant duplication. Yes, if I'm patient, if I have 2 VCRs, and if I can bypass Macrovision, I can make a copy of a tape for a friend. It happens, but it's small scale. There's also something of a quality degredation issue after a few generations.
With mp3s, on the other hand, people have the resources available to trade them far and wide. A 50th generation copy of an mp3 is identical to the original mp3 (provided you don't reencode it). Also, P2P lets me share it with hundreds of thousands of my closest friends.
I dunno. It just seems that there's no clear win for the music industry in this scenario. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. But I don't think it's the same situation as before.
I'm not sure the U.S. price would be that low. It's 10 Rs (20 cents) for an Indian mp3, but the regular CD there costs 250 Rs ($5). So if the prices are proportional, it'd be 50-60 cents per song here.
I see this argument over and over again in the copyright-related threads, and it irks me. The laws are designed to combat something that is already illegal.
Awhile ago, the government came out and said something to the effect of, "Okay, we're creating this copyright thing. Yes, it's essentially a legal fiction (then again, so are currency and government), but we think it's good. Basically, we'll reward people who devote time, effort, money, and talent to creating information-based works by giving them a time-limited exclusive control over that work."
Now in the interim, we've had the government do stupid things related to copyright, such as the Sonny Bono Act and the DMCA. However, that doesn't change the underlying principle that people who venture into the business of creating works for commercial sale are doing so because the government has created an artificial system that allows them compensation.
When it comes to P2P music sharing, the problem isn't that it's invented a new loophole that isn't covered by copyright. Instead, the problem is that it's a new form of massive copyright violation that's nearly impossible to prosecute on an individual basis. When something's already illegal, (allegedly) massively cuts into sales, and unstoppable, that's not a failing of the business model, per se.
Anyway, getting back to the point of the article, it looks like an interesting idea. I'm honestly curious to see whether or not it succeeds. It's a service offering cheap, legitimate equivalents to what's already available free on P2P services.
If music CDs were like AOL CDs, music stores would give them away like candy. Then, when you got home, you'd only be able to do anything with it as long as you paid $19.95/month. And since it's online authentication, you wouldn't be able to listen to them in the car. In short, you're really comparing two completely different things here.
Or to put it another way, if an AOL CD is really equivalent to a music CD, you don't need music CDs. You can just get free AOL CDs instead, and rock on to the groovy sound of "You've got mail!"
Besides, the price of music CDs has nothing to do with the physical medium. It costs money to produce the information on a music CD. The information on a music CD has value to many people. The physical CD is just a way of getting around the problem of transferring that information. In short, it's the information that has the value -- you'd think that out of everyone, Slashdotters would understand this.
(And yes, I'm well aware of the "information wants to be free" argument. Without supporting or condemning that philosophy, it doesn't change the facts above -- whether it's a fully GPL'd Linux distribution or a commercial, shrink-wrapped game, it still costs money to produce and has value to the users.)
Cheaper glue makes books less durable, hindering resale. Cheaper glue isn't inherently obvious at the consumer level, making avoid it difficult. If the books of an author we're interested in are published using cheaper glue, we have no real alternative means of purchasing the same book with better binding, short of grabbing the (relatively expensive) hardcover edition.
In short, publishers get lower cost and higher sales. Authors get more royalties. Initial consumers get a shoddier product, and used consumers most likely get missing pages.
First, one could argue that having an author help promote a sale on which the author receives no revenue (the resale of a used book via Amazon) is also a flawed business model. In fact, every time the mp3 debates roll around, someone usually brings up the issue of having the artist more accessible to the people -- if they make a connection, people will be encouraged to buy directly from the artist. So, I see no reason why Amazon should expect authors to help promote buying through their site when authors receive a better return on their virtual facetime through a different book seller.
Second, it's possible that a "new and improved" business model will be less consumer-friendly. For example, there's been discussion on Slashdot over digitally restricted books that only allow themselves to be read for a certain amount of time. Given a choice, I'd rather lose book resale than have to deal with "book licenses". Also, as someone who's generally uninterested in used books or reselling books I own, I'd be willing to buy special "NOT FOR RESALE" copies provided that said books were cheaper -- I'd be foregoing use of a right that I don't exercise anyway in exchange for economic consideration.
Under Title 17 (Copyrights), Chapter 1 (Subject Matter and Scope), Section 107 (Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use), they describe the criteria for determining fair use. Two of them are "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" and "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
Under the substantial portion criterion, you could argue that there's a big difference between in how much is copied when you compare the two cases. 3 pages out of a 120 page magazine is only 2.5% of the material. 2 songs out of a 12 track CD is 16%.
Under the potential market criterion, we could point to CD singles. Music companies sell individual tracks from albums, so there's an existing market for the entire entity that you've duplicated.
Still, I'm not a lawyer, and it's impossible to understand how the law really gets applied without looking into all the case law and judicial opinions that've arisen afterward. But I lack the time and interest to make this into an entire research project.
Even paying $.10 per page is a lot if you're thinking in terms of piracy. That's $20 for a 200 page novel that maybe retails for $7 or $8. Furthermore, even with a home copier, it's pretty damn inconvenient to photocopy every pair of pages (assuming you can fit both on a single sheet). If, on the other hand, you're only photocopying a few pages out of the work(such as an important passage for a research paper), that generally falls under fair use provisions.
In contrast, the CD duplicator requires less human intervention (insert entire source, insert blank destination, insert money, wait), and it lets you make duplicates at a cheaper cost than the retail price of the mass published work.
First, I'm not sure what relevance your original CD comments have. Even assuming the system will only copy an original, store-bought CD (a claim which I can't find supported in the article), I don't see how that changes what I wrote. I even posted an example of using the system to pirate an original CD in this comment.
Second, my educated assumption (which I admit is a bit of a guess) that the machine doesn't do mixes is based on the descriptions provided. It's possible the article just fails to mention it, but everything I read implied it's operation consisted of "Insert CD X. Insert blank CD-R. Insert money. Remove two CD X's."
That's a whole multi-gig flamewar in and of itself.
But the short answer is that copying material in violation of the copyright means that you're enjoying the fruits of someone's labor without contributing anything toward the initial cost that went into producing the information content of the item.
First, I was comparing the piracy convenience of the machine to the extreme piracy inconvenience of a photocopier. Doing fair use(?) copies of two pages out of a book using a photocopier is cheap and easy. Attempting to photocopy an entire book takes quite a bit of effort and usually exceeds the cost of purchasing the book.
Second, a CD burner carries with it quite a bit of overhead -- especially if the person doesn't already own a computer. Compare that to $7/copy, which is approximately 25% of the cost of a CD in Australia. Furthermore, if you're already at the mall or the convenience store with friends, it's not a particularly inconvenient setting. And the actual copying process is convenient in the sense that it requires no on-going user interaction to facilitate the copy (as compared to photocopying the individual pages of a book).
You present a number of legitimate, non-infringing uses. I'll even admit that I dropped the ball by not mentioning them in my previous post. The problem is that they aren't especially likely.
Most of the CD-based information people deal with is corporate or commercial in nature. I think it's great that we have garage bands, public access TV, and amateur films, but I don't think they'll ever compete with the level of permeation seen by pop stars, network TV, and Hollywood. Even Linux, with its many benefits, doesn't have the overall marketshare of Windows (even if it is holding its own in the server realm).
In short, I see this service being used similarly to how many of the popular music-based P2P services are used -- despite the occasional legit use, most of the traffic is Britney Spears, Linkin Park, N'Sync, and System of a Down.
That's great if you have access to a CD burner or only use mp3s. I suspect, however, that the machine will get a fair amount of use from friends who're hanging out together and decide to play the distributed cost game. (Following values are AUD.) With a $30 CD and two $7 copies, it boils down to only $14.67 (or roughly half price) per person if 3 friends use it to get a CD.
Furthermore, there are many people who own music CDs but who don't own computers. There are also many people who carry part of their CD collections in their cars.
Finally, I seem to recall Australians complaining about some of the bandwidth costs associated with home internet access. That could make using a P2P service an expensive proposition.
On the other hand, I have a much easier time thinking of everyday legitimate uses for knives (cutting food, opening packages, spreading butter) than I do for a machine that can only do exact CD duplication.
The machine is limited or fails in many of the traditional legitimate uses of a regular CD burner:
I think overall, the majority of usage of the machine will be of a copyright infringing nature. And unlike a photocopier, which manages to prevent many improper uses through cost and inconvenience, this machine would be a casual music/software pirate's dream.
In addition to the infamous greencard spam, he later coauthored the book "How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway" which encouraged others to do what he did (and rationalized such actions as being acceptable). So while he may not be exclusively responsible, he carries significantly more culpability than you're giving him credit for.
Consider, for example, the position of PaeTec Communications. They've been unable to kick a spammer off (Monsterhut), as said spammer was able to obtain a temporary injunction. When the case is resolved, PaeTec will presumably win. Until then, however, the address range they lease to Monsterhut is getting added to numerous blacklists. I see no reason to why that address range shouldn't be removed after PaeTec succeeds in ridding themself of this spammer -- at some point in the future, that address will get reassigned to a new customer. But if the people blacklisting that address are using an uncommented, static, ad hoc list that the snarfed from Slashdot, there's a decent chance that that listing'll be around indefinitely.
In summary, I strong encourage sysadmins to stick to well-maintained lists when it comes to spam blacklisting. They should carefully evaluate both the criteria that gets a site listed and the criteria that gets a site unlisted.
Drug users are slightly safer. If a single Peek-A-Booty user of a given node is compromised, the government can start watching all traffic to that node and build a giant list of criminals. If a single drug customer is compromised, there're practical limits on how many other clients they can catch during a sting.
I believe SpamCop doesn't use an absolute block. So it's still quite possible for users to file spam reports against spam that's been flagged as spam.
Also, if SpamCop uses external lists, the initial SpamCop listing only needs to last long enough for the spammer to get on a more permanent/human moderated list.
According to Comcast's statement, the information they were collecting (Y) wasn't connected to individual subscribers. One very obvious possibility that fits the criteria for Y and applies to X would be a list of the most popular sites that users visit, so that they may prioritize improvements in their networking infrastructure. For example, if they discover 40% of user web-traffic is going to only 10 different sites, it might even be worthwhile to look into dedicated connections to those sites. Another possibility is that they were considering implementing a web-caching scheme and wanted to gather statistics necessary to figure out the ideal cache size.
There's certainly a very real possibility that Comcast could've been collecting data in excess of what they claim or that they were commercially exploiting the data, but you've got to be particularly close-minded to be able to rule out any possibility of legitimate use.
Did you bother reading the article? Comcast's position was that they were using the data to help them make performance related improvements. You're more than welcome to attack the validity of Comcast's statement, but you aren't doing that.
Instead, all you're saying, "Comcast should be doing X." after Comcast has already said, "We were doing Y as a means of doing X." That doesn't really further the discussion at all. A more valuable post might cover, "Here's why it's better to do X via a means other than Y." or "Here's why Y isn't necessary for doing X at all." or even "Here's why I think they're lying when they say their only motive is X."