Panel I
Mr. Michael D. Eisner, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, 500 S. Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521
Mr. Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer, News Corporation, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036
Mr. Leslie L. Vadasz, Executive Vice President, Intel Corporation, 2200 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara, CA 95052
Panel II
Mr. Andreas Bechtolsheim, General Manager/Vice President of the Gigabit Systems Business Unit, Cisco Systems Inc., 250 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134
Mr. James E. Meyer, Special Advisor to the Chairman and formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Thomson Multimedia, 10330 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290
Mr. Robert Perry, Vice President, Marketing, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., 9351 Jeronimo Road, Irvine, CA 92618
Mr. Jack Valenti, President and CEO, The Motion Picture Association of America, 15503 Ventura Boulevard, Encino, CA 91436
While you got a funny moderation, actually it's the truth...Ask your parents or even your grandparents what music they like or was their favorite when they were your age. Then do a search on your favorite filesharing program. Keep it to one of the simple to operate clients such as Morpheus. You will find the music they told you about. Now, I hardly think that the "average" filesharer whos ripping Korn, Dave Matthews, U2, or Britney for that matter, is ripping Tony Bennett, Engelbert Humperdink or Wayne Newton, Tommy Dorsey, or Bing Crosby to MP3 or any other format.
46% off all filesharers are over 35, and 18% are over 45.
What is interesting is the market data that can be gleaned from those two seemingly innocuous numbers. These are people with an income and that have disposable income to spend. The conclusion has to be reached that the market is not meeting the needs of the consumer, and they find a way to meet those wants and desires.
So far this year:
Rick Boucher asks the RIAA and IFPI to explain how their copy protection schemes work and raises the question if the copy protection is illegal under Audio Home Recording Act of 1996.
On January 9th, the RIAA lays off 16 employees, including Karen Allen, their "Internet Evangelist"
The Recording Artists Coalition announced fund raising concerts to take place the night before the Grammy's to raise money to fight the recording industry for fair contracts and accounting oversight. The concerts sell out.
The Department of Justice investigation into antitrust issues continues.
The EFF steps up to defend Morpheus as having substantial non-infringing uses.
The Supreme Court decides to hear the case of Eldred vs. Ashcroft (started out as Eldred vs. Reno) to determine if the retroactive Copyright Term Extension Act is constitutional.
The Second District Court of Appeals reinstates the Chambers vs. Warner Brothers Case saying the judge considered evidence he shouldn't have. (this is the watershed case for older artists)
Webcasting rates are set, most likely sending almost every webcaster offline, including non profit and college stations. Rates are retroactive to 1998. The webcasters have 30 days to pay after the rates are adopted.
Suncomm (Media Cloque) and Charley Pride's record label settle the consumer case brought by consumers over "protected CDs", agreeing to clearly label the CD as incompatible with DVD player, Computer CD Players and portable CD players.
Napster Judge Marilyn Hall Patel hands the RIAA a stunning defeat in a surprising turn around, by allowing Napster to do discovery on the copyrights the RIAA says they own, appoints a "Special Master" and gives the RIAA three weeks to prove they own the copyrights and that they are in fact "work for hire". (which the Recording Artists Coalition says they aren't) She also allows discovery on possible misuse of those copyrights to stifle competition to MusicNet and PressPlay.
Filesharing is at an all time high.
The RIAA releases figures showing that CD shipments are down 10.3%, but sales are only down 2.3 % in dollars.
Five songwriters file suit in LA District Court over record club sales and lack of accounting oversight.
California Senator Kevin Murray plans to introduce a bill this year to penalize record labels that purposely underpay royalties, this is in addition to the bill on the 7 year contract limitation.
THE EFF and 4 law school clinics launch chillingeffects.org to educate internet users to their rights online.
RIAA forms the California Music Coalition to fight against artists rights. Organizing support from people who are subject to the 7 year contract limitation in CA., the same rights the artists want.
I find it interesting that Jack Valenti doesn't mention stream in anyway shape or form, but places the entire focus on downloading. Before Movie 88 was shut down, they were doing streaming via realvideo which at best was fair. At a $1.00 per 5 day rental it had gr4eat potential. If you remember last year Madonna did a webcast of a mini concert in London that was streamed. 26 million people tuned in. Imagine $1 each. Even if half decided they didn't want to pay, that would leave 13 million. More than any single concert has ever grossed, by far. Imagine Harry Potter opening on the web, or Lord of the Rings. You think your numbers for a weekend opening are good now?
Remember this is the same guy that said that the VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women, in testimony before congress, and lived in the White House as an aide to President Johnson.
however, is the fact that courts must use previous cases to establish the legality of any law. Most courts, except for the Supremes, are unwilling to decide on new territory or set new precendents, simply because they are likely to be reversed on appeal. (looks bad on the resume and all).
This was lobbyed for very heavily by the IFPI and the RIAA. Jason Berman is the head of the IFPI (and the former head of the RIAA, he reccommended Hilary Rosen to replace him. He is based out out New York and has been a steady fixture at the WIPO meeting and debates. One has to ask why the head of an organization based in London, lives in New York, unless this was the plan all along. He is a former Warner Bros exec and a Senate aide. While we were watching the Hilary, Berman was expanding US copyright policy to the world. More on Berman.
As a community perhaps we should be willing to sponsor Wil Wheaton. After all he is the only person on slashdot who really has been in space. Of course this isn't a starship but, hey he's the most qualified. What say Wil?
I agree...I would be hard pressed to give up my DirecTV/TIVO as it has proven much more useful than the VCR. And it would be extremely disappointing to not be able to timeshift the HDTV .
The Recording Industry setttled, to avoid having to do this very thing....that was brought up by the attorneys for MP3.com. This will mostly be the same scenario here as well. The case is somewhat moot anyway. BMG owns the majority equity stake in Napster as I understand it, so it would be in both parties interests to settle. Except for the fact that the DOJ is looking into anti-trust allegations of the RIAA and members. (collusion). Once the Recording Artists Coalition filed an amicus brief on behalf of Napster (and the RAC doesn't like Napster), I think that Judge Patel woke up. The artist who the RIAA claims to represent say the RIAA doesn't and can't because they don't own the copyrights.
Maybe we can get back to the good old days when most of the net was free. Seems I remember a time that every site wasn't about making money, but was about someone who had an interest is some particular subject. Almost every ISP offers personal space these days, many up to 20MB. Some people run commercial websites on them but most are still put together by people who want to say something rather than sell something.
I think our perspective has changed as these sites still exist, and there is still a kind of "undernet" out there, that is often ignored by the search engines (free pages), or are simply not linked to by the "mainstream" net sites because they offer no opportunity to make a buck. It's still a neat place to spend an evening surfing around, just for the sake of surfing.
DirecTV is carrying HDTV on channel 199. Of course you need the HD DirecTV Receiver, to go along with your HDTV. They are carrying 16 Hours a Day of HDTV transmitted by HD.NET which was founded and run by Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com and Dallas Mavericks Fame. Currently they are running the Olympics in conjuction with NBC. The schedule can be found here
Hey it's not the latest movies yet, but if you're really jonesing for some HDTV it's better than nothing...
This hits the college stations and non-profits the hardest. Where dwindling budgets and volunteer help is the norm, many will just say that's it and pull the plug....One college station I'm familiar with has an annual budget of $30,000 dollars, total. They struggle everyday just to get by, and saw the internet as a way they could save money over maintaining expensive transmitters.
This is still under consideration and the commnet period is still open on the conditions and infor gatered. The problem is you will find musicians back this as they want an accurate accounting which up to now has been done from sampling, which favors the "Big Name" musicians, but does nothing for the little guy..in fact he might get left out all together...
These are the old fees.. the recording industry and webcasters couldn't agree, so it went to abitration. The fees are retro active until 1998 when the law was passed and must be paid within 20 days of the approval of the rates. You're going to see a lot of Webcasters disappear faster than you can type/.
Aw shucks...and I was on my way over to ThinkGeek to see if there were pc cases available yet...I looked at the clear acrylic cases as while back on another site, but didn't think they could handle the heat from the hard drive, video card and processor. Sorry my PC just melted....
The CTEA changed copyright for individuals to life plus 70 years. This is discriminatory toward older creators. Should Mike Stoller start writing again, his work will not enjoy the same protection, as would a Toby Slater creation , simply because of his age! Toby would have many more years to maximize the profitability of his work. Same thing applies to male and female creators of the same age at creation of their work; by averages the woman will enjoy greater protection. What about a creator who is physically disabled, or has aids? They will usually have a shorter lifespan than a creator who isn't disabled or ill. People of differing ethnic backgrounds have a different life expectancy than others. Just because you fall into one group or the other should you enjoy more or less protection? Is the CTEA discriminating due to age, sex, health and race? Certainly appears so.
After reflecting on the concept of copyright the past several months, wading through legal documents and laws, and the process that brought it to where it is today, I have begun to ask myself very serious questions about the direction the concept of copyright has traveled in the past 40 years or so. Initially, when copyright was first introduced to this country, the means to distribute copyrighted works was really quite simple? It was by horse or by foot. If it was sent, by mail or messenger, it arrived by horse or foot. This meant that it literally could take months or years to distribute to the "maximum market". The copyright term of 14 years plus 14-year extension must have been determined in part by the physical constraints created by the ability to distribute the work in a timely fashion. For the creator of the work to see rewards for his work would take years, simply because of the inability to get the work to the potential buyers any more quickly. It could take 14 years or 28 years to realize a return. Now fast forward to 2002 and here we are with copyright extension after extension, to the point where individual copyright is now life plus 70 years, and corporate copyright is 95 years. Yet, here we are with the internet, satellite TV, cell phones, Ipaqs, wireless networks, cable TV, newspapers are distributed to the regional printing plant electronically, Ricochet, Aircard, that literally provide instant access to distribution.
Airplanes, UPS, Fedex, 18 Wheelers, fax machines, distribute products in mere days (if not minutes) rather than months or years. Rather than extending copyright, shouldn?t we be shortening copyright? Say to 7 and 7? Same thing with corporate copyright, shouldn't they be shortened as well?
As they say in academic circles "Publish or die" Talk about an incentive to create! If you can't sit back on your laurels, then you must continue to create. This would benefit the culture greatly. One has to ask what would Disney have come up with if Mickey and his pals where going into the public domain as scheduled? What would Mike Stoller and his partner Jerry Leiber produced in the years since "Stuck in the Middle with You" (1972), had there been an incentive to keep creating? At the very least in 1979 they would have started working again to produce more of those wonderful tunes they were so adept at producing in the 50's and 60's.
It's my hope at least one court in this land of ours has some common sense, and interpets the intent of the law.
Re:Reminds me of an old C=64 program...
on
Harddrive Speakers
·
· Score: 1
I was actually thinking how much it sounds like the old "Sid" music files you used to get for Commodore C64s and 128s. LI Dave's SID Collection has probably most of the Sid files that were available and even has a Winamp plugin to play them.....
This was around in the mid 80's rather than the late 80's. QLink was the precursor of AOL and was designed for Commodore Computers. Later sold to AOL, which now owns what Bill Gates doesn't. For a stroll doen memory lane and to hear what music sounded like 15 years ago visit LI Dave's SID Collection He even has a Winamp Plugin as well as 'freestanding players available. I visited a while back, and was stunned at how bad the sids sound now, when we used to listen to them all the time, and actually enjoyed them..times change.
Their info is at http://www.cox.com/info/
My conversion went off without a hitch, and the pretty little box they sent the stuff in has become a favorite toy of my neice. (it looks like a little house. Meanwhile, my @home still works
1) Write your Senator or Congressperson, they need your vote more than they need the lobbying dollars. No votes, no access to the cash. Simple. Remind them they work for you, not the megaliths of content control.
They love e-mail these days.
Slashdot Mirror
The Witness list in no particular order includes:
Panel I
Mr. Michael D. Eisner, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, 500 S. Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521
Mr. Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer, News Corporation, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036
Mr. Leslie L. Vadasz, Executive Vice President, Intel Corporation, 2200 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara, CA 95052
Panel II
Mr. Andreas Bechtolsheim, General Manager/Vice President of the Gigabit Systems Business Unit, Cisco Systems Inc., 250 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134
Mr. James E. Meyer, Special Advisor to the Chairman and formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Thomson Multimedia, 10330 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290
Mr. Robert Perry, Vice President, Marketing, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., 9351 Jeronimo Road, Irvine, CA 92618
Mr. Jack Valenti, President and CEO, The Motion Picture Association of America, 15503 Ventura Boulevard, Encino, CA 91436
Online petition against SSSCA
The Draft of the SSSCA
While you got a funny moderation, actually it's the truth...Ask your parents or even your grandparents what music they like or was their favorite when they were your age. Then do a search on your favorite filesharing program. Keep it to one of the simple to operate clients such as Morpheus. You will find the music they told you about. Now, I hardly think that the "average" filesharer whos ripping Korn, Dave Matthews, U2, or Britney for that matter, is ripping Tony Bennett, Engelbert Humperdink or Wayne Newton, Tommy Dorsey, or Bing Crosby to MP3 or any other format.
46% off all filesharers are over 35, and 18% are over 45.
What is interesting is the market data that can be gleaned from those two seemingly innocuous numbers. These are people with an income and that have disposable income to spend. The conclusion has to be reached that the market is not meeting the needs of the consumer, and they find a way to meet those wants and desires.
So far this year: Rick Boucher asks the RIAA and IFPI to explain how their copy protection schemes work and raises the question if the copy protection is illegal under Audio Home Recording Act of 1996.
On January 9th, the RIAA lays off 16 employees, including Karen Allen, their "Internet Evangelist"
The Recording Artists Coalition announced fund raising concerts to take place the night before the Grammy's to raise money to fight the recording industry for fair contracts and accounting oversight. The concerts sell out.
The Department of Justice investigation into antitrust issues continues.
The EFF steps up to defend Morpheus as having substantial non-infringing uses.
The Supreme Court decides to hear the case of Eldred vs. Ashcroft (started out as Eldred vs. Reno) to determine if the retroactive Copyright Term Extension Act is constitutional.
The Second District Court of Appeals reinstates the Chambers vs. Warner Brothers Case saying the judge considered evidence he shouldn't have. (this is the watershed case for older artists)
Webcasting rates are set, most likely sending almost every webcaster offline, including non profit and college stations. Rates are retroactive to 1998. The webcasters have 30 days to pay after the rates are adopted.
Suncomm (Media Cloque) and Charley Pride's record label settle the consumer case brought by consumers over "protected CDs", agreeing to clearly label the CD as incompatible with DVD player, Computer CD Players and portable CD players.
Napster Judge Marilyn Hall Patel hands the RIAA a stunning defeat in a surprising turn around, by allowing Napster to do discovery on the copyrights the RIAA says they own, appoints a "Special Master" and gives the RIAA three weeks to prove they own the copyrights and that they are in fact "work for hire". (which the Recording Artists Coalition says they aren't) She also allows discovery on possible misuse of those copyrights to stifle competition to MusicNet and PressPlay.
Filesharing is at an all time high.
The RIAA releases figures showing that CD shipments are down 10.3%, but sales are only down 2.3 % in dollars.
Five songwriters file suit in LA District Court over record club sales and lack of accounting oversight.
California Senator Kevin Murray plans to introduce a bill this year to penalize record labels that purposely underpay royalties, this is in addition to the bill on the 7 year contract limitation. THE EFF and 4 law school clinics launch chillingeffects.org to educate internet users to their rights online.
RIAA forms the California Music Coalition to fight against artists rights. Organizing support from people who are subject to the 7 year contract limitation in CA., the same rights the artists want.
I find it interesting that Jack Valenti doesn't mention stream in anyway shape or form, but places the entire focus on downloading. Before Movie 88 was shut down, they were doing streaming via realvideo which at best was fair. At a $1.00 per 5 day rental it had gr4eat potential. If you remember last year Madonna did a webcast of a mini concert in London that was streamed. 26 million people tuned in. Imagine $1 each. Even if half decided they didn't want to pay, that would leave 13 million. More than any single concert has ever grossed, by far. Imagine Harry Potter opening on the web, or Lord of the Rings. You think your numbers for a weekend opening are good now?
Remember this is the same guy that said that the VCR is to the movie industry what the Boston Strangler was to women, in testimony before congress, and lived in the White House as an aide to President Johnson.
however, is the fact that courts must use previous cases to establish the legality of any law. Most courts, except for the Supremes, are unwilling to decide on new territory or set new precendents, simply because they are likely to be reversed on appeal. (looks bad on the resume and all).
This was lobbyed for very heavily by the IFPI and the RIAA. Jason Berman is the head of the IFPI (and the former head of the RIAA, he reccommended Hilary Rosen to replace him. He is based out out New York and has been a steady fixture at the WIPO meeting and debates. One has to ask why the head of an organization based in London, lives in New York, unless this was the plan all along. He is a former Warner Bros exec and a Senate aide. While we were watching the Hilary, Berman was expanding US copyright policy to the world. More on Berman.
As a community perhaps we should be willing to sponsor Wil Wheaton. After all he is the only person on slashdot who really has been in space. Of course this isn't a starship but, hey he's the most qualified. What say Wil?
Out of Sync with the mission goals.
I agree...I would be hard pressed to give up my DirecTV/TIVO as it has proven much more useful than the VCR. And it would be extremely disappointing to not be able to timeshift the HDTV .
Absoultely right, He is the true country gentleman. I did a radio interview with him years ago, and was so very impressed with him and his attitude.
The Recording Industry setttled, to avoid having to do this very thing....that was brought up by the attorneys for MP3.com. This will mostly be the same scenario here as well. The case is somewhat moot anyway. BMG owns the majority equity stake in Napster as I understand it, so it would be in both parties interests to settle. Except for the fact that the DOJ is looking into anti-trust allegations of the RIAA and members. (collusion). Once the Recording Artists Coalition filed an amicus brief on behalf of Napster (and the RAC doesn't like Napster), I think that Judge Patel woke up. The artist who the RIAA claims to represent say the RIAA doesn't and can't because they don't own the copyrights.
Maybe we can get back to the good old days when most of the net was free. Seems I remember a time that every site wasn't about making money, but was about someone who had an interest is some particular subject. Almost every ISP offers personal space these days, many up to 20MB. Some people run commercial websites on them but most are still put together by people who want to say something rather than sell something.
I think our perspective has changed as these sites still exist, and there is still a kind of "undernet" out there, that is often ignored by the search engines (free pages), or are simply not linked to by the "mainstream" net sites because they offer no opportunity to make a buck. It's still a neat place to spend an evening surfing around, just for the sake of surfing.
DirecTV is carrying HDTV on channel 199. Of course you need the HD DirecTV Receiver, to go along with your HDTV. They are carrying 16 Hours a Day of HDTV transmitted by HD.NET which was founded and run by Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com and Dallas Mavericks Fame. Currently they are running the Olympics in conjuction with NBC. The schedule can be found here Hey it's not the latest movies yet, but if you're really jonesing for some HDTV it's better than nothing...
This hits the college stations and non-profits the hardest. Where dwindling budgets and volunteer help is the norm, many will just say that's it and pull the plug....One college station I'm familiar with has an annual budget of $30,000 dollars, total. They struggle everyday just to get by, and saw the internet as a way they could save money over maintaining expensive transmitters.
This is still under consideration and the commnet period is still open on the conditions and infor gatered. The problem is you will find musicians back this as they want an accurate accounting which up to now has been done from sampling, which favors the "Big Name" musicians, but does nothing for the little guy..in fact he might get left out all together...
These are the old fees.. the recording industry and webcasters couldn't agree, so it went to abitration. The fees are retro active until 1998 when the law was passed and must be paid within 20 days of the approval of the rates. You're going to see a lot of Webcasters disappear faster than you can type /.
Aw shucks...and I was on my way over to ThinkGeek to see if there were pc cases available yet...I looked at the clear acrylic cases as while back on another site, but didn't think they could handle the heat from the hard drive, video card and processor. Sorry my PC just melted....
is available from The Future of Music Coalition, in PDF format, that explains in plain english what the various terms mean. The file can be found here
The CTEA changed copyright for individuals to life plus 70 years. This is discriminatory toward older creators. Should Mike Stoller start writing again, his work will not enjoy the same protection, as would a Toby Slater creation , simply because of his age! Toby would have many more years to maximize the profitability of his work. Same thing applies to male and female creators of the same age at creation of their work; by averages the woman will enjoy greater protection. What about a creator who is physically disabled, or has aids? They will usually have a shorter lifespan than a creator who isn't disabled or ill. People of differing ethnic backgrounds have a different life expectancy than others. Just because you fall into one group or the other should you enjoy more or less protection? Is the CTEA discriminating due to age, sex, health and race? Certainly appears so.
After reflecting on the concept of copyright the past several months, wading through legal documents and laws, and the process that brought it to where it is today, I have begun to ask myself very serious questions about the direction the concept of copyright has traveled in the past 40 years or so. Initially, when copyright was first introduced to this country, the means to distribute copyrighted works was really quite simple? It was by horse or by foot. If it was sent, by mail or messenger, it arrived by horse or foot. This meant that it literally could take months or years to distribute to the "maximum market". The copyright term of 14 years plus 14-year extension must have been determined in part by the physical constraints created by the ability to distribute the work in a timely fashion. For the creator of the work to see rewards for his work would take years, simply because of the inability to get the work to the potential buyers any more quickly. It could take 14 years or 28 years to realize a return. Now fast forward to 2002 and here we are with copyright extension after extension, to the point where individual copyright is now life plus 70 years, and corporate copyright is 95 years. Yet, here we are with the internet, satellite TV, cell phones, Ipaqs, wireless networks, cable TV, newspapers are distributed to the regional printing plant electronically, Ricochet, Aircard, that literally provide instant access to distribution. Airplanes, UPS, Fedex, 18 Wheelers, fax machines, distribute products in mere days (if not minutes) rather than months or years. Rather than extending copyright, shouldn?t we be shortening copyright? Say to 7 and 7? Same thing with corporate copyright, shouldn't they be shortened as well?
As they say in academic circles "Publish or die" Talk about an incentive to create! If you can't sit back on your laurels, then you must continue to create. This would benefit the culture greatly. One has to ask what would Disney have come up with if Mickey and his pals where going into the public domain as scheduled? What would Mike Stoller and his partner Jerry Leiber produced in the years since "Stuck in the Middle with You" (1972), had there been an incentive to keep creating? At the very least in 1979 they would have started working again to produce more of those wonderful tunes they were so adept at producing in the 50's and 60's.
It's my hope at least one court in this land of ours has some common sense, and interpets the intent of the law.
I was actually thinking how much it sounds like the old "Sid" music files you used to get for Commodore C64s and 128s. LI Dave's SID Collection has probably most of the Sid files that were available and even has a Winamp plugin to play them.....
This was around in the mid 80's rather than the late 80's. QLink was the precursor of AOL and was designed for Commodore Computers. Later sold to AOL, which now owns what Bill Gates doesn't. For a stroll doen memory lane and to hear what music sounded like 15 years ago visit LI Dave's SID Collection He even has a Winamp Plugin as well as 'freestanding players available. I visited a while back, and was stunned at how bad the sids sound now, when we used to listen to them all the time, and actually enjoyed them..times change.
Their info is at http://www.cox.com/info/ My conversion went off without a hitch, and the pretty little box they sent the stuff in has become a favorite toy of my neice. (it looks like a little house. Meanwhile, my @home still works
1) Write your Senator or Congressperson, they need your vote more than they need the lobbying dollars. No votes, no access to the cash. Simple. Remind them they work for you, not the megaliths of content control.
They love e-mail these days.
Yes there is, its called Fairtunes