I would recommend you do some research on the music production process as a whole, and not base your assumptions of it on a single, very limited case. Your example leaves out a few hundred factors that can affect the cost of production. Many, if not all of these, were discussed at length a few weeks ago on this very board.
I recommend you go back and read my post again. Maybe reading out loud will help you comprehend a little more clearly.
I said that there was no incentive for me to buy the DVD unless it offered me something beyond the cinematic experience, which I would still gladly pay for, particularly in the case of David Lynch. I also explicitly described using the shuttle buttons, so I don't need to be reminded that ff and rw exist.
For the record, it is not quite kosher to compare DVD and VHS shuttle buttons. On my player, at least, stopping the DVD loses the current position, meaning that without a scene index I have to scan through the entire movie to get back to where I was.
Sum: He chose not to enable the scene index and, because of that, I chose not to buy his DVD.
If the only function of the DMA Web site was to administer the DNC list, this would be a slightly less tenuous argument. Do you really think they lacked DBAs and computer resources before "the web became prevelant"? Where do you think they stored all their information about consumers and member businesses? On the backs of napkins? The Web interface to the DNC list is a trivial bit of programming and probably costs them a few cents per day to operate when factored in as simply a component of their other data operations.
This is just an apology for an outfit that does everything in their power to avoid Government regulation while making it as difficult as possible for consumers to avoid their unwanted intrusions. They know for a fact that their list size would go through the floor if it were truly easy to opt out or if a Feederal DNC list were introduced.
One of my favorite films I've recently watched was David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. At one point in the movie, I wanted to back up and watch a scene over. Imagine my horror when D.L.'s dedication to his art prevented me doing so! Apparently he had decided that random access to his work was an affront to his creative dignity and did not include scene indexes in the DVD. Nothing but the basic shuttle buttons worked. So, I had to go back to the beginning of the movie and FF back to where I was.
Note to Hollywood and David Lynch: I loved the film and I would have bought the DVD (I was watching a rental) but after these shenanigans, you can forget it. If all I'm going to get is the cinematic experience, I will see it in the cinema and your DVD can rot on the shelf...
Find a provider that will allow you to maintain your own alias list, then you can add or delete specific addresses as needed. This will allow you to track unscrupulous address resellers as you wish, but will make you invulnerable to dictionary spam.
Oh, I wouldn't postulate for a minute that they aren't clever. They most definitely have the cleverness of devils.
I also didn't mean to imply that I didn't trust them to honor their remove list. They are a high-profile enough outfit and under enough scrutiny that they would have to be stupid not to.
The fact that DMA charges a $5 to register on-line, where the removal process can be trivially automated, and will remove me for free if I send their form by mail, where a human being has to collect and open the mail, do data entry, etc. demonstrates their contempt for consumers. They go out of their way to ensure that it is difficult to avoid being annoyed by them, while maintaining a claim that they offer us the option. This is exactly why they need to be regulated.
BTW, great username. Brings back memories of thumping the plate glass windows at my local music store with subsonic blasts from the mm rig in the back.
An interesting side issue to this - how much of your code is engineering, and how much is art? Certainly, the professor that gives you lower marks for crufty code feels that a significant part of your work is art.
Not to say that there is no art in programming (which I am convinced there is), but I don't think art per se is what separates the lemon from the merangue when judging the quality of student software projects. Generating a correct "answer" doesn't necessarily show pure engineering merit. While they may not be so easily quantified as whether a program produces a correct result, there are a number of factors besides the presence or absence of cruft that separate sound engineering work from crap. Among the questions I asked when grading code:
Does the student show clear understanding of the subject and assignment? e.g. if the program was in a C++ course, did they write an object-oriented solution, or just use the procedural features of the underlying C language?
Is the code well organized and either self-documenting or effectively commented? When commented, are the comments clear and accurate?
Does the manner of the solution show particular insight or understanding of the problem or express some novel approach to the solution?
I'm sure if I didn't have code to write today, I could stir up a few more memories from my days in front of a classroom...
Once again, your points are well made and well taken. I also exchanged a huge number of tapes and bought a ton of music as a consequence. As I was writing the initial response to you, I actually considered making that exception for music since, by its nature as something that is used over and over again, it is a little different than movies and books which people tend to view/read a handful of times at the most. In the end, though, I had to get back to work, so I truncated the reply. I don't contest the viral marketing aspect of copying/sharing, I have just observed that despite the claims of a lot of traders, that is not the reality of how they have come to consume music.
For the record, my friend with the drive full of movies and closet of games is a software engineer making close to six figures. It is not money that stops him from purchasing legitimate copies. It is strictly the convenience and lack of expense in downloading or ordering "warezed" versions.
I notice you use the past tense "played in a band". I assume this means that, like myself and my former bandmates, you are now doing something else. Can you elaborate on why you no longer are making your living as a musician?
Also, we frequently found that promoters/owners were often not willing to deal with bands directly, assuming that anything that didn't come via some sort of representative/agency wasn't worth putting on their stage no matter what the quality of the demo/presspack. What was your ratio of press packs out to gigs in?
One more thing: it might be informative to know how you classified your act (specifically whether you made any appeal to genre in your promotions) as this can often influence the booking process. For example, it is much easier for speed metal bands to book into clubs with an established audience for that sort of thing, than for any arbitrarily-styled band to grab a slot on a less specified stage, i.e. most of the larger venues...
While I agree with the principles of your post, and while I'm no fan of the copyright pigopoly, I think the statement that follows is a red herring.
"Piracy" is a paper tiger. Home taping never killed the recording industry. The photocopier did not kill the publishing industry. The VCR did not kill Hollywood. Content providers are running scared from file trading because it is a new technology. They have done the same every time a new medium has been invented. Each new medium they claimed would be the death of them actually turned out to be a boon.
There is a fundamental difference between these earlier technologies and the new crop of digital replication and distribution. Photocopiers and VCRs do not produce perfect replicas. They produce a series of progressively degrading facsimiles. The movie business was able to profit from VCRs by distributing their own tapes for sale and rental. Even in the absence of protection schemes like Macrovision, the quality of dubbed VHS is repugnant, so there is little incentive for material that can be obtained legally at a reasonable price to be virally replicated by consumers turned illicit distributors.
Sum: the digital environment *is* a legitimate challenge to content industries, and not a "paper tiger" as you state. Their current business models are approaching obsolesence, and they need to adapt to this new way of doing things. I'm disgusted at the vectors they've chosen (bribing congress to protect their archaic methods instead of adapting to the new technology) but it is not entirely unreasonable that they wish to technologically protect their works from wanton redistribution.
If you really think that digital copying will be a boon to the content industries, then perhaps I should introduce you to a friend of mine with a hard drive full of movies and a crate of cracked video games. How can you maintain that activities like his are anything but parasitic? How can you claim that they stand to benefit the creators/owners of these works in any way?
This reminds me of people who suddenly decide their favorite band sucks because they achieve commercial success.
Yes, big businesses care about money. It's what they do. We should be happy to see big businesses going into OSS/GNU/Linux because the technology has built-in safeguards against being co-opted by "business" in its license and development model. The businesses can buy into it and advance it, but they can't compromise and close it off. They have to play by the OSS rules just like everyone else.
I for one am more interested in seeing OSS fulfill its potential to revolutionize the industry than having it remain a marginalized toy for the geekier-than-thou. I welcome IBM et al to the table because I recognize they are the ones who will make Linux vision viable in the mainsteam.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. If so, please clarify what you really meant...
Of course, why simply tear him in half when you can finally make something useful out of him. Can we then use the glue to seal Anakin's mouth shut? Yippee!
OK. Maybe you're joking about the 5 minute thing and I'm just gullible, but I have heard legends of people's hair color changing (usually to white in response to some intense stress) in just such a rapid fashion. Can any of the biologists (or cosmetologists, if there are any) among us explain how such rapid transformations in hair color occur?
If I understand the US Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (which of course means nuts to you in Australia, but they might write in a similar procedure if they pass this bit of barbarism) anyone with a recording distributed during a calendar year is eligible to make a claim against the tax revenues on DATs.
I've had tapes, vinyl and CDs out for years, but never bothered. I always meant to just to make the political statement, but because I'm fundamentally a slacker musician I never got around to it...
Though I've drifted to both sides of this debate over the years (date me back to pong), and though I share your preference for consoles, there's little point in advocating it 'round these here parts. Let's see if I can say this without sounding like I'm working the old "get a life/.er" saw...
I like my consoles (PS2 in the living room, GC in the bedroom) precisely because I don't have to worry about patches, mods, and all the things that make PCs attractive as a platform to those who invest a lot more time and emotion in their gaming. For them, the tweaking is part of the game. My PC is perfectly capable of playing advanced games, but doesn't have a single one loaded on it because I don't have the inclination to work so hard when what I want to do is play.
In sum, platform superiority in this debate is purely a matter of what the individual wants out of his or her system; i.e. the best tool for the job, and there is plenty of room in the market for consoles and PCs because they serve different audiences/needs. I think we can all eat our lunch in peace...
Having read 17 USC 107 but not the decisions cited above, I assume (and accept all potential consequences) that what the courts found was that people would not be guilty of infringement for copying material for time- and space-shifting and that they did not discuss encryption issues.
Do I understand correctly, then, that it would be legal (at least under established precedent) for me to make an exact duplicate of a DVD (as in a byte per byte data image) to a second piece of media or to transmit it over my home network for "performance" on another device than the one in which it is loaded, but not to decrypt the DVD for storage or transmission in a different data format because that violates DMCA? The publishers make a thing, hide it in the dark, and then sell you the flashlight. A complicit Congress makes it illegal to manufacture an alternative flashlight.
I thought I was disgusted by this subject before, but the more I understand it, the more nauseous I feel.
If I get modded down for going off topic, so be it...
I've been pondering something lately that, strangely, I don't ever recall seeing discussed on/., or if I did see it it was thoroughly occluded by either context or opinion.
Neglecting the ridiculous DMCA, what exactly is the law (US and otherwise) on making copies of legally purchased products for personal consumption, i.e. "private home viewing" on devices other than those sanctioned by the copyopoly? All my videos and DVDs have statements on them forbidding duplication. Most make vague references to "US and International Law" forbidding copying. There is no fine print about fair use. I know US law set out parameters for some of these things in the "betamax case" and "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992", but is the warning in the leader of these media a statement backed by clear law, or is it equivalent to a EULA, a term of purchase agreement which to my knowledge has so far not been proven legally binding (at least I hear people saying over and over they're waiting for a case to challenge them)?
I know there are pending bills in the US Congress to explicitly deliniate fair use rights, but where do we currently stand? DMCA covers defeat of copy control measures, but in the absence of these, is there anything in the law that says creating a mix CD or duplicating an unprotected VHS (why, I can't imagine, given the quality degradation) is llegal when done for one's personal use?
Re-invoking my original IANAL, and humbly asking that you correct any errors in my conception as follows:
I know enough about the government to know that Article II of the US Constitution says that the state legislature shall decide the manner by which its electors (to the Electoral College) are selected. Whether or not it turned out that the FL supreme's vote was consistent with the Democratic agenda is irrelevant because they acted consistently with their role to resolve the apparent conflict in Florida law as passed by the legislature: that between the "reasonable intent of the voter" statute and that requiring result certification in a fixed amount of time. The FL Supreme Court did not try to change the law. They tried to apply it as charged by their state. Deciding a case does not change law. It sets precedent. As you have stated, by definition only the legislature can change the law.
I also know enough about government as practiced in the FL and in the US to know that points of law in specific cases are resolved by the judicial branch, which establishes precedent for future cases. The USSC's power to determine Constitutionality was established through just such a precedent when the Court assigned it to itself in Marbury v. Madison, 1803. Prior to that, there was no such role interpreted by the Constitution itself. I do not pass opinion on this change in powers, I merely state it as fact of history.
Slashdot Mirror
Because you posted an hour after the initial story (admittedly an eternity in
I would recommend you do some research on the music production process as a whole, and not base your assumptions of it on a single, very limited case. Your example leaves out a few hundred factors that can affect the cost of production. Many, if not all of these, were discussed at length a few weeks ago on this very board.
I recommend you go back and read my post again. Maybe reading out loud will help you comprehend a little more clearly.
I said that there was no incentive for me to buy the DVD unless it offered me something beyond the cinematic experience, which I would still gladly pay for, particularly in the case of David Lynch. I also explicitly described using the shuttle buttons, so I don't need to be reminded that ff and rw exist.
For the record, it is not quite kosher to compare DVD and VHS shuttle buttons. On my player, at least, stopping the DVD loses the current position, meaning that without a scene index I have to scan through the entire movie to get back to where I was.
Sum: He chose not to enable the scene index and, because of that, I chose not to buy his DVD.
If the only function of the DMA Web site was to administer the DNC list, this would be a slightly less tenuous argument. Do you really think they lacked DBAs and computer resources before "the web became prevelant"? Where do you think they stored all their information about consumers and member businesses? On the backs of napkins? The Web interface to the DNC list is a trivial bit of programming and probably costs them a few cents per day to operate when factored in as simply a component of their other data operations.
This is just an apology for an outfit that does everything in their power to avoid Government regulation while making it as difficult as possible for consumers to avoid their unwanted intrusions. They know for a fact that their list size would go through the floor if it were truly easy to opt out or if a Feederal DNC list were introduced.
One of my favorite films I've recently watched was David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. At one point in the movie, I wanted to back up and watch a scene over. Imagine my horror when D.L.'s dedication to his art prevented me doing so! Apparently he had decided that random access to his work was an affront to his creative dignity and did not include scene indexes in the DVD. Nothing but the basic shuttle buttons worked. So, I had to go back to the beginning of the movie and FF back to where I was.
Note to Hollywood and David Lynch: I loved the film and I would have bought the DVD (I was watching a rental) but after these shenanigans, you can forget it. If all I'm going to get is the cinematic experience, I will see it in the cinema and your DVD can rot on the shelf...
Find a provider that will allow you to maintain your own alias list, then you can add or delete specific addresses as needed. This will allow you to track unscrupulous address resellers as you wish, but will make you invulnerable to dictionary spam.
Oh, I wouldn't postulate for a minute that they aren't clever. They most definitely have the cleverness of devils.
I also didn't mean to imply that I didn't trust them to honor their remove list. They are a high-profile enough outfit and under enough scrutiny that they would have to be stupid not to.
The fact that DMA charges a $5 to register on-line, where the removal process can be trivially automated, and will remove me for free if I send their form by mail, where a human being has to collect and open the mail, do data entry, etc. demonstrates their contempt for consumers. They go out of their way to ensure that it is difficult to avoid being annoyed by them, while maintaining a claim that they offer us the option. This is exactly why they need to be regulated.
BTW, great username. Brings back memories of thumping the plate glass windows at my local music store with subsonic blasts from the mm rig in the back.
Not to say that there is no art in programming (which I am convinced there is), but I don't think art per se is what separates the lemon from the merangue when judging the quality of student software projects. Generating a correct "answer" doesn't necessarily show pure engineering merit. While they may not be so easily quantified as whether a program produces a correct result, there are a number of factors besides the presence or absence of cruft that separate sound engineering work from crap. Among the questions I asked when grading code:
Does the student show clear understanding of the subject and assignment? e.g. if the program was in a C++ course, did they write an object-oriented solution, or just use the procedural features of the underlying C language?
Is the code well organized and either self-documenting or effectively commented? When commented, are the comments clear and accurate?
Does the manner of the solution show particular insight or understanding of the problem or express some novel approach to the solution?
I'm sure if I didn't have code to write today, I could stir up a few more memories from my days in front of a classroom...
Once again, your points are well made and well taken. I also exchanged a huge number of tapes and bought a ton of music as a consequence. As I was writing the initial response to you, I actually considered making that exception for music since, by its nature as something that is used over and over again, it is a little different than movies and books which people tend to view/read a handful of times at the most. In the end, though, I had to get back to work, so I truncated the reply. I don't contest the viral marketing aspect of copying/sharing, I have just observed that despite the claims of a lot of traders, that is not the reality of how they have come to consume music.
For the record, my friend with the drive full of movies and closet of games is a software engineer making close to six figures. It is not money that stops him from purchasing legitimate copies. It is strictly the convenience and lack of expense in downloading or ordering "warezed" versions.
I notice you use the past tense "played in a band". I assume this means that, like myself and my former bandmates, you are now doing something else. Can you elaborate on why you no longer are making your living as a musician?
Also, we frequently found that promoters/owners were often not willing to deal with bands directly, assuming that anything that didn't come via some sort of representative/agency wasn't worth putting on their stage no matter what the quality of the demo/presspack. What was your ratio of press packs out to gigs in?
One more thing: it might be informative to know how you classified your act (specifically whether you made any appeal to genre in your promotions) as this can often influence the booking process. For example, it is much easier for speed metal bands to book into clubs with an established audience for that sort of thing, than for any arbitrarily-styled band to grab a slot on a less specified stage, i.e. most of the larger venues...
There is a fundamental difference between these earlier technologies and the new crop of digital replication and distribution. Photocopiers and VCRs do not produce perfect replicas. They produce a series of progressively degrading facsimiles. The movie business was able to profit from VCRs by distributing their own tapes for sale and rental. Even in the absence of protection schemes like Macrovision, the quality of dubbed VHS is repugnant, so there is little incentive for material that can be obtained legally at a reasonable price to be virally replicated by consumers turned illicit distributors.
Sum: the digital environment *is* a legitimate challenge to content industries, and not a "paper tiger" as you state. Their current business models are approaching obsolesence, and they need to adapt to this new way of doing things. I'm disgusted at the vectors they've chosen (bribing congress to protect their archaic methods instead of adapting to the new technology) but it is not entirely unreasonable that they wish to technologically protect their works from wanton redistribution.
If you really think that digital copying will be a boon to the content industries, then perhaps I should introduce you to a friend of mine with a hard drive full of movies and a crate of cracked video games. How can you maintain that activities like his are anything but parasitic? How can you claim that they stand to benefit the creators/owners of these works in any way?
This reminds me of people who suddenly decide their favorite band sucks because they achieve commercial success.
Yes, big businesses care about money. It's what they do. We should be happy to see big businesses going into OSS/GNU/Linux because the technology has built-in safeguards against being co-opted by "business" in its license and development model. The businesses can buy into it and advance it, but they can't compromise and close it off. They have to play by the OSS rules just like everyone else.
I for one am more interested in seeing OSS fulfill its potential to revolutionize the industry than having it remain a marginalized toy for the geekier-than-thou. I welcome IBM et al to the table because I recognize they are the ones who will make Linux vision viable in the mainsteam.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. If so, please clarify what you really meant...
This is the most useful first post I've ever seen!
Honestly, I never had the big problem w/ Jar Jar that so many /.ers did. I just couldn't resist the joke.
But I stand by my desire expressed down-thread to glue Anakin's mouth shut...
Of course, why simply tear him in half when you can finally make something useful out of him. Can we then use the glue to seal Anakin's mouth shut? Yippee!
Didn't you mean to say "rend" rather than "render"?
OK. Maybe you're joking about the 5 minute thing and I'm just gullible, but I have heard legends of people's hair color changing (usually to white in response to some intense stress) in just such a rapid fashion. Can any of the biologists (or cosmetologists, if there are any) among us explain how such rapid transformations in hair color occur?
If I understand the US Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (which of course means nuts to you in Australia, but they might write in a similar procedure if they pass this bit of barbarism) anyone with a recording distributed during a calendar year is eligible to make a claim against the tax revenues on DATs.
I've had tapes, vinyl and CDs out for years, but never bothered. I always meant to just to make the political statement, but because I'm fundamentally a slacker musician I never got around to it...
Wouldn't it be a whole lot cheaper to just pull down a "traditional" screen as a shade over the window?
Though I've drifted to both sides of this debate over the years (date me back to pong), and though I share your preference for consoles, there's little point in advocating it 'round these here parts. Let's see if I can say this without sounding like I'm working the old "get a life /.er" saw...
I like my consoles (PS2 in the living room, GC in the bedroom) precisely because I don't have to worry about patches, mods, and all the things that make PCs attractive as a platform to those who invest a lot more time and emotion in their gaming. For them, the tweaking is part of the game. My PC is perfectly capable of playing advanced games, but doesn't have a single one loaded on it because I don't have the inclination to work so hard when what I want to do is play.
In sum, platform superiority in this debate is purely a matter of what the individual wants out of his or her system; i.e. the best tool for the job, and there is plenty of room in the market for consoles and PCs because they serve different audiences/needs. I think we can all eat our lunch in peace...
Thank you! So the current initiative to define a consumer "Bill of Rights" for media products is to make Federal law out of what is currently judicial precedent.
Having read 17 USC 107 but not the decisions cited above, I assume (and accept all potential consequences) that what the courts found was that people would not be guilty of infringement for copying material for time- and space-shifting and that they did not discuss encryption issues.
Do I understand correctly, then, that it would be legal (at least under established precedent) for me to make an exact duplicate of a DVD (as in a byte per byte data image) to a second piece of media or to transmit it over my home network for "performance" on another device than the one in which it is loaded, but not to decrypt the DVD for storage or transmission in a different data format because that violates DMCA? The publishers make a thing, hide it in the dark, and then sell you the flashlight. A complicit Congress makes it illegal to manufacture an alternative flashlight.
I thought I was disgusted by this subject before, but the more I understand it, the more nauseous I feel.
Yep. Pretty absurd and reactionary for a state to protect the health and safety of its citizens...
If I get modded down for going off topic, so be it...
/., or if I did see it it was thoroughly occluded by either context or opinion.
I've been pondering something lately that, strangely, I don't ever recall seeing discussed on
Neglecting the ridiculous DMCA, what exactly is the law (US and otherwise) on making copies of legally purchased products for personal consumption, i.e. "private home viewing" on devices other than those sanctioned by the copyopoly? All my videos and DVDs have statements on them forbidding duplication. Most make vague references to "US and International Law" forbidding copying. There is no fine print about fair use. I know US law set out parameters for some of these things in the "betamax case" and "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992", but is the warning in the leader of these media a statement backed by clear law, or is it equivalent to a EULA, a term of purchase agreement which to my knowledge has so far not been proven legally binding (at least I hear people saying over and over they're waiting for a case to challenge them)?
I know there are pending bills in the US Congress to explicitly deliniate fair use rights, but where do we currently stand? DMCA covers defeat of copy control measures, but in the absence of these, is there anything in the law that says creating a mix CD or duplicating an unprotected VHS (why, I can't imagine, given the quality degradation) is llegal when done for one's personal use?
IAALs please chime in!
Re-invoking my original IANAL, and humbly asking that you correct any errors in my conception as follows:
I know enough about the government to know that Article II of the US Constitution says that the state legislature shall decide the manner by which its electors (to the Electoral College) are selected. Whether or not it turned out that the FL supreme's vote was consistent with the Democratic agenda is irrelevant because they acted consistently with their role to resolve the apparent conflict in Florida law as passed by the legislature: that between the "reasonable intent of the voter" statute and that requiring result certification in a fixed amount of time. The FL Supreme Court did not try to change the law. They tried to apply it as charged by their state. Deciding a case does not change law. It sets precedent. As you have stated, by definition only the legislature can change the law.
I also know enough about government as practiced in the FL and in the US to know that points of law in specific cases are resolved by the judicial branch, which establishes precedent for future cases. The USSC's power to determine Constitutionality was established through just such a precedent when the Court assigned it to itself in Marbury v. Madison, 1803. Prior to that, there was no such role interpreted by the Constitution itself. I do not pass opinion on this change in powers, I merely state it as fact of history.