Actually, the goal of region coding is not to increase sales of playback devices as such; it is to maintain artificial market boundaries.
Why? Because they can charge whatever the local market will bear, without having to worry about competition imports from the cheapest region undercutting them.
The second advantage is they can stagger releases between markets, thus spreading out the cash infusion they get from a major new release across a longer period - which is of financial benefit to them.
Re:Nice turnabout for SCO, but...
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Settling SCOres
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Of course, using closed source apps in you business doesn't mean you are safe from lawsuits.
Whether it's BSA nastygrams for potential licence violations, or microsoft trying to enforce the 'no critism' part of their EULA, or apple suing because you because your program uses their aqua interface, or a company suing you because they think you've used their obscure software patent (GIF, JPEG etc), it all demonstrates that no matter what you use, you are always under threat from legal action in the US.
It would make more sense for small companies to lobby for reform in tort law, or even the copyright/patent/trademark laws than to try and pick a 'safe' IT infrastructure.
I'm sorry, but this shows that whoever's telling you the reasons has a fairly bad understanding of europe.
Specifically, you went to Japan, a single country, rather than say, 'we moved into south-east asia'.
The EU was originally setup as a trading bloc, like NAFTA. It is only in recent years that it has become an increasingly joint mass, specifically, the european common currency. It is still though, a very varied system - the nationstate is still a separate and important part of it, and will likely continue to do so. Don't forget, there are 15 countries in the EU, with more pressing to join, all with greatly different cultures, history, economies and political makeup. It is most definitely not a United States of Europe.
Therefore, to stay out of Europe because of different languages, tax rates, and business regulations across it makes about as much sense as staying out of the pacific rim countries, or the middle east, for the same reasons.
Seriously, if you wanted to 'crack' europe, the best bet would be treat each individual country as a separate case. Britain, for example, has the world's 4th largest economy, and has the benefit that you can then trade from there, inside the EU's tax barriers. Germany is another popular destination for multinational headquarters, for the same reason.
If you only wanted to sell to the local markets, rather than set up a shop for localisation there, then a better idea is to use a local software distribution company (in each country or small group of countries), of which there are a number.
As far as patents go, they impede business inovation, harm open source developers, and do nothing but give big companies a way to raise the cost of entry for competition into their market.
Anything which allows software patents in europe would be a bad move. Just look at the sheer number of stories on slashdot involving software patents in the US to show the 'chilling effect' it would have on european software development, much of it done in competition to big US software houses.
This helps precisely zero when I can't control the artist and song preferences of a family member who prefers major label teen pop.
OK then, second hand record stores are surely an ever better option for you? Even if you choose not to buy there for whatever reason, they still provide pressure to keep prices down. And trust me, if you think retail CD prices are bad in the US, they're much worse in the UK now. EVERYTHING, even ancient back catalogues is £15-16, double albums are up to £20. Second hand stores are a godsend, they can go down to half that.
And as far as emusic goes... You tell me cdbaby is useless to you, yet promote an online service with virtually no major artists in its catalogue?
emusic is a step in the right direction, as, as you say, the tracks are unencumbered. However, if I'm going to pay an ongoing non-cancellable subscription (minimum 3 or 12 months) it needs the type of music I listen to (britpop style and ambient, mainly), including the artists I currently listen to. It's different if there's no subscription, then you can cherry pick anything you like for minimum cost. With a subscription, you better be providing me with significant value. I only tend to buy a 'new' CD every few months, as I built up a substantial collection when I was younger and prices were lower.
And secondly, no WAY do 128kb mp3's cut it for me. I can hear the difference in anything less than 160kb, and on some tracks that minimum is 192. Ogg is even more preferable, but I'm a realist. I still don't see why I should buy something that is of lower quality than a CD, just because it's online.
A digital music file certainly isn't a discrete object
Err, it certainly is.
discrete
adj : constituting a separate entity or part; "a government with three discrete divisions"; "on two distinct occasions"
Discrete means it can be distinguished as a separate, independent object from other objects of a similar type. I.e. I can tell my britney mp3 from my Justin Timberlake mp3 from my Bach ogg.
Being able to make copies is neither here or there. To draw a parallel - I can scan my book, print it, bind it, and there, I have a copy of it. I still have the original on my desk though. A physical, discrete object that is visibly complete in and of itself. And yes, an RFC document is in fact a discrete document.
I'm not sure if it's legal to take a personal copy of a CD and then sell the CD while keeping the copy.
It is not. You may backup or transcode a CD into another format for personal use (fair use), but only so long as you own the original work.
But is it legal to rip a CD into MP3s, then destroy the CD, then sell the MP3s?
No, for two reasons. Technicially, when you destroy the original media, you lose the right to keep the copies, i.e. the MP3's. More importantly, by selling (or giving away) the MP3's, you are breaking the fundamental rule of copyright, i.e. you may not distribute copies of a copyrighted work. That's what copyright means. The right to make copies, and that right rests with the owner of the work. In fact, the owner is by definition the person who holds the copyright on it.
I'm not so sure a right of resale is such a legal right,
It is the UK. You give me a discrete product, I give you money. That is called a sale. I can now walk away and do what the hell I want with that product, as long as I break no laws. You, as original seller have no way to restrict, impede or otherwise block what I (legally) do with your product, which specifically includes resale.
If its a digital good, one law I might be breaking is copyright, as that grants general broad rights to the original holder of the work. But under copyright law, again, the right of unrestricted resale of a purchased work (with the exception of fine art, where additional restrictions apply) is specifically mentioned as a fair use right. I cannot sell copies, I cannot give away copies, but I can definitely sell or give away the original product.
that it must apply to a piece information itself (in this case music), and not just to the physical media the information is on (and then if there is no clearly defined physical media, there's nothing to re-sell).
This is a standard piece of FUD propagated by the BSA and big software companies, and to a lesser extent, the RIAA.
You do not buy the physical media. You buy a physical media with a specific instance of a copyrighted work on it. You have certain fair use rights to go with that purchase of that product, to counteract the time limited (hah!) monopoly of the copyright holder. One of those specifically defined fair use rights is that of resale. The fact it comes on a round plastic disc is neither here or there.
Of course it could be made such, by a law which in effect grants consumers "irrevocable right to transfer both a piece of digital information (a music track, a book) and the license to use it, to another person, as a gift or by re-sale, while destroying their own copies of this piece of information".
That's rather ironic, as that law already exists. It's part of copyright law.
But how do you implement this technically? Outlaw DRM? Require free-of-charge service to transfer a DRM license from one person to another?
Ah, but there's the rub. I have the right to resell a DRM'd music file. It is however, worthless as the person I sell it too cannot use it. I do not have a mechanism to force the original seller to remove the DRM, nor is it legal for me to re
Is there any explicit support for RTSP in the Theora project so far?
Ok, I'll post what I know, which ain't much in this case...
Xiph.org already have a server for vorbis streaming, icecast. I've no idea how robust it is, but BBC radio were running vorbis trials (as opposed to realplayer), and they seemed to work pretty good to me.
Browsing the dev mailing list, it also appears that icecast2 already supports theora streaming.
Given the inhouse work on a streaming media server, and that they are specifically aiming theora to take on divx/mpeg4 and windows media, it would make sense that they have to have RTSP support to do that.
In the end of the day though, I've not been able to find anything concrete with google, and I'm not involved in the project directly...
No, what the world needs is for storage and bandwidth to become prevalent enough that video and audio compression are no longer necessary, so that I can send a full length 2048x1200 40fps 2 hour video clip around the world in less than 5 minutes, and that I can store dozens of those files on my hard drive at one time.
Compression will always be with us. By using compression, being ABLE to send a full length 2 hour video in 5 minutes will be here a lot quicker than if we wait for bandwidth alone.
On a completely different note, I'm trying to figure out what niche a free codec will fill.
Streaming media for one. How many people already download realplayer to listen to internet radio or other streaming audio? No harder to make those people download a vorbis enabled player, such as winamp, (or just ogg codecs for WMP). It has the advantage that Ogg sounds better for an equivalent bitrate than WMA, real, or MP3, and has the double bonus that the stream provider doesn't have to cough up for licence fees or expensive streaming software.
Theora theoretically will provide exactly the same benefits, except versus quicktime as its competition.
Another market? People who use linux. Just as apple are pushing AAC, linux pushes ogg, and linux desktop marketshare is rapidly approaching that of the mac.
Supporting them often means supporting ogg, and the linux customer base is only going to grow, if the server market is any indication. And if that doesn't turn out to be true, linux is making huge inroads into the settop box, along with DVR projects like freevo and mythtv. Theora would be the natural codec to use on those platforms.
Finally, there are the people who control the playback mechanism. Game writers not wanting to pay licence fees, and take advantage of the better compression? Natural customers. People wanting to cram more video an a support multimedia disc (just think non-ms encyclopedias). Natural customers.
OK, it's not going to replace Mpeg on DVD, or rewrite HDTV. But it will give some people more bang for less buck. And that's never a bad thing.
It depends how large the sample size is. If there's a sufficiently large number of users, statistically such blind studies have proven to have a low bias.
Of course, audio listening is a subjective thing, but over a sufficient large average (which this study has appeared to have achieved), a consensus should emerge. (As long as you accept the limitations of a self-selecting group such as this, specifically people interested in what lossy audio sounds best on midrange equipment)
If you'd prefer to know what spec. analysis is most faithful, or which sounds best to an expert on high end equipment, I agree that these results may well be less useful - but then, FLAC is probably the better choice over AAC or Vorbis anyway...
It's not entirely as clear cut as that. Let's say you get a tattoo. Now try selling it. Or get a nice paint job on your car, and try selling that (without selling the entire car).
Neither tattoos or car paint jobs are tangible discrete goods, therefore it is unreasonable to apply the same classification, or indeed the exact same legal protections to them as to discrete objects.
A digital music file is indeed a discrete, tradeable object, as kazaa and apples' music store demonstrates. If I was arguing that I should be able to resell something fundamentally non-discrete, such as say, the ID3 tag of an MP3 file, you'd have a point. As it is, the "unique" argument is something of a straw man.
But anyway it's not as if you are not *allowed* to sell DRM music you've bought (as long as you're not breaking plain old copyright law in the process). It's that nobody else is willing to buy it 'cos it's of no use to them.
Well it's a good thing they don't try and stop you actually reselling the object, as that would be against the law for them, as it is a legally protected right to resell a good without having to consult or seek permission from the original vendor.
my argument is that apple's DRM by it's nature, prevents the resale of the good, by defacto making it worthless to anyone but the original purchaser.
That has the same *effect* as if they'd sued me to prevent me reselling the product *which they are not allowed to do* under copyright law.
To reiterate, the effect of the DRM is to remove one of my legal rights. Staw men about tattoo's aside, the DRM is impinging on my fair use.
Now, some people are prepared to accept that as part of the lower cost/ease of access of the product. Fair enough, that's their right to do so.
I on the other hand, will continue to back people like the congressmen who are trying to legislate that companies cannot use DRM to defacto remove fair use rights such as the right of resale, and point out to people who say that Apple's DRM is pretty much perfect, that this is one of the flaws with it.
AS I've said, kudos to Apple to get the RIAA to loosen their grip this much. I remain to be convinced they will get the death-grip reduced to the point where I can buy music online with no greater restrictions than if I buy a CD and rip it myself.
In the UK at least, the right to resell a product once purchased is part of the 'first sale' doctrine. Specifically, once you've bought a product, it's yours to do with as you wish, within the law, and the original seller of the product can impose no further restrictions upon what you can do with it.
This right of resale is explicitly included in copyright law as one that does not breach copyright.
UK and US law is very similar, not only due to the common heritage, but also due to the work of bodies like WIPO to harmonise legislation globally, so there is likely a similar US law.
The exception is with a pre-sale contract, with a willing seller and a willing buyer, along with other things such as legally binding signatures and the ability for both parties to negotiate terms before signing. The standard click-through agreement on a webpage prior to purchase would be unlikely to meet such terms, for various reasons. On top of that, many such pre-sale contracts try to get you to sign away rights which you cannot in fact, sign away with a contract. Such as in the US, constitutionally protected rights such as free speech.
EULA's, or post sale contracts, have similar problems in terms of contract validation, but try to use a legally iffy copyright mechanism* to do an end-run around first sale doctrine. That hasn't been tested in court yet either, in the UK, though specific parts of EULA's have been judged non-binding in the US, which is why the big software companies tried to get UCITA into law. Anyway, I digress.
When you pay money for a product, it is classified as a good. Here, you can resell concert tickets, as the thriving ticket tout industry on ebay shows, as you are selling something tangible, i.e. entrance to a concert building.
The only way something can be considered a 'licence' is if there is a pre-sale contract specifying such, and for example, you pay an ongoing cost for the product. Trying to redefine both purchased music and software as 'licensed' post sale is a typical RIAA/BSA trick, which has little to no legal basis.
Don't be fooled. When you buy something it is yours to do with as you choose. Copyrighted works have one major additional restriction in law - you may not sell or redistribute unauthorised copies of that work. (there are a couple of others, such as not passing off the work as your own, but they aren't relevent to this discussion)
Obviously, copyright law prevents me making a copy and selling the original, but that applies to any copyrighted work, not just DRM audio tracks.
Now, when I buy a CD, I have the right to sell that CD. when I buy a book, I have the right to sell that book. When I buy a DRM'd audio track, even though I still have that right, the DRM prevents me exerting that right.
Legal? Well, I don't own a mac, and I haven't used itunes, and apple don't appear to have posted the terms and conditions of the service on the web so I can't check, but it doesn't really matter, as the technical effect of the DRM is to remove the right of resale anyway.
Someone could sue apple to remove the restriction to allow them to resell the downloaded AAC (i.e. change the user id embedded in the file), or allow them to remove the DRM prior to selling it. A law could be passed specifically preventing DRM being used to prevent resale, a couple of which have been proposed to congress.
Until then, regardless of the legal validity of restricting resale, it is a defacto accomplishment.
*EULA's use the premise that by making a copy of the work, i.e. software, into memory, you are breaching the copyright by making an unauthorised copy. You can become authorised by agreeing to the terms of the EULA. This potentially works as copying the work in order to actually use it is not clearly defined as a legal fair use right, though any common sense interpretation of copyright law would laugh this out of court if they tried to enforce it.
Since a previous commentor has already addressed your points, I thought I'd add a couple of counterarguments.
When are you going to be selling your downloaded itunes AAC files at a secondhand store? (Or ebay, if you prefer). You can't, can you, as they are permanently tied to you. Thus the right of resale, and the ability to buy it cheaper second hand is gone.
How about copying the work for education purposes? (say, using it for a music class). Well, you can rip it to AIFF, as you say. Woohoo. All the costs of lossy encoded material, along with with size of uncompressed media. How good is that? Yes, it's not a complete destruction of that fair use right, but it is degraded. And please don't suggest transcoding it to MP3, you can hear the artifacts when you do that.
How about streaming your purchased (or even self-ripped) music from home to work over the net if you don't have a legacy copy of the older itunes saved? Oh, you could hack your itunes, thus breaking the law with the DMCA. Great.
I agree that Apple's DRM is significantly less than that of it's predecessors, and that it is below the pain point of most people, and should be applauded for that.
But there are still restrictions, and my concern is that it will provide even greater impetus to bring CD's UP to the level of DRM of Apple's music store, rather than carry on reducing the DRM of itunes, specifically restrictions upon resale rights.
Actually, my biggest problem is AAC's patents, so I won't be using AAC on my linux box any time soon, just as I'm worried that MP3's patents will be enforced for software codecs at some point.
Excuse me for being thick, but surely the "one (that) produces the sound most desirable to the the nonrandom sample group over imperfect reproduction equipment" is precisely the goal?
People who download and listen to digital music will mostly listen to it on imperfect reproduction equipment. I don't know many people who use a LOSSY ENCODED format, and then play it back on high end equipment! If you read the article though, their definition of imperfect is reasonably high, i.e. use good headphones as a minimum. Plus, it's an audiophiles group so again, their equipment is probably better than most!
And yes, the sample will be nonrandom, i.e. it will be ra easonably technicial, net using audio ripper crowd. But those are precisely the people who care which codec sounds the best (note not is technically the best).
Then you don't see a difference between a law that allows you to listen to music where you want (when you already could listen to it somehow) and a law that prevents 10 million people from dieing in preventable "accidents?" Excuse me, but that's pretty ignorant.
I'm pointing out that businesses are already regulated in many ways, for many reasons. The general tenor of the argument I am opposing is that businesses can sell what they want, how they want, in whatever manner they want. I disagree with that principle in general, and used an obvious example of regulation (that of microwaves), to demonstrate that most people accept that businesses are, and should be regulated in some manner, in how they act and in what they sell.
The depth of that regulation, and on what grounds when it applies to THIS issue, of copyright, is obviously a matter for debate, but the point I was making there is that there SHOULD be a debate, not just have it written off as (paraphrasing some prior arguments) 'let the free market decide, government should keep it's nose out of business sales'.
Deciding how your product is used does not infringe on fair use,
Actually, that's precisely what it DOES do.
First, I will point out that DRM music discs are very widespread in Europe, far more so than in the US at current. Therefore, I'm very familiar with coming up against the restrictions of these products. (As I'm in the UK, if that wasn't already clear)
The nature of DRM is that it prevents people copying the work in whole or in part for backup or education purposes. It prevents converting the works to another format (for personal use). Often, it restricts what devices I can listen to the music on to those which can cope with the deliberate corruption of the CD standard. Where the DRM 'ties' the product to a particular user or computer, such as computer game serial numbers registered online to allow online play, or apple's itunes DRM, it prevents the lending or resale of the work.
All of the above are fair use rights restricted or denied by the blunt cosh of legal DRM. If you'd like another example, how about CSS? This is the widespread DRM system used on DVDs to enforce regional distribution of DVDs, i.e. the region system. This allows the companies to charge whatever the local market will bear, without having to worry about imports from cheaper regions undercutting them, thus maximising profit. Worse, they have used both copyright law and the DMCA to pursue and prosecute those people who try to exert their fair use right to play their legally purchased media on their own computer (linux), specifically the man who wrote the decss code, 'DVD jon', Jon Johansen, and numerous people who made the code available, or even just linked to it.
DRM is used for various reasons, but by it's very nature it restricts fair use rights, and has very draconian companion legislation to make breaking that DRM illegal even for a fully legal goal.
As for usurious contract, I have no idea what you are trying to claim, it doesn't really make sense in this context.
Specifically the contracts the record companies make artists sign as a cost of doing business with them. Do some background research, and you will find they are very bad indeed, for the artist anyway. These contracts are an excellent example of the nature of the businesses that are pushing DRM, and demonstate their desire to maintain total control of the market. In that sense, they are relevent to this discussion, as DRM is another method by which these businesses can exert control - but this time, over the customer, and preventing him exerting his legal rights.
Can you expound on which business legislation you are referring to? (as you say, the US equivalent of Trade Descriptions Act)
In the UK, many DRM discs are arguably in breach of the Trades Description Act, as they are not RedBook Audio Compact Discs. They do not adhere to those standards, because they 'tweak' the way the disc works such that it
I've seen this before. Admittedly, I'm not american either, but from what I've read, that case has not been taken as unequivocal precendent by the courts - merely that corporations keep trying that same trick to get aspects of personhood applied to them.
Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail. Advertising for example, is not protected under the first amendment.
If that case proves anything, it is that those with money win cases more often than those without under the US judicial system, and that the courts are more willing to allow corporations to do things than they are elsewhere in the world.
And THAT is evidence that the mere ownership of a constitution is no protection if the government and the courts are not willing to abide by it.
I do not believe that is it a constitutionally protected right to make money regardless of the nature of your industry.
But yes, if we ignore the monopoly/cartel, if we ignore that the nature of the product 'features' that infringe upon the rights of their customers in order to use it, if we ignore that the product is obtained under usurious contract via that same cartel that we're already ignoring, if we ignore all business legislation that applies to the nature of the product, such as whatever the US equivalent of the Trade's Description Act is, if we ignore all health and safety legislation that applies to products and the conditions they are produced under etc etc etc, then yes -
companies can sell what they choose under what conditions they choose.
But that's rather the point, isn't it. Hundreds of laws govern what companies can and cannot sell, and under whatever conditions they can sell them, just as there are thousands of laws that govern what ordinary people can and cannot legally do.
I don't see how this law is suddenly so much worse than say, a law that prevents selling microwaves that explode one time in 10.
If anything, it promotes the free market and maintains the guaranteed rights of the customer.
whether we should allow the government to just take away the right to copy-protect CD's without an imminent need
OK, first things first. Corporations don't have rights, people do. In fact, the only country in the world that has even come close to giving corporations rights is the US. Just take the archetypal right, that of free speech. As I constantly have to remind people, corporations do not have that right, commercial speech is not protected speech.
Anyway, it therefore follows that the role of the government includes protecting people's rights when corporations try to limit those rights beyond what they are allowed to do by law. When DRM takes away people's fair use rights, then the government has a DUTY to step in and prevent that.
Secondly, different rules apply to monopolies than non-monopolies. Monopolies distort the idea of the free market. When someone sells a product, someone else can sell a better or a cheaper one, and consumers can choose that product instead, thus providing the regulation to corporate behaviour that you allude to with the need for a label.
In a monopoly situation, that position is reversed. The consumer has NO power to shop around for a better deal, their only choice is to buy, or not to buy. When that product is an essential thing, people WILL suck up the terms, no matter how bad. The law btw, doesn't distinguish between an essential and non-essential good anyway. Monoplies are regulated because they have too much power to act contrary to the free market if left to do so.
You might not consider music to be something essential on the same par as say, water, electricity or telecommunications, but music does fulfill a fundamental role in human society. People buy DVD's with DRM on them, people buy copy-protected CD's because there is no alternative (legal) choice, and they do not wish to do without. Therefore, the only way to protect THEIR rights, is legislation.
Finally, you might say that the music industry is not a monopoly. Technically it is not, it is a cartel, they are also referred to as an oligarchy; effectively, they are 5 companies acting in concert, in a monopoly situation, to enhance their profit at the cost of the fair use rights of the customer. Since the government has granted them the power to do so with copyright, it is the government's duty to limit their ability to abuse that power.
Convert the file to AIFF, sell that, and destroy the originals. I don't know if that's legal, but it should be.
IANAL, but as I understand it, it isn't unless Apple have specifically granted that right, as you would be creating a derivative work (which you can do for yourself, but not others) and selling it. In a similar vein, making a tape of a CD, and destroying the original, you can't then sell the tape, for the same reason. I haven't been able to find the itunes music store terms and conditions on apple's website, and since I use linux (and don't live in the US), I can't check directly. I'd be pretty surprised if Apple granted that right though.
>Ah, you say, I can burn it to CD, and copy that >into MP3, and work from that - substantional >artifacts and all
So work with the AIFF directly. And there are several ways to do the conversion without burning a CD.
Fair enough, that's not one of the advertised features, and as I've said, I don't have a mac to check it out. But still... AIFF is uncompressed, yes? So we've lost the one advantage of lossy compression (small size), while keeping the disadvantage, i.e. inability to recode due to transcoding artifacts. Not ideal, by any stretch. But as I said, that's a limitation of the method of digital distribution, rather than a specifc problem with the DRM itself.
Plus, by making copies of the AIFF, even for fair use purposes such as education, you could technically be nailed for breach of the DMCA, as I don't believe that has an exemption for bypassing copy control mechanisms for fair use. Of course, that's not a problem, because laws are fuzzily interpreted with common sense, by humans, right?;)
(Finally comes back on topic with the article)
Copyright expiring? You're quite optimistic:)/
Well, as I mentioned, I think Disney will continue to do their level best to make copyright in the US perpetual. Whether they then manage to make it perpetual worldwide through WIPO is another matter altogether. There was some broughaha recently about some recordings expiring in europe, and the RIAA making threatening noises about how it would be illegal to import reissues of those into the US.
Fortunately, I do live in europe, and there is some hope over here of copyright continuing to expire eventually.
I fully agree with your criticisms of DRM. But I don't believe that they apply to the iTunes store, because its "DRM" is specifically not intended to impose hard limits.
As I've said, kudos to Apple for getting a DRM scheme that most people could live with past the recording industry lawyers.
But when it comes restrictions upon fair use and reasonable or fuzzy breaches of copyright (such as itunes broadcast streaming capability), I still think that Apple's DRM and methods are still too tight. If you'd like another example, a good fuzzy breach of copyright is itunes ability to stream to a limited number of people. Not a definite breach, but in the grey area around what is a 'public performance'. Apple have just removed the ability to stream over the 'net in itunes, and as I understand it, there are additinal limits on how you can broadcast shop bought AAC's. OK, spend the time to covert them to AIFF, but again, a lossy recorded file that's 40Meg in size, just to get round the DRM. W00t.
As I've said, apple is DRM lite. but it's still DRM. but I guess we'll have to agree to differ.
Imagine that ford was part of an industry cartel, lets call them the Vehicle Manufacturers Association of America, or VMAA.
Now imagine that all the car makers, all members of the VMAA, all decide simultaneously to stop selling cars, and only lease them, and the only cars you can actually buy are second hand ones, or weird little ones from eastern europe.
Oh, and they stop selling aftermarket parts to anyone but authorised dealers, and use patents to stop anyone making equivalent replacement parts.
Oh, and they weld the hood shut on your leased car, and make you sign a contract at lease that means only they can perform aftermarket service.
Still think that the free market is working?
The free market only works when customers have a choice. When the primary controllers of distribution of a good (and the RIAA members have worldwide distribution sown up pretty tight indeed, virtually all labels are actually owned by the big 5) form a cartel, then it's just as bad as a monopoly.
OK, I may not care about Britney. But those artists on small labels who I do like, are still putting out DRM CD's because that's what the parent group wants. They're not doing it much in the US yet, but DRM is in full swing in Europe, and it ain't pretty.
This industry has already been proven guilty of illegal price fixing, I have absolutely no faith that they will not try to lock up their content ever tighter with DRM.
How about resale? Can you alter the DRM signature on those files you've paid for to reassign them to someone else, i.e. can there be a second hand market for those tracks?
How about sampling parts of it, or reproducing it for use in teaching or research? Ah, you say, I can burn it to CD, and copy that into MP3, and work from that - substantional artifacts and all, on top of which you need a CD on which you've paid a tax because it's assumed you're using it for illegal copying. Admittedly, that is not a direct result of DRM, but it still an impact on Fair Use.
Now, what happens when the copyright on those apple DRM'd files expires, in 95 years + the lifetime of the author. Will we still be able to read those DRM'd files? will the DRM magically disappear as the files enter the public domain?
Yes, Apple's DRM is below most people's pain point, and I think it's good that the music companies have started to relax the death grip a little. But all DRM still has a serious knock on effect on our fair use rights, our right of resale of a good, and the entry into the public domain after the expiration of copyright (eventually. Assuming disney fails at some point in their quest to make worldwide copyrights continue to extend in length so that no work ever returns to the public domain - but that's another post)
The problem is, CD's are coming up to same restrictions of apple's DRM, not the other way around. And that DRM ignores the 'wiggle room' that is part of our actual rights.
On top of which, there is genuine breach of copyright, often as part of using those fair use rights. For example, it has been judged in court that you can 'time shift' a broadcasted work as part of your fair use rights. Technicially though, you cannot make a library of that work. So if you were to use your Tivo, or record a song off a radio, or use your tape machine to watch a work later, you're fully within your fair use rights to do so. Because DRM and the 'broadcast flag' don't include that wiggle room, you'll be stopped from doing so. "Ahah" you say. "That's a limitiation of the techonology, it can be fixed". well, that's the point. It's an on/off limitation. Even assuiming the DRM is fixed (unlikely) to allow you to record it for legal timeshifting, you'd only be allowed to watch it once, then the DRM would make it delete itself off the Tivo, as that is what a strict intrepretation of the law demands. Only watched it half way through before the phone rang? Tough.
Don't forget, these industries are the same ones that have accused people (and sued some of them) for 'theft' for singing happy birthday round a campfire, playing music on the radio when there are passengers in the taxi cab, and fastforwarding through the adverts.
Common sense and wiggle room are part of how any system of law works. People break several laws every day, technically (in the UK, just parking your car is technically causing an obstruction, and just have a look at some of the really obscure state laws in the US). Certainly, if we applied driving laws with the same strictness they're trying to apply copyright law, then nobody would be able to drive.
Oh, and by the way, your last point 'if you don't like the terms of use of the product, you don't have to buy it' is not a get out clause for corporations. The recording industry has an effective group monopoly on the production of music. That's why they are often called an oligarchy. since they produce all the recorded music, and additionally are trying to control all outlets of digital distribution as well, there simply isn't a market alternative to their works.
If I could buy the same artists' music from different providers with different DRM schemes, at different prices, you might have a point. As it is, they are using DRM to not only enforce their existing rights rigidly, they are using it to give themselves extra restrictions they do not have under the law.
Let me give you one example. Imagine when you bought a book,
Re:claimed "iPod killer" features, no proof
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Neuros Review
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Well, 20 feet is it's maximum range, and frankly much more than that, and their radio is likely to be out of range of my hearing anyway - unless they're playing extra loud, in which case they're liable to get slapped upside the head anyway. (Not an open plan office, it's a school, so more than 20 feet I'll be outside the room anyway)
Re:claimed "iPod killer" features, no proof
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Neuros Review
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· Score: 2, Informative
It turns out that the only "killer" feature I could come across was "HiSi"
You are kidding, right? If you want a killer feature, being able to transmit a shortrange radio broadcast is definitely it. "MyFi" iirc, would be so useful. In the car, I have a built in radio/CD player, but no 'in jack' to the amp. So short of ripping the dash apart or replacing the stereo, I wasn't able to connect anything external to it. By broadcasting on a spare FM frequency, I can easily play my stored music back through my incar amp. Plus, it sounds I could override the radio if someone in the office is playing something crap on theirs chosen station;)
Having a tuner is handy. On my existing long in the tooth flash mp3 player (a maycom merit) i listen to the radio as much as I do the stored tunes. Even at home, with my whole collection at my fingertips, I listen to broadcast radio or net radio more than my collection, simply cos it's a way of hearing stuff I haven't heard yet (but then I'm in the UK, so all the stations aren't owned by clearchannel, or being shut off the net by the RIAA). Plus, I do listen to the news or comedy. Sure, I could have a separate radio with separate batteries, but all in one is just easier.
Identifying stuff of the radio is a handy feature. Just the other day, I had a riff bugging me off the radio, and I missed who it was by. I spent a good hour at home that night trying to track it down. (for the record it was seven nation army, by the white stripes). As the review says, it spotted current track hits even when the signal was flakey, and as the back catalogue grows, the match ratio will improve for more obscure stuff. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick...
As for ogg support, yes, you can't buy ogg vorbis tracks. Yet. But ogg I'm sure will make an impact on streaming, given it's high quality at low bitrates, and is patent and licence cost free. If I was setting up a net radio station, and I had a choice between wma, real, aac, mp3 or ogg, I'd pick mp3 and vorbis, mp3 for compatibility, and ogg because it's better quality and free!
AAC support is not widespread away from the the itunes crowd don't forget, so I've no doubt it will become the dominant format on apple's kit, I doubt it will impact much elsewhere. AAC is quite heavily patent encumbered, similarly to mp3. Microsoft has no interest in plugging AAC, so it will remain a minority codec on windows, as no doubt will ogg for recorded tracks. On linux, vorbis is the best choice, given the patent and licensing issues. Linux is rapidly approaching mac's market share on the desktop, and is reckoned in many quarters to soon pass it. Even if it doesn't, vorbis support is at least as important as AAC support for the non mac crowd (at least until itunes comes to windows), and it comes free.
For the record, I am replacing all my tracks that I ripped a couple of years back at 128kb mp3. I had to choose between higher rate mp3, or ogg (I run primarily linux and sometimes windows and wma and real just don't cut it in my book). After the 'listen test' I went with highish quality ogg, i.e. quality 7 which roughly averages 210kbs, as frankly, it sounds better on the amp hooked off my computer than a similar rate mp3 does. Plus, it's smaller, and that's always nice. The question mark over whether the mp3 patent holders will start to charge for software players is another mark against it.
I'll give you that there a couple of bugs with it, and that it's a bit clunky. Still, there's no reason they can't release a lighter, more rounded drive unit that plugs into the main faceplate section, and I'm sure since that it's biggest drawback, that's high on the list of things to work on.
I tell you, if they have a more streamlined case on it by the time ogg support comes out, I'm buying one, no question.
Even without, I'll probably still buy one as it's likely to spend most of it's time in my car or on my desk, not in my pocket.
I definitely won't be buying an ipod, it just doesn't support what I want to do with a portable music player.
I stand corrected. I still think we ought to ask Inty for the source first though, before we hang them for GPL infringement.
If I remember, I'll email them when I get back to work next week...
I've got one of them myself, and having poked around the command line while repairing it (with an inty engineer on the other end of the phone) it's a *BSD box, rather than a linux box.
And yes, apparently it is running an unmodified squid, so they don't need to provide the source code for that. I believe it's also running apache, but again, I've been told it's unmodified.
If I was to hazard a guess, their custom stuff is in the webpages running on apache, and possibly custom squid modules. Either way, they don't need to release their code under the GPL any more than I need to release my PHP scripts under the GPL, as they are not altering the programs themselves.
Of course, you could always speak to inty as they are more likely to be able to help you than viglen, who are only resellers...
You're equally wrong about infinity. If there is a non-zero possibility of something happening within a bounded set, which is governed by infinite time or space, it WILL happen. It MUST happen, by the rules of infinity. In fact, it will happen an infinite number of times. infinity * 0.01 = infinity, infinity + 1 = infinity, even infinity - infinity = infinity.
The ONLY way for something not to happen in an infinite space, is for it to have a 0% probability. The example you give (again) is flawed; an infinite set of odd numbers has the implicit boundary condition that no even number be contained in the dataset. Therefore, there is 0% of one occuring, therefore it will not occur. The ONLY case in which it cannot occur. This is how infinity is defined to work.
Most people tend to handle infinity by thinking of it as a 'really big number'. It isn't. It's a mathematical concept, a tool. In many ways, it's more like the decimal place - something you use to get useful work done, but by itself, fairly useless.
Now, the problems come when people try to apply a mathematical theory to the real world/universe.
For starters, there are implicit boundaries. The physics of our current spot of the universe are taken to apply to all of it.
Time may be infinite in our universe, and possibly space (assuming an ever expanding universe) but energy isn't (finite number of stars, as far as we know). As the universe tends to infinity, that energy gets more and more thinly spread, until, using our own physics, any given spot has an infinitely small amount of energy, i.e. tends to 0. Practically, of course, most of it would be tied up in black holes, where we currently couldn't get at it. Either way, there's only a relatively small chunk of time where we can survive using our current energy techniques, i.e. get it all from that bloody big fusion reactor just over there.
There are other boundaries for example. If we take the predicted lifespan of our species, multiplied by the space which we could reach in that timespan, you only have a limited amount of space, even assuming a large lifespan (without extinction events) of say, 2 million years. We also assume that we don't manage to go faster than light.
Depending on what handwaving you do to generate the probabilities of planets per star, and chance of lifer per planet, the chances of finding alien life that exists in the same time/space chunk of the universe that we do, and is capable of communication with us
are still pretty small.
So even in an infinite universe, we need to apply the boundary conditions that are relevent to us. And those boundary conditions are largely handwavy conjecture as to where they actually fall, but they still exist, and are pretty tight.
So basically, infinity cannot be used to prove the existence of alien life, at least not in the subset of the universe that we inhabit. But thats not for the reason that infinity is wrong, but that people use it without including their implicit boundary conditions, or that they don't understand how infinity works (which frankly is most people, and I personally have to keep banging myself on the head to get it right)
There are several differences as to why the threat of (and actual) legal action can be more effective against spammers.
First, there aren't very many spammers. Most estimates put most spam to be coming from a few hundred US based spammers, bouncing off worldwide open relays. Bankrupt or imprison them for the various laws they break, not least fraud and deception, and the flood of spam worldwide would become a trickle, and much of that would be nigerian. (don't know about you, but the nigerian scam is only a tiny, tiny percentage of my inbox)
This is an entirely different proposition from trying to nail the millions of P2P users. Most P2P users can legimately think that the chances of them getting caught are still pretty remote, especially if they live outside the US.
Second, spammers are very very reviled people by anybody who uses email. Just look at what happens to their postbag when their address is known. Thus people will actively co-operate in nailing them, and most big businesses have an interest in getting rid of spammers, even if only to give their legit (optin) direct marketing campaigns a chance of getting eyes on.
Again, this is different to P2P, where you're pretty unlikely to be hunted down and attacked at every opportunity.
Finally, there are a lot of people trying to ease the draconian grip the record industry have upon our cultural heritage. Whether those efforts will succeed or not is unknown, but it is plain that these businesses need to adapt to the changes in customer preferences. Apple's service is only the start.
The only way the spammers can alter their business model is to stop doing what they do, or at the very least, clean up their act and stick to genuine optin marketing. No more porn spam to children, no more herbal viagra, and definitely no more fecking.NET messenger spam (yes, definitely.NET messenger, i'm running kopete on linux!)
Either way, we win. And I have to say, it's about time corporate america started using their big bucks and 'most money wins' legal system to do something for the overall good, even if that is only a side benefit to them.
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Why? Because they can charge whatever the local market will bear, without having to worry about competition imports from the cheapest region undercutting them.
The second advantage is they can stagger releases between markets, thus spreading out the cash infusion they get from a major new release across a longer period - which is of financial benefit to them.
Whether it's BSA nastygrams for potential licence violations, or microsoft trying to enforce the 'no critism' part of their EULA, or apple suing because you because your program uses their aqua interface, or a company suing you because they think you've used their obscure software patent (GIF, JPEG etc), it all demonstrates that no matter what you use, you are always under threat from legal action in the US.
It would make more sense for small companies to lobby for reform in tort law, or even the copyright/patent/trademark laws than to try and pick a 'safe' IT infrastructure.
Specifically, you went to Japan, a single country, rather than say, 'we moved into south-east asia'.
The EU was originally setup as a trading bloc, like NAFTA. It is only in recent years that it has become an increasingly joint mass, specifically, the european common currency. It is still though, a very varied system - the nationstate is still a separate and important part of it, and will likely continue to do so. Don't forget, there are 15 countries in the EU, with more pressing to join, all with greatly different cultures, history, economies and political makeup. It is most definitely not a United States of Europe.
Therefore, to stay out of Europe because of different languages, tax rates, and business regulations across it makes about as much sense as staying out of the pacific rim countries, or the middle east, for the same reasons.
Seriously, if you wanted to 'crack' europe, the best bet would be treat each individual country as a separate case. Britain, for example, has the world's 4th largest economy, and has the benefit that you can then trade from there, inside the EU's tax barriers. Germany is another popular destination for multinational headquarters, for the same reason.
If you only wanted to sell to the local markets, rather than set up a shop for localisation there, then a better idea is to use a local software distribution company (in each country or small group of countries), of which there are a number.
As far as patents go, they impede business inovation, harm open source developers, and do nothing but give big companies a way to raise the cost of entry for competition into their market.
Anything which allows software patents in europe would be a bad move. Just look at the sheer number of stories on slashdot involving software patents in the US to show the 'chilling effect' it would have on european software development, much of it done in competition to big US software houses.
And as far as emusic goes... You tell me cdbaby is useless to you, yet promote an online service with virtually no major artists in its catalogue?
emusic is a step in the right direction, as, as you say, the tracks are unencumbered. However, if I'm going to pay an ongoing non-cancellable subscription (minimum 3 or 12 months) it needs the type of music I listen to (britpop style and ambient, mainly), including the artists I currently listen to. It's different if there's no subscription, then you can cherry pick anything you like for minimum cost. With a subscription, you better be providing me with significant value. I only tend to buy a 'new' CD every few months, as I built up a substantial collection when I was younger and prices were lower.
And secondly, no WAY do 128kb mp3's cut it for me. I can hear the difference in anything less than 160kb, and on some tracks that minimum is 192. Ogg is even more preferable, but I'm a realist. I still don't see why I should buy something that is of lower quality than a CD, just because it's online.
Err, it certainly is.
Discrete means it can be distinguished as a separate, independent object from other objects of a similar type. I.e. I can tell my britney mp3 from my Justin Timberlake mp3 from my Bach ogg.
Being able to make copies is neither here or there. To draw a parallel - I can scan my book, print it, bind it, and there, I have a copy of it. I still have the original on my desk though. A physical, discrete object that is visibly complete in and of itself. And yes, an RFC document is in fact a discrete document.
I'm not sure if it's legal to take a personal copy of a CD and then sell the CD while keeping the copy.
It is not. You may backup or transcode a CD into another format for personal use (fair use), but only so long as you own the original work.
But is it legal to rip a CD into MP3s, then destroy the CD, then sell the MP3s?
No, for two reasons. Technicially, when you destroy the original media, you lose the right to keep the copies, i.e. the MP3's. More importantly, by selling (or giving away) the MP3's, you are breaking the fundamental rule of copyright, i.e. you may not distribute copies of a copyrighted work. That's what copyright means. The right to make copies, and that right rests with the owner of the work. In fact, the owner is by definition the person who holds the copyright on it.
I'm not so sure a right of resale is such a legal right,
It is the UK. You give me a discrete product, I give you money. That is called a sale. I can now walk away and do what the hell I want with that product, as long as I break no laws. You, as original seller have no way to restrict, impede or otherwise block what I (legally) do with your product, which specifically includes resale.
If its a digital good, one law I might be breaking is copyright, as that grants general broad rights to the original holder of the work. But under copyright law, again, the right of unrestricted resale of a purchased work (with the exception of fine art, where additional restrictions apply) is specifically mentioned as a fair use right. I cannot sell copies, I cannot give away copies, but I can definitely sell or give away the original product.
that it must apply to a piece information itself (in this case music), and not just to the physical media the information is on (and then if there is no clearly defined physical media, there's nothing to re-sell).
This is a standard piece of FUD propagated by the BSA and big software companies, and to a lesser extent, the RIAA.
You do not buy the physical media. You buy a physical media with a specific instance of a copyrighted work on it. You have certain fair use rights to go with that purchase of that product, to counteract the time limited (hah!) monopoly of the copyright holder. One of those specifically defined fair use rights is that of resale. The fact it comes on a round plastic disc is neither here or there.
Of course it could be made such, by a law which in effect grants consumers "irrevocable right to transfer both a piece of digital information (a music track, a book) and the license to use it, to another person, as a gift or by re-sale, while destroying their own copies of this piece of information".
That's rather ironic, as that law already exists. It's part of copyright law.
But how do you implement this technically? Outlaw DRM? Require free-of-charge service to transfer a DRM license from one person to another?
Ah, but there's the rub. I have the right to resell a DRM'd music file. It is however, worthless as the person I sell it too cannot use it. I do not have a mechanism to force the original seller to remove the DRM, nor is it legal for me to re
Ok, I'll post what I know, which ain't much in this case...
Xiph.org already have a server for vorbis streaming, icecast. I've no idea how robust it is, but BBC radio were running vorbis trials (as opposed to realplayer), and they seemed to work pretty good to me.
Browsing the dev mailing list, it also appears that icecast2 already supports theora streaming.
Given the inhouse work on a streaming media server, and that they are specifically aiming theora to take on divx/mpeg4 and windows media, it would make sense that they have to have RTSP support to do that.
In the end of the day though, I've not been able to find anything concrete with google, and I'm not involved in the project directly...
Compression will always be with us. By using compression, being ABLE to send a full length 2 hour video in 5 minutes will be here a lot quicker than if we wait for bandwidth alone.
On a completely different note, I'm trying to figure out what niche a free codec will fill.
Streaming media for one. How many people already download realplayer to listen to internet radio or other streaming audio? No harder to make those people download a vorbis enabled player, such as winamp, (or just ogg codecs for WMP). It has the advantage that Ogg sounds better for an equivalent bitrate than WMA, real, or MP3, and has the double bonus that the stream provider doesn't have to cough up for licence fees or expensive streaming software.
Theora theoretically will provide exactly the same benefits, except versus quicktime as its competition.
Another market? People who use linux. Just as apple are pushing AAC, linux pushes ogg, and linux desktop marketshare is rapidly approaching that of the mac.
Supporting them often means supporting ogg, and the linux customer base is only going to grow, if the server market is any indication. And if that doesn't turn out to be true, linux is making huge inroads into the settop box, along with DVR projects like freevo and mythtv. Theora would be the natural codec to use on those platforms.
Finally, there are the people who control the playback mechanism. Game writers not wanting to pay licence fees, and take advantage of the better compression? Natural customers. People wanting to cram more video an a support multimedia disc (just think non-ms encyclopedias). Natural customers.
OK, it's not going to replace Mpeg on DVD, or rewrite HDTV. But it will give some people more bang for less buck. And that's never a bad thing.
Of course, audio listening is a subjective thing, but over a sufficient large average (which this study has appeared to have achieved), a consensus should emerge. (As long as you accept the limitations of a self-selecting group such as this, specifically people interested in what lossy audio sounds best on midrange equipment)
If you'd prefer to know what spec. analysis is most faithful, or which sounds best to an expert on high end equipment, I agree that these results may well be less useful - but then, FLAC is probably the better choice over AAC or Vorbis anyway...
Neither tattoos or car paint jobs are tangible discrete goods, therefore it is unreasonable to apply the same classification, or indeed the exact same legal protections to them as to discrete objects.
A digital music file is indeed a discrete, tradeable object, as kazaa and apples' music store demonstrates. If I was arguing that I should be able to resell something fundamentally non-discrete, such as say, the ID3 tag of an MP3 file, you'd have a point. As it is, the "unique" argument is something of a straw man.
But anyway it's not as if you are not *allowed* to sell DRM music you've bought (as long as you're not breaking plain old copyright law in the process). It's that nobody else is willing to buy it 'cos it's of no use to them.
Well it's a good thing they don't try and stop you actually reselling the object, as that would be against the law for them, as it is a legally protected right to resell a good without having to consult or seek permission from the original vendor.
my argument is that apple's DRM by it's nature, prevents the resale of the good, by defacto making it worthless to anyone but the original purchaser. That has the same *effect* as if they'd sued me to prevent me reselling the product *which they are not allowed to do* under copyright law.
To reiterate, the effect of the DRM is to remove one of my legal rights. Staw men about tattoo's aside, the DRM is impinging on my fair use.
Now, some people are prepared to accept that as part of the lower cost/ease of access of the product. Fair enough, that's their right to do so.
I on the other hand, will continue to back people like the congressmen who are trying to legislate that companies cannot use DRM to defacto remove fair use rights such as the right of resale, and point out to people who say that Apple's DRM is pretty much perfect, that this is one of the flaws with it.
AS I've said, kudos to Apple to get the RIAA to loosen their grip this much. I remain to be convinced they will get the death-grip reduced to the point where I can buy music online with no greater restrictions than if I buy a CD and rip it myself.
This right of resale is explicitly included in copyright law as one that does not breach copyright.
UK and US law is very similar, not only due to the common heritage, but also due to the work of bodies like WIPO to harmonise legislation globally, so there is likely a similar US law.
The exception is with a pre-sale contract, with a willing seller and a willing buyer, along with other things such as legally binding signatures and the ability for both parties to negotiate terms before signing. The standard click-through agreement on a webpage prior to purchase would be unlikely to meet such terms, for various reasons. On top of that, many such pre-sale contracts try to get you to sign away rights which you cannot in fact, sign away with a contract. Such as in the US, constitutionally protected rights such as free speech.
EULA's, or post sale contracts, have similar problems in terms of contract validation, but try to use a legally iffy copyright mechanism* to do an end-run around first sale doctrine. That hasn't been tested in court yet either, in the UK, though specific parts of EULA's have been judged non-binding in the US, which is why the big software companies tried to get UCITA into law. Anyway, I digress.
When you pay money for a product, it is classified as a good. Here, you can resell concert tickets, as the thriving ticket tout industry on ebay shows, as you are selling something tangible, i.e. entrance to a concert building.
The only way something can be considered a 'licence' is if there is a pre-sale contract specifying such, and for example, you pay an ongoing cost for the product. Trying to redefine both purchased music and software as 'licensed' post sale is a typical RIAA/BSA trick, which has little to no legal basis.
Don't be fooled. When you buy something it is yours to do with as you choose. Copyrighted works have one major additional restriction in law - you may not sell or redistribute unauthorised copies of that work. (there are a couple of others, such as not passing off the work as your own, but they aren't relevent to this discussion)
Obviously, copyright law prevents me making a copy and selling the original, but that applies to any copyrighted work, not just DRM audio tracks.
Now, when I buy a CD, I have the right to sell that CD. when I buy a book, I have the right to sell that book. When I buy a DRM'd audio track, even though I still have that right, the DRM prevents me exerting that right.
Legal? Well, I don't own a mac, and I haven't used itunes, and apple don't appear to have posted the terms and conditions of the service on the web so I can't check, but it doesn't really matter, as the technical effect of the DRM is to remove the right of resale anyway.
Someone could sue apple to remove the restriction to allow them to resell the downloaded AAC (i.e. change the user id embedded in the file), or allow them to remove the DRM prior to selling it. A law could be passed specifically preventing DRM being used to prevent resale, a couple of which have been proposed to congress.
Until then, regardless of the legal validity of restricting resale, it is a defacto accomplishment.
*EULA's use the premise that by making a copy of the work, i.e. software, into memory, you are breaching the copyright by making an unauthorised copy. You can become authorised by agreeing to the terms of the EULA. This potentially works as copying the work in order to actually use it is not clearly defined as a legal fair use right, though any common sense interpretation of copyright law would laugh this out of court if they tried to enforce it.
When are you going to be selling your downloaded itunes AAC files at a secondhand store? (Or ebay, if you prefer). You can't, can you, as they are permanently tied to you. Thus the right of resale, and the ability to buy it cheaper second hand is gone.
How about copying the work for education purposes? (say, using it for a music class). Well, you can rip it to AIFF, as you say. Woohoo. All the costs of lossy encoded material, along with with size of uncompressed media. How good is that? Yes, it's not a complete destruction of that fair use right, but it is degraded. And please don't suggest transcoding it to MP3, you can hear the artifacts when you do that.
How about streaming your purchased (or even self-ripped) music from home to work over the net if you don't have a legacy copy of the older itunes saved? Oh, you could hack your itunes, thus breaking the law with the DMCA. Great.
I agree that Apple's DRM is significantly less than that of it's predecessors, and that it is below the pain point of most people, and should be applauded for that.
But there are still restrictions, and my concern is that it will provide even greater impetus to bring CD's UP to the level of DRM of Apple's music store, rather than carry on reducing the DRM of itunes, specifically restrictions upon resale rights.
Actually, my biggest problem is AAC's patents, so I won't be using AAC on my linux box any time soon, just as I'm worried that MP3's patents will be enforced for software codecs at some point.
People who download and listen to digital music will mostly listen to it on imperfect reproduction equipment. I don't know many people who use a LOSSY ENCODED format, and then play it back on high end equipment! If you read the article though, their definition of imperfect is reasonably high, i.e. use good headphones as a minimum. Plus, it's an audiophiles group so again, their equipment is probably better than most!
And yes, the sample will be nonrandom, i.e. it will be ra easonably technicial, net using audio ripper crowd. But those are precisely the people who care which codec sounds the best (note not is technically the best).
I'm pointing out that businesses are already regulated in many ways, for many reasons. The general tenor of the argument I am opposing is that businesses can sell what they want, how they want, in whatever manner they want. I disagree with that principle in general, and used an obvious example of regulation (that of microwaves), to demonstrate that most people accept that businesses are, and should be regulated in some manner, in how they act and in what they sell.
The depth of that regulation, and on what grounds when it applies to THIS issue, of copyright, is obviously a matter for debate, but the point I was making there is that there SHOULD be a debate, not just have it written off as (paraphrasing some prior arguments) 'let the free market decide, government should keep it's nose out of business sales'.
Deciding how your product is used does not infringe on fair use,
Actually, that's precisely what it DOES do. First, I will point out that DRM music discs are very widespread in Europe, far more so than in the US at current. Therefore, I'm very familiar with coming up against the restrictions of these products. (As I'm in the UK, if that wasn't already clear)
The nature of DRM is that it prevents people copying the work in whole or in part for backup or education purposes. It prevents converting the works to another format (for personal use). Often, it restricts what devices I can listen to the music on to those which can cope with the deliberate corruption of the CD standard. Where the DRM 'ties' the product to a particular user or computer, such as computer game serial numbers registered online to allow online play, or apple's itunes DRM, it prevents the lending or resale of the work.
All of the above are fair use rights restricted or denied by the blunt cosh of legal DRM. If you'd like another example, how about CSS? This is the widespread DRM system used on DVDs to enforce regional distribution of DVDs, i.e. the region system. This allows the companies to charge whatever the local market will bear, without having to worry about imports from cheaper regions undercutting them, thus maximising profit. Worse, they have used both copyright law and the DMCA to pursue and prosecute those people who try to exert their fair use right to play their legally purchased media on their own computer (linux), specifically the man who wrote the decss code, 'DVD jon', Jon Johansen, and numerous people who made the code available, or even just linked to it.
DRM is used for various reasons, but by it's very nature it restricts fair use rights, and has very draconian companion legislation to make breaking that DRM illegal even for a fully legal goal.
As for usurious contract, I have no idea what you are trying to claim, it doesn't really make sense in this context.
Specifically the contracts the record companies make artists sign as a cost of doing business with them. Do some background research, and you will find they are very bad indeed, for the artist anyway. These contracts are an excellent example of the nature of the businesses that are pushing DRM, and demonstate their desire to maintain total control of the market. In that sense, they are relevent to this discussion, as DRM is another method by which these businesses can exert control - but this time, over the customer, and preventing him exerting his legal rights.
Can you expound on which business legislation you are referring to? (as you say, the US equivalent of Trade Descriptions Act)
In the UK, many DRM discs are arguably in breach of the Trades Description Act, as they are not RedBook Audio Compact Discs. They do not adhere to those standards, because they 'tweak' the way the disc works such that it
Sometimes they work, sometimes they fail. Advertising for example, is not protected under the first amendment.
If that case proves anything, it is that those with money win cases more often than those without under the US judicial system, and that the courts are more willing to allow corporations to do things than they are elsewhere in the world.
And THAT is evidence that the mere ownership of a constitution is no protection if the government and the courts are not willing to abide by it.
But yes, if we ignore the monopoly/cartel, if we ignore that the nature of the product 'features' that infringe upon the rights of their customers in order to use it, if we ignore that the product is obtained under usurious contract via that same cartel that we're already ignoring, if we ignore all business legislation that applies to the nature of the product, such as whatever the US equivalent of the Trade's Description Act is, if we ignore all health and safety legislation that applies to products and the conditions they are produced under etc etc etc, then yes -
companies can sell what they choose under what conditions they choose.
But that's rather the point, isn't it. Hundreds of laws govern what companies can and cannot sell, and under whatever conditions they can sell them, just as there are thousands of laws that govern what ordinary people can and cannot legally do.
I don't see how this law is suddenly so much worse than say, a law that prevents selling microwaves that explode one time in 10.
If anything, it promotes the free market and maintains the guaranteed rights of the customer.
OK, first things first. Corporations don't have rights, people do. In fact, the only country in the world that has even come close to giving corporations rights is the US. Just take the archetypal right, that of free speech. As I constantly have to remind people, corporations do not have that right, commercial speech is not protected speech.
Anyway, it therefore follows that the role of the government includes protecting people's rights when corporations try to limit those rights beyond what they are allowed to do by law. When DRM takes away people's fair use rights, then the government has a DUTY to step in and prevent that.
Secondly, different rules apply to monopolies than non-monopolies. Monopolies distort the idea of the free market. When someone sells a product, someone else can sell a better or a cheaper one, and consumers can choose that product instead, thus providing the regulation to corporate behaviour that you allude to with the need for a label.
In a monopoly situation, that position is reversed. The consumer has NO power to shop around for a better deal, their only choice is to buy, or not to buy. When that product is an essential thing, people WILL suck up the terms, no matter how bad. The law btw, doesn't distinguish between an essential and non-essential good anyway. Monoplies are regulated because they have too much power to act contrary to the free market if left to do so.
You might not consider music to be something essential on the same par as say, water, electricity or telecommunications, but music does fulfill a fundamental role in human society. People buy DVD's with DRM on them, people buy copy-protected CD's because there is no alternative (legal) choice, and they do not wish to do without. Therefore, the only way to protect THEIR rights, is legislation.
Finally, you might say that the music industry is not a monopoly. Technically it is not, it is a cartel, they are also referred to as an oligarchy; effectively, they are 5 companies acting in concert, in a monopoly situation, to enhance their profit at the cost of the fair use rights of the customer. Since the government has granted them the power to do so with copyright, it is the government's duty to limit their ability to abuse that power.
IANAL, but as I understand it, it isn't unless Apple have specifically granted that right, as you would be creating a derivative work (which you can do for yourself, but not others) and selling it. In a similar vein, making a tape of a CD, and destroying the original, you can't then sell the tape, for the same reason. I haven't been able to find the itunes music store terms and conditions on apple's website, and since I use linux (and don't live in the US), I can't check directly. I'd be pretty surprised if Apple granted that right though.
>Ah, you say, I can burn it to CD, and copy that >into MP3, and work from that - substantional >artifacts and all
So work with the AIFF directly. And there are several ways to do the conversion without burning a CD. Fair enough, that's not one of the advertised features, and as I've said, I don't have a mac to check it out. But still... AIFF is uncompressed, yes? So we've lost the one advantage of lossy compression (small size), while keeping the disadvantage, i.e. inability to recode due to transcoding artifacts. Not ideal, by any stretch. But as I said, that's a limitation of the method of digital distribution, rather than a specifc problem with the DRM itself.
Plus, by making copies of the AIFF, even for fair use purposes such as education, you could technically be nailed for breach of the DMCA, as I don't believe that has an exemption for bypassing copy control mechanisms for fair use. Of course, that's not a problem, because laws are fuzzily interpreted with common sense, by humans, right? ;)
(Finally comes back on topic with the article)
Copyright expiring? You're quite optimistic :)/
Well, as I mentioned, I think Disney will continue to do their level best to make copyright in the US perpetual. Whether they then manage to make it perpetual worldwide through WIPO is another matter altogether. There was some broughaha recently about some recordings expiring in europe, and the RIAA making threatening noises about how it would be illegal to import reissues of those into the US.
Fortunately, I do live in europe, and there is some hope over here of copyright continuing to expire eventually.
I fully agree with your criticisms of DRM. But I don't believe that they apply to the iTunes store, because its "DRM" is specifically not intended to impose hard limits.
As I've said, kudos to Apple for getting a DRM scheme that most people could live with past the recording industry lawyers.
But when it comes restrictions upon fair use and reasonable or fuzzy breaches of copyright (such as itunes broadcast streaming capability), I still think that Apple's DRM and methods are still too tight. If you'd like another example, a good fuzzy breach of copyright is itunes ability to stream to a limited number of people. Not a definite breach, but in the grey area around what is a 'public performance'. Apple have just removed the ability to stream over the 'net in itunes, and as I understand it, there are additinal limits on how you can broadcast shop bought AAC's. OK, spend the time to covert them to AIFF, but again, a lossy recorded file that's 40Meg in size, just to get round the DRM. W00t.
As I've said, apple is DRM lite. but it's still DRM. but I guess we'll have to agree to differ.
Imagine that ford was part of an industry cartel, lets call them the Vehicle Manufacturers Association of America, or VMAA.
Now imagine that all the car makers, all members of the VMAA, all decide simultaneously to stop selling cars, and only lease them, and the only cars you can actually buy are second hand ones, or weird little ones from eastern europe.
Oh, and they stop selling aftermarket parts to anyone but authorised dealers, and use patents to stop anyone making equivalent replacement parts. Oh, and they weld the hood shut on your leased car, and make you sign a contract at lease that means only they can perform aftermarket service.
Still think that the free market is working?
The free market only works when customers have a choice. When the primary controllers of distribution of a good (and the RIAA members have worldwide distribution sown up pretty tight indeed, virtually all labels are actually owned by the big 5) form a cartel, then it's just as bad as a monopoly.
OK, I may not care about Britney. But those artists on small labels who I do like, are still putting out DRM CD's because that's what the parent group wants. They're not doing it much in the US yet, but DRM is in full swing in Europe, and it ain't pretty.
This industry has already been proven guilty of illegal price fixing, I have absolutely no faith that they will not try to lock up their content ever tighter with DRM.
How about resale? Can you alter the DRM signature on those files you've paid for to reassign them to someone else, i.e. can there be a second hand market for those tracks?
How about sampling parts of it, or reproducing it for use in teaching or research? Ah, you say, I can burn it to CD, and copy that into MP3, and work from that - substantional artifacts and all, on top of which you need a CD on which you've paid a tax because it's assumed you're using it for illegal copying. Admittedly, that is not a direct result of DRM, but it still an impact on Fair Use.
Now, what happens when the copyright on those apple DRM'd files expires, in 95 years + the lifetime of the author. Will we still be able to read those DRM'd files? will the DRM magically disappear as the files enter the public domain?
Yes, Apple's DRM is below most people's pain point, and I think it's good that the music companies have started to relax the death grip a little. But all DRM still has a serious knock on effect on our fair use rights, our right of resale of a good, and the entry into the public domain after the expiration of copyright (eventually. Assuming disney fails at some point in their quest to make worldwide copyrights continue to extend in length so that no work ever returns to the public domain - but that's another post)
The problem is, CD's are coming up to same restrictions of apple's DRM, not the other way around. And that DRM ignores the 'wiggle room' that is part of our actual rights.
On top of which, there is genuine breach of copyright, often as part of using those fair use rights. For example, it has been judged in court that you can 'time shift' a broadcasted work as part of your fair use rights. Technicially though, you cannot make a library of that work. So if you were to use your Tivo, or record a song off a radio, or use your tape machine to watch a work later, you're fully within your fair use rights to do so. Because DRM and the 'broadcast flag' don't include that wiggle room, you'll be stopped from doing so. "Ahah" you say. "That's a limitiation of the techonology, it can be fixed". well, that's the point. It's an on/off limitation. Even assuiming the DRM is fixed (unlikely) to allow you to record it for legal timeshifting, you'd only be allowed to watch it once, then the DRM would make it delete itself off the Tivo, as that is what a strict intrepretation of the law demands. Only watched it half way through before the phone rang? Tough.
Don't forget, these industries are the same ones that have accused people (and sued some of them) for 'theft' for singing happy birthday round a campfire, playing music on the radio when there are passengers in the taxi cab, and fastforwarding through the adverts.
Common sense and wiggle room are part of how any system of law works. People break several laws every day, technically (in the UK, just parking your car is technically causing an obstruction, and just have a look at some of the really obscure state laws in the US). Certainly, if we applied driving laws with the same strictness they're trying to apply copyright law, then nobody would be able to drive.
Oh, and by the way, your last point 'if you don't like the terms of use of the product, you don't have to buy it' is not a get out clause for corporations. The recording industry has an effective group monopoly on the production of music. That's why they are often called an oligarchy. since they produce all the recorded music, and additionally are trying to control all outlets of digital distribution as well, there simply isn't a market alternative to their works. If I could buy the same artists' music from different providers with different DRM schemes, at different prices, you might have a point. As it is, they are using DRM to not only enforce their existing rights rigidly, they are using it to give themselves extra restrictions they do not have under the law.
Let me give you one example. Imagine when you bought a book,
Well, 20 feet is it's maximum range, and frankly much more than that, and their radio is likely to be out of range of my hearing anyway - unless they're playing extra loud, in which case they're liable to get slapped upside the head anyway. (Not an open plan office, it's a school, so more than 20 feet I'll be outside the room anyway)
You are kidding, right? If you want a killer feature, being able to transmit a shortrange radio broadcast is definitely it. "MyFi" iirc, would be so useful. In the car, I have a built in radio/CD player, but no 'in jack' to the amp. So short of ripping the dash apart or replacing the stereo, I wasn't able to connect anything external to it. By broadcasting on a spare FM frequency, I can easily play my stored music back through my incar amp. Plus, it sounds I could override the radio if someone in the office is playing something crap on theirs chosen station ;)
Having a tuner is handy. On my existing long in the tooth flash mp3 player (a maycom merit) i listen to the radio as much as I do the stored tunes. Even at home, with my whole collection at my fingertips, I listen to broadcast radio or net radio more than my collection, simply cos it's a way of hearing stuff I haven't heard yet (but then I'm in the UK, so all the stations aren't owned by clearchannel, or being shut off the net by the RIAA). Plus, I do listen to the news or comedy. Sure, I could have a separate radio with separate batteries, but all in one is just easier.
Identifying stuff of the radio is a handy feature. Just the other day, I had a riff bugging me off the radio, and I missed who it was by. I spent a good hour at home that night trying to track it down. (for the record it was seven nation army, by the white stripes). As the review says, it spotted current track hits even when the signal was flakey, and as the back catalogue grows, the match ratio will improve for more obscure stuff. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick...
As for ogg support, yes, you can't buy ogg vorbis tracks. Yet. But ogg I'm sure will make an impact on streaming, given it's high quality at low bitrates, and is patent and licence cost free. If I was setting up a net radio station, and I had a choice between wma, real, aac, mp3 or ogg, I'd pick mp3 and vorbis, mp3 for compatibility, and ogg because it's better quality and free!
AAC support is not widespread away from the the itunes crowd don't forget, so I've no doubt it will become the dominant format on apple's kit, I doubt it will impact much elsewhere. AAC is quite heavily patent encumbered, similarly to mp3. Microsoft has no interest in plugging AAC, so it will remain a minority codec on windows, as no doubt will ogg for recorded tracks. On linux, vorbis is the best choice, given the patent and licensing issues. Linux is rapidly approaching mac's market share on the desktop, and is reckoned in many quarters to soon pass it. Even if it doesn't, vorbis support is at least as important as AAC support for the non mac crowd (at least until itunes comes to windows), and it comes free.
For the record, I am replacing all my tracks that I ripped a couple of years back at 128kb mp3. I had to choose between higher rate mp3, or ogg (I run primarily linux and sometimes windows and wma and real just don't cut it in my book). After the 'listen test' I went with highish quality ogg, i.e. quality 7 which roughly averages 210kbs, as frankly, it sounds better on the amp hooked off my computer than a similar rate mp3 does. Plus, it's smaller, and that's always nice. The question mark over whether the mp3 patent holders will start to charge for software players is another mark against it.
I'll give you that there a couple of bugs with it, and that it's a bit clunky. Still, there's no reason they can't release a lighter, more rounded drive unit that plugs into the main faceplate section, and I'm sure since that it's biggest drawback, that's high on the list of things to work on.
I tell you, if they have a more streamlined case on it by the time ogg support comes out, I'm buying one, no question.
Even without, I'll probably still buy one as it's likely to spend most of it's time in my car or on my desk, not in my pocket.
I definitely won't be buying an ipod, it just doesn't support what I want to do with a portable music player.
I stand corrected. I still think we ought to ask Inty for the source first though, before we hang them for GPL infringement. If I remember, I'll email them when I get back to work next week...
I've got one of them myself, and having poked around the command line while repairing it (with an inty engineer on the other end of the phone) it's a *BSD box, rather than a linux box.
And yes, apparently it is running an unmodified squid, so they don't need to provide the source code for that. I believe it's also running apache, but again, I've been told it's unmodified.
If I was to hazard a guess, their custom stuff is in the webpages running on apache, and possibly custom squid modules. Either way, they don't need to release their code under the GPL any more than I need to release my PHP scripts under the GPL, as they are not altering the programs themselves.
Of course, you could always speak to inty as they are more likely to be able to help you than viglen, who are only resellers...
The ONLY way for something not to happen in an infinite space, is for it to have a 0% probability. The example you give (again) is flawed; an infinite set of odd numbers has the implicit boundary condition that no even number be contained in the dataset. Therefore, there is 0% of one occuring, therefore it will not occur. The ONLY case in which it cannot occur. This is how infinity is defined to work.
Most people tend to handle infinity by thinking of it as a 'really big number'. It isn't. It's a mathematical concept, a tool. In many ways, it's more like the decimal place - something you use to get useful work done, but by itself, fairly useless.
Now, the problems come when people try to apply a mathematical theory to the real world/universe.
For starters, there are implicit boundaries. The physics of our current spot of the universe are taken to apply to all of it.
Time may be infinite in our universe, and possibly space (assuming an ever expanding universe) but energy isn't (finite number of stars, as far as we know). As the universe tends to infinity, that energy gets more and more thinly spread, until, using our own physics, any given spot has an infinitely small amount of energy, i.e. tends to 0. Practically, of course, most of it would be tied up in black holes, where we currently couldn't get at it. Either way, there's only a relatively small chunk of time where we can survive using our current energy techniques, i.e. get it all from that bloody big fusion reactor just over there.
There are other boundaries for example. If we take the predicted lifespan of our species, multiplied by the space which we could reach in that timespan, you only have a limited amount of space, even assuming a large lifespan (without extinction events) of say, 2 million years. We also assume that we don't manage to go faster than light.
Depending on what handwaving you do to generate the probabilities of planets per star, and chance of lifer per planet, the chances of finding alien life that exists in the same time/space chunk of the universe that we do, and is capable of communication with us are still pretty small.
So even in an infinite universe, we need to apply the boundary conditions that are relevent to us. And those boundary conditions are largely handwavy conjecture as to where they actually fall, but they still exist, and are pretty tight.
So basically, infinity cannot be used to prove the existence of alien life, at least not in the subset of the universe that we inhabit. But thats not for the reason that infinity is wrong, but that people use it without including their implicit boundary conditions, or that they don't understand how infinity works (which frankly is most people, and I personally have to keep banging myself on the head to get it right)
Maths lecture over...
There are several differences as to why the threat of (and actual) legal action can be more effective against spammers. First, there aren't very many spammers. Most estimates put most spam to be coming from a few hundred US based spammers, bouncing off worldwide open relays. Bankrupt or imprison them for the various laws they break, not least fraud and deception, and the flood of spam worldwide would become a trickle, and much of that would be nigerian. (don't know about you, but the nigerian scam is only a tiny, tiny percentage of my inbox) This is an entirely different proposition from trying to nail the millions of P2P users. Most P2P users can legimately think that the chances of them getting caught are still pretty remote, especially if they live outside the US. Second, spammers are very very reviled people by anybody who uses email. Just look at what happens to their postbag when their address is known. Thus people will actively co-operate in nailing them, and most big businesses have an interest in getting rid of spammers, even if only to give their legit (optin) direct marketing campaigns a chance of getting eyes on. Again, this is different to P2P, where you're pretty unlikely to be hunted down and attacked at every opportunity. Finally, there are a lot of people trying to ease the draconian grip the record industry have upon our cultural heritage. Whether those efforts will succeed or not is unknown, but it is plain that these businesses need to adapt to the changes in customer preferences. Apple's service is only the start. The only way the spammers can alter their business model is to stop doing what they do, or at the very least, clean up their act and stick to genuine optin marketing. No more porn spam to children, no more herbal viagra, and definitely no more fecking .NET messenger spam (yes, definitely .NET messenger, i'm running kopete on linux!)
Either way, we win. And I have to say, it's about time corporate america started using their big bucks and 'most money wins' legal system to do something for the overall good, even if that is only a side benefit to them.