Sorry, I don't even see where you're going with that one. If you don't happen to agree with my philosphy on respecting copyrights, that's fine. If you would like to reword your question to make it more clear, I may be able to give you a meaningful reply.
It's important to understand context. I thought I was quoting enough of your post when I made my reply, but it looks like I didn't. I apologize.
The strategies and tactics of the RIAA vs. the AMA might be an interesting discussion, but the context here is the purpose of industry trade groups. The GGP (or whatever it is now) was, I believe, attempting to clear up the popular misconception that when you buy from the iTMS or another reseller, you're paying money directly to the RIAA. The two are not apples and oranges in the context of understanding what an industry trade group is.
"and fornication is illegal under georgia law, your point?"
The key here is context. You stated: "therefore it's only piracy in your opinion according to your morality." I pointed out that it's a widely-held opinion that it's piracy when the downloader lives in the US. Your implication, if I understood you correctly, was that his opinion of allofmp3's legality in the US was driven by his morality; I pointed out that there are plenty of experts who agree with him. The discussions on the Wikipedia talk page and elsewhere seem relatively disinterested, as opposed to Slashdot.
"false, as has been stated elsewhere, GM alone lost as much revenue in the last year as the entirety of hollywood's copyright industry made in revenues and didnt even blink. They are a miniscule portion of this nation's quality of life."
In 1995 (the most recent year for which I could find data) our IP exports were something like $27BB. We imported $6BB worth, for a surplus of $21BB. This is significant, as the US runs at a trade deficit, overall -- to use your comparison, we import a lot of foreign cars. Any industry where we run a surplus, rather than a deficit, is an industry that our government will want to protect.
"now if you do want to talk about economic factors.. can you quantify the number of tech products (and their developers, potential multibillion dollar industries) which have been surpressed/quashed under the DMCA? I personally know of enough has already been quashed to make the law look like economic suicide. We could have recovered from the.com bust and potentially avoided the recent recession if this law did not exist."
"Times are changing, and artists will adapt. If music weren't so profitable, we'd probably see better music. Just as Free software has given us an example that self-motivated programmers can produce fantastic programs, self-motivated musicians can create amazing and wonderful music."
As an aside, this is a notion that Ayn Rand explored in Atlas Shrugged. In that novel, the consumers attempted to put the producers in their place, in an attempt to eliminate the effects of greed and to level the playing field. The theory was that the producers would still produce even without financial incentives, as it was simply in their nature to produce. I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't read it, but I'll just point out that the themes explored in the book relate quite well to the current consumer vs. producer IP war that's presently going on.
You're correct that lots of people will produce stuff for free -- if they want to. I am not so sure that forcing the issue (by eliminating copyright, or by not enforcing current copyright laws) would have a positive effect.
I think that letting artists choose their own destiny works pretty well. If an artist has chosen to give away their work for free under Creative Commons, then I'll help myself for free. If they've opted to go with Magnatunes and I can download their CD for only $5 if I want to, then great -- more power to them. There'll always be artists who will choose to go this route. But if somebody has not given me permission to copy their work, I'll respect their wishes, as well.
"maybe then there would be an analogy, otherwise we're looking at apples and oranges."
I think you may have read his post a little too quickly. The point is that the RIAA and the AMA are both industry trade groups. They represent businesses in their given industries, and do not sell products directly to the public. Do you understand?
"replace allofmp3 with "the makers of the vcr", and you get the same argument, would you say using a vcr is piracy too?"
Slippery slope fallacy. Ample differences between downloading music from a remote site and time/space shifting broadcasts with a VCR. The courts have shown this, and smart people understand this. Some people have tried the "pirating is just like a VCR because I'm just downloading stuff I already own, and this is a faster option than ripping" but smart people also understand that the majority of piracy is not space-shifting of content one already owns.
"ok true, but this is perfectly legal in russia, therefore it's only piracy in your opinion according to your morality."
There's ample opinion that it's illegal for a US citizen to download from allofmp3. The Wikipedia article has some detailed background. The talk page has some interesting discussion, as well.
"Also, notice the russian recording industry is doing just fine in a nation which by our standards is "rampant with piracy".
ask yourself why we need these laws when theyre doing just fine without them?"
Russia is largely a consumer of IP nowadays, while the USA is one of the world's biggest producers of IP. Ask a Russian to name five popular US singers, movies or software packages, and they'll do it easily. The inverse is not true. The general trend is that countries that don't care too much about IP rights are countries without much IP of their own. I think that "doing just fine" is a relative term. Russia's per capita GDP is around $12K -- behind countries like Malaysia and Chile -- while the US is around 4X that amount. "Quality of life" is also a hugely relative term, but given my own definition, we're way ahead of Russia here. Whether we like it or not, the income generated by the creative output of US citizens is a big factor in the quality of life we enjoy.
You're correct. Every last paperclip involved in the production, distribution and promotion of a CD is paid for by the sales of the CD. The artist is paid last. If a CD doesn't break even, the artist sees little or no money from the sale of the CD. It also means that the record company takes the loss, and it's not money out of the artist's pocket.
This is why it's appealing to fund the production of your own album, if you can. That means that you have to come up with the cash, but it means that you get to hire exactly who you want to hire, you know where every last dollar is going, and you get to keep the masters. The downside is that if you take a loan from the bank and you don't break even, you still owe the money to the bank.
"When I give music to friends its because I would have them give music to me. Seems to be by the Book to me."
Fallacy. "When I give a sandwich to friends, it's because I would have them give a sandwich to me." If you got that sandwich by stealing it from a person smaller than you, you have not followed the spirit of the golden rule. You've made the same fallacy as the GP -- sharing is good; I share music, thus I'm doing a good thing. Sharing your own work is good. Sharing somebody else's work when they have asked you not to share it, is not following the golden rule.
"If being in the producer's shoes were a requirement of the golden rule - then things would really get out of hand - I'm sure the guys who built my car would really appreciate it if I gave them each a $1 every time I drove somewhere - or all the carpenters and the architect who worked on my house, they would love to get a couple bucks for each night I spend in there. Heck, I want to get paid every time someone runs a copy of software that I've written - but nobody is doing that."
I think you already understand that those are silly examples. The car, for instance, wasn't sold on the terms that you pay somebody each day you drive it. Car rental contracts, however, do stipulate this. If you rent a car and then refuse to pay the daily rental fee, you are not following the golden rule. Do you see the difference?
"After all, didn't he advocate generously sharing?"
He was a big fan of the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you), as well. See Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31.
Many file-sharing fans try to reconcile the golden rule with their worldview by saying things like "well, if I were an artist, I wouldn't charge money for my work, so by filesharing, I'm just treating musicians the way that I would want to be treated, if I were a musician." I think a more intellectually honest way to approach the golden rule vis. file sharing is to ask "does that artist want me to make copies of their work without their permission?".
Exactly -- and those salaries are paid by the sales of records. Record companies invest money first, then sell a product to recoup their investment. Artist royalties are actually one of the smaller expenses that go in to creating a CD. If a CD is successful, then the record company has that much more reason to continue supporting the artist.
"But they don't. So why should AllofMP3? Any money they sent to the RIAA would go not to the hard working production employees, but straight to the executive's pockets. Or, more and more so recently, their lawyers."
Well, they wouldn't send any money to the RIAA, any more than you would pay the AMA directly for a doctor visit. Record companies presumably pay a fee for the priveledge of membership, so I suppose that a very small amount of the cost of a download ultimately ends up in the hands of the RIAA, indirectly. You're probably right that the RIAA has relatively few employees, all of whom are paid higher than average, since they tend to be lawyers, lobbyists, and the like. Larger record companies are probably like computer companies -- a few highly paid people at the top, with most people making average wages.
"People are willing to pay for good songs. People aren't willing to pay $15 - $25 for a CD with 2 good songs and 9 that should not be. If the RIAA wants more money, then they'll make it in our best interest to buy CDs instead of individual songs."
Record companies have little problem with online resellers like the iTMS, Yahoo! Music and the like. It is outfits like allofmp3.com with which they have a problem. It is not the act of selling the music online; it's the act of selling it online without paying the record company for the priveledge.
Your post makes it appear that you believe that the record companies are against online distribution. This is not correct: they are against online piracy. iTunes, Yahoo! Music, Napster, et. al. are not in competition with record companies. They are resellers, just like Amazon, Tower Records, or Best Buy. The record companies don't care how you buy your music, as long as you buy it from a reseller who has paid them for the priveledge. The massive success of the iTMS has been a great thing for record companies; online sales have almost made up for the drop in CD sales.
With all the overhead associated with CDs -- the shipping, the returns, the breakage, the manufacturing costs -- record companies probably make more per track sold via the iTMS than with traditional CDs (although this may be offset by the fact that it's now a lot easier to pick and choose which tracks you want; it's no longer necessary to buy an entire CD if you just want four songs). My guess is that record companies would like online sales to be an even higher percentage of their sales. But, again, let's not confuse online sales with piracy.
Your understanding of fair use doctrine is surely better than 90% of Slashdot readership; for that I commend you. But keep in mind that it's a common myth that "giving copies to my friends" falls under fair use because it's non-commercial. This is often slippery-sloped into "and file sharing is just giving copies to 1,000 of my closest friends." While making five or ten copies of a song to give away to friends would certainly be under the radar -- you'd have to be the most unlucky person in the world to be taken to court over it -- it's not generally considered fair use. The fact that your friend used a sample doesn't make much difference, I think -- lots of people make lots of money by charging for the right to sample or create derivative works. Some might charge on a sliding scale, or even give permission for free to non-profit organizations or non-commercial projects -- but whether the asker is a non-profit, or doing a non-commercial project, permission must still be asked. Non-commercial projects don't get free rides on sampling.
"I very much doubt it was illegal. But the real bone of contention for my friend was that he was not warned before burning & sending the CDs."
The error message that you and your friends got is the same error message that'll pop up if you email an entire song purchased on the iTMS. Apple wisely designed their DRM so that it applies to an edited version of the song -- otherwise, folks would just snip the first or last second of the song as an easy way to defeat it. Short of displaying a "Remember, if you play this song on other PCs you'll be asked for authorization!" pop-up each time a song is purchased, I think they're doing a pretty good job of making the terms easy to find. The "iTunes and Music Store Help" window (on the PC version, at least) has a prominent section titled "Making CDs and Sharing Music." From there, there are warnings that "sharing is for personal use only."
Your anecdote has been interesting, and it demonstrates why vendors use DRM: because the honor system pretty much works for shit on the Internet. Your friend (unknowningly) broke the law, and DRM caught him.
"Damn straight - if you buy from iTunes, you have to remember that you're at Apple's mercy - you've waived your rights to fair use, playback on non-apple portable players, any future restrictions on burning that Apple decides to put in place, etc."
Can you give an example of a fair-use right that iTMS doesn't give you?
"You see, he'd included a 5 second sample from Neutron Dance (from the beverly hills cop soundtrack) that he'd purchased from ITMS. The quicktime file played perfectly on his computer, but when played on anyone else's computer (he sent them to everyone on CD), there was a pop-up saying IIRC "unlock this computer or buy from itunes""
That's unauthorized reproduction. Yes, perhaps the law should be changed to allow redistribution of a five-second sample, and yes, many people are of the belief that the law allows you to use X seconds of a song without obtaining permission. But, it's not true.
"The sad thing was, he's the sort of guy who's perfectly capable of downloading from edonkey or torrents, but chose to do the right things. He's not going to be purchasing from ITMS again."
Buying a track on iTMS does not typically give one the right to create a derivative work, or to use it for sampling. I've no doubt that he thought he was doing the right things. When you hear a sample in a song, or a song in a film, the musician or the filmmaker has obtained permission to do so (and people who've failed to obtain the proper permission have been sued. Perhaps this law is unfair, but that's how it works, and your story breaks down to "DRM disallowed my friend from breaking the law," which is exactly what DRM is intended to do.
The excellent Sampling Law site addresses it thusly (note that, ironically, I'm cutting and pasting without permission):
I bought the album, don't I have a right to sample from it?
No. Owning a copy of somebody else's record does not give the possessor the copyright. The law provides that transfer of ownership of any material object that embodies a protected work does not of itself convey any rights in the copyright. You can buy and sell CDs and records and other media but you have no rights to use the material beyond the implied licensing, which is merely for your own personal enjoyment of the intended use: listening at home in your bed with headphones on and your eyes closed. You have a right to sell your copy of a record, but you have no rights under copyright law to anything on it.
"The difference between lossless at AllofMP3 and buying a physical disc is very small. It's not much of a bargain, quite honestly, to get the product from AllofMP3. It would make sense that to get a digital copy of the album from a US supplier would be less expensive than the physical article. Except, for some reason, it isn't."
This is because the music industry, just like the clothing industry, the auto industry, and (most likely) the industry in which you work, has the priveledge of setting prices as they see fit, due to their interpretation of market forces.
There's a few potential reasons why many people think that $0.99 for a song is a good value:
Convenience. Perhaps the customer simply doesn't want to drive to the store, or wait several days for it to arrive from Amazon.
Selection. The CD you want might simply not be available at your local store. Those of you who live in the major metro areas might discount this, but the non-metro market is also significant.
Choice. If you want just one, two, three or four tracks from the CD, that's what you can get. If the customer isn't interested in the rest of the tracks, then they save money.
The next question is "why don't the record companies just charge $0.10 a track? They'll sell 10x as much content, and make it up in volume!". The two major reasons why not are:
Believe it or not, the costs associated with selling a physical CD aren't the majority of the cost of sale. Royalties alone are often more than the cost of producing and shipping the CD. Production, marketing, and so on are significant costs which must be made back regardless if the sale is online, or in the form of a physical CD. While it might seem intuitive that an online store can get away with setting the price of the download solely based on the cost of the bandwidth, the reality is that significant development costs are amortized into the forecast for the online sales. As long as people involved in the production of music still insist on being paid, those costs will still need to be built into the price of the sale, whether it's physical or online.
The supply/demand curve is just that -- a curve. Elasticity is rarely such that pricing something at half will exactly double sales, and increasing the price by 2x will cut sales in half. In my case, I wouldn't buy significantly more music if it were $0.89 or $0.79 -- that ten or twenty cent savings isn't enough to motivate me to buy more, and in the case of my purchase habits, such a price move would just be throwing away potential profits.
"They should be noticably less expense. That's what we were told when CDs were more expensive than cassette tapes: the CD, although less expensive to produce, provides a higher quality sound and therefore commands a premium price."
I think it's a given that the record industry has their own experts who know how to set pricing -- every industry does -- but, of course, as armchair quarterbacks, we're free to disagree. Perhaps there's a business opportunity for you: starting a record company and selling tracks for $0.25 each. Maybe the elasticity analysis is wrong and you can make it up on volume. I disagree strongly, but I don't know, either. Magnatune has had some success with a "customer sets the price" model (with a default suggestion of $8 per CD), but they don't invest tens and thousands of dollars into each artist.
"Once again, the RIAA seems to be paranoid that they might lose a stranglehold on the distribution system (i.e.: would have to compete)."
I don't understand what you mean. Compete with whom? The record companies are the the ones who invest the significant cash into producing, promoting and selling the content. That's how they make their money. Do you mean compete with AllofMP3, which sells the product but which is not responsible for the costs of production?
If you mean competing with "new model" companies like Mag
Interesting! In a country which is less restrictive on copyrights (ie. the legality of making private copies), the music industry appears to be doing fine. Perhaps the USA could learn from this.
Just to pick one nit... increased sales != increased profits. I read a while back that the Canadian music industry's net profit for 2004 was something like 10%. That's pretty low, as industries go, but that may still have been an improvement from previous years.
"For example, I doubt you'd find many people who think downloading a song that gets played ten times a day on free to air radio should be considered infringement."
I'd give the general public more credit than that. I think a significant amount of the population understands that if an action is legally infringing, it's infringing regardless of how often it's played on the radio. The question is one of what external factors make infringement justifiable. "I hear it a lot on the radio" is a common rationale, as is "the record company makes enough money anyway." The problem with this approach is that it can end up biting one in the ass. I certainly wouldn't want somebody infringing on my rights based on their opinion of whether I make too much money or if the infringement will otherwise hurt me. And the trouble is that no matter how much money you have, there's always going to be somebody out there who thinks you make more than you should.
"Similarly, you will probably not find a lot of sympathy for media companies claiming to be "suffering" from copyright infringement in the face of ever increasing profits and ever decreasing product quality."
Really? Profits in the entertainment industry are going up? That's not what analysts think. There've been massive layoffs and consolidations in the record industry, for example, and CD prices are in freefall. Slashdotters blame product quality; the record labels blame piracy. I think the truth is somewhere in between, but "ever increasing profits" is a tough one. Do you have any citations to back that up?
However, I do perfectly understand your lament that product quality is going down. It seems like everybody of every generation says this. I subscribe to the believe that 90% of everything in any given year is utter crap, but we tend to remember the good stuff and forget the awful stuff. Thus, the perception that quality is going down. This is known as "nostalgia."
"Does anybody have any links to good sources of counter-educational materials that discuss the evils of the recording industry, the unfair and illegal tactics they use and what the rights are of the Canadian people for Fair Dealing? People should educate children and prepare them for the classroom so they can respond in an educated fashion to unfair and morally wrong brainwashing."
"Two wrongs make a right" is a touchy concept to try to explain to kids. While many people here would heartily agree that an artist not being paid as much as they like, or a CD costing more than they would like, is ample justification for piracy, it's can be tough to explain that this sort of rationale doesn't necessarily work everywhere -- ie. just because it is okay (in the opinion of many Slashdotters, at least) to pirate music if you think it's too expensive, it's not okay to take a candy bar without paying because you think it's too expensive. Pirating music can be a civil protest, if you convince yourself hard enough. Taking that candy bar is not.
Agreed wholeheartedly with you that more education is sorely needed on fair use / fair dealing. Every time I see somebody write something to the effect of "fair use lets me make copies of CDs and give them to my friends," I cringe.
"They also neglect to mention that Canadians pay a tax on blank media that is meant to compensate artists for downloads."
The inaccuracy of the "...for downloads" portion has already been addressed, so I'll just point out that Slashdotters always neglect to mention that the levy goes only to Canadian artists. If you're Canadian and you're downloading music from US, Europe or elsewhere in the world, it's a misguided approach to assume that the blank media levy is compensating these artists whose work you're helping yourself to for free.
It's a nice panacea; a placebo. If you're Canadian and the existence of the blank media levy makes you feel better about getting your music via P2P, then great -- more power to you. But please do not claim that the non-Canadian artists in your music collections have somehow been compensated by the levy.
"More importantly, where does it leave warez sites that only let you in if you agree not to be a law enforcement officer?"
Pirate BBSes used to have them back in the 1980s, as well. Back then, they were just as laughable. They were either added as jokes, or to give a false sense of security to any warez mongers who actually thought that such warnings were effective.
I was going to add "c'mon, does anybody reading this really believe that those work?", but I see that you're presently 5, Insightful. This means that there are at least four people out there who think that those warnings on warez sites are actually causing LEOs to slap their heads in frustration and close their browsers.
Thanks. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my quotation of the GP. His claim is that the original intent of copyrights is that they not be transferrable. You're correct that copyright law has changed many times (as in virtually all areas of law, the technology and society changes, and the law eventually catches up). Do you agree that the original intent of copyrights included non-transferability? In other words, are you of the understanding that this is a fairly new concept?
"Copyright was only supposed to be for a rather limited duration of time. I forget the original duration in the U.S."
The constitution states "limited," not "rather limited." The first US law stipulated 14 years, but the principles of copyright law go back much longer, of course.
"But the idea that it can be sold or transferred to an unoriginating party and that copyright can be extended beyond the death of the creator does nothing to support the original intent of copyright."
That's really odd. Another claim that transferring copyrights is somehow at odds with the "original intent." I'll assume you're quite familiar with copyright law. Are you quite sure that the "original intent" did not allow transferring of copyrights? I don't see anything to support this, particularly as the ability to transfer ownership has been around since pretty much the beginning. For what it's worth, transferring copyright to an heir is no new concept, either -- a writer was nailed in the 18th century (Folsom v. Marsh, 1841) for reproducing George Washington's letters after he'd died, without his heirs' permission.
Interestingly, the judge in the case used the word "piracy" in his ruling. Many Slashdotters are of the misapprehension that its meaning in this context is a new invention (perhaps by copyright holders themselves), but that's not the case.
Sorry... in the retail business, the sensormatic tag is the responsibility of the manufacturer, not the store. It's great for you if the retailers you're selling to don't require them, but if you get bigger, it'll be a requirement.
The manufacturing doesn't scale down as much as you think. Specifically, if I understand you correctly, you believe there to be a tremendous price break if I place 50 orders of 2K each (each order being a unique run), on the order of ordering 100K of the same product. I've no doubt that the record labels get better pricing than you, but not that much better.
Either way, I'm sure we can agree that the manufacturing cost is nowhere near the cost of sale. It's probably a lot easier on you since you're not pouring thousands of bucks into marketing campaigns, but nonetheless, if a random music fan were to tell you that because your manufacturing cost is a buck, that they should not be expected to pay more than $1.25 for the CD and that anything above that was pure greed, you'd have quite the hearty chuckle. Yet that's the argument put forth by many Slashdotters.
"No, the price of a finished cd is far south of a buck. Even on low volume ( 1000), you are talking about mere cents."
Please see the other reply to my post, from Mr. Whirley. He's getting a price of just under a buck for his band's CDs when he orders more than 2K at once. If you know a way of getting them done for just a few cents on an order qty. of less than 1K, he'll be your new best friend! From my experience, the Sensormatic tag alone costs a few cents.
However, I'm curious myself as to where you're getting your finished audio CDs that cheap. Is it in China? If so, are you shipping them by air or sea?
"Yet, for some reason it is the PUBLISHERS who are acting on behalf of the copyright holders. Their right to act on their behalf is probably buried somewhere in the legalese of their contracts and such, but it certainly escapes the original intent of copyright. And when legal action occurs, the plaintiffs should be the creators of the works, not the publishers. Again, for obvious reasons, it's the copyright [holder] that is being violated and not the publisher even though it's the publisher who feels the hurt the most."
This is because most publishers of content (whether it's music, books, films, or what have you) operate as for-profit businesses. Publishing the content requires a cash investment, and if they don't make that cash back, they're shut.
Your system would work well for pirates. Somebody might be more likely to build a collection of MP3s if they knew that the typical starving artist out there simply didn't have the funds to mount a legal attempt to stop you. It would certainly put artists in their place, wouldn't it?
"So I am always left somewhat confused when I see artists protesting the activities of the MPAA/RIAA for misrepresenting their interests or intent. If, for example, James Taylor publically announces that all his copyrighted works are legal for free distribution as an MP3, OggVorbis, WMA or similar digital format, then the RIAA should have no legal leg to stand on... and yet, somehow I believe the RIAA would block any such action."
That's because the record company has the copyright on the recording -- the artist gives them the copyright in exchange for the assistance in production, distribution, and so on. The artist is typically free to post their lyrics and melodies for free... that is what they've created. A recording is the joint effort of many people.
There are some record companies that operate differently. Magnatune is the well-known exception. They don't ask for ownership of the recording, but then again, they don't give you any assistance whatsoever in getting that recording made. To work with a label like Magnatune, you have to have the cash and the expertise to produce the recording yourself.
"And again, while these RIAA and MPAA people are collecting their damages, I have yet to hear of even a penny of the damages going to the actual artists who hold the copyrights. Maybe they have, but I haven't heard of any."
I think it's a safe assumption that none of the damages go to anybody but the lawyers. The lawsuits aren't designed to make money, but to scare people.
"The band I manage can buy finished, shrink-wrapped, commercially pressed CDs, with artwork, for just under $1 when buying 2000 or more. I seriously doubt that the big boys doing runs of hundreds of thousands of CDs are paying any more than 50 cents per CD for production - and probably even less than that..."
You say a bit under, I say a bit over. We're close enough. Does your price include the Sensormatic tag?
Since you're in the industry, you know that most CDs are in small runs like that. Hundred-thousand selling (Gold) and million-selling (Platinum) releases are rare in the vast sea of new CDs that are put out each year, and thus, orders for 100K CDs at once are exceedingly rare. This is, however, the standard that many people follow when justifying piracy, when the reality that most of the bands in their collections of MP3s probably had their CDs distributed in batches of a few thousand here and there.
"The point is that copyright and patents were originally designed to be (and should be again) like voting rights, not like property rights."
That's an interesting understanding of the history of copyright. The ability to transfer copyright has been around for at least 500 years -- in other words, for about as long as copyright as we know it has existed.
You can see my misunderstanding, of course -- I was not aware that "copyrights and patents were originally designed to be like voting rights." I'd love it if you can elaborate further.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I don't even see where you're going with that one. If you don't happen to agree with my philosphy on respecting copyrights, that's fine. If you would like to reword your question to make it more clear, I may be able to give you a meaningful reply.
It's important to understand context. I thought I was quoting enough of your post when I made my reply, but it looks like I didn't. I apologize.
The strategies and tactics of the RIAA vs. the AMA might be an interesting discussion, but the context here is the purpose of industry trade groups. The GGP (or whatever it is now) was, I believe, attempting to clear up the popular misconception that when you buy from the iTMS or another reseller, you're paying money directly to the RIAA. The two are not apples and oranges in the context of understanding what an industry trade group is.
"and fornication is illegal under georgia law, your point?"
The key here is context. You stated: "therefore it's only piracy in your opinion according to your morality." I pointed out that it's a widely-held opinion that it's piracy when the downloader lives in the US. Your implication, if I understood you correctly, was that his opinion of allofmp3's legality in the US was driven by his morality; I pointed out that there are plenty of experts who agree with him. The discussions on the Wikipedia talk page and elsewhere seem relatively disinterested, as opposed to Slashdot.
"false, as has been stated elsewhere, GM alone lost as much revenue in the last year as the entirety of hollywood's copyright industry made in revenues and didnt even blink. They are a miniscule portion of this nation's quality of life."
In 1995 (the most recent year for which I could find data) our IP exports were something like $27BB. We imported $6BB worth, for a surplus of $21BB. This is significant, as the US runs at a trade deficit, overall -- to use your comparison, we import a lot of foreign cars. Any industry where we run a surplus, rather than a deficit, is an industry that our government will want to protect.
"now if you do want to talk about economic factors.. can you quantify the number of tech products (and their developers, potential multibillion dollar industries) which have been surpressed/quashed under the DMCA? I personally know of enough has already been quashed to make the law look like economic suicide. We could have recovered from the .com bust and potentially avoided the recent recession if this law did not exist."
No. Do tell.
"Times are changing, and artists will adapt. If music weren't so profitable, we'd probably see better music. Just as Free software has given us an example that self-motivated programmers can produce fantastic programs, self-motivated musicians can create amazing and wonderful music."
As an aside, this is a notion that Ayn Rand explored in Atlas Shrugged. In that novel, the consumers attempted to put the producers in their place, in an attempt to eliminate the effects of greed and to level the playing field. The theory was that the producers would still produce even without financial incentives, as it was simply in their nature to produce. I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't read it, but I'll just point out that the themes explored in the book relate quite well to the current consumer vs. producer IP war that's presently going on.
You're correct that lots of people will produce stuff for free -- if they want to. I am not so sure that forcing the issue (by eliminating copyright, or by not enforcing current copyright laws) would have a positive effect.
I think that letting artists choose their own destiny works pretty well. If an artist has chosen to give away their work for free under Creative Commons, then I'll help myself for free. If they've opted to go with Magnatunes and I can download their CD for only $5 if I want to, then great -- more power to them. There'll always be artists who will choose to go this route. But if somebody has not given me permission to copy their work, I'll respect their wishes, as well.
"maybe then there would be an analogy, otherwise we're looking at apples and oranges."
I think you may have read his post a little too quickly. The point is that the RIAA and the AMA are both industry trade groups. They represent businesses in their given industries, and do not sell products directly to the public. Do you understand?
"replace allofmp3 with "the makers of the vcr", and you get the same argument, would you say using a vcr is piracy too?"
Slippery slope fallacy. Ample differences between downloading music from a remote site and time/space shifting broadcasts with a VCR. The courts have shown this, and smart people understand this. Some people have tried the "pirating is just like a VCR because I'm just downloading stuff I already own, and this is a faster option than ripping" but smart people also understand that the majority of piracy is not space-shifting of content one already owns.
"ok true, but this is perfectly legal in russia, therefore it's only piracy in your opinion according to your morality."
There's ample opinion that it's illegal for a US citizen to download from allofmp3. The Wikipedia article has some detailed background. The talk page has some interesting discussion, as well.
"Also, notice the russian recording industry is doing just fine in a nation which by our standards is "rampant with piracy". ask yourself why we need these laws when theyre doing just fine without them?"
Russia is largely a consumer of IP nowadays, while the USA is one of the world's biggest producers of IP. Ask a Russian to name five popular US singers, movies or software packages, and they'll do it easily. The inverse is not true. The general trend is that countries that don't care too much about IP rights are countries without much IP of their own. I think that "doing just fine" is a relative term. Russia's per capita GDP is around $12K -- behind countries like Malaysia and Chile -- while the US is around 4X that amount. "Quality of life" is also a hugely relative term, but given my own definition, we're way ahead of Russia here. Whether we like it or not, the income generated by the creative output of US citizens is a big factor in the quality of life we enjoy.
You're correct. Every last paperclip involved in the production, distribution and promotion of a CD is paid for by the sales of the CD. The artist is paid last. If a CD doesn't break even, the artist sees little or no money from the sale of the CD. It also means that the record company takes the loss, and it's not money out of the artist's pocket.
This is why it's appealing to fund the production of your own album, if you can. That means that you have to come up with the cash, but it means that you get to hire exactly who you want to hire, you know where every last dollar is going, and you get to keep the masters. The downside is that if you take a loan from the bank and you don't break even, you still owe the money to the bank.
"When I give music to friends its because I would have them give music to me. Seems to be by the Book to me."
Fallacy. "When I give a sandwich to friends, it's because I would have them give a sandwich to me." If you got that sandwich by stealing it from a person smaller than you, you have not followed the spirit of the golden rule. You've made the same fallacy as the GP -- sharing is good; I share music, thus I'm doing a good thing. Sharing your own work is good. Sharing somebody else's work when they have asked you not to share it, is not following the golden rule.
"If being in the producer's shoes were a requirement of the golden rule - then things would really get out of hand - I'm sure the guys who built my car would really appreciate it if I gave them each a $1 every time I drove somewhere - or all the carpenters and the architect who worked on my house, they would love to get a couple bucks for each night I spend in there. Heck, I want to get paid every time someone runs a copy of software that I've written - but nobody is doing that."
I think you already understand that those are silly examples. The car, for instance, wasn't sold on the terms that you pay somebody each day you drive it. Car rental contracts, however, do stipulate this. If you rent a car and then refuse to pay the daily rental fee, you are not following the golden rule. Do you see the difference?
"After all, didn't he advocate generously sharing?"
He was a big fan of the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you), as well. See Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31.
Many file-sharing fans try to reconcile the golden rule with their worldview by saying things like "well, if I were an artist, I wouldn't charge money for my work, so by filesharing, I'm just treating musicians the way that I would want to be treated, if I were a musician." I think a more intellectually honest way to approach the golden rule vis. file sharing is to ask "does that artist want me to make copies of their work without their permission?".
"Like... their salaries?"
Exactly -- and those salaries are paid by the sales of records. Record companies invest money first, then sell a product to recoup their investment. Artist royalties are actually one of the smaller expenses that go in to creating a CD. If a CD is successful, then the record company has that much more reason to continue supporting the artist.
"But they don't. So why should AllofMP3? Any money they sent to the RIAA would go not to the hard working production employees, but straight to the executive's pockets. Or, more and more so recently, their lawyers."
Well, they wouldn't send any money to the RIAA, any more than you would pay the AMA directly for a doctor visit. Record companies presumably pay a fee for the priveledge of membership, so I suppose that a very small amount of the cost of a download ultimately ends up in the hands of the RIAA, indirectly. You're probably right that the RIAA has relatively few employees, all of whom are paid higher than average, since they tend to be lawyers, lobbyists, and the like. Larger record companies are probably like computer companies -- a few highly paid people at the top, with most people making average wages.
"People are willing to pay for good songs. People aren't willing to pay $15 - $25 for a CD with 2 good songs and 9 that should not be. If the RIAA wants more money, then they'll make it in our best interest to buy CDs instead of individual songs."
Record companies have little problem with online resellers like the iTMS, Yahoo! Music and the like. It is outfits like allofmp3.com with which they have a problem. It is not the act of selling the music online; it's the act of selling it online without paying the record company for the priveledge.
Your post makes it appear that you believe that the record companies are against online distribution. This is not correct: they are against online piracy. iTunes, Yahoo! Music, Napster, et. al. are not in competition with record companies. They are resellers, just like Amazon, Tower Records, or Best Buy. The record companies don't care how you buy your music, as long as you buy it from a reseller who has paid them for the priveledge. The massive success of the iTMS has been a great thing for record companies; online sales have almost made up for the drop in CD sales.
With all the overhead associated with CDs -- the shipping, the returns, the breakage, the manufacturing costs -- record companies probably make more per track sold via the iTMS than with traditional CDs (although this may be offset by the fact that it's now a lot easier to pick and choose which tracks you want; it's no longer necessary to buy an entire CD if you just want four songs). My guess is that record companies would like online sales to be an even higher percentage of their sales. But, again, let's not confuse online sales with piracy.
Your understanding of fair use doctrine is surely better than 90% of Slashdot readership; for that I commend you. But keep in mind that it's a common myth that "giving copies to my friends" falls under fair use because it's non-commercial. This is often slippery-sloped into "and file sharing is just giving copies to 1,000 of my closest friends." While making five or ten copies of a song to give away to friends would certainly be under the radar -- you'd have to be the most unlucky person in the world to be taken to court over it -- it's not generally considered fair use. The fact that your friend used a sample doesn't make much difference, I think -- lots of people make lots of money by charging for the right to sample or create derivative works. Some might charge on a sliding scale, or even give permission for free to non-profit organizations or non-commercial projects -- but whether the asker is a non-profit, or doing a non-commercial project, permission must still be asked. Non-commercial projects don't get free rides on sampling.
"I very much doubt it was illegal. But the real bone of contention for my friend was that he was not warned before burning & sending the CDs."
The error message that you and your friends got is the same error message that'll pop up if you email an entire song purchased on the iTMS. Apple wisely designed their DRM so that it applies to an edited version of the song -- otherwise, folks would just snip the first or last second of the song as an easy way to defeat it. Short of displaying a "Remember, if you play this song on other PCs you'll be asked for authorization!" pop-up each time a song is purchased, I think they're doing a pretty good job of making the terms easy to find. The "iTunes and Music Store Help" window (on the PC version, at least) has a prominent section titled "Making CDs and Sharing Music." From there, there are warnings that "sharing is for personal use only."
Your anecdote has been interesting, and it demonstrates why vendors use DRM: because the honor system pretty much works for shit on the Internet. Your friend (unknowningly) broke the law, and DRM caught him.
"Damn straight - if you buy from iTunes, you have to remember that you're at Apple's mercy - you've waived your rights to fair use, playback on non-apple portable players, any future restrictions on burning that Apple decides to put in place, etc."
Can you give an example of a fair-use right that iTMS doesn't give you?
"You see, he'd included a 5 second sample from Neutron Dance (from the beverly hills cop soundtrack) that he'd purchased from ITMS. The quicktime file played perfectly on his computer, but when played on anyone else's computer (he sent them to everyone on CD), there was a pop-up saying IIRC "unlock this computer or buy from itunes""
That's unauthorized reproduction. Yes, perhaps the law should be changed to allow redistribution of a five-second sample, and yes, many people are of the belief that the law allows you to use X seconds of a song without obtaining permission. But, it's not true.
"The sad thing was, he's the sort of guy who's perfectly capable of downloading from edonkey or torrents, but chose to do the right things. He's not going to be purchasing from ITMS again."
Buying a track on iTMS does not typically give one the right to create a derivative work, or to use it for sampling. I've no doubt that he thought he was doing the right things. When you hear a sample in a song, or a song in a film, the musician or the filmmaker has obtained permission to do so (and people who've failed to obtain the proper permission have been sued. Perhaps this law is unfair, but that's how it works, and your story breaks down to "DRM disallowed my friend from breaking the law," which is exactly what DRM is intended to do.
The excellent Sampling Law site addresses it thusly (note that, ironically, I'm cutting and pasting without permission):
I bought the album, don't I have a right to sample from it?
No. Owning a copy of somebody else's record does not give the possessor the copyright. The law provides that transfer of ownership of any material object that embodies a protected work does not of itself convey any rights in the copyright. You can buy and sell CDs and records and other media but you have no rights to use the material beyond the implied licensing, which is merely for your own personal enjoyment of the intended use: listening at home in your bed with headphones on and your eyes closed. You have a right to sell your copy of a record, but you have no rights under copyright law to anything on it.
"The difference between lossless at AllofMP3 and buying a physical disc is very small. It's not much of a bargain, quite honestly, to get the product from AllofMP3. It would make sense that to get a digital copy of the album from a US supplier would be less expensive than the physical article. Except, for some reason, it isn't."
This is because the music industry, just like the clothing industry, the auto industry, and (most likely) the industry in which you work, has the priveledge of setting prices as they see fit, due to their interpretation of market forces.
There's a few potential reasons why many people think that $0.99 for a song is a good value:
The next question is "why don't the record companies just charge $0.10 a track? They'll sell 10x as much content, and make it up in volume!". The two major reasons why not are:
"They should be noticably less expense. That's what we were told when CDs were more expensive than cassette tapes: the CD, although less expensive to produce, provides a higher quality sound and therefore commands a premium price."
I think it's a given that the record industry has their own experts who know how to set pricing -- every industry does -- but, of course, as armchair quarterbacks, we're free to disagree. Perhaps there's a business opportunity for you: starting a record company and selling tracks for $0.25 each. Maybe the elasticity analysis is wrong and you can make it up on volume. I disagree strongly, but I don't know, either. Magnatune has had some success with a "customer sets the price" model (with a default suggestion of $8 per CD), but they don't invest tens and thousands of dollars into each artist.
"Once again, the RIAA seems to be paranoid that they might lose a stranglehold on the distribution system (i.e.: would have to compete)."
I don't understand what you mean. Compete with whom? The record companies are the the ones who invest the significant cash into producing, promoting and selling the content. That's how they make their money. Do you mean compete with AllofMP3, which sells the product but which is not responsible for the costs of production?
If you mean competing with "new model" companies like Mag
Interesting! In a country which is less restrictive on copyrights (ie. the legality of making private copies), the music industry appears to be doing fine. Perhaps the USA could learn from this.
Just to pick one nit... increased sales != increased profits. I read a while back that the Canadian music industry's net profit for 2004 was something like 10%. That's pretty low, as industries go, but that may still have been an improvement from previous years.
"For example, I doubt you'd find many people who think downloading a song that gets played ten times a day on free to air radio should be considered infringement."
I'd give the general public more credit than that. I think a significant amount of the population understands that if an action is legally infringing, it's infringing regardless of how often it's played on the radio. The question is one of what external factors make infringement justifiable. "I hear it a lot on the radio" is a common rationale, as is "the record company makes enough money anyway." The problem with this approach is that it can end up biting one in the ass. I certainly wouldn't want somebody infringing on my rights based on their opinion of whether I make too much money or if the infringement will otherwise hurt me. And the trouble is that no matter how much money you have, there's always going to be somebody out there who thinks you make more than you should.
"Similarly, you will probably not find a lot of sympathy for media companies claiming to be "suffering" from copyright infringement in the face of ever increasing profits and ever decreasing product quality."
Really? Profits in the entertainment industry are going up? That's not what analysts think. There've been massive layoffs and consolidations in the record industry, for example, and CD prices are in freefall. Slashdotters blame product quality; the record labels blame piracy. I think the truth is somewhere in between, but "ever increasing profits" is a tough one. Do you have any citations to back that up?
However, I do perfectly understand your lament that product quality is going down. It seems like everybody of every generation says this. I subscribe to the believe that 90% of everything in any given year is utter crap, but we tend to remember the good stuff and forget the awful stuff. Thus, the perception that quality is going down. This is known as "nostalgia."
"Does anybody have any links to good sources of counter-educational materials that discuss the evils of the recording industry, the unfair and illegal tactics they use and what the rights are of the Canadian people for Fair Dealing? People should educate children and prepare them for the classroom so they can respond in an educated fashion to unfair and morally wrong brainwashing."
"Two wrongs make a right" is a touchy concept to try to explain to kids. While many people here would heartily agree that an artist not being paid as much as they like, or a CD costing more than they would like, is ample justification for piracy, it's can be tough to explain that this sort of rationale doesn't necessarily work everywhere -- ie. just because it is okay (in the opinion of many Slashdotters, at least) to pirate music if you think it's too expensive, it's not okay to take a candy bar without paying because you think it's too expensive. Pirating music can be a civil protest, if you convince yourself hard enough. Taking that candy bar is not.
Agreed wholeheartedly with you that more education is sorely needed on fair use / fair dealing. Every time I see somebody write something to the effect of "fair use lets me make copies of CDs and give them to my friends," I cringe.
"They also neglect to mention that Canadians pay a tax on blank media that is meant to compensate artists for downloads."
The inaccuracy of the "...for downloads" portion has already been addressed, so I'll just point out that Slashdotters always neglect to mention that the levy goes only to Canadian artists. If you're Canadian and you're downloading music from US, Europe or elsewhere in the world, it's a misguided approach to assume that the blank media levy is compensating these artists whose work you're helping yourself to for free.
It's a nice panacea; a placebo. If you're Canadian and the existence of the blank media levy makes you feel better about getting your music via P2P, then great -- more power to you. But please do not claim that the non-Canadian artists in your music collections have somehow been compensated by the levy.
"More importantly, where does it leave warez sites that only let you in if you agree not to be a law enforcement officer?"
Pirate BBSes used to have them back in the 1980s, as well. Back then, they were just as laughable. They were either added as jokes, or to give a false sense of security to any warez mongers who actually thought that such warnings were effective.
I was going to add "c'mon, does anybody reading this really believe that those work?", but I see that you're presently 5, Insightful. This means that there are at least four people out there who think that those warnings on warez sites are actually causing LEOs to slap their heads in frustration and close their browsers.
Thanks. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my quotation of the GP. His claim is that the original intent of copyrights is that they not be transferrable. You're correct that copyright law has changed many times (as in virtually all areas of law, the technology and society changes, and the law eventually catches up). Do you agree that the original intent of copyrights included non-transferability? In other words, are you of the understanding that this is a fairly new concept?
"Copyright was only supposed to be for a rather limited duration of time. I forget the original duration in the U.S."
The constitution states "limited," not "rather limited." The first US law stipulated 14 years, but the principles of copyright law go back much longer, of course.
"But the idea that it can be sold or transferred to an unoriginating party and that copyright can be extended beyond the death of the creator does nothing to support the original intent of copyright."
That's really odd. Another claim that transferring copyrights is somehow at odds with the "original intent." I'll assume you're quite familiar with copyright law. Are you quite sure that the "original intent" did not allow transferring of copyrights? I don't see anything to support this, particularly as the ability to transfer ownership has been around since pretty much the beginning. For what it's worth, transferring copyright to an heir is no new concept, either -- a writer was nailed in the 18th century (Folsom v. Marsh, 1841) for reproducing George Washington's letters after he'd died, without his heirs' permission.
Interestingly, the judge in the case used the word "piracy" in his ruling. Many Slashdotters are of the misapprehension that its meaning in this context is a new invention (perhaps by copyright holders themselves), but that's not the case.
Sorry... in the retail business, the sensormatic tag is the responsibility of the manufacturer, not the store. It's great for you if the retailers you're selling to don't require them, but if you get bigger, it'll be a requirement.
The manufacturing doesn't scale down as much as you think. Specifically, if I understand you correctly, you believe there to be a tremendous price break if I place 50 orders of 2K each (each order being a unique run), on the order of ordering 100K of the same product. I've no doubt that the record labels get better pricing than you, but not that much better.
Either way, I'm sure we can agree that the manufacturing cost is nowhere near the cost of sale. It's probably a lot easier on you since you're not pouring thousands of bucks into marketing campaigns, but nonetheless, if a random music fan were to tell you that because your manufacturing cost is a buck, that they should not be expected to pay more than $1.25 for the CD and that anything above that was pure greed, you'd have quite the hearty chuckle. Yet that's the argument put forth by many Slashdotters.
"No, the price of a finished cd is far south of a buck. Even on low volume ( 1000), you are talking about mere cents."
Please see the other reply to my post, from Mr. Whirley. He's getting a price of just under a buck for his band's CDs when he orders more than 2K at once. If you know a way of getting them done for just a few cents on an order qty. of less than 1K, he'll be your new best friend! From my experience, the Sensormatic tag alone costs a few cents.
However, I'm curious myself as to where you're getting your finished audio CDs that cheap. Is it in China? If so, are you shipping them by air or sea?
"Yet, for some reason it is the PUBLISHERS who are acting on behalf of the copyright holders. Their right to act on their behalf is probably buried somewhere in the legalese of their contracts and such, but it certainly escapes the original intent of copyright. And when legal action occurs, the plaintiffs should be the creators of the works, not the publishers. Again, for obvious reasons, it's the copyright [holder] that is being violated and not the publisher even though it's the publisher who feels the hurt the most."
This is because most publishers of content (whether it's music, books, films, or what have you) operate as for-profit businesses. Publishing the content requires a cash investment, and if they don't make that cash back, they're shut.
Your system would work well for pirates. Somebody might be more likely to build a collection of MP3s if they knew that the typical starving artist out there simply didn't have the funds to mount a legal attempt to stop you. It would certainly put artists in their place, wouldn't it?
"So I am always left somewhat confused when I see artists protesting the activities of the MPAA/RIAA for misrepresenting their interests or intent. If, for example, James Taylor publically announces that all his copyrighted works are legal for free distribution as an MP3, OggVorbis, WMA or similar digital format, then the RIAA should have no legal leg to stand on... and yet, somehow I believe the RIAA would block any such action."
That's because the record company has the copyright on the recording -- the artist gives them the copyright in exchange for the assistance in production, distribution, and so on. The artist is typically free to post their lyrics and melodies for free... that is what they've created. A recording is the joint effort of many people.
There are some record companies that operate differently. Magnatune is the well-known exception. They don't ask for ownership of the recording, but then again, they don't give you any assistance whatsoever in getting that recording made. To work with a label like Magnatune, you have to have the cash and the expertise to produce the recording yourself.
"And again, while these RIAA and MPAA people are collecting their damages, I have yet to hear of even a penny of the damages going to the actual artists who hold the copyrights. Maybe they have, but I haven't heard of any."
I think it's a safe assumption that none of the damages go to anybody but the lawyers. The lawsuits aren't designed to make money, but to scare people.
"The band I manage can buy finished, shrink-wrapped, commercially pressed CDs, with artwork, for just under $1 when buying 2000 or more. I seriously doubt that the big boys doing runs of hundreds of thousands of CDs are paying any more than 50 cents per CD for production - and probably even less than that..."
You say a bit under, I say a bit over. We're close enough. Does your price include the Sensormatic tag?
Since you're in the industry, you know that most CDs are in small runs like that. Hundred-thousand selling (Gold) and million-selling (Platinum) releases are rare in the vast sea of new CDs that are put out each year, and thus, orders for 100K CDs at once are exceedingly rare. This is, however, the standard that many people follow when justifying piracy, when the reality that most of the bands in their collections of MP3s probably had their CDs distributed in batches of a few thousand here and there.
"The point is that copyright and patents were originally designed to be (and should be again) like voting rights, not like property rights."
That's an interesting understanding of the history of copyright. The ability to transfer copyright has been around for at least 500 years -- in other words, for about as long as copyright as we know it has existed.
You can see my misunderstanding, of course -- I was not aware that "copyrights and patents were originally designed to be like voting rights." I'd love it if you can elaborate further.