I am allowed to invite my friends into my home to watch my TV, even if they have not subscribed to the channel I am watching -- in fact, even if they do not have a TV licence. And I'm fairly sure I am allowed to lend my home recordings to my friends -- I've certainly never heard of anyone being busted for that, and the practice is almost universal.
Yes, of course you can have friends over to watch your TV, or even let them borrow your tape. What you CANNOT legally do is allow them to make a COPY of your tape and take it home, while you retain your copy. At least, you'd have a hard time defending it as fair use or personal use. Especially if that "friend" is actually a stranger who happens to be connected to the same BT tracker as you. Which is, in essence, what is happening in the case of BitTorrent (and other filesharing networks). A piece at a time, but still copies are being made.
Perhaps these concepts need updating in light of new technologies, but I'd bet dollars to pesos that even if they were, allowing strangers to make digital copies without paying, a la BitTorrent, would STILL not be legal.
How exactly is someone downloading a programme that they presumably had the right to watch {TV licence and cable/satellite subscription fees up to date; I am guessing that the cable/satellite TV companies insist to see your TV licence before they'll let you sign up, and can cut you off in a heartbeat if necessary. Sky and NTL certainly do} any different than recording it on a VCR / DVD+RW / Sky Plus / any other kind of TV-recorder, at the time of broadcast?
It isn't necessarily, from a moral standpoint, assuming he doesn't copy it and give it to anybody else*. From a legal standpoint, that's probably a different story (you are allowed to record it yourself, but others are not allowed to record it and then make a copy for you).
* - Assuming he's using BitTorrent, he has already done this, however. And considering he has no evidence that those people are subscribers, and thus morally entitled to watch it, that's a bad thing. This is one of the problems with BitTorrent, from both a moral and legal perspective...you are uploading as you are downloading, and you don't know who's getting it.
If it was overpriced by definition it would not sell. No-one is forced into purchasing. CDs are not essential to life. The CDs sell, therefore by definition they are not overpriced.
Actually, one could argue that the large-scale downloading rather than buying is a sign that they are overpriced...I would guarantee that there is a price at which 75%+ of people would buy, rather than illegally download, the music. The record labels, however, have made no attempt to find that price.
Why would anybody pay for a CD when they could download for free? Higher-quality audio, no screwed-up track tags, no wrong songs mislabeled, corrupted songs, etc, physical copy for archive purposes, cover art, and probably even more reasons I've forgotten. (Illegally) Downloading music takes more of my time than buying it would, and my time has value. Just not $14.99+ per CD.
... and those of us who stuck it out, who were able to look past our GPA's, who were able to realise "hey, getting a 55% on an exam is OK if the average was a 45%",
If the average on a test is a 45%, it just proves that you are not covering (properly, at least) the material you are testing on. Either your test is broken, or your lessons are. One or the other should be adjusted. Stop testing on things you aren't covering, or start covering everything on the test decently. Getting a 55% on an exam should never be okay...though getting a 70%-80% on an exam should be about average.
This is probably the only thing that annoys me more than classes where everybody gets 90%+ on the test...also a sign of a broken class.
Actually, the worst part of my (short) MiniDisc experience was the software that came with it. Brought my computer to it's knees. You could use Realplayer as well, but it lacked some of the features, and still sucked. ATRAC didn't bother me horribly (though yeah, when converting MP3-ATRAC the quality got sketchy), and I'm a huge fan of the Minidisc media format in general because, ironically, it resists scratching.
In fact, if Sony had made a MD player at the time that played MP3 natively as data files, I'd probably still own a MD player. The size wasn't too bad, didn't skip, and I liked the discs as storage. As it is, I took it back after about two weeks.
Oh, and as far as pack-in earbuds go, the white iPod headphones are actually some of the better ones out there.
You wonder how much real life testing these things get away from a lab if the screens scratch within seconds and no-one has noticed. I would at least of hoped they would have got testers out and using them in the real world.
No testing at all was required...this was a known flaw, and has been for a long time on other iPod models. My 3G 15GB iPod has the same problem...the screen was downright unreadable after 2 weeks in and out of a pocket with no protective case...and no, no keys or pocket change in with it. Thankfully it also turned out to be defective (after a few months), and Apple was nice enough to replace rather than repair...so my new one has spent its entire life in cases.
There is a reason there is such a huge market for protective cases for iPods, and it isn't just vanity. They have always been scratch-prone.
Unless this was something they actually fixed with the 4G models.
BS. Something harder than the plastic is needed to scratch it. Geology 101.
Actually that would be high-school geology. However, I'd wager that many people's pockets have dirt/sand/grit in them, which while the particles may be incredibly small they still get rubbed against the plastic, and thus still scratch it. It is absolutely possible for an iPod to get scratched in a pocket minus keys/change/knives/thumbtacks.
If sharing the music was such a big deal, why not just post everything as mp3s? Giving away publicly known information on bypassing copyright protection gives the band more publicity and probably won't increase the amount of avaliable media considering the rampant piracy already occuring.
Well, while telling users how to circumvent the protection may or may not be a grey area (see DMCA), giving away the MP3's on their site is very much black and white: they (likely) do NOT have the legal right to do this. Their contract with their record company (likely) explicitly forbids it. And they are not worried about their fans' ability to SHARE the music, they just want their fans to be able to LISTEN to their music, on whatever devices they might own. So this would be the best way to help their paying fans make use of the CD's they have purchased. Switchfoot was never trying to give the album away.
Oh, and while bypassing this protection may be common knowledge on/., there are hordes of people out there who do NOT know how to do this. Imagine for a moment that there is a subset of the human race that does visit the Switchfoot home page, but does not visit Slashdot...perhaps those very people are the ones the band was trying to inform.
Yes, the much-anticipated top-secret controller. It will have - not the piddly 10 to 12 buttons that the competitors have - but a full 110 buttons to enhance your gaming action. The console itself will support not just blu-ray but dvds, cds, and pretty much any other drive you can fit into the expansion bays. The connector to your tv will be a 15-pin cable. It can not only run Microsoft's proprietary software but Linux as well...
When they started recording, in 1962, U.S. copyrights ran for 28 years, and could be renewed for another 28, so their U.S. copyrights wouldn't have expired until 2018, even without the legislation after 1962 that extended the terms of copyrights.
I wasn't thinking about at the time of their recording...I was thinking more along the lines of the "original" (in the US) 14 and 14, which in my opinion is a very reasonable lengh for a work to be copyrighted. This would have had Beatles recordings starting to fall into the public domain around 1990, by which point I think enough millions would have been made. Though this would also have had the negative effect of causing even more Beatles songs to be used shamelessly in TV commercials, but you have to take the good with the bad.
Two of the Beatles are still alive.
Wasn't necessarily talking specifically about the Beatles anymore, silly.:)
I definitely think kids will be singing Yellow Submarine around campfires in the year 2100.
And suddenly I think that maybe copyright DOES need to be extended, and become a LOT more restrictive. (Though a fan of the Beatles, strangely enough I -hate- that song! Though I realize I am in the minority on that one...)
Second, burning compressed music to a CD and ripping it to a different compression format will make your music suffer. It will sound worse than the original music - so it's not as painless as you suggest. I'd much rather have the option to download uncompressed, or losslessly compressed, music and encode it to my desires.
I'd prefer that as well. I think I came across as some big DRM-lover there, when I'm really not. I just don't like when people make it sound worse than it is.
As for burning and re-ripping (and compressing) distorting the music further, of course it does. But most people that complain that AACs from the iTunes store cannot be converted into another format for use on other players are talking about recompressing into another lossy format, such as MP3 or WMA...not many people put.FLAC on their portables. And the burn/re-rip step certainly doesn't add any more distortion than the ability to go straight from AAC to MP3/WMA/OGG/Whatever would have.
But yeah, I'm with you on the rest. I'm just sick of hearing people bash Apple/Microsoft/Napster/Whoever for DRM...it's not them leading the push behind it, it's the RIAA/MPAA/etc. And I have this chronic inability to stop correcting people when they say otherwise.
You redefine the language someone used to mean what you want to argue against rather than what was actually said, and you think you've made a point?
It's not about redefining language...I assume you're talking about the whole "backup" thing.
If the EFF wants to say "DRM is bad," I'll go along with them. But if they want to say that I am "restricted" from "backing-up" my music bought on iTMS, that is simply not true. It's not about me redefining language; it's about their misuse of it.
So I'll make it very clear. You are in no way restricted from backing up music from the iTMS. At all. No 5-computer limit, nothing. You can back them up to every computer you own, and every computer every friend you have owns. Every computer on your local campus network. Every computer owned by anybody in your extended family. Should your house catch on fire and your $10,000 in iTMS music go up in flames with it, you could restore it from any of the hundreds of computers you backed it up (or, to use the other word the EFF used, copied) to, re-activate it, and you're back in business.
Merely because I cannot play it from any of those computers does not mean it is any less backed up, and thus my ability to create backup copies is absolutely unrestricted. So by claiming that music from iTMS can only be backed up to 5 computers, the EFF is engaging in what I like to call "scaremongering." I'll forgive them, of course, because they generally do good things.
DRM is bad enough, you don't need to make shit up to make it sound worse than it is. Which, in my opinion, is what the EFF does with about half the space in that page. You want to talk about changing licensing agreements, I'm with you. Erosion of "first sale," and I'm right behind you. Revocation of licenses, I'm there. But if you are going to say that your ability to back up the music you purchase from iTMS is somehow restricted, I'm going to call bullshit.
Though, I will concede to you that you have no real guarantee that Apple is backing up the bits that actually allow you to re-activate your music. Which is why if I actually bought music on iTunes I would be burning it up to CD, not just copying the files.
Same goes for the fact that, under the current terms of iTMS, you can essentially "unlock," completely, any song you purchase by simply burning it to a CD. The DRM is washed away like a film, and you're left with pure, unencumbered bits, free to change formats, use on/in any player, edit/sample, or use in your own home movies. You're also left kicking yourself because now you've paid good money for an uncompressed song that's still only at 128kbps quality, but that's another story.
Personally, I don't care much what kind of DRM online music stores are using, or what kind of restrictions they entail. I'm a LOT more worried about the attempts to prevent me from ripping CD's that I've bought, as that is how pretty much all the music I purchase hits my computer anyway.
Except the EFF is *wrong*. I'm a fan of the EFF, but I'm not with them on this one (actually, I'm with them that DRM in general is not a great thing...but spreading half-truths about it won't help).
By burning music from the iTMS, something that I would say is trivially easy (and cheap, if you are using CD-RW's) to do, you can get around all four of the "bullets" that the EFF outlines: backups, coverting, other players, and editing/remixing.
Words like "only" and "cannot" are pretty absolute, considering with a relatively simple two-step process all of those tasks can be accomplished under the current terms of the iTMS.
Though their point that the music is licensed, rather than truly sold, and that the terms of that license can change at the whim of Apple, is valid. Which is all the more reason to back all of your iTMS music up to audio CD, which you are supposedly "restricted" from doing.
In fact, let's decide what constitutes a "backup" real quick here...a backup does not, by definition, need to be playable. For instance, if I backup my data in tar.gz format, burn it to a DVD, it's not necessarily usable in THAT format. But it can be -restored- and used. So I can make a -thousand- backups of my songs from iTMS, simply by copying the files...I just need to activate them on the computer I want to -play- them on...which if it is one of the same 5 computers I have already activated, should be no problem.
Don't get me wrong: I don't buy music from iTMS...I think I've paid for a total of 6 songs (that were "exclusives"), and have a few others from the Pepsi promotion. I'm no huge fan of DRM. But that doesn't make the EFF's/AC's statements any less wrong.
Isn't that supposed to sort of take over the task of public domain?
No, the point is that at some point -everything- is supposed to enter the public domain, regardless of what license it was released under. And it's supposed to happen (theoretically) during the lifetimes of the audiences it was released to. For instance, the first Star Wars movie should have, under the old rules, been getting ready to enter the public domain pretty soon here, regardless of what 20th Century Fox or George Lucas would prefer. It's supposed to be the public TAKING it into the public domain, not the artists (or the companies in control after their deaths) GIVING it.
But, of course, the rules did change, and now we really have no guarantee that Star Wars (or the bulk of 20th century cinema, and beyond) will EVER become public domain....because even if it does, it will probably happen after we are all dead.
Not to mention the fact that when I spend $14.99 on an old Beatles or Hendrix album that might otherwise have entered the public domain by now, that's $14.99 I -don't- have to spend on newer music. That certainly doesn't help the downloading situation, now does it?
What you are suggesting is the same for digital media. Who cares how much the carpenters, painters, sets, directors, actors, etc cost? All that matters to you is that you think the movie should be available to you at a $2 or less cost since you can purchase blanks for that amount and thats really all thats involved, isn't it?
Considering that most movies recoup their cost during theatrical release, the cost of production of the media really IS about the only cost involved. Yeah, you have to re-master it, throw together some special features, and have somebody design a pretty box. But saying that the DVD release of movies from major studios is still paying for the freakin painters and make-up artists is, in almost every case, absolute and unadulterated bullshit. Nearly every movie that sees theatrical release recoups it's cost before it is released on video. Unless, of course, I'm wrong.
And anyway, the parent was saying that since making copies was almost free than the movie should be almost free to buy...he was saying that's why the studio would want to create a scheme allowing them to enforcably charge different rates in different regions, so they could squeeze whatever blood they could manage from third-world stones, and still charge us the big bucks in the US (even bigger in the UK).
Boo hoo hoo, poor little you -- you can get your Beethoven for free, but not your Britney Spears. And of course nobody actually reads all those books on Project Gutenberg, do they?
Actually, I have, and do.
First off, I hate Britney Spears, and I hate when she is used as the icon of modern copyrighted material, for some reason. Let's instead talk about what might be a better example: The Beatles. You may love them, you may hate them. But you have to admit they are better than Britney. And if copyright hadn't been extended repeatedly, they would (I believe) be in the public domain.
The purpose of copyright was to encourage artists to produce, not to protect their right (or their grandchildren's rights) to make money off their work. It's just that the best way to encourage them to produce was to give them a way to make money off their work. On could argue that the Beatles made more than enough money during the 14 year or so window after each of their album releases to have made their music quite profitable, and worth their while. Yet now it will not be public domain until halfway through this century. THAT is the problem.
There is no reason that an artist's grandchildren need to still be recieving royalties. An artist like 50 Cent makes more than enough money to provide for his children, his grandchildren, and possibly their children, if only he would stop spending money on bottles of champagne he intends only to smash, just to prove how rich he is. And artists that don't make much money now aren't likely to be making much in 50 or 90 years anyway, so what's the difference? Sometimes I think the extensions serve the sole purpose of keeping Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, and the rest is just a negative side-effect.
It's supposed to be a trade. The government allows the use of its courts for artists to defend their copyrights, and in exchange at some point the artists give the material over to the public domain, for everybody to use freely. But I think it was just assumed that that would be within a reasonable amount of time, whether or not it still had commercial value...which many people would argue should be -less- than a century. The point was that material would enter the public domain while it still had an audience, not to prevent it from doing so.
Strange, I've found it very easy to burn the music to CD's, and thus "back it up." Also, one can archive the files quite easily, requiring only that they be activated when used on a new computer (though this can get complicated, if you've maxed out your authorized computers...but there are ways to fix this as well). The point: one can fairly easily back up one's iTMS purchased music.
Oh, and it is of course trivial to back up the non-DRM'd portion of one's music library, which for most people is probably damn near all of it.
They restrict converting to other formats
If by "restrict" you mean "make it a two-step process," then yeah. Burn to CD. Re-rip. Done. And you say that as if any other online music store (other than certain Russian stores of questionable legality) that sells RIAA-label music makes this any easier. To the best of my knowledge, they do not.
They only work with Apple brand DRM
Yep, and I don't freakin' care. Besides, the first two seem to establish that you don't like DRM in general anyway...so you like Microsoft's *better* or something? This is just stupid. Next!
They restrict compatiblity with other players.
Yeah, because MP3 is such a proprietary format. Or are you still taking about DRM'd songs? There has never been a need for iPod users to use AAC, except if they want to buy from iTMS. For those of us that just rip CD's, we have the option of doing it in MP3, which is pretty much universal...we can even use a different application to do it.
If you're just mad because you can't buy music on iTMS and put it on your Zen or whatever, I don't care. From the sound of the rest of this, you are probably also one of the people who complains about the prices in the iTMS, and the DRM, and probably wouldn't buy music from there to put on a different player anyway...so you're just arguing to argue.
No editing of the songs.
You mean, like from within iTunes? Because you can certainly burn them to CD and then re-rip them as.AIFF/.WAV if you want, and edit away. Or am I missing something. Or are you just really pissed at this whole two-step process? (or just unaware of it, perhaps?)
Oh, and let's not forget that all of these DRM restrictions were largely decided upon by the RIAA, rather than Apple. I think I should stop replying to AC's, but at the same time when I see something stupid written, I have to tear it apart like a junkyard dog with a piece of meat.
This is another content free handwave - why 35 years?
Not much in the way of content, you are right. As for 35 years, it's because it was part of a larger "Here Today, Gone Tommorow" piece that is talking about what institutions that we take for granted might not be here in...you guessed it...35 years.
Did all news, international issues, and events the impact international association, which if gone bad can cause wars, just dissapear during the several days that the hurricane passed New Orleans?
Quick hint: turn away from TV news. They do still print newspapers. The ultra-focus problem is usually only an issue on the tube. Sure, newpapers will devote a disproportionate amount of print space to Katrina, but that is because it is the biggest story. But they still cover everything else.
and if I remember correctly they limited you to 10 minute calls
To clarify, this was of course referring to free calls. For a pretty reasonable rate (4 cents a minute, I believe, which was pretty darn good at the time), you could make all the calls you wanted for as long as you wanted.
Wasn't there a web site that let you place calls from a VOIP client to a landline, free, about 4 or 5 years ago? I remember it had a short queue, and showed some ads in the dialer application (presumably to fund the service), but it was a fairly clear signal and sounded fine even with my crummy $20 headset mic rig. I can't remember what it was called though... I saved a ton of long distance money through it in college.
Net2Phone, perhaps? Started out pretty decent, as far as free apps went. Usually only had to wait a couple minutes for a "line," and if I remember correctly they limited you to 10 minute calls, or something like that. It worked okay, and I used it quite a bit to call home back in the day. Eventually they thought they were big enough to stop the free service and just charge...but I guess not, as I haven't heard anything about them since.
I thought they got bought out by either AOL or Yahoo, but I'm not sure.
Slashdot Mirror
I am allowed to invite my friends into my home to watch my TV, even if they have not subscribed to the channel I am watching -- in fact, even if they do not have a TV licence. And I'm fairly sure I am allowed to lend my home recordings to my friends -- I've certainly never heard of anyone being busted for that, and the practice is almost universal.
Yes, of course you can have friends over to watch your TV, or even let them borrow your tape. What you CANNOT legally do is allow them to make a COPY of your tape and take it home, while you retain your copy. At least, you'd have a hard time defending it as fair use or personal use. Especially if that "friend" is actually a stranger who happens to be connected to the same BT tracker as you. Which is, in essence, what is happening in the case of BitTorrent (and other filesharing networks). A piece at a time, but still copies are being made.
Perhaps these concepts need updating in light of new technologies, but I'd bet dollars to pesos that even if they were, allowing strangers to make digital copies without paying, a la BitTorrent, would STILL not be legal.
How exactly is someone downloading a programme that they presumably had the right to watch {TV licence and cable/satellite subscription fees up to date; I am guessing that the cable/satellite TV companies insist to see your TV licence before they'll let you sign up, and can cut you off in a heartbeat if necessary. Sky and NTL certainly do} any different than recording it on a VCR / DVD+RW / Sky Plus / any other kind of TV-recorder, at the time of broadcast?
It isn't necessarily, from a moral standpoint, assuming he doesn't copy it and give it to anybody else*. From a legal standpoint, that's probably a different story (you are allowed to record it yourself, but others are not allowed to record it and then make a copy for you).
* - Assuming he's using BitTorrent, he has already done this, however. And considering he has no evidence that those people are subscribers, and thus morally entitled to watch it, that's a bad thing. This is one of the problems with BitTorrent, from both a moral and legal perspective...you are uploading as you are downloading, and you don't know who's getting it.
If it was overpriced by definition it would not sell. No-one is forced into purchasing. CDs are not essential to life. The CDs sell, therefore by definition they are not overpriced.
Actually, one could argue that the large-scale downloading rather than buying is a sign that they are overpriced...I would guarantee that there is a price at which 75%+ of people would buy, rather than illegally download, the music. The record labels, however, have made no attempt to find that price.
Why would anybody pay for a CD when they could download for free? Higher-quality audio, no screwed-up track tags, no wrong songs mislabeled, corrupted songs, etc, physical copy for archive purposes, cover art, and probably even more reasons I've forgotten. (Illegally) Downloading music takes more of my time than buying it would, and my time has value. Just not $14.99+ per CD.
... and those of us who stuck it out, who were able to look past our GPA's, who were able to realise "hey, getting a 55% on an exam is OK if the average was a 45%",
If the average on a test is a 45%, it just proves that you are not covering (properly, at least) the material you are testing on. Either your test is broken, or your lessons are. One or the other should be adjusted. Stop testing on things you aren't covering, or start covering everything on the test decently. Getting a 55% on an exam should never be okay...though getting a 70%-80% on an exam should be about average.
This is probably the only thing that annoys me more than classes where everybody gets 90%+ on the test...also a sign of a broken class.
Actually, the worst part of my (short) MiniDisc experience was the software that came with it. Brought my computer to it's knees. You could use Realplayer as well, but it lacked some of the features, and still sucked. ATRAC didn't bother me horribly (though yeah, when converting MP3-ATRAC the quality got sketchy), and I'm a huge fan of the Minidisc media format in general because, ironically, it resists scratching.
In fact, if Sony had made a MD player at the time that played MP3 natively as data files, I'd probably still own a MD player. The size wasn't too bad, didn't skip, and I liked the discs as storage. As it is, I took it back after about two weeks.
Oh, and as far as pack-in earbuds go, the white iPod headphones are actually some of the better ones out there.
You wonder how much real life testing these things get away from a lab if the screens scratch within seconds and no-one has noticed. I would at least of hoped they would have got testers out and using them in the real world.
No testing at all was required...this was a known flaw, and has been for a long time on other iPod models. My 3G 15GB iPod has the same problem...the screen was downright unreadable after 2 weeks in and out of a pocket with no protective case...and no, no keys or pocket change in with it. Thankfully it also turned out to be defective (after a few months), and Apple was nice enough to replace rather than repair...so my new one has spent its entire life in cases.
There is a reason there is such a huge market for protective cases for iPods, and it isn't just vanity. They have always been scratch-prone.
Unless this was something they actually fixed with the 4G models.
BS. Something harder than the plastic is needed to scratch it. Geology 101.
Actually that would be high-school geology. However, I'd wager that many people's pockets have dirt/sand/grit in them, which while the particles may be incredibly small they still get rubbed against the plastic, and thus still scratch it. It is absolutely possible for an iPod to get scratched in a pocket minus keys/change/knives/thumbtacks.
If sharing the music was such a big deal, why not just post everything as mp3s? Giving away publicly known information on bypassing copyright protection gives the band more publicity and probably won't increase the amount of avaliable media considering the rampant piracy already occuring.
/., there are hordes of people out there who do NOT know how to do this. Imagine for a moment that there is a subset of the human race that does visit the Switchfoot home page, but does not visit Slashdot...perhaps those very people are the ones the band was trying to inform.
Well, while telling users how to circumvent the protection may or may not be a grey area (see DMCA), giving away the MP3's on their site is very much black and white: they (likely) do NOT have the legal right to do this. Their contract with their record company (likely) explicitly forbids it. And they are not worried about their fans' ability to SHARE the music, they just want their fans to be able to LISTEN to their music, on whatever devices they might own. So this would be the best way to help their paying fans make use of the CD's they have purchased. Switchfoot was never trying to give the album away.
Oh, and while bypassing this protection may be common knowledge on
Though of course I'm just guessing.
Yes, the much-anticipated top-secret controller. It will have - not the piddly 10 to 12 buttons that the competitors have - but a full 110 buttons to enhance your gaming action. The console itself will support not just blu-ray but dvds, cds, and pretty much any other drive you can fit into the expansion bays. The connector to your tv will be a 15-pin cable. It can not only run Microsoft's proprietary software but Linux as well...
Wait a minute!
That sounds more like a Sony announcement.
When they started recording, in 1962, U.S. copyrights ran for 28 years, and could be renewed for another 28, so their U.S. copyrights wouldn't have expired until 2018, even without the legislation after 1962 that extended the terms of copyrights.
:)
I wasn't thinking about at the time of their recording...I was thinking more along the lines of the "original" (in the US) 14 and 14, which in my opinion is a very reasonable lengh for a work to be copyrighted. This would have had Beatles recordings starting to fall into the public domain around 1990, by which point I think enough millions would have been made. Though this would also have had the negative effect of causing even more Beatles songs to be used shamelessly in TV commercials, but you have to take the good with the bad.
Two of the Beatles are still alive.
Wasn't necessarily talking specifically about the Beatles anymore, silly.
I definitely think kids will be singing Yellow Submarine around campfires in the year 2100.
And suddenly I think that maybe copyright DOES need to be extended, and become a LOT more restrictive. (Though a fan of the Beatles, strangely enough I -hate- that song! Though I realize I am in the minority on that one...)
Second, burning compressed music to a CD and ripping it to a different compression format will make your music suffer. It will sound worse than the original music - so it's not as painless as you suggest. I'd much rather have the option to download uncompressed, or losslessly compressed, music and encode it to my desires.
.FLAC on their portables. And the burn/re-rip step certainly doesn't add any more distortion than the ability to go straight from AAC to MP3/WMA/OGG/Whatever would have.
I'd prefer that as well. I think I came across as some big DRM-lover there, when I'm really not. I just don't like when people make it sound worse than it is.
As for burning and re-ripping (and compressing) distorting the music further, of course it does. But most people that complain that AACs from the iTunes store cannot be converted into another format for use on other players are talking about recompressing into another lossy format, such as MP3 or WMA...not many people put
But yeah, I'm with you on the rest. I'm just sick of hearing people bash Apple/Microsoft/Napster/Whoever for DRM...it's not them leading the push behind it, it's the RIAA/MPAA/etc. And I have this chronic inability to stop correcting people when they say otherwise.
You redefine the language someone used to mean what you want to argue against rather than what was actually said, and you think you've made a point?
It's not about redefining language...I assume you're talking about the whole "backup" thing.
If the EFF wants to say "DRM is bad," I'll go along with them. But if they want to say that I am "restricted" from "backing-up" my music bought on iTMS, that is simply not true. It's not about me redefining language; it's about their misuse of it.
So I'll make it very clear. You are in no way restricted from backing up music from the iTMS. At all. No 5-computer limit, nothing. You can back them up to every computer you own, and every computer every friend you have owns. Every computer on your local campus network. Every computer owned by anybody in your extended family. Should your house catch on fire and your $10,000 in iTMS music go up in flames with it, you could restore it from any of the hundreds of computers you backed it up (or, to use the other word the EFF used, copied) to, re-activate it, and you're back in business.
Merely because I cannot play it from any of those computers does not mean it is any less backed up, and thus my ability to create backup copies is absolutely unrestricted. So by claiming that music from iTMS can only be backed up to 5 computers, the EFF is engaging in what I like to call "scaremongering." I'll forgive them, of course, because they generally do good things.
DRM is bad enough, you don't need to make shit up to make it sound worse than it is. Which, in my opinion, is what the EFF does with about half the space in that page. You want to talk about changing licensing agreements, I'm with you. Erosion of "first sale," and I'm right behind you. Revocation of licenses, I'm there. But if you are going to say that your ability to back up the music you purchase from iTMS is somehow restricted, I'm going to call bullshit.
Though, I will concede to you that you have no real guarantee that Apple is backing up the bits that actually allow you to re-activate your music. Which is why if I actually bought music on iTunes I would be burning it up to CD, not just copying the files.
Same goes for the fact that, under the current terms of iTMS, you can essentially "unlock," completely, any song you purchase by simply burning it to a CD. The DRM is washed away like a film, and you're left with pure, unencumbered bits, free to change formats, use on/in any player, edit/sample, or use in your own home movies. You're also left kicking yourself because now you've paid good money for an uncompressed song that's still only at 128kbps quality, but that's another story.
Personally, I don't care much what kind of DRM online music stores are using, or what kind of restrictions they entail. I'm a LOT more worried about the attempts to prevent me from ripping CD's that I've bought, as that is how pretty much all the music I purchase hits my computer anyway.
Damn, I hate when I'm wrong. Mod that one (-1, Absolutely Freakin' Erroneous)
Except the EFF is *wrong*. I'm a fan of the EFF, but I'm not with them on this one (actually, I'm with them that DRM in general is not a great thing...but spreading half-truths about it won't help).
By burning music from the iTMS, something that I would say is trivially easy (and cheap, if you are using CD-RW's) to do, you can get around all four of the "bullets" that the EFF outlines: backups, coverting, other players, and editing/remixing.
Words like "only" and "cannot" are pretty absolute, considering with a relatively simple two-step process all of those tasks can be accomplished under the current terms of the iTMS.
Though their point that the music is licensed, rather than truly sold, and that the terms of that license can change at the whim of Apple, is valid. Which is all the more reason to back all of your iTMS music up to audio CD, which you are supposedly "restricted" from doing.
In fact, let's decide what constitutes a "backup" real quick here...a backup does not, by definition, need to be playable. For instance, if I backup my data in tar.gz format, burn it to a DVD, it's not necessarily usable in THAT format. But it can be -restored- and used. So I can make a -thousand- backups of my songs from iTMS, simply by copying the files...I just need to activate them on the computer I want to -play- them on...which if it is one of the same 5 computers I have already activated, should be no problem.
Don't get me wrong: I don't buy music from iTMS...I think I've paid for a total of 6 songs (that were "exclusives"), and have a few others from the Pepsi promotion. I'm no huge fan of DRM. But that doesn't make the EFF's/AC's statements any less wrong.
So no, I'm not weeping.
Isn't that supposed to sort of take over the task of public domain?
No, the point is that at some point -everything- is supposed to enter the public domain, regardless of what license it was released under. And it's supposed to happen (theoretically) during the lifetimes of the audiences it was released to. For instance, the first Star Wars movie should have, under the old rules, been getting ready to enter the public domain pretty soon here, regardless of what 20th Century Fox or George Lucas would prefer. It's supposed to be the public TAKING it into the public domain, not the artists (or the companies in control after their deaths) GIVING it.
But, of course, the rules did change, and now we really have no guarantee that Star Wars (or the bulk of 20th century cinema, and beyond) will EVER become public domain....because even if it does, it will probably happen after we are all dead.
Thanks, Disney.
Not to mention the fact that when I spend $14.99 on an old Beatles or Hendrix album that might otherwise have entered the public domain by now, that's $14.99 I -don't- have to spend on newer music. That certainly doesn't help the downloading situation, now does it?
What you are suggesting is the same for digital media. Who cares how much the carpenters, painters, sets, directors, actors, etc cost? All that matters to you is that you think the movie should be available to you at a $2 or less cost since you can purchase blanks for that amount and thats really all thats involved, isn't it?
Considering that most movies recoup their cost during theatrical release, the cost of production of the media really IS about the only cost involved. Yeah, you have to re-master it, throw together some special features, and have somebody design a pretty box. But saying that the DVD release of movies from major studios is still paying for the freakin painters and make-up artists is, in almost every case, absolute and unadulterated bullshit. Nearly every movie that sees theatrical release recoups it's cost before it is released on video. Unless, of course, I'm wrong.
And anyway, the parent was saying that since making copies was almost free than the movie should be almost free to buy...he was saying that's why the studio would want to create a scheme allowing them to enforcably charge different rates in different regions, so they could squeeze whatever blood they could manage from third-world stones, and still charge us the big bucks in the US (even bigger in the UK).
Boo hoo hoo, poor little you -- you can get your Beethoven for free, but not your Britney Spears. And of course nobody actually reads all those books on Project Gutenberg, do they?
Actually, I have, and do.
First off, I hate Britney Spears, and I hate when she is used as the icon of modern copyrighted material, for some reason. Let's instead talk about what might be a better example: The Beatles. You may love them, you may hate them. But you have to admit they are better than Britney. And if copyright hadn't been extended repeatedly, they would (I believe) be in the public domain.
The purpose of copyright was to encourage artists to produce, not to protect their right (or their grandchildren's rights) to make money off their work. It's just that the best way to encourage them to produce was to give them a way to make money off their work. On could argue that the Beatles made more than enough money during the 14 year or so window after each of their album releases to have made their music quite profitable, and worth their while. Yet now it will not be public domain until halfway through this century. THAT is the problem.
There is no reason that an artist's grandchildren need to still be recieving royalties. An artist like 50 Cent makes more than enough money to provide for his children, his grandchildren, and possibly their children, if only he would stop spending money on bottles of champagne he intends only to smash, just to prove how rich he is. And artists that don't make much money now aren't likely to be making much in 50 or 90 years anyway, so what's the difference? Sometimes I think the extensions serve the sole purpose of keeping Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, and the rest is just a negative side-effect.
It's supposed to be a trade. The government allows the use of its courts for artists to defend their copyrights, and in exchange at some point the artists give the material over to the public domain, for everybody to use freely. But I think it was just assumed that that would be within a reasonable amount of time, whether or not it still had commercial value...which many people would argue should be -less- than a century. The point was that material would enter the public domain while it still had an audience, not to prevent it from doing so.
But maybe I'm just silly.
Apple restricts back-up copies
.AIFF/.WAV if you want, and edit away. Or am I missing something. Or are you just really pissed at this whole two-step process? (or just unaware of it, perhaps?)
Strange, I've found it very easy to burn the music to CD's, and thus "back it up." Also, one can archive the files quite easily, requiring only that they be activated when used on a new computer (though this can get complicated, if you've maxed out your authorized computers...but there are ways to fix this as well). The point: one can fairly easily back up one's iTMS purchased music.
Oh, and it is of course trivial to back up the non-DRM'd portion of one's music library, which for most people is probably damn near all of it.
They restrict converting to other formats
If by "restrict" you mean "make it a two-step process," then yeah. Burn to CD. Re-rip. Done. And you say that as if any other online music store (other than certain Russian stores of questionable legality) that sells RIAA-label music makes this any easier. To the best of my knowledge, they do not.
They only work with Apple brand DRM
Yep, and I don't freakin' care. Besides, the first two seem to establish that you don't like DRM in general anyway...so you like Microsoft's *better* or something? This is just stupid. Next!
They restrict compatiblity with other players.
Yeah, because MP3 is such a proprietary format. Or are you still taking about DRM'd songs? There has never been a need for iPod users to use AAC, except if they want to buy from iTMS. For those of us that just rip CD's, we have the option of doing it in MP3, which is pretty much universal...we can even use a different application to do it.
If you're just mad because you can't buy music on iTMS and put it on your Zen or whatever, I don't care. From the sound of the rest of this, you are probably also one of the people who complains about the prices in the iTMS, and the DRM, and probably wouldn't buy music from there to put on a different player anyway...so you're just arguing to argue.
No editing of the songs.
You mean, like from within iTunes? Because you can certainly burn them to CD and then re-rip them as
Oh, and let's not forget that all of these DRM restrictions were largely decided upon by the RIAA, rather than Apple. I think I should stop replying to AC's, but at the same time when I see something stupid written, I have to tear it apart like a junkyard dog with a piece of meat.
Oh, and I forgot to add that 35 was chosen specifically because FP is marking it's 35th anniversary. My bad.
This is another content free handwave - why 35 years?
Not much in the way of content, you are right. As for 35 years, it's because it was part of a larger "Here Today, Gone Tommorow" piece that is talking about what institutions that we take for granted might not be here in...you guessed it...35 years.
Did all news, international issues, and events the impact international association, which if gone bad can cause wars, just dissapear during the several days that the hurricane passed New Orleans?
Quick hint: turn away from TV news. They do still print newspapers. The ultra-focus problem is usually only an issue on the tube. Sure, newpapers will devote a disproportionate amount of print space to Katrina, but that is because it is the biggest story. But they still cover everything else.
So quit complaining.
Hell, I find that informative offtopic flamebait is the only flamebait worth reading!
and if I remember correctly they limited you to 10 minute calls
To clarify, this was of course referring to free calls. For a pretty reasonable rate (4 cents a minute, I believe, which was pretty darn good at the time), you could make all the calls you wanted for as long as you wanted.
Wasn't there a web site that let you place calls from a VOIP client to a landline, free, about 4 or 5 years ago? I remember it had a short queue, and showed some ads in the dialer application (presumably to fund the service), but it was a fairly clear signal and sounded fine even with my crummy $20 headset mic rig. I can't remember what it was called though... I saved a ton of long distance money through it in college.
Net2Phone, perhaps? Started out pretty decent, as far as free apps went. Usually only had to wait a couple minutes for a "line," and if I remember correctly they limited you to 10 minute calls, or something like that. It worked okay, and I used it quite a bit to call home back in the day. Eventually they thought they were big enough to stop the free service and just charge...but I guess not, as I haven't heard anything about them since.
I thought they got bought out by either AOL or Yahoo, but I'm not sure.