Continuing the weblog, with occasional discussion, about news relating to 
the deconstruction of the music business: with side forays, to 
steal polygon's description, into "intellectual property, freedom 
of expression, electronic media, corporate control, and 
evolving technology." 

This item is linked between the Fall Agora conference and the 
Music conference.

If you want to read lots and lots and lots of historical overview,
previous items in this series can be found in the archive 
conference music2:
      item:music2,240
      item:music2,279
      item:music2,280
      item:music2,294
      item:music2,304
      item:music2,315

87 responses total.

We start off the Fall version with Authentic Napster News:
 
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,47075,00.html
 
Napster has settled with the music publishers -- $26 million for 
past infringements and $10 million for future licensed use.
 
> "Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
>  oversaw negotiations that paved the way for a settlement between
>  Napster and the music publishers. 

>  The landmark deal -- which is expected to be certified
>  within the next 60 days by District Court Judge Marilyn
>  Hall Patel -- settles a major part of litigation brought by
>  the music industry that forced the company to shutter
>  its file-trading service in July. 

>  The new agreement would give Napster access to
>  700,000 songs from major label artists like Madonna,
>  Santana and Britney Spears, although the company
>  must still reach a settlement with the five major music
>  labels. 

>  Still, the agreement does lay the groundwork for future
>  business deals. 

The article expresses concern that this is a lot of money for
Napster to pay, given that it has no income.

Remember that there are two copyrights involved in every sound 
recording, one for the songwriting and one for the performance,
and those two are generally held by different businesses.

Widely reported: Vivendi Universal will start using an unspecified 
copy-prevention system on its CDs beginning in about a month.

  .. and apparently plans to use it on *all* Universal releases by 
     1Q 2002..

Music publishers were suing Vivendi Universal for its farmclub.com
operation.  Universal claimed that the licenses it held for selling
copyrighted music on CDs were sufficiently elastic to cover downloads
through farmclub.com, but a federal court in New York has sided 
with the music publishers, ruling that downloading is a new business
activity not included in the existing licenses.
 
"It was unclear what damages Universal could face as a result of 
Wednesday's ruling."
 
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7312624.html?tag=lh

----

Another Cnet story reports that MusicNet, the online music selling venture
of RealNetworks, AOL Time Warner, EMI, BMG and Zomba, has delivered its
software platform to its partners and so its launch should be imminent.
The story goes on to discuss how unappealing MusicNet is going to be, 
and even the firms involved don't expect many users.
 
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7314600.html?tag=lh

Yet another Cnet story on a plan to throttle the ripping of CDs:
 
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-7320279-0.html?tag=tp_pr

quote:

>       The record industry is experimenting with a new strategy 
>       for protecting CDs from being
>       copied in CD burners or on computers. Unlike 
>       previous anti-copying measures, this plan
>       will place two versions of an album on a single disc: one
>       in standard CD form, modified so that it can't be
>       transferred to a computer hard drive, and another in
>       Microsoft's Windows Media Audio digital format, rigged so
>       that files can be copied to a PC, but with some
>       restrictions on how they can be used. 

Anybody heard of any consumers eager to collect Windows Media files?  :)

I don't know. I suppose as long as you can plug a cd player into your sound
card you will be able to create mp3's -- it will just take a little more work.
Eventually the software will be there to make it easier.

I believe it was Esther Dyson (among others) who said that corporations will
have to rethink the who notion of property in such a technological age where
information is reduced to bytes.

Hey, I wouldn't touch Windoze *anything* unless I had to.

Any CD that will play in a conventional player is rippable with a
sufficiently clever ripper.  There is no way around this that works
with legacy hardware.  Anyone arguing otherwise is a liar or an idiot.

You know, if someone was entering responses here on how to copy
software or schemes to rip-off books from the library, you'd all
be thinking that's pretty, er, wrong.  Especially the sharing of
software, probably.  

So I really don't get why this is any the more right or clever.

You know, there *are* legitimate uses for mp3 technology.  It *is* possible
to want to do completely legal things, things that are specifically protected
by copyright law even, that would be prevented were these schemes to succeed.
  Your library example, Mary, is the right example, but the wrong direction.
Napster was the library, and now RIAA has shut it down so that they can sell
more books. 

Well, I'd say that RIAA now wants books to be limited in various ways as to
prevent people loaning each other books, or even being able to own books at
all.

Imagine if you suddenly couldn't trade recipes because a powerful cookbook
lobby pushed some new laws through.  After all, recipe pirating has gotten
much more widespread thanks to perfect digital copies (as opposed to
hand-written copies with possible mistakes or illegible writing), so that's
why cookbook sales have been dropping.

I still don't agree with the analogy of Napster to a library, but that
ground's been trampled enough.

I do think it's bizarre and far overstepping bounds to create technology taht
would prevent even the legal exchange of sound files. The purpose of copyright
law is to give the creator full control over their work, and that includes
the right to release such work fully into the public domain.

If CDs you purchase are done so under a license that they will
not be copied then they shouldn't be copied.  That's the deal.  If
you don't like it then don't buy it.

I hope the recording industry eventually comes up with a technology
whereby blank disks used for personal use (original content) could be
copied but those sold and licensed not for duplication couldn't be. 

But I absolutely see it as the right of the artist and record company
to sell their ware under whatever rules they wish.  I feel the 
same about programmers and cookbook authors.

Sure, Mary, the record company and the artist have the right to sell their
wares under whatever rules they want.  And if I don't like it, I won't buy
it.  Absolutely.  What I'm trying to do is convince the record companies that
they should sell things under a set of rules more palatable to me.  I'm doing
this by trying to convince other people that 1) the set of rules they want
to use is heavy-handed and unfair, and 2) a better alternative exists. 
Maybe if enough people think like I do, the record companies will maybe 
actually do something about it.  (Actually, I think this is unlikely.  I 
think that either artists will stop associating themselves with record
companies and go directly to their fan base, or new record companies with
better policies will replace the old ones.  Either way I think the 
dominant record companies of today are doomed, and I'm not unhappy about
this.)
  In particular, I want two things.  First, I want it to be absolutely 
clear when I buy a CD (or movie, or e-book, or any other piece of 
content) that what I'm buying is the content, not the physical media 
on which the content currently resides.  My use of the content is 
constrained by existing copyright laws, so I can't legally claim  I 
created it, or sell (or give) copies to my friends.  I would, however, be
able to use samples under fair use, and resell the content without 
keeping a copy myself, just as I can sell a used CD now. 
  Second, I'd like a library.  A place where I could go and try out 
the content before I buy it, or where I could do research using content
I didn't personally own a copy of.  Yes, I realize that in the digital 
world there's no such thing as "lending" content.  Good faith is called for. 

EE Times has a piece on the SSSCA proposed legislation.
Computers are only mentioned in passing; the main focus of the article
is on the plans to give the copyright industry control over when and
what VCRs can record.
 
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010928S0110

Mary in resp:12 ::
"I hope the recording industry eventually comes up with a technology
 whereby blank disks used for personal use (original content) could be
 copied but those sold and licensed not for duplication couldn't be. "

Sure, that's the thrust of the SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and 
Certification Act).  The "collateral damage" is that for any such 
scheme to work, Linux and all the other open-source Unix programs --
anything that lets users tinker with the insides of their computers -- 
must be removed from the market, either by outright banning, or by 
making it illegal to make hardware which will work with the open-source
operating systems.   Essentially, the argument of the SSSCA is that 
consumers must not be allowed to own machines which make copies.
Kind of like the old Soviet Union and their restriction on Xerox machines.
 
Much of the capitalist thrust of the last 20 years has been about 
"empowering consumers."  Now, in a massive way, some industries are 
talking about stripping consumers of power.

Oh, and Mary, we've already been stripped of the right to duplicate
our own personal recordings on digital media.  Leslie and I are already
struggling with this with a stack of minidiscs she recorded of 
her and her fellow students performing in Europe this summer.
Her friends want copies of their performances, and we have no easy
way to make copies for them.  

Ok, I'm an artist. I've written sroties, drawn pictures, made a few primitive
recordings. My understanding is, by the new rules, if *I* sell copies of my
music with a desire that the people who buy that music make as many copies
as they please, and distribute them to whomever they please, then the
technology will restrict me from doing so. Is that a correct understanding?
And if it IS a correct understanding, is not the RIAA infringing on MY rights
as the creator?

<sroties>stories>

RE: 15 I suspect that a method will be devised whereby the use of Linux
will be safe *and* the end user won't be able to make illegal copies.  I
also suspect that lots of people will still think this is somehow unfair.

Flem, I think we agree on much here.  I don't like the trends either but
I can understand why it's come to such heavy-handedness, and lots and 
lots of users are looking like part of the problem.

This is both a people and a technology problem.  I'll put my money on
technology getting to a fair resolution, eventually.  And if people are
going to put pressure on how this technology evolves then I'd suggest
a boycott on new recordings rather than theft, given those choices.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000077255sep27.story

Another overview piece from the LA Times but with a few interesting details.
 
The hook:

>  The phenomenal grown of online song-sharing services has led many 
>  music industry executives to an ugly conclusion:  Within every 
>  consumer lurks a shoplifter who would, if given the opportunity,
>  accumulate an entire collection of songs by theft.
>
>  Over the next few months that grim hypothesis finally will be put to 
>  the test.  Consumers are beginning to see some legitimate alternatives
>  online to Napster et al, service that will let them listen to or 
>  download a wide array of songs for a flat monthly fee....
>
>  But each of the new services is limited in significant ways that may 
>  turn off consumers.  Those limits trace back to the industry's suspicion
>  that customers can't be trusted to do the right thing, combined with the 
>  record companies' resistance to radical changes in music economics...

As none of the startups can legally offer the breadth of material that
Napster did, some are trying to win a specialized audience.

For me, most of the interesting details are about the Womad Digital Channel,
from Peter Gabriel's Womad/Real World "world music" operations.  
Quote: 
>  For about $7.50 per month, subscribers can download about three CDs worth
>  of songs from various world-music genres, either in a prepackaged playlist
>  or a combination they assemble themselves.
>  The songs remain playable for one month only, unless the subscriber pays
>  an additional sum -- between $1.50 and $3.00 per track -- for a permanent
>  copy.

So, for $90 per year, I could buy the privilege of previewing a limited
amount of material from just one small label.  Album-sized collections of 
songs I could purchase for between, say, $15 and $30.
 
I'm sorry, I'm a world music fan and I buy lots of Real World/Womad items,
but this license arrangement is a non-starter.

This response has been erased.

(poor phrasing in resp:20, let me try again.)
Mary's resp:18, predicting that some wonderful way will be found to save
Linus after copy prevention systems are standard, is either overoptimistic
or insufficiently informed.
 
It is already impossible for a law-abiding citizen to use a DVD disk or 
player with a Linux computer.  The group that controls the DVD patents 
will not allow the needed drivers to be sold; as a result, the only 
way to use a DVD on a Linux computer is with criminal software, the 
renowned DeCSS program.
 
From there, it is a small step to making it impossible for Linux to 
operate with a copy-preventing hard disk.  Then, the legislature makes
a requirement that all new hard disks must use the copy-prevention
system.  Voila, Linux is effectively banned.
 
The whole idea of Linux is that it allows the user total control 
of the operating system.  This is why the DVD consortium will not license
a Linux DVD player; it is why no successful copy prevention system can 
allow Linux machines to exist freely.  When the user has total control
of the operating system, bypassing any hardware restraints on copying 
is trivial.

I wonder, if this legislation goes through, if there will be a run on
non-restricted computers shortly before restrictions are placed into effect.

One of the things I'd like to be able to do is to take my legitimately
purchased CD's, record some of the music in the form of MP3's on another
CD, and take that on motorcycle trips.  As I understand it, the
compression in MP3's is much better than a regular CD, so I should be
able to record about 10 hours of playtime on a single CD.

There is no compression on regular CDs.

Regarding the plan mentioned in resp:5 to introduce copy-protected CD Audio
and .wma files, there is a good article here:

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2815388,00.html

The article contains a link to McFadden's detailed discussion of how CD
copy-prohibition works, and how it can be circumvented. This is in the
cdr-faq, here:

http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4-3   (for the Macrovision/SafeAudio
scheme ... scroll down to Section 2-4-4 for an fascinating description of the
SunnComm/MediaCloQ scheme used on that Charley Pride CD)

(Technically, isn't there *always* compression of some sort when storing an
analog image [including sound] in a digital format, from the standpoint that
there's necessarily truncation/rounding?)

The cdrfaq.org description of what seems to be going on with the various
copy protection schemes is the best I have seen.  *Highly* recommended
if you want to get into nuts & bolts.

Given that regular CD's use "no" compression, I think that definitely
qualifies as "less" compression than MP-3's.  :-)

I don't know what the word would be to describe what brighn is 
getting at, but it certainly wouldn't be "compression."

"Lossage", maybe.

  Quantization error?

Bingo, that's it.

Darn, Mike beat me to it. ;-)  Although, quantizing error is pretty much a
non issue these days with advanced noise shaping and dithering when combined
with 20 and 24bit wordlengths in the master tapes.  

I haven't examined this closely, but you could probably produce
a compressed file with less quantization error than the original
CD by using auto-correlation to distinguish the signal from the
quantization noise, then compressing the result.  Adding a few
bits to the volume field of a wavelet descriptor (or whatever
the compression scheme uses) doesn't increase the file size
nearly as much as the compression of many samples into a small
descriptor decreases the file size.

Quantization error comes out as noise, mostly.  The dynamic range
(loudest possible level above the noise) of a CD using 16-bit
samples is already 96 dB or more.  Your ears can't use that much
very effectively, so it's questionable what an improvement there
would add to the perceived quality.  Fewer artifacts and better
handling of transients would probably do a lot more.

Has anyone hacked a personal MP3 player to handle .OGG files?

The statement that the record companies can sell their CDs under any 
restrictions they care to is, while basically true, somewhat 
misleading.  They can add provisions to the effect that they can come 
and take your computer and your first-born child away if they feel like 
it (and reading some software license agreements, that seems to be 
about the size of it), but somewhere this passes the legitimate rights 
of contract, even if the buyer enters freely into it.

The closest equivalent in the brick&mortar world I can think of to 
these new restrictions is property covenants.  ("No future owner of 
this property may at any time sell it to Jews," that sort of thing.)  
Such covenants are being widely voided, circumvented, or just ignored, 
and this is generally a wholesome development.

The problem with the CD restrictions, and even more with e-book 
restrictions, is that rights we've always had are being taken away to 
prevent illegal activity we've never had a right to.  They're 
eliminating the whole idea of actually purchasing a copy of the 
material at all, and turning it into something more closely resembling 
a permanent lease.  The rights I'm thinking of are the right to sell or 
give away the copy, the right to transfer (not to copy: just to 
transfer) downloaded software from one computer to another; the right 
to copy music to a recordable medium for personal use, and so on.  And 
the right of a public library to have copies for loan.

The RIAA and the MPAA sue the file swapping operations Music City, 
KaZaa and Grokster:
 
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7389552.html?tag=nbs
 
These three firms are the leading successors to Napster, in terms
of number of users.
All three firms use a peer-to-peer file swapping program 
from a company called FastTrack.  The software is Gnutella-like, in 
that searches propagate from user to user without going through a 
central directory as Napster did.   This means that the software 
will continue to operate even if these firms are shut down.

MusicCity is based in the US.  KaZaa is based in the Netherlands, and 
Grokster is based in Nevis, in the West Indies.  Quote:
> Perhaps more than any previous legal action, the 
> latest lawsuit will test the ability of courts
> and one nation's system of law to reach across international 
> borders for an online issue--and
> over technological hurdles that many techno-libertarians 
> have deemed all but impassable. 

The RIAA is considering also suing the venture capitalists who funded
MusicCity.

Quote, repeating stuff we've said before:
> Consulting firm Webnoize estimated that 3.05 billion files 
> were downloaded using the
> FastTrack-based network, Audiogalaxy, iMesh and the Gnutella 
> network during August. That
> compared with a similar estimate of 2.79 billion files 
> downloaded through Napster in February
> 2001, the peak of that service's popularity. 

wired.com offers a piece on author Siva Vaidhyanathan and his book
"Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and 
How It Threatens Creativity."  I'll just pull out one quick quote:
 
> After the attacks, a shift in priorities 
> came that leaves the "Security Systems
> Standard & Certification Act" (SSSCA) in limbo. 
> Communications Daily now rates the
> chances that the SSSCA will even show its 
> face on Capitol Hill anytime this session as
> "unlikely." 

> That suits Vaidhyanathan just fine. 

> "The bill as written is so sweeping that it would 
> outlaw Linux -- or any sort of
> open-source activity," he said. "It would 
> require us to fundamentally change the
> nature of the personal computer. 

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47195,00.html

http://www.dotcomscoop.com says they have leaked copies of the 
RIAA's legal strategy and analysis of the FastTrack-based networks, 
plus a boring letter from the RIAA's Hilary Rosen.  Both are posted.

http://www.dotcomscoop.com/riaa1003.html

My summary:
The RIAA thinks they can flip the software company FastTrack to get 
the evidence needed to win the case against FastTrack's customer
Music City, the one defendant based in the US, and then get FastTrack's
cooperation to subvert the other two networks operating outside US 
jurisdiction by enlisting FastTrack to break the encrypted links
involved in the system.

How does that quote go about killing one and two appear in it's place?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss