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.
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(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?
Re 35. On the real estate restrictive covenant tangent: racially and other such covenants were ruled to be void as against public policy by the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948. More broadly, most states have laws which provide that covenants are not enforceable unless they have expiration dates, usually limited to 40 years or so. (I could go on, but this is the wrong item.)
So do you think we can get those restrictions - NOT on illegal copying and distribution, but on what you can do with your _own purchased single_ copy of a CD - similarly ruled as against public policy? Because that nicely expresses the problem with them.
The Register moves another alarmist story. According to their leak sources, the RIAA held a secret meeting last week with the record label heads, movie studios, US Senators Fritz Hollings and Ted Stevens (sponsors of the SSSCA), and the heads of Toshiba and Matsushita. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22087.html Some highlights: Hilary Rosen of the RIAA said, "we are working with sound card manufacturers to implement technology that will block the recording of watermarked content in both digital and analogue form." ((That would have to be backed up with a SSSCA requirement that all sound cards use this system, of course.)) The RIAA intends to push for the adoption of a hard drive specification similar to the rejected CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media) rules. Rosen wants ISPs to be liable for the copyright violations of their users. Disney's Michael Eisner wants to gut privacy rules: he said, "Privacy laws are our biggest impediment to us obtaining our objectives."
<sigh>
Re #23: Recording a CD you own to MP3 files for your own use is one of the things record companies would like to prevent you from doing. (It's already technically illegal.) What the record companies really want to see is for something else to replace the CD. They're hoping for this for two reasons: it'd give them a chance to come up with a format that's more difficult to copy, and they think it would allow them to sell everyone another copy of all the albums they own. They made out like bandits when people converted from LPs to CDs, and they're hoping they can do so again. Under some schemes I've seen, you'd actually need to buy more than one new copy; some of them would license the copy to the player, so that, for example, you'd need to buy one for your home stereo, one for your car, and one for your portable... Re #42: The Register has published a retraction of that story here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/31/22138.html It's likely the meeting never happened. I'm guessing the Michael Eisner quote was probably made up -- even if he thinks that, I don't think he'd actually say it out loud.
Well, my face is slightly red. Apologies for distributing disinformation in resp:42.
I heard that the largest representative of recording artists has agreed to make all their music available on line from a source for a fee as yet to be determined.
Weblog Plastic (www.plastic.com) featured a link recently to a story reporting that Vivendi Universal, which has just taken over management of MP3.com, announced immediately after the takeover that it would be reducing the sites "Payback for Playback" payments (which reward artists with the most popular downloads) by 80%. The link pointed here: http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/p4p.html
It doesn't surprise me. It's not clear that the money paid out in the Payback for Playback program ever helped create much revenue for mp3.com. I chalk it up as another failed dot-com business model.
Re #45: That's okay. I got "taken" by it, too...I think it says something about the RIAA that so many people found the story believable.
The outrages keep on coming... From Declan McCullagh & Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47552,00.html The RIAA wants to be immunized from any liability if they break into computers or networks in search of illicit MP3 files. They want immunity from consequential damages if they screw up your system. So far their attempts to slip this into anti-terrorism bills have failed. But it does show that the RIAA's thinking in terms of vigilanteeism. ((The RIAA's spokesman in this matter is lying weasel Mitch Glazer. Glazer is the former Senate staffer who betrayed his trust by slipping the "work-for-hire" changes into copyright law, thus drastically revising the ownership rights for recorded music without any responsible legislators realizing what was going on. Glazer was rewarded for his betrayal of the Senate's trust with a plum position at the RIAA. ))
Whoa. So they could come onto my PC and search for MP3's even though I have never downloaded an MP3 in my life, break my system and then have no liability? That doesnt sound too good.
LA Times story on the same subject, with a tad less outrage: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000082201oct15.story LA Times also carries a report about Department of Justice antitrust invesigators looking at the creation of the authorized music download systems for the major labels. I get lost every time I read about anti trust law, though: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000082195oct15.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines %2Dbusiness
Surely if you have nothing to hide.. <whack!>
ZDnet on the RIAA's plan to launch denial of service attacks against users running file swapping software: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2818064,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1t p01
Forgive me for not clipping in the URL on this one... there are news stories in many sites today suggesting that the Justice Department antitrust probe against the major labels is heating up, with more subpoena-like inquiries flying. There's also a report that European Union antitrust regulators are considering blocking the MusicNet and PressPlay services from opening.
Aren't DoS attacks illegal? Boy the RIAA may have gone over the edge!
Are RIAA DoS attacks the reason the Internet's been so unreliable lately? ;> I've been having trouble getting to just about anything on the west coast, and a friend of mine on the west coast is having trouble getting anywhere else...
A couple of weblog pointers: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7617315.html "Tech giants pan anti-piracy mandate." Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Compaq held a press conference to oppose the SSSCA proposal. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7612135.html is mostly about Windows XP and its support (or lack) for MP3 and Windows Media Audio formats. It includes the news that InterTrust is suing Microsoft, claiming the Digital Rights Management stuff in WMA infringes on their patent. It also reports that WMA copy-prevention has been broken by an anoynymous hacker. No doubt that exploit will quickly be as criminalized as the DeCSS code, and as effectively. http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/disney.html This one is so humorous I'm not sure I believe it. According to the underlying story at http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/22/1636242&mode=thread a Disney Channel cartoon portrays a small child's music file trading as leading to bankruptcy for her favorite artist, record store and eventually to the child being tracked down by the cops. (Rane and Brighn might approve of the storyline, perhaps?) Supposedly this is an epidsode of "The Proud Family" which aired on October 5. Gumby and Pokey for the modern era. :)
This Napster parody is a couple of years old, but I just found it and it's too funny not to pass on: http://boingboing.net/alifecomics/Alife-020.jpg
The ABC, NBC and CBS television networks are suing to block the introduction of Replay TV's new digital TV recorder, the ReplayTV 4000. The networks claim that the new device makes it too easy for users to share TV shows over the Internet, and the networks also claim that the device allows users to painlessly skip the all-important commercials which pay for "free" TV. Given the precedent of the Betamax case, I don't see how this suit stands a chance; but then, Napster thought it could hide behind the Betamax precedent as well and that did not work out. http://www.tvguide.com/techguide/techwatch/
Does ReplayTV's device facilitate such sharing? That is, does it have direct Internet access hooked into the product, so that anyone, naywhere, can pull programs directly off my ReplayTV machine, or do I have to transfer the files to my computer? I assume it's the latter; if so, then the similarities between this and Napster are few. Further, Napster included the sharing of items only available commercially; ABC, CBS, and NBC's programs are available *for free* to anyone with a TV set and within range of a broadcast antenna. The only added bonus to on-line trading of programs is that viewers can choose when they watch a program, but this is equally true of anyone owning a VCR. So Replay TV will allow people who don't have VCRs or TVs with antennas/cable to watch programs on those networks. In the United States, it seems to me that the number of people who don't own VCRs or don't have access to those nets via the airwaves, but who DO own computers with Internet access, would be very low. The only "threat" is the international issue, but I'm not sure what role US courts should really have in that.
Re #61: My understanding is that you can plug the ReplayTV box into an internet connection and share files directly. I could be wrong, that's just the impression I got from another article about it.
Maybe a firewire connection?
EFF says it will join in the defense of MusicCity, a company offering peer-to-peer software which is being sued by the music and movie industries. http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/eff.html Real Networks says its legit pay system for downloading encrypted music users can't do much with will launch within four weeks. Price plans will be between $9.95 and $19.95 per month. http://www.washtech.com/news/media/13604-1.html (this is a Washington Post site.)
There are some reports coming out of the U.K. about the copyright-protection scheme used on Natalie Imbruglia's newest CD, WHITE LILLIES ISLAND. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22759.html http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/z.natalieimbruglia.whitelilliesisland.h tml
As a follow-up to the Natalie Imbruglia/BMG CD released in the UK with Cactus Data Shield's copyright-protection scheme: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22917.html It would seem that, under pressure from consumers and retailers, BMG will be reissuing the disc without the copy-protection. A letter from Virgin Megastores' Head Office to a consumer is reprinted here: http://uk.eurorights.org/lists/ukcdr/2001-November/001068.html
Wow, thanks for this, Mickey. Cnet also had a good story on it. This is a big defeat for the major labels.
The copyright industry wins two big cases regarding the DMCA and free speech claims against it: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48726,00.html In the first case, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision prohibiting 2600 Magazine from distributing or linking to the DeCSS code. Only appeal left is to the US Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals found that the restrictions on speech created by the DMCA were "content neutral" and thus constitutionally permitted. In the second case, the trial court judge dismissed a lawsuit against the DMCA by Professor Edward Felten and the EFF; Felten was threatened with DMCA prosecution for attempting to present an academic paper on a "watermarking" scheme. EFF plans to appeal.
Salon reviews a new book: "Sonic Boom," by John Alderman.
Subtitle: "Napster, MP3 and the New Pioneers of Music."
http://salon.com/tech/books/2001/11/30/sonic_boom/index.html
Quote from the review:
"In his book, John Alderman remembers attending one of the first
online music conferences in the mid-1990s where an industry executive
declared that the Net should be immediately closed down.
Copyright protection had to take precedence over technological
innovation. ... The music industry has no veto over its future.
Its lobbyists and lawyers can only slow down the spread of peer-to-peer
computing."
The review also discusses the concept of the "gift economy" and how it
is "the heart of the Net."
As I read the review, the book author argues that the music industry
had a very narrow window to try to build a money economy out of the
sale of music files with some sort of encryption attached; but because
they did not wish to gut their CD sales, they dithered, and the MP3
trading system got too well established.
-----
The Financial Times of London has an overview essay which will have
little new to faithful readers of these Grex items:
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3QP3V2HUC&li
ve=true
"Music Industry Burned By The Blank Generation"
The IFPI (international version of the RIAA) says that the number of
illicitly sold CD-Rs now matches the number of legitimate CDs sold.
Younger users are now totally committed to burning CDs and downloading
music for free and they are unlikely to return as paying customers.
Quote:
> Some hardware manufacturers recognise the "troublesome"
> impact their products are having on the record
> companies. For example, Sony and Philips have agreed not
> to make machines able to replicate high-quality
> super-audio discs (SACDs). This at least means the music
> industry can offer a distinct premium product.
>
> The IFPI complains that the makers of CD burners do not want
> to enter into a debate about their part in the growth
> of unauthorised copying - just as gun-makers disavow themselves
> of responsibility for fatal shootings.
((( Please, please, please do not start gun control arguments here.
Thank you. )))
Illicitly *sold* CD-R's, or illicitly *copied* music? So far as I know
most people buy CD-R's perfectly legally, then illegally *copy* the
music. An even more interesting question, probably also missing from
those statistics, is how much of that represents actual "lost" sales? In
my case, I hope to get around to converting some of my CD's to MP3
format purely for my personal convenience. That may be technically
illegal (although I think it's "fair use"); it's *certainly* not a lost
sale though - I bought those CD's, fair and square.
In what the record industry would probably argue is the more usual case,
that of someone downloading the MP3 ("for free"), the technology
*breaks* the fundemental assumption of the record industry. That means
either (a) we somehow break the technology, or (b) the record industry
needs to adapt to the new market realities. Unfortunately, (a) is
difficult or impossible to do in the long run. The church, in the
middle ages, tried to get rid of guns when they first came out (another
example of new technology), and we all know how successful they were.
It doesn't sound to me like the record industry is working very hard to
do (b).
Re #68: The Felten lawsuit was dismissed because the companies only *threatened* to sue him. Since they didn't actually sue, the judge ruled he has no standing to bring a lawsuit. (In other words, for the case to be valid, he would have had to give the speech and then actually get sued, instead of caving.)
Hm. I thought "chilling effect" carried some weight with the courts.
Kazaa, the Dutch firm which is part of the Morpheus file-trading system, has been ordered by a Dutch trial court "to stop providing free music over the Internet." It's unclear to me if that's even possible; I remain unclear on the Morpheus architecture, and I suspect that Kazaa is not capable of disabling the software already distributed. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011130/tc/netherlands_online_music_2.html The mp3newswire.net story seems to agree that Kazaa has been ordered to stop users who it has no control over: http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/funeral.htmlhttp://www.mp3newswire. net/stories/2001/funeral.html I'm fuzzy on the details here, the stories are not very good.
Here's the Slashdot article on Kazaa, which points to The Register: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/30/0537210&mode=thread http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23107.html
(The Slashdot coverage has a bit more on the network architecture, if you dig down through the responses.)
Marcus in resp:70 :: the phrasing of the Financial Times article was a little difficult to parse, but on closer reading I think the IFPI is arguing that half of all blank CD-R production, estimated at 4.8 billion discs for 2001, ends up being used for music. From the IFPI's perspective, discs copied and sold in the great pirate bazaars of Asia are no different than the home-made copies made in the west; the article flows pretty freely between home copying and commercial piracy for profit. ----- News reports almost everywhere that Real Network was supposed to take their MusicNet system for legitimate music downloads online today.
Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig on how current trends in copyright law are a threat to culture and to technological innovation: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48625,00.html "Why Copyright Laws Hurt Culture" Rane will love it. :) (As a related digression: I've had a friend argue recently that the DMCA's ban on reverse engineering, if it was in force in the early 1980s, would have killed the development of the PC industry by prohibiting the reverse-engineering of the BIOS which was required to create low-cost industry-standard PCs. Thoughts?) ---------- The LA Times reports that numerous artists are having their lawyers attack the record industry's legitimate download service MusicNet. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000098124dec10.story The artists in question think the record business is running over their rights, much as the record companies claim to have been treated by Napster and its successors. ((krj note: once again, more evidence that nothing is going to happen in the legally-sanctioned online music sales arena until Congress sets mechanical royalties, as they did in the radio and record era many years ago.))
Re #77: I think it'd be a stretch to call the BIOS a copy-protection technology.
Facetious or not, it's the sort of thing the DMCA *was* designed to prevent..
Not directly related to Napster or related subjects, but: http://www.newmediamusic.com, a web site which I have referred to frequently in these items, has closed up shop. The web site is still there, frozen as of mid-November. NewMediaMusic wanted to be a trade journal for the next round of evolution in the music business. While they were critical of Napster and similar systems for their lack of respect for copyrights, NMM's editors also tried to take a stick to the major music companies for sticking their heads in the sand and overlooking what their customers clearly wanted. Sometimes their essays seemed utterly brilliant, and other times they just seemed to be blowing smoke. But they were a fun journal, and I will miss them. ---------- We knew that mp3.com had been bought by Vivendi Universal, the world's largest music company, some months back. I think Vivendi just finished digesting its purchase. The http://www.mp3.com/news pages, usually pointers to a lively mix of rubbish and hype and good articles, have been frozen for four days. The mp3.com front page is now promoting major label R&B artist Toni Braxton. I guess we'll see where it goes from here. (In their continuing attempt to devour the entire media universe, Vivendi just bought the USA family of cable TV networks, including the SciFi channel.) ---------- Salon has a couple of freebies; I don't read them as much as I used to since most of the content is now for subscribers only. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/13/college_webcast/index.html?x "Why College Radio Fears the DMCA" The DMCA created a new performance right which Internet radio stations are to start paying for, a right which over-the-air stations don't have to worry about. The sample station, a college non-profit, currently pays $623/year in songwriting royalties but would pay $10,000-$20,000/year if the record industry has its way. KRJ's interpretation, as noted before: the new digital performance rights means that there will be no small webcast operations, and indeed there may not be any webcast operations at all other than those owned by the record industry, which can pay itself for its own rights. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/18/dont_steal_music/index.html "Don't Steal Music, Pretty Please" I'm not sure I agree with this one. The author argues that the music industry is coming to terms with the rise of the MP3 file and that all the anti-MP3 combat is just a delaying action while the biz figures out what their cash flow model will be.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49201,00.html Declan McCullagh quotes Jack Valenti of the MPAA. Valenti says flatly that if the electronics industry does not voluntarily implement the SSSCA, Congress will move next year to enact the legislation requiring anticopying systems in all consumer electronics.
Universal Music Group launches their Pressplay service for legitimate, tightly-controlled downloadable music files. The article includes pricing information. Pressplay allows you to burn a sharply limited number of files to CD (in what format?) if you buy one of the pricier subscriptions. But downloading to those very popular portable MP3 players is not allowed. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8222920.html?tag=mn_hd Universal has also distributed a copy-prevented CD in the US. The disc is the soundtrack for the movie "The Fast and the Furious." Universal is using the Midbar Technology "Cactus Data Shield," which attempts to prevent the CD audio from being played on any computer. The disc also includes a digital audio player which allows controlled playing of MP3-like versions of the songs on a computer; however, these MP3-like files will not play in the common media players, and this is a Windows-only proposition. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8225543.html?tag=mn_hd
Pressplay is offering a 14-day free trial if anyone is feeling adventurous. http://www.pressplay.com
A good, fairly neutral & non-technical article on the Universal Music Group introduction of copy prevention was pointed to by Slashdot: http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/cd121701.htm The article reminds me that the "Cactus Data Shield" discs are supposed to fail in the new dual-purpose DVD/CD machines, which were reviewed in a big roundup in Consumer Reports. Uh-oh...
re 84 Since those are likely to have digital outputs?
(oops, Agora rolled, time to start another one of these linked items...)
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