response 114 of 151:

Aug 20 17:31 UTC 2001

Re #111: A CD has room for 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo audio.  If you
use any of the other features, the amount of audio you can put on is reduced
accordingly.  So you're not really savig anything by eliminating those
features from the spec.  74 minutes actually turns out to be a bit short for
some classical music.

Minidiscs hold considerably less data than CDs, but they get around that by
using a lossy psychoacoustic compression algorithm to compress the data on
the disc.  It works similarly to MP3 but it's a proprietary compression.  In
theory the loss of data in the compression is unnoticable to the human ear.

response 116 of 151:

Aug 22 17:07 UTC 2001

Genuine Napster news!  :)
 
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6946163.html?tag=lh
 
In a conference at Aspen, new Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers promised 
that the new subscription based Napster service would open by the 
end of the 2001.
 
Quote:
 
   ((Hilbers)) said Napster could still be a place where 
    people swap music free of charge, so long as it
    isn't copyrighted. 

    "I'm very much a believer in what
    Napster stands for, which is the
    sharing of music among friends
    and private consumers when it
    comes to making available things
    like my children's Christmas carol
    singing or a garage band," Hilbers
    said. 

In which Hilbers demonstrates an awesome ignorance of intellectual
property law (everything is copyrighted now) and the market demand
for children singing carols.  I'm sure BMG invested $50 million 
in Napster because of the huge audience demand for other people's
children singing Chrismas carols.

-------

Songwriters represented by a copyright enforcement organization called
Copyright.net have launced a new lawsuit against Mp3.com.  They argue
that Mp3.com was the original source for many Mp3 files traded on Napster, 
and thus Mp3.com should be assessed damages for downloads from Napster
and related services.  
 
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/depth/mp3082101.htm

quote:

>The argument goes like this: MP3.com made compressed copies of about
>900,000 songs, which it placed on its computer servers -- without obtaining
>the rights to do so. That created a vast bootleg library, from which MP3.com
>subscribers could download songs. Once on the user's computer hard-drive,
>a single song could be copied and passed around infinitely in the music
>underground.

This seems totally bogus to me: I never heard of anyone using Mp3.com 
as a ripping service to get tracks for further distribution, it seems 
like it would have been much harder than ripping the tracks yourself.
I think we are now suing for theoretical copyright infringement.
I suspect this suit has only happened because Mp3.com was bought by 
Universal Music Group, and the songwriters think they can now tap 
Universal's very deep pockets.

response 118 of 151:

Aug 22 18:46 UTC 2001

Actually, I thought that technically, things that had been released into the
public domain weren't copyrighted. Also, things on which the copyright has
expired (and there are a few recorded pieces old enough to qualify, now) are
not copyrighted.

this post is (c)2001, but is hereby released into the public domain ;}

response 120 of 151:

Aug 23 23:13 UTC 2001

Re 118.  For a recording to be in the public domain through age alone,
it would have had to be "published" before 1922.

Anything which was never "published", regardless how old, is still
under copyright.

response 122 of 151:

Aug 24 06:04 UTC 2001

You bet there were recordings before 1922.  Edison patented the
phonograph in 1878.

response 124 of 151:

Aug 24 10:08 UTC 2001

Re 121-122.  I'm aware that recordings existed before 1922, but I am less
certain about what technology existed to mass-produce and "publish" them. 
Wax cylinders?  And how many of those still exist in playable condition
today?  I don't think the 78 rpm record was invented until later, was it? 

I guess there were player piano rolls, but they were not "recordings" so
much as encoded sheet music.

This is further evidence, if any were needed, how howlingly unreasonable
it is that published items dating back to the early 1920s are still under
copyright -- let alone non-published items dating back to the beginning of
time.

response 126 of 151:

Aug 24 17:05 UTC 2001

I have seen, and held in my hand, commercially published vinyl (or at 
least it looked and felt like vinyl) cylinders from circa 1905.  Flat 
disks had been patented by Emil Berliner in 1896, and in the form of 78 
rpms had taken over well before 1922.  Commercial phonographs were 
plenty common by that time.  What hadn't been developed yet (late 20s) 
was electrical recording, so the sound on those earlier records really 
sucks.

response 128 of 151:

Aug 24 18:23 UTC 2001

"The Jazz Singer", usually credited as the first "talking movie"
(although it was mostly a silent movie with a few sound scenes)
was released in 1927.  By 1929, Hollywood had totally converted
to sound.

response 130 of 151:

Aug 24 22:18 UTC 2001

        Cylinders where recorded in a "batch mode", with a sound 
horn picking up the sound and a distribution system (all acoustic)
tapping into multiple recorders.  A big batch would have been in
the dozens.  The next set of x many cylinders would get a new 
performance.  This method ended once a master disk could be cut,
and used to make mothers, that then in turn produced shellac
and vinyl.

response 132 of 151:

Aug 31 17:25 UTC 2001

Michael Robertson, the entertaining and outspoken CEO of MP3.com, has 
left the job as the acquisition of MP3.com by Vivendi Universal 
is completed.
 
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/robertson.html
 

The US Copyright Office has issued a report asking Congress to clarify
some of the legal issues surrounding the Internet music business.
MSNBC says the report generally tilts towards the Web music 
companies and away from the copyright industry.  In particular,
one area of focus is the copyright industry claim that it should 
get both performance royalties and recording royalties on the 
delivery of music over the net.  In today's market, the copyright holders
get either performance or recording royalties, but never both.
 
http://www.msnbc.com/news/621682.asp?cp1=1

response 134 of 151:

Sep 7 07:22 UTC 2001

As to the NYT article -- it's odd that the sole focus is on images,
with no mention of search engines caching copyrighted text.

response 136 of 151:

Sep 9 06:40 UTC 2001

The copyright industry is going for the whole enchilada:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46655,00.html
 
Quoting:

> WASHINGTON -- Music and record industry lobbyists are 
> quietly readying an all-out assault
> on Congress this fall in hopes of dramatically rewriting copyright laws. 

> With the help of Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), the powerful chairman 
> of the Senate Commerce
> committee, they hope to embed copy-protection controls in 
> nearly all consumer electronic
> devices and PCs. All types of digital content, including music, 
> video and e-books, are
> covered. 

> The Security Systems Standards and
> Certification Act (SSSCA), scheduled to
> be introduced by Hollings, backs up this
> requirement with teeth: It would be a
> civil offense to create or sell any kind of
> computer equipment that "does not
> include and utilize certified security
> technologies" approved by the federal government. 

> It also creates new federal felonies, punishable by five years 
> in prison and fines of up to
> $500,000. Anyone who distributes copyrighted material with 
> "security measures" disabled or
> has a network-attached computer that disables copy protection is covered. 

response 138 of 151:

Sep 9 08:55 UTC 2001

The new item is #192.