response 19 of 87:

Oct 1 22:02 UTC 2001

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.

response 21 of 87:

Oct 1 22:32 UTC 2001

(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.

response 23 of 87:

Oct 2 01:41 UTC 2001

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.

response 25 of 87:

Oct 2 16:33 UTC 2001

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)

response 27 of 87:

Oct 2 20:36 UTC 2001

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.

response 29 of 87:

Oct 2 22:17 UTC 2001

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

response 31 of 87:

Oct 2 23:30 UTC 2001

  Quantization error?

response 33 of 87:

Oct 3 02:32 UTC 2001

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.  

response 35 of 87:

Oct 3 19:04 UTC 2001

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.

response 37 of 87:

Oct 3 19:46 UTC 2001

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

response 39 of 87:

Oct 4 12:57 UTC 2001

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

response 41 of 87:

Oct 5 21:59 UTC 2001

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.

response 43 of 87:

Oct 10 00:16 UTC 2001

  <sigh>