response 6 of 219:

Jan 6 08:40 UTC 2002

UBL should skip all this messy plane and anthrax business and just set up his
own pirate music-trading site.  

response 8 of 219:

Jan 7 03:19 UTC 2002

Media and equipment do not make piracy.

response 10 of 219:

Jan 7 16:36 UTC 2002

re #8:  
Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) 
USSC.

Everyone in the content industry, including Sony, is now trying to forget 
this decision.  Hmm, I wonder why.

response 12 of 219:

Jan 7 17:56 UTC 2002

  re #11:  I've heard that claimed before but it's not at all clear to me
  that it's true.  Is there a court decision which clearly establishes this
  position or is it just the wishful thinking of the music industry?

response 14 of 219:

Jan 7 19:57 UTC 2002

I don't know if it's ever been tested in court.  krj seems to be right 
that it's just immunity from suit that's the issue.  Here's what the 
RIAA claims:

http://www.riaa.org/Copyright-Laws-4.cfm

--

The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA)

This 1992 legislation exempts consumers from lawsuits for copyright 
violations when they record music for private, noncommercial use; eases 
access to advanced digital audio recording technologies; provides for 
the payment of modest royalties to songwriters and recording artists 
and companies; and mandates the inclusion of serial copying management 
technology in all consumer digital audio recorders to limit multi-
generation audio copying (i.e., making copies of copies). 

In general, the AHRA covers devices that are designed or marketed for 
the primary purpose of making digital musical recordings. Digital audio 
cassette players, minidisc players, and DAT players are devices covered 
by the AHRA. This law will also apply to all future digital audio 
recording technologies, so Congress will not be forced to revisit the 
issue as each new product becomes available.

The AHRA provides that manufacturers (not consumers) of covered devices 
must: (1) register with the Copyright Office; (2) pay a statutory 
royalty on each device and piece of media sold; and (3) implement 
serial copyright management technology (such as SCMS) which prevents 
the production of copies of copies. In exchange for this, the 
manufacturers of the devices receive statutory immunity from 
infringement based on the use of those devices by consumers. To learn 
more about the administration of the royalties paid on recording 
devices and media, see the section on AARC.

Multipurpose devices, such as a general computer or a CD-ROM drive, are 
not covered by the AHRA. This means that they are not required to pay 
royalties or incorporate SCMS protections. It also means, however, that 
neither manufacturers of the devices, nor the consumers who use them, 
receive immunity from suit for copyright infringement.

--

Here's the relevent section of the U.S. code, since the link on that 
site seems to be broken:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch10.html

Realistically, given the number of lawyers and U.S. lawmakers the RIAA 
owns, if their interpretation isn't the law, it might as well be.

response 16 of 219:

Jan 8 22:26 UTC 2002

I was looking for some clue as to how many people had signed up for 
the Pressplay and Musicnet services.  All I can find so far is a 
ZDnet story from late december, about a week after the new services
were launched.
 
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2101670,00.html

quote:
> The figures from Download.com support his observation. 
> Music fans are downloading rogue
> software that allows users to swap music files through 
> online services Kazaa, Morpheus Music
> City and Audiogalaxy, to name a few, at a clip of more 
> than three million per week. 

> In contrast, Real Network's RealOne media player -- 
> the software associated with MusicNet --
> was downloaded 7,506 times during the past week, 
> according to Download.com. 

response 18 of 219:

Jan 9 15:29 UTC 2002

Incidentally, a trojan was recently found in Kazaa, Grokster, and the 
Limewire Gnutella Client.  See: 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23532.html

response 20 of 219:

Jan 10 17:22 UTC 2002

Slashdot points to a good summary article at EE Times about 
the Consumer Electronics Show.  The hook is about plans to come up 
with some sort of system to stifle unauthorized video exchanges on 
the Internet, but the bulk of the article is more generally 
about: (Quote:)
 
> Indeed, a battlefield rife with enmity between systems makers and
> music, movie and video producers was perhaps one of the ugliest
> parts of the industry on display at CES. Multiple panel sessions
> expressed worries and lobbed barbs over frustrations stemming from a
> variety of standoffs retarding the development of digital media
> markets. 
>
> Among the many outstanding issues:  ...   ((see the links))

http//www.eet.com/story/OEG20020109S0062
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/01/09/2226244.shtml

Also, the dead-tree edition of USA Today has a preview of the new 
for-pay Napster service.  Napster thinks its chat and bbs functions 
will give it an edge.  Versions of the story probably available on
other online media.

response 22 of 219:

Jan 11 20:05 UTC 2002

Philips has declared that CD copy protection techniques violate the CD-
DA standard.  They note that they could refuse to license CDs that use 
them:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991783

response 24 of 219:

Jan 13 08:03 UTC 2002

Letter to RIAA & IFPI heads from Congressman Rick Boucher - Jan. 4, 2002

http://www.dotcomscoop.com/article.php?sid=80

January 4, 2002

Ms. Hilary B. Rosen
President and Chief Executive Officer
Recording Industry Association of America
1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036

Mr. Jay Berman
Chairman and Chief Executive
IFPI
54 Regent Street
London W1B 5RE
United Kingdom

Dear Hilary and Jay:

According to many published reports, record labels have begun releasing
compact discs into the market which apparently have been designed to
limit the ability of consumers to play the discs or record on personal
computers and perhaps on other popular consumer products, such as DVD
players, video game consoles, and even some CD players, for traditional
fair-use purposes such as space shifting. I am particularly concerned
that some of these technologies may prevent or inhibit consumer home
recording using recorders and media covered by the Audio Home Recording
Act of 1992 (AHRA).

As you know from your personal involvement in its drafting, the AHRA
clearly requires content owners to code their material appropriately to
implement a basic compromise: in return for the receipt of royalties on
compliant recorders and media, copyright owners may not preclude
consumers from making a first-generation, digital-to-digital copy of an
album on a compliant device using royalty-paid media. Under the AHRA,
any deliberate change to a CD by a content owner that makes one
generation of digital recording from the CD on covered devices no longer
possible would appear to violate the content owner's obligations under
the statute.

To understand better the implications of this new technology for
consumers, I would appreciate your providing answers to the following
questions:

1. What methods have been used or are planned for use by your member
companies to alter CD content or ancillary encoding so as to constrain
functions of personal computers or other devices? Do these methods
involve the injection of intentional errors? Do these methods involve
compressed audio files separate from the CD-quality tracks?

2. Based upon your knowledge and upon any consumer contact received by
your member companies, have any discs entered the U.S. market that may
not be copied on a device or on media for which a royalty has been paid
under the AHRA?

3. What steps, if any, have your member companies taken to inform
consumers, retailers, or device manufacturers about the restrictions and
which of their discs have been or will be altered?

4. What steps, if any, have been taken by your member companies to
assure that the introduction of intentional errors as to encoded music,
or other technical means to block copying, will not detract from sound
quality or cause responses in equipment that could damage speakers?

5. Would you and your member companies support independent testing of
the effect on sound quality, on listening behavior, and on the
performance and operation of home networks, before these technologies
appear more widely in the U.S. market? Assuming you and your member
companies support such testing, are you prepared to provide assurances
that no assertion would be made that these tests and any peer review of
the tests would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?

Given the recent announcements from some record companies that they
intend the broad introduction in 2002 of copy protected discs, I would
appreciate a prompt response to this inquiry.

Thanking you for your time and attention to this matter, I remain

Sincerely,

Rick Boucher
Member of Congress

response 26 of 219:

Jan 14 20:05 UTC 2002

Confusing?  It sounds like an incitement to include more content (live 
the special features on DVDs) in order to justify the different pricing 
model and as a way to ease the annoyance of music buyers.

response 28 of 219:

Jan 17 14:42 UTC 2002

The New York Times has a story on "Napster culture" now moving on to 
downloading and trading TV shows and movies, as bandwidth and 
disk sizes increase.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/17/technology/circuits/17VIDE.html
"Black Hawk Download: Pirated Videos Thrive Online"
 
The store includes a visit with an Internet video collector 
in Ann Arbor.  :)