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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 163 responses total. |
jazz
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response 6 of 163:
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Jan 6 17:39 UTC 2003 |
I'm with Steve on #3.
One thing Napster and other P2Ps have done is to help introduce non-pop
bands to a significantly wider audience. Those bands' sales don't even show
up as a blip on the RIAA's radar.
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gull
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response 7 of 163:
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Jan 7 14:59 UTC 2003 |
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28749.html
DVD Jon is free - official
By John Leyden
Posted: 07/01/2003 at 11:09 GMT
The entertainment lobby has failed to persuade a Norwegian court to
convict a teenager for creating a utility for playing back DVDs on his
own computer.
Jon Lech Johansen has been acquitted of all charges in a trial that
tested the legality of the DeCSS DVD decryption utility he produced,
Norwegian paper Aftenposten reports.
Norwegian prosecutors, acting largely on the behest of the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA), argued in court that Johansen
acted illegally in sharing his DeCSS tool with others and distributing
it via the Internet. They claimed the DeCSS utility made it easier to
pirate DVDs.
The court rejected these arguments, ruling that Johansen did nothing
wrong in bypassing DVD scrambling codes that stopped him using his Linux
PC to play back DVDs he'd bought.
Judge Irene Sogn ruled that there was "no evidence" that either Johansen
or others had used the decryption code (DeCSS) illegally, Aftenposten
reports. Judge Sogn dismissed prosecution arguments that Johansen
intended to aid and abet DVD piracy.
The ruling means its legal to use DeCSS code to watch legally obtained
DVD films, at least in Norway.
The case began three years ago with a raid on Johansen's home, after
which he was charged by the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit for obscure
offences against Norwegian Criminal Code 145(2) which carry a sentence
of up to two years in jail.
The case has been closely watched ever since, and Johansen's victory
represents a big win for the tech enthusiasts against the bully-boy
tactics of the US entertainment industry.
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tsty
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response 8 of 163:
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Jan 7 15:55 UTC 2003 |
phew!
/
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keesan
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response 9 of 163:
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Jan 7 17:29 UTC 2003 |
I have never used a DVD. Is it not normally possible to play one in a
computer DVD-drive, or is it just not possible to use Linux to do so?
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mynxcat
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response 10 of 163:
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Jan 7 17:34 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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keesan
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response 11 of 163:
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Jan 7 17:37 UTC 2003 |
So why did someone have to write a decoder for Linux?
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mynxcat
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response 12 of 163:
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Jan 7 17:43 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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gull
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response 13 of 163:
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Jan 7 18:28 UTC 2003 |
A DVD drive lets you read data on DVD discs, like a CD-ROM drive. The
problem comes in because DVD movies are *encrypted*, and need to be decoded
in a specific way to be played back. The encryption is intended to stop
people from copying the video off the DVD and into other formats.
(Analogous to 'ripping' audio CD tracks and converting them into MP3 files.)
It doesn't prevent copying the whole DVD to another DVD, though.
My understanding is that DVD drives are capable of reading the data, and
capable of supplying the necessary decryption key (if the disc is the same
region as the drive is set to), but the playback software needs to do the
actual decryption. Only licensed software companies that pay royalties to
the MPAA are supposed to have the ability to write this software. DeCSS is
an unlicensed, illegal (in the US), reverse-engineered version of this
decryption code written by someone who was frustrated by the lack of DVD
players for Linux.
If the drive *isn't* set to the right region, flaws in the encryption
algorithm make it possible to brute-force out the correct decryption key,
but it's more time consuming.
This is all based on my understanding of bits and pieces of information I've
seen. If I've got something wrong, let me know so we can all learn. ;)
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tod
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response 14 of 163:
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Jan 7 18:51 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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keesan
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response 15 of 163:
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Jan 7 19:14 UTC 2003 |
So there are players for Windows?
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aruba
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response 16 of 163:
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Jan 7 23:27 UTC 2003 |
There are lots of players for Windows. Every DVD I rent seems to have a
different one.
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gull
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response 17 of 163:
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Jan 10 14:32 UTC 2003 |
Yet another weird use of the DMCA -- this time, a suit filed by Lexmark
to prevent third-party companies from making printer toner cartridges.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/28811.html
Excerpt:
"This week, federal district court in Lexington, Kentucky issued a
temporary order to prevent Static Control from making or selling its
microchips.
"The order has been put in place until Lexmark's motion for a
preliminary injunction can be heard by the Court.
"Lexmark's complaint alleges that the Smartek microchips incorporate
infringing copies of its software and are being sold by Static Control
to defeat Lexmark's technological controls, hence the invocation of the
DMCA. Its case is that Static Control's technology permits the
unauthorized remanufacturing of Lexmark Prebate toner cartridges."
In a way, I think companies like Lexmark are doing us a favor, by making
it obvious how absurd the DMCA really is.
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krj
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response 18 of 163:
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Jan 10 15:33 UTC 2003 |
I'm behind; some stories will have to get entered without me digging up
the links.
Reported in business and entertainment news everywhere: Tommy Mottola
is out after 14 years of running Sony Music. The press release calls
it a resignation but most news stories say he was pushed. Sony ranks
#3 among the Big Five music companies, and its 2002 losses are reported
in one story as over $100 million, in another story as $140 million.
-----
Two recent articles on the live concert bootleg scene. The NYTimes
reports that the trading of concert recordings is booming on the Internet;
the music industry mostly leaves it alone because they have bigger
problems right now. Concert bootleg CDs have changed from a premium-
priced item sold at dubious CD shops into a non-profit,
gift-exchange medium. Fans openly run Web pages to coordinate trading.
Bootleg enthusiasts consider themselves to be preserving artistic history.
(Though it's not mentioned in the article, that point has already
been borne out by the dedicated fans who bootlegged lots of old
jazz performances. And see the Dylan article which follows...)
Meanwhile, musicians deal with the new reality that every note they
play in a concert is going to be heard worldwide: the Times concludes with
an anecdote about how this realization led one musician to quit drinking
on stage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/06/arts/music/06ARTS.html
Over in Salon, there is a very nice essay about how
the craving of fans for Dylan live & unreleased songs created the
modern bootleg industry, and how the bootleg industry has returned
the favor by keeping Dylan's profile and critical esteem high, even
in the last 25 years when his official studio output has been
mostly low quality:
http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2003/01/07/dylan_boots/
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krj
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response 19 of 163:
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Jan 10 23:13 UTC 2003 |
Another unrelated story in Fox News' entertainment
column on Tommy Mottola's firing is this:
Whitney Houston's new album JUST WHITNEY has sold 430,000 copies in
the USA. The article describes it as a "dismal sales failure;"
you might not think 400K copies as a failure, but Whitney
has a contract reported elsewhere to be worth $100,000,000,
and this Fox item claims that she has borrowed $20 mil from
her label Arista as an advance against future royalties.
So, on a per-CD basis, Fox claims that Ms. Houston has borrowed about
$40 for every copy of her CD sold.
(Arista, according to Fox, claims 1 million copies shipped and
is asking for a platinum record on that basis; I thought the RIAA
had put up safeguards to stop giving out awards on the basis of
shipments, not sales, years ago.)
To give this a little more context: sales of JUST WHITNEY are
less than 1/10 of what Eminem has sold with his last couple
of releases -- nowhere near enough sales to support her
megacontract.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,75046,00.html
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tod
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response 20 of 163:
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Jan 10 23:24 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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tpryan
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response 21 of 163:
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Jan 10 23:39 UTC 2003 |
Can we conclude that Country Music fans don't know how to
download and burn CDs, or that they actually do want the CDs from
the artists.
?
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krj
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response 22 of 163:
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Jan 13 16:59 UTC 2003 |
We're getting another burst of "music industry crisis" stories.
The February issue of Wired puts the subject on its cover, though
none of that content is posted online yet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/13/business/media/13TUNE.html
"Music Industry Braces for a Shift"
2000 CD (and cassette!) sales were 785 million; 2002 sales were
681 million, for a two-year decline of 100 million.
Lots of punditry: the business' problem remains that their biggest
costs, for "talent" and marketing, are out of control, and there
are always music execs willing to overspend in those areas.
Sony Music, trying to "think outside the box," has brought in a
TV executive to replace outgoing head Tommy Mottola. It is
suggested that most music industry executives are stuck in the old,
failing business model and will have to be replaced.
One unnamed executive says the price of CDs must come down, observing
that it is absurd that a movie soundtrack CD now costs more than
that same movie sold as a DVD.
On the other hand, the RIAA's Hilary Rosen sounds even more pathetic
than usual when she talks about keeping the price up in the face
of falling sales, and then goes on: "... she said the industry needs
to promote the joy of CD collection and to revive the value of owning
a physical object."
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keesan
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response 23 of 163:
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Jan 13 17:14 UTC 2003 |
What does a DVD cost?
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jep
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response 24 of 163:
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Jan 13 17:56 UTC 2003 |
How much does a physical blank DVD cost? I imagine it's around 50
cents.
How much does a DVD cost that has a movie on it? $25-30 if it's a top
of the line movie or one that's in demand, such as a recent Disney
movie or any successful movie released in theaters in the last year.
If I want a movie or CD, I buy it. But there aren't that many I really
want.
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mcnally
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response 25 of 163:
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Jan 13 19:28 UTC 2003 |
John's numbers are a little out of date. Many popular recent movies are
released on DVD in the $15-$20 price range and last year's biggest
blockbuster DVD releases (the first "Lord of the Rings" movie and the first
"Harry Potter" film both sold for around $15-$17 the week of their release.
It's fairly rare for a new single-disc movie to cost $30.
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keesan
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response 26 of 163:
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Jan 13 19:46 UTC 2003 |
Is this 'less' than the cost of a CD?
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jazz
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response 27 of 163:
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Jan 13 20:48 UTC 2003 |
Moreover, it's not uncommon to see a movie, months after release and
the initial buying sprees have died down, to be released for $10 or $20 less
than it was originally. Not so with CDs. A few are released for less, and
usually it's not significantly less, by the publishers.
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gull
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response 28 of 163:
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Jan 13 21:37 UTC 2003 |
CDs and movies bottom out at about the same prices. Bargain-bin CDs,
ones that are on the verge of going out of print for lack of demand,
tend to cost around $10.
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mynxcat
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response 29 of 163:
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Jan 13 22:22 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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slynne
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response 30 of 163:
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Jan 13 22:25 UTC 2003 |
Heck you can get the *real* bargain bin cds for .99-3.99 at Big Lots.
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