response 68 of 87:

Nov 29 23:10 UTC 2001

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.

response 70 of 87:

Dec 1 07:10 UTC 2001

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).

response 72 of 87:

Dec 2 22:31 UTC 2001

Hm.  I thought "chilling effect" carried some weight with the courts.

response 74 of 87:

Dec 4 06:18 UTC 2001

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

response 76 of 87:

Dec 4 20:39 UTC 2001

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.

response 78 of 87:

Dec 11 04:20 UTC 2001

Re #77: I think it'd be a stretch to call the BIOS a copy-protection 
technology.

response 80 of 87:

Dec 18 06:30 UTC 2001

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.  

response 82 of 87:

Dec 19 14:45 UTC 2001

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

response 84 of 87:

Dec 19 23:16 UTC 2001

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...