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Beware..the RIAA is getting into the hacking business... (1 Viewer)

Damin J Toell

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Yes, file-sharing is technically stealing. But so too is using your VCR. Anyone who records a program to time-shift is technically stealing as well.
No, technically, time-shifting isn't stealing. That was one of the central holdings of Sony v. Universal: time-shifting is an allowable fair use and is therefore not copyright infringement. Technically, therefore, it's not stealing.

DJ
 

Damin J Toell

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2. Why should the record companies -- who provide a lot of commodity services such as replicating plastic/aluminum CD discs -- be shielded from competition for the manufacturing and distribution of particular recordings? Why shouldn't the copyright law provide for compulsory, non-exclusive licensing of published recordings, with artists keeping their copyrights and receiving royalties from all of the competing distribution channels (record companies, online distributors, etc.)?
This can happen right now, even without a modification in copyright law. The fact that record labels are given exclusive rights to a recording is a function of contract law. Artists could choose to not enter into exclusive contracts with record labels and instead provide only limited non-exclusive licenses to whatever parties they wish. Your complaint lies within the current structure of the industry's contracts, not copyright law. Of course, such a choice on the part of the artist would not result a compulsory licensing scheme that any party could enter into without a pre-existing contract, but it seems to me that such a "release now, pay later" scheme would only end up screwing artists even more as a result of even less scrupulous companies than we have now.

DJ
 

Thomas Newton

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If you feel otherwise, I suggest you start a charity organization that manufactures and distributes recordings without earning any incentive whatsoever. Or do you not have the unlimited money that such an endeavor would require? And if you don't, why would any other entity be able to do such a thing?
This is a red herring. Nowhere do I suggest that record companies operating in a free (non-monopoly) market would be charity organizations. If you believe that free markets imply unprofitability and bankruptcy, you might want to visit an office supply store or a supermarket. The products there are about as generic as they get, but the manufacturers stay in business (and turn a profit) anyway.
 

Damin J Toell

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If you believe that free markets imply unprofitability and bankruptcy, you might want to visit an office supply store or a supermarket. The products there are about as generic as they get, but the manufacturers stay in business (and turn a profit) anyway.
It's unrelated to this topic, but in the supermarket context, at least, the manufacturers of generic products are very often also the manufacturers of the most popular name-brand products.

DJ
 

Iain Lambert

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Frankly, the wider issue of the way the RIAA renumerate artists on record purchases is moot. The only thing the RIAA should be concerned about with this bill is that if they want to move from a legal prosecution of copiers to a technological persecution of people they merely suspect of copying, then they are entering very dangerous ground.

The people they look to be planning to hack are the ones that also write all the most effective hacking tools. Therefore, its not unreasonable for these people to believe that the RIAA may have taken the code for these. Any rule that allows them to attack Joe Hacker also allows Joe Hacker to go at their system to see if they have taken any of his hacking code. Its like trying to perform an armed raid on a Smith & Wesson factory - totally stupid.
 

MikeDeVincenzo

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Bill
Your example with DMB's new album is well-taken. Hypothetically speaking, let's say online file trading led to hundreds of thousands of more sales for DMB's latest offering. Even if that were the case, the RIAA would still heavily oppose file trading because as I've said before, revenue IS NOT their primary concern. Control, control, control....
And one nit to pick, Bill. Taping shows off the TV with a VCR for time-shifting purposes IS LEGAL, protected under "Fair-use" doctrine of copyright law and upheld by the Supreme Court in 1984 in the case ([level+case+citation:]|[level+case+elements:])/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?]Sony v. Universal City Studios (464 U.S. 417)...Sorry, that's the lawyer coming out in me :)
 

Mark_Wilson

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When you skip past the programming, you're stealing in a way.
I don't believe that for a minute. Sure commercials may subsidize programming, but unless the Networks want to BUY that spectrum they use for free then I have the right to do whatever I want, skipping commercials or not.

I pay for DBS and Cable and feel I also have that right. If they want to give me all cable and DBS channels for free then they can feel free to make them all TNN-ish like and even prohibit commercial skipping.

...but this is an argument for another thread...
 

Rich Allen

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"Despite its privacy implications, having illegal files remotely removed from your computer is a much better solution than some of the alternatives: arrest, seizure, fines or jail time (Fahrenheit 451 anybody?)."
I honestly can't believe anyone could agree with this!!! This is horrid. And no it's not better. At least with arrest, there are crucial elements of justice involved such as "Due Process", "Probable Cause", "Legal Rights", "A Trial" etc...
And who determines what and if there a given file is illegal? And what is the criteria? An MP3 of music I bought is legal. What determines the source of the MP3?
I hope no one is really that idiotic enough to believe this is better.:angry:
 

Bill Hunt

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The debate continues - good stuff!

Damin and Mike. I take your point that time-shifting is protected under American law as fair use. But so too is making a taped copy of a record or CD, or recording copyrighted material off the radio, as long as it's for personal use (ie: you don't go around selling it to people). If you lend that tape to a friend to listen to, no one's banging on your door demanding to legal reparations. Practically (moral arguments aside), how is file-sharing any different than that, aside from issue of quantity and quality? You burn a song off CD, we go online and you share that file with me electronically.

Note that in my argument, I didn't say that time-shifting was illegal... just that, if you apply the same kind of moral filter people are applying to file-sharing, it's still a form of stealing, legal or not. You're taking advantage of the technology and someone is suffering a loss in some way because of that, be it the advertiser, the network or ultimately the artists. BUT it's a form of stealing that is considered acceptible in our society.

And Mike... you are ABSOLUTELY right. The industry is concerned with one thing only... control. All this high-and-mighty stuff about protecting the rights of copyright holders is a smokescreen for protecting their own bottom lines.
 

Todd H

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Here's a hypothetical...suppose cd sales are down not because of file sharing but because consumers are tired of paying too much for cd's and voting with their wallets. I for one rarely buy cd's. They're too overpriced. What do I get for flexing my consumer muscles? My Fourth Amendment rights taken away.
 

Chet_F

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Bill Hunt:

It just dawned on me why your arguments are so well thought out.

"Editor
The Digital Bits"

Great read.
 

Thomas Newton

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So why isn't it happening right now? Could it be that the motivation of the profit granted by an exclusive license makes it such that no entity is interested in a non-exclusive license?
Of course, the record companies would rather have monopoly control of recordings. Of course, as long as anyone is foolish enough to listen, they have a strong incentive to claim that nothing less than continued transfer of monopoly power to their hands will do. Their goals (maximize profit at any cost to artists and the public) are not the same as the Constitution's goals, and merely dressing up the tired line "What's good for GM is good for the country" in a new suit of clothes isn't going to make them so.

Jack Valenti claimed that the VCR was to the movie industry and the public as the Boston Strangler was to the woman alone. Guess what? It wasn't true.

If we changed the music copyright laws so that the manufacturing and distribution side of the business was subject to the forces of a free market, the record companies would change their tune on the "necessary" level of monopoly control very quickly. Either that -- or they would go out of business and be replaced by companies that were willing to do business in a competitive way.
 

Thomas Newton

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I honestly can't believe anyone could agree with this!!! This is horrid. And no it's not better. At least with arrest, there are crucial elements of justice involved such as "Due Process", "Probable Cause", "Legal Rights", "A Trial" etc...
It gets worse when you put it in the broader context, which strongly reminds me of the story about how to get a frog to sit in a pot of boiling water, by raising the temperature a little bit at a time.

Betamax case - Result of studio attempt to ban/tax VCRs. Studio attempt failed because the Supreme Court was on the ball.

AHRA - Making legal recordings of your own CDs? Doesn't matter, you still get to pay the recording industry this new tax (digital recording is magically different!). But we'll leave your PC alone.

DMCA - Tired of pesky public interest sections of copyright law? Now you can criminalize perfectly legal use just by adding DRM! Write your own "laws" - and the long arm of the Government will act as your private police force. Oh, by the way, we're now officially blessing MacroVision. (Constitution? What's that?)

SSSCA - Connect your current PC to the Internet and you will instantly become a felon. All new PCs will be forced to have Big Brother Inside, an electronic soldier quartered there by the Government to serve Hollywood and the like. Sell a DRM-free PC, become a felon. (Constitution? What's that?)

CBDTPA (SSSCA revision 2) - We dropped the part about the current PCs, the better to push through the part about Big Brother Inside. Sell a DRM-free PC, become a felon. (Constitution? What's that?)

Vigilante Bill - If making your own "laws" (DMCA) wasn't enough, how about sending out your own "law enforcement" force? We'll turn our heads the other way while your agents engage in all manner of computer crimes (many of which could get regular people sent away for years).

Anti Fair Use Bill (shares a sponsor with the Vigilante Bill) - Give a tape of a broadcast TV show to your Mom, you're an infringer. And you know how we treat infringers.
 

Damin J Toell

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If we changed the music copyright laws so that the manufacturing and distribution side of the business was subject to the forces of a free market, the record companies would change their tune on the "necessary" level of monopoly control very quickly. Either that -- or they would go out of business and be replaced by companies that were willing to do business in a competitive way.
Thomas: I guess I just don't understand what you mean. Do you want to actually outlaw exclusive licenses and works made for hire contracts? So long as copyright grants exclusive licenses to arists, those rights will be transferrable by contract. And, most importantly, these are contracts made out of the free will of the artists. Do you want to outlaw the creation of otherwise legal contracts because you want to buy CDs cheaper? You keep harping on "let them compete" line, but you haven't presented a practical example of how this would work.

If these contracts are so problematic for the artists, the artists shouldn't enter into them. If the public doesn't like the price of music, they should stop buying music. Outlawing perfectly standard contracts under the false edifice of helping either party tramples on the very free market you claim to hold so dear.

DJ
 

Thomas Newton

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If these contracts are so problematic for the artists, the artists shouldn't enter into them. If the public doesn't like the price of music, they should stop buying music.
Ah yes, the Ayn Rand position, "take it or leave it" -- ignoring the fact that the artists provide the music and the public provides the copyrights in the first place.

Major record companies have a lock on promotional channels (e.g., radio) and distribution channels, a lock reinforced by the hundreds of thousands of copyrights taken from all of the previous artists.

If an artist says "a one-sided contract is unacceptable", the record companies tell that artist to shove off. Only a few of the mega-superstar-level artists like Paul McCartney or Bruce Springsteen can tell a big record company to shove off and get away with it.

What this means is that artists who want to have a shot at the big time must hand over their recording copyrights. This is a self-perpetuating system: with only a few major labels on one side of the table, and thousands of bands who can be "divided and conquered" on the other side, it is custom-designed to guarantee that future artists will face the same "take it or leave it" deal.

With regards to the public, copyright exists to serve the public, not to provide special private benefits (Supreme Court ruling, Jefferson's writings). "Stop buying music" is certainly one legal and appropriate response to tilted laws, high prices, and practices that treat customers and citizens as crooks. "Petitioning Congress to do its job, whether the record companies like it or not" is another.
 

Damin J Toell

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less choice said:
It's only self-perpetuating if both sides perpetuate it. It takes two to tango in a recording contract. If enough artists choose to "leave it," the labels are left behind.
DJ
 

Thomas Newton

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Damin,

You keep using the term free market to describe something else: a market heavily distorted by artificial monopolies and highly concentrated control over distribution. Then you expect me to buy into the positive intellectual and emotional connotations that are associated with real free markets, of the Adam Smith variety.

As long as we are using the same phrase to describe such diametrically opposing markets, I'm not sure there's any value in point-by-point debate.
 

David Lambert

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If the public doesn't like the price of music, they should stop buying music.
Isn't that the crux of the RIAA's problem? The public has stopped (or drastically slowed down) on buying music. They have said, "We don't want to pay the high price of music, $15-$20 per CD for just 2-3 songs we like (if that many), so we just aren't going to."

On the other hand, the DEMAND for music is still there. When "Steve Somebody" hears a new tune on the radio, at a club, at a film or on TV, or on the overhead speakers while shopping...if "Steve" likes that song he wants to own it.

Now, if Steve has sworn off paying around $15-$20 for a CD just to own one song, and can't get it at a reasonable price any other legal way, he *might* just be tempted into hitting the internet and downloading it for free.

Steve's not a big-time MP3 downloader. He's certainly not a trader, who rips and uploads as many as he downloads. He's just a dude who hears a cool song and wants to own it, so he can hear it at his leisure, like when he goes jogging.

The RIAA, rather than encouraging their constituant music companies to adapt to a distribution model to accomodate all the "Steve Somebodies" out there, and get them to pay for JUST what they want, at prices they won't cringe at, has elected instead to force all the "Steves" to pay top dollar prices for a lot of unwanted stuff (i.e., the extra songs on the $15-$20 CD that Steve never intends to listen to). When "Steve" balks at that, he finds a way to get what he wants without paying the "extortion" prices. So the RIAA seeks to cut off that avenue of supply to the "Steve's" of the world.

So far they have employed every legal means to do so. And, as effective as it has been in eliminating Napster *and* the top two replacement systems to Napster, the RIAA is *still* not satisfied, because sales are still down.

There's an old saying where software piracy is concerned: you cannot count every instance of piracy as a lost sale, because a significant number of pirates would NEVER have paid $400 for WordPerfect if they were unable to get it for free.

That applies here. If you hear the opening theme song to the TV show Enterprise, and like it and want to own it, you might be tempted to pay up to - say - $5 to get it all by itself (I think $5 is a bit high myself, but I'm trying to be general here). If you can't get it for less than $17.99 on either a soundtrack album or an album of the artist's other work, then maybe you look to get it for free. Can't get it for free? Oh, well, "I'll live without it. Shrug."

This is an example where there is not a lost CD sale. The CD wouldn't have been bought anyway...not for $18.

It *IS* an example of a lost sale opportunity, though. If the RIAA's constituant companies could sell that dude the MP3 for under $5, they had an incremental sale. Revenue.

There is "supply". There is "demand". There are opportunities abounding for the music AND recording industries to have revenue occur and realize a profit from it. The problem is that the industries are not adapting to new consumer demand patterns (really, they're old ones...a big gap caused by the absence of singles on the market). Instead, they try to force consumers to adhere to the old demand patterns. Of *course* that's failing. "People want what they want."

The RIAA, from my point of view, might be afraid of change for reasons beyond the stated "loss of control". I think there are conservative elements who see MP3 and other file-based music systems as something other than "recording". To them, the idea of a "record" is a disc (vinyl or CD) or a tape (reel-to-reel, 8-track, or cassette). Physical media, y'know? "Not this crap that can be transmitted by phone lines." It just seems too tenuous to some of these guys. So they eschew it, instead of embracing it as their consumers demand.

This attempt at legislation is a silly grasp by some silly old folks to keep things the way they are, instead of working to retool their industry to meet the new times. It's easier to donate $180,000 to a congressman's re-election campaign to introduce some bill like this, than to do REAL work, right?

But the congressman is no dummy. He takes the money, but introduces the bill too late in the session to make it fly this time around. Plus he must know full well that the EFF, the ACLU, and others won't let it go in as written. It dies, he's "earned" his cash, and there's very little chance his local voters will remember this incident come November. Plus, he's got campaign money to sling worse mud at his opponents with. :wink:
 

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