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A Love Song For Napster 252

Posted by michael from the all-I-do-is-kiss-you-through-the-bars-of-this-rhyme dept.
CyberLeader writes: "Discover Magazine has an article in both their print and online editions by musician and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier in which he conducts a thought experiment on the logical consequences over the current content control battles. A chilling excerpt: 'By 2005, every stream of sound had to present the right documentation to a pair of headphones or speakers- or the music couldn't be played. Before long people were hoarding old analog speakers. In 2006, the recording industry persuaded eBay to refuse to list them.'"
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A Love Song For Napster More

A Love Song For Napster

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  • Did anyone else notice the copyright at the bottom of the article. © Copyright 2000 The Walt Disney Company. Isn't Disney one of the people responsible for the napster fiasco!!!

  • Re:what? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    no, I'm black thus I by definition cannot be racist.

  • then people wouldn't (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    then people wouldn't listen to the "big musicians" we'd listen to local bands, local people, who's life is music, not money. same idea with open source, really.

  • Achtung! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Zeigen Sie mir Ihre Papiere!
  • Okay, what does this mean?

    You Have Been Trolled . . . (what's the rest?)

  • And the other .04%?

    They are the marketers who will try to sell us on SDMI :)

  • Yeah, it is cool, but you're a couple decades too late :-). Colin Fletcher, while revising The Complete Walker [barnesandnoble.com] for what would become The Complete Walker III, writes in the intro (IIRC) that he tried to sell his publisher on calling it The Pre-antepenultimate Complete Walker. I'm still waiting for the antepenultimate edition.

  • Sheesh. Don't buy the products? And did YOU buy a Macrovision-protected DVD player? My point is that the industry will force all the companies to play along with their rights-reducing schemes under threat of lawsuit.

    The only thing I see breaking this movement is an anti-trust lawsuit against the media producers for colluding to limit consumers fair-use rights and to stifle competition from rogue hardware producers.
    -------------------------------------- -----------------
  • Fromm what I heard, their accident rate instantly halved, because they were driving left-hand drive cars on the left hand side of the road.

    BTW, do Americans really believe that left-handed people can't drive stick-shifts?

  • Should the content providers be allowed to form a cartel whereby only members of the cartel are allowed/able to produce content?
  • What I mean is that at the moment I can sit down and play my clarinet (yes that is my instrument as well), and record it onto CD using my computer. I could then distribute this and other could (though they would probably not want to!) listen to this on their CD player. ie it allows anyone to make "content". If the "content providers" (ie hollywood and the record companies) get their way with copy protection, this will not be possible as the reproduction equipment will only play "content protected" media and only the "big players" will be able to create this.
  • I'd argue for it, as long as napster pay the appropriate fees to the artists or the record companies. I'd argue that record companies would be wise to embrace various "try-before-you-buy" schemes (such as making one song publically available but charging for the album). I certainly wouldn't argue for freeloaders whose agenda is based on sticking their hand in the artists pocket.

  • artists make tons of cash. it's called $40 for a t-shirt at the show where you paid $75 to get in.

    How much does the artist get per T-shirt sale ? How much money does the artist make on the concert ? (hint: a lot of artists barely break even, even the big ones). Unless you actually know the answers to these questions (I believe you don't), your comments have no factual basis.

    My feeling is that since we 'the consumer' made the industry what it is, we have the right to take it away.

    Doesn't take long for the napsterites to start spouting raw communism, does it ? No, you don't have the right to loot. You have the right to buy or not to buy. If you don't like the conduct of the industry, you have every right to boycott and protest, but you don't have the "right" to take anything from anyone.

  • Anybody with a basic knowledge of how they work, a piece of wire and some ferrous metal can make a basic speaker. With a weekend, some permanent magnets and a decent basement shop you could even make speakers that sounded OK.
    Will it be a criminal offense to spin an old vinyl record on a stick and play it with a needle taped to a 3x5 card? Ooh, I'm "chilled" to the bone. Get real.

  • Without a law change of similar magnitude outlawing analogue 'old' technologies this won't happen. I think such an attempt would struggle as people will not obey laws they deem unreasonable

    The only problem with this is that in some cases, outlawing the old tech isn't necessary. Take for example the numerous balls in the air with HDTV. They (MPAA, cable carriers) have already gotten laws passed requiring HDTV manufacturers to include copy protection in the hardware level, now they're pushing for complete content control (copy never, copy once, view once, what have you) on all digital TV signal. And, FCC has granted cable providers to not be obligated to provide analog signal with their broadcasts. So, if they get everything they want, the hardware won't display non-approved signal, and the signal won't be viewable by non-approved hardware. So even if you keep your old TV, it won't be able to decode any meaningful signal.

    The changes in the laws are quite minor. They probably wouldn't be able to overturn the Betamax decision and make copying for archiving purposes illegal. What they can do is make it so legal copying and archiving are impossible.

    Personally, I think that if they do get everything they want (full content control of hardware and signal, plus phasing out all non-digital signal in five years), given the expense required in getting an HDTV, and the fact that it's so tightly controlled, there's a fair chance that a lot of people will simply stop watching TV. So that's not a bad thing, i don't think.

  • ...or is it just me? This sucks, because I was kinda looking forward to reading the damn article. Well, I guess I'd have to wait for a while... Unless some people dare to post mirrors of course.
    --
    Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org [hackerheaven.org] will!
  • if SDMI gets off the ground and they (sony and pals) actually start trying to sell these copyright-enforcing players, don't buy them.

    ...

    if nobody buys the new fancy gear, They lose.

    You mean like they are losing with DVDs?

    Heck we can't even get geeks not to buy DVDs what chance do we have with the clueless?

  • this suggestion is so polyanna, i'm willing to use my real name and take the karma hit and say so. are you aware that we comprise about .03% of the electronics buying populace and the other 99.73% don't even * know* about sdmi let alone care?

    Once the industry starts trying to push it down people's collective throats, people will care. Remember DivX?

  • CD's cost more than $2 to make. Factor in:
    a) studio time/artists expenses
    b) mastering/mixing
    c) package design
    d) marketing
    e) shipping.stocking
    f) etc.

    Just because it costs less than $2 to replicate the master for each commercial CD, doesn't mean that the above costs are somehow negated.

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!

  • Re:I dont know about the rest of you, (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The instructions to build analog speakers would be considered documentation for circumventing a copy control device.

  • DIVX (Score:2)

    by Danse ( 1026 )

    Granted, that's what was tried for DivX at Circuit City, but it was only one retailer.

    Actually, IIRC, DIVX machines cost MORE than regular DVD players. Since the discs were also inferior to regular DVDs, people realized they were getting ripped off.

  • Record companies are going to sell what people want to buy, that's how the free market works.

    The record industry is already buying legislation to enforce their desires on the masses. What difference does it make if there is a "free market" when the corporations are the ones that decide what is allowed to be sold in that market?

  • Sure, for now. How long until they are deemed illegal though? I think the corps are biding their time on that one. If they tighten the noose too quickly the masses might notice that they're about to be hung and do something about it. God help them if Oprah or someone similar decided to do a show on it or something. Then they'd really be fucked. (Yeah, I can't picture Oprah doing a show on SDMI either, but you know what I mean.)

  • Yeah, someone post a mirror. Don't worry about content controls-- I've kept my analog computer around just in case such a need arises!
    -Derek
  • Ok, first of all mp3 sales are absymal because they sound like crap and nobody is willing to pay for them. The existence of mp3's is a side effect of the initial CD purchase.

    So I don't believe MP3 will ever replace CD as a purchase mechanism.

    Furthermore, MP3 is only a stopgap in the middle of the technology evolution.

    Consider storage requirements. Why do you need MP3? A 80 Gig harddrive can be purchased for just under $300. That will hold around 125 CD's, not at MP3 quality, but at full ripped bitstream.

    Consider also a DVD. Right now a CD-R holds like maybe 10 CDs ripped as MP3 files. But a DVD-R could contain the same amount of full CD quality WAV files.

    The only thing holding back things right now is internet bandwidth. As technology advances in that realm... then who cares?

    But still the initial sale is going to be in the form of CD or something similar.

    At least for now, perhaps in the future I'll have access to 5 terabytes of reliable storage in my wristwatch with a Gigabit wireless ethernet interface and I'll refactor my opinion.
  • For someone who keeps falsely claiming that CDs cost $20 when in reality they are in the $12-15 range, I find it hard to understand why you are accusing someone of inflating ticket/t-shirt prices.
  • "BTW, do Americans really believe that left-handed people can't drive stick-shifts?"

    I doubt most Americans think that. Instead their response would be "What is a stick-shift?"

  • The sad truth(for your argument) is that we, as consumers, really do have a great deal of control of what is foisted upon us by Hollywood.

    DivX comes as the most recent example. Minidiscs are another one, or do you not remember when Sony first introduced them you were going to buy your pre-recorded music on MD's instead of CD's?

    All it takes to kill a technology is lack of consumer acceptance. If people don't buy it, it won't sell. And companies are not stupid enough to put themselves in a position where they have no product consumers want to buy.

  • Of course you won't get paid. You would then be a performer, not a record company. Napster's settlement means that they will pay record companies, but performers will not get a dime of the money.

  • For future reference, one country (Sweden?) HAS switched from left-handed driving to right-handed driving, to match the rest of Europe. They report few problems. Speed limits were kept fairly low (30 mph/50 kph?) during the first week while the old signage was covered or replaced, and then gradually returned to normal over the next few weeks.
    Pakistan will be doing the same thing in January 2002. The changeover will be implemented in a period of two weeks. During the first week, the cars will switch side as an experimental measure, and if all goes well, trucks will then switch a week later.

    --

  • Yes, but at some point your speakers will no longer play the music because they can't provide verification to the penultimate step that they are secure. Whatever hardware/software is at the penultimate step will check to see if your speakers provide a verification code, product ID, or support a certain encryption method, and your old analog speakers won't support that technology.

    What will happen is you'll either get static, or nothing at all - the penultimate step won't pass along the data for the speaker to play.

    --

  • 2005? (Score:2)

    by Evro ( 18923 )
    By 2005, every stream of sound had to present the right documentation to a pair of headphones or speakers- or the music couldn't be played.

    By 2005, you say? I think I just saw that yesterday [slashdot.org]. Odd.

    __________________________________________________ ___

  • don't get me wrong, it's great to be an idealist. sometimes it pays off (thanks, rms).

    Well then, do what he does and tell your friends.

    And there is some validity to the idea. While it might be only .03 (hmm) it is the *first* .03 that buys new products in this arena.

    People know i'm a nerd, so when I say stuff like "SDMI Baaad!" they understand. Do so everytime a relative or buddy calls up asking for free tech support.
    --
  • The cassette decks are obsolete. The turntable's really obsolete. Not knowing anything about the tape decks, I'd guess that they're specialty equipment for audiophiles and thus meaningless in the mass market we're talking about.

    All you have that's modern is the CD equipment. And the RIAA's gunning for that. Yes, I expect CDs to be obsolete within 4 years, due to the machinations of the RIAA.

    Note that by 'obsolete', nobody's saying that you can't play things on this equipment anymore. But you won't be able to buy any new media for them. No new releases will be made for any format you own. If a component of your sound system breaks, you won't be able to replace it with anything new -- all the new audio components will have new connectors and secure protocols, and none of it will work with your old stuff.

    Since you won't be able to buy music or equipment to play it on anymore, you're going to be left with three choices. You can upgrade to new secure equipment. You can listen only to old stuff on scavenged equipment, mostly by trading with other audiophiles (although that's likely to become illegal, it'll be hard to stop.) Or you can stop spending money on music altogether. The music industry is betting that you won't just stop.

    Yes, the future really is as bleak as Lanier's thought experiment. :/
  • Did you know that ATM machines in every state senate and the US Congress have no transaction fees? The banking industry is trying to hide how they're stiffing normal people, by not letting the lawmakers see it happening.

    Corporations are determined to turn our goverment into an aristocracy, so that they're blind to how the public's being screwed. It can happen with sound equipment too.
  • at the bottom of the linked article:

    "copyright 2000 The Walt Disney Company"

    ?

    They own Discover, of course, but I wonder if the top brass at Disney knows what they're publishing.
  • BTW, my favorite part of this idea is the concept that geeks who are capable of constructing an analog speaker might become the heroes of an underground economy. (Note to the irony-impaired: I do not believe this will really happen.)

    I've seen prototype digital speakers at the Consumer Electronics Show and CEDIA two years ago. Meridian is selling one currently with "copyright protection" built in. The DMCA specifically covers using FireWire for the connection between the sound source, the reciever and the speakers.

  • For future reference, one country (Sweden?) HAS switched from left-handed driving to right-handed driving, to match the rest of Europe. They report few problems. Speed limits were kept fairly low (30 mph/50 kph?) during the first week while the old signage was covered or replaced, and then gradually returned to normal over the next few weeks.

    This wasn't implemented overnight, but it could have been done in a year or two. The limiting factor was the time it took to fabricate and install the new signs (initially covered). Once they were in place the actual transition occured quickly. That's definitely something on-point here.
  • with respect let this be recognized as a tertiary endorsement of said Dizney creep-out.
  • $75? Yeah, sure. You can always pay too much for a ticket, but typically you can get tickets in the $20-$30 range. If you're paying for the best tickets, then shut up about the T-shirt prices.

    Anyway, the venue and promotor get a portion of the T-Shirt sales as well.

    You *can* take it way, stop paying for $75 tickets and $40 t-shirts to start.

  • For the most part, the musicians have no say in the price of the disc, and only get a very small portion of that $20 price. That portion is then divided up amongst the band memebers.
  • In addition to the possibilities of using old analog speakers and making homemade equipment, there could also be a resurgence[sp?] in live music. They can either use homemade equipment for amps and speakers, or go back to acoustic instruments.

    I for one would rather go to a free/cheap live show than deal with getting a telephone-like bill with charges for the music I listen to. I pretty much always have some sort of music playing, whether I'm working, playing or just driving somewhere. And though I may not be able to get a live band in the back of my car, I can still play the old tapes, CD's and MP3's that I already have.

    Ender

  • And building tape decks and amps - even radios - really isn't that difficult. An A/B push-pull cheap amp isn't that hard to build - just a few transistors, some resistors, a few caps, and a couple of transformers (which could be homebrewed as well). Tape decks were originally "wire recorders" - sound was recorded on a steel wire. Fuck 'em if they outlaw steel wire - it isn't that hard (ok, it is pretty damn difficult, but it can be done) to draw your own wire - if they could do it in ancient (and not so ancient) times, it can be done now.

    How are they going to take all that knowledge from us? From ME? Maybe they will kill me - that would be one way - but can they kill all of us?

    Good luck to 'em - I say to hell with them...

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • BTW, my favorite part of this idea is the concept that geeks who are capable of constructing an analog speaker might become the heroes of an underground economy.

    I will be the first to do this, if it comes to it.

    I tell you something, never did I think, when I was in the 8th grade and wanting a set of 12s and a 100 watt stereo to match (which I eventually got) for my bedroom, that I would ever contemplate using the skills that I learned to build a speaker from the ground up.

    In an attempt to get around the cost of the 12 inch 3-way speakers that I wanted (at close to $200 each), I looked into building my own speaker, using construction paper for the cone, a toilet paper tube for the coil form, some old wire from a dead 3 volt hobby motor, a magnet from a busted antenna mount, plus a cardboard box - I managed to munge together a speaker that worked, and gave OK sound, considering the quality of construction and materials used. Never got much bass, though...

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • While implementation could be made a crime, I would say that if it is, then a full scale war on the government would have to be the outcome (or war on the corporatat). Bomb-making instructions aren't illegal to possess or distribute - to implement a bomb - probably hazy area (probably illegal), to detonate - definitely illegal if not done on your own property (and providing it is on a large tract of land, etc).

    For passing on knowledge, or having it - that would have to be a first ammendment issue - otherwise there would be ton of books at the library banned outright (not to mention encyclopedias, chemistry textbooks, and magazines).

    Furthermore, bombs typically serve for nothing more than destruction of property or life - which is why they would be regulated in the manner in which they are. I doubt building a speaker or such could be construed as hurting someone. I fear that if it can, and it is allowed to be viewed that way - it is really time to fight.

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • For future reference, one country (Sweden?) HAS switched from left-handed driving to right-handed driving

    It was Sweden, yes. They did it at Midnight on a Saturday. Terrifyingly, though, an African country (I think Uganda) also switched from driving on the left to driving on the right, and the change was made (wait for it) '...gradually...'

  • Will it be a criminal offense to spin an old vinyl record on a stick and play it with a needle taped to a 3x5 card?
    Why not? In a nation where growing certain plants is illegal, where some consensual sex acts are banned in many states, where the DMCA is in effect, it should be obvious that no idea is too stupid to become law.

    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

  • Thank you for clearing that up. The article was kind of vague on that.

    For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
    The simplest of competing theories should preferred to the more complex. -- Occam's Razor.

    ;)
  • Question: if I make a 10 minute recording of myself crooning into a microphone, and get all my friends to download it from the new paying-service napster, will I get paid (as an artist whose work is being traded) for this?
  • The musicians who can get a recording contract with a big label will be protected from piracy. But will this increase the cost of talented amateurs producing their own tapes? I know dozens of people who fit into the later category. I have piles of tapes and CDs from them. It's a wonderful antidote to the prepackaged sameness of most radio stations these days.

    This would mean that musicians would have to have a license to put on their music so that the media could grant that license to the user. I don't think for a minute that those licenses would be freely available to every content provider.

    If that example doesn't hit close enough to home, imagine not being able to videotape your child's first words.

    If and when these are available, I will buy one if I can get a guarantee in writing that it will never interfere with my ability to play back my own recordings of my family and friends or any legally acquired amateur media. I'd love to be a party to the class action lawsuit over it when that guarantee isn't met.

  • What a horrible misquote of my fave military hero - The Marquis of Montrose - although I agree that if you trust your data to WinME, you are probably risking losing it entirely :)

  • >Anybody with the ability to create this kind of system must be able to see the terrible implications of its use. Who, being of sound mind and technological intellect would voluntarily work to the potential end that this paper has predicted? Maybe I can say this as a mere undergrad not yet out in the workforce, but there must be some sort of job consiousness in everybody. Am I completely wrong?
    There will be no Nuremberg trial for these brave, bold innovators of technology, and apparently you also forgot about the Stanford Prison Experiment [prisonexp.org]. But it's OK, we all have brainfarts from time to time.
    That analogue too much for you to pull? See also: Milgram's experiments in obedience [swbell.net] done around the time of the aforementioned Nuremberg trials.
    If you're having an ADD day, let me sum up: otherwise good, rational people can do otherwise inexplicably horrific, evil things because someone told them to do it.
    Lack of authority and the desire to keep your family fed are powerfully motivating forces; even if they can't find anyone over here to do the engineering for them (they can) then they can always look overseas and import smart, cheap labor. You can thank the US government for quietly and markedly increasing immigration visas from places like India and Russia while decrying the GREAT MEXICAN EVIL later.
  • I take it you've never, ever, EVER used a service, enjoyed it, then got angry when they started charging more for it, or altered it in a way as to make it less enjoyable?
    Case in point for me...Kozmo (www.kozmo.com). Kozmo is nothing short of the greatest thing there is (tm). You place an order on their website, and in half an hour or so, a guy on a bike brings you your snacks, video/DVD rentals, magazines, books, and now steaks, pasta dinners, household goods, medicine. Reasonable prices, too...not nearly as inflated as you might expect for something so convenient. But then they upped rental prices on new releases. They cost more to Kozmo to get, so fine. They started charging sales tax (they must have always, but it went unoticed); that's the law, so fine. They start charging your credit card right away instead of once a month; must be some good reason, but no more food if you're out of money, not great but fine. They instituted a minimum order price; don't want your bikers running around the city for a bottle of soda, makes sense so fine. They started charging for delivery after 3, and don't guarantee speedy delivery anymore; hmm...all these add-ons are starting to stack up. Suddenly this is becomming an expensive proposition. We always tip the delivery people...with so many add-ons, should we still do so? There's no way of knowing if they get any of that, so we still do. Add a little more! Kozmo is still a great thing...good source of DVD rentals, and best source of Red Bull and Sobe, not to mention boxes of Krispy Kreames, so like the salivating dogs we are (mmm...chocolate Krispy Kremes), we keep going (points for the prosecution, I know).

    The point is (about time, right?), if you let someone chip away at something you like, eventually you'll look at it and say "WOW...what the hell happened?" (like I did on returning to school after winter break and discovering the delivery charge...believe me...I was MAD). You're less likely to notice something if it happens a little at a time (boiling frogs example from The Pragmatic Programmer), but eventually, it's going to hit. The recording industry wants to shut down media sharing? I agree that musicians should be paid for what they do, so fine. Napster, et al have created much more revenue than they've taken away (how much do artists get out of that, anyway), observe my recently inflated CD collection. Little changes. So they want to tag and track everything? Fine. So Microsoft wants to implement content control at the bare metal? Fine. Encrypt everything each step of the way? Fine. Get the hardware makers involved, and make everyone get the new 'improved' gear if they want the flashy new TV and digital sound? Wait a minute. Register every piece of digital media with a central agent? Hold on, you mean I can't send "baby's first steps to grandma without somebodies permission?". Encrypt the raw output, and require implanted decrypters, special permission, and a major credit card to hear anything but static? Wake up one morning with chips in your eyes and ears?

    What the hell happened?!

    It's not about communism. It's not about a free ride (but lets not kid ourselves...who doesn't like something for nothing?), and its not about screwing over artists. It's about precident, control, implied guilt, and limitations. Yes, I agree that the record labels have a right to recoup their investment, and even more so, the artists have a right to be paid. The question is, how much control are we willing to give them? At what point have we given them too much? If we allow control over one thing, what is to stop control over something else? Email, web pages, printed material, hardware. "You let the record companies get away with it, so why can't we?". Digital Convergance (I'm sorry...I really am, but it helps my case) will have you believe you don't own that scanner you bought with your valuable marketing information. What if you ISP, or their upstream provide, or their upstream provider, decided they own the content they're providing (see? content providing), and want a cut of the action. For awhile, Yahoo! owned whatever you posted to their Yahoo! Clubs. You should have heard the arguments in the photography clubs.

    One of these days, corperations will realize that they are nothing without consumers. The government (I know...I know...lobbyists, payoffs...) will realize that corperations are trying to take its place.


    "I AM ABOVE THE LAW! (*glues down his comb over*)" --Record Exec in "Chef Aid" episode of South Park

    "Behold ye corperations in thine ivory towers, I am The Consumer, thy God, and thou hast forsaken me"
  • I've often thought that the logical conclusion of this process (enforcement of copy protection) would be the advent of a "licence to assemble" policy.

    Since any copy protection (it seems) can be worked around by intelligent, motivated, people, I think the best way to stop those people seems to be to take away their fundamental tool: the ability to create arbitrary programs running on Turing machines.

    Ultimately this would be done by issuing very limited licences to assemble against the hardware (which is, after all, owned by megacorps). OS writers and implementors of languages would be among the few allowed to assemble freely, and their efforts would be closely monitored by those parties issuing the licences.

    The tools which trickled down to everyone else (OSes - even "free" ones, languages, set-top boxes, stereos, cars, wristwatches, phones, etc) would be hobbled by what amounted to copy-protection-enabled versions of read(), write(), and other low-level functions, effectively. It would be impossible to remove this copy protection because it's built in to fundamental parts of the system which could not be reassembled (legally, at least) without the proper licence.

    Of course, people would break it - reverse engineering and all that - but could this defiance be done on a sufficiently large scale to make the system unworkable, if the system was codified in law?

    Are you willing to go to prison to defend your right to assemble? Are you willing to die for it?

    Scary shit, huh? I just hope information's purported desire to be free will be sufficient to route around this threat. But I have my doubts...


    --
  • The best these companies can hope for is that their measures will deter some of the least tech-savvy from doing things they don't like.

    This is exactly what they are aiming at. So-called anti-piracy tools are not aimed to the tech-savy minority, but to the mass market. This is why Napster is seen as a problem, while FTP is not (unless you add some Napster-like front-end to it, that is).

    One good point of the article (which is a bit too much on the catastrophic side ) is that you cannot have general purpose computers _AND_ end-to-end copyright enforcement technology. Computers give too much power to the end user. This is why digital contents sellers are happy with today trend which replace general-purpose computers with closed purpose-specific appliances ( tv top-set boxes, M3 players, net terminals, game consoles ).

    Appliances in-se are good for end-users: they are cheaper and easier and, being engineered for a single task, are better at it.
    But if this trend continues, general-purpose computers will be less and less mass-produced, and their price will increase correspondingly. And this is bad for the tech-savy minority, for free software movements and similar free content producers.

  • It's not a question of if SDMI gets off the ground anymore... SONY already makes SDMI complaint memory sticks and players [64.14.40.118].

    The challenge is to not accept the easy way out. We are not going to be forced into accepting these invasions of privacy by one draconian law, but we will choose to give up our rights in trade for discounts on products. For example, windows media player is free. However, it is set up so that it can report on every song you play via Digital Rights Mangement [microsoft.com](an oxymoron if you ask me, given that it can only take away your ability to play). But most users are willingly going to give up their rights in trade for the free stuff.

    And we are going to keep having to decide... is it worth the cost to protect our privacy? When microsoft requires everyone to phone in and register their Office products. Or when we choose to run the next windows operating system which will require registration to run? Can you swear off windows systems? There is an alternative (Linux), but are you willing to pay the price for your freedom?

    Only you can choose to be a Micro-serf.
  • Seriously tho, From what i've read, album sales have actually gone *up* since Napster has been around.

    I never understand why people keep using this false peice of logic. Yeah, maybe record sales have gone up. Coincidentally, so has the number of performers, the raw number of consumers and the economy. When was the last time record sales weren't going up? A numerical increase in record sales doesn't mean that napster is helping record sales. It doesn't mean that napster isn't reducing what the sales would be without it. You just can't say that.

    In comparison, I recal a /. thread about some failed software company that had filed suit against microsoft and won, but only gotten a token damages payment, because they had never been sucessfull in the first place. After all, they had been making no money before MS interfered and still making no money afterwards, how can there have been damages. Most /.ers objected to this logic and said that their projected revenue should have made them qualified for damages. But in the case of record companies that actually have decades of trends and research to back up projected revenue streams, we get this silly "their sales went up so there's no damge" stuff.

    Kahuna Burger

  • So you agree that Napster has at the very least had little effect on record sales and therefore does not prose a threat to the RIAA? Because with your logic it appears to me that Napster is not having a definitive effect, either positively or negatively, on the RIAA and therefore you should be argueing for Napster. Here's the logic presented in a different format:

    1. Record sales cannot be linked either negatively or positively to Napster use.

    2. Therefore, there is neither a negative or positive reason for banning Napster use.

    Nope, not even close to what I said, but thanks for playing. I personally cannot link napster positively or negitively to record sales because I don't have a masters in accounting statisitics and 10 years worth of accounting records. This does not mean the napster cannot be linked to harm to the record industry, and its certainly no reason to give them a free ride on violating copyright.

    I suspect that if it came down to it, the RIAA could quite easily prove harm by showing trends in increasing sales and increasing costs then showing that with the advent of napster they lost none of their costs but had loses in those demographics most linked to napster use (college kids already shown) and no gains in other areas that aren't explained by non napster related long term trends.

    And when you break the law, it isn't on the other side to show that you were really hurting them. You sound like the obnoxious brats on the subway who would give me a hard time for pointing out that that they weren't allowed to smoke "oh I'm so sure it was bothering you" You don't have to wait until someone is actualy harmed by it to tell someone to stop breaking the law. You actually follow the rules because thats how adult society works.

    Kahuna Burger

  • The bottom line for consumers is convenience.

    Agreed. Which is why mp3 or some similar format will easily replace CD's. More fit in less space, and you can easily download them off the net. Eventually, pop wireless networking into your car, and you can send your entire song collection from your home to the car sitting in your garage.

    Convenience? How about having your entire music collection everywhere you go? Home, car, and work-- impossible with CD's, but an eventual certainty with mp3 and its brethren.
  • Whatever laws come out here inevitably ripple throughout the world. Whatever tech standards are set here generally propagate in one direction. "Piracy" laws, copyright extensions, patent absurdities are like a virus- spreading out into europe, asia, and south america.

    Dont get me wrong- I would love to see the day when a consumer technology from another country actually made an impact back here. Especially ones that would help to allow fair use- not to restrict it.

    And the scare story is needed. We've got to get up to support open-source hardware [linuxtoday.com]- software alone is not enough. DVD has already become the next VHS- the blockbuster near where I live is already at 50% DVD. And DVD is full of (weak but extant) rights resticting tech that your are legally resticted from trivially bypassing.

    You dont want to wait until content pretection logic from a proprietary corp is legally required in all multimedia capable devices do you?

  • A hundred years ago if you were an artist of some sort and produced a work, you made money by selling or performing that work to/for someone directly. If you were good, you could charge enough money to keep yourself fed, in clothes, and hopefully out of debt until you could sell some more. They used the only business model they had available, which was the trade industry. You did your craft locally. The buyers came to you or you had to go to them. This was true of painters, sculptors, musicians, carpenters, blacksmiths, whoever. This how it was done. They didn't have a choice.

    Advances in transportation and communications changed things so that a craftsman could consider a much larger area as 'local'. Eventually, it became hard for one person of average skill to promote themselves alone and compete. Enter in Labels, agencies, and unions as 'middle-men' to help the craftsmen perform their trade over the ever growing size of their 'local' area. These 'middle-men' did the same thing that the crafstmen use to do, sell directly to the customer, but they did it over a larger area and kept most of the profit to cover costs. So now the craftsmen could go about just as they had before and make next to nothing, or they could take a chance and join with the 'middle-men'. If they wanted even a chance to make a lot of money, they had to go with the 'middle-men'. They didn't have a choice.

    Of course, there is balance in the world. When something happens to add to one side of the equation, something subtracts from the other. The technology and trade fields are like that. One advancement, the car, eventually killed the blacksmith trade. There was just no more need for them anymore. The old craftsmen in that trade had to change to survive. They didn't have a choice.

    Now through the internet the world is 'local' to everyone. Thanks to the likes of FedEx and UPS, anyone can send their craft anywhere. Craftsman can sell their work directly to anyone without a middleman. The 'middle-man' is now just as un-needed as the blacksmith was after the car. Ordinarially, the uneeded 'middle-men' would just fade away like the blacksmith. However, these 'middle-men' have become very, very rich off the backs of the craftsmen and for the first time in history have the ability to fight and sustain themselves past their usefulness. They know what's at stake. It's survival. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain so they fight to control their main threat. The technological advances that have changed the world and outdated them. They are trying to deal themselves back into the card game through DMCA's and government regulations so they can hold on to copyrights and IP that they obtained from the craftsmen. They want to survive and that's what they have to do. Did they really have a choice?

    Who's going to win? Who knows? Right now the 'middle-men' have lots of money and power. Sure craftsmen can bypass them to a small extent and sell directly, but because of their limited resources they would be no better off than the crastment of the late 19th century. With a hundred years of advancement they managed to come full-circle. It is logical to assume that if any craftsman will take a chance for big money and join with the 'middle-men' of their craft. At least there is a chance for them to make some real money and also it is the only real business model they are familiar with. So, they sell themselves out. Do they really have a choice?

  • Imagine Senator X trying to filibuster a bill, when he realizes that he can't speak into a microphone without having to register his speech beforehand so that it could play over the Congress loudspeakers.

  • I did this once before, but WTH, I'll do it again:

    Lets go by what the RIAA themselves sez is in the cost of a CD (http://www.riaa.com/MD-US-7.cfm).

    - Manufacturing costs
    (I'll assume these are the same price as a consumer CDR/w Jewel case, although they will really be much lower): $0.50/cd.

    - Artist compensation
    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that each artist in a 4 person band (which is probably as big as most groups get) deserves $50,000 per year (not bad really), and that they can pump out 1 cd per year. $200,000/year.

    - Studio engineering, sound mixing, producing, yadda, yadda.
    Well here's some pricing:
    http://www.agt.net/public/trstudio/rates.html, $3000 a CD.
    But that sounds a little low to me. I'll say that studio time is going to run $15,000/album.

    - Cost of label signing up people
    That's a promotional thing. See below.

    - Marketing and Promotion
    *Good* music doesn't need millions in marketing and promotion. If your music sucks, I really don't care about you and this pricing isn't about you. I'll suggest that $100,000 should cover a decent marketing campaign. Maybe throw in another $100,000 for a music video.

    - Art
    Ooooo... yeah... that's gotta cost, what, $5000? Probably the cheapest thing in making a CD

    - "Costly" concert tour?
    Yeah, that's what they said. Costly. Uhhh, you mean that you just burn the $75 I gave you for my ticket? Huh? This is a moneymaker, not a moneyloser. -$50,000 in artist compensation.

    - Not all CDs are profitable
    No shit. Neither are all of anything else. This is called life. Deal with it. Selling a CD is like opening up a small business. You might go bust, or you might make it big.

    - "$12.75" per cd
    No, not even close. Man oh man, is the RIAA whacked. Go to a record store and buy something! $20 for NEW CDs, and that's all we care about in these discussions.

    - "While the price of CDs has fallen, the amount of music provided on a typical CD has increased substantially"
    Wow, yeah, those new extra long 80 minute CDs can hold a whopping 7.5% more music. Substantial? I think not.

    Average total discs sold: According to the RIAA, 27000 new releases are created per year. "420 million units in just the first six months of 2000." (RIAA) I'll double that for the year. That means each disc sells an average of (drumroll) 31111 copies.

    Now, we'll multiply the per CD costs by 31111. That's: $15555.5

    Now add in the yearly costs (assuming 1 album per year per artist/band): $370,000

    Total the two: $385,555.5

    Now divide by albums sold: $12.39/cd.

    Who gets the $7.61 per album profit? All for S/H and record store profit? I hope not.

    And that's ensuring the artist is compensated that first year. After that point, when no more promotion of that album is needed, and the artist is fully compensated, the album should then cost $5 or less.

    So why is it that I can't get Fatboy Slim's old albums for under $15?

    Gouging. Plain and simple. Through and through.
  • I am not sure that it has to be an improvement or even have something to offer to sell. There simply might not be any choice for the consumer because the market is so tied up that, say, oh, I don't know, vinyl records are no longer being made and CDs are your only alternative. At the time, I didn't have the money to make the transition, and I had a Lot of records.

    Yah, when it all comes down, I'll be able to listen to Chickenshack until my phono needle gets worn to a nib.

    The root problem is that the market is not free because the entry threshold for consumer electronic devices is too high. If it wasn't all sewn up like it is, an enterprising young engineer such as yourself could just build a CD Recorder and it would sell like hotcakes on the market. But entertainment is big business, so the big businessmen have it all locked up, from conception to creation to recording to marketing to selling and now even to playing. BTW, they also have their congressmen on a short leash, and the principles of Liberty and Freedom have to ride in the back of the bus because there is no profit in them.
  • Always nice to know that lobbyists won't be paying that extra $1.50 to get their money before they go greasing the palms of the politicos with it.

    Or maybe you are referring to the fact that these machines are operated by credit unions, which, when associated with government, tend to fall on the side of allowing access.

    You still haven't explained why it would more convenient to seek out a government-operated ATM to avoid a fee than it is to simply seek out an ATM owned by the bank at which the customer has his/her account.

    Certainly if large banks are in the habit of stiffing people it is not without the complete cooperation of the government itself. I mean, have you ever tried to wade through banking regulations? Good luck just getting started by deciding which government agency is actually relevant to which financial institution. And then, who the oversight branch is. Is it Congress... is it the Treasury department? If after doing that, you still think the largely rich members of government give a rip about a $2 fee which they have conveniently set up a way to avoid having to pay themselves, then well....
  • The legislators ATMs are owned and operated by Credit Unions, at which I suspect most legislators have the bulk of their transactional accounts. Those are not special ATMs owned banks that just have mysteriously forgotten about the surcharge.

    As a bank customer, I never pay surcharges either. Because I only use ATMs owned by the bank at which I am a customer. The ATMs are private property of the bank and there is no law requiring banks to provide them anywhere. The fact that you can withdraw money from Bank B's ATM when you are a customer of Bank A is a service being provided to you by Bank B. The fact that Bank A charges you again for the same transaction is the real problem, not that the bank providing the service (ATM) charged at the point of the transaction.

    As for the speakers issue, I'm sure the legislators would get the same speakers as the rest of us, but would have a special tech lent to them by the industry to help make sure there were never any technical difficulties-- or they would get loss leader priced bids on the "professional" stuff, which is basically more expensive versions of the same things with copy-protection stuff removed (this is the crux of much of the current home vs. pro distinction)-- but they pay less.
  • Sometimes the article wasn't paranoid enough. If you're forced to register your home video before sending it via e-mail, expect the content nazi's to black out frames or the whole video. We clearly saw a sony logo in the background which we gridded out. We do not have a partnership with Sony. If this sounds farfetched, try getting your film developed at Wal*Mart. It is their policy to not deliver "offensive" material.

    ----------------------
  • The recording industry and other industries would want this sort of thing for the profit!! Why can't we profit off of it? The small electronic shop and tinkerer stands to make some money from this. Now they can build analog speakers and compete with each other to build the best analog sound in the wake of digital noise! (by the way, the name digital in conjunction with speaker can be confusing to people, to make it straight, speakers cannot be digital. But they can contain a digital to analog convert which can perform many other functions other than just converting. But the speakers themselves are not digital). Let's break out those old home speaker kits and get a buildin'!!
  • Will Total Recorder work with a DRM Windows Media file? I suspect that Windows will refuse to play the DRM enabled file with any software running that sniffs the data to the audio card. This windows player goes to the OS level in checking the audio path. Anybody out there tried any of this protection? I have refused to buy the technology the same way I refused to buy a video DIVIX player. I do not plan on doing any testing myself. I don't have the hardware or software to test it. (they must sell me media content compatible with my hardware and software or it's NO SALE!) I hope this DRM is as sucessfull as the DIVIX disks.

    I do have a vote with my checkbook.

  • My newest receiver is from 1993. My better stuff is from the 70's when high RMS watts with low THD, and S/N ratio counted. Older Phase Linear, Kenwood and Pioneer stuff was great. Anything fully DC coupled with THD below 0.005% with a high damping factor and low noise was a pleasure to listen to. I don't listen to music on a PC. It just doesn't meet HI-FI requirements. The sound card has to live in an electricaly noisy environment and very few soundcards are DC coupled for true flat extended frequency range. Anybody got a sound card good down to 5 Hz with S/N ratio above 120 DB, with THD below 0.01% over the entire range?
  • It still can be killed by making the format too expensive for them to carry. Best bet is have a few hard drives crash and computers upgraded. People with storm the complaint department that their goodies don't work anymore that they paid for and will stop buying it as they discover it and spread the word in the media this is seriously flawed and the suppliers are seriously crooked.
  • for those using Lynx of having JavaScript disabled:

    http://www.discover.com/feb_01/featnapster.html [discover.com]

    In related news: by 2010 every HTML page will have JavaScript code to check whether you can read the text or not.

  • "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"...

    Dunno, but last time I checked, it was hard to be happy when you're bored.Also, Music, TV, Movies, etc. are more than mere entertainment, they are a part of our common culture. As such, for a company to with hold them arbitrarily is holding a part of our culture for ransom, and that is a loathsome practice.

    As a side note, why do so many folks always strive to limit rights? "we don't have a right to X, Y, or Z". Says who? Did you ever stop to think that the only reason you don't beleive we have those rights is because someone trained you to think that way?

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • Man am I getting sick of Lanier. He took once somewhat novel idea, vurtual reality, that had been written about extensively in science fiction for years, and proceeded to turn it into a bully pulpit for his ludicrous ramblings.

    Oh no, the command line is making a resurgence. I was too lame to understand UNIX 20 years ago, I guess everyone else is, too.

    Oh no, there might be limits on digital music. In 4 years, every analog piece of sound equipment, and every non-compliant digital piece of sound equipment, will disappear.

    Now, Jarod, I'm not a humongous music fan, but let me count my music equipment.

    3 car cassette decks.
    1 car C deck.
    4 high end tape decks (Nakamichi, BIC).
    1 lower end tape deck (TEAC)
    2 walkmans type tape players
    1 portable CD player
    1 regular CD player
    1 turntable
    1 CD burner
    4 computer CD players

    Now, all this eqipment is going to become obsolete in the next 4 years?

    Yeah, pass me some of what you're smoking.
  • The funny thing about this type of vision is that completely assumes that the production model for music is going to remain relatively unchanged despite the radical and unaprecciatedl rapid introduction (thanks to technologies such as napster and the hype surrounding them) of the computer into the distrobution model. WHO SAYS MUSICIANS WILL KEEP MARKETING THEIR MUSIC THROUGH MUSIC LABELS? If the ease of use and quality of music produced by independent labels who refuse to adhere to absurd market standards (and make no mistake about it, there are very few of these fantasies that the RIAA wouldn't like to see adopted) is picked up on by consumers, their alternate models could well triumph over the existing ones.

    It is interesting because this is one case in which we can foresee the open-source movement playing a vital role in the arts. While big name software and media companies will join to try and control and restrict the use of cultural product, open source will become crucial to the exploration and success of alternate artistic and distributive strategies. Before people can be convinced to boycott or challenge, they must be shown a reasonable, practical alternative...let's build one!
  • As we all know, Napster is not anymore a "free" service: it's been bought by a major records company and will soon be available only to those who pay a fee. So we have to think about using the real free alternative which is OpenNapster [sourceforge.net].

    I've also found a short and efficient tutorial about how to use OpenNapster on Cosmosonic.com [cosmosonic.com] (currently only in French).

  • I have to agree with the other comments around here.. this dystopian future won't happen. At some point hardware and software hackers will make, build, and sell a parallel set of equipment that doesn't have content access controls, etc. It probably won't be compatible with the big media company equipment, but many people will prefer it. Artists will eventually start using it. Etc. Just like we have &quotlfree as in freedom" software, we'll have "free as in freedom" hardware. And regardless of what some of you think, I believe the government is on our side with this. They may be slow sometimes, but they'll protect private enterprise and competition if enough people raise a stink.
  • "if nobody buys the new fancy gear, They lose. "

    this suggestion is so polyanna, i'm willing to use my real name and take the karma hit and say so. are you aware that we comprise about .03% of the electronics buying populace and the other 99.73% don't even *know* about sdmi let alone care?

    don't get me wrong, it's great to be an idealist. sometimes it pays off (thanks, rms). but a dash of reality comes in handy sometimes too. notice what works and do more of it. notice what doesn't and stop. this is tilting at windmills.

    My .02,

  • "Musicians" have nothing to do with it. "Musicians" make 7 cents on the dollar on their recordings. In case you've been completely deaf and blind for the last three years or so, and don't watch VH1, and don't get out much, the musician has to pay back the studio costs, marketing costs, and tour costs out of that seven cents. So I'm sure they'd be happy to drop the price to three bucks, in return for taking fifty-one percent of their own money. It's just that the suckfly "Record Companies" wouldn't be making their skim. That is who is always responsbile for these kinds of things. BTW a home-made CD costs about $3.00 to make, including the ink and paper for the packaging. A mass-produced CD (runs of more than a thousand) no doubt costs way under fifty cents.
  • Notice how in the article, every really bad scenario required the government as the enforcer. Would the libertarians outlaw speakers of the wrong type? No. Require everyone to copyright? No. Set up a large enforcing agency that had to micromanage business transactions? No.

    Ashes of Empires and bodies of kings,

  • The core concept lurking in the background of all these discussions is that if there were no copyrights there would be no problem. Lots of things would be different if proprietary rights went away, but the world would not come to an end any more than it would if New York City or Los Angeles suddenly fell into the ocean, or even if everybody's financial records suddenly vanished. We'd get by somehow. Creative people would find it difficult to profit from their creations -- but that's always been true, only for different reasons. Business models depending on exclusive rights would break, but entrepreneurs would come up with other business models, not just roll over and die.

    There is surprisingly little debate about whether we actually need a copyright system at all. A Google [google.com] exact-phrase search for "abolish copyright" [google.com] turns up only 42 pages; "eliminate copyrights" [google.com] finds only 13. Very few of these pages actually discuss the idea. In contrast, you will find well over a million Napster references [google.com].

    In April, 1999, Fortune magazine [fortune.com] columnist Stuart Alsop [fortune.com] seriously and articulately proposed eliminating government protection of intellectual property [fortune.com] . That was almost 2 years ago. But the amount of genuine discussion of this idea has been miniscule compared to the endless volume of ranting about Napster, and what each of us feels we should have the right to do with a CD.

    Can we think on a larger scale? In spite of the turmoil it would cause, I believe the complete elimination of intellectual property protection would ultimately lead to the greatest good for the greatest number -- a concept democracy is supposed to support. Can we revisit this idea as a sane, sober proposal, or is it too scary? Are we just reluctant to let go of our own pet fantasies of being the next Bill Gates [microsoft.com] (yeah, right) or what?

  • I've been wondering about this one. As a musician (and not a very "prominent" one, even in the local area) I wonder what will happen to electric and electronic instruments in the coming years.

    For instance, my primary instrument of choice is the electric guitar. Will there come a day when my amplifier will be equipped with some super-duper, computer-intelligence analyzing software that will recognize every time I play a song that I didn't write myself and request that I insert a quarter to continue playing? Sound ridiculous? (Well, in a way it is. I won't be buying that particular type of amplifier thank you. I'm very happy with the one I have now.) I would be willing to bet my limitted life savings that the big wigs in the record companies would drool all over themselves if they found some way to make this work. Now they could charge people for listening, on each device they listen, with each time it is replayed, plus, they could prevent those scum-sucking 'musicians' (although how they can call themselves that without big-industry backing is beyond me) from 'pirating' music by playing it themselves.

    As whacked out as that sounds, does anybody else that enjoys playing an electric or electronic instrument worry about things like this. Or have I taken one too many paranoia pills today?

  • This is all thanks to the invasion of the microchip into out lives. It is human nature that companies and people wish to use them to exert control over their property, by inserting them in headphones, stereos, etc.

    So what is the solution? Well, we have two choices. We can either try to fundamentally change human nature, which is impossible (everyone wants to make a slave of others. Life is a struggle for power), or we can remove or prohibit the technology that grants such powers. I would move that we campaign for our governments to place restrictions on how embedded microchips are used, and even ban them in some instances, because all to often they are being used in an Orwellian fashion.

    You know exactly what to do-
    Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-

  • To quote: "If Windows had to be bought separately, some people would share it for free over the Internet instead of paying for it, just as if it were a song on Napster. "

    This shouldn't sound far-fetched. It is happening already.
  • How is this any different than in the past? Vinyl records gave way to cassette tape. All of a sudden we had this NEW feature of recording. Cassette tapes gave way to CD's. Nobody had CD recorders but that didn't stop them from becoming mainstream. They offered something to people; better performance. Now we can record again and everyone is saying that "they" will just force another format on us. It won't sell unless it has something to offer and if it does become mainstream, then 10 years from now chances are we will be able to copy it.

  • Replacing formats (Score:3)

    by Cereal Box ( 4286 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @09:19AM (#456412)
    I think that it may not be that easy to get a new format (media type) accepted by the public today. My theory is that (the majority of) people buy things that a) make it possible to be even lazier and/or b) complete mundane tasks faster. Take a look at the evolution of the audio formats:

    1. Vinyl - decent quality, but you have to adjust speed, place the needle, etc.

    2. Tapes - good quality, easier to use. Just pop it in and press play... but you have to ff/rew to the song you want.

    3. CD - very good quality, very ease to use. Has track skipping.

    These are the "big" formats; the ones that caught on. Notice the pattern: they each improve on the previous format, namely they require less effort from the listener and take less time to mess with (think having to fast-forward through a tape versus instant access on a CD). So why won't a new format replace the CD? Well, what can it improve on? Nothing that a consumer would care about. Quality? CD quality is pretty damn good, especially to your average clueless consumer. Faster seek times? Any cheap CD player can seek to the track you want pretty damn quick. Just about the only thing that can be improved on is size, but the failure of the MiniDisc shows that consumers don't really care about size; the CD is small enough for them to think it isn't cumbersome, and that's what matters.

    Hell, look at the astonishingly fast acceptance of DVD. DVD is essentially the home video equivalent of CDs. Consumers recognized the convenience DVD offered, and ate the shit up. I think DVD is sitting where the CD is now: it's not really going to be replaceable because, aside from improving quality, you can't really improve on the convenience of the DVD.

    The bottom line for consumers is convenience.

  • Isn't it amusing... (Score:3)

    by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @08:31AM (#456413) Homepage Journal
    ...that the RIAA and MPAA spend millions on making/recording/promoting music and movies, and then spend millions more to prevent people from listening/watching them.

    Perhaps corperate paranoia will climax with the production of a $1 billion film that they decide not to release at all for fear that someone might actually *watch* it. Oh the horrors!

  • Classic prediction error... and its correction (Score:3)

    by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @08:29AM (#456414)
    The essay contains a classic prediction error... but it's something easy to correct.

    That error is that people tend to think that change occurs in a linear fashion. This essay is certainly written that way, with an entry for each year.

    In reality, change tends to occur in an exponential fashion - and predictions are always too wild in the near term and too timid in the long term. That's easy to correct - you simply "shove" the predictions from both ends towards a point about 2/3 of the way through, but it makes less interesting reading. :-)

    So, for everyone who says that "this will never happen in 4 years" you're right... but you're missing the bigger point. It doesn't matter if the actual year is 2008 instead of 2004, or even 2020. What's really important is that each step is modest and oh-so-reasonable given everything that has happened until that point, yet the cumulative effect is a disaster. Since none of this requires a massive leap in technology or law it could well happen within a generation.

  • Bye Bye to your rights (Score:3)

    by BrK ( 39585 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @06:56AM (#456415) Homepage
    This sounds like the audio version of: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

  • Re:Lanier, One semi-novel idea, endless rambling (Score:3)

    by BrK ( 39585 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:25AM (#456416) Homepage
    Now, all this eqipment is going to become obsolete in the next 4 years?

    Out of curiosity, what makes you think that just because you have a Shitload of equipment that it can't or won't become obsolete?

    The sad truth is that we, as consumers, really have very little control of what is foisted upon us by Hollywierd, with the assistance of our wonderful governmet. (yes, I know not everyone is in the US).

    While I don't think that the storyline will play out exactly as it's written, I *do* belive that if we all just sit by and laugh at the concept it *will* come around and bite us in the ass.

  • Re:Bye Bye to your rights (Score:3)

    by BrK ( 39585 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:43AM (#456417) Homepage
    Actually, I agree with you. I didn't intend it as "funny" comment, just more-or-less wanted to reference something that I thought was similar.

    This comment should thus be moderated as "+1, Informative" :)

  • Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3)

    by tewwetruggur ( 253319 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:38AM (#456418) Homepage
    Perhaps put a bit harshly, but I can't say that I disagree... If the companies want SDMI badly enough, they'll throw some marketing madness behind it - with whatever spin they feel will give them full public acceptance. No amount of logic and well-thought argument will deter the mighty marketing beasts of corporate life.

    And, sadly, people will follow... forums like Slashdot are nice - but we need to be sure that the rest of the world gets to see the other parts of the big picture, too.

    I agree with Smallest, don't buy the new-fangled junk, don't help SDMI... but how do we mke sure others don't do it either?

  • Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3)

    by SomeoneYouDontKnow ( 267893 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @08:42AM (#456419)
    A big ad campaign usually requires big money. Don't fool yourself; the anti-smoking campaign you see has lots of money behind it, and it has media companies behind it as well. That's why you see the PSAs on TV. Do you think that you're going to get an anti-SDMI ad carried on CNN, TNT, ABC, etc.? Not a chance, since the parent companies of these networks have an interest in seeing that campaign fail. I'm not saying that what you propose can't be done, but if you don't have lots of money, then you need lots of people and one hell of an organization behind them. OK, let's see. You can have all your people wear t-shirts to spread the word, but where will the t-shirts come from? You can make them and distribute them, but now we're back to the money thing again, or you can put the designs out on a Web site and let people download them and print them, but then how do you let people know where to find the designs? Finally, as several folks have already pointed out, how do you get past the sheep factor? How are you going to convince some 15-year old kid that they shouldn't buy that Britney Spears album because they're cutting their own throat in the process? If that kid knew enough to realize the problems we're facing with the big media companies trying to gain complete control of content, then they'd also realize that what Britney Spears churns out isn't real music anyway and instead look for something produced by a real musician, but you don't see that happening. So perhaps you should forget the mainstream demographic and instead focus on audiophiles. You'd have a better chance there, IMHO, but will that market segment be large enough to, if not turn the Titanic around, sufficiently alter its course to make a difference? And where do alternative, independent artists and labels fit into this? I think they could be a powerful ally, since they're getting squeezed out by the big media companies as well. Still, many of them hate the idea of having their work pirated just as much as the major labels, since they can tolerate diminished sales less than the big companies can. Some of these guys are literally living hand to mouth. So you must convince them that this isn't about being able to copy music but an issue of the dominance of the big media companies over the entire musical domain. Still, if the big outfits won't budge, the independents may be people's only source of music. (For an example of this, read up on how BMI was created out of the dispute between radio stations and ASCAP.) Such an educational campaign could work, but it has to be carefully planned and targeted. It ain't nearly as easy as it might look. Still, I do agree that something has got to be done, not just in regards to music, but to stop this insane rush toward total control of any information that someone somewhere thinks can be sold for a profit.

  • Irony (Score:4)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:12AM (#456420)
    At the bottom of the article:
    © Copyright 2000 The Walt Disney Company.
    Disney is a plaintiff in the DeCSS case.

  • pure nonsense... (Score:4)

    by wunderhorn1 ( 114559 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:07AM (#456421)
    At the rate dotcoms are going under, there's no way eBay will still be around in 2006 ;-)

    But seriously folks, maybe the next version of the "Anarchists' Cookbook" will contain instructions not on how to build bombs and make drugs, but how to build analog speakers and television sets.
    How's THAT for a dystopian future?

    -the wunderhorn

  • I don't think so (Score:4)

    by sharkticon ( 312992 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:07AM (#456422)

    Sure this is a scenario that the RIAA/MPAA hegemony would like to have become reality, and one that doomsayers will put out in the hopes of garnering reaction, but it's hardly likely.

    So companies like Intel are already moving towards content protection at every stage of a signal, from your hard disk drive to the cable between your PC and your monitor. But all this will encourage is technical solutions to what will be seen by many as either a technical challenge or an unwarranted invasion of their rights.

    The best these companies can hope for is that their measures will deter some of the least tech-savvy from doing things they don't like. Of course, these are generally the people who are least likely to be downloading songs off of Napster or Gnutella anyway, but that's not the point is it?

    And this scenario completely manages to miss the fact that the US is not the world, and that attitudes to copyright and IP vary from nation to nation, whereas the internet has the potential to allow people in one country to access material hosted elsewhere. Short of a giant firewall a la China (not that that is particularly effective) there is going to be precious little ways of ensuring 100% control, and any exploits will be spread far and wide as quickly as possible.

    So I think this is just an alarmist scare story. There are just too many flaws for it to work this way.

  • All right, who's been handing out the stupid pills (Score:5)

    by freeBill ( 3843 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @08:17AM (#456423) Homepage
    Lanier is not making any predictions here. He is conducting a thought-experiment to try to extrapolate the RIAA-MPAA logic to the necessary extreme.

    His purpose is clearly to destroy the industry logic by a technique called "reductio ad absurdum." When you flame him for the absurdity of his conclusions, you are agreeing with him. You are proving his point, which is that the goals of the industries which are trying to exploit the producers of intellectual property cannot be achieved without an absurd result.

    BTW, my favorite part of this idea is the concept that geeks who are capable of constructing an analog speaker might become the heroes of an underground economy. (Note to the irony-impaired: I do not believe this will really happen.)

  • Here's an idea... (Score:5)

    by Smallest ( 26153 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:05AM (#456424)
    if SDMI gets off the ground and they (sony and pals) actually start trying to sell these copyright-enforcing players, don't buy them.

    don't throw out your CD-RWs, your CD players, your old receiver from 1993, your cassette player or your gasp turntable! keep them, use them, encourage record companies (with your wallet) to keep producing CDs compatible with current players.

    if nobody buys the new fancy gear, They lose.

    -c

  • YKYBHTLW.... (Score:5)

    by ktakki ( 64573 ) on Monday February 05, 2001 @07:09AM (#456425) Homepage Journal
    You know you've been reading Slashdot too long when...
    • You see this illustration [discover.com] accompanying the story and you're reminded of Goat Sex Man [goatse.cx]
    • The words "© Copyright 2000 The Walt Disney Company" at the bottom of the article provoke a bout of ironic chuckling that doesn't stop until you hit your head against the wall a few times.


    My head hurts.

    k.
    --
    "In spite of everything, I still believe that people
    are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

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