File-sharing, Digital Rights Management, Etc.

Politech has a couple of good articles on political developments in the post-Napster world. (That's almost a Katz phrase there, isn't it?) The folks behind Kazaa, when they're not busy spying on their userbase, took the time to write to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after a bashing they took a few weeks ago. Kazaa's new owners suggest a general royalty fee, perhaps similar to the recent webcasting fees, be put in place to compensate intellectual property holders for file-sharing. Meanwhile, the European Commission takes a look at digital rights management. Looks like Europe will get its own version of the SSSCA.

That's the whole point of harmonisation

[perdida]

You are going to get pretty much unitary legal structures on intellectual property and music copying. That's what's been planned by groups like the World Economic Forum and the World Trade Organization for years.

What's more, there won't be too much debate on perspectives other than those put forward by U.S. law and the major music corporations. That's because these firms and the U.S. government are able to dominate the meetings of business decisionmakers.

The protesters outside global gatherings are, in part, fighting for freedoms in music copying and things like this. What they are doing is trying to get more than a few voices into the meetings where these decisions are made. You should consider lobbying these global groups like the WTO - it doesnt make you a "bomb throwing anarchist," and it may be more effective than lobbying your congressperson, 'cause that's where the decisions are getting made.

paranoia.

[Alien54]

Well, we have seen over the past few months how Micorsoft patented a digital rights operating system [slashdot.org].

We have also seen how perfect encryption is fundamentally impossible [slashdot.org], although being good enough for government work may get by.

Somehow, the connection between this and the SSSCA could mean that Microsoft could be the only legal OS in the US. Purely coincidental of course.

I think this should be investigated, just in case my paranoia has a legitimate case to make. Microsoft has a habit of too many convenient coincidences.

Maybe they'll all go to jail because they will not be able to obey the law and provide an impossible result. I'm not holding my breath.

That's an excellent idea

[The Cat]

A clearing-house of sorts (like the radio-royalty structure already in place) would solve 98% of the "file sharing problem."

I think the current limits on bandwidth really are going to make widespread DVD sharing a little unlikely, even with broadband. The files are just too big. If it takes 412 hours to download a movie (at lower quality with fewer features, etc.), people aren't going to care. They'd probably rather just go to Blockbuster and rent it for $4 or whatever.

Perhaps it could even be tied to bandwidth and charged at the ISP level. Say $.10 for every gig of downstream bandwidth used. Money goes to a clearing house and member copyright holders are paid based on the amount of material they have licensed to the clearing house. The more stuff they license, the more they get paid. There should also be a limit on the cost of the licenses written into the agreement so once everyone signs up it doesn't become $1000/gig.

I think in radio now, anything with a particular label (or stamp or something) can be played royalty free without limits, incorporated into other forms (like commercials, etc.) and so on. Music industry doesn't complain about that at all, because it is free publicity for their product. Same thing here.

This really would help solve almost all of the problems with file-sharing and it is a win-win of sorts. Pay-per-play it isn't, but pay-per-play isn't going to work anyway.

Re:SSSCA is Wishful Thinking

[HuskyDog]

I don't disagree with the basic point that all DRM systems can be cracked, but...

tracking down the subversives who use Linux/BSD and other "unAmerican" OSes would prove difficult

Well, maybe it would be tricky to find people who were using Linux/BSD, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find those who are developing them. Without huge amounts of cooperation across the internet, there is no way we can continue to develop these OSs. Also, once they are illegal you won't be able to connect to the internet using them.

if the governement started coming after the people, they just might have a revolution on their hands.

Get Real! If tomorrow morning the government announced that every none Microsoft/Apple OS was illegal and that folks had seven days to destroy all copies or go inside. How many people would riot? 100? 1000? How many rioted in Seatle? Did that change anything? What percentage of the population would care or even understand? 1 percent? Maybe 2? I guarantee that more than 90% wouldn't care at all, and most of them would also be easily persuaded that Linux was something to do with terrorism.

If we want to fight this we need to (a) get folks who sound respectable (e.g. university professors) to start trying to educate politicians and more importantly (b) get folks with big wallets and a vested interest (e.g. IBM) to start bribing those same politicians.

Isn't price really part of the problem???

[dpilot]

CDs cost less than cassettes, but are priced higher, "because of apparent value". Tell that to computer makers, who pack more and sell for less, every year. IMHO, the price of real products is a compromise between cost of manufacture and what the competition will allow. Look at the price of DRAM, for an example. And of course we all know that next to nothing of that $18 CD that cost $0.10 to make went to royalties for the artists.

Also IMHO, the only business where "apparent value" can be a true factor in pricing is where competition is absent, that is a CARTEL or MONOPOLY. In the case of CDs, we have the joy of both at the same time.

There's the old lesson from videotapes: $80 tapes get pirated bigtime, $20 tapes don't. Plus tapes aren't $20, any more.

I feel ripped off every time I buy a CD, and thus I buy very seldom, principally as gifts. At half the price, I'd buy more than twice as many. At a third the price, more than thrice. At some point, storage would become the limiting factor, not money and purchase price.

Movies are headed the same way, and what's unfortunate about all this is that we're about to take a hurting tech sector and send it down in flames with SSSCA-type legislation. We're about to say that Jobs and Woz, or Hewlett and Packard will NEVER happen again, at least not in computing, because SSSCA turns the entire computing field into sealed boxes, and locks the innovator out.

At the very least, opt-in would be workable. Strong enough crypto to require hardware chips, maybe even crypto all the way into a sealed monitor. Better than SSSCA, anyway.

Of course copyright reform would be better yet. Isn't it interesting that patent durations have remained steady? Says something about the media industries, and what we've allowed them to turn into.

YAY!

[autopr0n]

The internet, which once held the promise to liberate 'the masses', allow point to point communication on a scale never before seen, is now being co-opted by the mass media by force of law. That's just wonderfull.

Btw, I'm being sarcastic.

Re:Simple Options

[DickBreath]

I don't believe the SSSCA will ever come to pass.

I strongly disagree. With all due respect, you are niave.

Let me see now. I'm old enough to have said to myself under my breath....

I don't think the government will let Microsoft get away with it.

I don't think the DMCA will ever come to pass.

I don't think the CDA will ever come to pass.

I don't think that encryption will ever be illegal.

I don't think anything will ever come of CALEA.

Should I go on?

this makes me wonder...

[drik00]

i remember reading about a court decision a few years back that ruled that the admin of a web board isnt responsible for the comments/content of what the visitors post to his site...wouldnt this same ruling protect any general file-sharing system? Kazaa doesnt house any of the copyrighted data, if the users use its technology to transmit a bunch of 1's and 0's, how is kazaa responsible for the content that its users send?

just curious

Re:That's an excellent idea

[dattaway]

Everytime I see a mention of this tax, I cringe. Every generation of my family has been trained to master at least one musical instrument. My sister may have four CD's and a movie released last year where she was listed seventh on the credits [apple.com]. Yet no member of my family has received a dime of this tax. All it has done has limited our recording device technology and hindered media coverage of family events.

Re:Who pays ? (Me, obviously!)

[thesupraman]

at the current (insane) price of new CD's, I think it's safe to say they already have included a P2P tax, infact, you could say that is why P2P is so popular, people are already paying that tax, so why not do it?

Realy, if they priced CD's a little more reasonably this would be much less of an issue, there is a reason you can get all those older CDs for $5 each, and that is that it is STILL profitable to sell them at this price!

Re:SSSCA is Wishful Thinking

[I.T.R.A.R.K.]

"There may be some martyrs at every turn, such as Emannuel Goldstein and Derek Fawcus..."

The problem with this is that these two individuals were made out to be evil hackers, and thus no one (see:average joe. The majority) cared whether they fried or not.
I this regard, we should be taking notes from the black rights movement when they planted Rosa Parks on the bus. The RIAA isn't going to make a martyr out of averate Joe's grandma. And the day they do is the day the will have signed their own death warrants. We need an extreme like this to show the masses just how rediculous laws like this really are. Until then, we're nothing but evil hackers and music pirates in their eyes.

Re:Imagine a dissenter nation

[mpe]

Imagine if this law was passed in the U.S. and in Europe, but not, say, in Canada.

I don't think Canada is a likely candidate for dissent, too easily bullied by its neighbour to the south and west...