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Chained Melodies 309

Posted by michael from the music-is-born-free-and-everywhere-it-is-in-chains dept.
NoData writes: "Salon is running an elegant article that covers the current state of the copy protection and circumvention debate. The article touches on the DMCA and the SSSCA, with input from Touretzky, Lessig, and others. It offers a dystopic vision of a future where geeks battle increasingly complex copy protection schemes until ultimately, any consumer control over media is outlawed outright. Refreshingly, the article is not a "Salon Premium" feature."
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Chained Melodies More

Chained Melodies

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  • You can prevent this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I Want GNU! ( 556631 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:23PM (#3157316) Homepage
    ...and all it takes is a bit of activism. Write up a letter to your local representative, find ten friends, and have them all write a letter as well as finding one or two friends each. Then, they will pay more note to the issue and quite possibly change their opinion. They are supposed to represent their constituents and often will even if they don't believe in the cause.

    I _would_ also recommend writing senators, but that might be a bit more ambitious since they usually represent much larger numbers of people and thus would be harder to coerce.

    Oh, and recommend they join Rep. Boucher's informed technological reps bandwagon.

    • Re:You can prevent this... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by slugfro ( 533652 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:41PM (#3157453) Homepage
      I agree that the public becoming active and writing our government representatives is a great idea and will hopefully have some effect. However it will be hard to overcome the effect of hundreds of thousands of dollars that our government representatives get from special interest groups such as the entertainment industry. Example from the article:
      Hollings, who has received $264,534 in campaign contributions from the TV, music and movie industries since 1997, has attempted to argue that standardized copy protection is the key to encouraging the continuing rollout of broadband Net connectivity.
      Our representatives will likely continue to represent those who give them the most money which they can then use to get reelected. Why they just don't try to get elected based on doing what their constituents want I do not know. I guess all we can do is write our reps and vote accordingly.

      • The money is only useful insofar as it lets them fund their campaigns better, and therefor get more of their constituents to vote for them. Donations won't matter so much if you can either:

        1) Get lots of people in your district to care about an issue enough to let it outweigh stupid ads they see on TV and such, or

        2) Convince your representative that you may have done 1.

        Having fat sacks of cash doesn't do you much good if no one will vote for you anyway (think Perot, here). If you can convince your elected representatives that they will piss off more constituents by supporting bad legislation than they can attract with the money they can get by doing so, they'll do the right thing.

        I'm not saying this is easy, just that it is possible (in theory, if nothing else) to have an effect without any money at all, even when you are competing against lobbyists with lots of it.

      • That's a common misconception. While it is true that many politicians recieve much money from many special intrest groups, almost none are "owned" by their contributers.

        Obviously once a politician is in office he's more likely to listen to the people who voted for him; not the people that gave him money. I know you're just whining and bitching with out accurate information, so let me enlighten you.

        I worked as an intern for a Californian US House Rep, filing letters, phone calls, faxes, emails etc. Actually my job was to start designing the requirements for a software app that would put all that data together into a statistical form, so the Chief could see the data on how many people were pro on what, and how they submitted.

        Here is what I learned: In every case I was involved in the data collection process (which was just about every major issue for the 18 months I worked there), the Chief went with the public consensus. In the cases he went against it, he always made sure to meet with his advisors and other Reps to make verify his own thoughts.

        When he envitably decided to go against the constituents (which was only rarely) he always gave me write-up to put on his webpage.

        Maybe you should try actually investigating things, rather than just spitting up everything you've ever read.
        • Which party? (Sounds like a Democrat to me.)

        • Re:You can prevent this... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by JordoCrouse ( 178999 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:46PM (#3157962) Homepage Journal
          Ok, I'll bite.

          Tell me a few things:

          1. How many terms had the Rep served?

          2. What positions did he hold on the various committees he served on?

          3. What were his political aspirations? What he content serving the people, or did he want to jump to the party leadership and beyond?

          Sadly, though there are some senators and representitives that are more interested in serving the people than themselves (a special shout out to Rep Jim Matheson, District 2, Utah!), few if any of the people in power (or the people who *want* to be in power) can be as enlightened as your boss.

          For every dollar donated to an individual, 3 dollars are donated to the party. Over time, this becomes a large amount of money for the political party and the people in charge. Nobody wants to run the risk that a particular person may choose to vote with some intellegence, and happens to alienate a major contributor. Doing that would mean trouble for the party, and a one way trip to obscurity for the unlucky voter.

          I think that if we ever discovered the amazing power that political parties hold over the legislative and executive process it would scare the hell out of us. Its best just to not think about it.

        • Re:You can prevent this... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by hagardtroll ( 562208 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @04:07PM (#3158641) Journal
          I would argue the 'Constituents Position' on a particular issue is really irrelevant here.

          What people mean by congress being bought and paid for has more to do with the legislative agenda, than the actual votes. For example.

          What is the one thing that pisses people off more than anything? SPAM. How much federal gov't legislation has been passed to curb SPAM. None.

          Compare the number of people pissed off about spam to the number of people concerned with Bankruptcy Laws. I doubt most people care less about Bsnkruptcy Laws, yet we just recently got new Bankruptcy law passed. Why? Because the U.S. Chamber of commerce lobby wanted them.

          What laws the congress considers and passes are controlled by campaign contributions.

          How many constituents wanted...

          DMCA?, Oil Drilling in ANWAR? Bankruptcy Reform? Stem Cell policy? SSSCA? Copyright Extensions?

          Yet what they DO want takes forever and often gets stalled. Things like...

          Campaign Finance Reform, Anti-SPAM, Consumer Protection, Prescription Drugs, Environment Protection, Employment and Security.

          They could give a rats ass about corporations like Disney and the Miramax.

      • Why they just don't try to get elected based on doing what their constituents want I do not know.

        It is because the average constituent is way too stupid to vote based on the issues, instead constituents to a great extent vote for those who are familiar to them. Ads buy familiarity. Those that aren't influenced by the ads are often hardcore Republicans or Democrats, who also don't really vote based on the issues. And what makes people hardcore Republicans or Democrats? Well, to a great extent the parties themselves - which get money from contributions.

        Proof the people are stupid: Notice how commercials (in general) appear to be targetted at people with an IQ barely above that of a rock? Gimmicks, singing and dancing, and often no mention of anything about the product except its name (jeans ads are really bad).

        Now consider, these ads are designed to make money, and hence need to be effective.

        Ads are targetted to stupid people because that is the most economically advantageous way to do it.

        Because the people are stupid.

        Until the people get a clue, the system will be as bad as it is now.

      • I agree that the public becoming active and writing our government representatives is a great idea and will hopefully have some effect. However it will be hard to overcome the effect of hundreds of thousands of dollars that our government representatives get from special interest groups such as the entertainment industry.

        Yes, campaign contributions do have some influence. That does not mean you don't have influence. Believe it or not, big business does not get everything they want. We, unlike Canada, do not pay a copyright tax on blank CD-Rs. We do not pay a copyright tax on blank videocassettes, despite years of lobbying from Hollywood.

        Britain had laws against copy-protection circumvention devices years before the DMCA (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_198800 48_en_21.htm#mdiv296). This is true even though Hollywood cannot give hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to British politicians.


        So, stop whining and let your representatives know how you feel. There was a story on Slashdot a few months ago about how few comments the Copyright Office received on a particular issue. The truth is few people care enough to write.

        Our representatives will likely continue to represent those who give them the most money which they can then use to get reelected. Why they just don't try to get elected based on doing what their constituents want I do not know. I guess all we can do is write our reps and vote accordingly.

        Even if there were no campaign contributions, politicians would often vote the opposite on an issue to the way majority of their constituents felt. Why? Because on many, many issues, those who feel strongly enough to write their Congressman, or to vote for someone because of that issue are in the minority. Very few people will vote against their Congressman because of his vote on some obscure amendment to hundreds of bills voted on. They probably don't know that it means milk will be an extra nickel a gallon. Even if they did, they probably have other issues more important to them.

        So who is going to care? The dairy producers who get the extra nickel.


        It's that way on many issues, maybe most. It's not just because of large campaign contributions, it's inherent in democracy.


    • I _would_ also recommend writing senators, but that might be a bit more ambitious since they usually represent much larger numbers of people and thus would be harder to coerce.

      That depends on the state, of course.

      If your senator is on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation [senate.gov], which is the committee that Fritz Hollings heads and is using to push the SSSCA, I would strongly urge you to write a (paper) letter, expressing your opposition to the SSSCA. Members of the committee include Senators Kerry, Wyden, Gordon Smith, Boxer, Nelson, McCain, Hutchison, and Allen, among others. Note that it includes both of Oregon's senators, so if you're from Oregon, you can write two letters.

    • Activism is great and I highly recommend it, but as a former congressional staffer, I can tell you that it would take a campaign on the level several hundred letters to get the staffers to pull their heads out of their asses and take note. That being said, it is not too hard to generate a hundred letters, but they should be thoughtful original letters, not postcards. Staffers often think what they are told to think, and often they are 25 year olds who know nothing about the issue exept the press releases they get from the RIAA. And politicians love nothing more than having their pictures taken with celebrities. ok i am getting of topic here. bottom line....in order for a letter writing campaign to be effective, there needs to be A LOT of letters. Tell them how it affects YOU. And if you are near DC ever, go meet with a staffer for your congressman. That is what they are there for.
    • Here's a better solution: Every time one of your faves goes to this copy protection shit send them a letter that says fuck your value-diminished, encumbered content and find a new fave that doesn't truck with it. The Megamonoliths can screw up their content all they want but they can't force anyone to follow suit. Stop capitulating to their propaganda that only their opinion matters; the idea that they can sew up all the media content is based on the flat out fallacy that they can own and control all copyrighted works. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. Just certain copyrights.


      The more they screw it up for themselves the better its going to be for the independent. The value premium of an unencumbered CD is about to skyrocket; the media moguls are exposing themselves to legal liability (fallout is already occurring); they face an endless, costly game of "keeping up with the Hacksies" as they try to make DRM stick, an uphill, customer-enraging battle to force people to switch away from the solid, stable, cost-effective technology of CDs (33 1/3 records appeared in the mid-twenties and did not outpace LPs until the late 80s, that's 60+ years, 4X as long as CDs have been the standard) at a time when the small-scale production of CDs has never been more accessible. The idea that people will stop buying CDs is ludicrous. There are so many more car CD players, boom boxes, stereos, portables, and CD-playing disk devices like DVD players and game consoles than there are computers with CD roms and disk burners. And any new desk technology is going to face a very tough slog if it can't play a standard CD.


      What's not to love? If Cheerios started dumping chunks of shit into every box, wouldn't any small cereal manufacturer rejoice? Repeat after me: THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC. THEY DON'T OWN MUSIC.

      • The Megamonoliths can screw up their content all they want but they can't force anyone to follow suit


        Funny you should mention that, but forcing everyone to follow suit is exactly what the megamonoliths have in mind. They won't be happy until the only legal media that is media that they control, and the SSSCA is a big step in that direction.

  • When are we going to trust the government. The big business interests will push through more and more copyright enforcment laws and technologies that will effect everyone. Instead of fighting it outright, from the diametrically opposed viewpoint of "no copyright protection, ever!" we should take a more congenial viewpoint and encourage copyright protection while also making sure that our interests are protected. We can lobby for making sure that media marked as "public domain" can easily be copied on hardware with copy protection, and deem it illegal for a next generation audio or video device to blindly prevent copying of works, noting that there is a fair amount of free music and video out there. As well, we can cooperate with the industry and government in order to create these systems. Keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer-- befriend the music industry only for the reasons of making sure that they stay in line.

    Adam

    • Re:Come on (Score:3, Insightful)

      by outlier ( 64928 )
      If someone could develop a copy protection technique that didn't infringe on my fair use rights, I'd be willing to consider it. But, because of their enthusiastic attempts to prevent file trading, my legally protected rights [cornell.edu] to be able to listen to products I purchased, when, where, and how I'd like are being infringed.

      IANARE (I am not a record executive), but it doesn't seem to be a smart decision to treat your customers like criminals...

      • Re:Come on (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dklon ( 561205 )
        If I read that US Code right, then the artist who works for a record company doesn't even have the right to perform it, as the artist doesn't hold the copyright on the music itself (Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106). I may just be smoking rope here, but that's the way it looks.

      • Re:Come on (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rotor ( 82928 )
        All that link to Cornell says is that you have the right to copy for fair use. It says nothing about them not having the right to defeat your copying. They have every right to do this, but it's going to hurt their business model in the long run.

    • Re:Come on (Score:2, Interesting)

      by SSJ2 Labsuit ( 513035 )
      When are we going to trust the government.

      When they stop spying on us [currents.net], lying to us [southam.com], and stealing from us [lp.org], for a start.
    • When are we going to trust the government. The big business interests [...]

      You forget the "The Government" IS a "big business interest" itself. (Specifically, I think of it as a gigantic, somewhat shady insurance company that charges mandatory premiums based on your income. ANd property ownership. And purchases (sales tax). And "unemployment insurance". And "Social Security". And...well, you get the idea. You pay your premiums, and the government offers some legetimate insurance (i.e. as with medical insurance, "if something bad happens, we'll pay to deal with it", e.g. if a foreign country were to invade, the US Federal Government Insurance Company would pay for the military to deal with it, and so on). Unfortunately, they also offer some not-so-legitimate insurace, evidently ("If your business model gets outdated, US Federal Government Insurance Company will prop it up with laws"...)

      Your point about making reasonable counter-suggestions for current trends in "Intellectual Property" laws is, I think, completely right. It's just that it seems silly to ask why we don't trust the government in the first sentence, and them immediately answer it by explaining that Government will do as "big business" tells it to regardless...

  • Good article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:26PM (#3157343) Journal
    Better than the wimpy-ass op-ed in the NYTimes last week. This is a good one to show to people who might not care about this issue to explain to them why this is so important.

    A new Prohibition. The destruction of the PC industry. Is that really what The American People (not just certain bought-and-paid-for senators) want? I suspect that when you ask, you'll get the answer.

    Of course the networks won't report on this, because they are owned by Disney et al. But it seems to be making its way into the print media.

    • IAAD (Score:2, Interesting)

      by sulli ( 195030 )
      I suspect that when you ask, you'll get the answer.

      I mean... you'll get the answer you're looking for, which is opposition to this abomination.

      By the way, why are Lessig, Felten, and the EFF crew not on every op-ed in the country? Do they not take this seriously?

  • Demolition Man (Score:3, Interesting)

    by apsio ( 112734 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:26PM (#3157345)
    For anyone who has seen the Snipes/Stalone movie 'Demoliton Man', you have my sincere apology.

    But, more importantly, this dystopian future that Salon highlights is paralleled in the movie. There's only one restaurant, Taco Bell, no salt (cause its bad for you), etc.

    I recommend everyone watch it but not tell anyone that you did out of shame. Kinda like Mothman Prophecies, except that movie really, really, really sucked.
    • I've long held that Demolition Man has been eerily prophetic.

      Whenever I get around to writing my political treatise("Elect Ronald McDonald Dictator for Life"), I plan to devote an entire chapter to Demolition Man.

  • you bad evil hackers (Score:4, Funny)

    by stipe42 ( 305620 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:27PM (#3157352)
    Can't you see the superbowl ads now?

    "Today I went to the movies, went to the grocery store, downloaded an mp3, and helped evil hackers steal money from the hands of starving musicians."

    stipe42

  • Ultimate Copy Protection (Score:4, Funny)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:27PM (#3157356) Homepage
    Quite simple really, and one both the music and movie industries appear to be implementing..

    Just make all the content so dull that noone would ever bother copying any of it.

    Quite why they bother protecting the latest Britney album is beyond me. Who the hell would want to duplicate that?
    • Better yet, the record companies shouldn't release anything they don't want copied.

      "Trust us, we have a lot of good music. You're not gonna hear it, but it's there. Trust us."
    • Quite why they bother protecting the latest Britney album is beyond me. Who the hell would want to duplicate that?

      Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Shakira, and any number of other 'artists' are duplicating it as we speak. Oh wait, that's not what you meant...

  • Idiotic Mechanism Clause (Score:5, Insightful)

    by indole ( 177514 ) <fluxist@gmail.cSLACKWAREom minus distro> on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:29PM (#3157367) Homepage
    ...When he put the CD in his computer and fired up AudioGrabber... the CD locked up the program. But after rebooting his computer, he discovered that the protection was easy to thwart. The copy protection worked by introducing a false value for the start time of the CD... [he] used a function of AudioGrabber to reset that start time to zero, and then was able to encode the music without a glitch.

    so.. let me get this straight... this kid can get arrested and thrown into prison under the DMCA because he clicked a checkbox in a (not even debatably) legitimate cd ripping program, to make a legal copy of his own legally purchased cd for his own legal mp3 player, because he "circumvented" the copy-control mechanisms?

    There should be an idiot clause in the DMCA

    • There should be an idiot clause in the DMCA

      I thought the DMCA was an idiot clause? :-)

    • This conceivably could happen, although it'd probably be AudioGrabber's publisher who'd be hauled into court for violating the DMCA. It'd be an interesting fight if a software vendor were to argue that the feature has a legitimate purpose (e.g., allowing the playing of defective media), but few indie software vendors have the time/money/lawyers to fight the RIAA. (The DeCSS case also doesn't bode well.)
    • As I understand it, Salon is in violation too, for publishing the 'circumvention technique'

    • There should be an idiot clause in the DMCA

      Oh, but there is...the idiots that passed/created this PoS are the clause...and we are the ones to suffer its efflects.

      Simple matter of clause and efflect.

      (give yourself a +1 sense of humor if you laffed and realized I did not spell correctly on purpose)
      .

  • Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TrollMan 5000 ( 454685 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:29PM (#3157373)
    Hollings, who has received $264,534 in campaign contributions from the TV, music and movie industries since 1997, has attempted to argue that standardized copy protection is the key to encouraging the continuing rollout of broadband Net connectivity. According to this theory, customers won't sign up for DSL or cable Internet access if they can't get top-notch entertainment via their computers. But Hollywood won't make that content available unless it is confident it won't be pirated.

    So movies might not be available via the internet with out copy protection. So what? There's a lot more to the Internet than movies. Online gaming, information, and just not having to wait for a dialup or pages to load up are some of the main reasons why people have switched.

    Hollings is grasping onto a straw man, paid for by over a quarter million dollars of Hollywood lobbying money.

    Hopefully the consumer will win here.

    • Re:Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sulli ( 195030 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:37PM (#3157415) Journal
      I sell DSL for a living. (Disclaimer: this is my opinion, not that of my employer.) You are absolutely right.

      Hollings is FULL OF SHIT to say that people don't buy broadband due to lack of movies online. Why?

      1. Movies are available online, albeit in crappy divx format and illegal. But they are there.
      2. At least my customers don't make their buying decisions based on this! They buy broadband for standard internet services. Or they don't, because the coverage isn't there, or they don't use the net enough to pay for DSL. Never have I heard this as a reason not to order, or to cancel - and believe me, I have heard 100s of reasons. NEVER.

      Look, movies are everywhere. You can buy or rent DVDs on literally any street corner. You can order hundreds of thousands of DVDs and VHS tapes from Amazon and the like. Broadband has nothing to do with it!

      • Most people I know don't have broadband (at least not anymore) simply because they're outta work, or so under-employed that they can't justify the expense.
      • Right now, I everyone I know that does not have broadband falls into one of two groups.


        1. Those, like my mother, who desperately want it, but simply can't get it because they live out in the sticks (and yes, the trees interfere with sat service).


        2. Those, like my father, who don't use the internet for much more than online banking, checking stocks once a day and email. They've got a 56k connection, and it's fast enough for them. My father doesn't really care for the computer, it's a tool to him, and he's not going to spend any more time in front of it than he has to and he sure won't use it for entertainment. Because of this, he can't justify an increase in the amount he already pays to access the internet -- he manages to find free or nearly free providers and uses his normal phone line to dial up since he's never on more than thirty minutes or so. Movies on line will not get my father to go broadband, just as mp3s haven't gotten him on broadband either. He doesn't use the computer as a media device, and won't use it that way, even if the content is available. I know that's totally foreign to slashdotters, but trust me, these people exist.


        3. Those, like some of my friends, who can get it, and would like to have it, but simply can't afford it right now.

    • Hollings, who has received $264,534 in campaign contributions from the TV, music and movie industries since 1997, has attempted to argue that standardized copy protection is the key to encouraging the continuing rollout of broadband Net connectivity. According to this theory, customers won't sign up for DSL or cable Internet access if they can't get top-notch entertainment via their computers.

      -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

      Hollings is the worst kind of idiot if he truly believes that. I couldn't care LESS about getting "entertainment" via the 'net, "top-notch" or otherwise. That's why I have a TV, DVD/Laser player, stereo, etc.

      Honestly, this obsession with getting movies and TV via the Internet has consistently baffled me. Am I the only one asking "Why bother?" Am I the only one who realizes that the current Internet BACKBONE could never support the sustained load from nine zillion people trying to stream "Shrek" or "The Matrix" or whatever else over a broadband connection?

      Yes, I have DSL. And static IP's. I use it because I wanted to be self-hosted. While I recognize that Joe Consumer probably doesn't even know what Unix is, let alone how to self-host (run their own servers) over a broadband connection, it still baffles me why anyone would think that watching a movie on a computer monitor is in any way "better" than watching it through one's TV.

      With that said, Hollings is indeed the 'Senator from Disney.' Him and his stupid SSSCA proposal need to be slapped down. Hard.

    • Well...it's a bullshit answer. Most neighboors I know won't sign up cause they don't like the cost.

      Of the neighboors that do have it, they have it so they can send pics to family, get movie listings, recipies, etc...

      I know of one neighboor who, when he got his new computer, just wanted to know how to download songs and burn them to CD. This is out of about 20 neighboors who I know have computers and are online.
    • Right now, everybody and their uncle is racing to be the first to have a broadband television network. The network would typically deliver internet connectivity, free channels, pay channels (HBO) and pay-per-view (hopefully Video on Demand). This area definately has a possibility for the Next Big Thing (C, TM).

      But Hollywood won't make that content available
      unless it is confident it won't be pirated.

      This is true. And every Set Top Box (STB) maker is racing to develop content protection for their system in order to ensure that their clients can get the very best content. This isn't anything new - access control has been in vouge for 20 years now (don't you remember watching Cinimax as a teenager looking for a unscrambled tit?). This copy protection will be very specific to the system you are using, and the content you are viewing, and it will not take away your fair use rights.

      What we don't want is to be forced to include copy protection regardless of device or content type. That takes the job of proving content security away from Hollywood and puts it on the Justice Department. That way, they can force cheap and ineffective copy protetion, and then rely on the feds to prosecute when it gets broken.

      Thats what Hollings really wants to do, but he thought he would play the "content security" card.

      Thats why I'm so scared, because we know that copy protection *is* nessesary for Hollywood to release their content, and at first glance, government mandated laws seem to fit the bill. Its only after studying the situation, that you realize that this bill was a spawn of Satan himself. Thats why contacting your reps in Congress is so important. We need to force everybody to analyze this and not take Jack Valente's word for it.

  • Who'll be hurt? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:35PM (#3157409) Homepage
    Who's going to be hurt by these annoying new copy protections?

    The people who rip the songs just to upload them? No... They're typically on the cutting edge, and will have the means to bypass whatever form of copy protection is in place.

    The people who download songs off the net? No... If 99% of the user base is unable to rip a song, but 1% can, ripped copies will become available, and passing from machine to machine they will multiply.

    The person who only listens, or only copies for himself? Yup! He's going to be greatly inconvenienced by these restrictive technologies.

    The RIAA doesn't care, though. They only care about being able to ramp up the prices on music CDs. The MPAA doesn't care either.
    • If 99% of the user base is unable to rip a song, but 1% can, ripped copies will become available, and passing from machine to machine they will multiply.

      A large number of the 1% who can, but currently don't bother, will start doing so as an act of protest. This will have the side effect of increasing the average quality of illegal rips, since the only people doing them will also be the ones who have a clue about which MP3 coders to use and how to configure them.

      • I got out of piracy a few years back, simply because I got older, have more responsibilities, and it just wasn't worth my time and effort to pirate anymore. It was easier and cheaper (when I factored in the cost of my time) to just buy my media -- even at inflated prices.


        But, if this law passes, I'll jump back in with full force. I'll pirate stuff I don't even like just because someone else might want it. Right now, a lot of my free time is going to writing letters to congressmen and women. I'll shift all that time to piracy, and I'll probably add a bit just because I used to enjoy it.

    • The RIAA doesn't care, though. They only care about being able to ramp up the prices on music CDs.

      That raises an interesting question. Presumably, the "cost" of all this "rampant piracy" has been built into the cost of legitimately purchased CDs. When the RIAA gets their way and laws are passed to protect their interests and business model, what are the odds that CD prices will go down?

      Slim or none?
    • You left out the Open Source movement. Already to play most DVDs under linux you must install something like libdvdcss which is technically illegal by the DMCA. With the SSSCA, this would extend at the very least to any Open Source media player, and quite probably to Open Source platforms. In fact, any platform that doesn't license DRM technology from MS will then be illegal (making MS a legally endorsed monopoly, what a change in postition from suing them). Of course, maybe it would simply be that only MS-licensed products could read the format, but either way MS gets a lot of control.

      So far under linux I have illegal dvd playback and even illegal font rendering (freetype w/ bytecode interpreter enabled). If SSSCA passes, there goes PythonTheater, noatun, xmms, etc....

  • Music today sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deanasc ( 201050 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:40PM (#3157444) Homepage Journal
    When I stopped buying music it wasn't because I could get it for free. It was because music today has passed me by. Maybe if some of the bands I loved 15 years ago release a new album I'll buy it but I'm not buying Nsync or Lit or Train or any other crap that passes for music today.

    In fact just about the time I gave up on new music is the same time I learned how to play the guitar and make my own music. I may not have the production values that Brittney has but on the otherhand I don't need 600 digital tracks of the same verse sung over and over to smooth out the mistakes. Playing my own music makes me happier than desperately searching for out of print Dead Milkmen albums. Playing my own music won't make me rich and famous but it turns on my wife when I bang on the bongo's like a chimpanzee.

    If the record companies don't want my money anymore then Fcuk'em. I'll take my guitar and go home. That's why record sales aren't growing anymore. They have the nads to grossly underestimate the taste of the rest of us in the quest for the quick teenager buck.

    It's all part of my rock and roll fantasy.

    • "it turns on my wife when I bang on the bongo's like a chimpanzee."

      Doesn't she find that painful? I know my last girlfriend would have never let me do that to her ;) :D.

      BlackGriffen

  • Vote with your money (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anonicon ( 215837 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:43PM (#3157465)
    It's the only thing outside of mass street protests that will grab both the entertainment industries' and Congress' attention, and this issue doesn't have enough social relevance yet for people to organize and fund protests.

    Go ahead if you want and write your representatives, I hope you enjoy the form letter they send back to you in 4-6 weeks acknowledging that lobbyists' money means more than your letter. If you're serious about making yourself heard, call your Reps offices and make an in-office appointment with all of the ducks lined up for your issue. That way when the Rep votes against you, you're more likely to take it personally and vote their butt out of office.

    Of course, bitching about this on Slashdot is absolutely the *BEST* way to fight this issue - so convenient, with karma points at stake to boot! Yea...
    • Yep, I meant "Vote with your money" as stop supporting these industries by either buying used CDs/DVDs or buying from independent artists. This is about the only effective thing the average person can do without much effort. Anything else besides talking about it and urging your friends to act too requires too much effort for a apathetic public.

  • Dreadfully Scary Stuff (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wire Tap ( 61370 ) <frisina AT atlanticbb DOT net> on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:45PM (#3157478)
    Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., threatened to launch another bill -- the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) -- that will mandate the inclusion of copy-protection technology in all digital devices.

    For more information on this terrible proposal, check out:

    http://216.110.42.179/docs/hollings.090701.html


    And if you want to fight it, check out:

    http://www.eff.org/alerts/20010921_eff_sssca_ale rt .html

  • Okay, (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know we're going to get a lot of posts, as usual, from Geeks saying:
    If it's ones and zeros, I can copy it.
    Now let me offer the following well-thought out response: "stfu, troll."
    I've responded to most of the last few articles Slashdot ran on this issue, but the trolls just seem to keep coming. Here is my definitive answer. I will merely link to it in the future.
    Big, Definitive Answer
    There has been a running assumption on Slashdot that because our current hardware/software is a combination that is open to external, or user-provided changes, hardware/software combinations by their nature necessarily are, and only outlawing these user-introduced changes can prevent them. ie there is no technology, only the law, to stop us.
    This is a false assumption.
    It is false in much the same way that it is false to say "Any lock that works with a key can be opened without it by a skilled enough lockpick using skilled enough tools. Therefore, it is only by hiding behind laws that we can expect to lock anything."
    Now, I'm not well-versed in the history of locksmithing, so I'll provide a software analogy: RSA.
    Now, this is a somewhat unsuitable analogy, because there is no mathematics, precisely none, that assures us there is any "one-way" discrete algorithm. But, for all intents and purposes, those who read slashdot know that by sending email run through GnuPG to a 1024 bit public key whose fingerprint has been privately verified with the receiving party, we can be assured that the party receives it and that no one else can look at the email, even if there is no law in the world preventing our ISP, and all mailhops along the way, from reading our information!
    This applies directly to the hardware/software "rights management" issue. A content corporation can be assured, based solely on technology, without a law in the world protecting it, that when it sells a license to person x to listen to music y, z number of times under conditions foobar, x cannot share y with anyone else, x cannot listen to y more than z number of times, and x cannot listen to y under any conditions other than foobar, no matter how hard it tries.
    In the past, trolls have said "if I can hear it, I can record it", and so today I will introduce you to a hardware/software combination that can never be overcome, and I will explain why not.

    Meet Tim.

    He is from the future, but don't let that bother you. Rather, be bothered by the fact that he is an eight foot tall hunk of gleaming metal looming
    over you, three tons of pure android-molded badness. Let me tell you about Tim.
    Tim is a Rights Management Solution. He is very smart. He recognizes people, situations, better than even you or I can, because he has more electrons whizzing around in his brain, and a greater experience database, than all human neurons that have ever existed combined. In fact he is, to the closest approximation, human. He gets paid. He has feelings. All that good stuff that comes from being based on a very human neural net. Now let me tell you about Tim's Job.

    His Job is to loom over you and extend to you two fingers. If you put your head closer, he'll stick these fingers into your ear. But first he'll make sure that there isn't anything fishy on you. he'll run you through a metal detector and x-ray you. If you pass, you can now have the pleasure of having Tim's fingers rammed into your ears, and you can listen to whatever y music you've paid for, unless you've passed a z number of listenings already. Tim is very good at making sure you meet condition foobar.

    Now let me tell you why Tim can't be disassembled, reverse engineered, or otherwise made a fool of. It's not because of laws protecting him. It's because he lives inside a Faraday cage (yep, that is, in part, what the eight feet of badass metal consists of), and he has been designed from the ground up to operate completely symmetrically. You cannot know what processing goes on by measuring any voltage within his body, and you cannot change the processing by changing any voltage. But you couldn't even if you tried: the moment the second layer of Tim's skin is penetrated, you will hear a screaming hiss and popping noise, which will be an indication of the chemical reaction that has just eaten all of Tim's internals. It doesn't matter, he doesn't mind: He'll get imaged onto a new body tonight from backup, and they'll just say: "Hi, it's 12 hours later than when you stepped into the imaging tube "just now", and it's because you died today. Sorry about that. The body you have now is new. Try to be more careful tomorrow."
    Anyway, that's the short story.
    I'll leave the readers to try to come up with a way of bypassing Tim's Rights Management Directive, but he's smarter than almost any of us, so it won't be easy. Easier is, I think, just paying for the goddamn music you want to listen to, and gettnig to a rent a Tim of your own for it.
    • A faraday cage can't prevent you from measuring voltages inside Tim. Faraday cages screen out external fields, not internal ones.

    • Tim (Score:2)

      by dmaxwell ( 43234 )
      Ever see what happened to Alex in Clockwork Orange. Tim's gonna love it when an army of geeks clamp him into the Chair Of Torture. He'll kiss our butts to get all the wires out of his head and for that matter.....I'm at work here....the special one connected to his.....
    • I'll leave the readers to try to come up with a way of bypassing Tim's Rights Management Directive, but he's smarter than almost any of us, so it won't be easy. Easier is, I think, just paying for the goddamn music you want to listen to, and gettnig to a rent a Tim of your own for it.

      Interesting metaphor. Tim will now be a standard fixture in my nightmares for the next few weeks.

      I think many legitimate music fans would rather not have Tim's masters drop an eight-foot-tall robot into their living room on the suspicion that they may be pirating their music. There's a point where rights management becomes so unwieldy and offensive that it's not even worth paying for music if it means having Tim watch over your shoulder. That's the point where many Legitimate Users either start becoming Competent Pirates or else get out of the game altogether.

  • Starve record companies, not artists. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by David Lightman ( 131925 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:50PM (#3157521)
    The solution is simple. Lots of musicians make their work openly available. Vote with your ears and dollars.
    Many people use Linux because they don't like the expense or anti-piracy policies of other options. Why not the same with music?
    One of the basic benefits to the Internet is that single voices can communicate to the world. Why, if I can read about Joe Schomoe's problem with Little City, Arkansas Traffic Court, can't we break free of this "you must pay tithe to big publishing companies for entertainment" mentality.
    Screw them. I can download more "non-major record label" music than I will ever be able to listen to.
    And for that matter, an MP3 player in my car is cheaper than XM radio, doesn't have commercials, and doesn't require a subscription.
    • I hope this gets modded up to a 5. It really pegs things down. I have little desire for most of the record label offered bands these days. I have a desire for the older bands (when they tried to cultivate something of a following...) and indie stuff. Now, if only there was a way to do movies and the lot in an independant manner that wasn't quite so expensive...
    • Many people use Linux because they don't like the expense or anti-piracy policies of other options. Why not the same with music?

      I'm comparing it to the software industry of the early 80s. Many big enterprises behaved like the music industry of today, introducing pay-per-CPU, pay-per-time, pay-per-data, pay-per-fart - to squeeze the last buck out of their customers. In 1984, some guy (RMS) was finally fed up and founded the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project, which we are using today, usually in its flavor GNU/Linux.

      IMHO it's about two or three years away from some "musical RMS" to found something like the Free Music Foundation. Some similar approaches are even existing today, but they are quite unknown. So was the GNU project in 1984. It will take some more time for musicians to "produce" Free Music via the Internet, as well as to make it public.

      One important obstacle - producing high-quality music with affordable equipment - has been solved with today's digital technology. Even with Free Software you can get some good results. Working on music via the Internet in the same way many people develop Free Software may even become superior to what the music industry is selling today.

      Another major point is distribution. You'll have to find listeners. The most important distribution media is terrestrial radio. But most radio stations won't play any stuff not obtained from the "official" media channels, except for some rare events.

      I predict that sooner or later one Free Music track will enter the charts and start a wave of artists bypassing the music industry. It will take about as much time as the GNU project needed to surpass, even to provide an equal or better alternative to its proprietary ancestors (what it has done today), but I'm quite sure within about 10 years Free Music will be as common as Free Software is today.

  • Aint it weird... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kizzle ( 555439 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @01:59PM (#3157576)
    Ever wonder why you can get in allot more trouble for downloading a CD than if you were to walk into a store and steal it?
  • Perhaps open software will be viewed as an act of terrorism (it takes "vital" monies out of the pocket's of BG and friends).

    I can see it now. The war on terroism as the FBI searches out the last remnant of the "GPL Conspirators"...[sigh]

  • New commercial: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:00PM (#3157584)
    10000% markup on crappy music: $20
    Two hour movie for the familty: $50
    Senator to protect an obsolete distribution channel: priceless? No, $264,534
  • As soon as copy-protected computers start to become available don't buy them, it is as simple as that. If the next version of Windows contains copy-protection (and you are a Windows user) - don't upgrade. Trust me, Intel, Microsoft, and others will quickly get the message. You should also encourage your friends to do the same.

    As mentioned in the article, the computer industry dwarfs the content industries, and Hollywood's argument that their product will be the driving force behind adoption of new technology simply doesn't hold water. There is a great article called Content is Not King [firstmonday.dk] that responds to this mythology.

    Most of us live in a capitalist society. Given that, the response to people trying to sell us this user-hostile technology should be not to buy it, and to make sure the manufacturers know we won't buy it so that they use their considerable clout to kill the SSSCA before it does any damage.

    • Joe Average out there upgrades his Windows anytime he upgrades his PC, and isn't likely to put in the effort to reload his 2-generations-out-of-date copy of Windows (that doesn't support some of the spiffy new hardware he just bought)...

  • DLS/CABLE (Score:2, Funny)

    by nexusone ( 470558 )
    "Hollings, who has received $264,534 in campaign contributions from the TV, music and movie industries since 1997, has attempted to argue that standardized copy protection is the key to encouraging the continuing rollout of broadband Net connectivity. According to this theory, customers won't sign up for DSL or cable Internet access if they can't get top-notch entertainment via their computers. But Hollywood won't make that content available unless it is confident it won't be pirated. "

    I guess it would not occur to him that is it possibly the COST of the service that is keeping people off of DSL and CABLE internet services!!!!
    • I know quite a few who use the Internet only slightly (and thus find dial-up access to be more than good enough). They have cited one and only one reason why they don't get into it more extensively. Hint: its /. icon was recently changed from a corporate trademark to a representation of an animal.

  • Keep this in mind (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Benjamin ( 558857 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:19PM (#3157730)

    According to a NYTimes editorial a couple of weeks ago, Napster had 90 million unique users at its peak. I don't know exactly how many of those were American, though I hear that the bulk of internet users in the world are American. I don't know how many of them are, or will be by this November, over 18, but considering that Napster was so popular on college campuses, I think we can assume that the bulk of them are or soon will be over 18.

    So maybe 45 million Americans of voting age used Napster. Maybe more. That's a larger number of people than the entire populations of African-Americans and Asian-Americans combined. (Check it out at www.census.gov [census.gov]).

    My point here being that this is an enormous block of potential voters who are saying, by means of their behavior, that they resist to some degree the current protections offered to copyright holders. (And I mean by this not just IP protection but also access to store shelves or radio play--try to get your music played on commercial radio without major label backing.) No politician would ignore the voices of a group of this size if it were an ethnic group, so why are they so damn inclined to side with the media companies here?

    I guess the answer is: we don't present a unified political front. But perhaps we should. Media companies already have too much power in this country.

  • The entertainment industry gets copying of content banned.
    This pisses off consumers, who paid for the content, and drives them to download cracked versions to actually use, while the paid-for version is just kept for the license.
    Consumers realize that the paid-for copy doesn't really do anything physically.
    Consumers start just downloading the cracked version.

    I don't think that this is what the content owners want, but it's what would happen if they got their way.

    -jeff

  • Grazed the point (Score:2, Interesting)

    by darthtuttle ( 448989 )
    This article simply grazed the important point in all this (IMHO), which is that the industry is attempting to make it illegal to own something which *could* be used for legal purposes. The law currently says that substantial noninfringing use is good enough not to be held liable for infringement, so they are changing the law, but lets see how the philosophy of this new law would work in the future.

    Handguns are illegal because they could be used to kill

    butter knives are illegal because they could be used to kill or at the very least commit battery

    cars are illegal because they could be used to kill

    alcohol is illegal because it could be given to a minor, which is illegal

    rope is illegal because it could be used to hang someone with

    The philosophy of this law points out the idea behind the statement "live free or die!" We might as well kill our selves because we are not living our own lives, we would be living the lives the media companies would want us to live, which is the lives that the major advertisers wants us to live. We would all be dudes owning Dells, drinking coke, wearing gap jeans, etc. This law should not be fought on technical grounds, but on philosophical grounds.
    • butter knives are illegal because they could be used to kill or at the very least commit battery

      They can certainly be used to commit buttery!

      You didn't really expect me to leave that did you? ;)

  • In about the second paragraph it started to refer to people as consumers. I hate this, I am not a consumer, I am a person and I resent any attempt to turn me into capitalist robot who consumes what he's told.

  • PUBLIC OUTBID (Score:4, Funny)

    by swagr ( 244747 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:32PM (#3157855) Homepage
    It seems the only way to get "heard" nowadays is with money.

    American public = 300,000,000
    * 50% on net = 150,000,000
    * 75% used mp3 = 112,500,000
    Assume that once in their lives each of these people will save $15 dollars, buy listening to an mp3 and realizing they don't want the album.

    These people have saved almost 1.7 billion dollars. If we used only 5% of those savings to "donate" to campains, that would be 84 million dollars worth of "speach" that would be heard.

    So in conclusion, send this money to me, and I'll get right to work.

  • Sealed Modules (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ebh ( 116526 ) <ed.horch@org> on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:34PM (#3157872) Journal
    Quoth Touretzky:

    "For example, instead of sending analog signals to your speakers, you send an encrypted stream of digital data, and the decryption is done in a sealed module built right into the speaker," he says. "Video is done the same way: Encryption is done in a sealed module built right into the monitor, so you can't bypass the encryption by tapping into the monitor cables..."

    Right. I guess he hasn't heard of a soldering iron. If the endmost device in the chain takes an analog input, like a CRT or speaker driver, then someplace there has to be an analog signal. Who cares if you can't capture an unencrypted bitstream?

    But before we get that far, I'm with the other folks who have said that when hardware comes out that enforces DRM, don't buy it.

    • OK, so later in the article he accedes to this. So why does his original quote make it sound like pushing encrypted digital signals as far down the signal path as possible would be a good thing from a DRM standpoint?
      • It's not about making copying impossible, it is about raising the PITA factor so high so that for the vast majority of users it is easier just to buy the damn CD/DVD than to copy it. Same as the principle behind most copy protection on software. If you work hard enough, you can probably get it to work illegally, but trying to learn or figure out how is too much trouble to be worth saving the money. Product Activation is a good example of this. It is far from perfect, but for MS it strikes a good balance of making the platform harder to copy and usability.

        Of course, so long as a small handful of the people on the internet can rip, the content will pop up. That is where these laws come in (DMCA, SSSCA). Anyone who would dare violate the RIAA/MPAA's precious pet laws and distribute material on the internet can get sued into poverty. Also, it can be used to scare consumers away from the free alternative.

        Software makers by and large have dealt with perfect copying a lot longer than the MPAA/RIAA and haven't gotten any huge breaks from the government similar to the SSSCA, and they are not all bankrupt. In any event, I have no plans to upgrade to any SSSCA-endorsed device in the future. I *might* have not worried about it if they had simply released the technology, but trying to buy a federal law to force me to do so pisses me off. The DMCA, UCITA, and SSSCA really need to go away. With all these laws in place you could kiss open source multimedia software goodbye in the US.... Hell, by the SSSCA Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MacOS would all become illegal unless distributers purchase licenses from MS (legally endorsed monopoly by the SSSCA thanks to DRM patents), and even then source could never be disclosed...
  • Assume the following:

    1. Regardless of any attempts by anyone to prevent it, reproduction of data will occur. No matter how good your copy protection, if I can play it, I can copy it. I can even reproduce it with an arbitrary fidelity approaching perfection by sampling it many times.

    2. Once copied, the data will proliferate in the wild. No law is going to make everyone agree on the ethics of the issue or behave with restraint. There will always be some people who want and will copy and share.

    If you assume these two items, the only way it seems artists will be able to gaurantee a certain amount of compensation for their efforts (something almost everyone unanimously agrees is necessary for w/out it we would see a great deal less effort invested in creating good art) is the ransom model.

    This will require most artists to "pay their dues" by producing some amount of good quality free music so that they become known as good artists. At some point, they will be able to propose a ransom for their next work.

    The ransom can be paid in any combination/way you like, 100 people willing to pay $10, 100,000 people willing to pay $1 and 200,000 people willing to pay a dime. Anyone can up their contribution anytime they like to speed release, but once the ransom is reached, the item is released into the wild.

    This also provides a direct means of observing the compensation and will allow a sense of fair play to enter the equation of compensation, whereas now compensation is sort of open ended and indeterminable. Sometimes inordinately large, and other times non-existant. Also, a reputation for honesty becomes important. If an artist stiffs the public with a POS, they'll remember.

    Chances are that if you can think of a problem with this system, with a little more thought you can think of a fix for that problem.
    • If you assume these two items, the only way it seems artists will be able to gaurantee a certain amount of compensation for their efforts (something almost everyone unanimously agrees is necessary for w/out it we would see a great deal less effort invested in creating good art) is the ransom model.

      Doesn't follow. You might as well argue that no-one should sell via retail because people shoplift. There's a perfectly sensible solution to problems with criminals -- lock up the criminals, or better, fine them to an extent where the fines make up for their theft. And charge enough that you can make enough money on the non-criminals.

      The ransom model doesn't work. Nobody wants to pay for vapor. If it was really a viable model, people would use it now. It isn't viable, it isn't what consumers want which is why it isn't used. The problem with the ransom model is that the only people who like it are those who don't want to pay anything. The problem is that the ransom model provides a disincentive to put money in. It's like a prisoners dilemma game. If you don't put money in, you always win, in all but the highly improbable case where your money makes the difference between meeting and not meeting the ransom. Pandering to freeloaders is not a good business model. No amount of wishful thinking on the part of the freeloaders is going to change the fact that the only good business strategies are the ones that ignore them.

    • I love the idea. Though I doubt we'll ever see such a proposal seriously considered, I think it'd be workable if it were designed carefully...

      The "ransom" should REPLACE the existing "time-based" copyright, with perhaps a short "minimum copyright time" (say, 5-10 years) that the artist could keep control of the work (if he/she wanted to) even after the ransom was met. There would have to be some sort of legal "cap" on the ransom to prevent "eternal copyrights" (i.e. "Okay, I declare the ransom on 'Song of the South' to be $50,000,000,000,000" says Eisner...), and the cap should be based on the GNP rather than an absolute amount (so that congress doesn't end up either shortchanging future artists or coming back and over-increasing the amount every few years) so that it automatically is in line with the economy without interference by congress) - some small fraction of a percent of the GNP.

      This would greatly encourage popular artists, who find they can rapidly get rewarded as they create more works that the public wants. Unpopular artists would still have plenty of time to try to get their work to be profitable (and still an "unpopular" work might be "bailed out" by a wealthy eccentric who likes it). And the public who pays for the organizations that write the laws and enforce copyright restrictions and so on get more material available for them...

      Not extreme enough profit for the distribution corporations that currently control the availability and use of "art", unfortunately, so it'd never show up in congress for debate, but it's a good idea anyway. (Though on the other hand, such a scheme would give Hollywood et al a way of better controlling and predicting the profits from a work, which I gather from their business perspective would be very valuable indeed...when they can tell their stockholders "we're due to release x films this year, which WILL be worth $y,000,000,000 in total..." they may be interested...)

  • I wonder if one could convincingly argue that current abuses of the DMCA amount to potentially illegal anti-competetive practices?

    I was thinking about the concept of "fansubs" (typically Japanese Anime' that is not being made available in English, which is being translated and made available by volunteer amateurs)...

    Realistically, the "amateur subtitles" ought, I think, to constitute "fair use" of the original copyright-protected work, so setting the potential "unauthorized derivative work" part of it aside, we come to the fact that someone who wants a "fansub" should really be legally buying an original from overseas, and adding the subtitles themselves. With DVD content, this shouldn't be difficult - just read the video stream from the disk and use e.g. "Transcode" to render the amateur English subtitles into the picture, and burn the result to either SVCD or DVD-R(?).

    Here's the important part - in the US, as I understand things currently, you CAN'T do this. For one thing, the MPAA's special "Region Coding" on DVD's means that conceivably, if I tried to import a "Regionless" DVD player to watch the original on, I'd be breaking the law (Region coding DOES constitute an "access-control device", evidently). In addition, although the "transcoding" of the legally-paid-for video mentioned above is blatantly obvious fair use, even if you can smuggle in a DVD drive that can read that disk's region, even POSESSING software that can decode the video for re-coding is illegal under the DMCA...

    The end result, as I see it, is harmful in two main ways - firstly, it of necessity deprives overseas filmmakers of US business for digital media, and at the same time it greatly limits US citizen's access to works from other countries...

    Two sides of the same problem - non-US filmmakers lose money and Hollywood is "protected" from the small amount of competition they might otherwise get from them, and US Citizens lose access to international "perspectives" on issues (i.e. the way movies from other cultures portray various things) because they can no longer find a reasonable, legal way of observing them. Somehow, this doesn't seem like a good way to maintain a mentally healthy, informed populace...

    (Conspiracy theorists may not reply with "they actively don't WANT a healthy, informed populace"...what's scares me is that I'm starting to agree...)

    Well, there's MY rant for the day...

  • By the time I read the article at 1:30, it had already been corrected [salon.com].

    Apparently, the atricle originally said that Felton was the subject of a DMCA-inspired lawsuit. It was corrected to say that he was merely threatened with legal action, and not really "sued".

    Does anyone else find it odd that the SDMI people (at least, I assume that's who it was) was able to get this correction put on Salon so quickly?

  • My letter-to-the-editor to Salon. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by coats ( 1068 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @02:56PM (#3158057) Homepage
    Salon says it likes editorial letters short and concise, so here's my reply to their article:
    Dear Salon:

    Congressional authority with respect to copyright, copy protection, etc, is set by the text of that Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution of the United States, which grants the power as follows:

    To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries...
    Note that restriction, "limited times." Such measures as those espoused by the existing DMCA and the proposed SSSCA are legal only if they satisfy the following two conditions:

    1) Protection MUST expire upon expiration of copyright; and

    2) Protection MUST be forbidden for non-copyright (i.e., public domain) materials.

    I do not see either of these conditions required in the existing DMCA nor the proposed SSSCA. Both of these acts are unConstitutional on their faces, and those Congressmen, Presidents, and judges who support them are lawbreakers who are violating their oaths of office.

    Sincerely,

    Carlie J. Coats, Jr., Ph.D.

  • From the article:
    Cianessi used a function of AudioGrabber to reset that start time to zero, and then was able to encode the music without a glitch.

    .... and later ...

    The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 makes it illegal to distribute or even discuss anything that circumvents digital copyright control.

    Do Cianessi violated the DCMA by getting around the CD copy protection. And by mentioning how Cianessi got around the CD copy protection, Salon has violated the DCMA. And by me mentioning that Salon mentioned how he got by the CD copy protection, I've now violated the DCMA. And if you tell your friends..... I think you get the point.
  • IANAL, but isn't there a Common law principle that if a party fundamentally breaks a contract that they cannot later sue the other party for any breach? I'm not sure if this is in US law.

    So how about if a publisher impedes Fair Use in any way, they are prevented (estopped) from enforcing copyright against those that circumvent these measures?

  • We Need DRM (Score:3, Insightful)

    by namespan ( 225296 ) <namespan.elitemail@org> on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @03:31PM (#3158358) Journal
    Some kind of DRM has to happen -- say, that's 75% effective or so -- or else the powers that be are going to keep pushing (using rampant piracy as an excuse) until the distopian vision is accomplished.

    "Good" (by which I mean, barely palatable) DRM might be:

    * Only required on devices/software whose sole purpose is media display/playback. This leaves an OS, for example, or a hard drive out, but a playback application or portable MP3 player in. It won't catch all piracy -- there might still be non-DRM players out there -- but lots of people would probably still just use iTunes and Windows Media Player.

    * Key distribution for DRM system(s) is ABSOLUTELY FREE. IE, we don't introduce any further artificial barriers to content distribution, and people can distribute their content freely, for free if they like.

    Of course there's still holes, and of course there'd still be piracy, but I think by and large content producers -- from RIAA to your Indie Label -- could collect a fee a little more often and most importantly would have much less to complain about

    I think the key problem here isn't piracy -- it's that RIAA and other content producers want absolute control over content and distribution. Piracy is an excellent ostensible excuse for draconian DRM measures like the SSSCA. Give the world reasonable DRM, and their case loses a lot of punch.

    • Of course there's still holes, and of course there'd still be piracy, but I think by and large content producers -- from RIAA to your Indie Label -- could collect a fee a little more often and most importantly would have much less to complain about.

      We gave them more time to monopolize their works in 1976.

      That wasn't enough, so we gave them even more time in 1998. We also enacted statutory royalties on blank media. They collect fees even when someone uses blank media for unpublished content, regardless of who has rights to it.

      That still wasn't enough, so we gave them the DMCA.

      Still not satisfied, they have put the SSSCA on the table.

      I see no reason to believe that they'd be satisfied with the SSSCA. The content moguls have so far refused to be satisfied with any concessions given them in the past. What makes you think they will be satisfied with any future DRM scheme?
  • They will be selling circumvention mechanisms. I love the bit about "sealed in the box" blah blah blah. "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor locked doors a barrier". I split open the box that contains the speaker or TV, and look what I find! The signal going in to the CRT/LCD/speaker is an analog signal! I simply whip up an analog to digital converter (can be done in software or hardware, all I need is a high speed voltmeter [a.k.a. an oscilloscope or lab interface like Vernier makes]), and voila! I have digital content back! I didn't circumvent anything, I just made an analog signal that was in the clear in to a digital one. If nothing else, I can set a microphone near the speaker and a camcorder in front of the screen. The content industry literally can not win! To successfully pull off what they want to do, they would need to make the U.S. in to a version of 1984, and that isn't going to happen. Just look at how well prohibition worked. All they'll end up doing is strengthening organized crime, which will ultimately be a bad thing.

    BlackGriffen
  • Unencumbered, six years from now a talented person will be able to create a full length cgi movie and soundtrack on their home PC and distribute it on the Internet. This is what Hollywood is afraid of.

    They are using money to convince congressmen that we the people are the enemy. It seems to be working. Hopefully this won't cause a revolution due to unhappiness as seen in my new .sig.

    Congress is failing the people by not encouraging the maximum transations in commerce. Such transactions in any non-essential market create an rock solid economic base in that market. Instead they are sacrifcing a large market to maintain a small one through brute force. This could be bad, very bad.

  • An Open letter to Jack Valenti and Michael Eisner (Score:3, Insightful)

    by epeus ( 84683 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2002 @08:14PM (#3160203) Homepage Journal
    From my weblog [blogspot.com]

    Jack, in your sneering Washington Post piece [washingtonpost.com] about copy protection, you refer to professors for whom '"innovation" is legalizing the breaking of protection codes'. Michael, in your testimony to congress [senate.gov] you badgered an Intel exec until he told you that file copying can't be prevented, then told him he must prevent it anyway.

    As you are evidently impervious to logical discussion, let me tell you a story.

    This is the story of a rebel, a war hero, a persecuted homosexual, and a deep thinker. His life reads like the plot of a far-fetched movie, but if anyone fits your bogeyman image of professors who break code, it is Alan Turing.

    In 1936 Turing published a paper on theoretical mathematics, in which he described the Universal Turing machine. It was a simple mechanism that could read symbols from a tape, and write back different symbols or change the tape's direction. He showed that with this general purpose machine, you could simulate any special purpose computing machine. He had invented the idea of the programmable computer.

    Between 1938 and 1945, Turing worked in great secrecy on computing machines that broke codes. These were the first real computers ever made, and the codes they broke were those used by the German Wehrmacht. Without his work, it is very likely that Britain would have lost the War in Europe before Pearl Harbour.

    After the war, in 1950 Turing published other famous papers that laid the foundation for modern computing, and hence all the digital gadgetry that you would like to outlaw for us (though presumably you'd keep the computers you use to edit and create effects for your movies). Turing died in 1954 by biting into an apple he had previously poisoned.

    What does this story have to do with you?

    Turing's Universal Machine means that you cannot have a software or hardware protection scheme that is secure. Whatever scheme you come up with can be simulated by another computer. The computer industry are not opposing your bill because they want to encourage copying, or because they are bloody-minded, they are not opposing you because of your self serving rhetoric about rewarding artists (remember Peggy Lee, Michael?), they are opposing you because what you want is provably impossible. You can only succeed by making all Turing machines illegal.

    If Alan Turing had made an animated film involving a poisoned apple in 1936, it would still have copyright protection. He chose a different path, and gave the world the idea of the digital computer. I know whom I repect more.

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