Sony Adds New Copyright Method to CDs in 2003 630
Natoi writes "Sony is leaving Mac and **nix users out in the cold with their new copyright method called Label Gate CD copyright system. You'd have to be running Windows and use a Sony developed proprietary software to listen to CD's published by Sony starting next year." This seems a little extreme to me, since sitting at the computer just to listen to music is stupid. What about car stereos and high-fidelity CD players?
Not CDs (Score:2, Insightful)
whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
We're just going to hack it.
Sincerely,
The Mac and *nix Community
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy (Score:0, Insightful)
Why is it that the music industry just does the stupidest damn things...
Correction: (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... Shouldn't that read "Sony will be removing functions from music CDs?"
What you are seeing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time to get the power of the music back to the artists and the listeners, from profitering bastards!
Revolution!
Right... (Score:1, Insightful)
Another Excuse (Score:4, Insightful)
I use my music CD's in my computer... (Score:2, Insightful)
I use my computer to create .ogg [xiph.org] files of the CD's I have here. When I start my computer, XMMS starts playing, and I like having constant music.
Another thing I do, is create backups from my CD's (after a tip from another Slashdot reader). That way, I don't have to be afraid of scratches, since I always have my original CD.
These are examples of fair use - if a company limits our rights to fair use, can we sue them then? IANAL, bue maybe one of you is (poor you, of course...)
What are they thinking (Score:2, Insightful)
Time to stop buying Sony then surely? (Score:1, Insightful)
With their stupid "lock the CD/DVD drive" ideas and now this
I'm sure it won't be long before the software mentioned in the article moves from being software to being firmware of the CD/DVD drive/player.
So if we all stop buying Sony's CDs, it'll result in one of two possibilities:
(a) Sony enters more financial problems
(b) Sony drops the idea
Here's favouring the latter
decss part two? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you argue that it makes it too easy to copy their work, well, then what they have is an unworkable business model. It's like sheet music. For the really big orchestras who are playing the works of composers who are under copyright protection, they have to buy expensive scores. High-visibility = doing it the right way. This would be equivalent to using music in movies and games and such. On the other hand, if you're going for private lessons, and you need a copy of the blue bells of scotland, the prices of the real thing are going to be cheap enough to make it not worth the trouble of copying it from someone else. This is equivalent to consumers and cd's.
Believe me, I'm all for protection of intellectual property. However, when protection just isn't possible without harassing researchers, threatening consumers, and forcing us to get our songs in a crippled format, it's time for our government to say: "Good luck with that whole music industry thing, you're on your own."
Re:It plays in Cars and CD Players, too! (Score:2, Insightful)
"Free world" (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and this will be hacked within a week of its' release. The data can probably be intercepted somewhere in the soundcard on the way to the speaker...
I Give Up (Score:4, Insightful)
-aiabx
What the industry wants... (Score:2, Insightful)
The sad thing is, too many people will just shrug and go "OK then", and sit there and be fed third-rate entertainment, have ads forced down their throats, and not notice or care while all their rights are taken away one by one
Re:Just Desserts (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait, yeah.. I remember that big petition that passed around the US on fidonet, then via fedex that we all signed stating we'd rather give up years of perfectly good research and development of audio standards that have reached a point in which they allow citizens to develop and trade their most important cultural language, music. I think I remember signing something waiving my rights to food as well. sheesh.
pm
Copy right? Or Use Limiter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whatever Sony is doing with DRM should not be tied by our language to copy right. It Should be DUM instead, because it is managing our USE, and because it is indeed DUM.
What about Playstation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Terminology (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a copy protection system.
Copies vs originals (Score:3, Insightful)
But with all this crap they are pushing into the printed cd's, it is going to be a good policy to just avoid them and trust the copies.
If you come across a copy of a music cd, you know that the person who copied it made the effort to remove the restrictions placed on it.
Therefore in the future, there will be less trouble with copies than with original discs!
Also, an album downloaded from the internet will have more value that a original one because it will play everywhere once you burn it!
I think this is gonna backfire on them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not CDs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Correction: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not too big of a surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's make sure that Sony feels the pain in other markets.
not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Remember the DeCCS and Dmitry Sklyarov debacles? Although "someone will hack it," good luck disseminating it and staying out of jail.
The industry does not view these laws as symbolic, and has the lobbying power to see them enforced. There will always be an underground, but it will be economically insignificant, far smaller anyway than the currently easy piracy any high schooler can pull off.
What about ripping from the audio stream, is that illegal too?
It would still be legal under "fair use." But a copyright violation, such as selling the music, would still be a copyright violation, as it damn well should be IMHO (not all artists are rich). Enforcement is not impossible -- for example, Napster; P2P is just farther underground -- but very difficult, like it is now. I doubt it will be long before P2P software is attacked, if it has not already (I don't know).
*
I don't think stealing will work. Stealing is not civil disobedience, anyway, it's just taking what you want because you want it. Piracy is no noble protest. Surely there are better ways, more open ways of protest.
The best that occurs to me, aside from lobbying Congress (ha!), is to boycott the companies, declaring we want fair use back. It's the oldest rule of capitalism: Vote with your feet. If imposing copy protection schemes results in making less money, the industry realize its error a heck of a lot faster than any amount of criticism or lawbreaking. (They'd rather be rich if unpopular.)
The great Slashdot Alarmists (Score:5, Insightful)
They're putting restrictions on their product, we find it inconvenient. 1) don't go flying off the handle and claiming we can't play their CD's on anything but our PC's, and 2) don't act like some fundamental God-given right has been raped away from you.
It's a product inconvenience, making the product less desirable. The free market always solves these problems in the end. If loss of sales due to these features offsets the sales they're allegedly losing due to P2P, they'll drop it. That's all.
Calm down. You don't have some basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music.
Re:whatever. (Score:3, Insightful)
We're just not going to buy your shit at all.
Limiting who can use your stuff = recuding sales by definition. If they make it impossible to use it, people aren't going to buy it. Music piracy has nothing to do with it.
Re:whatever. (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, don't the record labels dislike the thought of MS having a monopoly in DRM systems?
Re:whatever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, at this point consumers have access to so many CD players, not to mention extraordinarily large CD collections (one friend of mine has approximately 900 CDs and growing), that it would be a huge transition. If not an all-at-once thing, surely it'll take them a decade or so.
Even if they DO create a format that, magically, won't allow itself to be digitally reproduced - what's to stop audiophiles from recording and encoding the output stream?
This whole undertaking just sparks of an abortive effort. They attack Napster, a hundred other P2P networks spring up in its place. They create encrypted CDs that can only be played in "{company} approved" devices, and by the release date over 100k people already have the entire contents of the CD. They create DRM on their CDs, people buy a $5.00 cable from their local Radio Shack and circumvent it.
I wonder just how long the record labels are going to survive before they figure out that they, not just their technology, are obsolete.
Re:This sure makes me want to be a Sony consumer (Score:1, Insightful)
for once, this actually sounds REASONABLE (Score:4, Insightful)
now this allows the cd to be played in normal dumb cd "players" as well as on a PC while still accomplishing their goal of making it tougher than a normal cd to rip to mp3 and trade.
so, except for the fact that most people actually like trading music for free, it sounds like a pretty good plan.
as an addendum, I will add that I wrote a couple really nasty letters about prior anti-pirating technology because of the 6 players I own, only 1 was capable of playing those protected disks because all others are either in my PC's or are $500+ head units in cars!
Could have told you this. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:millions who've bought MP3 players (Score:5, Insightful)
I have simply stopped buying ANY CD until the corrupt CD are all properly labled and not sold on the same shelf as red book CD's. Then I may go back to buying red book CD's. If I can't put them in by MP3 jukebox, I can't use them. I'll just be forced to use alternitive sources for MP3's.
Re:not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like copyright, "vote with your feet" and buy only from artists who don't impose copyright. Of course if they waive copyright, why buy in the first place. Just copy it from the internet -- you'll be 100% legal and the artists 100% poor. And then you can sense the problem; unlike free software, the artist will have no second chance at distribution or consulting fees.
Well, I forgot live performances, certainly a viable reason for distributing free music. But not everyone goes in for the grueling work (some are dead, or can't sing any more, like Bob Dylan). Many think writing, composing, and recording songs is work enough
I'm being a little tongue-in-check, but I do see two parallel debates here, one spoken and other subliminal. My idea of progress in the recording industry would be a bigger cut to the artist (current about 50 per $15 CD), a greater variety of alternative low-budget music, and lower prices to the consumer.
Re:whatever. (Score:3, Insightful)
How many Joe Schmo consumers do you know who have mod-chipped their set-top DVD players with DeCCS? How many people can use "backup" copies of their X-Box games without being kicked off the X-Box live service? How easy and realiable is it (even for us 1337 slashdotters) to get full-length DVD-quality video rips off P2P services? Is this worth your time?
We are reaching the point of dimishing returns, and "they have the technology".
It'll backfire on them... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Shell out $$$ for protected CD, run into trouble.
2. Store refuses to take it back, claims it's not broken
3. Find mp3 (or ogg or whatever, let's not get int that) on internet, burn a 100% plain vanilla RedBook-compliant Audio CD.
4. Enjoy music.
5. Lesson learned: Next time, skip steps 1 and 2.
6. Record companies complain about increased piracy.
7. Even more protected CDs come out
8. Goto 1 (Basic anyone?)
And, unlike CSS, this isn't really a copy protection. This is just a crude hack to use different ways of interpretating a CD to make life difficult. Sometimes I wish CD-manufacturers would just give us the raw output of the CD, complete with lead-ins, lead-outs, only providing the error data but doing no error calculation of its own. With all the data, and a software ripper that could fix whatever tricks they pull, maybe they would realize just how pointless this is.
Kjella
Put down your mouse, pick up your guitar!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
You may even score with a real woman, not some digital recreation.
Re:not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it does seem dumb, something recognized by public-key encryption: if you rely on a discoverable key for security, you're vulnerable, and passing a law saying "don't look at my key" is pretty futile.
The copy protection is irritating, and so bad business. MP3 recorders are big business, and a lot of people won't realize their new CD's are "defective" until they get home, and they'll be pissed. So I tend to think these schemes will die as economically suicidal. Or I hope so. I find it as offensive as that fscking FBI copy warning I'm forced to watch at the beginning of a DVD -- who thinks that makes a difference to a pirate? Well, the industry does I guess.
I also don't like the precedent of these enforcement mechanisms -- heavy-handed is an understatement.
What about computer obsolescence? (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article. Like all the DRM schemes I've seen to date, it still doesn't deal with my biggest question: What happens when my computer gets old?
A computer, over its useful life, can accumulate thousands of dollars worth of digital rights. Bought at $1 or even $20 apiece they don't seem like much, but it all adds up. When my computer gets old (or eats its hard drive), and I buy a new one, how do I transfer those rights which are specifically designed to be non-transferable? Am I violating the DMCA by even trying?
Do DRM keys survive a backup/restore? How about a disk-to-disk sector copy?
Think of it in today's terms: You go out tomorrow and buy a new computer. Before you can boot it for the first time, you must call the RIAA. They send a truck around that picks up your entire CD collection and takes it away to be crushed.
And if the stuff you like isn't popular enough, and the record companies haven't decided to keep it in print, forget about ever getting your hands on it again. Oh well, you'll always have your memories.
DRM is new now, but we should be discussing what happens when it matures. Until someone invents a key ring technology for digital rights, I'm buying nothing with copy protection.
Re:Extraordinary Claims Require Coherant Evidenden (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Are you partly saying because Sony manufactures hardware and the copy protection, it will be picked up and implemented?
No, the other way round. I'm saying that hardware sells anyway, and Sony, due to their presence in both the music media and music device industries can use influence in one to help out the other.
2. Which SPECIFIC horizontal markets are you talking about, and WHY are they the way to go?
Music. From distribution, through music hardware to normal pc hardware to copy protection software.
3. If Microsoft supports everything off of Windows sales, are you saying Sony will support everything off thier CD sales???
No, the other way round. CD sales are the endangered market at the moment, with sales dropping off. Artists are going to start losing money, and they don't want that at all. So if Sony can offer then better royalties by signing the to record on Sony copy-protected media, they will be happy. And to listen to the music we will have to buy the Sony hardware, making Sony a profic on both sides of the fence, and helping to keep the CD sales afloat.
4. What does your Conglomo link mean? It looks like a fan website. HOW does this tie into Sony?
Never saw Rocko's Modern Life then?
5. A Record label offers them more? What's them?
artists. more money.
6. What's the blank before "Profit. Massively."?
I included spoilers in the original post... that bit with the '*' on it..?
Basically, I am trying to point out how Sony is aligning itself to play the music market, both in terms of media and electronics, by the prodution of this closed copy protection mechanism, and how throwaway comments like 'the recording industry is scared shitless' are shortsighted and naive. Large companies have clever people in them that devote all day every day to planning a successful future for their company, and people shouldn't throw out their 5-minute's-worth-of-thought opinion like it's God's Own Truth.
Does that help?
Mac/Unix users (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish Sony all the worst and am glad my CD collection was "completed" when I got pissed off at the ridiculous prices several years ago.
But hey guys, clean up your act and I'll rush out and spends
Re:not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:5, Insightful)
This hasn't worked because the industry just blames the loss on people stealing their music and goes on to get more and more mind boggling legislation and implement more crummy copy protection schemes, which like all copy protection schemes inconvenience legitimate users more than they prevent the theft of copyrighted materials.
In my opinion, companies which produce digital media of any kind, cd's dvd's, software, etc have really only a few choices left to them, they can invest in copy protection methods, they can lower the cost and increase the quality and variety of the product they sell, or they can as some software companies seem to do and as the dvd standard certainly did, increase the size of files to a point which effectively limits anything but personal exchanges of burned media.
The first option, which is the one which most companies are likely to pursue is, quite admitedly, a poor option in the long term, not only does it trample on fair use(which they don't like anyway), but it alienates consumers and isn't sustainable in the long run without legislation so draconian it makes the DMCA look like a fluff law. It is however the option which is easiest and cheapest "now", and many the digital media industries may think that in the future they can either create a truly uncopiable media, or that they can get the legislation they need.
The second option, is of course the option which most everyone would prefer, but it is the most difficult to achieve. Lowering costs would involve cutting into profits, and investing in ideas which weren't just derivatives of previously successful groups, or just flashy with no real substance is a risky investment. Personally I strongly believe, as has been posited by other groups, that if digital media, particularly software which is much more expensive and much harder to determine if you actually like it in advance, would sell much better, and get a lot more people willing to take risks on untried products if it were sold at a lower price. This method, which is pretty much the only sustainable option, is very difficult "now", and as such will probably never be implemented by the digital media industries.
The third option which I firmly believe people are actually doing, is just too ludicrous to sustain, and so I won't comment further on it.
Re:whatever. (Score:3, Insightful)
Joe Schmo, on the other hand, will get pretty fed up with having downloaded the latest Harry Potter flick, only to discover that for the seventh time, he has downloaded an old bootleg filmed with a tripod with an audio track that sounds worse than AM radio and doesn't stay in synch with the video.
I fail to see where I mentioned games, but you bring up another good point. With DVD/PVR becoming more commonplace (OK, PVR is a stretch), who is to stop them from automating "software updates" in the interest of "security"? Granted, this would require an internet connection, but whose to stop them from making deal with cell phone companies? Mod chip your DVD player and you void your "service contract".
On second thought, maybe we should stop discussing this.
Doesn't affect me (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember when Tapes were about USD 10 and CD's were USD 12? It made sense, CD's were new, and in theory should last forever, plus their quality and portablity was far better. But then CD's were 13.99, then 14.99, then 15.99, then 16.99, and now an average CD not on sale is about what, 18 Dollars? Cd's have gone up in price faster than inflation, at least that was what one of my fellow students discovered and reported in his honors Econ Project last year. So what do I do to price gauging corperations? Don't buy their products. Now if a system ever comes online that promotes a fair price to download music, I would use it. Say USD 1 or even 1.50 a song. Hell I know people that pay 1.5 pounds for a ringtone on their cell phone. So that's not asking much. The biggest mistake the RIAA made was going after Napster instead of working with them to produce a viable solution for music on demand.
I maybe buy 1 CD a year. Although some times I buy CD's from organizations that use the money, like the Madison Scouts Drum Corps because I am wierd and like that type of music and from personal Drum Corps expirance I know they provide a good community service. So I get some music I like AND help the community, score +2.
Re:Mac/Unix users (Score:2, Insightful)
The argument that small market share contenders don't matter has been refuted repeatedly. It will cost them less to translate to the new platform than they would lose in revenue; plus the software helps undermine demand for piracy and legal changes.
Regardless, I, a Mac user and indirectly a Unix user (OS X), feel snubbed.
Re:not so fast to dismiss the law (Score:3, Insightful)
The weird thing is... Some people will risk going to jail, and know the risk they are facing.
vicious cycle (Score:2, Insightful)
Less people buy.
Record companies cry thier profits are down.
More restrictions on cd's.
Immature (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on what you mean by matures; attitudes towards DRM don't seem particularly "mature" to me. Short of turning every western country into a draconian state with no freedom to do anything `unapproved' with a computer (including all those embedded ones) - a lot of hard work if you ask me - the music and film industries will *never* be able to change things back to how they were before.
'Mature' DRM would exploit new media, not attempt to suffocate it (current DRM technology just reflects these attitudes). But I think there are too many vested interests in the old way of doing things...
Until someone invents a key ring technology for digital rights, I'm buying nothing with copy protection.
I'm not doing that either. I'll just wait until someone cracks the protection and get a copy of that instead. More useful for me, but no money in that for Mr.Sony (*sob*! Just picture the faces of his ickle kiddies when there's no food on the table- remember, MP3 KILLS CHILDREN. JUST SAY NO.)
Sony can go to hell until they stop trying to charge me 10 times to listen to 1 CD where *they* want me to listen to it.
Re:This sure makes me want to be a Sony consumer (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no you're not. However, you areviolating copyright law. Big, big difference.
Re:whatever. (Score:2, Insightful)
Music is not an commodity product. (Score:3, Insightful)
What free market?
You seem to be under the illusion that music is an undifferentiated market where all the products are interchangeable like wheat or crude oil. This is known in economics as perfect competition. Sadly, it doesn't happen in most real-world products people buy. The market for music is an imperfect competition, and it's hardly an open market right now.
Instead there is an oligopoly controlling music currently. All it takes is for the major members of the RIAA to band up together to introduce a scheme like this (which they are all in the process of doing) and 99% of the music you hear on the radio will only be accessible via this format.
Then what? Where does your average consumer get their Christina Aguilera, their Faith Hill, their Enimem, etc.? What competing publisher publishes the particular artists and even whole genres that they like? No one does. There isn't a wide variety of sources from which to get an artist's song that you like. Oh, if you're "indy," you can go underground to the local artist from your city, but 90%+ of the population likes what they hear on the radio, and what they hear on the radio is what the RIAA pays independent promoters to have them play.
So what if people buy less CDs because the TCO is higher? As long as they pay the same total amount of money, the RIAA is doing well. Heck, it even saves them money because they don't have to promote nearly as many artists if fewer CDs will make them more money through pay-for-play arrangements. The masses will continue to "vote with their dollars" to pay for these schemes when they're the only source of music that they like. The "free market" will decide this one for us because that market isn't truly free.
You're right on one point. It's not a basic humanitarian right to listen to popular music. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be upset about being forced to pay more for goods while their utility decreases. It may not be "some fundamental God-given right," but it's certainly not fair and just treatment. It's someone making like a tinge less enjoyable for millions of people to greatly profit a few. It's like spam that way. The level of inconvenience that one person suffers is inconsequential, but the level of inconvenience that the total mass of affected people suffers is inexcusable -- especially when it's all done just to pump money out of people with providing them any benefit.
Re:Read the article before posting (Score:3, Insightful)
"Copied music on a hard disk drive can be transferred to audio devices that comply with SME's OpenMG digital rights management (DRM) technology for a number of times set by the music company."
So this means that only 'audio devices' that use SME's OpenMG DRM tech will be able to play the music, which was downloaded to them from a PC.
Sounds like a PITA to me.
I hope the technocrazed Japanese find this too much of a PITA as well and that sales of the CD like things are bad so that Sony decides not to continue using this technology.
Re:for once, this actually sounds REASONABLE (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows XP Media Center Edition? (Score:2, Insightful)
XP Media Center? Hello? It's not like they put the words MEDIA CENTER in the name of the operating system or anything. Car stereos and high-fidelity cd players will eventually all run microsoft--if microsoft has their way. And it looks good to sony too, if microsoft can squeeze pc users with their iron grip of copyright protection and digital rights management.
Re:whatever. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bingo. I could care less if they go back to some format that can't be digitally ripped straight to MP3. Shoot, I even kinda like LPs.
We're kinda spoiled, being able to rip CDs at 48x speeds. People have been copying music for years without that luxury (ever buy a dual tape deck? high speed dubbing?). As long as I can hear it, I can record it, and as long as I can record it, I can distribute it.
The one concern I have is if and when systems like Palladium turn our computers into closed systems that will not play media that hasn't been 'certified' and programs that aren't 'trusted'. At that point digital distribution of copied music become a little trickier. We can always count on a handful of hackers (or audiophiles) to create easily distributed versions of media, but if the average Joe's machine is under SCPA lockdown, well...if you're microsoft, would you choose to 'trust' an OGG-based player?
Ric
"...bulldozing everything down to make room for what was a byzatine a labyrinth a knotty mess of manifolding passageways a tangle of confusion where the walls made an asylum of baroque"
Re:This sure makes me want to be a Sony consumer (Score:2, Insightful)
No, you are not stealing, or breaking copyright law. Borrowing CDs from the library and making copies for personal use is perfectly legal.
Libraries have been given the right to lend CDs and videos in court cases. Copyright law only covers the distribution of copyrighted material. There is an explicit statement in copyright law that "This law does not apply to individuals using home consumer audio recording equipment to make copies for private use".
Not out in the cold. (Score:3, Insightful)
What this scheme will do is make it harder for computer-illiterate young girls (Teenage guys can figure out anything on a computer, so I stick this on the girls.) to rip the latest top 40 hits and share them on P2P networks with all of the other file swappers. This will leave the music being shared on the systems of clueful users, making obvious supernodes that the record companies will be able to hack once they are given vigilante privileges by the US government.
Re:But they're giving the music away anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as the 128kb MP3s that are typically shared around on p2p networks go, I agree with you. However, cd audio ripped on a Plextor with cdparanoia and then encoded with a LAME preset like --r3mix is another kettle of fish altogether. I doubt most people could tell difference between those and the original. That is as long as things aren't the way so-called Golden Ears like them. They don't things that contribute to objectivity like double blinded testing. They have to absolutely see the hand built tube amp to KNOW they have quality.
NewtonsLaw is right, most mp3s that are traded around sound like FM radio taped onto a cassette. I did it when I teenager. What are they getting excited about? Oh yeah, that's right. They tried to kill cassettes too.
Take a step back here (Score:1, Insightful)
Think about it, they did NOT make ANY music, the artists did, and they're getting the money that should go to the artists directly.
Blkdeath has almost exactly right, the technology isn't obsolete, but the industry is. The process of recording sounds made by the artists onto a physical media to be sold is no longer necessary for the consumers to get the music.
If the recording insdustry was smart they would create a subscription or otherwise fee based P2P network.
They are only hurting themselves.. (Score:2, Insightful)
They only going to end up "shooting themselves in the foot".
Re:Dear Sony... (Score:3, Insightful)
After reviewing your letter, something dawned on me. You can keep your media, your $25.95, and your humble $95 billion company. I want no part of it. I will immediately cease purchasing any products from Sony or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries. You see, I figure that there is at least one enlightened competitor in the marketplace that can offer a reasonably-priced product with a reasonably fair licensing policy, and it is this competitor that will gain my loyalty as a consumer. While it's obvious that you see customers as a right, and not a valued resource, hopefully my actions will serve as a reminder that this reasoning is seriously flawed. Your competitor may offer a more limited selection, but I value my freedom far more than I value your product.
Sincerely,
John Q. Consumer
Copyright != Copy Protection (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm suprised this mistake was not caught. The article has nothing to do with a new copyright system, which is a legal fiction. The article is about a new copy protection/restriction system.
This appears to actually be part of the copyright cartel's plan. First they twist the meaning of Pirate to include bootlegging, now copy protection becomes copyright, giving it a whole new outlook.
It's not the DRM that bothers me, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
For a comparison, look at say, a VideoDisc (them big old record-like things). There's no way you'd ever confuse it with a VHS casette, and as such, not really expect it to work similarly. This, it looks like a CD, is marketed similarly to a CD, fills a similar niche to a CD, yet strangely isn't a CD.
If you want to do a DRM format, make it very different. How about the size and shape of a British two-pound coin? This benefits you in several ways:
1. Completely new and potentially propriatery player base, no need to worry about some old equipment designed in a way that can look through your attempts to maintain compatibility and DRM in one disc. I can easily see them giving away free DRM-disc players, perhaps with the purchase of some number of discs, to buy market share.
2. No problems with people returning "broken" discs because they thought they were CDs that work properly.
Consumers also win because they can make intelligent purchasing decisions, and not have to guess if a disc will work or not; it also allows them to see the true effect for them of DRM (because market penetration will probably never be 1000%, you'll probably see both CD and DRM-D releases together, and be able to compare sound quality and price.
Re:whatever. (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider the alternative (no pun intended). A local band, touring in a few states has a growing fanbase. They make most of their money from shows and their shows create word-of-mouth marketing that might allow people to find their music on P2P, but more likely, fans (*not* just listeners) will want to get the music for themselves since its easier than trying to find the one copy of the song on Gnutella. Even if the band has enough popularity to have multiple songs floating around, they have a FAN base not just a LISTENING base.
RIAA's music companies business is obsolete and completely so. They should realize that the easiest way to keep themselves in business is to create more markets, not try to retain control over the mega-market. More bands, more choices, more music and more FANS, not just listeners. The one thing I know about people who only listen to top 40 bands is that they don't give a shit about music -- it's pleasant noise -- and they don't care about taking it for themselves (it is free on the radio after all). The music companies could provide an incredible service to people by acting as a conniseur (sp?) and directing people to music that they might like rather than acting as a filter and keeping thousands of musicians from their potential fans.
The RIAA says this argument is about artist's rights, and yet they do not believe that every artist has the right to be heard (or more importantly, marketed). This argument is about the status quo and because the record companies don't realize that, they will continue to try to retain control of the mega-market while other information networks crop up around them to feed the small markets. Think about it, does Sony release innovative ambient, electronica or alt country? The mere existence of these small genres bares the point out. These markets are getting fed in innovative ways -- I have never spoken to an electronica artist or a DJ who has a problem with being listed on a P2P.
MTV and the RIAA created the mega-market and the video star. Internet killed the video star.
____________
Re:What about computer obsolescence? (Score:2, Insightful)
A. Will never actually substantially stop piracy because you can always violate the protection.
B. It is a nightmare for honest folks who do pay, which makes DRMed products inferior to non-DRMed ones.
We all went through this back in the early 1980's with software. If you recall, back then there were copy protection schemes all over the place and in the end it became obvious that A&B above were both true. The solution to this (which I don't hear often enough!) is for the media companies to start actually selling content in a usable format unencumbered by stupid DRM schemes and that will do two things:
1. Start making them some money so they will not see the digital media world as an entire threatening thing, but a profit center instead.
2. It will devastate piracy operations by removing substantial numbers of people (particularly the ones who would otherwise not mind paying for media) from pirate systems. Right now there's no alternative to piracy, so people become pirates.
Of course they could then go after the big time piracy outfits and be attacking the actual pirates rather than otherwise honest folks who just want to get the goodies but are not allowed to do it legally.
The only question is how long it will take the media companies to figure out A&B above. The software industry figured it out in a couple of years. Let's hope it doesn't take them a couple of decades.
Who will use that, and how ? (Score:1, Insightful)