Anti-Piracy Labeling Bill in Works 303
Rinisari writes "Just posted on news.com.com is an article with more on the bill that could make all digital consumer products be required to be labeled with information regarding any anti-piracy technology within the device. Senator Ron Wyden, D-OR, will be the primary sponser of the bill (he's also got a text-only site)."
Nice, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
A happy medium (Score:5, Interesting)
But, simply by putting a label on the product that says "Restricts blah blah" people who wouldn't have had a clue will now at least have heard of copyright protection and digital restrictions. The more it's talked about, the more people will be judicious with their purchases, and hopefully we can see a happy medium balance itself out.
Sure, Mom and Pop won't know what the hell that tag means, but when us college students figure realize "hey, I can't download my music anymore?! WTF!!" sales of young-person-targeted devices (PDAs, MP3 players, sleek laptops, etc.) will drop if the restrictions are too high.
Now, if only we can get this through, fix the DMCA, and repeal the PATRIOT act...
Why isn't this guy running for president? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to add to that, I think it'd force companies to charge less money for restricted (I hate the word protection in this context) materials. I won't buy a Music CD that won't work in my computer. But if the restricted CD were say $5 less, well then I'd consider it.
It's a pity, these corps have a wonderful opportunity here to gain user acceptance of crippled CD's.
"We're doing this to thwart piracy in order to make our business more profitable. As a pre-emptive reward, we're lowering the price of our products. Support anti-piracy steps, and we'll pass some of the savings on to you."
Yeah, I know, it's not likely to happen. But a price drop for those particular materials would let people vote with their wallets. "So... we lowered the price of CD's and made more money, weird. But, this album isn't restricted and it made a greater profit, wow."
Re:It's really needed. (Score:5, Interesting)
iPod and similar devices are really the only way to go. You mount the unit like a file system, and just drag the files over. No re-encoding, no checking the files out. No DRM. Just ease of use and great performance. Sony realizes this, but because of their music devison holding them back, they are stuck with the crappy DRM hassleware.
Also, my Pioneer car deck plays MP3s without any crap. Burn the files onto a regular ISO9660 disc, and you're done. No special software. No proprietary formats. No hassles. I know Sony makes decks that play MP3s, but because of all thier DRM pushing, I would be very skeptical about buying one.
In short, because of Sony Music pushing for DRM, I am probably not going to buy Sony audio electronics again. At one time they were the best, because of Sony Music being scared of their own customers and forcing this lockdown, I'm not even taking a chance with Sony stuff.
Re:About time! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not protected everywhere. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Unfortunate, but understandeable (Score:3, Interesting)
The translation of his message is:
There's nothing inherent in the Senate email system that's going to keep him from responding if you're not from his state. He just doesn't want to hear from anyone who isn't in a position to vote for him.this topic keep coming up (Score:1, Interesting)
This topic(and related topics) keeps coming up. And I have to wonder...
Why is it OK for the music industry to take the lyrics from songs of which the copyright has expired, repackage that song into some CRAP(you've heard the songs..."Hey this is my favorite song...but, wait who the F*** is this!"), basically RIPPING a song into another FORMAT, then turn around and try to tell consumers, NO YOU CAN'T MAKE OGG OR MP3s out the songs that you BOUGHT even if it's for your own use. They sure haven't BOUGHT lyrics from songs where the copyright has expired!
hmmm...
Re:ANOTHER WARNING (Score:2, Interesting)
The idea of dying slowly from lung cancer in a couple of decades is a difficult thing to imagine. It's pretty hard to imagine yourself weak and frail and dying. Copying restrictions have a much more immediate effect. They run counter to our learned desire for 'convenience'.
'Hmm this cigarette is probably taking another hour off of my life. Oh well.' as opposed to 'Why the fsck won't this cd play on my pc? I've wasted a fscking hour trying to rip an mp3 from this damn thing.'
It's a nuisance, and people react much more to the small things they can immediately feel the effect of than the larger things they need to think about.
Re:Don't call it anti-piracy! (Score:5, Interesting)
While it does stop some fair use (depending on the technology), I think calling it "anti-piracy technology" is completely appropriate. That is what it is designed for, and the major task it accomplishes. Saying it isn't descriptive enough is like saying the alarm system on a car shouldn't be called an "anti-theft device" because it also stops the rightful owner of breaking in when he loses his keys. Nit-picking at terminology isn't going to help the actual battle.
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course you would, and so would everyone else.
Everyone would but copy-restricted CD's. The people who want to exercise their fair-use rights to make backups/spaceshift their media can't. Meanwhile the pirates will crack the copy-prevention and keep breaking the law anyway.
I could start watching DVD (Score:1, Interesting)
NR
Lessing is wrong and will be used. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Never in our history have fewer been in a position to control more of the creative potential of our society than now," Lessig said. "We have to buy them off, so they don't break the Internet in the interim."
Because the first statement is true, the plan will fail. Every major record label, and there are only five in the world, is putting in Digital Rights Denial. If you want to sell a non-major record in your store, the majors cut you off. So, what choice do you have? You look left, DRM, you look right, DRM. Now that internet radio has been shut down, Napster is dead, and the FBI will soon visit you for running P2P, you won't hear of anything but crappy major music. Not even the mighty Google can lead you to reasonable music can it? No, these lables will only dull you to the rights you have lost, make your kids think that it's right and waste time and money in general. The lables are going to be used for propaganda purposes. I can just imagine one now, "Copy Controled to feed our starving artist's hungry babies - Sharing is Stealing!". Every artists out there is going to love it when their five cent cut per sold CD is reduced to two cents to cover the cost of applying the lables.
You can't buy these bastards off, you can only avoid them. Buy used recodings, support local acts and turn the radio off. Oh yeah, that's what people have already started doing.
The internet has been broken already too. That's why "so few" people have so much control and I can't serve out of my house over the public network that being used by the local cable company. After all, if everyone could sever, word of mouth and Google would work for everyone including the artists who mostly would earn more money than they do now.
Re:Don't call it anti-piracy! (Score:4, Interesting)
Names are very important. Few politicians are brave enough to not vote for a bill titled something like "Special schooling spending for Kids at risk", while they would not vote for the same bill if it was called "Tax increase to spend more money on disruptive delinquent students than the entire rest of the class combined". In this case, if the name anti-piracy is attached to the technology, it makes it sound like anyone who opposes it is in favor of theft of intellectual property. That hardly the case and most Slashdot readers know this technology stops more legitimate uses that it stops any real piracy. Slashdot should not call such technology by a name that encourages it's legal support and enforcement.
Just one more step... (Score:2, Interesting)
There should be a LAW! (Score:2, Interesting)
Most laws, like this one, restrict freedom by requiring an entity either to do something (like file taxes or put labels on products), or not do something (murder, rape, pillage, etc). Many of these laws are good and neccessary, specifically the ones that are against one person directly harming another, or limiting their freedom. I'm glad murder is illegal.
But forcing people to put labels on things for this reason is going too far. It doesn't matter whether it's for explicit lyrics, or a particular copy-protection scheme, or whatever. Just because I personally think that "explicit lyrics" are okay and copy-protection schemes are bad doesn't make this law better than the other. They are both reducing freedoms further than neccessary, and the WRONG way to go about solving problems. Sure, it's the record companies' freedoms, not the consumers', but you can't have a double standard about these things, otherwise you look like a hypocrite.
This isn't nutritional information, it's not like people have allergies and could die if they don't have this information. This is like the helmet and seat-belt laws... Yes, it's a good idea to wear helmets and seat belts and not to smoke pot, but No the government shouldn't try to make everyone comply with their idea of good, especially since there's no clear way it hurts other people. You generally can return something if it's defective, or it offends you.
If you want to legislate something that will help, make a law that creates a allocates resources to increase awareness of these issues. Create a "COPY PROTECTION FREE" sticker that they can voluntairly put on their CDs, and an ad campaign that informs people about the crappiness of copy protection. These things are non-invasive, they don't force people to do or not to do anything, and they educate people, which is the RIGHT way to go about doing things. And this doesn't even require legislation, anyone could form an organization to do this.
-If