EMI and Sony Lose Lawsuit Over Crippled Music Disks 407
neves writes "A brazilian consumer has sued EMI and Sony, and won! The reason was a copy protection technology in the best seller album "Tribalistas" that didn't play in his car. You can read about it in Folha de São Paulo (babelfish translation here), brazilian biggest newspaper. They must be very afraid, since EMI vice-president defended the company himself in a lawsuit involving less than US$ 350,00. A more detailed report is in my music site Agenda do Samba & Choro (babelfish here), where we release some of the lawsuit files to make it easier for others to sue them. Since last year, we are calling for a boycott (babelfish) of copy protected albums. The companies appealed, and said that they will take the case to the Supreme Court, because it is a 'question of principles'. The consumer is sueing them again, because all new EMI albums in Brazil are being released with copy protection and won't work in his car."
Re:I wonder how effective this will be... (Score:2, Informative)
I didnt realize the only things that matter
in the world happen in the US.
Worldwide fight ? (Score:5, Informative)
you can read the complete article at : http://linuxfr.org/2003/06/26/13036.html/ [linuxfr.org] (in french)
Re:Tribalistas sample (Score:1, Informative)
Re:is US$ 350,00 a lot of money, or a little? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:is US$ 350,00 a lot of money, or a little? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:is US$ 350,00 a lot of money, or a little? (Score:2, Informative)
hmm brazillian $1,000 dollars is what was awarded
using this [xe.com]convertor i get
345.639 USD
Re:Limitations of USian capitalist model (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I wonder how effective this will be... (Score:5, Informative)
Sec 103 of the DMCA amends Title 17 of the U.S. Code to prohibit circumvention of a technological measure that effective controls access to a work.
It then goes on to define the relevant terms thusly:
"(A) to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure 'effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work."
Re:What is the Legal Framework of the Judgement ?? (Score:5, Informative)
Put the CD on a Mac (I'm running OS X) and 2 partitions are mounted: The first one with the 'player' used to play the disc on Wintel PCs, and the second one with the audio tracks. Drag them to the desktop and... voilá! Instant rip!
Re:Tell the artist directly (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Under US Law (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously, can the editors do their jobs please (Score:2, Informative)
The music pigopolists are now referring to 'Music Disk' so they don't get caught on a technicalilty about redbook CD standard compliance, and loosing their case before it starts - misrepresentation is bad when consumers complain.
The courts should then say something about such protected music. Royalties are lowly taxed for works of art, that also infer certain rights to the owner. If protected, then the product becomes a 'product', and FULL taxation should apply - as its not a royalty thing anymore.
Now the Misic Co's could withdraw all redbook CD sales from Brazil, but then the consumer could serve a letter of demand off the music company to supply, and after a couple months of waiting (inability to supply) make or purloin his own copies.
You wonder why the Brazillian minister does not hint 'You treat us as a third world country flogging adulterated product, and you had better expect us ONLY to enforce action against like goods sold in YOUR country' - ie blind eye mode to crippled CD knockoffs.
With good reason too. It will cost a shitload of foreign currency to supply every Brazillian with an old CD player, with a new 'Music' player for the next 40-50 years. National pride issues at stake too.
In principle, 'not of merchantable quality' 'unfit for use' sping to mind under the British sales of Goods act. They guy should also ask for an 'injunction' restraining publication of 'noncompliant music disks.
Re:Why this is a dangerous precedent (Score:3, Informative)
Languages and dialects (Score:3, Informative)
"Brazilian" is a language mutually intelligible with "Portuguese".
To many linguists such as Dr. John McWhorter (author of The Power of Babel, ISBN: 0716744732), "a language" and "a dialect" are synonymous. Defining "language" as a set of mutually intelligible dialects fails because mutual intelligibility happens on a gradient. It's possible for A and B to be mutually intelligible, and so B and C, and so C and D, but not A and D. Chickasaw and Choctaw "languages" are mutually intelligible but called separate "languages" because they were spoken by nations with separate armies when they were first recognized by linguists of European descent. The reason English is a "language" and Ebonics is called a "dialect" is that Ebonics doesn't have a department of defense behind it.
The executive branch couldn't stop the DMCA (Score:2, Informative)
Like other bipartisan bills, the DMCA and the Bono Act would have passed even if then President Clinton had vetoed it. Both bills passed each house by a voice vote, which takes 80.1 percent of each house. (The Constitution provides that 20 percent of either house can force a full vote in that house.) Overriding a veto takes only 66.7 percent of each house.
Re:Under US Law (Score:5, Informative)
Laissez faire? Not in USA (Score:3, Informative)
Several replies to this article have mentioned the US's laissez faire capitalist system. It isn't. Capitalist, yes; laissez faire, no.
If the US system were laissez faire, then the government would keep its bought-and-paid-for hands off the economic system. We would have a Free Market system, which is at its core a laissez faire system. It means keep your hands off and let the marketplace decide what products and companies survive, and for how long. Capitalism is not synonymous with a free market, nor is a free market needed in a capitalist system. Actually, they are incompatible.
Folks, the Republicans don't want a free market or anything resembling 'laissez faire' approaches to capitalism. They want what the Democrats want, a system that favors their big-money supporters. The only difference is who those supporters are.
Please, when you bandy terms about, at least have some idea of how to use them in context, and how the real world works.
Have a nice war,
Mal the Elder
Re:No Logo (Score:2, Informative)
They are totally failing to understand 2 things. First being that the public is damned tired of hearing a song on the radio, liking it well enough to go buy the album with its other 17 tracks of pure trash filler on it, and then finding the cut they bought it for and finding that cut is a totally different mix of what is probably a different recording session and it too sucks.
Second, while I appreciate that we need new blood behind the mikes to keep things going, the overall emphasis is so lopsided against the more seasoned, and therefore probably more expen$ive artists that the old standards who still can draw a sellout crowd anytime they step up to the mike, cannot buy airtime or an album contract for any kind of money.
Those two effects have caused a serious reduction in the overall quality, both sonicly and artisticly, of whats in the bin at dear old wallyworld, so noticeable that the last few cd's I've bought, were ordered on the network, from artists who wouldn't touch the RIAA with a rifle bullet. And they're making a bit of money doing it. Go check out Janis Ian's site. Its a good example, and right decent music even to this old farts CW trained ears.
Of course if they get sued, the only defense they could possibly offer is insanity. There seems to be more than enough of that to go around these days.
I'm repeating myself of course, but whatever happened to good old honesty? It seems to be about as extinct as the dodo bird today.
--
Cheers, Gene
Re:DRM data on non-DRM systems (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think you know what DRM is. It is a form of copy protection which uses encryption and tracking data to make sure you can only copy or use the "product" as many times as the "creator" wants. Since when has DRM been used without encryption?
How would your triangle shaped CD work? Even if they have a serial number on it, not everything is connected to the internet to check how many times it has been played. Is there an area which is writable? If so, the players are going to be damn expensive because they need to have a CD-RW burner capabilities as well, otherwise it wouldn't be able to track copies/plays.
Obviously. DRM doesn't work with normal audio CD players. DRM is a completely different thing and requires special players.
I think you are confusing DRM with various other forms of copy protection (like many on slashdot). DRM (in terms of music) is meant as a replacement to mp3s, except the DRM system will make sure you only have one copy at a time. The big labels supposedly want it so they can sell music on the internet and allow "consumers" to download the song, transfer it to a portable player's memory, and take it with them. All without being able to give multiple copies away, and the song may expire after a certain number of plays. No CDs involved.
One of the problems is it will be bundled with secret programs. If you read some of the news stories and press releases about it, they plan to bundle in censorship software to delete "unauthorized copies." Who is to say they won't delete a smaller competitor's work? No one except the DRM maintainers will know why it disappeared. They'll also need to read people's files to do this. Who is to say they won't use the information they gather against competitors or to blackmail people?
Re:Limitations of USian capitalist model (Score:3, Informative)
1) We are going to discuss Canada policies.
2) We are going to discuss Canadian policy.
The first would mean that we are going to discuss our policy about or towards Canada(maybe we want to punish them for letting people smoke pot or something). The second means we are going to discuss the policies promulgated by and within Canada (maybe we want to discuss ways they've implemented their foreign policy). Two different meanings, two different forms of the word to denote those two meanings. It is more precise and eliminates ambiguity and vagueness.
Re:Under US Law (Score:3, Informative)
De-Jure yes. I wish Europe was as enlightened in this respect.
De-Facto no. You have fair use, until you use it.
One university I attended, New York University, is under a very strict settlement with the major book publishers because they were sued agreesively by them. After many of the professors named died of heart attacks, presumably from the stress, NYU settled out of court. They now have an office that licenses excerpts of texts for use in the classroom and prevents professors from using outside copying services. Some professors do use Kinkos for their own unpublished books, but this is seen as an act of civil disobedience. A friend of mine has worked in licensing at MTV(Viacom) and Rolling Stone and EVERYTHING goes there, the concept of free use is ignored in part because even a frivalous lawsuit is costly. Remember this is the country where the guy who designed someone's garden sued the makers of the Batman movies because they only got the owners permission to use the garden. The reason they blur people's T-Shirts on the "Reality TV" shows and all the furnature looks bland in the USA is not because they don't want to give anyone free advertising, but because they couldn't get the permissions. Even their Tech "News" segments on have to get the manufacturers permission.
You're freedom of fair use ends when you are first sued, either because you have money or because you are a thorn in someone's side. If the company that owns over a third of the broadcasters in the USA can't can't practice fair use, the teacher in the classroom can't copy an essay, and campers need to license campfire songs there isn't much left to the doctrine of fair use.