DOJ Drops Online Music Antitrust Investigation 102
JOstrow writes "On Tuesday, the Justice Department ended a two year long antitrust investigation into the online ventures of the music industry. The assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, R. Hewitt Pate, was quoted, 'Consumers now have available to them an increasing variety of authorized outlets from which they can purchase digital music and consumers are using those services in growing numbers.' What took off a lot of the heat was pressplay (now Napster!) and MusicNet changing their services to allow songs to be transferred from machine to machine."
Just use irate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Antitrust (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not a crock of crap - it is reality! (Score:5, Informative)
Not so. In the United States, although antitrust action is usually civil, unlike most other countries it is also a criminal matter. Check out the American Antitrust Institute's Primer on US Criminal Antitrust [antitrustinstitute.org]. The Sherman Act of 1890 provides criminal penalties for antitrust violations. In addition to fines, prison sentences of up to three years are possible.
Contact Information (Score:3, Informative)
And for your convenience, Mr. Pate's phone number. [usdoj.gov]
202-514-2401
Re:What a crock of crap (Score:5, Informative)
Yet another case of our Republican administration yanking the leash back to reward their favorite corporate donors.
Ummm...the music industry gives primarily to Democrats. Check it out [opensecrets.org].
Re:Antitrust (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the US is a Republic, rule by elected representitives. Yes, "Democracy" is also used to cover Republics, but I want to highlight that distinction for a moment...
[some people have] too much power; but most people complaining don't even try to do anything about it.
Actually it is a genuine problem. There is an inhernet flaw or bias in the system. A flaw recognized by the courts, a flaw that the courts in some areas have stepped in to correct. There is an imbalance between small highly focused intrests and large but diffuse public intrests.
Our elected representitives generally try to do the "right thing", but they are busy and they can't be experts on every subject they face. Small highly focused interests, like the publishing industry, can invest a lot of money and work in drafting and lobbying for a law. In 1976 we had a massive overhaul of our copyright system. That law was written by "experts" - copyright lawyers. But those copyright lawyers paid by and were working for the publishing industry. There was some input from other focused intrests such as the American Library Association, but there was no one involved working to represent the public's intrests.
The public domain benefits everyone, but just a little bit. Fair use benefits everyone, but just a little bit. The public intrest is a diffuse intrest. There is no one at the "bargaining table" to even mention the public's intrests, much less argue for them.
Remember, the 600-odd legislators are not copyright experts. They are taking advice from experts. The legislators even aware of the public's intrests because no one involved mentioned them.
The Digital Millenum Copyright Act was also almost entirely written by the publishing industry's lawyers, but they did have to negotiate with lawyers representing. While the ISP lawyers did fight some of what the publishing industry wanted, they only did so to the extent of covering the ISP's collective butts. The publishing industry was able to get pretty much anything they wanted once they allowed ISP's a way to get immunity from lawsuits. There was no one at the bargaining table to argue that the system was severly broken, there was no one at the bargaining table to argue the public's intrests. The issues were never raised. The legislators just took the advice of the "experts" who were at the bargaining table.
There is an inherent bias in our legislative system that strongly favors small focused intrests at the expense of large diffuse intrests. The large diffuse intrest goes completely overlooked.
So yes, now publishers have unduly benefited at the expence of the majority you now wind up with that majority complaining. It still only has a small impact of each individual so it's difficult to hire an army of lawyers and lobbyists to go fight at the barganing table in Washington. Some some efforst are being made, and some legislators are beginning to hear the complaints.
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I don't know what [copyright] really should be.
Much of the "common knowledge" about what copyright is or should be has come from the publishing industry itself.
If you turn to the Founders of the Constitution, and to the Constitution, and to the Supreme Court, then you get a very very different picture of the actual legal basis and purpose of US patent and copyright law...
copyright is about limiting the control of what you have created... making sure that you lose control of your own work, to the benefit of the people.
No, that is the exact opposite of what copyright is.
According to the Founders of the Constitution, and the Constitution, and the Supreme Court, all such creations are "owned" by the public. Authors have absolutely no inherent right to any control. You probably think those are radical statements, but I can provide links and quotes from the Supreme Court and the Founding Fathers to if you doubt m