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Music Media Your Rights Online

Napster Court Date Set For October 2 216

DaHat writes: "According to Maximumpc.com the trial of Napster vs the RIAA is set for October 2nd, or at least round 1 of it." And just so we're clear on terms, DaHat points out that the MPC story goes on: "The RIAA has even been so kind as to educate the masses on the different terms used for illegal distribution - From the RIAA Web-site: 1. Pirate recordings are the unauthorized duplication of only the sound of legitimate recordings, as opposed to all the packaging, i.e. the original art, label, title, sequencing, combination of titles etc. 2. Counterfeit recordings are unauthorized recordings of the prerecorded sound as well as the unauthorized duplication of original artwork, label, trademark and packaging. 3. Bootleg recordings (or underground recordings) are the unauthorized recordings of a live concert, or a musical broadcast on radio or television. 4. Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy may now also include certain uses of 'streaming' technologies from the Internet."
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Napster Court Date Set For October 2

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  • by geekd ( 14774 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @05:54PM (#814759) Homepage
    Lets have a "work boycott" of the RIAA and the MPAA.

    No geeks take any jobs with any member company of either group.

    If they want to be so hostile to us (sueing Napster, Mp3.com, 2600, etc) then lets not work for them.

    Let's see how well they do as companies when thier tech level stays mid 1990's.

  • Hmmm.... Sounds kinda like Animal Farm. Keep changing the terms, then state that they were always that way.
  • by The Man ( 684 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @05:55PM (#814761) Homepage
    Walk the plank, arrrr! 'Tis a watery grave for ye swabs, arrr!

    What a crock of shit. I hope Napster and the RIAA both burn in hell. Piracy indeed. It's simply a license violation, a civil matter between the violators (not Napster, but the users) and the licensor (not the RIAA, that's for damn sure - usually a label).

    Ban FTP; it can be used to illegally distribute stuff!

  • If streaming is bad now what happens when the RIAA figures out how to charge us for it will it all of a sudden no longer be illegal despite the fact that the artists will still see little to no money for their hard work?
  • It seems to me that having more geeks at those companies might actually be a benefit, since they could encourage theyr employers to take a more progressive view of the music/film industry. IE, suggest that they have pay per download mp3 files. I think that many people download mp3's not because they don't want to pay for the music, but because it's far more convenient to just download it than to drive down the the store and buy it.
  • by SagSaw ( 219314 ) <.slashdot. .at. .mmoss.org.> on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @05:58PM (#814764)
    Ripped-Off: An individual forced to pay more for a CD than a casette (even considering any possible differnce in manufacturing cost)

    Harassed: Individuals who excercised their right to the free expression on an idea by linking/posting the DeCSS code

    Bottom-Feeding Scumsukers: Lawers for the recording and motion-picture industries

  • Before you charge somebody with *anything*, you have to clearly define the charges. That's all the RIAA is doing. They are not looking down on people and trying to teach people lessons like little children, as the article implies.

  • > may now also include certain uses of 'streaming'
    > technologies from the Internet."

    them internet pirates be smart, they be...

    arrrr...
  • well, if they can sue Napster, why the hell aren't they suing everybody who's ever created a device for making a duplicate of something. I find it fascinating that during the Industrial Revolution the ability to duplicate things was considered progress, and today it is considered a danger.

    kick some CAD [cadfu.com]
  • Hey... how come i can't download all of your songs from your website? Only "some" of them? And why are they only available in Real G2 format and not mp3 (except they're not actually available as .rm files either, but that's besides the point)? And what's up with copyrights and trademarks on your website? Trademarks and copyrights are just forms of IP that need to be abolished, aren't they? Lastly, I can't even find any of your music on Napster, why's that? Napster doesn't seem to be doing that great of a job to promote new artists, are they? Catch my drift?

    I do see that you've got some songs available from mp3.com, but for all intents and purposes, mp3.com is a label, just like all the others. Except they don't provide cash advances, and they give larger percentages of royalties as a result. In the end, Napsters the leech... which is why the labels have mostly turned their sites towards them...
  • by CynTHESis ( 196082 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:03PM (#814769) Homepage
    So if I go to a concert with a recording device, copy the music to an mp3, then post a picture from the record on the site and make the mp3 freely available I would be a bootlegging counterfiting online pirate?
  • Bite my Napster [napster.com]!

    But seriously, if these guys are going to ignore technology and try to fight progress, they're going to end up losing, no matter what the courts say. A ruling in their favor will only strengthen my resolve.

  • The fact is, this doesn't really matter a whole lot. Napster can lose, who cares. Opennap will take over.
    Nobody cares about piracy, and this won't stop anyone from getting MP3s. I have Napigator. So stop me. You can't.

    Nobody really cares about the legalities of it, and we all know it's piracy. Who cares? I just download a million songs, it's fine with me, it's free.

    Music for free.

    People without computers, or without large brains, will still buy cd's.

    So I will still Nap mp3's and burn them and sell them. Do you want to sue me? So? I don't much care. Try and stop me, and my friends, and the billion other people in the world that don't care about you trying to maintain your source of income.

  • by Thauma ( 35771 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:04PM (#814772)
    Well lets see Radio is ok, but shoutcast isn't? hmm I always thought radio was just a differnt streaming medium. A single broadcast that anyone cas tuen into at any time.

    I wonder when it will be illegal to do personal rendition streaming (AKA Singing...)
  • by redelm ( 54142 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:05PM (#814773) Homepage

    Am I wrong, or is the RIAA trying to write-out fair use? I had always thought that recording a broadcast off the radio [or TV] for personal, private purposes was considered fair use! Wasn't the Betamax case all about just this?

    And now the RIAA is trying to tag FAIR USE with the slur of "Bootleg Recordings". I cry foul.
  • Duh... They're not saying that the technology is bad, only the use of it to illegally distribute copyrighted material without the knowledge or consent of the copyright owner. RealPlayer is an obvious example of a use that is perfectly valid, even in their eyes. There are plenty of uses for streaming of non-copyrighted material, or for distribution in ways that fall under "fair use". (Internet Radio broadcasts come to mind.)

    --
  • by revscat ( 35618 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:09PM (#814775) Journal

    You know, I would really like to see some discussions from IAAL types on what can be done to change IP law so that situations like this do not arise again. IMHO, the economic model which has given rise to the RIAA is outdated. This is not a Katzism, it is simply a fact. Peer-to-peer sharing is here to stay, and without totalitarian rule overseeing every file transfer, it cannot be stopped. This leads to only one conclusion, as far as I can tell: fundamentally changing IP law. This would involve pain, certainly.

    The analogy to buggy whip manufacturers in the early days of automobiles is apt here, I think. I fear their lobbying power, however. Should they be vindicated in the halls of Congress, it will be to our collective injury and a further erosion of our liberties in the name of profits and corporate self-interests, which are not, again IMHO, all that important in the long run. Should the members of the RIAA go belly-up five years from now, the economy and the Republic will continue to thrive.

    - Rev.
  • "if someone in your family dies and you inherit their CD collection, you'd better pay up, because you didn't pay for those CDs, your chilling-in-the-dirt relative did."

    I don't think so. Those CDs were already paid for by the deceased when they were alive. If the RIAA wants to argue this, then you can tell them to kiss your @$$, since they are asking for money that they already have.
  • by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:14PM (#814777)
    Napster was just too easy a target. Regardless of the rightness of it all, Napster provided a single convenient target for litigation.

    The sooner we get to true distributed file sharing (freenet - just try shutting it down!), the better. Napster will hold an interesting place in the history of media, but I think thats going to be the extent of its legacy.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    /*
    * Copyright (C) 1999 Derek Fawcus <derek@spider.com [mailto]>
    *
    * This code may be used under the terms of Version 2 of the GPL,
    * read the file COPYING for details.
    *
    */

    /*
    * These routines do some reordering of the supplied data before
    * calling engine() to do the main work.
    *
    * The reordering seems similar to that done by the initial stages of
    * the DES algorithm, in that it looks like it's just been done to
    * try and make software decoding slower. I'm not sure that it
    * actually adds anything to the security.
    *
    * The nature of the shuffling is that the bits of the supplied
    * parameter 'varient' are reorganised (and some inverted), and
    * the bytes of the parameter 'challenge' are reorganised.
    *
    * The reorganisation in each routine is different, and the first
    * (CryptKey1) does not bother of play with the 'varient' parameter.
    *
    * Since this code is only run once per disk change, I've made the
    * code table driven in order to improve readability.
    *
    * Since these routines are so similar to each other, one could even
    * abstract them all to one routine supplied a parameter determining
    * the nature of the reordering it has to do.
    */

    #include "css-auth.h"

    typedef unsigned long u32;

    static void engine(int varient, byte const *input, struct block *output);

    void CryptKey1(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key)
    {

    static byte perm_challenge[] = {1,3,0,7,5, 2,9,6,4,8};

    byte scratch[10];
    int i;

    for(i = 9; i >= 0; --i)
    scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]];

    engine(varient, scratch, key); }

    /* This shuffles the bits in varient to make perm_varient such that
    * 4 -> !3
    * 3 -> 4
    * varient bits: 2 -> 0 perm_varient bits
    * 1 -> 2
    * 0 -> !1
    */
    void CryptKey2(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key)
    {

    static byte perm_challenge[] = {6,1,9,3,8, 5,7,4,0,2};

    static byte perm_varient[] = {
    0x0a, 0x08, 0x0e, 0x0c, 0x0b, 0x09, 0x0f, 0x0d,
    0x1a, 0x18, 0x1e, 0x1c, 0x1b, 0x19, 0x1f, 0x1d,
    0x02, 0x00, 0x06, 0x04, 0x03, 0x01, 0x07, 0x05,
    0x12, 0x10, 0x16, 0x14, 0x13, 0x11, 0x17, 0x15};

    byte scratch[10];
    int i;

    for(i = 9; i >= 0; --i)
    scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]];

    engine(perm_varient[varient], scratch, key); }

    /* This shuffles the bits in varient to make perm_varient such that
    * 4 -> 0
    * 3 -> !1
    * varient bits: 2 -> !4 perm_varient bits
    * 1 -> 2
    * 0 -> 3
    */
    void CryptBusKey(int varient, byte const *challenge, struct block *key)
    {
    static byte perm_challenge[] = {4,0,3,5,7, 2,8,6,1,9};
    static byte perm_varient[] = {
    0x12, 0x1a, 0x16, 0x1e, 0x02, 0x0a, 0x06, 0x0e,
    0x10, 0x18, 0x14, 0x1c, 0x00, 0x08, 0x04, 0x0c,
    0x13, 0x1b, 0x17, 0x1f, 0x03, 0x0b, 0x07, 0x0f,
    0x11, 0x19, 0x15, 0x1d, 0x01, 0x09, 0x05, 0x0d};

    byte scratch[10];
    int i;

    for(i = 9; i >= 0; --i)
    scratch[i] = challenge[perm_challenge[i]];

    engine(perm_varient[varient], scratch, key); }

    /*
    * We use two LFSR's (seeded from some of the input data bytes) to
    * generate two streams of pseudo-random bits. These two bit streams
    * are then combined by simply adding with carry to generate a final
    * sequence of pseudo-random bits which is stored in the buffer that
    * 'output' points to the end of - len is the size of this buffer.
    *
    * The first LFSR is of degree 25, and has a polynomial of:
    * x^13 + x^5 + x^4 + x^1 + 1
    *
    * The second LSFR is of degree 17, and has a (primitive) polynomial of: * x^15 + x^1 + 1
    *
    * I don't know if these polynomials are primitive modulo 2, and thus
    * represent maximal-period LFSR's.
    *
    *
    * Note that we take the output of each LFSR from the new shifted in
    * bit, not the old shifted out bit. Thus for ease of use the LFSR's
    * are implemented in bit reversed order.
    *
    */
    static void generate_bits(byte *output, int len, struct block const *s)
    {
    u32 lfsr0, lfsr1;
    byte carry;

    /* In order to ensure that the LFSR works we need to ensure that the * initial values are non-zero. Thus when we initialise them from
    * the seed, we ensure that a bit is set.
    */
    lfsr0 = (s->b[0] << 17) | (s->b[1] << 9) | ((s->b[2] & ~7) < < 1) | 8 | (s->b[2] & 7); lfsr1 = (s->b[3] << 9) | 0x100 | s->b[4];

    ++output;

    carry = 0;
    do {
    int bit;
    byte val;

    for(bit = 0, val = 0; bit < 8; ++bit) {
    byte o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1; /* Actually only 1 bit each */ byte combined;

    o_lfsr0 = ((lfsr0 >> 24) ^ (lfsr0 >> 21) ^ (lfsr0 >> 20) ^ (lfsr0 >> 12)) & 1; lfsr0 = (lfsr0 << 1) | o_lfsr0;

    o_lfsr1 = ((lfsr1 >> 16) ^ (lfsr1 >> 2)) & 1; lfsr1 = (lfsr1 << 1) | o_lfsr1;

    #define BIT0(x) ((x) & 1)
    #define BIT1(x) (((x) >> 1) & 1)

    combined = !o_lfsr1 + carry + !o_lfsr0;
    carry = BIT1(combined);
    val |= BIT0(combined) << bit;
    }

    *--output = val; } while (--len > 0);
    }

    static byte Secret[];
    static byte Varients[];
    static byte Table0[];
    static byte Table1[];
    static byte Table2[];
    static byte Table3[];

    /*
    * This encryption engine implements one of 32 variations
    * one the same theme depending upon the choice in the
    * varient parameter (0 - 31).
    *
    * The algorithm itself manipulates a 40 bit input into
    * a 40 bit output.
    * The parameter 'input' is 80 bits. It consists of
    * the 40 bit input value that is to be encrypted followed
    * by a 40 bit seed value for the pseudo random number
    * generators.
    */
    static void engine(int varient, byte const *input, struct block *output) {
    byte cse, term, index;
    struct block temp1;
    struct block temp2;
    byte bits[30];

    int i;

    /* Feed the secret into the input values such that
    * we alter the seed to the LFSR's used above, then
    * generate the bits to play with.
    */
    for (i = 5; --i >= 0; )
    temp1.b[i] = input[5 + i] ^ Secret[i] ^ Table2[i];

    generate_bits(&bits[29], sizeof bits, &temp1);

    /* This term is used throughout the following to
    * select one of 32 different variations on the
    * algorithm.
    */
    cse = Varients[varient] ^ Table2[varient];

    /* Now the actual blocks doing the encryption. Each
    * of these works on 40 bits at a time and are quite
    * similar.
    */
    for (i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = input[i]) {
    index = bits[25 + i] ^ input[i];
    index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse;

    temp1.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; }
    temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0];

    for(i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) {
    index = bits[20 + i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse;

    temp2.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; }
    temp2.b[4] ^= temp2.b[0];

    for(i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp2.b[i]) {
    index = bits[15 + i] ^ temp2.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse; index = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term;

    temp1.b[i] = Table0[index] ^ Table2[index]; }
    temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0];

    for(i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) {
    index = bits[10 + i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse;

    index = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term;

    temp2.b[i] = Table0[index] ^ Table2[index]; }
    temp2.b[4] ^= temp2.b[0];

    for(i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp2.b[i]) {
    index = bits[5 + i] ^ temp2.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse;

    temp1.b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; }
    temp1.b[4] ^= temp1.b[0];

    for(i = 5, term = 0; --i >= 0; term = temp1.b[i]) {
    index = bits[i] ^ temp1.b[i]; index = Table1[index] ^ ~Table2[index] ^ cse;

    output->b[i] = Table2[index] ^ Table3[index] ^ term; }
    }

    static byte Varients[] = {
    0xB7, 0x74, 0x85, 0xD0, 0xCC, 0xDB, 0xCA, 0x73,
    0x03, 0xFE, 0x31, 0x03, 0x52, 0xE0, 0xB7, 0x42,
    0x63, 0x16, 0xF2, 0x2A, 0x79, 0x52, 0xFF, 0x1B,
    0x7A, 0x11, 0xCA, 0x1A, 0x9B, 0x40, 0xAD, 0x01};

    static byte Secret[] = {0x55, 0xD6, 0xC4, 0xC5, 0x28};

    static byte Table0[] = {
    0xB7, 0xF4, 0x82, 0x57, 0xDA, 0x4D, 0xDB, 0xE2,
    0x2F, 0x52, 0x1A, 0xA8, 0x68, 0x5A, 0x8A, 0xFF,
    0xFB, 0x0E, 0x6D, 0x35, 0xF7, 0x5C, 0x76, 0x12,
    0xCE, 0x25, 0x79, 0x29, 0x39, 0x62, 0x08, 0x24,
    0xA5, 0x85, 0x7B, 0x56, 0x01, 0x23, 0x68, 0xCF,
    0x0A, 0xE2, 0x5A, 0xED, 0x3D, 0x59, 0xB0, 0xA9,
    0xB0, 0x2C, 0xF2, 0xB8, 0xEF, 0x32, 0xA9, 0x40,
    0x80, 0x71, 0xAF, 0x1E, 0xDE, 0x8F, 0x58, 0x88,
    0xB8, 0x3A, 0xD0, 0xFC, 0xC4, 0x1E, 0xB5, 0xA0,
    0xBB, 0x3B, 0x0F, 0x01, 0x7E, 0x1F, 0x9F, 0xD9,
    0xAA, 0xB8, 0x3D, 0x9D, 0x74, 0x1E, 0x25, 0xDB,
    0x37, 0x56, 0x8F, 0x16, 0xBA, 0x49, 0x2B, 0xAC,
    0xD0, 0xBD, 0x95, 0x20, 0xBE, 0x7A, 0x28, 0xD0,
    0x51, 0x64, 0x63, 0x1C, 0x7F, 0x66, 0x10, 0xBB,
    0xC4, 0x56, 0x1A, 0x04, 0x6E, 0x0A, 0xEC, 0x9C,
    0xD6, 0xE8, 0x9A, 0x7A, 0xCF, 0x8C, 0xDB, 0xB1,
    0xEF, 0x71, 0xDE, 0x31, 0xFF, 0x54, 0x3E, 0x5E,
    0x07, 0x69, 0x96, 0xB0, 0xCF, 0xDD, 0x9E, 0x47,
    0xC7, 0x96, 0x8F, 0xE4, 0x2B, 0x59, 0xC6, 0xEE,
    0xB9, 0x86, 0x9A, 0x64, 0x84, 0x72, 0xE2, 0x5B,
    0xA2, 0x96, 0x58, 0x99, 0x50, 0x03, 0xF5, 0x38,
    0x4D, 0x02, 0x7D, 0xE7, 0x7D, 0x75, 0xA7, 0xB8,
    0x67, 0x87, 0x84, 0x3F, 0x1D, 0x11, 0xE5, 0xFC,
    0x1E, 0xD3, 0x83, 0x16, 0xA5, 0x29, 0xF6, 0xC7,
    0x15, 0x61, 0x29, 0x1A, 0x43, 0x4F, 0x9B, 0xAF,
    0xC5, 0x87, 0x34, 0x6C, 0x0F, 0x3B, 0xA8, 0x1D,
    0x45, 0x58, 0x25, 0xDC, 0xA8, 0xA3, 0x3B, 0xD1,
    0x79, 0x1B, 0x48, 0xF2, 0xE9, 0x93, 0x1F, 0xFC,
    0xDB, 0x2A, 0x90, 0xA9, 0x8A, 0x3D, 0x39, 0x18,
    0xA3, 0x8E, 0x58, 0x6C, 0xE0, 0x12, 0xBB, 0x25,
    0xCD, 0x71, 0x22, 0xA2, 0x64, 0xC6, 0xE7, 0xFB,
    0xAD, 0x94, 0x77, 0x04, 0x9A, 0x39, 0xCF, 0x7C};

    static byte Table1[] = {
    0x8C, 0x47, 0xB0, 0xE1, 0xEB, 0xFC, 0xEB, 0x56,
    0x10, 0xE5, 0x2C, 0x1A, 0x5D, 0xEF, 0xBE, 0x4F,
    0x08, 0x75, 0x97, 0x4B, 0x0E, 0x25, 0x8E, 0x6E,
    0x39, 0x5A, 0x87, 0x53, 0xC4, 0x1F, 0xF4, 0x5C,
    0x4E, 0xE6, 0x99, 0x30, 0xE0, 0x42, 0x88, 0xAB,
    0xE5, 0x85, 0xBC, 0x8F, 0xD8, 0x3C, 0x54, 0xC9,
    0x53, 0x47, 0x18, 0xD6, 0x06, 0x5B, 0x41, 0x2C,
    0x67, 0x1E, 0x41, 0x74, 0x33, 0xE2, 0xB4, 0xE0,
    0x23, 0x29, 0x42, 0xEA, 0x55, 0x0F, 0x25, 0xB4,
    0x24, 0x2C, 0x99, 0x13, 0xEB, 0x0A, 0x0B, 0xC9,
    0xF9, 0x63, 0x67, 0x43, 0x2D, 0xC7, 0x7D, 0x07,
    0x60, 0x89, 0xD1, 0xCC, 0xE7, 0x94, 0x77, 0x74,
    0x9B, 0x7E, 0xD7, 0xE6, 0xFF, 0xBB, 0x68, 0x14,
    0x1E, 0xA3, 0x25, 0xDE, 0x3A, 0xA3, 0x54, 0x7B,
    0x87, 0x9D, 0x50, 0xCA, 0x27, 0xC3, 0xA4, 0x50,
    0x91, 0x27, 0xD4, 0xB0, 0x82, 0x41, 0x97, 0x79,
    0x94, 0x82, 0xAC, 0xC7, 0x8E, 0xA5, 0x4E, 0xAA,
    0x78, 0x9E, 0xE0, 0x42, 0xBA, 0x28, 0xEA, 0xB7,
    0x74, 0xAD, 0x35, 0xDA, 0x92, 0x60, 0x7E, 0xD2,
    0x0E, 0xB9, 0x24, 0x5E, 0x39, 0x4F, 0x5E, 0x63,
    0x09, 0xB5, 0xFA, 0xBF, 0xF1, 0x22, 0x55, 0x1C,
    0xE2, 0x25, 0xDB, 0xC5, 0xD8, 0x50, 0x03, 0x98,
    0xC4, 0xAC, 0x2E, 0x11, 0xB4, 0x38, 0x4D, 0xD0,
    0xB9, 0xFC, 0x2D, 0x3C, 0x08, 0x04, 0x5A, 0xEF,
    0xCE, 0x32, 0xFB, 0x4C, 0x92, 0x1E, 0x4B, 0xFB,
    0x1A, 0xD0, 0xE2, 0x3E, 0xDA, 0x6E, 0x7C, 0x4D,
    0x56, 0xC3, 0x3F, 0x42, 0xB1, 0x3A, 0x23, 0x4D,
    0x6E, 0x84, 0x56, 0x68, 0xF4, 0x0E, 0x03, 0x64,
    0xD0, 0xA9, 0x92, 0x2F, 0x8B, 0xBC, 0x39, 0x9C,
    0xAC, 0x09, 0x5E, 0xEE, 0xE5, 0x97, 0xBF, 0xA5,
    0xCE, 0xFA, 0x28, 0x2C, 0x6D, 0x4F, 0xEF, 0x77,
    0xAA, 0x1B, 0x79, 0x8E, 0x97, 0xB4, 0xC3, 0xF4};

    static byte Table2[] = {
    0xB7, 0x75, 0x81, 0xD5, 0xDC, 0xCA, 0xDE, 0x66,
    0x23, 0xDF, 0x15, 0x26, 0x62, 0xD1, 0x83, 0x77,
    0xE3, 0x97, 0x76, 0xAF, 0xE9, 0xC3, 0x6B, 0x8E,
    0xDA, 0xB0, 0x6E, 0xBF, 0x2B, 0xF1, 0x19, 0xB4,
    0x95, 0x34, 0x48, 0xE4, 0x37, 0x94, 0x5D, 0x7B,
    0x36, 0x5F, 0x65, 0x53, 0x07, 0xE2, 0x89, 0x11,
    0x98, 0x85, 0xD9, 0x12, 0xC1, 0x9D, 0x84, 0xEC,
    0xA4, 0xD4, 0x88, 0xB8, 0xFC, 0x2C, 0x79, 0x28,
    0xD8, 0xDB, 0xB3, 0x1E, 0xA2, 0xF9, 0xD0, 0x44,
    0xD7, 0xD6, 0x60, 0xEF, 0x14, 0xF4, 0xF6, 0x31,
    0xD2, 0x41, 0x46, 0x67, 0x0A, 0xE1, 0x58, 0x27,
    0x43, 0xA3, 0xF8, 0xE0, 0xC8, 0xBA, 0x5A, 0x5C,
    0x80, 0x6C, 0xC6, 0xF2, 0xE8, 0xAD, 0x7D, 0x04,
    0x0D, 0xB9, 0x3C, 0xC2, 0x25, 0xBD, 0x49, 0x63,
    0x8C, 0x9F, 0x51, 0xCE, 0x20, 0xC5, 0xA1, 0x50,
    0x92, 0x2D, 0xDD, 0xBC, 0x8D, 0x4F, 0x9A, 0x71,
    0x2F, 0x30, 0x1D, 0x73, 0x39, 0x13, 0xFB, 0x1A,
    0xCB, 0x24, 0x59, 0xFE, 0x05, 0x96, 0x57, 0x0F,
    0x1F, 0xCF, 0x54, 0xBE, 0xF5, 0x06, 0x1B, 0xB2,
    0x6D, 0xD3, 0x4D, 0x32, 0x56, 0x21, 0x33, 0x0B,
    0x52, 0xE7, 0xAB, 0xEB, 0xA6, 0x74, 0x00, 0x4C,
    0xB1, 0x7F, 0x82, 0x99, 0x87, 0x0E, 0x5E, 0xC0,
    0x8F, 0xEE, 0x6F, 0x55, 0xF3, 0x7E, 0x08, 0x90,
    0xFA, 0xB6, 0x64, 0x70, 0x47, 0x4A, 0x17, 0xA7,
    0xB5, 0x40, 0x8A, 0x38, 0xE5, 0x68, 0x3E, 0x8B,
    0x69, 0xAA, 0x9B, 0x42, 0xA5, 0x10, 0x01, 0x35,
    0xFD, 0x61, 0x9E, 0xE6, 0x16, 0x9C, 0x86, 0xED,
    0xCD, 0x2E, 0xFF, 0xC4, 0x5B, 0xA0, 0xAE, 0xCC,
    0x4B, 0x3B, 0x03, 0xBB, 0x1C, 0x2A, 0xAC, 0x0C,
    0x3F, 0x93, 0xC7, 0x72, 0x7A, 0x09, 0x22, 0x3D,
    0x45, 0x78, 0xA9, 0xA8, 0xEA, 0xC9, 0x6A, 0xF7,
    0x29, 0x91, 0xF0, 0x02, 0x18, 0x3A, 0x4E, 0x7C};

    static byte Table3[] = {
    0x73, 0x51, 0x95, 0xE1, 0x12, 0xE4, 0xC0, 0x58,
    0xEE, 0xF2, 0x08, 0x1B, 0xA9, 0xFA, 0x98, 0x4C,
    0xA7, 0x33, 0xE2, 0x1B, 0xA7, 0x6D, 0xF5, 0x30,
    0x97, 0x1D, 0xF3, 0x02, 0x60, 0x5A, 0x82, 0x0F,
    0x91, 0xD0, 0x9C, 0x10, 0x39, 0x7A, 0x83, 0x85,
    0x3B, 0xB2, 0xB8, 0xAE, 0x0C, 0x09, 0x52, 0xEA,
    0x1C, 0xE1, 0x8D, 0x66, 0x4F, 0xF3, 0xDA, 0x92,
    0x29, 0xB9, 0xD5, 0xC5, 0x77, 0x47, 0x22, 0x53,
    0x14, 0xF7, 0xAF, 0x22, 0x64, 0xDF, 0xC6, 0x72,
    0x12, 0xF3, 0x75, 0xDA, 0xD7, 0xD7, 0xE5, 0x02,
    0x9E, 0xED, 0xDA, 0xDB, 0x4C, 0x47, 0xCE, 0x91,
    0x06, 0x06, 0x6D, 0x55, 0x8B, 0x19, 0xC9, 0xEF,
    0x8C, 0x80, 0x1A, 0x0E, 0xEE, 0x4B, 0xAB, 0xF2,
    0x08, 0x5C, 0xE9, 0x37, 0x26, 0x5E, 0x9A, 0x90,
    0x00, 0xF3, 0x0D, 0xB2, 0xA6, 0xA3, 0xF7, 0x26,
    0x17, 0x48, 0x88, 0xC9, 0x0E, 0x2C, 0xC9, 0x02,
    0xE7, 0x18, 0x05, 0x4B, 0xF3, 0x39, 0xE1, 0x20,
    0x02, 0x0D, 0x40, 0xC7, 0xCA, 0xB9, 0x48, 0x30,
    0x57, 0x67, 0xCC, 0x06, 0xBF, 0xAC, 0x81, 0x08,
    0x24, 0x7A, 0xD4, 0x8B, 0x19, 0x8E, 0xAC, 0xB4,
    0x5A, 0x0F, 0x73, 0x13, 0xAC, 0x9E, 0xDA, 0xB6,
    0xB8, 0x96, 0x5B, 0x60, 0x88, 0xE1, 0x81, 0x3F,
    0x07, 0x86, 0x37, 0x2D, 0x79, 0x14, 0x52, 0xEA,
    0x73, 0xDF, 0x3D, 0x09, 0xC8, 0x25, 0x48, 0xD8,
    0x75, 0x60, 0x9A, 0x08, 0x27, 0x4A, 0x2C, 0xB9,
    0xA8, 0x8B, 0x8A, 0x73, 0x62, 0x37, 0x16, 0x02,
    0xBD, 0xC1, 0x0E, 0x56, 0x54, 0x3E, 0x14, 0x5F,
    0x8C, 0x8F, 0x6E, 0x75, 0x1C, 0x07, 0x39, 0x7B,
    0x4B, 0xDB, 0xD3, 0x4B, 0x1E, 0xC8, 0x7E, 0xFE,
    0x3E, 0x72, 0x16, 0x83, 0x7D, 0xEE, 0xF5, 0xCA,
    0xC5, 0x18, 0xF9, 0xD8, 0x68, 0xAB, 0x38, 0x85,
    0xA8, 0xF0, 0xA1, 0x73, 0x9F, 0x5D, 0x19, 0x0B,
    0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00,
    0x33, 0x72, 0x39, 0x25, 0x67, 0x26, 0x6D, 0x71,
    0x36, 0x77, 0x3C, 0x20, 0x62, 0x23, 0x68, 0x74,
    0xC3, 0x82, 0xC9, 0x15, 0x57, 0x16, 0x5D, 0x81};

    /*
    * css-cat.c
    *
    * Copyright 1999 Derek Fawcus.
    *
    * Released under version 2 of the GPL.
    *
    * Decode selected sector types from a CSS encoded DVD to stdout. Use as a * filter on the input to mpeg2player or ac3dec.
    *
    */

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #if defined(__linux__)
    # include <getopt.h>
    #endif /* __linux__ */
    #include <string.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    #include <fcntl.h>

    #include "css-descramble.h"

    static struct playkey pkey1a1 = {0x36b, {0x51,0x67,0x67,0xc5,0xe0}};
    static struct playkey pkey2a1 = {0x762, {0x2c,0xb2,0xc1,0x09,0xee}};
    static struct playkey pkey1b1 = {0x36b, {0x90,0xc1,0xd7,0x84,0x48}};

    static struct playkey pkey1a2 = {0x2f3, {0x51,0x67,0x67,0xc5,0xe0}};
    static struct playkey pkey2a2 = {0x730, {0x2c,0xb2,0xc1,0x09,0xee}};
    static struct playkey pkey1b2 = {0x2f3, {0x90,0xc1,0xd7,0x84,0x48}};

    static struct playkey pkey1a3 = {0x235, {0x51,0x67,0x67,0xc5,0xe0}};
    static struct playkey pkey1b3 = {0x235, {0x90,0xc1,0xd7,0x84,0x48}};

    static struct playkey pkey3a1 = {0x249, {0xb7,0x3f,0xd4,0xaa,0x14}}; /* DVD specific ? */ static struct playkey pkey4a1 = {0x028, {0x53,0xd4,0xf7,0xd9,0x8f}}; /* DVD specific ? */


    static struct playkey *playkeys[] = {
    &pkey1a1, &pkey2a1, &pkey1b1,
    &pkey1a2, &pkey2a2, &pkey1b2,
    &pkey1a3, &pkey1b3,
    &pkey3a1, &pkey4a1,
    NULL};

    static unsigned char disk_key[2048];
    static unsigned char title_key[5];

    static unsigned char sector[2048];

    unsigned long sectors = 0;
    unsigned long crypted = 0;
    unsigned long skipped = 0;

    int do_all = 0;
    int do_video = 0;
    int do_ac3 = 0;
    int do_mpg = 0;
    int verbose = 0;
    int keep_pack = 0;
    int keep_pes = -1;

    #define STCODE(p,a,b,c,d) ((p)[0] == a && (p)[1] == b && (p)[2] == c && (p)[3] == d)

    static void un_css(int fdi, int fdo)
    {
    unsigned char *sp, *pes;
    int writen, wr, peslen, hdrlen;

    while (read(fdi, sector, 2048) == 2048) {
    ++sectors;
    if (!STCODE(sector,0x00,0x00,0x01,0xba)) {
    fputs("Not Pack start code\n", stderr);
    ++skipped; continue;
    }

    if (do_all)
    goto write_it;

    pes = sector + 14 + (sector[13] & 0x07);
    if (STCODE(pes,0x00,0x00,0x01,0xbb)) {/* System Header Pack Layer */ peslen = (pes[0x04] << 8) + pes[0x05];
    pes += peslen + 6;
    }

    if (pes[0x00] || pes[0x01] || pes[0x02] != 0x01 || pes[0x03] < 0xbc) { ++skipped; continue;
    }
    peslen = (pes[0x04] << 8) + pes[0x05];
    hdrlen = pes[0x08] + 6 + 3;
    if ((pes[0x03] & 0xf0) == 0xe0) {
    if (do_video)
    goto write_it;
    } else if (do_mpg && pes[0x03] == (0xc0 | (do_mpg - 1))) { /* MPEG Audio */ goto write_it;
    } else if (pes[0x03] == 0xbd) { /* AC3 Audio */
    if (do_ac3) {
    int audiotrack = do_ac3 - 1;
    if (pes[hdrlen] == (0x80|(audiotrack & 7))) {
    hdrlen += 4;
    goto write_it;
    }
    }
    } else
    ++skipped;
    continue;

    write_it:
    if (sector[20] & 0x30) {
    ++crypted;
    css_descramble(sector, title_key);
    sector[20] &= 0x8f;
    }
    writen = 0;
    if (keep_pack)
    sp = sector, peslen = 2048;
    else if (keep_pes)
    sp = pes, peslen = 2048 - (pes - sector);
    else
    sp = pes + hdrlen, peslen -= hdrlen - 6;

    do {
    wr = write(fdo, sp, peslen - writen);
    sp += wr;
    writen += wr;
    } while (wr > 0 && writen < peslen);
    }
    }

    static void usage_exit(void)
    {
    fputs("usage: css-cat [-t title-no] [-m mpeg-audio-no ] [-avPp12345678] vob_file\n", stderr); exit(2);
    }

    static char *title = "1";

    static int parse_args(int ac, char **av)
    {
    int c;
    opterr = 0;
    while (1)
    switch((c = getopt(ac, av, "at:Ppvm:01234567"))) {
    case 'a':
    do_all = 1;
    /* fall through */
    case 'P':
    keep_pack = 1;
    break;
    case 'p':
    keep_pes = 1;
    break;
    case 't':
    title = optarg;
    break;
    case 'v':
    do_video = 1;
    ++keep_pes;
    break;
    case 'm':
    if ((do_mpg = atoi(optarg)) < 1 || do_mpg > 32)
    usage_exit();
    ++keep_pes;
    break;
    case '1': case '2': case '3': case '4':
    case '5': case '6': case '7': case '8':
    do_ac3 = c - '0';
    ++keep_pes;
    break;
    case EOF:
    goto got_args;
    default:
    usage_exit();
    break;
    }

    got_args:

    keep_pes = (keep_pes > 0) ? 1 : 0;

    return optind; }

    int main(int ac, char **av)
    {
    int ai, fd;
    char titlef[12];

    if ((fd = open("disk-key", O_RDONLY)) == -1) {
    perror("can't open disk-key");
    exit(1);
    }
    if (read(fd, disk_key, 2048) != 2048) {
    perror("can't read disk-key");
    close(fd);
    exit(1);
    }
    close(fd);

    if ((ai = parse_args(ac, av)) >= ac)
    usage_exit();

    strcpy(titlef, "title");
    strcat(titlef, title);
    strcat(titlef, "-key");

    if ((fd = open(titlef, O_RDONLY)) == -1) {
    perror("can't open title-key");
    exit(1);
    }
    if (read(fd, title_key, 5) != 5) {
    perror("can't read title-key");
    close(fd);
    exit(1);
    }
    close(fd);

    if (strcmp(av[ai], "-") == 0)
    fd = 0;
    else if ((fd = open(av[ai], O_RDONLY)) == -1) {
    fputs("can't open VOB file ", stderr);
    fputs(av[ai], stderr);
    perror("");
    exit(1);
    }

    if (!css_decrypttitlekey(title_key, disk_key, playkeys)) {
    close(fd);
    return 3;
    }

    un_css(fd, 1);

    fprintf(stderr, "Total %lu, skipped %lu, crvid %lu\n",
    sectors, skipped, crypted);

    close(fd);

    return 0; }

    /*
    * css_descramble.c
    *
    * Released under the version 2 of the GPL.
    *
    * Copyright 1999 Derek Fawcus
    *
    * This file contains functions to descramble CSS encrypted DVD content *
    */

    /*
    * Still in progress: Remove the use of the bit_reverse[] table by recoding * the generation of LFSR1. Finish combining this with * the css authentication code.
    *
    */

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include "css-descramble.h"

    typedef unsigned char byte;

    /*
    *
    * some tables used for descrambling sectors and/or decrypting title keys *
    */

    static byte csstab1[256]=
    {
    0x33,0x73,0x3b,0x26,0x63,0x23,0x6b,0x76,0x3e,0x7e, 0x36,0x2b,0x6e,0x2e,0x66,0x7b, 0xd3,0x93,0xdb,0x06,0x43,0x03,0x4b,0x96,0xde,0x9e, 0xd6,0x0b,0x4e,0x0e,0x46,0x9b, 0x57,0x17,0x5f,0x82,0xc7,0x87,0xcf,0x12,0x5a,0x1a, 0x52,0x8f,0xca,0x8a,0xc2,0x1f, 0xd9,0x99,0xd1,0x00,0x49,0x09,0x41,0x90,0xd8,0x98, 0xd0,0x01,0x48,0x08,0x40,0x91, 0x3d,0x7d,0x35,0x24,0x6d,0x2d,0x65,0x74,0x3c,0x7c, 0x34,0x25,0x6c,0x2c,0x64,0x75, 0xdd,0x9d,0xd5,0x04,0x4d,0x0d,0x45,0x94,0xdc,0x9c, 0xd4,0x05,0x4c,0x0c,0x44,0x95, 0x59,0x19,0x51,0x80,0xc9,0x89,0xc1,0x10,0x58,0x18, 0x50,0x81,0xc8,0x88,0xc0,0x11, 0xd7,0x97,0xdf,0x02,0x47,0x07,0x4f,0x92,0xda,0x9a, 0xd2,0x0f,0x4a,0x0a,0x42,0x9f, 0x53,0x13,0x5b,0x86,0xc3,0x83,0xcb,0x16,0x5e,0x1e, 0x56,0x8b,0xce,0x8e,0xc6,0x1b, 0xb3,0xf3,0xbb,0xa6,0xe3,0xa3,0xeb,0xf6,0xbe,0xfe, 0xb6,0xab,0xee,0xae,0xe6,0xfb, 0x37,0x77,0x3f,0x22,0x67,0x27,0x6f,0x72,0x3a,0x7a, 0x32,0x2f,0x6a,0x2a,0x62,0x7f, 0xb9,0xf9,0xb1,0xa0,0xe9,0xa9,0xe1,0xf0,0xb8,0xf8, 0xb0,0xa1,0xe8,0xa8,0xe0,0xf1, 0x5d,0x1d,0x55,0x84,0xcd,0x8d,0xc5,0x14,0x5c,0x1c, 0x54,0x85,0xcc,0x8c,0xc4,0x15, 0xbd,0xfd,0xb5,0xa4,0xed,0xad,0xe5,0xf4,0xbc,0xfc, 0xb4,0xa5,0xec,0xac,0xe4,0xf5, 0x39,0x79,0x31,0x20,0x69,0x29,0x61,0x70,0x38,0x78, 0x30,0x21,0x68,0x28,0x60,0x71, 0xb7,0xf7,0xbf,0xa2,0xe7,0xa7,0xef,0xf2,0xba,0xfa, 0xb2,0xaf,0xea,0xaa,0xe2,0xff };

    static byte lfsr1_bits0[256]=
    {
    0x00,0x01,0x02,0x03,0x04,0x05,0x06,0x07,0x09,0x08, 0x0b,0x0a,0x0d,0x0c,0x0f,0x0e, 0x12,0x13,0x10,0x11,0x16,0x17,0x14,0x15,0x1b,0x1a, 0x19,0x18,0x1f,0x1e,0x1d,0x1c, 0x24,0x25,0x26,0x27,0x20,0x21,0x22,0x23,0x2d,0x2c, 0x2f,0x2e,0x29,0x28,0x2b,0x2a, 0x36,0x37,0x34,0x35,0x32,0x33,0x30,0x31,0x3f,0x3e, 0x3d,0x3c,0x3b,0x3a,0x39,0x38, 0x49,0x48,0x4b,0x4a,0x4d,0x4c,0x4f,0x4e,0x40,0x41, 0x42,0x43,0x44,0x45,0x46,0x47, 0x5b,0x5a,0x59,0x58,0x5f,0x5e,0x5d,0x5c,0x52,0x53, 0x50,0x51,0x56,0x57,0x54,0x55, 0x6d,0x6c,0x6f,0x6e,0x69,0x68,0x6b,0x6a,0x64,0x65, 0x66,0x67,0x60,0x61,0x62,0x63, 0x7f,0x7e,0x7d,0x7c,0x7b,0x7a,0x79,0x78,0x76,0x77, 0x74,0x75,0x72,0x73,0x70,0x71, 0x92,0x93,0x90,0x91,0x96,0x97,0x94,0x95,0x9b,0x9a, 0x99,0x98,0x9f,0x9e,0x9d,0x9c, 0x80,0x81,0x82,0x83,0x84,0x85,0x86,0x87,0x89,0x88, 0x8b,0x8a,0x8d,0x8c,0x8f,0x8e, 0xb6,0xb7,0xb4,0xb5,0xb2,0xb3,0xb0,0xb1,0xbf,0xbe, 0xbd,0xbc,0xbb,0xba,0xb9,0xb8, 0xa4,0xa5,0xa6,0xa7,0xa0,0xa1,0xa2,0xa3,0xad,0xac, 0xaf,0xae,0xa9,0xa8,0xab,0xaa, 0xdb,0xda,0xd9,0xd8,0xdf,0xde,0xdd,0xdc,0xd2,0xd3, 0xd0,0xd1,0xd6,0xd7,0xd4,0xd5, 0xc9,0xc8,0xcb,0xca,0xcd,0xcc,0xcf,0xce,0xc0,0xc1, 0xc2,0xc3,0xc4,0xc5,0xc6,0xc7, 0xff,0xfe,0xfd,0xfc,0xfb,0xfa,0xf9,0xf8,0xf6,0xf7, 0xf4,0xf5,0xf2,0xf3,0xf0,0xf1, 0xed,0xec,0xef,0xee,0xe9,0xe8,0xeb,0xea,0xe4,0xe5, 0xe6,0xe7,0xe0,0xe1,0xe2,0xe3 };

    static byte lfsr1_bits1[512]=
    {
    0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff, 0x00,0x24,0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff,0x00,0x24, 0x49,0x6d,0x92,0xb6,0xdb,0xff };

    /* Reverse the order of the bits within a byte.

    */ static byte bit_reverse[256]=
    {
    0x00,0x80,0x40,0xc0,0x20,0xa0,0x60,0xe0,0x10,0x90, 0x50,0xd0,0x30,0xb0,0x70,0xf0, 0x08,0x88,0x48,0xc8,0x28,0xa8,0x68,0xe8,0x18,0x98, 0x58,0xd8,0x38,0xb8,0x78,0xf8, 0x04,0x84,0x44,0xc4,0x24,0xa4,0x64,0xe4,0x14,0x94, 0x54,0xd4,0x34,0xb4,0x74,0xf4, 0x0c,0x8c,0x4c,0xcc,0x2c,0xac,0x6c,0xec,0x1c,0x9c, 0x5c,0xdc,0x3c,0xbc,0x7c,0xfc, 0x02,0x82,0x42,0xc2,0x22,0xa2,0x62,0xe2,0x12,0x92, 0x52,0xd2,0x32,0xb2,0x72,0xf2, 0x0a,0x8a,0x4a,0xca,0x2a,0xaa,0x6a,0xea,0x1a,0x9a, 0x5a,0xda,0x3a,0xba,0x7a,0xfa, 0x06,0x86,0x46,0xc6,0x26,0xa6,0x66,0xe6,0x16,0x96, 0x56,0xd6,0x36,0xb6,0x76,0xf6, 0x0e,0x8e,0x4e,0xce,0x2e,0xae,0x6e,0xee,0x1e,0x9e, 0x5e,0xde,0x3e,0xbe,0x7e,0xfe, 0x01,0x81,0x41,0xc1,0x21,0xa1,0x61,0xe1,0x11,0x91, 0x51,0xd1,0x31,0xb1,0x71,0xf1, 0x09,0x89,0x49,0xc9,0x29,0xa9,0x69,0xe9,0x19,0x99, 0x59,0xd9,0x39,0xb9,0x79,0xf9, 0x05,0x85,0x45,0xc5,0x25,0xa5,0x65,0xe5,0x15,0x95, 0x55,0xd5,0x35,0xb5,0x75,0xf5, 0x0d,0x8d,0x4d,0xcd,0x2d,0xad,0x6d,0xed,0x1d,0x9d, 0x5d,0xdd,0x3d,0xbd,0x7d,0xfd, 0x03,0x83,0x43,0xc3,0x23,0xa3,0x63,0xe3,0x13,0x93, 0x53,0xd3,0x33,0xb3,0x73,0xf3, 0x0b,0x8b,0x4b,0xcb,0x2b,0xab,0x6b,0xeb,0x1b,0x9b, 0x5b,0xdb,0x3b,0xbb,0x7b,0xfb, 0x07,0x87,0x47,0xc7,0x27,0xa7,0x67,0xe7,0x17,0x97, 0x57,0xd7,0x37,0xb7,0x77,0xf7, 0x0f,0x8f,0x4f,0xcf,0x2f,0xaf,0x6f,0xef,0x1f,0x9f, 0x5f,0xdf,0x3f,0xbf,0x7f,0xff };

    /*
    *
    * this function is only used internally when decrypting title key
    *
    */
    static void css_titlekey(byte *key, byte *im, byte invert)
    {
    unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
    byte o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
    byte k[5];
    int i;

    lfsr1_lo = im[0] | 0x100;
    lfsr1_hi = im[1];

    lfsr0 = ((im[4] << 17) | (im[3] << 9) | (im[2] << 1)) + 8 - (im[2] &7); lfsr0 = (bit_reverse[lfsr0&0xff]<<24) | (bit_reverse[(lfsr0>>8)&0xff] << 16) | (bit_reverse[(lfsr0>>16)&0xff]<<8) | bit_reverse[(lfsr0>>24) &0xff];

    combined = 0;
    for (i = 0; i < 5; ++i) {
    o_lfsr1 = lfsr1_bits0[lfsr1_hi] ^ lfsr1_bits1[lfsr1_lo];
    lfsr1_hi = lfsr1_lo>>1;
    lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)<<8) ^ o_lfsr1;
    o_lfsr1 = bit_reverse[o_lfsr1];

    /*o_lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>19);*/ o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7); lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0<<24);

    combined += (o_lfsr0 ^ invert) + o_lfsr1;
    k[i] = combined & 0xff;
    combined >>= 8;
    }

    key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
    key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
    key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
    key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
    key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]]^key[4];

    key[4]=k[4]^csstab1[key[4]]^key[3];
    key[3]=k[3]^csstab1[key[3]]^key[2];
    key[2]=k[2]^csstab1[key[2]]^key[1];
    key[1]=k[1]^csstab1[key[1]]^key[0];
    key[0]=k[0]^csstab1[key[0]];
    }

    /*
    *
    * this function decrypts a title key with the specified disk key
    *
    * tkey: the unobfuscated title key (XORed with BusKey)
    * dkey: the unobfuscated disk key (XORed with BusKey)
    * 2048 bytes in length (though only 5 bytes are needed, see below) * pkey: array of pointers to player keys and disk key offsets
    *
    *
    * use the result returned in tkey with css_descramble
    *
    */

    int css_decrypttitlekey(byte *tkey, byte *dkey, struct playkey **pkey)
    {
    byte test[5], pretkey[5];
    int i = 0;

    for(; *pkey; ++pkey, ++i) {
    memcpy(pretkey, dkey + (*pkey)->offset, 5); css_titlekey(pretkey, (*pkey)->key, 0);

    memcpy(test, dkey, 5);
    css_titlekey(test, pretkey, 0);

    if (memcmp(test, pretkey, 5) == 0) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Using Key %d\n", i+1);
    break;
    }
    }

    if (!*pkey) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Shit - Need Key %d\n", i+1);
    return 0;
    }

    css_titlekey(tkey, pretkey, 0xff);

    return 1; }

    /*
    *
    * this function does the actual descrambling
    *
    * sec: encrypted sector (2048 bytes)
    * key: decrypted title key obtained from css_decrypttitlekey
    *
    */
    void css_descramble(byte *sec,byte *key)
    {
    unsigned int lfsr1_lo,lfsr1_hi,lfsr0,combined;
    unsigned char o_lfsr0, o_lfsr1;
    unsigned char *end = sec + 0x800;
    #define SALTED(i) (key[i] ^ sec[0x54 + (i)])

    lfsr1_lo = SALTED(0) | 0x100;
    lfsr1_hi = SALTED(1);

    lfsr0 = ((SALTED(4) << 17) | (SALTED(3) << 9) | (SALTED(2) << 1)) + 8 - (SALTED(2)&7);

    lfsr0= (bit_reverse[lfsr0&0xff]<<24) | (bit_reverse[(lfsr0> >8)&0xff] << 16) | (bit_reverse[(lfsr0>>16)&0xff]<<8) | bit_reverse[(lfsr0>>24) &0xff];

    sec+=0x80;
    combined = 0;
    while (sec != end) {
    o_lfsr1 = lfsr1_bits0[lfsr1_hi] ^ lfsr1_bits1[lfsr1_lo];
    lfsr1_hi = lfsr1_lo>>1;
    lfsr1_lo = ((lfsr1_lo&1)<<8) ^ o_lfsr1;
    o_lfsr1 = bit_reverse[o_lfsr1];

    /*o_lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>7)^(lfsr0>>10)^(lfsr0>>11)^(lfsr0>>19);*/ o_lfsr0 = (((((((lfsr0>>8)^lfsr0)>>1)^lfsr0)>>3)^lfsr0)>>7); lfsr0 = (lfsr0>>8)|(o_lfsr0<<24);

    combined += o_lfsr0 + (byte)~o_lfsr1;
    *sec++ = csstab1[*sec] ^ (combined&0xff);
    combined >>= 8;
    }
    }

    /*
    * A noddy program for getting and printing some info from the
    * DVD-ROM drive.
    */

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <fcntl.h>
    #if defined(__OpenBSD__)
    # include <sys/dvdio.h>
    #elif defined(__linux__)
    # include <linux/cdrom.h>
    #else
    # error "Need the DVD ioctls"
    #endif
    #include <sys/ioctl.h>
    #include <errno.h>

    #define DVD "/dev/cdrom"

    int GetASF(int fd)
    {

    dvd_authinfo ai;

    ai.type = DVD_LU_SEND_ASF;
    ai.lsasf.agid = 0;
    ai.lsasf.asf = 0;

    if (ioctl(fd, DVD_AUTH, &ai)) {
    printf("GetASF failed\n");
    return 0;
    }

    printf("%sAuthenticated\n", (ai.lsasf.asf) ? "" : "not ");

    return 1; }

    int GetPhysical(int fd)
    {
    dvd_struct d;
    int layer = 0, layers = 4;

    d.physical.type = DVD_STRUCT_PHYSICAL;
    while (layer < layers) {
    d.physical.layer_num = layer;

    if (ioctl(fd, DVD_READ_STRUCT, &d)<0)
    {
    printf("Could not read Physical layer %d\n", layer); return 0;
    }

    layers = d.physical.layer[layer].nlayers + 1;

    printf("Layer %d[%d]\n", layer, layers);
    printf(" Book Version: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].book_version); printf(" Book Type: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].book_type); printf(" Min Rate: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].min_rate); printf(" Disk Size: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].disc_size); printf(" Layer Type: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].layer_type); printf(" Track Path: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].track_path); printf(" Num Layers: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].nlayers); printf(" Track Density: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].track_density); printf(" Linear Density: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].linear_density); printf(" BCA: %d\n", d.physical.layer[layer].bca); printf(" Start Sector %#x\n", d.physical.layer[layer].start_sector); printf(" End Sector %#x\n", d.physical.layer[layer].end_sector); printf(" End Sector L0 %#x\n", d.physical.layer[layer].end_sector_l0);

    ++layer; }

    return 1; }

    int GetCopyright(int fd)
    {

    dvd_struct d;

    d.copyright.type = DVD_STRUCT_COPYRIGHT;
    d.copyright.layer_num = 0;

    if (ioctl(fd, DVD_READ_STRUCT, &d)<0)
    {
    printf("Could not read Copyright Struct\n");
    return 0;
    }

    printf("Copyright: CPST=%d, RMI=%#02x\n", d.copyright.cpst, d.copyright.rmi);

    return 1; }

    int main(int ac, char **av)
    {
    int fd;
    char *device = DVD;

    if (ac > 1)
    device = av[1];

    fd = open(device, O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK);

    if (fd < 0) {
    printf("unable to open dvd drive (%s).\n", device);
    return 1;
    }

    GetASF(fd);

    GetPhysical(fd);
    GetCopyright(fd);

    return 0; }

    /*
    * A noddy program which tries to reset all AGID's on the DVD-ROM drive. */

    #include<stdio.h>
    #include<fcntl.h>
    #if defined(__OpenBSD__)
    # include <sys/dvdio.h>
    #elif defined(__linux__)
    # include <linux/cdrom.h>
    #else
    # error "Need the DVD ioctls"
    #endif
    #include<sys/ioctl.h>
    #include<errno.h>

    static int fd;

    #define DVD "/dev/cdrom"

    int main(int ac, char **av)
    {
    dvd_authinfo ai;
    char *device = DVD;
    int i;

    if (ac > 1)
    device = av[1];

    fd = open(device, O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK);

    if (fd < 0) {
    printf("unable to open dvd drive (%s).\n", device);
    return 1;
    }

    for(i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
    memset(&ai, 0, sizeof(ai)); ai.type = DVD_INVALIDATE_AGID; ai.lsa.agid = i; ioctl(fd, DVD_AUTH, &ai);

    }

    return 0; }

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Technicallly it may be a 'simple' license violation, but duplicating cds/software/videos has been called piracy in the net culture for years (dating back to the 80s BBSs.) It's nothing new, It's not like just now all of a sudden copying electronic stuff became illegal, it's always been illegal! so has even non electronic stuff like copying audio tapes .. just nobody cared (as much) before. I find it kinda silly that you're becoming nitpicky about specific names now. That's something more suited to the realm of *gasp!* lawyers.
  • Good point. Until the RIAA can figure out a way to co-exist with the internet, they'll be on the losing end of things in the long run. It's the consumer that will have the final say, and the majority of consumers are in favor of napster and other file-sharing services. The RIAA is fighting a no-win battle because technology will always favor consumers.
  • Well, actually, when a radio station plays a piece of music, they pay royalties to the artist. Same with (physical) jukeboxes, I believe: royalties are paid for each time a song is played. The legal issue doesn't have to do with the medium, per se, but whether the artist (company, whatever) is compensated.
  • Pissed off:Anyone that has any intelligence that is watching what the RIAA and MPAA are doing. Customer:Someone willing to give up their *rights* for the *privilage* of viewing the IP of RIAA and MPAA members. Evil:1. Bill Gates 2. Politicians willing to trade peoples rights for enough money to win another term in office. Puppets: Politicians -- see Evil
  • I like Weird Al's site sagabegins.com and the others that have streaming. I nice way to test if the T1 is realy working.

    I guess those site need to be blocked by a netnanny.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Four little words [salon.com]
    How the record industry used a tiny legislative amendment to try to steal recording copyrights from artists -- forever.

    - - - - - - - - - - - -
    By Eric Boehlert

    Aug. 28, 2000

    Four little words [salon.com]
  • by um... Lucas ( 13147 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:20PM (#814785) Journal
    Because prior to napster, no one had created a free means of simultaneously distributing many copies of the original. Casettes cost money to but and take time to copy. Ditto for CD-Rs. Because of the inconvienence factor and the plethora of non-infriging and fair use uses, they couldn't attack those anyhow.

    Compare cassettes or cd-r's to Napster:
    1. Napster takes barely anytime to distribute a file, if people are using broadband connectiosn.

    2. The quality doesn't degrade at all from the original (the original is an already degraded mp3, yes, but once it's an mp3, no further degradation occurs).

    3. Copies are free to make - there's no cost of materials.

    4. Napster lets you distribute your files to the world at large, not just the very small set of people that you might know.

    Napster isn't about sharing. Sharing is when you have something and give it to someone else. Napster is about distributing. That's what the labels that have joined the RIAA do, distribute music. Except when they distribute music, they've devised a way to pay royalties to artists. Napsters CEO even claims it's impossible to track downloads, let alone pay the artists their fair share....

    Claims of price fixing aside (and if any one really cares to look it up, you'll find that one of the main motivations for the RIAA to enter into marketing deals which kept the cost of CD's high, was that when there weren't any minimum prices, the Walmarts and Targets of the world were eating the Mom and Pop stores for breakfast, hence the RIAA implented a minimum price in order to save the smaller stores) the RIAA really doesn't seem to be as bad as they're portrayed on these pages. If ANYONE could figure out a way to allow everyone involved in the creation, distribution, and promotion of music to the money they deserve, the RIAA, labels, and artists would surely jump at the opportunity...

    Sorry about the rant.
  • Artists get royalties for songs played on the radio. RIAA is pretty clearly leading up to a phase 2 argument where, once they've taken care of the MP3 issue, they'll suggest that everyone who has their own personal station on ShoutCast or wherever should also be paying royalties for the privilege of (broad? narrow?)casting their music online, even through the normal audience for streaming MP3 radio is in the low dozens per station.

    Doncha think there should be some sort of exemption for this, the way there is for extremely low-frequency radio stations that broadcast over a radius of a city block or so?

  • The inclusion of a quote from the RIAA [riaa.org] brings up a good point. As we grumble and make our arguments (of varying quality), let's not fall into the same trap we accuse so many others of by relying on a small set of information sources that favor "our side".

    Go to riaa.org [riaa.org] and read their side. Yes, it's mostly propaganda, but in a way so are the stories we get here.

    Once again, for good measure: gratuitous link [slashdot.org].


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • by di'jital ( 83268 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:26PM (#814789)
    In 1922, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) felt gravely threatened by a newfangled technology called 'Radio', which they saw as a threat to their once lucrative profit streams.

    Initially, ASCAP threatened to prosecute radio stations for playing their music, but eventually realised that they could not combat the rise of this 'Radio'. Instead they tried to milk it by setting up huge royalty fees (about $5000) to dissuade smaller stations and profit from larger ones.

    In 1923 the radio stations banded together to fight ASCAP and formed BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) to try and break the monopoly ASCAP held over almost all recorded music.

    At the time all the big sellers (the metallicas of this world) were with ASCAP, but BMI signed strange new artists with newfangled sounds like 'Rock n Roll' and 'R&B'. ASCAP arrogantly increased their royalties by 70% to try and kill off radio.

    During the depression radio had a boom, and ASCAP brought in the lawsuits, in the infamous Waring case taking a radio station to the supreme court.

    Instead of dying, radio thrived as a channel for this Rock n Roll sound, championed by popular personality DJs like Alan Freed and supported by lurative advertising. BMI's artists profited immensley and gained for the first time a huge amount of worldwide attention as their music was broadcast around.

    I'll let you guess what happened from there on in. Feel free to draw parallels.

  • They define piracy as copying...

    But doesn't "fair use" state that you can copy both for your own backup or to transer to a seperate medium as long as you don't listen to more than one at one time. Thus you can copy your CD's to Tapes (And MP3s) as long as you don't give them to someone else. In fact, even putting them up on your webserver should be legal, as it's just the same as showing someone (not playing mind you, just showing) a cassette tape or CD. They're the ones who are clicking download (which is when the copying actually takes place).

    Hmmm, maybe they should sue the makers of all tape recorders, cd burners, and anything else that actually can be used to create copies.
  • You forget the MPAA/RIAA notion of "fair":

    "If Event A results in us getting more money than Event B, then Event B is not fair. In fact, it's illegal. Actually, it's piracy/terrorism/murder/torture/genocide..."

  • While this may work for a short term solution, it would be better to "infiltrate" these companies, and change them from the inside. It seems to me a better thing to convince someone that some way is the right way than to force them to go a way that they don't want to go. If a significant majority of geeks refused to work for these companies, they might back off. However, that is just because they have no other choice. If we can get a geek to work for them and convince them that they can make money without overcharging, extorting artists, et cetera, then I'd say we should do that. I recently read an article which relates to this idea to some degree. It can be found here [ishmael.com].
  • I just don't get it. I really don't see what the problem is with Napster. Setting aside all the legal bullshit, the main fear of the RIAA and the Big Five is the loss of control over distribution. If the Big Five have less control over distribution, then they have less power to set and control price levels (which I might add is still considered perfectly legal). The reason that you pay AU$30 for a CD is not because it costs that much to make or that the artist gets even a tiny fraction out of it. It's because the only way you can get it is through a long chain of distributors, stores and other assorted middlemen all taking a piece of the big money pie. The artist doesn't get jackshit and the record companies get fat off the profits.

    This is EXACTLY the reason why the rise of MP3 was so rapid. Suddenly, you could get music for FREE! Now the RIAA and the Big Five are complaining that MP3 means lost music sales. This is bullshit and a smokescreen for the distribution control agenda outlined above. Research shows that despite online piracy music sales have increased. Did you hear that you greedy fat-ass music executive leech? Increased! MP3 has allowed music lovers to experience more kinds of music, therefore increasing their range of tastes and subsequent need to buy.

    Which makes the whole fear of nobody paying for music seem kinda silly doesn't it?

    Self Bias Resistor
    "The human brain is like an enormous fish. It's grey, slimy and has gills through which it can see." -Monty Python

  • I once saw a TV show where a peace officer interviened in a shootout. The policeman got hurt and is now suing the perpetrator, AS WELL as the company that manufactured the weapon that hurt him. But the cop's weapon was OK? Blaming Napster for users committing piracy would be correct. Blaming Napster for what their users do, is rather stupid. The RIAA does in fact endorse CD distributions. Well, these are extremely easy to copy. Well, why doesn't the RIAA sue Sony, Panasonic, Plextor, Mitsumi and all the other myriads of CD-R manufacturers? In my opinion, the RIAA should be sued by the government a la Microsoft. Antitrust and monopoly. However, how does one boycott the RIAA? Not working for them? That may hurt them in the long run, but there will always be MCSE's that like fortune and glory. Can we stop buying CD's and just rip off the various artists out there? Sure, but that's not right either... As long as the RIAA is allowed to exist in the form it does today, it will roam free like a beast on a rampage. And YOU, my friend, will be watching... "Wars are won by politicians and lost by innocents" von Clausewitz
  • by craw ( 6958 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:46PM (#814799) Homepage
    I've really haven't been involved in most of the discussion about the RIAA and MPAA, Napster, and DeCSS. But I have followed many of the legal issues and have tried to learn from them. You don't have to be an attorney to get a good sense of the issues that are involved.

    The key issue is one of fair use. This murky item will eventually have to be resolved by the higher courts. I say, get this lower court ruling out of the way. Let's go to the next level. It's going to happen regardless of what ruling the lower court issues.

    Another key issue is intent. This is Napster's stumbling block at this time. Can a legitimate use of this technology be identified? Yes. Is this solely for the purposes of circumventing copyright laws? No. Find a serious legitimate use, then this case will be eventually tossed out as it infringes on rights. The problem with napster, is that it is a business plan at this time is dubious. Things like gnutella are not.

    DeCSS is also in this realm. Find any sort of legitimate use, then the courts will eventually toss out the case. The technology cannot be banned.

    All of this is intramural football in the absence of a Supreme Court ruling. There is an important election (actually all elections are important) that is coming up. Choose wisely. Remember, the next President may nominate the Supreme Court Justice that casts the deciding vote on these issues. We do not want another Scalia and his lap-dog Thomas deciding these issues.

  • by ravi_n ( 175591 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:51PM (#814800)
    People are already "work boycotting" the RIAA members (and I'd guess the MPAA members are next, if it hasn't started already). There was an article [latimes.com] in the LA Times about this in July. The gist of the article was that the record labels were finding it impossible to fill technical positions, in part because of the image created by their recent legal battles.
  • by gotan ( 60103 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @06:53PM (#814801) Homepage
    While this at first looks like a simple definition of terms it's more then that. The fourth 'definition' is a good example:

    4. Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy may now also include certain uses of 'streaming' technologies from the Internet."

    Here the term 'license violation' or 'unauthorised uploading' is replaced with a much stronger term 'Online piracy' including all the prejudices that come with the term 'piracy'. Note the comparatively harmless sound (since we are already used to it) of 'Bootleg'.

    I really wonder who cooked up these terms, internet piracy is not common language yet and so i wouldn't accept that term were i the defense. The RIAA members surely wouldn't like to be called 'social parasites' throughout the process, 'just for 'convenience sake', and no, 'social parasite' wouldn't be an abuse, merely a definition.

    Interestingly while pretending to provide 'clear terms and definitions' they then proceed to make it vague by including "certain uses of `streaming' technologies" as if 'uploading' wasn't already very inprecise to start with.

    Why didn't they use a definition like "providing unauthorized public access to copyrighted music via the internet". That would be a much clearer definition. But i think they want to get an exemplary case which they then can further extend and apply to other forms of music exchange via the net (is it also forbidden to send a music-file to a friend, maybe even one i got of one of his own CD's?).

    As long as they don't redefine 'uploading' or 'streaming' their term 'internet piracy' doesn't apply at all to napster. The music files aren't 'uploaded' to some central server, they are copied peer to peer (the only thing that is 'uploaded' is a list of names), and the copying process is a simple file transmission via the internet and wouldn't be termed 'streaming'. The only 'uploading' of music files that takes place is the copying of music on a personal PC which may well be 'authorized use' if a person chooses to use his PC as a CD player (in about ten years time you probably can't clearly distinguish between PC and CD-player anyway).
  • by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @07:18PM (#814807)
    I have a feeling that we as a society have been down this path before, and we fail to learn from our history.

    Prior to the invention of the movable type printing press, in order to copy a book or other paper it required someone sitting down with a pen and paper and doing it by hand.

    Prior to this technology it was very difficult to mass produce literature, and as such books were incredibly rare and expensive.

    I guess the point is, the copyright laws were pretty much created to combat the problems the new technology generated. Do you think now that there is new technology that makes it even easier to copy books or music the laws will not be strengthened rather than removed?

    It is not unthinkable as we start to flesh out the problems of the Internet that we will see more police involvement. There have been reports of huge problems with pedophilia, identity theft, fraud, breaking into systems, etc. over the years. The Internet is drawing attention to itself, and many people are outraged by the stories they hear.

    Your claim that it can't be stopped is rather naive. As our country grew westward in the 19th century we had bad people doing bad things and getting away with it, also thinking that they could not be stopped because the land was so wide and they could hide easily.

    That obviously changed as the land became more populated, and tax dollars were spent hiring law enforcement officers.

    The Internet will most likely evolve in a similar fashion.

    As far as the issue there are with crossing nation borders, those can be dealt with as well by cooperation between police agencies. The same technology that connects citizens can also be used to connect police agencies. Perhaps the need for such enforcement will result in cooperation and a world government.

    It's hard to say... There's a whole future ahead of us. There aren't very many people who want to live in a lawless anarchy, and as such our society will adapt to bring order to the chaos, or at least try to.

  • by update() ( 217397 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @07:19PM (#814808) Homepage
    Am I wrong, or is the RIAA trying to write-out fair use?

    I'm pretty confident that you're wrong and that distribution of the "unauthorized recordings of a live concert, or a musical broadcast on radio or television" is implied in their statement. It's a web page, not legislation.

    As long as I'm posting, could someone explain to me again why respect for music copyrights is always a target for sneering and ridicule here while every accidental, trivial violation of the GPL is cause for another jihad? I keep asking this and always lose a few karma points and attract some furious responses. Still, no one has ever offered an explanation beyond "Because the GPL is good. The RIAA is bad. The Constitution says copyright only applies to good stuff."

    ---------

  • by erotus ( 209727 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @07:28PM (#814810)
    ...or rather let the artists and the open source community work together to create a an electronic marketplace that does not involve the riaa. I read an interesting article on osopinion.com that really intrigues me. I have posted a few quotes from the article to give you an idea of the possible future. I highly encourage you to read the original article - Here is the link in plain text(I wouldn't want to break any laws):-)

    http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/DavidNimmons/D avidNimmons1.html

    Mr. Nimmons basically says open source has the answer. Mr. Nimmons speaks of "a foundation run by musicians for musicians, will exist for the sole purpose of supporting musicians, providing the infrastructure and services presently supplied by the record companies." Secondly, Mr. Nimmons also states "By collaborating with the free software community, the foundation will provide the music community with an electronic marketplace to sell their work and services directly to consumers."

    He concludes, "We,the free software community, help the music community establish an electronic marketplace and they pay us a portion of their proceeds to run and maintain the system and also to fund future development of software specific to their needs." I believe this man has an answer to a problem that could be beneficial, both financially and socially, to artists and the open source community. Fellow open source followers, here is our chance to do away with the riaa and to free the artists from the clutches of greedy corporations... let's jump on this opportunity!

  • by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @07:28PM (#814811)
    We've always had this idea of distributed sharing on the internet for as long as I've been connected... since the late 1980's anyway.

    They were called FTP sites. Later we had fsp, and then after that came the Web.

    These technologies worked great except that nobody knew you existed unless you advertised. From that concept came the directory services... WAIS and then later yahoo, lycos, altavista, etc.

    Napster came out and provided a directory service which catered solely to the purpose of finding pirated music. So yes, they were an easy target to shut down, a directory service that all connected to.

    But the idea that you will do peer to peer networking on a grand scale is technically flawed. Anybody who has ever tried to manage a large network of Win95 machines running NetBEUI would understand this.

    As the network grows larger, the percentage of network bandwidth which is required to maintain the connections between the nodes, passing queries for services, etc. grows at an almost exponential pace... until at some point you are using more bandwidth handling the overhead than actually sharing data.

    Nobody will need to shut down freenet, it will collapse under it's own weight, or it will remain niche and isolated and a bother to nobody.

    Napster was a technically sound solution, it was unfortunately ethically and legally flawed.
  • This article [salon.com] at Salon.com [salon.com] describes how the RIAA suceeded in getting "four little words" added to the copyright light via Congress, that would essentially give them full ownership of all music written by musicians under contract within the past 30 years. Until now, after 35 years, the musician could reclaim copyright ownership, if they wanted to peddle their music to another distributor.

    Fortunately, according to the article, an observant pro-musician lobbyist discovered it, and after a huge uproar, negative media, and explaining things to congress, the RIAA has requested Congress to nullify the terms that negatively impact musicians.
    -----
    D. Fischer
  • Wow. I had no idea that the RIAA members were fans of Star Trek.

    You see, there's this classic rule in Trek, known as the 'Rule of Three.' The idea is, name two things that are real, and then, in order to make it plain that it's similar but futuristic, name one made up thing. i.e.: "the great philosophers, Plato and Decartes and Surak."

    In the case of the RIAA annoucement, they've named three forms of copyright infringement and are pretending that the fourth is too.

    Now I just want to know who their favorite character is ;)
  • Well, while you're trying your damnest to attack the GPL I think, you're actually more right than you know. The copyright clause of the Constitution really does say that copyrights are only valid if it promotes the arts or sciences. So if it were shown that the art of music were somehow improved if there were no copyrights on music, Congress would have no constitutional avenue but to rewrite copyright laws so that they didn't apply to music.

    Given the direction that our copyright laws are going in, it probably won't be long before the GPL is protectable and the harsh copyrights on music are not (though they'll probably just revert to more relaxed copyrights)
  • Never thought I'd say it, but here I am. That article is _very_ informative (if it's true).
  • radio (used to) pay licencing fees for the broadcast rights to a cd... not sure if that's the case now, or that most cd's are given for publicity purposes... not quite the same... shoutcasts are generally individually licenced cds (according to the riaa anyway)...
    • Napster isn't about sharing. Sharing is when you have something and give it to someone else. Napster is about distributing.
    Are you a Lawyer? Your word games confuse me. Who cares if it is sharing or distributing? What is the difference? Okay, try this:
    • There are musicians who want to distripute their music to as wide an audience as possible, who encourage people to trade their music on Napster. (e.g., there is a musician called Chris who posts in most Napster debates on /.)
    • This is legal.
    • The Judge should have followed the Betamax precedant, i.e. there are legitimate uses for the video recorder: it is legal; there are legitimate uses for Napster: it is legal.
    Please explain how you distributing/sharing word games demonstrate that there anything illegal about Napster.
    • Because prior to napster, no one had created a free means of simultaneously distributing many copies of the original.
    Uh... duh!
    Throughout the first half of your post, you carefully explain that Napster is a very efficient method to distribute mp3s. It is not illegal to be good at what you do.
    • the Walmarts and Targets of the world were eating the Mom and Pop stores for breakfast, hence the RIAA implented a minimum price in order to save the smaller stores
    Aw, how sweet! The RIAA are ripping me off to keep small business alive, aw god bless 'em - aren't they kind.

    But I'm not saying Napster is in the right. It's just (1) that there is this little thing called the law, and even the RIAA have to live by it (2) it is a matter of liberty. I want the right to write file sharing programs. File sharing programs do have legitimate uses and a case like this could create dangerous legal precedants.

    smiles.
    G

  • It is more complicated than that. The subject came up in a discussion about compulsory licensing on a mailing list that I belong to and I got a good explanation of the situation from Kilroy Hughes:

    There is a compulsory license with the guy that wrote the sheet music (like Barry Manilow), but the performer (like Rod Stewart), the Phonogram (the copyrighted "Rod Sings Barry" album), the AFofM musician's union (the boys in the band), AFTRA (talent), and mechanical royalties (Harry Fox agency) ... don't get a nickel for air play. I guess you would say that the radio stations "give away their stuff".

    The ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc. performance royalties for publishers run about 5% of station revenue.

    This structure is basically an historical accident based on the original business model of the music business where composers made money by selling sheet music to live musicians. When recordings and radios cut into sheet music sales, composers/publishers were given the right by the congressional copyright tribunal to negotiate a royalty for mechanical copying and air play. I think the Great Radio Strike of 1930 had something to do with it. The theory was that the record companies made their money selling plastic. It wasn't until 1976 (if I recall correctly) that the copyright tribunal (in their 20 year meeting cycle) recognized recordings as a copyrighted work (a phonogram), like a book or sheet music. The visionaries in the record biz at the time tried to get congress to let them charge broadcasters for the rights of the performer and phonogram publisher; recognizing that they weren't going to be in the plastic business much longer. They missed that boat and the next one; but there will be another in 20 years; probably around the time direct cortical transmission replaces whatever they'll be prepared to legislate.

    So the composer gets paid, but everyone else is out of luck. The record companies go along with it because radio airplay promotes sales of recordings.

  • You make a good point here, but let's play a few more word games. :-)

    I certainly know that if someone talked to me about piracy of CDs, I would think they meant the people who sell dodgy copies on market stalls, not one kid copying a some tracks onto a tape for a friend.

    It may be word games, but piracy involved theft with view to make a profit, and to me piracy of music means copyright theft with a view to making a profit.

    G
  • I don't see how slashdot could like it, personally, being that it actively disregards licenses while slashdot cries foul whenever the GPL appears to be in danger of violation...

    I would have to agree with you on this, although I can't totally agree with your eariler post (i.e. that RIAA is not that bad). I personally think this is an issue where both sides are wrong. I believe that artists have a right to be compensated to whatever degree their works are marketable (although how some of the crap "Top 40" artists put out is marketable enough to make them obscenely wealthy, I will never know), and piracy artificially deflates that marketability. However, I think the internet age offers newcomers an opportunity to get known without the overhead of a label (or less overhead anyway), and old-timers the opportunity to distribute stuff they would personally own if they had the guts to make the break. If I were RIAA (as if it's one person :-) I would be afraid of the threat that is to my little empire.

    I agree with IP and patents. I think they offer incentives to create and innovate. You seem to agree that these are not fundamentally bad things, but I would add that the abuse of these laws is becoming a mainstream business practice, which I do think is bad.. For example, purchasing a license to own a recording of a song I want to listen to at my discretion should be independent of the medium that song is distributed on (i.e. CD vs. Cassette). If that medium becomes damamged, or is superceded by a better technology, I should not be forced to purchase a new license with the new medium. At most, I should be responsible for the physical reproduction costs. Unfortunately, as long as the labels can charge me for a new license with each copy of the physical medium, they unvariably will do so. So, while Napster users are shafting the labels and "artists", the labels are shafting their legitimate customer base. It seems like a lose-lose situation for me. As long as they are getting screwed, many customers will continue to turn to illegal media to obtain music, and as long as the labels think they are losing income to pirating, they will continue to milk legitimate customers for all they can squeeze out. The solution? We should all listen to country music on the radio. Then we would never be tempted to go spend a bunch of monay for an overpriced CD. And if we survived the ordeal, we may indeed live to see the demise of RIAA. I'm still working on a similar alternative for the film industry, so we can drive MPAA out of business. Any suggestions.

    Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
  • <SARC>It's no longer "fair use" becuase by using a VCR, you're circumventing their NTSC-encoded signal for the purposes of making an illegal copy that you might watch again and again without paying additional licensing fees.</SARC>

    --

  • by BJH ( 11355 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @08:50PM (#814838)
    "Fair pay" for the work involved in making and distributing music:

    Artist: Royalty per person for each work (not each copy of that work)

    Label: Reasonable compensation for promotional work

    Retailer: Profit margin comparable to other products

    RIAA: Big, fat ZERO.

  • Keep repainting the manifesto on the side of the barn in the middle of the night. Eventually, you end up with "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
  • Serious about your frustration with the RIAA and corporatism in general? Try Civil Disobedience [actupny.org]. No, really. Be willing to get arrested for possessing the tools we take for granted. I am. But read on...

    First, a summary, since this is long and will get chopped:

    • We can't win if we look like the bad guys. Therefore, we must clean up our act, both public and private, and be willing to address the real, underlying concerns of our fellow artists and consumers.
    • Corporations don't trust individuals; individuals don't trust corporations. Therefore, we must gather all of the individuals together on our side, artists and consumers alike, instead of allowing the corporations to divide us.
    • The future is change; everyone is scared. The industry is afraid, but also opportunistic. It believes it can secure a future for itself built by legally forcing nature to behave itself. It attacks the fears of consumers to create this legal impetus.
    • The "Tragedy of the Commons" is worrisome. Individual artists are afraid that if they open themselves up to a meritocracy, they'll be raped. We have counterexamples, and we also need to set expectations.
    We can't win if we look like the bad guys

    Before you don your DeCSS Shirt [copyleft.net], it's important that we get our act together and learn the very powerful art of spin . Don't sneer and say that's beneath us. Right now, the RIAA and MPAA are mobilizing a very powerful political engine. They are engaging in a classic tactic, painting our community's members as pirates and criminals in the public's eye. It's our job to spin right back at them, to recast the debate in terms that make us clearly the good guys, and them clearly the corporate Goliath, out to trample the rights of individual artists and consumers. Here's how...

    Start giving props to artists. Start decrying the fact that there's no widely available, secure, trustable infrastructure for "tipping". Start pitting the labels against the individual artists, whom you would compensate directly, if there were a reliable means to do so. Blame the corporate hegemony for this situation. Traditional corporations exist for one reason alone: profit ; profit to the exclusion of all else, including the rights of artists, and the rights of individual consumers. Start pitting the labels against consumers, by using inflammatory phrases like "abrogation of our rights" and "corporate hegemony" (please understand what they mean and be able to defend them calmly, though). As soon as we can swing the focus of our fellow consumers' mistrust and cynicism to the industry, as soon as we can paint ourselves the David in this battle, we will begin changing things.

    The reasons for this are simple:

    • People root for the underdog. Right now, the RIAA and MPAA are painting themselves and the artists as the underdog against the massive, unstoppable tide of digital piracy and mayhem. As it happens, they may be right, but I'll get to that in a minute.
    • People fear for their own property. People want to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects". The RIAA and MPAA are casting this debate squarely in terms of theft of property because they know that will strike a chord with the public. They want you, the consumer, to believe that, if you don't side with them to stop Napster and DeCSS, you'll lose out just as much as if someone broke into your house and stole all of your CDs.

    My freshman year in college, someone stole 250 CDs from my dorm room. 250 CDs that I had worked very hard to afford, and had worked very hard to acquire (many rare imports, anime, etc.). I felt hurt, violated, confused, angry, and all of that. The RIAA and MPAA are trying to connect with those feelings in the consumer public.

    We need to be going for the same connection, while also making the connection between individual freedom and liberty. We need to make it clear that we're all for just compensation, and that we don't need Goliath's hand to ensure that compensation. We need to show our fellow consumers that the industry is just in the game for the sake of revenue, and that they don't give a damn about consumer rights, nor do they trust consumers in the least. Yet they ask for our trust that they will justly compensate artists, that they will respect our rights to fair use, that they will treat us as equals (IANAL, but a corporation is legally considered a person.)

    Corporations don't trust individuals; individuals don't trust corporations

    The RIAA and MPAA would have you believe that every artist and "legitimate consumer" out there is on their side, and that everyone else is a pirate. We know that's wrong, but what do we do about it?

    Get all the individuals on the same side. Artists are individuals. Consumers are individuals. Everything in between the two is corporate infrastructure. The internet makes that corporatism irrelevant to the kind of relationships we could be building with our fellow individuals.

    If I play your song, and I like it, I'll give you a tip. If I play it all the damned time, I'll give you big tips, frequently. If Metallica pulled their heads out, they'd understand that they'd make a lot more from me letting me tip them than they are right now, since I won't buy anything new of theirs (even though I really want to).

    The future is change; everyone is scared

    Things we've taken for granted, as a society, as individuals, and as corporations, are all in the process of changing dramatically and radically. Specifically, traditional notions of property become more meaningless with each passing day. We know how to treat tangible items as property (you're stealing it if you deprive me of it without my consent), but we don't know how to treat intangibles as property; after all, if you copy it from me, how are you depriving me of it?

    And if you think that distinction is cut-and-dried, and that it just means we need two classes of property, intellectual and tangible, think again. What's going to happen in a decade or three when nano-technology makes tangible property available to anyone with a handful of garbage, a replicator, and a design?

    Now, it's understandable that corporations might be afraid. After all, they might disappear. Or have to reinvent themselves radically. I think they're pretty well aware of that fact. The issue, ultimately, is one of control. The industry wants to control its destiny, but it doesn't have that kind of power. It seeks to create that power, artificially, by lobbying to create laws like the DMCA, that curtail individual rights that are far more powerful than they were when they were granted, 225 years ago, before there was an Internet.

    I don't know about you, but I don't want to be controlled by a corporation. I want the freedom to interact with my fellow individuals, to share and communicate and transact by our own rules. I want to write code and trust that you'll compensate me for it justly. And I do. Literally. I have a 100% GPL clause for the work I do. And I trust the community and individuals to be faithful to one another, and to support one another. I don't need a law or a corporation to enforce what ought to be human decency.

    The "Tragedy of the Commons" is worrisome

    The idea that some people will steal all the goodies is worrisome. They can't. Unlike the commons about which "The Tragedy of the Commons" was written, you can't trample up the grass around an artist. You can't turn a director into mud by copiously copying her work.

    You can refrain from contributing to their livelihood. You can enjoy their work and simply not tip them, even though you can afford to tip them. Fine. We already have a really good term for that in place: cheap asshole. Perhaps we could get it made into a legal term?

    Anyway, there are natural responses to the problem of the cheap asshole. The first is the pillory, metaphorically speaking. A good tipping infrastructure will allow you to leave your tips either anonymously or with credit. An advogato [advogato.org]-like trust metric [advogato.org] will allow folks to rate your generosity in comparison to your means. A well-deployed micro-accounting infrastructure will make artists, producers, technicians, and so forth, accountable for how they spend the tips in pursuit of their art. All of that means that assholes will be highlighted in red, and the object of public scorn.

    This is as it should be, and there is a long tradition of such treatment. Read A Christmas Carol if you doubt me. Everyone hated Scrooge because he was... well, you know. A c.a.

    The second is based on what I call "laws of information physics". The two fundamental laws of information physics are:

    1. Bandwidth between any two points at any given time is a finite resource.
    2. Information flows freely as long as there is available bandwidth.

    These laws can be exploited to prevent the c.a.'s from propagating:

    • First of all, imagine if you had to pay for bandwidth by your usage. Hey, if we're not relying on king corporation any more, someone's got to foot the bill for your 128Kbps chunk of the OC48 to gratefuldead.com [gratefuldead.com]. Thus, when you download directly from them, there's a mandatory tip of $.05/MB ($3.00 for a 60MB album). You'd still want to tip on top of that if you liked it; that was just to cover their connectivity. Of course, they may be popular enough, and get tipped enough as it is, to not charge that connectivity fee.
    • Imagine if free file-sharing networks allowed you to hook into the aforementioned trust-metric [advogato.org], and determine based on that whether or not you would allow your server to send files to a c.a. Through literal peer-pressure, people would find themselves either tipping liberally, or cut off from the goods.

    Such infrastructure can be exploited in a lot of other ways that bring back our ability to trust one another, and to build community even in the massive scale of the Internet and a global economy. People who've had hard times could "get a break." Or if you're a real hard-liner about people overcoming circumstance, you could set your own metrics to shun anyone who claimed hard times, or anyone who was rich without working for it, and not generous with their wealth. "The possibilities," as they say, "are limitless."

    Getting there from here

    I'd recap, but you can scroll to the top for that. The bottom line is that we need to pay attention to the fears and concerns of our fellow individuals, and address those, and not just go spouting off about how we're going to do whatever we please and the industry can't stop us. We all believe the industry can't stop us, because ultimately, we can hide. But who wants to hide? And who wants a world in which sharing is a criminal act? So don't feed their fire. Help your fellow artists, consumers, individuals understand how we can build a better future together, without corporate hegemony.

    And be prepared to get arrested [weblogs.com] in the meantime. But when you do, make sure you come off sane, rational, and reasonable. Make it clear that the man is putting you down. If you're not calm, careful, and likable, your fellow consumers and artists are going to see exactly what the RIAA and MPAA want them to see. And away goes your freedom and their freedom.

    P.S. I'd have crossposted this to advogato [advogato.org], but I'm not certified by anyone as having done anything special. So if you're of a mind to, and have a decent cert there, please certify me [advogato.org] if you think I can add value to the discussions there. Thanks.

  • The history of English copyright law doesn't seem to have much to do with the rights of authors. The Crown was interested in exerting control over a limited group of publishers to suppress subversive literature. The publishers wanted exclusive rights to publish books that they had purchased, and to make big piles of money. The only money an author received was when he sold his manuscript to a publisher.

    I've read of similar situations in other European countries. The governments wanted to control what was published and the publishers wanted protection from competition.

  • Please. How many geeks have had any real influence on the business and legal behaviours of their employers? Virtually none: the closest thing to an exception to that might be some of the cases where software companies opened their source, but frankly, I doubt that, as well. There's thousands of geeks working at Apple, but I still can't see most Quicktime clips in Unix.

    There is always a quite-large population of entirely mercenary geeks - in fact, I consider them the rule, not the exception - who will find some way to justify working for virtually any company that pays them well and gives them neat stuff, even if they are in the business of producing land mines and Zyklon B.

  • by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @09:30PM (#814848) Homepage Journal
    Whoa, hang on a second! (yah it's me again, obGoDownloadTunes mp3.com/chrisj [mp3.com] bla bla bla)

    You need to pay a little more attention to the intellectual property implications of labels vs. mp3.com. mp3.com does many things horribly (annoying page layout, tottering servers, terrible messageboards) but if you look at their artist agreement there are some extremely important points that I sure hope potential competitors take seriously:

    • Nonexclusive contract, with the artist continuing to OWN the mechanicals. Contrast this with any majors contract in which the label owns the mechanicals, the songs, even the band name and the website or the Artist's name itself (!)
    • Contract is only renegotiable with the agreement and acknowledgement of the artist! If this seems obvious check out some music biz contracts- see how often the contract is unilaterally renegotiable by the label. That means 'we can change it to whatever we want, after the fact, and you already signed off on it'.
    • 49.9999% royalty none of which is recoupable- compared to a tenth or hundredth of that much, already pledged to recoup recording costs mandated by the label. In other words, on mp3.com you get $40, or maybe $400 (what I'm hoping for in the mail) or even $4000 if you have a _lot_ of listens and CD sales- and on the major labels you watch a lot of money go by and keep none of it, nada.
    Honestly- it's good to be skeptical, and there are plenty of reasons to knock mp3.com. The deal they offer is not one of them. For all intents and purposes, and even with all their flaws, mp3.com is something new, and the key point (to me) proving that is the nonexclusive nature of their deal- 'sign' with mp3.com and you continue to be totally free to move. Worst that can happen is that you decide to remove your stuff and mp3.com are slow to do it- they make no claim or attempt to own your IP, they just ask for very extensive RIGHTS to USE it, which is waaaaay different, and nothing like as harmful as signing away your creative work to a label.

    I try to avoid obsessively posting all over mp3 threads with my little links and all ;P but I needed to open my mouth here, because even if mp3.com itself doesn't survive the next decade, as an artist I need something LIKE mp3.com, something that will strike the same terms for use of my music. I'm happy to sign over quite extensive rights to _use_ the stuff- but I'm going to keep the mechanicals, and keep ownership of myself and my name and the tunes, and I'm going to want to see that the contract doesn't get to change the rules about this without my okaying it. And mp3.com walks this line very honorably. It's almost as if they were behaving like some more honorable industry and trying to come up with a fair contract for artists. *shock!* *horror!* ;)

  • <rant>
    It's always funny to see them lie like that. I was watching Larry King on CNN the other night and he interviewed some fsck from the label and the movie producer of Show Girls. Everyone agreed that goverment censorship was bad, that without free speech great movies could never have been made, blah, blah ... and then they go on to ask that the major contributor boycott the campaing finacement off the democrats or give much less, to show Gore-Libermann that they don't support their censorship plan. For sure they had all the time needed to talk about what they wanted.

    Then they turn around, they sue 2600, they sue everyone who wants to express themselves or who dares to place/talk about DeCSS on their websites, they treaten ISP, they treaten my University with legal action, they almost got me kicked out and they even have the guts to try to take away my fair use right for the music and movies I already overpaid?
    </rant>



    wiZd0m

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @09:38PM (#814851)
    Imagine how you'd feel if, after you paid a dealer $20,000 for a new car, you found a note inside saying that you had "agreed" not to open the hood or to let any "unauthorized" shop open the hood to do repairs. Or a note stating that "unauthorized lending of this automobile is prohibited by applicable laws." And because you have opened the doors (no other way to find the notes!), the dealer won't let you return the car to get your money back. This is how the software industry, the music industry, and the movie industry treat us with increasing frequency. It doesn't mean that this is right or that we should buy into the idea of restrictive licensing for every mass-market item under the Sun.

    If you want to sell me a mass-market album, a software package, or a video in a consumer setting, there should be no shrink-wrap licenses, no click-wrap licenses, no UCITA, and no DMCA-enforced access controls after the sale. Just your merchandise, my money, and the normal copyright / sales / private property laws.

    By the way, if you look at the current version of the GNU Public License closely, you'll see that it differs in a very essential respect from most shrinkwrap "licenses".

    Shrinkwrap "licenses" start from the bogus premise that you are bound by them, and then proceed to try to take away rights that you, as an owner of a legal copy of a copyrighted item, already have under the law. The GNU Public License acknowledges that you have rights under copyright law, and states that you do not need to agree to the GPL to exercise those rights. The only reason for anyone to agree to the GPL is to gain authorization to perform additional actions (most notably redistribution) which are not part of the default rights you get from copyright law.

    To put it more succinctly, shrinkwrap "licenses" are BAD because they distort contract law in the service of taking away your right to make use of your own property. The GPL doesn't do this.

    How could this be applied to CD sales? One way might be to include a license in the liner notes that allows buyers to give away copies of songs. Say, "if you accept this license, you can share promotional MP3s of these songs, encoded at a rate of 64Kbps" ... or "you can make CD-quality copies of these songs beyond the limits of Fair Use if you go to http://www.mymusicsite.com/ and pay for the songs you copy." The key here is not that everything is free (as with GPL) but that you would be offering extra value to customers, instead of beating them with a stick.

  • Well put! My job is to foment rebellion, not organize it, so your suggested actions are an wonderful complement :)

    Here's another one that I'm planning: Send real money to artists. Say you're listening to an Oingo Boingo [rit.edu] and decide that, if such a system existed, you'd tip the boys. So write a check for a buck and send it away! Even if they never cash it, if enough artists get enough random bucks flowing in in envelopes, they'll get the clue. They'll realize that, if infrastructure existed, they could sever their ties with the beast.

    No, it's not practical and scalable. But it makes a point, and that's what's important.

  • That's correct, as it is now, but I think the main reason is because the technology just hasn't evolved enough yet.

    First, not many people has a fat pipe to the internet and therefore downloading a lot of MP3's (or hopefully soon .ogg files) just isn't very convenient.

    Second, most peolpe listen to music on their stereo, not on their computer (better sound, easier, etc.) and most peolpe doesn't have a "connection" from their computer to the stereo. If you have a "connection" from you computer to your stereo, then you still can't control it with your stereo or your remote, which, well sucks...

    It has to be atleastas easy to use as existing technology (CD's), before it will be widely used.
    Solutions to this is on the way though. Take a look at what Adomo [adomo.com] is doing.
  • by skoda ( 211470 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @10:58PM (#814860) Homepage
    While the history of the music biz' fear of radio is shows that htey haven't changed their basic attitude over the years, I don't think it necessarily provides a strong argument for a pro-Napster stance.

    Radio, at least currently, plays a song or two from a new CD, chosen by the . It's played at random times during the day. The selection of songs from an artist's collection is very small. Finally, only the most popular songs continue to be played past a year or two.

    Thus, radio serves as a commerical for musicians' full recordings. The listener hears whole and partial songs of random artists throughout the day. But if the listener really likes a song, radio does little to meet their desire. To hear it at their desire, they must purchase it. Radio is just a large demo system, providing snippets of an artist's work, and hopefully enticing people to buy the full recordings.

    Contrast to Napster et. al.: There is no "tease"; they just put out. The listener can acquire the entire selection of music they want, making irrelevant the retail version. Whereas radio is a commerical, unsanctioned online distributions are full-fledged providers, doing an end-run around the stores, artists, and music companies. This is quite different from radio.

    Radio whets your desire. Napster satisfies it. The musician is left holding the bag.
    -----
    D. Fischer
  • The Artists Coalition [artistscoalition.org] would probably also like to hear from those of us that would actively support a voluntary, tip-based, just compensation system.

    In addition to your congressional representive, you might want to cc: your notes to mine, Rick Boucher [mailto], who's one of the forces behind repealing the "work for hire" mess described in this salon article [salon.com].

    Finally, go visit fairtunes [fairtunes.com], mentioned a few weeks ago in this slashdot story. [slashdot.org]

    crime pays when corporate pigs can't afford to put gas in their BMWs.

  • by streetlawyer ( 169828 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @11:51PM (#814866) Homepage
    If you destroy the profitability of the music industry, then you will fundamentally alter the kind of music which is produced. Copyright gives you big companies, lots of investment, high-production values acts, slick video and attracts people into the business who want to be *stars*

    No copyright gives you smaller average size of recording company, home recording enthusiasts, people who don't mind looking after the business side for themselves, probably more acoustic music, and people who (for the large part erroneously) believe that they have something important to say to the world.

    Personally, I think it sucks.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30, 2000 @11:53PM (#814867)
    What "repairs" were you planning on doing to music and movies? Dumbass.

    There are many legitimate applications for being able to manipulate audio and video data. Making compilations for personal use, making short film clips for use in reviews or in teaching classes, etc. But let's focus on repairs.

    Some repairs that you might do to music: using a scratch and hiss remover program to clean up the music that you are transferring from records and tapes to CD-R; adjusting the volume of a song so that all of the songs in a home-made compilation play back smoothly. I learned the hard way that CDs are not mastered to a common reference level.

    Then there's the whole CSS / DeCSS / Open Source Linux DVD player mess. The industry picked a system that creates obstacles to playback (you must decrypt a disc to play it), but that does not pose any barrier to counterfeiters with access to professional equipment (who don't even need to break the encryption). Here the Linux crowd tried to reverse engineer the system in order to build a Linux DVD player application (read: something that would promote the sales of DVD-Video discs), only to get kicked in the teeth.

  • In any manegerial position I ever find myself in, I will be forced to view with disfavor the ethics of any programmer or technical person who worked for RIAA or MPAA affiliated companies after the start dates of their lawsuits (Or perhaps a short time thereafter, as locating a new job can sometimes be difficult.) I shall never advocate the hiring of such a person in my company.
  • Am I wrong, or is the RIAA trying to write-out fair use? I had always thought that recording a broadcast off the radio [or TV] for personal, private purposes was considered fair use! Wasn't the Betamax case all about just this?

    And now the RIAA is trying to tag FAIR USE with the slur of "Bootleg Recordings". I cry foul.


    For personal use it always has been and always will be fine. That's time-shifting and is completely covered by fair use. If you notice though, only one section poitns out that it includes "even if the recording isn't resold". You can record something off TV or radio and use it for yourself, but you can't resell it or charge others to watch it. Conversely, you can't record a live concert without permission (who exactly has to give permission I'm not sure, but I believe it's the performing artist).

  • 4. Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public, or downloading a sound recording from an Internet site, even if the recording isn't resold. Online piracy may now also include certain uses of 'streaming' technologies from the Internet.

    First of all they make the distinction between uploading, downloading and streaming. In pure TCP/IP terms all these acts are the same... a uni-directional flow of data yet they single out these three practises. However gnutella is a lot more focussed on 'transferring' - seems fine to me.

    4. Online piracy is the unauthorized uploading of a copyrighted sound recording and making it available to the public

    So if for example I upload a file to a site... that's fine. So provided it isn't me that makes the file I upload publically available then its perfectly ok. So now when I upload a file to geocities i do nothing wrong, and similarly when geocities ftpd sets the file world readable it does nothing wrong.... no piracy there.

    downloading a sound recording from an Internet site

    The word 'site' typically only descibes passive services like websites & ftp sites. Napster on the other hand is more interactive and typically you would say "Napseter Server" or "Napster User" and not "Napster Site". If someone talked about a napster site I would immediately think of this one [napster.com].

    Online piracy may now also include certain uses of 'streaming' technologies from the Internet.

    It may now!!!. Sounds to me like "Streaming didn't used to be a crime but we are going to pretend it is one now" or perhaps they mean "We dont really know whether it is or not".

    Really if those are the definitions we are up against i find it hard to believe the lawyers, who are much scorned for bending the words of legislation against the spirit that legislation was created in, cant come up with a half decent defence.
  • The most annoying problem with gnutella (that I find) is getting hit with so many searches, most of which are for porn.

    I guess this is necessary to a point if there's not going to be a central directory that could be shut down. IMHO though, the next step would be to have a distributed system that would organise itself into branches based on relevant keywords. (It wouldn't be too difficult for clients to connect themselves to more than one branch.)

    This way searches could work more intelligently instead of by brute force, by only looking down the most relevant branches where the searches are most likely to succeed.


    ===
  • Advogato's showing you to be an apprentice. Seems several people went over and certified you.

    Go and knock yourself out!
  • This is as it should be, and there is a long tradition of such treatment. Read A Christmas Carol if you doubt me. Everyone hated Scrooge because he was... well, you know. A c.a.

    Scrooge didn't give a shit about being considered a cheap asshole. He had his money, the only thing he cared for.

  • That would be cool, it should really drive up salaries in the industry :)
  • Ripped-Off: An individual forced to pay more for a CD than a casette (even considering any possible differnce in manufacturing cost)

    Hmmm... the lifetime of a CD is quite a bit longer than that of a cassette, shouldn't the cost be higher then? Plus you have the whole analog and digital thing going, so you are getting a higher quality recording. That's not worth anything to you?

    Harassed: Individuals who excercised their right to the free expression on an idea by linking/posting the DeCSS code

    I thought this article was about the RIAA not the MPAA.

    Bottom-Feeding Scumsukers: Lawers for the recording and motion-picture industries

    Yeah, I hate it when people try to defend their rights. I hope you feel the same was about companies that get harrassed by the FSF, etc...
  • by The Man ( 684 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @05:09AM (#814907) Homepage
    Copying, for your own use, copyrighted material that you have obtained legally has never been illegal.

    Of course. That's fair use. But don't kid yourself - Napster isn't about copying for one's own use. Unfortunately neither side in this case has the right view - that this is a matter between individual purchasers of recordings and the labels that hold the copyrights on them. Napster, lame and stupid as they are, should not be involved in any way. Nor should the RIAA. Instead of standing up for Napster and shouting nonsense like fair use and information wants to be free, we need to step back and acknowledge that most if not all Napster users are in violation of the law. And then fight to the death for the continuing existence of communication. The RIAA is evil. Napster know full well that their service is used mainly if not exclusively by people violating the law. But none of that is relevant to this case: the RIAA has no business being involved, and the case should be thrown out completely so the proper plaintiffs can bring a case against the proper defendants. Allowing the current trial to proceed at all is a serious blow to the continued existence of communication - it makes transfer media liable for the messages they carry, which I think we've all agreed here numerous times is a bad thing.

    Quick summary: There's no piracy here, because (AFAIK) none of this involved ships. The RIAA has no case, because they hold no relevant copyrights. Napster should not be defendants because they didn't violate any relevant copyrights. The individual labels should sue individuals who violated the relevant copyrights, if they feel that the violations harmed them. Acknowledging the current case as valid at all endangers the existence of all communications media.

  • Hmmm... the lifetime of a CD is quite a bit longer than that of a cassette, shouldn't the cost be higher then? Plus you have the whole analog and digital thing going, so you are getting a higher quality recording. That's not worth anything to you?

    Do you work for the RIAA? Just wonderin', because you just echoed their arguments on "Why CDs cost so much." [riaa.com]

    (short answer : Marketing)

    But you're logic still doesn't hold. Because someone has created a better medium, that's cheaper to produce, it should cost more? By that logic the Internet should be too expensive for anyone to use, especially with your digital point.

    I thought this article was about the RIAA not the MPAA.

    Check the member companies of both, then look at parent companies and the conglomerates that hold them. No doubt both lobbied hard for the DMCA, and both have been shown to be hijakcing citizen's rights.

    Lawyers go both ways, IMHO. A necesssity of an overly complex legal system, and abused by the ultra greedy who hide themselves behind the word capitalism.

    --
  • You can record something off TV or radio and use it for yourself, but you can't resell it or charge others to watch it.

    This is another bad part of the DMCA. Under the old laws you would have been perfectly fine sharing this in the absence of monetary exchange, under the DMCA, you're a felon.
    --
  • I don't want to speculate with dark humor, but I woke up with a bad dream from an afternoon nap:

    Napster was a deliberate plant by the RIAA and MPAA and carefully managed like a stage puppet to set a legal precident.

    Now that would be scary.
  • morally, the first; musically, the second.
  • If you want to drive up your salary, perhaps you should spend more time working and less time posting on /. ;-P

    --
  • If calling somewhat a pirate makes you think they have committed murder on the high seas, does calling someone a b**** make you think they are a female dog?

    Better yet, I've actually heard environmentalists accuse companies of raping the land. Do you actually think they f***** the dirt?

  • Bottom-Feeding Scumsukers: Lawyers for the recording and motion-picture industries

    If you're looking for something to blame on lawyers, there are plenty of examples, but this isn't one of them. Blame lawyers for the tobacco lawsuits, blame lawyers for the gun industry lawsuits, blame lawyers for the whole "I'll sue you if you have two cents more than I do" mentality.

    The MPAA and RIAA issues are completely different. Blame corporate greed. These lawyers are just hired guns, they're not the ones who initiated this. The private on the battlefield is not the one whom you blame for the war, it's the government of his country. How do you beat an army? Amass your own ary and outwit the enemy. We need good lawyers on the right side of this. We need good lawyers who can beat the suits at their own game. I once heard a comedian talk about why black people were so interested in the OJ Simpson case. He said that it wasn't because of concern about OJ, it was because it was great to see Johnnie Cochran beat the white lawyers at their own game.

    Remember that, we can win this.

    LK
  • by jms ( 11418 )
    or moe. or String Cheese Incident, or the Allman Brothers Band, or Charlie Hunter, or any of the Grateful Dead offshoot bands, or any of dozens and dozens of bands.

    Many newer bands have gotten the message that allowing audience taping is the cheapest (read free) form of self promotion in existance. Audience taping creates loyal fans, and once you have loyal fans, the money follows. Anyone who goes through all the trouble of lugging $10,000 worth of taping gear to your shows is probably going to be first in line when your new album goes on sale, or first at the ticketmaster window when your next show goes on sale; and people who trade live recordings and listen to them are devoting their attention to YOUR band instead of the RIAA-promoted radio bands, and are more likely to show up at the record store or concert venue as a result.

  • It embarrasses me a great deal to have to post this, but I am wrong. I've just learned two things today:
    • mp3.com plans to email spam on behalf of RIAA labels' acts
    • the artist's agreement I've been talking about so much is being CHANGED.
    I've studied the changes in the agreement and can no longer stand by my claims that mp3.com is such a great deal, because of one CRUCIAL change in the agreement: rather than the contract only being renegotiable with _signed_ consent of the artist (email receipt counts), under the new rules almost everything is the same- except that the contract is, like a major label contract, renegotiable by mp3.com at any time with merely an announcement on the artist board five days before any given change. The sole recourse is to terminate- implying that the changes take effect.

    This is jarringly different from the original contract, in which you had to _sign_ _off_ on changes before they took effect. I, personally, am refusing to accept this new contract, and will see how this plays out. I am very likely going to have to leave mp3.com and scout around to see if there is one single music hosting site anywhere on the net that doesn't attempt abusive practices. I'm not certain I'll find one- and if I try to put up my own stuff, the mp3 patent holders get to come and hit me for a $30,000 fee.

    I am not joyous today.

    Again, I must entirely recant what I've said about mp3.com- that was the old contract, which I'm keeping a copy of. The new one is _very_ different and the difference is wide open to abuse, something that I cannot condone at all. Would you sign an employment contract with a company that said they got to change anything in the contract without needing to get your okay, and didn't even need to _tell_ you, merely do the proverbial 'locked disused filing cabinet with a sign on front saying 'Beware of the Leopard'? If that seems exaggerated, I might add that the only required announcement for contract changes under the new agreement is an announcement in the mp3.com artist's area bulletin board- which is usually completely unavailable due to the bulletin board's deep unreliability.

    I'd _really_ like to see a bit of Slashdot networking to the effect of setting up some way for musicians to host their music (even for totally free- at this point I'll give up payment, if I must, to get a fair contract) in some unencumbered format like Vorbis. And does ANYBODY have the Mac vorbis codec authored at MacHack, seeing as right now I can't put my _own_ mp3s on my own website without being hunted down by the patent holders and billed $30,000 for use of the format commercially?

    I am _not_ joyous today.

  • Yes, it is a very important distinction. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you the right to steal the artist's work for nothing.

  • Using the word piracy is just a plain lie. It should be called what it is - copying, perhaps illegal - but it's still copying. Piracy is where you board a ship, beat the hell out of people, terrorize them, and take their ship. I would hardly call this the same as ripping my favorite David Bowie song.

    They've misused the term so much, it's even in the doctionary now. I don't care. I wander if they call black people niggers.

  • by jms ( 11418 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @08:13AM (#814940)
    Here [uga.edu] is a superb, although somewhat densely written essay by L. Ray Patterson, Professor of Law at the University of Georgia, detailing the history of copyright from 1556 through the present, with respect to what the phrase "the exclusive Right" in the U.S. Constitution means, and discussing the problems with modern copyright law -- the same problems that are discussed here on a daily basis, but with a historical perspective that is largely missing in these threads.

    As Detritus said, Copyright was originally created to promote censorship and create a publishing monopoly. English copyright was perpetual, and only publishers were granted copyright -- not authors. A publisher could take any text he wanted to, even a public domain text, publish it, and claim exclusive copyright. Copyright at this time was completely understood to be a monopoly for the sole benefit of book publishers, and not an instrument of social progress.

    In 1664, support for this system waned, and the laws were allowed to expire. To simplify the story, seeking to regain their monopoly, the book publishers tried a new tactic -- promoting copyright instead as an instrument to benefit authors. The resulting 1710 law, the Statute of Anne, was the first copyright law that recognized, in a limited form, the authors of a work as the proper beneficiary of copyright, not the publisher. United States copyright law is based on this principle.

    I'm including two somewhat lengthy quotes from the paper, both to encourage people to read it, and because it sheds light on many of the hottest current copyright issues -- the behavior of the MPAA and RIAA in relationship to artists and with respect to copyright on the internet, the DMCA, and the emerging systems of "pay per use" for printed materials -- i.e. digital books that charge you to read them.
    The freedom to learn is a natural-law right and the materials of learning are a necessary condition for the exercise of that right. Even if we say copyright has a natural-law basis, the benefit to the author is a reward to induce the author to make his or her writings public so that others may enjoy their natural-law right of learning. Copyright thus is, and can be, only a positive-law concept, for only a positive-law concept can serve to mediate two natural-law rights.


    The Copyright Clause makes the point by recognizing the natural-law right of the people to learn as well as the natural-law right of the author to gain a profit. Thus, we come to the fundamental point. Copyright, whatever its basis, cannot co-exist as a natural-law right in a society where learning is a natural-law right and the public domain has a natural-law basis. Therefore, American copyright must be-as the framers intended-a positive-law concept, a legislative grant of limited rights conditioned on the author's making his or her writing available to the public. This principle was acknowledged in the Resolution of the Continental Congress, implied in the Copyright Clause, and adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Wheaton. This is why the copyright statutes do "not provide for the continuation of the common-law [i.e., natural-law] right, but under constitutional authority, created a new [statutory] right." The most important natural-law right of the Copyright Clause is not the right of the author to gain a profit, but the right of the people to learn: The future of a society is determined by the learning of its citizens.
    The second quote is a little bit off topic for this thread, but it addresses the question as to what is wrong with laws like the DMCA that grant publishers the right to control the use of copyrighted works after publication:
    The separation principle-the copyright and a copy of the work are separate legal entities subject to separate ownership, and both are separate from the work, which can be owned by no one-is a corollary of the limited-grant principle. The Supreme Court's most famous statement of this principle is found in Baker v. Selden,[72] which established the rule that copyright cannot protect ideas, and therefore the copyright is separate from the work. The Supreme Court's most definitive statement of the separation principle was, however, in American Tobacco Co. v. Werckmeister, in which the Court said that it was not the "physical thing created (the copy), but the right of printing, publishing, copying, etc., which is within statutory protection."


    The crucial relevance of the separation principle is that no one can own the work. The copyright of a work and a copy of that work can be owned by different persons, and this difference in ownership is the essence of copyright. As the Supreme Court in Werckmeister stated, copyright "grows out of the recognition of the separate ownership of the right of copying from that which inheres in the mere physical control of the thing itself." Thus, the copyright and the copy in which the work is embodied "are distinct subjects of property, each capable of existing and being owned and transferred independent of the other."

    The separation principle is thus fundamental to copyright law. The principle tells courts (and copyright owners) to distinguish: (1) the existence of the copy from the existence of the copyright; (2) the ownership of the copy from the ownership of the copyright; and (3) the use of the copy from the use of the copyright. These distinctions flow from the fact that copyright is an instrument to encourage copyright owners to distribute copies of the work in order to promote learning, not an instrument to control use of the copies after they have been distributed.
    The publishing industries are attempting, through the DMCA, to reverse 300 years of copyright progress -- to return to copyright as an instrument to enforce publishing monopolies, instead of an instrument to promote learning by providing an incentive for authors to create a public benefit by openly publishing copies of the works they create. Hence the creation of inaccurate, misleading terms like "copyright protection."

    Once again, I highly recommend taking the time to read the paper.

    - John
  • Example:
    Any time I've ever seen a 'live recording' of Third Eye Blind, I've been sorely disapointed. I like their recordings, however.
  • by jms ( 11418 ) on Thursday August 31, 2000 @08:47AM (#814945)
    You missed the fact that Napster is firmly grounded in the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act.

    In 1992, in exchange for mandatory "royalty" payments on all digital audio recorders and digital audio recording media, Congress created a law that defined all non-commercial copying of audio recordings as non-infringing.

    That's right, every time you buy a blank audio CDR, a small percentage of your money is collected by the government and distributed to the music industry. In exchange, congress legalized all non-commercial copying of music, using any method, on any media, to settle the issue once and for all. One of the main purposes of the AHRA was to end the practice of the recording industry running to Congress for new protection every time a new technology was invented.

    Just in case you feel guilty about artists not being paid, here is a table that shows how your money is divided up by the recording industry every time you buy a blank audio CD or an audio CD recorder:

    (1.75%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Musicians, to be paid to "non-featured" musicians (studio musicians)
    (0.92%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, to be paid to "non-featured" vocalists (backup vocalists)
    (25.60%) of the royalties are paid to "featured recording artists", including such bands as Metallica.
    (38.40%) of the royalties are paid to "copyright owners" (the RIAA companies)
    (16.67%) of the royalties are paid to "music publishers"
    (16.67%) of the royalties are paid to music writers, including such bands as Metallica who write their own songs.

    Here [slashdot.org] is one of my previous postings regarding the AHRA which goes into more detail on what the AHRA is and why Napster is both completely legal and completely within the spirit of the law as well as the letter.
  • (Imagines walking into a RIAA job interview wearing a DeCSS T-shirt) :D
  • by jms ( 11418 )
    Well, I'm assuming that any band that seeks to successfully self-promote by opening their live performances to tapers has already made the decision that they are good enough concert performers that the tapes will attract listeners instead of repel them. Otherwise, you're right. What's the point? I never said that audience taping was good for all bands, although most modern bands tend to learn their chops by playing out, because that's how you get noticed in the first place. How many bands get signed these days by sending a studio demo tape to a label, without first performing live?

    I agree that there have been plenty of excellent studio bands with spotty, mediocre, or practically non-existant concert track records. The Beatles come to mind. Steely Dan. Likewise, there are plenty of bands that rock out in concert, but sound lame on CD.
  • My take on the mp3 patent issue is that the mp3 patent holders are gearing up to act just like the GIF patent holders- if you use mp3 in your business plan they come for you. My $30,000 figure is in error- I misremembered. The relevant information is, "1.0 % of revenue; minimum US$ 0.01 per download (pay-audio, music-on-demand, internet-radio and other types of selling mp3 files)." which is copied from the mp3licensing.com site, and "All agreements with running royalties have an annual minimum of US$ 15,000, creditable against annual royalties.". So the bill would start at $15,000, not $30,000 as I misremembered. *yay* :P I'm not comfortable assuming that free mp3 downloads TO SELL CDS would be considered exempt from this.

    I am certainly going to be looking at other hosting services. I'd like to hook up with one that's got the right motivations- sort of the mp3 or vorbis equivalent of sourceforge. It obviously looks like no free mp3 hosting service can survive if they will be subject to royalties, and again I'm not ready to assume these services won't be held responsible for paying royalties at the minimum one cent per download. If the service has no income and makes no money in any way, how does it operate a server?

    Yes, mp3.com is now operating like any other record label (I can't take the remaining decent bits of the contract seriously when they're so volatile). It didn't used to be- it used to offer a very reasonable, businesslike deal to artists. We need something like that out there.

  • or rather let the artists and the open source community work together to create a an electronic marketplace that does not involve the riaa.

    MP3.com [mp3.com] fits every aspect of your comment except the "open source" aspect, which cannot be filled legally until one of these happens:

    • MPEG audio layer 3 patents [mp3licensing.com] run out around 2010, at which point LAME [sulaco.org] becomes non-infringing, or
    • MP3.com begins offering .ogg (Vorbis codec) [vorbis.com] format audio files (which sound as good as a 50% higher bitrate .mp3).

    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • The RIAA has no case, because they hold no relevant copyrights.

    But the labels have given the RIAA what is called "power of attorney" over the copyrights.


    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • English copyright was perpetual, and only publishers were granted copyright -- not authors.

    American copyright is perpetual under a loophole in the Constitution: copyright is supposed to last "for limited times" but nothing in the Constitution takes away Congress's right to extend the terms of those rights retroactively whenever they are about to expire <cough>Sonny Bono Act</cough>. And a large fraction of contracts require the authors to sign over all rights to the publisher (often an RIAA/MPAA/etc. member).


    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • American copyright is perpetual under a loophole in the Constitution: copyright is supposed to last "for limited times" but nothing in the Constitution takes away Congress's right to extend the terms of those rights retroactively whenever they are about to expire Sonny Bono Act.

    I completely agree. That's an entirely different battle [harvard.edu] which is being faught right now.

    And a large fraction of contracts require the authors to sign over all rights to the publisher (often an RIAA/MPAA/etc. member).

    That's a problem arising from the fact that the record labels have, up until now, had a stranglehold on the entire music distribution chain. If you wanted to be published, the price was the same no matter which label you went to -- you had to give them your copyrights. Newer internet labels like mp3.com don't demand your copyrights in exchange for being published -- just a percent of the profits. Napster, of course, doesn't demand anything in exchange for publishing your work, should you choose to publish your work that way.
  • In my experience, a 56K-class dialup connection is not very full-duplex. When I'm sending large amounts of data (web site updates through FTP or my band's music through Napster), I have terrible pings and transfer rates to web sites. This half-duplicity makes it more efficient for dialup users to freeload. This phenomenon also affects any asymmetric connection (for example, DSL upload speeds can be as low as one-fifth of download speeds).
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • When the dust settled, and the cnet story had been revised three times, it looks like mp3.com will not be spamming in the normally understood sense (thankfully). They will be mailing links to streaming media to people who have already established some sort of mp3.com account and specifically asked to be mailed stuff- worst case, to all the hapless netsurfers who didn't go and uncheck all the little 'yes, send me email adverts!' checkboxes that default on. This isn't quite the same thing as UCE to lists of bystanders, and the story changed several times over the course of the day.

    The changes in their artists' agreement are still problematic, and still a dealbreaker for me, personally. What is so wrong with wanting to be asked to sign off on major changes to a contract over MY WORK? _Why_ do they need to sneak in this crap about keeping your stuff in perpetuity, and being allowed to change anything they want in the agreement on five days notice with your only recourse to terminate (but then they get to keep anything associated with a 'Secure Account' in perpetuity anyway!)? We already _have_ a major label record industry, we don't need another :P oh well, time to re-evaluate all my plans yet again. Sometimes I really get this gut level sense that Alvin Toffler was right...

  • You don't have permission to copy it == You're stealing it.

    Questionable morality there. Assuming that I use Napster for this purpose (I don't, actually - no artist I get from Napster comes under US copyright law, most are from Japan and are thus not available by any conventional means), I disagree that I am (hypothetically) stealing from the artist. If anyone, it would be the record companies who have already stolen from the artists, and I wonder about whether or not stealing from a thief is really all that bad.

    Of course, this is all working on the assumption that copying = stealing, which I categorically deny.

  • Kodak and Xerox were both forced in antitrust cases NOT to tie their service and supplies to their products (copiers and film). To force customers of autos to buy affiliated services would be per se illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act (I think) and so it doesn't happen, much. I would think that if the music biz ever successfully forced consumers to use "affiliated" players or hardware, they'd get spanked hard in antitrust court.

    sulli

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner

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