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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Mar 19, 2002 | Read the story
I quite enjoyed your article "Chained Melodies," which brought up current issues with the DMCA and the upcoming SSSCA, but thought it might be interesting to point out that under the DMCA, your article could be deemed illegal, since it starts with how a user gets around current copyright controls on a CD. In fact, subscribers could get a few years in prison for viewing the article. On top of all this, Mr. Cianessi could be found guilty of two or three violations, since he knowingly ripped the CD, spoke about it, and confessed to doing it before. Yet another reason Congress needs to take a serious look at the DMCA.
I think we all need to stand up and say, "Yes, I rip CDs and I'm proud of it," then record it in MP3 format and e-mail it to our congressmen.
-- Mark Whitworth
Most of the best technologies for copyright protection would be impossible to bring to market.
For example, sending only an encrypted digital signal to speakers to prevent the interception of an analog signal might be a powerful deterrent to copying. However, what record company would be willing to put out their new hit CD with a label saying "Can only be played on equipment purchased after October 2002"? Trying to obsolete every single piece of AV equipment currently in existence is impossibly foolish.
Music will continue to come out on CDs that play in current CD players and movies will continue to come out in DVDs that play in current DVD players. As long as that's the case, there will always be copyright-circumvention hardware.
-- Andrew Norris
Two crucial points not explored in "Chained Melodies" or in other recent articles about digital copyright:
1) We're all content producers now.
With less than $1,000 of equipment, I can create my own digital movie, and with a community of broadband subscribers I can distribute my own entertainment to interested persons who can readily receive it.
On self-organizing and self-ranking community sites I can publish, be seen and be heard. I don't need Hollywood. My friends have in-home large screens and surround sound. We don't need theaters. We have parties. It's a hobby.
It is my impression that this is what the moguls truly fear and that this is what is truly being trampled upon by this type of legislation: the rights of individual producers to make their content freely available using common and cheap means of production and distribution.
It's what makes paid content truly irrelevant.
2) The movie makers and media providers rely more and more on software explicitly copyable, not copy protected: namely, Linux and its associated applications.
This includes studios converting to Linux servers as well as AOL Time Warner, which recently announced plans to replace Microsoft's Internet Explorer with the GPL'd Mozilla browser.
How are they going to get around the impression it creates when they deliver copyrighted works built with copylefted tools?
-- Red Matthews
Thanks for the insightful article by Damien Cave. I'm glad to see Salon is finally covering this outrageous piece of (proposed) legislation by people who want to turn our computers from the powerful interactive engines they are into glorified TV sets.
Although the legislation refers to "Interactive Digital Devices," which could include items as simple as a digital watch or a microwave oven, I'll limit my discussion to computers.
One disturbing aspect of this legislation is the regulating of private behavior. I have no problem being held responsible for actual copyright violations (even under the outrageous terms of the DMCA), but if I pay for my computer I'll use it as I damned well please. Maybe I'll copy my CDs for personal use, maybe I'll write open-source components, or maybe I'll turn it into a sculpture. As a software developer, I'm especially concerned that as fundamental an operation as copying (maybe a file, or maybe just a variable) could have legal implications. Will open(...); write(...); close(); or new FileOutputStream(..); require a Digital Rights Management check?
Another is the incredible anti-consumer hubris. Why should I have to accept a technology that increases the cost and reduces the performance of my next computer, just because Disney hasn't found a technology to protect their brain-dead content? If they won't feel safe making their movies accessible via broadband without a population composed of "trusted PCs," then DON'T DO IT. I'll rent a VHS tape, or better yet, do without.
Finally, there are potential privacy implications. How do we know that the final SSSCA-approved DRM scheme won't employ some sort of a "phone-home" procedure ? If it does, how do we know that the information will be limited to what is strictly necessary to enforce the copyright? This is what happens when the RIAA and MPAA, and not you, control your computer.
Thanks again for the excellent article.
-- Mike Gollub
It never ceases to amaze me how we have to have this argument time and time again with entertainment industry idiots who are terrified of technology. It happened with the audiocassette, it happened with the VCR, it happened with the DAT tape, it happened with CDs; it never ends. Each new advance in technology is touted as the end of creative content and the death of revenue for the industry. They constantly paint the picture of poor starving artists who will be have their livelihood stolen by this evil new development.
Of course every one of these advances ultimately had just the opposite effect. They create more avenues for distribution, generate greater exposure for a broader variety of artists, and pay big profits to all concerned.
And yet the response is always the same. The industry spends years fighting this "insidious threat" instead of getting on with the task of figuring out how to use new technologies to their benefit.
Here's the universal truth that history has made painfully obvious:
You can't stop technological advancement.
You can't stop technological advancement.
You can't stop technological advancement.
There -- I've said it three times so maybe it will sink in. You can't stop it, and any attempt to do so is a pointless waste of time. And what's worse is that during this wasted time, these companies could be making money from all of this.
Instead we have to listen to Michael Greene's 10-minute rant on prime-time television during the Grammys. In any business one of the major keys to success is to create constant change to respond to the constantly changing business environment -- the same is true for the entertainment industry. Will they be able to continue to do business as usual? No -- they will not. And neither will anyone else.
I know that they find it unfortunate that they won't be able to charge us $18 for a CD with only a couple of good songs on it -- but sorry, that's the way it is. Advances in technology, business practices and delivery methods always mean better value for customers (at least in a capitalist economy).
Look at Wal-Mart. Better selection, better prices, better for consumers. I'm sure that all of those little mom-and-pop stores that were run out of business by Wal-Mart, Target and the like would tell you that this is a bad thing -- but consumers have said otherwise. They've said it with their wallets.
Today it's MP3s and CD burners -- tomorrow it will be something new. The entertainment industry needs to stop their bitching and get on with the business of transforming themselves to thrive and prosper in today's world. It's what every other business has to do, and I'm afraid they live in the same world as the rest of us whether they like it or not.
-- Steve Coldiron
