Record Companies Sued Over Charley Pride CD

DevNova writes: "This posting describes a woman in California suing Fahrenheit Entertainment, Inc. and its label Music City Records over CDs she has purchased which use a proprietary music encoding scheme that prevents them from being listened to without the user identifying themselves. These CDs won't play on standard CD players, are not encoded in the popular MP3 format, and will not play on a computer until the user enters personal information. A large part of the suit is that Fahrenheit discloses none of this information on the packaging."

That will be short-lived

[ImpactSmash]

Sort of like DVDs vs. DIVX.

nope, sorry.

[garcia]

There is definitly no way that any company should be able to collect information about a person that has purchased their CD. If this was a promotional CD I could see the point but if you purchase something it becomes yours (and you are free to do w/it whatever you wish) you paid a fee to give you rights. They are invading your privacy.

The fact that they are hiding this from view is an obvious attempt at actually selling the CDs. No one is going to buy the god damn things b/c of this crap. Hell, I hate to shop at Radio Shack b/c of the fact that they ask for my private information and seem to feel it is their god given right to have it. (No, I will NOT give them any of my info even if I purchase my items w/a CC -- this usually really irritates the clerk -- the information they need is how much the item costs, how much I paid, and that's it)

I am sick and tired of this crap. If I don't want to be known I don't have to be. Once you buy something you own it. That's it. Their ownership of the item stops when money exchanges hands.

Fuck that.

Charley Pride

[virg_mattes]

Chuckie is well known in his own field (blues/country, if I recall correctly). This isn't a mix CD or a giveaway, and Mr. Pride himself agreed to be the guinea pig for this CD format a while ago. I hope it costs him dearly in terms of sales.

Virg

Interesting to note:

[cavemanf16]

It is our [the lawfirm in the article] view that Fahrenheit and Music City do not disclose the privacy intrusion and other limitations with specificity on the CD container since it would likely hurt sales.

Wow, who would've thunk it?! Copyright control and protection mechanisms might hurt sales? While completely unrevolutionary to anyone who has actually USED Napster or other file sharing P2P networks, I'm sure this will just be an extraordinary revolution to Hillary Rosen and her cronies. Don't want to screw yourselves out of a bunch of extra profits? - just screw the customer out of their legally provided rights...

Re:Summary not correct

[garcia]

not the point. It would be like having a DVD not work just b/c you are playing it in a PS2. Before this year I *rarely* used my stereo (I had nothing more than a shitty old boom-box) and I *always* used my computer to play my music CDs.

This is my right as a consumer to use whatever device I want. Doesn't matter if I can use this device to copy it (remember? I own the CD)

Tough noogies.

Re:So?

[tigrrl]

er, no. I have a CD player on my computer that is capable of playing music CDs. I like to be able to play music CDs on my computer, because I don't have a stereo in my office. If you can't stick the think in your computer CD and listen to it, it *doesn't* "work fine". That's at least half of the problem.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Nice suit, but...

[Masem]

If you take a look at the last few lines of the linked article, and most the suit, in fact, it talks about how this is all falling under deceptive practices for not labelling the CD package as containing a non-standard CD format or having a privacy notice on the CD.

I'm worried that all the recording companies will do is add in the fine print at the bottom of the back side cover that says something like "This CD is protected by the use of the FairUseSucks System and may not play on computers without entering personal information. Please visit www.weownj00.com for our privacy policy; opening of this package indicates your agreement to this policy". Bingo, they have just gotten out of a lawsuit.

At this point, one would then need to envoke the infamous time-shifting case to fight back for fair use.

Re:Not a bad idea...

[zerocool^]

thank god not everyone listens to tool, rage against the machine.

This is why i listen to punk music. What does tool charge for concert tickets? Like 50 bucks. That's rediculous. I just can't bring myself to believe that someone who says "we do it for the fans" and charges that for tickets is serious.

For the most part, punk bands understand if you download their stuff off of Morpheus [slashdot.org] and listen to it. Usually people that become fans cause of shows and bootleg'd music will buy the CD's to support the band. There's certainly none of this copy protected bullshit.

Check on prices for punk shows - hardly ever more than $20. In fact, one weekend i saw Less than Jake/ New found glory/ the teen idols/ anti-flag 3 times for less than 50 bucks. These people are serious about doing it for the fans - LTJ is broke as shit. That's the kind of music i want - people who do it for the love of the show, who tour 250+ dates a year, who sell CD's for $5 at shows. Its raw culture.

I, too, am a musician. My band recorded our CD, burned 1000 copies of it ourselves, and gave it away for free. I don't want your money. I just want you to like our music.

You can keep your rage against the machine, tool, korn, limp bizkit, incubus, whatever.

no dollar amount given

[jeffy124]

I noticed the complaint letter doesnt list a dollar amount for damages. This is good because the defendants wont be able to offer a cash settlement very easily, like in many other cases. The woman here wants them to fix the problems for the better of the public and doesnt appear to want money in return.

Reminds of a case several years ago when families were suing automakers for problems with airbags killing loved ones. People were suing for tremendoesly large cash settlements, and getting them, but the airbag problems were going unchecked, as newer cars still had the same problem. One man (who himself was a lawyer) lost his wife in an accident because of the airbag in one of those newer vehicles. He sued, but emphasized that settlement would only be reached if the auto makers fixed the airbag problems and refused cash settlements. The judge ruled in his favor and ordered the automaker to repair the problem.

Re:nope, sorry.

[Cruciform]

I worked at one of those god awful hellholes for 3 months, and they had just implemented the name collection enforcement there... in other words our managers told us if we didn't get the names and addresses of 80% of all transactions we'd be fired.
As much as I'd like to get the phone number and address of the cute co-ed who came in to buy a cell phone battery, I'd refrain from asking women for their info. Especially after one freaks out in the store asking if you want the information so you can follow her home or stalk her.
So I got pink slipped.
Best thing that coulda happened :)

Labels, who needs them?

[ImaLamer]

We are all saying that the disc wasn't labeled correctly to show the end user that it was fu**ed, but what about the Audio Compact Disc Label?

The label that all CDs carry if they are using the standard shouldn't be on this disc.

This isn't an audio CD if it doesn't play in my car, dvd player, sega dreamcast, etc.

So, does it have that label? And if it does can't philips (or sony?) sue them?

Easily fixed

[fobbman]

Day One

"Hi, I bought this CD yesterday but cannot get it to play on my PC at home. The other CD I bought yesterday plays fine, so this must be defective. Can I get a replacement?"

Day Two

"Hi, I got this replacement for a CD that wouldn't play on my PC yesterday and this one seems bad, too. Might be a bad production run of CD's. Can I try another?"

Rinse well, repeat as necessary until all CD's of that recording are sent back to label marked "defective".

Re:That will be short-lived

[firewort]

No, the DIVX player required a phone line and had a modem that dialed in to grant permission to play the discs.

You could pay per view as often as you liked.

No surprise

[igiveup]

Is anyone posting really surprised by this? It is a logical extension of requiring registration for software.

Next will come registering DVD movies. Then web-enabled devices such as game stations. Eventually anything with a microchip and the potential of connecting to a network will require registration.

Imagine registering your web-enable toaster before getting your toasted Pop-Tarts.

Re:No wonder no hacker has heard of this yet.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Actually, it may be better that it's a low-key country artist with a fairly mature listener base ... Courts are probably going to be a lot friendlier to a middle-aged Charly Pride fan than to a teenage Limp Bizkit fan. Let the grown-ups fight these battles; ultimately the kids will also benefit.

Re:Sony et al will now be more careful

[kilgore_47]

Whatever format this CD uses, I can't see Sony etc scrambling to follow this. Joe User is at least more receptive to privacy concerns than intellectual property issues.

Sony is in an interesting position, because they are a record company AND make a line of portable mp3 players.

Formats like the one mentioned in this article are inherently incompatible with mp3 players. Sony, being a large record label, seems to be placing bets on both sides of the free music battle.
(yes, I realize you can use a sony mp3 player to play music you paid for.... but you and me and sony all know that playing mp3's off the net is a big appeal for consumers)

Don't own the CD?

[pq]

If I'm not mistaken you do not "own the CD" but purchased the right to listen to it on an audio device.

Really?
Think of this: if you went to the record store and told them that you dropped and broke your CD, here are the pieces and the receipts, and could they please replace it - do you think they'd give you a new CD? Or would they laugh you out of the store? Suddenly, it looks like you bought something physical after all, and not the license to listen to the music on the CD, doesn't it...?

Re:Summary not correct

[tmark]

Re:Summary not correct (Score:1)
When you purchase a CD, you are buying it. Period.

The 'Period' implies there are no conditions to alleged 'ownership', seems false. You can't burn copies of the CD and resell it, for instance. So it seems to me that you do not 'own' the music on the CD.

As for your intimation that licensing agreements removes rights and leave one as a 'corporate puppet', I should point out that this would imply that the GPL removes rights as well, leaving one also as a puppet of some sort.

Re:Summary not correct

[Anonymous Coward]

why would I want a format where I can only fit 10-20 songs on a disk instead of 200+ songs

Because MP3 is a lossy compression, and even if you don't think you're missing anything, there is a definite drop in quality.

Re:Easily fixed

[blazin]

It's a nice thought, but I don't think it would work past the 3rd CD. If you are coming in every day to return the same CD, the sales clerks are going to start remembering you and pretty soon the manager is involved. They take your "broken" CD over to the shelves of CD players and pop it in a random CD-audio play and amazingly your broken CD works. Now the manager is telling you that it must be your CD player that is broken.

You can insist that everything else you own works great on it, but alas, he's shown you the one in your hand works perfectly, so it _MUST_ be your CD player that is to blame. Trying to explain anything about how a CD-ROM drive is different than a Disc Man to a mega-chain manager is a futile attempt at best.

Plus there's the whole problem with having to waste a part of every day to drive to the store and wait in the lines to explain that once again your CD doesn't work.

Maybe if you wore a different disguise every day?

Re:COSUMER MY ARSE!

[Tim Doran]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Along the same lines, please never allow your elected representative to refer to you as a 'taxpayer'. God, there's no term more demeaning, more belittling... I mean, what happens if I should fall on hard times? I'm no longer a taxpayer, so I no longer count?

The word 'citizen' needs to come back into everyday parlance.

Re:Not a bad idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

We tend to ascribe to the bands themselves a lot of behavior that is beyond their control. Tool doesn't charge you $50 and collect every cent of it. Tickmaster charges you that money, pays a royalty to the venue, the tour organizer, and somebody has to pay for event staff, parking management, promotions, security, set-up, take-down - concerts get expensive when you've got an army of guys that put together and take down an oft-elaborate stage three times a week.

I'd be willing to bet that the portion of that $50 winds up in the bank account of the artist(s) is pretty low. Hell they don't even get that much off CD sales (I mean, let's not kid ourselves, a lot of these guys are rolling in it, but the real financial winner is always the label).

One of the problems with capitalism in a largely ignorant and illiterate (in sense of "well-read" not in the sense of "can-read") society is that the controlling interests (record industry, movie industry, publishers, etc) will only produce a work if they can profit from it. This means that great but unpopular art never sees the light of day. It also means that most music of any genre is mass-produced and canned so it'll appeal to as many people as possible.

The reason why every pop star looks like Britney Spears, ever Boy band looks like N'Sync, every Goth band wears the same clothes, every rap band uses the same spasmodic gestures, and every Limp Bizkit out there is full of attitude.

They're selling an image to people who desperately want to be associated with a specific social group. And these people are willing to pay $50 to be seen at a Tool concert, and loudly announce that they were there.

Which means the self-described "true" fans who just like the music kind of get screwed, but oh well. It's hard to take any musical artist seriously who sucks up to MTV. MTV is a classic example of a completely vapid construct whose sole purpose is to increase record sales and manufacture image.

I've completely lost my point in my ranting and raving here. I guess my point is that you have to be careful when you throw a dollar figure out. Those aren't arbitrary numbers. There are standard profit margins in almost any industry, adjusted for supply and demand. If they can sell out the concert by selling tickets for $50, why would they charge less? It wouldn't sell out for, say, $150. A little calculus and you know what the "perfect" price to charge is to maximize profits.

And I doubt Tool or any other band has anything to do with determining that figure. They're on contracts. Their job is to play their part, play their instruments, sing their songs, and let the accountants handle the money.

Re:Summary not correct

[bnenning]

So it seems to me that you do not 'own' the music on the CD.

Of course you don't own the music, any more than you own the text of a book. The issue is that publishers are trying to convert your purchase into a license, which they believe gives them the ability to control how you use the product, which is far more restrictive than copyright limitations.

I should point out that this would imply that the GPL removes rights as well

No. You don't have to accept the terms of the GPL in order to use GPLed software. The GPL only comes into play when you wish to redistribute the software. Under standard copyright law you can't do at all, but the GPL allows you to do so as long as you abide by certain conditions. The GPL only grants rights, it doesn't remove any.

Re:Easily fixed

[2nd Post!]

What happens when the manager pops the CD into a player and it doesn't work? As an example, many DVD player drives are stock EIDE drives with new faceplates. If, for example, the box the manager pops the CD into is, say, a DVD 5.1 boombox thing... it may not work after all.

Re:let's join the underground

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm constantly dissapointed to read so few posts like yours here. But I'm sorry to see you so generally down and pessimistic. A big part of the problem with the "music scene" is that it has created a completely stupid standard of success (the blockbuster, the hit song). This model serves only the record companies and makes little drug addled monsters out of most of the "Stars" it creates. We are now living in a world where so much power to create and transmit information is coming into the hands of the individual. All this record company bullshit is basically opt-in. Buy their shit, or sign their contracts, and you're taking their ride. People like you are the ONLY solution: people who refuse to get into this nazi BS over their creative production. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't find ways to get a decent compensation for your work. My pop was a minister, every day he did what he believed in. After 25 years at one church he made less than I do as a 2+ year "professional" in public broadcasting yet he raised 3 kids, all of us went to college, we never had a lot but we were never hungry or lacking for anything necessary. Materialism is a spiritual poison anyway and has totally infected popular "art" which is why so much of it sucks.

Any artist can self-produce CDs at a massive savings over paying a record company to produce (all record companies do is sell artists studio time, engineering, packaging design, manufacturing and promotion at ridiculous exorbitant prices). The internet can give a worldwide audience at a nominal cost. I make an effort to buy as much independently produced CDs, books, video as I can, to support people who are forging a better way. My real problem is finding enough stuff to buy that I really like!

I hope you will keep fighting the good fight and keep looking for ways to make it pay you a living wage. I don't think we're likely to overturn the conventional publishing industry anytime soon (given that the one group with the spare time and vacuity to drive the creation of the ever-lucrative hit song, american children and teeneagers, have a predisposition for crap) but I think there is room for those of us with brains and hearts to create an alternative reality.

my domain is kingdomcomeinstitute.com - you can send an e-mail to anything @ that domain and you an visit the www although its a bit of a mess now. I've given up name posting to slashdot, it just filled my e-mail with junk.

Enough!

[Kris_J]

That's it. Enjoying new music purchased from retail stores is now officially "too hard". My new music experiences are now limited to MP3.com and secondhand music stores.

Buying a nice CD at the local music place, possibly listening to it at home (I currently use a Sega Mega CD as a CD player), or listening to it at work (I just bung the CD in a CDROM drive and expect it to start playing), or maybe listening to it on the go (I have an MP3 player that plugs into the bottom of my Ericsson T28) should not be a battle between me and the music companies. If you want to lock down your music, fine, just don't expect me to bother trying to play it. Thus, don't expect me to buy it.

Re:let's join the underground

[kindbud]

i won't take an opportunity in music although it's not likely i'd get one anyway since i don't look like britney spears.

Britney is not a musician, she is a very good looking chamber maid for the RIAA.

Re:Summary not correct

[GemFire]

You've got it exactly right - nobody deserves compensation forever on something that took a few moments (or even a few years) to create.

Visit my website - send me an email. There's an organization starting up that needs people like you. http://www.amfcc.org