The Customer is Always Wrong 539
McSpew writes "Hackers author Steven Levy so far is the only person in the mainstream press to pick up on the the travesty of the SSSCA hearings. He points out that only the media giants could be so stupid as to think treating their customers like criminals will increase sales." Steven's a very smart guy - and very well said on this issue.
Protecting yourself (Score:-1, Interesting)
Apple would do well to consider this the next time they tell you to Rip, Mix, and Burn.
it's not about piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole scare over "digital copying" is a red herring--what the RIAA and MPAA are trying to do is use this new-fangled technology thing to get rid of this profit-limiting concept of "buy once, play (or read) many times."
Get that message out there folks--its not about piracy, its about pay-per-view everywhere.
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:3, Interesting)
I doan theeenk so.
What galls me most about the media oligopoly is that they think they have a right (and congress is, sadly, too eager to oblige) to have the general public shoulder additional costs so that the media oligarchs can easily apply their existing business models to new media.
Re:I think the headline was supposed to say.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Michael never did apologize for that, so, yes, I'm still sour about it.
Boycott where it matters.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Just a shot in the dark...
Re:The big deal for me "quality" (Score:2, Interesting)
But the outlaw service does provide the high quality service now.
If only I could Buy and DL music that was encoded at something higher then 128kb.. That is what really pisses me off, I gota pay sometimes even more to buy MP3's that are encoded way to low..
If i'm buying them, there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to get them in 3-4 different bitrates.
Until i can buy mp3's at something higher then I will keep borrowing/ripping and downloading(stealing)
Bad economic model and unconstitutional. (Score:5, Interesting)
The fundamental problem behind many of the current threads here is the kicking and screaming refusal of industry to acknowledge the economic concept of a public good. (not good in the moral sense, but as in "goods and services") Public goods are those that are non-depletable, i.e. my using it doesn't hinder anybody else's use of it or make it unavailable to them, and they are non-excludable, i.e. anybody can get and use them. Digital media of any sort, including software, fits this description ideally.
Yet Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA, etc.. are all fighting for their lives on this last point. If they can create a non-depletable good with high value that is excludable, they've got an obvious gold mine. The problem is that this is VERY hard (if you believe Schiener, impossible). So they're trying to hijack governmental policy in an attempt to enforce excludability at a greater technical, social and economic cost than the goods themselves are worth to anybody but the current owners.
Ignoring the cost to consumers, simply consider the cost of using the mechanisms of government -considerable resources of the executive and judicial branch- to enforce ever stricter copyright laws currently being broken by millions of citizens. Isn't it very possible that this will be higher than the taxes collected off the sale of copyrighted material? Doesn't this amount to a public subsidy of an economically unsound business model? Somehow I doubt we'll hear this argument come up from the "free-markets, smaller-government, deregulation-is-good" types.
If the cost is foisted off on the hardware industry, then this represents an illegal transfer of wealth from these companies to copyright holders. If this cost is eventually foisted off on consumers of the hardware (who will ALSO pay more for the copyrighted material in such a regime) then there must be economic justification that this cost is less than the cost to the public of not having new creative material available that would only be produced under these strict legal regimes.
Given the immense creative urges inherent in humanity, our demand for new entertainment and the many possibilities for external compensation for creative works, it is a very difficult case to make that there would be great negative externalities and public harm if the current control on nearly all copyrighted material by a few large coporate interests were weakened.
The US Constitution explicitly states that government sanctions temporary intellectual property rghts only as part of a social contract to benefit the public citizenry. If the benefit of these laws is accruing to private corporations at the public's expense then these laws are unconstitutional.
Worst case scenario: (Score:3, Interesting)
Smart Story Poster (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy who submitted this story included a link to purchase the movie 'Hackers' from Amazon.com (as opposed to the movie's website which would seem more logical) as part of the stories description.
I was curious about this for a minute until I released that he included a referer ID in the URL so as the URL gets
Capitalism is wonderful, isn't it? I'm amazed that the editors let that slip by. I think this is a whole new category of karma whoring...
Levy's Newest Book (Score:4, Interesting)
Before you flame me, I realize there is a distinction in that supposedly you paid for that DVD you only want to make a backup copy of. But if the seller of the DVD and law say that is not what you paid for, then why are you arguing with the seller? You should only be arguing with law.
So maybe that's the commonality of the two opinions, both advocate that the law should be changed in the consumer's favor. One to allow consumers access to strong encryption, one to to allow consumers the common law right of fair use to DVDs they have purchased.
* BTW, Why hasn't SlashDot reviewed Levy's new book [amazon.com] yet? It's been out for two month's now.
RIAA, etc. looking at it backward! (Score:3, Interesting)
To put an interesting spin on it, what if the RIAA were to attack the source of the MP3s.. Not so much trying to force Morpheus or whomever out of business, but to taint their supply of MP3s? I know one of my chief frustrations is to search for a song and either have it incomplete, or be of poor quality (e.g. pops or other defects) or to simply have it not be the same song that I downloaded. If I could search for a song, pay a penny for it and download a 'known perfect' copy at my choice of bitrates (e.g. 128, 160, etc.) then sure as heck I'd do it.
In that vein, what if RIAA / third party went ahead and started 'poisoning' the well? Started distributing broken or otherwise junk MP3s? If they could find a way to diminish the signal ratio by spewing so much junk I'd have no other choice but to find alternate means of obtaining the mp3, be it buying the CD, obtaining it from a friend, or buying the mp3 online.
Now, before you say 'That's impossible!' consider the following little scheme:
1) Entity (be it RIAA or some 3rd party company) contacts recording studio and asks "Which song/artist would you like us to poison?"
2) Record company gives them a list, and a certain amount of money (e.g. the Entity charges on a per-song or per-artist basis).
3) Entity floods the Napster / Morpheus / etc. community with junk MP3s.
Now this would take an enormous amount of bandwidth, so said Entity would have to have some sort of agreement worked out with ISPs and a mass-content provider, say Akamai. Akamai has tens of thousands of servers located in hundreds (if not more) of ISPs throughout the nation. I think on peak usage they're pushing out 100 GB/sec. in the US (if not more). Simply say "Ok Akamai, can we buy 10GB on each of your servers and push all these MP3s out?". Then you write a gnutella client for each box which offers all the MP3s up for distribution.
I can't remember how the gnutella protocol works but I think it broadcasts search requests to the nodes who store a cache of what they have and what their neighbors offer and then can pass the request off. Have your client log all the requests (so you can tell the record companies which songs were requested more) and of course offer up your files when requested. If you do this with 10,000 boxes full of identical content chances are you're going to drown out any signal out there.
If you're really tricky, you can even have the client 'fake' files so you don't actually need to have the file on the box; you could send a pre-existing obfuscated file.
Of course, all of this is moot if you still don't have a very easy, cheap method of offering MP3s online for the mass public. You could pitch it like this "Yeah, so you won't make much money off of offering a penny for each MP3. But you're a fool if you think simply shutting Morpheus off will result in even 10% of the Morpheus users buying the actual CD or using a painful, userUNfriendly pay-per-MP3 system. However, what if we have a method to net you 20 or 30% of users who wouldn't pay you anyway?" So the pitch would be "We can't get you all of them, but our method would give you more than you're getting now!". Frankly the people who post on SlashDot (from the very negative response to the Subscription model) are not a good cross-section of the vast majority of internet users out there
So in your obfuscated file you have it play maybe 20 seconds of the file and then say "Sorry, this is a copywrited file. Pirating files costs artists money. If you want to buy this MP3 for a penny, please visit http://www.somestore.com. 80% of every penny earned will go directly to the artist."
It gives them a reason to buy it - not only do you have SomeStore.com very easily accepting payment of the penny, but you ACTUALLY PAY THE ARTISTS A MAJORITY OF THE MONIES EARNED! So it can quell the naysayers who say "Well the artist wouldn't receive anything anyway!" (rant: but who are you hurting more, the billion dollar-industry or the Artist who NEEDS even the small cut they receive from each CD sold?).
Some drawbacks could be of course that someone writes a 'detector' to find and ignore the invalid MP3s, or they block the IP addresses of the servers, etc. but that is easily fixed. Most non-power users (e.g. the great and huddled masses of the internet) don't want to update their Morpheus client every time a new version is released. Heck, even programs which offer hassle-free updating (e.g. antivirus, windowsupdate.com) very rarely are by the majority of internet users. Also, you'd work out the server IP settings with the ISP so that they would rotate to a random IP in their pool - since most of the servers are located in most ISPs you couldn't ban the single IP but perhaps a subnet. But since the IPs are in the ISP, you have now banned a large chunk of users. If they are in every ISP, you will have to ban every ISP (see the problem in banning IPs?). You could also use the EVIL RAW SOCKETS (sorry had to poke fun at XP haters
So, to boil it down to a few bullet points:
*Poison the well
*Have very easy-to-use, hassle-free, cheap, reliable, etc. method for users to buy MP3s and they WILL.
Re:Nothing New (Score:5, Interesting)
But, BUT, BUT... the only reason you can say you would not have bought them is that you downloaded them, and realised that they were crap. If you hadn't downloaded them, you may have bought them because you would not have realised that they were crap.
And that is the point of all this. They don't really care about people people downloading music - they are more worried about people finding out the music is crap before they get a chance to buy it.
OK - that was tongue in cheek, but think about it for a minute: how many chances to hear a whole CD do you have before either you, or one of your friends, buys the thing? Radio? Nope - the record companies have this sewn up. A record store? You'd have to get lucky. Any others? So, if you want to hear a CD you have to buy it.
Or at least, that used to be the case. At the moment it isn't, and by God these guys are desparately trying to get the worms back in the can (or, more aptly, get the pig back in the poke).
We'll have to see what happens - my hope is that they will kill their goose, and music will become more diverse. My guess is that music will be two types - the bulk will be draconian corporate type (uncopyable, which is lucky as it'll be unlistenable), and the rest "underground", which will be more interesting but harder to find.
Remember one thing about music - and I can't recall who originally said it - "People don't know what they like, they like what they know".
Re:Smart Story Poster (Score:2, Interesting)
Personally, I put an Amazon link in my sig, and whenever applicable within my post. The revenue generated is just barely above infinitessimal, but hey, you gotta pay for that new SlashDot subscription somehow.
You should have been here back in the days of of those MLM type programs that paid you for running banner ads and recruiting new people to run the ads. Or the early days of PayPal where you earned a $5 commision for signing-up new members, sigs back in those days were targetted at revenue generation a good percentage of the time. And how is any of this different than just including a link to one's own website if that site has some for profit aspect to it?
Re:Protecting yourself (Score:4, Interesting)
I think they're safe, especially since none of these are illegal activities. Violation of copyright is illegal.
yes, and shooting someone with a gun is illegal. 99% of gun owners don't shoot people, yet look at their constant struggle with gun laws.
don't put it past our government to pass irrational and unreasonable laws under the influence of a small unethical subset of our corporate population. where there's a will, there's a way (of course 'will' in this case means lobbyists, lawyers, and millions of dollars.)
Bill Amend (of "Foxtrot" fame) Weighs In (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes I wonder if Amend is a
Re:The big deal for me (Score:5, Interesting)
If the SSSCA passes, I expect to see a huge, short-term surge in hardware purchases as geeks and other informed people stock up on the last generation of unrestricted CDRs, DVD burners, MP3 players, computers, sound cards with controllable SPDIF in/out, CD players with digital outputs, stacks of big hard drives, and other useful equipment.
This surge of hardware purchases will end when the restricted equipment enters the market.
At that point, many people will stop buying new hardware - after all, most people with a computer purchased in the last two years already have more power than they need. People will refuse to upgrade their Microsoft operating systems too, as the "upgrade" will remove functionality they currently enjoy. This will have interesting side effects for MS stock prices and computer security.
Free software which ignores copy restrictions will gain in popularity, and there will be ugly legal fights over the legality of open source software. Many software developers will leave the United States for free countries.
Vintage audio, video, and computer hardware will become much more popular and expensive, until it is made illegal (and goes underground). A black market of vintage, modified, and new unrestricted hardware will develop, along with a wave of "cracking" software tools which work around the copy protections. There will be a resurgence of popularity of older music - 80s, blues, big-band, punk, grunge... Unfortunately this will include disco.
More people will go to jail for writing software. Indie media will go into decline as garage bands and filmmakers cannot afford to buy the new, "pro" equipment which allows authorized content production.
It could go two ways from there.... If the alleged "content companies" are successful and "win", the Internet, hardware, and software industries in the US will be crippled. New music and movies will be controlled by the MPAA and RIAA monopolies, and quality will continue to slide downwards towards the least-common-denominator Britney clones, movie sequels and remakes, and other trash. In that scenario, the US becomes a cultural and technological backwater within a decade, as China, India, Scandanavia, and other areas become (even greater) hotbeds of cultural and technological innovation.
Or, instead, the whole thing could fall apart. The SSSCA and DMCA might be found unconstitutional, and/or the MPAA / RIAA might be eliminated through antitrust legislation or maybe just market power. America wakes up from the propaganda of the "content" industries and realizes that people will always make music, movies, software, and books just because they want to. And, enough people are happy to support the creators of good entertainment, (even if they could rip it off) that talented content creators can make a living at it.
And we all live happily ever after, except for Hillary Rosen, Jack Valenti, and the rest of the greedy, money-leeching, content-filtering, power-hungry, control-freak crowd... they'll be looking for new jobs. Yay!
Re:Sen. Hollings.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why no Free/Open Source advocates at the hearin (Score:3, Interesting)
Appearances at hearings are dependent on campaign contributions. To appear at that type of hearing you would have to donate approx $50K to the members of the committee.
And no, I am not being sarcastic, I am not making it up, that is the way your Congress people behave. If you don't like it write them a letter asking them why Red Hat etc. were not invited and ask directly if campaign contributions are the reason.
The response you receive will of course make an outright denial. However the probability that Red Hat and the Linux crowd will be allowed into the hearings will increase substantially. With Cheney in hot water for selling access to Enron and his oil company friends the hint that you might fight them on the contributions front would be very frightening.
As they say in Washington, money only buys you acces, it does not buy legislation. Well the crooks who charge for access should be considered no less a crook than the ones who sell legislation.
So next time there is a hearing, go down to Washington with a nice bunch of signs saying something like 'We don't like the SSSCA, but Hollings won't hear from us because we won't pay'. Then go to his office and leave them with his staff.
Whatever you do, don't listen to the fools who tell you to play the DC game, they will walk all over you if they think you will be quiet.
A suggested business model for MP3 downloads (Score:5, Interesting)
Get yourself a fat pipe and fast servers (and make sure you support resuming and are dl-client friendly). Trust me, it'll pay for itself. Get yourself a good login and automatic billing system that doesn't charge the user's account until the download is confirmed complete. Make the download catalog easy to use (workable in any browser and no damned javascript), searchable, and as complete as possible.
Offer MP3s as follows:
64 kbit mono -- no charge. Okay for previewing stuff to decide whether you want to buy it or not, but not really good enough for cuts you want to keep and play a lot. (And will prevent complaints and billing disputes about songs that suck too much to pay for.)
128 kbit stereo -- 25 cents each. Good enough for most people and not too much of a bandwidth hog.
360 kbit stereo -- 50 cents each. (Or, since this system obviously will have login and tracking of purchases, just 25 cents if you already downloaded the 128kbit version -- effectively a discounted upgrade price.) This satisfies the more-devoted audiophile's need for better sound quality.
If you want to make sure no one avoids billing by stopping the download with 2 seconds to go (since incomplete MP3s *do* play), ZIP 'em, since that will largely defeat people who try to cheat the system. NO ENCRYPTION or "phone home before it can be played" crap, tho.
Yeah, people will still trade MP3s, but why should I spend hours searching for and dragging home unreliable files from some slow cranky server, when I can cough up 25 cents and get the same material, in guaranteed quality and complete condition from a fast reliable server, at the very moment I decide I want it?? Hell, for that price it may beat the bother of ripping my own.
I'm sure a similar model could be developed for downloadable movies -- a highly-compressed 320x200 preview copy for little or nothing, and a top quality copy for a buck or two. Why spend all night dl'ing an AVI that proves to be someone's grainy screencam when for a couple bucks I can get the same thing in close to DVD quality?
They assume you would have. (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, 80 percent of the people who dont buy CDs and download stuff from the net, wouldnt buy CDs.
I mean really, if you wanted CDs you'd buy CDs. If you want music, you'll listen to the radio, you'll record it on a tape cassette and you'll have music.
Now wait, you'll say the quality of the cassette isnt the same as CD, but thats what people did before they had the net, they'd tape stuff on cassettes.
Its like saying by law all VCRs should remove the ability to record because you might record a movie from cable or satelite.
Thats just bullshit.
Its also bullshit to say that every movie you'd record from satelite you would have paid to go see at the movie theaters, thats bullshit.
Most movies arent worth paying to go see, but most movies that are halfway decent are worth recording on a blank VHS tape.
I go see maybe a few movies per year, sometimes i dont see any movies for the year.
When i go see a movie, i'm not paying to "see" the movie, I'm paying for the atmosphere, the ability to see the movie on the big screen, to have surround sound, to see the movie immediately.
Just like the movie theater vs the VCR, people will pay to get music immediately, waiting for it to be spread throughout the net is not going to work if you want the music now.
People will have to buy the music or else it wont spread throughout the internet, all the music companies have to do to make people buy their CDs, is to slow the spreading of the music, this can be done by making the CDs more difficult to crack and pirate.
Its fine to sell copy protected CDs, i dont like copy protection but I'm fine with this because the movie people have a right to do this, just dont buy their CDs if you dont want it.
As far as controlling how we use our computers, this is a totally diffrent issue, no one should have the right to control how we use our computer, NO ONE!
This is as important as our right to freedom of speech.
Tell me, 20-30 years from now, when we have some sorta brain to computer interface, Will thoughts be under copyright? By sharing illegal thoughts with someone else will you go to jail? Think about where this is going, technology should overrule copyright. Someday technology is going to be so advanced that to enforce copyright would require mind control and render us total slaves to these people so they can protect their secrets and make money.
Some things in life are more important than money, Freedom is more important than money, the USA, was it founded on capitalism or on freedom? You all have to decide, because if we keep going in this direction will we be giving up our freedom for capitalism. All the talk about communism and facism, well just wait, capitalism is going to lead to the same thing.