Universal, Sony Cutting Prices on Downloaded Music 446
Don Symes writes "Sony Music and Universal appear to be getting ready to allow downloads of singles for $.99 and albums for $9.99 without crippleware or restrictions on personal copying/burning." Another semi-interesting piece submitted by several people is this propaganda from the recording industry. 2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving .
Re:My bet is they'll secretly embed watermarks (Score:5, Informative)
"The downloads contain watermarks that are designed to stay with any digital copies made of the song, enabling authorities to identify the original buyer."
As usual, Michael doesn't think it through (Score:3, Informative)
2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving.
I can only assume that Michael doesn't actually understand what the numbers he's quoting mean. Hard to believe, I know. 9 million == number actually seized. 950 million == estimate of how many actually produced and illegally sold.
Obviously it's difficult to have hard numbers about what CDs were NOT seized, but who thinks that it's unreasonable to claim that only 1 out of every 100 illegally produced CDs sold are actually found and confiscated?
In fact, it surprises be that it's as high as 1/100.
Not MP3 (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I'd download them! (Score:5, Informative)
Is Liquid Audio... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My bet is they'll secretly embed watermarks (Score:1, Informative)
The liquid system did this in the past, but when you're serving thousands of mult-megabyte files, uniquely IDing the track for each consumer is not feasible.
Use the Rhino Problem to extrapolate (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is how to count the number of Rhinos in the wilderness when you know you can't find them all and count them.
The solution is to capture 100 Rhinos. Tag all of the Rhinos and then release them. After a period, you go back out and capture another 100 Rhinos.
Let's say that out of the one's you've captured, 10 have your tags on them and 90 don't. From this you can extrapolate that you have 10 times the number of Rhinos in the wild than you originally tagged, or 1,000 Rhinos.
Don't know if they used the method or not, but its normally accepted as good research methodology.
IFPI is counting legal copies as pirate (Score:2, Informative)
However, it was recently made legal to make digital copies of CDs and it has been so for the entire year 2001. You can even borrow CDs at the library and copy them at home legally.
It is still illegal to sell such copies, so it is possible IFPI is right and danes are too stupid to just borrow from the library and friends, and instead buy copies of real pirates. But it doesn't seem likely.
Re:HA! (Score:2, Informative)
I've been a happy EMusic subscriber for months now and I can't see getting rid of it.
Re:My bet is they'll secretly embed watermarks (Score:4, Informative)
Watermarking schemes are not foolproof, but it takes a much larger fool than changing formats to trick em.
Re:As usual, Michael doesn't think it through (Score:3, Informative)
How can the number of pirated discs created somehow exceed production/sale for CDRs for that year?
Note this quote from the same article: "CD-Rs accounted for nearly one-quarter of pirated music sales last year, up from 9 percent the year earlier, the group said. "
In other words, only a fraction of piracy is done with CD-Rs. Most of it is done with more sophisticated duplication techniques.
Re:I'd download them! (Score:3, Informative)
No really, I'm curious.
They are (apparently/somehow) protected against computer-to-computer copying, but
So wherein lies the problem exactly?
Re:Stealing? Nope. (Score:3, Informative)
Well first of all, its convenient that you left out definition a from www.m-w.com [m-w.com] which is exactly the same as the first one from dictionary.com. Secondly, from a legal standpoint, copyrighted materials aren't even property. They are works for which the government has granted someone an exclusive liscense to control the distribution of the work for a limited period of time. Insisting that copyright infringment is "theft" is just a convenient way to distract people from the real nature of the crime.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stealing? Nope. (Score:3, Informative)
So, if I, as a parent, stopped my child's allowace because they misbehave, I've stolen it?
Does a murderer steal lives?
Does someone who is greedy and buys all the CDRs in the city (this happened where I live) steal them?
Does someone who makes a profit steal it? I mean, there is no law saying you are entitled to make a profit on anything whatsoever.
Does someone who decides not to give a dollar to the bum on the street in fact steal the dollar from the bum?
No. You are confused on the issue and I reccomend you consult the dictionary [dictionary.com] on this matter. Perhaps a synonym [dictionary.com] might help.
This is the definition of piracy [dictionary.com]. Notice no mention of theft, or its synonyms, unless your name is BlackBeard or Bin Laden.
Dictionaries were very careful to clear this up in the past because people were beginning the confuse the issues. I am happy they've done so. Notice how dictionary.com went out of their way to use the verbose sentence "The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material" rather than "Stealing Intellectual Property". That's because they saw the difference.
If you read the Berne Convention [cerebalaw.com], the international foundation of modern copyright law, you'll never see the words steal or theft. The world's lawyers were careful to separate the meanings even though they have the most to gain. If english teachers, lawyers, judges, and many other respected people around the world firmly agree on this issue, why don't you?
I think you'll be very interested to know that in my country we are allowed to buy CDRs from America (bypassing a special media tax) and burn a copy of any album we like at a friends house and take it home. This is a law agreed to by the people, the lawyers, the artists, and the media companies, even when this loophole was explicitly pointed out once (we've all agreed to the law a second time, even after the rush on the border for CDRs). If any of these people considered that stealing (which, by your definition, it is) they would have most certainly not have agreed to allow this to happen.
Put simply, piracy is (for example) copying a song when you shouldn't, plain and simple. Stealing is when you take a car for a joyride. The difference is remarkable.