How to Turn A Music Lover to Piracy

dugn writes to tell us The Consumerist is running a story about how a run of the mill (read non-tech-savvy) music lover was pushed to become a pirate. "I've devoted a not-inconsequential chunk of my life to collecting music; to tracking down obscure records, cassettes, 8-Tracks and CD's of all genres and styles. And now apparently that is all but over. Music has somehow evolved from tangible things into amorphous collections of 1's and 0's guarded over by interested parties as if they were gold bullion. How so very sad."

Re:An etymological question

[grub]

Back the early 80's there was an infamous BBS named "Pirate Harbor". The misuse of the term wasn't new then.

Not a license to listen

[edraven]

"You don't understand," I said, "These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them."

"Well" she responded, "You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to."

Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said.

She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can"

This seems to be a common misunderstanding brought about by, I think, the inherently confusing nature of, let's face it, archaic copyright law in a modern context. A license grants the licensee the ability to legally do something from which normally they are legally prohibited. There are no laws that prohibit anyone from listening to music. What we have are laws that prohibit anyone apart from the author of any kind of creative work from (among other things) making a copy of that work. If you're not the author and you want to make a copy of a creative work then (with a few exceptions provided in copyright law) you need a license, because otherwise it is illegal for you to do so. When you purchase music online, you are buying a digital copy from an entity that is entitled by license to produce that copy. You are not buying a license to anything, and you don't inherit the rights which that license grants. Your buddies have just as much legal right to listen to the song you downloaded as you do, and just as little legal right to make a copy of it. That's how it works.

You could always buy a USB Turntable/Tape Deck

[TAZ6416]

and do it youself.

http://www.ion-audio.com/ [ion-audio.com]

http://www.plusdeck.com/ [plusdeck.com]

Cheers,

Jonathan

Economic Warfare and Defective Products

[coats]

Clearly, Rhino has attempted to sell him a defective product. He should force them to refund his money; if they refuse, he should exercise his legal rights for the credit card he used to pay for the music: he has the legal right to refuse payment for the defective product, and get his credit card refunded the amount of the purchase.

It will cost Rhino far more to deal with the credit card company's fees for his refusing payment than he paid originally for the music.

Re:hmmm...

[Elemenope]

Yes, I have heard of bard, troubadours, etc.. They became prominenet...in the Late Baroque era. Like I said. And most of them traveled from fiefdom to fiefdom and sang and played...for kings and lords, also like I said. It was the only way they could eat; playing for commoners (though it did happen on occassion) didn't fill the stomach until the economy could support it (think late classical period).

And respectfully, while fantasy novels on the whole are entertaining and occasionally even thought provoking, are by and large utter shite when it comes to historical accuracy. The closest one comes to historical accuracy in a novel like that is something like "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. And that portrayed the late medieval period; ain't no bards there.

Correction of Correction

[drinkypoo]

Some people want us to belive that being a pirate is contradictory to being a music lover.

Summary says "turn to piracy", not "change into a pirate".

FA says "Does DRM drive even honest well-meaning people to piracy?"

You are complaining about an attack that never came.

Re:An etymological question

[dylan_-]

It's pretty old. In its entry for pirate (in this sense) OED has:

1603 T. DEKKER Wonderfull Yeare sig. A4, Banish these Word-pirates (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme.] 1668 J. HANCOCK Brooks' String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies. 1703 D. DEFOE True-born Englishman in True Collect. I. Explan. Pref. sig. B3v, Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates.

Re:hmmm...

[skoaldipper]

when will the record companies understand that we want to listen to our music, at our own convenience.

We still have legal options - even moreso today (than before).

FTA (journal entry dated March 20, 2007):

So I headed to Rhino's online store, purchased the music, and downloaded the files.

He mentioned before that he spent 20k on vinyl and CDs already. He just wanted the Luna compilation. If you go to Rhino [rhino.com], you can purchase the Luna cover:
1. He had the option of purchasing the CD (as he professed to in the past), but
2. He purchased a cheaper WMA with this big DISCLAIMER directly below (once you checkout):

Important Note: WMA files are NOT compatible with your iPod.

He opted for 2, and ignored the disclaimer.

I thought you can purchase a CD and download them to your iPod. Am I mistaken? I fail to see that as justification for becoming a music pirate.

Re:Been there, done that

[drinkypoo]

The blame isnt the RIAA/MPAA or industries, the blame is on Apple, MSFT and Tivo. Nobody forced DRM on any of those devices but the makers of those devices. If a 20 dollar dvd player can play DivX with no problems, there's no reason the others can't - other than companies wanting to set up their own private distribution mechanisms.

What a stunningly ignorant sequence of statements!

Let me see if I can shed a little light.

Tivo chose DRM. They chose it because they felt they would be sued into oblivion if they did not. You may have a point here, although I believe that they made the correct decision - as in, they wouldn't have lasted a month if they didn't go the DRM route.

Microsoft and Apple both had to implement DRM if they wanted to be able to sell music. Microsoft had to implement DRM if they wanted to make Windows Media the most popular format around, even before they were selling music. The labels simply would not have permitted them to sell digital downloads without DRM. So yes, they very much were forced to use DRM - it was either that, or not compete in the industry at all. They have a responsibility to their shareholders to make money. So yes, they had to use DRM.

A 20 dollar DVD player can play DivX with no problems. That's correct. But the issue here isn't playing non-encrypted content. The issue is that the content creators want protection. This is why they're releasing media which is encrypted. Sure, you can make a player that plays unencrypted media. It's not useful for playing mass-media content; virtually no DVD releases are unencrypted, although I have seen one example. Try selling a DVD player that doesn't support CSS and let me know how far you get!

Jobs showboating about "I really wish we could ditch DRM" was pure bullcrap. It was his choice to use it.

Yes, it was his choice to use DRM and make money, or refuse to use DRM, and be lynched by the shareholders. What a choice!

Money is the root of all of this evil, but next in line is the MAFIAA.

First Experience with DRM

[brownj_685]

My first Experience with DRM was many years ago. I bought 4 books from a web site that sold them as protected acrobat files. Which is great for me to read them. However since then I have changed my computer and the files can no longer be opened, becasue they where licenced to my old computer. I can not redownload the licence for my new computer, because the company is now out of business. So the books I bought, are no longer usable, even though I have purchased the rights to be able to view them on my computer. If they had been significantly cheaper than the paper versions, I would just ignore it, and move on. However, they where not, and becasue of the experience I pretty much avoid all DRM protected content. Think about the response you would have, if apple closed tomorrow, and took everything with it, so that all that music on your ipod is good until your ipod dies and then it is all gone.

Re:Urestricted records.

[compro01]

this anaolgy is so invalid that it borders on trolling.

CD and a record are fundamentally incompataible due to the way they work.

an iTunes-downloaded AAC file and a non-iPod AAC-compatile music player are not fundamentally incompatable. they're supposed to work together, but this CRAP prevents that.

Re:hmmm...

[ArieKremen]

I concur that Nero did not play the fiddle or violin, most likely he picked at his lyre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre [wikipedia.org].

Re:Its sad really

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I legally just acquire a new digital format for free now if I wished as to archive and preserve my collection?

Legally? It depends on where in the world you live, but you can do it without further expense. See an old article I wrotre a few years ago [kuro5hin.org] if you're interested.

In many cases (Boston 1 and 2* [wikipedia.org], Led Zeppelin Presence), if your original media are in good shape, or better yet virgin, your home-made CD of that LP will sound better than the CD you can buy at the store.

-mcgrew

* from the linked Wikipedia article:

In 2006, Epic records attempted to remaster the first two Boston albums; however, this was done without any input from Scholz, who is notoriously protective of his work. Scholz was astounded that the quality of the remastering was so poor and personally took over the reins of the project in order to ensure that the final product was of the highest quality.

Note, I haven't heard the newest remasters of these CDs but the original CDs were indeed crap. The dynamics were missing completely, the frequency response was likewise flattened.

Re:What's a Pirate in This Context

[Phanatic1a]

The problem is, the media companies won't take a stance on what you're paying for when you buy a CD. Are you buying a product, or some kind of license. They won't take a stance because they want to have their cake and eat it too.


Actually, they have taken a stance [boingboing.net]:

Sony musicians including Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers are suing the record label for screwing them out of their royalties on sales of music on iTunes and other digital music services.
At issue is whether the music sold through these services is a "license" or a "sale." Sony pays less to its artists for sales than for licensing (Sony artists reportedly earn $0.045 for each $0.99 song sold on iTunes). Naturally, Sony claims that the songs sold on iTunes are sales and not licensing deals.

Assuming the mentioned case got as far as a court, Sony's claimed that in court. I'm pretty sure they're estopped from later claiming that what's transpiring is a license sale.

Re:Correction

[dthulson]

Have you considered just avoiding music from RIAA labels? There are plenty of independent labels out there. I have found the RIAA Radar [riaaradar.com] to be very helpful.

Re:hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

The troubadours and trouvères were travelling musicians in 13th century Burgundy -- some 500 years before the "late Baroque." One of the most remarkable things about the 19th century was the popularity of music among the middle classes -- Beethoven's audience was the middle class, not the nobility and gentry. This is, I suppose, "late classical," but your concept of "commoner" is a bit off. You might want to review your history and your dates, if you're going to criticize people for historical accuracy.

What you're missing is that music, until the beginning of recording, was something almost everybody did. You sang; you played the piano (if you were well-educated and middle-class), you played other instruments. When you got together at parties, you'd either hire a few local musicians or take turns. Even up to the 1950s, well-educated people could all read music and sing or play the piano.

Recording turned music from an *activity* into a *product*.

Re:hmmm...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I hate to nitpick, but you're talking about SINGING. The grandparent is talking about MUSIC, and he is absolutely right. Most common people do not have access to INSTRUMENTS, the things which produce MUSIC.

Generally singing is considered one form of music, but even ignoring that there's this neat technique called "whistling" that has been popular for a little while now. Also the reed whistle, flute, horn and drum all predate even the earliest forms of writing. People were beating rhythms on hollow trees long before the concept of currency was invented.

Re:An audiobook lover moves to piracy.

[freeweed]

They told me I had to file that under homeowners insurance... which I don't have... because I don't have a home... I have an apartment.

Renter's contents insurance has been available for decades.

You're free to not purchase it (hey, many renters don't own much), but don't make out like you couldn't have had insurance :)

Otherwise I agree with your point completely. It's a good question, and has actually come up in insurance claims similar to yours.

Re:An etymological question

[bcmm]

Almost certainly via "pirate radio stations". These were ships which would broadcast FM radio from just outside a country's territorial waters, so that they could be heard on land. They'd play music without paying any royalties, play records which were banned from the radio or not released to radio stations, etc., and were just about legal because no one had the power to arrest people in international waters for something as trivial as copyright violation.

So you can see how "piracy" got linked to "copyright infringement" - via actual seagoing music pirates. Surprised no one else pointed it out.

Re:Yeah, right. Courtney Love knows self serving.

[aardvarkjoe]

Are you implying that artists somehow benefit from music sales?

They would if they would sell their own music, or found distributors that gave them favorable terms. (And don't try the crap about there being no such thing -- there is; you just don't get the marketing muscle that the big names have.) I feel no sympathy for the poor, downtrodden artists who sign away the rights to their music in hopes of becoming multimillionaires. They played the lottery, they lost.

In any case, I was responding to the statement "That's where the money is, anyway. not the Albums," which is obviously false. Many more people buy music than go to concerts, and are willing to pay for it. There's money in both.