That DVD and CD of yours? Isn't really yours...

In Europe that is. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3256945.stm



"The EU is building these copyright laws into another, the European Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive, which will give even more powers to copyright owners to protect their creations. This will criminalise all efforts to break copyright, even trivial ones."

I understand a company or artist trying to protect their material or making sure they get their cut, but i think this is a bit far. They say these measures are only being taken to go after large scale forgers...but how long will it be until they come after you? It will turn common users into criminals facing huge fines and turn the masses against the people they support--the Entertainment Industry. At least that's my take on the subject.

Comments? Thoughts?

Damn.. I'm really conflicted on the issue. I download music as sort of a preview before purchasing albums.. so, in my particular case (and with loads of other people I'm sure) free music is akin to free advertisement. But, then again I have friends with a music collection of burned CDs.. hmm..

Then there are bands like Wilco who are experiencing a good deal of commercial success while sort of embracing music sharing.. so, there's no question this can be good for certain bands. But, I would argue that in order for a band to benefit from this, they need to have more to offer than just a hit single. They need to have devoted fans as well..

In any case, I hope companies don't start putting errors on CDs to prohibate playback on a computer CD drive.. I'd be outta luck.

But that's exactly what they're doing and moving towards...hopefully it'll never come to pass in this country, but if it's hapening in Europe, it's heading towards here.

As to you confliction about downloading...it seriously is cutting DEEPLY into the pockets of the Recording Industry. But mainly it's the guys with teams of lawyers and companies that are getting screwed as they're already screwing over the artists quite a bit.

A record producer i met on the road told me that "MP3's are absolutely destroying sales and the record industry" but that also didn't stop him from having his entire CD collection stored on an iPod

a government with balls. as amazing as that is i almost agree with the idea.

from what i see downloading music only hurts the popular artisits that are only out to sell cds. for the real music industry mp3s/file sharing has been good for a lot of small artists, and for anyone who really cares about the music they listen the file sharing is a great medium to learn about new artists.

as a fan of independent music hearing a few songs from a previosly unknown artist makes me more comfortable in purchasing thier work. however i agree this has a negitive effect on the radio pop culture bands that depend on record sales to get more airplay and sell tickets to thier concets.

the eu is creating a catch 22 for aspiring artists. however i believe that measures should be taken to prevent people from obtaining a full album without paying something for it.

Yeah, but the implications of this is that it will be illegal or impossible to listen to a CD on your computer (and miss out on all the cool visualizations as well as other features). Hell, it'll be illegal to even try and figure out how you could play a CD on your comp and what right does anybody have to stop you from playing a CD or DVD that you purchased over any form of media player you choose to? Just because many people out there pirate music or rip their CD's and trade them doesn't mean that i should not be allowed to creat a mix CD or compilation disc.

Hell next thing ya know, listening to loud music will be a copy right infringement as your neighbors didn't pay to listen to that.

[Edited on Nov 10, 2003 by Max16Characters]

I wonder how much the music industry compunds thier lost revenue on digital media copying with what they are paying those vast hordes of lawyers and coporate executives to fight it?

I mean...if I honestly really like the music, I'll by the damn cd. and if I kinda like it...well I'll buy it used.

and that's another thing...why haven't they attacked resale cd stores?

I can't wait...some day...all speakers will be outlawed...only individual sets of headphones will be allowed so as to avoid sharing of the music.

'tards.

I do have some burnt albums, but my defense is that if I didn't burn them, I simply wouldn't own them. To me £13-£15 for a new CD is expensive, and if its a band you're not a big fan of but still like to listen to occasionally (with me Static-X) its just a waste. The music I download (as I have a very slow connection) is only to sample certain, less well-known bands. Without this, I would never have got into Lolita Storm, Mindless Self Indulgence, Dead Milkmen, etc (all of whom I now own albums by).

Oh, and if I really want to boot-leg the latest singles, I can tape them from the radio. Wooh! Rock n roll anarchy!

"the growing and dangerous intrusion of this new technology" threatened his entire industry's "economic vitality and future security." Driving his point home with a most striking analogy, he told Congress that the new technology "is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone."
-Jack Valenti, speaking before the House Judiciary committee regarding the VCR

they (the various entertainment industries) were morons then, they are morons now. they make their money by selling and reselling information (first on record, resold on tape, resold on cd, resold on...). that's why they're so scared of finally finding a medium (digital) where they can't resell the same old crap in 10 years.

they abuse the concept of intellectual property in the name of profit (i won't even get into the raping of public domain law in the name of mickey mouse).

they claim 'we' are stealing from the artists, when we are neither 'stealing' (copying is not stealing, no inventory is lost) nor is the artist whose pocket they care about. hell, in many cases, the artist is dead.

trade and copy music with abandon. support the artists you love, either by buying their stuff or sending them payment directly.

and destroy restrictive copyright laws that threaten creativity:

"If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence" John Oswald

plenty of information on IP and anti-copyright at:
http://detritus.net/vircomm/projects/anticopy/

more at:
http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html

sorry this post was all over the place regarding topic.

well here's my two cents. i'm a musician and over the past year i have built up home recording studio using about 60% software. meaning i have a virtual 32 track audio recording systm with a wide array of effects and a software based synthesizer that is a sequencer and sample play back engine as well the rest is actual hardware. now all of this software was copy protected using a challenge/response method. i had no problem getting on line and doing this and i fully agree it is necessary. the reason is there is too much cracked software out there and alot of the smaller companies that would be putting out really cool and innovative software and upgrades wouldn't be able to if they close down because no one is paying for their software. however; as far as the music industry is concerned i'm starting to wonder if a nice fat black market industry bringing the big companies their knees isn't such a bad thing. with companies like clear channel and viacom dictating what we here on the radio and see on tv maybe, just maybe, we need more choices. i think that the if they keep going with these laws it might force us all underground where we can thrive on real creativity and not be spoonfed our intertainment. of course people are sheep, frankly and they need to be told what to like so the bachlor and brittany will always be around and they will nod their heads like good automatons and do what they're told. so i say fight the revolution my poeples...

Watch MTV cribs and look at how these recording artists live and then try and tell me that they are all losing money. I have not downloaded a song since Napster was shut down but I still think they are full of fucking shit. Fuck the recording industry.

Oh, I want to add that no band I have ever met has been against downloading music, in fact most of them are over-joyed that more people get access to their music. It just pisses me off that bands like Metallica and the Rolling Stones get so shitty about it when, to paraphrase the simpsons, its just one less ivory back-scratcher for them.

yeah, theyre all lying. actually, cd sales have increased dramatically since the inception of wide-spread file sharing. being able to get whatever music i want instantly and for free has only inspired me to get in my car and go spend money on packaging.

...and as far as the new pay to download sites. They are all good and everything - but .99 per download is fucking stupid. I like to own complete CD's because I usually find songs that are not released as singles that I like better. To download an entire CD off of these sites would cost as much as if I bought it at the store - ans I get no packaging ! Lower it to .50 a song and I would start doing that. until then I have to say fuck that too!

Well they have to try something new because they realized that shutting down file sharing services ain't gonna stop people from e-mailing or instant messaging the stuff.

Does anyone know of a recent dvd that is supposed to be protected with a newer and better method? so far I haven't found anything I couldn't copy

I have real mixed feelings about things like this. I have a pretty large music collection on CD and cassette. About half of it (both mediums) is copied. I have a friend who's mother works for a "large recording company" (She won't say which, but I have a feeling it's Sony) and she is so against copied CDs, she wouldn't even accept one as a gift. Instead, she ordered the CD. However, she also has a minidisc player, so has also copied her entire CD collection. We look at that, to use a drug term, in that mini discs are for "personal use", not sale.
On a personal note, I only listen to my CDs through my computer as it has the best sound system in the house, so if that's going to be prohibited in the future, I hope they're going to buy me a new stereo so I can listen to all my music again.
Spike

I'll preach on with my usual "commercializing music is wrong. Period." comment.

I thought that copyrights were supposed to help the original creator of the work, not the guy that distributed and financed it? So, if anyone can "copyright" a song, it should be the artists themselves and not some company that manages the artist. I hate to boycott companies that have artists that might actually have similar opinions to me, and we should be able to boycott specific artists rather than a whole blanket group of them.

Also, don't forget that Ticketmaster is pretty much a big money-grubbing whore as well. Buying overpriced concert tickets through Ticketmaster isn't necessarily getting most of your cash to the artist. Unless... the cost of the ticket is relatively small. Then that's not really "profitable" to them anyways.

If Cds couldn't be used to make compilation albums I dont' think I would buy them. Most albums I listen to I mainly like 3 or 4 songs and mix them into something to listen to. I buy approximately 1 cd or DVD a week so at the rip off price of 20 bucks thats over 1000 dollars a year(price to make a cd is approximately 1 us dollar DVD only slightly more). If I couldn't mix I wouldn't buy at all. I'd still buy DVDs but no way I'd pay 20 bucks for 3 songs I couldn't even put on a mix cd or play on my comp playlist. The only real reason for laws like this are simple plain greed. Most bands that aren't making a fortune already certainly aren't being mixed and copied into bankruptcy. The real people the record companies are concerned about you burning are Britney Spears, Insync, BSB, Ja Rule or whatever the hell pop is I personally don't listen to any but thats just me. A record exec looks at the 300 million he pulled in off Britney Spears last quarter and thinks you know I bet I lost over 10 million to piracy there. Laws like this will promote the the profits of the teeny bop sluts, pretty boys and gangsta thugs. It will at the same time heavily hamper and discourage any innovative thought or actual art in music. The small bands will hurt by this, which is what record companys would prefer. Its much easier to pop out millions of the same pop ablum then tens of thousands of various ones to a diversified audience. "Major comercial interests will seek to stop new ideas, seeing them as a threat to there market" -Pull from KHZ I think that pretty well states it.