The continuing quandary the publishing busness finds itself in as it struggles to adjust to new pricing and more importantly, new methods of distribution is life threatening . While the traditional paper books aren’t going anywhere very soon, it is having lots of company. The new kids on the block aren't all so new. Audio books have been around for many years, Only they were books on tape, and they weren't marketed to the general public. In the early1950's the first audio book was made, only then they were put on records. and played on a turntable. In the 1970's they advanced to the cassette. The first of the recording were made available to the blind, by the Library of Congress. I knew about them generally because I have a step-grandmother who is blind, and I had seen them, along with her brail books. In the late 1970's they advanced to CD, along with all other forms of music and audio in general.. It was then the phenomenon began to take off with the general public. Fast forward to today; Today, every form of audio recording is done digitally. The audio book has become a viable industry of its own. The largest publisher of audio books Audio.com boasts approximately 75,000 titles in a wide range to topics and authors. The downloaded digital books can be played on a wide varity of devices ranging from a traditional MP3 player, to a phone such as an Iphone, and any number of smart phones, and devices such as the IPad. The portability allows one to listen to a book when and where reading a traditional paper book would not be possible. This alternative to a paper book has found a new life and is giving life to many books that would remain unread because the folks who want to read them can't or won't sit still long enough to read a paper book. The audio book has its own history which many people will never know of, and probably care even less about..
The growth of non-traditional book formats has exploded. Any format that is not paper is what I would call a non-traditional format. Another what I'd call Non-Traditional format is e-books, or e-publishing, as its called in some circles. This too, has been around for a while.
The e-book goes back to the early 1970's wen the fist ebook was produced on a IBM mainframe computer, to the Internet where specialty and hard to find books were essentially PDF of books that popped up on the screen. Even until recently the last 10 years or so they were a novelity and ralerly seen and even more rarely used by the general public. The publishing industry was terrfified of the concept of the e-book and e-ink.
In the last 10 years or so, e-books have come into their own with the development of readers such as the Kindle from Amazon and other makers of readers the idea of buying an e-book and downloading it and carrying around several large volumes of books in one small flat screen has exploded.
Traditionally, publishers had treated e-books in much the same ways as they had traditional paper books. That is until now. Amazon had made a huge market by selling their own device to read e-books, the Kindle. Once you had the Kindle it was easy to buy books from Amazon directly from the kindle, so you just used your Kindle and were happy to read.. Then along comes Apple..
Apple comes along first upsetting the status quo of the music industry and in the process reinventing it, and in many ways saving it from itself.
Now its looking to do the same for the book publishing industry. With the much hyped release of the IPad, earlier thsis spring, and as part of the Ipad scheme is the IBook store to sell ebooks . The ebook on a Ipad is a entirely different experince then on a Kindle. On the Kindle ones is limited to "black and white" ie, plain text on a white background, with no color pictures, maybe some illustrations. While very usable, it is limited in many ways. On the IPad, one is treated to a bright colorful screen that can do much more then just show e-books. The experince of reading a ebook is completly different, turning a page is much faster and eaier, The pictures are beautiful color and nore book-like then a kindle ever thought of.
One of the thing many things Apple has done is to upset the price structure that had been at Amazon. Where Amazon set the price and the percentage that the publishers and authors get, Apple came in and said they would sell their Ibooks as they call them for exactly the same as Amazon, thus eliminating whatever advantage Amazon had over Apple. It should be noted that Amazon has a Kindle app for the IPad that apparently works very well, It even lets you sync your books between the Kindle and the IPad, and go back and forth between them, picking up where you left off on one device from the other. This is good. Barnes and Noble just released a ap for the IPad for their e-book reader the nook,
There are bigger issues here then price and and who is the price leader, and even how much who gets.
What the Ipad and other tablets do is open up the possibilities of what an e-book reader could be. No longer limited to displying e-ink in basic black & white and presenting limited pictures or drawing. It can now display full color. The addition of a full color screen and native web integration between the e-magazines and the web opens up a world of possibilities for content developers . The introduction of tablets running other os, ie, android, HP's webos, and even Linux bring a whole range of choices for the consumers, that is if they are produced and consumers will use them. I suspect that for the near future, even after other tablets are on the market, there will be Apple and everyone else.
I don't think books are going anywhere any time soon, but their relevealance to today’s generation is not the same as it ws to ours and our parents; they don't hold them in the respect that they were once held,, The same could be said for other physical media, LP, tapes. now, cd. and dvds. We have a whole generation of people who only think of content as bits and bytes they can store on a hard drive and watch on whatever they can plug it into. The idea of having a room filled with books is disappearing fast. This is one of the problems that the publishing industry need to address.
One way to encourage book sales is to give the buyer a incentive to buy a hard cover book instead of going and just buying a digital copy, be it either e-book, or audio. That is to allow him to have the book and listen to it at the same time. Towards the end of proping up book sales I have the following idea;
My idea is that of a cross promotion of media types; mainly books to e-books and audio books. Include a special code for a audio book from audio.com to allow the buyer of the HB book to download the audio version free.
In limited runs of paper books, to start with; probably hard cover books; Include a special code for a audio book from audio.com to allow the buyer of the HB book to download the audio version free.
The code would be specific to that run of books and would let them know that it come from the book. There would be extra content along with the book, specific to the code. In other words if one used another code they would get the regualr audio version of the book, without the extras, thus justifiy the extra cost of the hard cover book, and give the consumer a value ad for buying a hard cover book. instead of just the ebook, or audio book. The same deal cold also be arranged for ebooks from Amamzon, they could get either the ebook with extras, or the audio book with extras.
Also none of the books would have the same number or code so the same code couldn't be resused several times, it would be checked against a datase to tell where the book was sold and when, allowing tracking of how many codes where used, and on what, ebook or audio etc.. and what part of country etc...like the promo code tv shows use to tell how many people respond to their ads..
As for Amazon and Audio, they would be paid a fee by the publishers for every code redeemed like coupons are now, and Authors would get royalties from the original book sales, with a bonus from the publisher for every code redeemed, granted not as much as if the electronic book had been bought, but some... The idea that the publishers and others would make up money on volume and not per unit,, and the the addition of having the electronic version out where people are going to see and talk about it and how they got are essentially free advertising, promotion for the books, they would never get if they just sold the paper book and it just sat on a shelve at home..
This a idea to help get the publishing industry to rethink how they look at books and content in general. They are not just publishing a book to publish a book, they are publishing intellectual material, and not just paper books and magazines.
They are publishing ideas and which more important the how much they make in the traditional way, Hard Cover Books, and paperbacks, which will always sell, or getting the ideas out where it can be seen and talked about, the way to do that is to make the same material available in all formats. and make it easy to use the content on any platform, and move between the platforms.
Theses are just some ideas for bridging the gap between traditional publishing and the new forms of publishing and medias,,
All of the media industries are wrestling with the same issues, how to get their media out and still keep control. and make money. As for control, If one looks at the music industry, they find that DRM dose not work. It only makes it hard for honest consumers to use the media, and and only slows the serious pirarites down, slightly, so its not worth it. The movie indusrty also has yet to learn this. The best thing the publishing indursty can do is open it up so any ebook will play on any ereader, and be transfereable, the same with audio books, Publicity is their best friend. seing people reading and listing to books out and about is the best advertisement there is. People talking about what their reading is what they need, not people talking about how they can't read something because its locked down.
Well, there are probably many aspects that I didn't discuss . If you jave any thoughts on this please feel free to email or leave a comment.
Ken Lawson
Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyright. Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
More on DRM and Other Issues of Importance
Image this; You sit down with your family in front of your brand new 50+" High definition tv with 7.1 Surround; sound and all the trimmings to watch a Blu-ray movie you borrowed from a friend. You played the movie in your brand new Blu-ray HD DVD player the hooked up to the Internet via your wireless connection which for your wi-fi network for the computers. This give you extra features not on the player itself,,, or so you thought.
A week latter you receive a summons to the Piracy Court in your area, Apparently the movie your borrowed from your friend was a copy and not the original, and the DVD player realized this and played it anyways and then "phoned Home"
The above scenario is make believe right now.However,the hardware is available now to do exactly that or something very similar to it. Once a device is put a network theres no end to what can be done even in the background, if the program is in the rom chip it can run in the background and the owner never know its even there until its too late. By then everything that they've done with that device is no longer their own personal business, it now part of a giant profile either a general profile or a specific profile based directly on them by name, or other qualifying data.
There are other issues here beside just devices spying on us.The ramifications of this are frighting.
Other issues that have come up in the last few years include music, and of course HD and the DRM in General. The music industry has pretty much given up on drming their mp3s. Theres has been a huge backlash against the perceived enemy's, in the form of the RIAA, and the MPAA and other media distribution bodies, . Over the last several years there has been a huge drop in CD sales, this is blamed in large part on music sales though on-line retailers such as I-Tunes ect. along with everyones old scapegoat piracy . yes there is piracy however I don't believe its the only reason the sales have gone down. Maybe most of the music isn't all that great in the first place and people don't want it. All that aside, two artist tried something very different last year, they got shed of their contract with the big studios and independently publish their cd. the big twist is was they didn't price their cd,
RadioHead released their album "IN Rainbows" was released Oct 10, on their site and anyone could down the entire album and pay what they wanted for the album. They also had the option of pre-ordering it and also a special box set with a vinyl version and other items. Although they wouldn't release exact figures, all indications are that they did very well, and the best part is they got all the money not most of it going to middlemen. Here are couple of link to story's about the Radiohead ablum;
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct02/0,4670,OntheNet,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Earlier this year Nine Inch Nails followed Radiohead by releasing their album free and offering better quality versions for fees. They said that so far they have earned 1.6 million on their free album. See Link;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23390248-5014239,00.html
While theses two example prove that people will pay even if they don't have to most artist are not in a position to do something like that. But it dose prove the concept of people paying the artist directly without the middle man, AKA the record companies. When people know the artist is getting all the money they're more willing to pay more.
There are other venues that also lend themselves to artist self-producing their works, such as publishing. Do a quick Google search and you will find thousands of places that will publish your book. Some are places that will publish your book for a price, while other are real publishing houses that actively look for talent and will publish your book. The biggest boom is the idea of on-demand publishing, there are many places where they only actually print and bind a copy of the book after it has been sold, the idea being theres no no huge inventory of books sitting around wasting paper and taking up space, they only print exactly what they need.
Which bring us to a another new concept that has been getting widespread attention, Creative Commons licenses.
http://creativecommons.org/
The idea of Creative Commons Licenses is that you can decide what kinds of rights that you want give your work.
Here are several ways in which you can copy write your material,
1. Others can copy my personal videos, edit if they like or even distribute them on their own sites but should not sell the videos.
2. Others can copy photos from my Flickr Gallery, use them on blogs but they are not allowed to edit or manipulate the photos.
3. Other are allowed to take my images and even manipulate them using Photoshop but they should license their new creations under identical terms.
4. Others can take my music albums and distribute them on their own sites but they should neither modify the contents nor make any money out of my music.
This lets you have a say in what ways your work can be used. The Creative Commons Licenses can be used with anything from music to art, to books published online. This is a idea which is catching on all over the world, One look at the Creative Commons website shows that they developed it to work in many languages and countries.
There are a myriad of other issues to be dealt with over the next several years. Among them; the idea of Net Neutrality, the idea of keeping the Internet a even level playing Field for everyone regardless of how get on line or what speeds they're going be 56k or a T1 line, One the we everyone is equal, President Bush as access to the exact sites and information as I have or anyone Else on at the time, I could be shopping at the same on line store as Bill Gates and never even know it, and we're both equal as far as the web is concerned.Except that Bill Gates can spend WAY more then me..
Theres also the recent auctioning off of spectrum by the FCC. One round of Auctions has ended. The 700MHz bandwidth is the bandwidth that analog tv uses to broadcast you tv signal from your local broadcasters to you. With the coming transition to digital in February 2009, that bandwidth is now freed up for other uses. The FCC has had a auction to licences the bandwidth to various providers, who can then use it to either add or upgrade their services to the consumer.Among the winners were big players likeVerizon, and AT&T won most of the licences and blocks .
Here are two links;
This is the FCC site with the Auction Summary;
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73
Here is another story on the results,;
http://mobilitytoday.com/news/008421/verizon_att_wireless_spectrum
For more reading do a search on 700MHZ auction Results. The eventually outcome of this and the future auctions for other bandwidths will not be known for quite some time, However, consumers should be aware and keep informed of whats happening in the wireless space as well as in cyberspace.
Its very important for consumers to not take what their fed by the mass advertising and other media outlets at face value . They need to question and do research and find out exactly what going on behind the sences and try to understand how it will affect their rights asa consumer and as a citizen. To to this end I offer the following links to places and peaple who are trying to protect our freedoms as we know them now;
Public Knowledge.org
http://www.publicknowledge.org/
Below are a listing of all the links at the bottom of the Public Knowledge.org front page. Please take your time and go through them, I think you'll find some interesting reading.
.
A week latter you receive a summons to the Piracy Court in your area, Apparently the movie your borrowed from your friend was a copy and not the original, and the DVD player realized this and played it anyways and then "phoned Home"
The above scenario is make believe right now.However,the hardware is available now to do exactly that or something very similar to it. Once a device is put a network theres no end to what can be done even in the background, if the program is in the rom chip it can run in the background and the owner never know its even there until its too late. By then everything that they've done with that device is no longer their own personal business, it now part of a giant profile either a general profile or a specific profile based directly on them by name, or other qualifying data.
There are other issues here beside just devices spying on us.The ramifications of this are frighting.
Other issues that have come up in the last few years include music, and of course HD and the DRM in General. The music industry has pretty much given up on drming their mp3s. Theres has been a huge backlash against the perceived enemy's, in the form of the RIAA, and the MPAA and other media distribution bodies, . Over the last several years there has been a huge drop in CD sales, this is blamed in large part on music sales though on-line retailers such as I-Tunes ect. along with everyones old scapegoat piracy . yes there is piracy however I don't believe its the only reason the sales have gone down. Maybe most of the music isn't all that great in the first place and people don't want it. All that aside, two artist tried something very different last year, they got shed of their contract with the big studios and independently publish their cd. the big twist is was they didn't price their cd,
RadioHead released their album "IN Rainbows" was released Oct 10, on their site and anyone could down the entire album and pay what they wanted for the album. They also had the option of pre-ordering it and also a special box set with a vinyl version and other items. Although they wouldn't release exact figures, all indications are that they did very well, and the best part is they got all the money not most of it going to middlemen. Here are couple of link to story's about the Radiohead ablum;
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct02/0,4670,OntheNet,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all
Earlier this year Nine Inch Nails followed Radiohead by releasing their album free and offering better quality versions for fees. They said that so far they have earned 1.6 million on their free album. See Link;
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23390248-5014239,00.html
While theses two example prove that people will pay even if they don't have to most artist are not in a position to do something like that. But it dose prove the concept of people paying the artist directly without the middle man, AKA the record companies. When people know the artist is getting all the money they're more willing to pay more.
There are other venues that also lend themselves to artist self-producing their works, such as publishing. Do a quick Google search and you will find thousands of places that will publish your book. Some are places that will publish your book for a price, while other are real publishing houses that actively look for talent and will publish your book. The biggest boom is the idea of on-demand publishing, there are many places where they only actually print and bind a copy of the book after it has been sold, the idea being theres no no huge inventory of books sitting around wasting paper and taking up space, they only print exactly what they need.
Which bring us to a another new concept that has been getting widespread attention, Creative Commons licenses.
http://creativecommons.org/
The idea of Creative Commons Licenses is that you can decide what kinds of rights that you want give your work.
Here are several ways in which you can copy write your material,
1. Others can copy my personal videos, edit if they like or even distribute them on their own sites but should not sell the videos.
2. Others can copy photos from my Flickr Gallery, use them on blogs but they are not allowed to edit or manipulate the photos.
3. Other are allowed to take my images and even manipulate them using Photoshop but they should license their new creations under identical terms.
4. Others can take my music albums and distribute them on their own sites but they should neither modify the contents nor make any money out of my music.
This lets you have a say in what ways your work can be used. The Creative Commons Licenses can be used with anything from music to art, to books published online. This is a idea which is catching on all over the world, One look at the Creative Commons website shows that they developed it to work in many languages and countries.
There are a myriad of other issues to be dealt with over the next several years. Among them; the idea of Net Neutrality, the idea of keeping the Internet a even level playing Field for everyone regardless of how get on line or what speeds they're going be 56k or a T1 line, One the we everyone is equal, President Bush as access to the exact sites and information as I have or anyone Else on at the time, I could be shopping at the same on line store as Bill Gates and never even know it, and we're both equal as far as the web is concerned.Except that Bill Gates can spend WAY more then me..
Theres also the recent auctioning off of spectrum by the FCC. One round of Auctions has ended. The 700MHz bandwidth is the bandwidth that analog tv uses to broadcast you tv signal from your local broadcasters to you. With the coming transition to digital in February 2009, that bandwidth is now freed up for other uses. The FCC has had a auction to licences the bandwidth to various providers, who can then use it to either add or upgrade their services to the consumer.Among the winners were big players likeVerizon, and AT&T won most of the licences and blocks .
Here are two links;
This is the FCC site with the Auction Summary;
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73
Here is another story on the results,;
http://mobilitytoday.com/news/008421/verizon_att_wireless_spectrum
For more reading do a search on 700MHZ auction Results. The eventually outcome of this and the future auctions for other bandwidths will not be known for quite some time, However, consumers should be aware and keep informed of whats happening in the wireless space as well as in cyberspace.
Its very important for consumers to not take what their fed by the mass advertising and other media outlets at face value . They need to question and do research and find out exactly what going on behind the sences and try to understand how it will affect their rights asa consumer and as a citizen. To to this end I offer the following links to places and peaple who are trying to protect our freedoms as we know them now;
Public Knowledge.org
http://www.publicknowledge.org/
Below are a listing of all the links at the bottom of the Public Knowledge.org front page. Please take your time and go through them, I think you'll find some interesting reading.
Organizations
- Alliance for Taxpayer Access
- Center for Democracy & Technology
- Center for Digital Democracy
- Creative Commons
- Digital Freedom Campaign
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Fair Use Network
- Free Press
- Free Software Foundation
- FreeCulture.org
- Future of Music Coalition
- Internet Archive
- IPac
- Knowledge Ecology International
- Media Access Project
- National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
- Save the Internet
- Software Freedom Law Center
.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Round One of the DRM War......
Ding...Ding...
Round One
Of the DRM War
Has Started....
Round One
Of the DRM War
Has Started....
As any one who has read my blog over the last several months know I have very definite ideas about the upcoming digital transition, and more importantly issues surrounding it, i.e. DRM and the consumers right to play what they want when, and on what they want. The first salvo of the DRM war against High Definition media owners vrs the consumers was fired earlier this year when a hacker was able to find the AACS Code the encrypted the title and locked the High Definition Disc. This was posted and eventually made its way to the Digg.com website, where it was posted. Digg.com soon received a cease and Desist order requesting they take down the code and any post related to it. However, there was a revolt and very soon after it was remover it was put back up in many different forms by thousands of readers, The folks at Digg finely relented and let the post stay up.
The bigger picture is that while the Media companies and studios will try to limit how consumers use their media, forcing people to find workarounds to to what they've always done before, which was well with the preview of "Fair Use" I have seen reports of some rather nasty ideas floated using hardware embedded software that "phones home" and alerts the powers that be what your doing if your playing a DVD that not quite legit they will know and may do anything from shutting down the machine either later next time you try to play that disc, or right then and there, or filling a report to someone who can make your life miserable for months after.
it was just brought to my attention that Direct tv, has put a 24hour cap on letting folk view a per per view movie, that include items you've started watching and haven't finished, once the 24 hrs was up it disappeared, and if you want to see it again you have to pay again. Heres the link;
http://www.hothardware.com/News/Your%5FDirecTV%5FWill%5FBe%5FDRMOld%5FAnd%5FBusted/
The encryption code used in Blu-ray HD DVD is called AACS code its a encryption used for content distribution and digital rights management for dvd, I foresee other uses for it, none of them good..
Here are two Links to information about AACS Code;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Access_Content_System
Also related to the AACS Code the page detailing the crack to the DRM on the HD DVDS:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1104
Heres a link to the DIGG Story about their taking down the code and putting it back up again.
http://www.techimo.com/forum/t185930.html
Also heres a link to a page on the HBO Site I found this morning;
This explain their position on recording show off their networks;
http://www.hbo.com/corpinfo/cgmsafaq.shtml#jump3
I don't think most people realize how their rights as consumers are being slowly eroded and what we have taken for granted as rights granted to us back in the 1970's with the advent of VCRS , and a supreme courts decision that vcrs did not violate copyrights or tv produces as long as the tapes were made for personal use. its called "Fair Use" What is needed for people to call and email and write their local congress people and let them know they are against DRM and crippling DRM in particular.As far I'm concerned that fair use law extends to CD's DVD, HD DVDs and any other media, as long as I make copies for my own personal use they have no right to limit my ability to record or archive any media.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Open Letter to The RIAA
Until a few years ago I had never heard of the RIAA.
Now it seems they've become the BIg Brother of the music world.
And they're looking for a fight. I venture to say that most folks had never heard of the RIAA until the started suing everyone for doing something they've been doing doing for many years. Actually they didn't know it at the time. When I bought a record, (LP) You remember them? I would play it the first time and make a copy onto whatever tape machine I had at the time, cassette or 8 track and put the record away and save the record. If someone wanted a copy I'd either make a copy from the record or the tape, whichever was easiest at the time, that not counting all the mixed tapes with songs from different artist on it. Of courses we were using good 'ole RCA jacks and swapping cables back and forth.we were using the technology we've had for the last 60+ years, of course Until about 20 years or so, we had never heard of digital anything. Now everything is digital theses days.
There is a term in the entrainment industry called "fair use". I first read about it in connection to the early days of VCR. The studios had tried kill VCR and the courts had rejected the studio argument's saying that consumers had a limited right to use the VCR to time shift TV broadcast to a more convent time.
I am not going to try to explain a very complicated subject, which I only have a broad and very basic understanding of the concept. Instead I will supply links at the bottom of the article to give you more detailed reading material.
The idea of this article is to try bring together the idea of protecting copyrighted material, and the individual consumers right to use the material as they see fit. It is generally accepted the one can make a couple copy's of a disc for back-up proposes. The question starts to be sticky when you try to give a copy to someone else. Is it just sharing a interesting work or stealing,?
In the early 1990's when the mp3 craze started and Napster came into vogue, and folks discovered they could copy all their Cd's into their computers, which were finely powerful and fast enough to actually store and play them, This also coincided with the opening up of the Apra-net, becoming the Internet. We all know the stories of college students sharing gigs of music through the campus. This is when the RIAA came out of hiding. Of course once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak it can't be put back in.
The records companys say the because of the sharing of music over the Internet that they had lost a substantial amount of sale, and thus monies they would have made through the sales of CDs during the heyday of file sharing. While this may be true, they know they will never get that money back. That's like saying you lost money because you didn't or did do or buy something and wanting the money you would have made back. Not going to happen. Essentially the 1990's and early 2000's is water under the bridge.
Its time for the RIAA to bite the bullet and sowoll hard and stand up and say they've made some big mistakes in the last 12 or so years. and essentially, be a man ,and take their lumps. and start over and work on new models is distribution , which if it wasn't for Apple and I-Tunes they probably still wouldn't be doing.
By continuing to down the path they are now, they are alienating they very public they are trying to reason with.
There is the question of where all the money that they get when they settle one of the suits goes. In theory, it should go to the artist, they are supposed to represent . We all know about the only people making money is the lawyers.
It would seem to me that if any suing was done at all it should be up to the artist themselves. After all it was their work that was "stolen" Then the RIAA can sue on behalf of the artist and the amounts of damages should be up to the artist themselves. and make sure they get the money.
I would venture to say most artist probably would elect not to sue, if nothing else because of the negative image it would bring them, and if the truth were known, most of them had probably done some file sharing themselves. Which puts them in a rather interesting spot. If a artist had the RIAA sue some one and in the course of the trial it come out that they had or even at the time were doing exactly what they were suing about, one can imaige what a laughing stock they would be.
There is also another aspect of the file sharing, that is how much of the material downloaded by folks is material that they already own in LP or cassette or 8-track from and what they were essentially doing was getting material they already own in a new format. That opens up more questions of fair use and copyright issues. If one can prove they a already own a copy of the material and were getting copies of their material.
No one I have seen has mentioned that issue.
In short , its time for the RIAA to back down and rethink its approach to the consumer. By continuing as they are they are in a lot of cases driving people into he idea that they don't want to support them and refuse to buy CDS , if nothing else in a form of protest.
I have been reading lately, the there has been a movement to drop DRM on mp3s. This is a sign that they have finely discovered that it don't work and causes more problems then it solves. Sony got into trouble earlier this year over a hidden root-kit it had on some of it CDs, which had actually damaged peoples computers.This proved that that model was not going to work and it was dropped by Sony after they were sued.
What it all boils down to is when doses "fair use" turn to stealing and who decides it and what are the penalties and who gets to droll them out.
This is a open letter to the RIAA asking them to rethink their tactics and consider the points I've mentioned.
As for the links;
Here are the links I promised;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm
http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.riaa.com/
Now it seems they've become the BIg Brother of the music world.
And they're looking for a fight. I venture to say that most folks had never heard of the RIAA until the started suing everyone for doing something they've been doing doing for many years. Actually they didn't know it at the time. When I bought a record, (LP) You remember them? I would play it the first time and make a copy onto whatever tape machine I had at the time, cassette or 8 track and put the record away and save the record. If someone wanted a copy I'd either make a copy from the record or the tape, whichever was easiest at the time, that not counting all the mixed tapes with songs from different artist on it. Of courses we were using good 'ole RCA jacks and swapping cables back and forth.we were using the technology we've had for the last 60+ years, of course Until about 20 years or so, we had never heard of digital anything. Now everything is digital theses days.
There is a term in the entrainment industry called "fair use". I first read about it in connection to the early days of VCR. The studios had tried kill VCR and the courts had rejected the studio argument's saying that consumers had a limited right to use the VCR to time shift TV broadcast to a more convent time.
I am not going to try to explain a very complicated subject, which I only have a broad and very basic understanding of the concept. Instead I will supply links at the bottom of the article to give you more detailed reading material.
The idea of this article is to try bring together the idea of protecting copyrighted material, and the individual consumers right to use the material as they see fit. It is generally accepted the one can make a couple copy's of a disc for back-up proposes. The question starts to be sticky when you try to give a copy to someone else. Is it just sharing a interesting work or stealing,?
In the early 1990's when the mp3 craze started and Napster came into vogue, and folks discovered they could copy all their Cd's into their computers, which were finely powerful and fast enough to actually store and play them, This also coincided with the opening up of the Apra-net, becoming the Internet. We all know the stories of college students sharing gigs of music through the campus. This is when the RIAA came out of hiding. Of course once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak it can't be put back in.
The records companys say the because of the sharing of music over the Internet that they had lost a substantial amount of sale, and thus monies they would have made through the sales of CDs during the heyday of file sharing. While this may be true, they know they will never get that money back. That's like saying you lost money because you didn't or did do or buy something and wanting the money you would have made back. Not going to happen. Essentially the 1990's and early 2000's is water under the bridge.
Its time for the RIAA to bite the bullet and sowoll hard and stand up and say they've made some big mistakes in the last 12 or so years. and essentially, be a man ,and take their lumps. and start over and work on new models is distribution , which if it wasn't for Apple and I-Tunes they probably still wouldn't be doing.
By continuing to down the path they are now, they are alienating they very public they are trying to reason with.
There is the question of where all the money that they get when they settle one of the suits goes. In theory, it should go to the artist, they are supposed to represent . We all know about the only people making money is the lawyers.
It would seem to me that if any suing was done at all it should be up to the artist themselves. After all it was their work that was "stolen" Then the RIAA can sue on behalf of the artist and the amounts of damages should be up to the artist themselves. and make sure they get the money.
I would venture to say most artist probably would elect not to sue, if nothing else because of the negative image it would bring them, and if the truth were known, most of them had probably done some file sharing themselves. Which puts them in a rather interesting spot. If a artist had the RIAA sue some one and in the course of the trial it come out that they had or even at the time were doing exactly what they were suing about, one can imaige what a laughing stock they would be.
There is also another aspect of the file sharing, that is how much of the material downloaded by folks is material that they already own in LP or cassette or 8-track from and what they were essentially doing was getting material they already own in a new format. That opens up more questions of fair use and copyright issues. If one can prove they a already own a copy of the material and were getting copies of their material.
No one I have seen has mentioned that issue.
In short , its time for the RIAA to back down and rethink its approach to the consumer. By continuing as they are they are in a lot of cases driving people into he idea that they don't want to support them and refuse to buy CDS , if nothing else in a form of protest.
I have been reading lately, the there has been a movement to drop DRM on mp3s. This is a sign that they have finely discovered that it don't work and causes more problems then it solves. Sony got into trouble earlier this year over a hidden root-kit it had on some of it CDs, which had actually damaged peoples computers.This proved that that model was not going to work and it was dropped by Sony after they were sued.
What it all boils down to is when doses "fair use" turn to stealing and who decides it and what are the penalties and who gets to droll them out.
This is a open letter to the RIAA asking them to rethink their tactics and consider the points I've mentioned.
As for the links;
Here are the links I promised;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/fairuse.htm
http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.riaa.com/
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