October 8, 2001

7:15 AM

Music biz wants tougher DMCA"If the RIAA gets its way, ISPs will be as guilty of copyright violation as their subscribers. "Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law," shrieked Rosen righteously."
posted by Mick (23 comments total)

Fuck Rosen and RIAA (mainstream recording industry). God bless Limewire, Morpheus, and all the other sites that share music. That IS the future of music. Not the RIAA.
posted by Rastafari at 7:24 AM on October 8, 2001

"The music industry and its hired muscle, the Recording Industry Ass. of America"

I love that abbreviation.
posted by Hankins at 7:26 AM on October 8, 2001

Disney chief Michael Eisner pointed out after Rosen's keynote that "privacy laws are our biggest impediment to us obtaining our objectives".

pure evil.
posted by lescour at 7:37 AM on October 8, 2001

We'll leave the last, chilling word to Sony Music Entertainment's Steve Heckler: "Once consumers can no longer get free music, they will have to buy the music in the formats we choose to put out." You have been warned. ®

the true face of evil :)
posted by kliuless at 7:38 AM on October 8, 2001

In the meantime, the RIAA will be lobbying "our friends in Washington" for tougher laws that target "the hackers and file-sharers themselves"

fuckers ...
posted by walrus at 7:46 AM on October 8, 2001

ps ... who's up for a "war on copyright"?
posted by walrus at 7:47 AM on October 8, 2001

"Music biz wants tougher DMCA"

Maybe if they called it 'Run-DMCa', then it would be tougher than leather.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 7:52 AM on October 8, 2001

We need to encourage and support artists who choose to work outside the RIAA and promote their music through their own Web sites and other grass roots methods. If enough people stop buying CDs from RIAA-affiliated artists, they may take us seriously.

Fuck you, RIAA.
posted by goto11 at 8:00 AM on October 8, 2001

"Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law"

Wow. I assume she also would consider phone companies liable when their lines are used in the plotting of illegal activities and maybe gas stations liable when their products are used in the commission of arson. Oh, and of course cement makers should definitely be liable for all of those the Mafia has sent to "sleep with the fishes."
posted by zempf at 8:01 AM on October 8, 2001

Check out uk.eurorights.org - these people are lobbying the UK Government to adapt the way it applies European copyright law so that customers can continue to play CDs on their computers and rip them o MP3 for personal purposes.

The ONLY solutions to this problem (and the grand arrogance of the RIAA) is to lobby your representatives and to express consumer hatred of these ideas via the media and your own spending. Now GET TO IT!
posted by skylar at 8:29 AM on October 8, 2001

Sony evidently harassed my university to get on people who download music, movies, etc. to take away our Internet connection. And they'd try, too, because they're idiots. But because they're idiots, we'll be able to get around them.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:39 AM on October 8, 2001

Sometimes I'm glad I don't live somewhere like America.
posted by mis at 9:26 AM on October 8, 2001

what i find particularly galling about the behaviour of the RIAA and its ilk is their inability to see the reality of their situation.

in the past, you could make a living making music, but there was no 'industry'. the industry sprang up with the invention of transportable media.
that media is now fairly redundant in alot of cases.

artists love music, and love making music. many people love hearing music.
where do the record companies fit, now that the internet can deliver music directly to peoples homes?

the continuous bleating about 'new artists not getting a chance' if record companies profits drop, due to lack of funding for advertising, is a cloud of indefensible flatus.

chuck d has a word with lars ulrich.
posted by asok at 9:33 AM on October 8, 2001

slightly dated 'napster bad' cartoon.

nice link, scottkramer.
posted by asok at 9:45 AM on October 8, 2001

"The more you tighten your grasp, Darth Rosen, the more content will slip through your fingers."
posted by alumshubby at 10:45 AM on October 8, 2001

Well, of *course* they'd like stronger copyright laws. They already convinced the Feds to extort money out of anyone who buys blank digital audio media, just in case that media is used to duplicate their precious bits. If they can ask for and get something that ridiculous, nothing short of a private army and full-on invasion of Napster HQ is particularly unlikely. Does anyone still doubt that the RIAA and everyone they represent are anything more than greed, personified?

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:51 AM on October 8, 2001

I really like this article regarding the RIAA. This one statement sums it up for me:

"Personally I think of Napster as the modern equivalent of radio, it provides a platform for music to get out to the public."

Exactly.
posted by Benway at 11:43 AM on October 8, 2001

One of the ad hoc, weasle-like, bullshit, rightwing arguments advanced for not going after Micro$oft with the proper vigor to match their predatorory practices boils down to: "Think about the economic cascade effect this will have on the already-stressed tech market." I find it ironic that the same argument mysteriously doesn't seem apply to the hundreds of ISPs who will be hounded into oblivion under the enormous burden that draconian pro-RIAA legislation will certainly impose.
posted by RavinDave at 1:25 PM on October 8, 2001

from the article:

"we are working with sound card manufacturers to implement technology that will block the recording of watermarked content in both digital and analogue form"

Yeowch. I better get that Audigy I've got my eye on soon, then. Not that I use my card for recording, but I do pump my TV and stereo through it. (I know, most people put their comp through the stereo, but my comp has better speakers.)

"what about existing files and CDs? Step forward PC manufacturers, whose help the RIAA hopes to recruit to "find ways to block the spread of legacy content"."

Now that's scary. I have to doubt it's feasable, though. The only way to block CDs would be to make future CD drives not read audio CDs, but I know of CD drives that are maybe 6 years old and still going strong, not to mention the ability to hook up stereo components. And I can't think of a hardware method to block MP3s, so it would have to be done in software -- and what can be done in software can be undone in software.

Unfortunately, with all the lobbying they're doing and new techonologies they're pushing, it seems they'll never realize that it doesn't work. As has been said in every thread about this, if you can hear it, you can record it. I wonder if it's going to take the destruction of the PC industry as we know it to convince the RIAA of that.
posted by CrayDrygu at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2001

Not to mention that what can be done in hardware can be undone in software.
Even if they make it so cd-drives on computers don't have the decoder hardware:
You can still access the raw data on the CD. And decrypt it by whatever method the new cd-players use. Just like in decss.

They would have to literally make a standard cd-player inaccessible for this to ever fly. And you'll always be able to order one from china :)
posted by sonofsamiam at 3:47 PM on October 8, 2001

"Personally I think of Napster as the modern equivalent of radio, it provides a platform for music to get out to the public." Exactly.

Not exactly. When you got done listening to a song on the radio, you didn't still have a copy of the song.
posted by kindall at 4:24 PM on October 8, 2001

There was a time on the radio when the station would just play an entire album, because the average listener could not record it. They had to change that when easily rewritable media became available; people would jus record the whole broadcast and not buy the album.

We're seeing the same thing here. Maybe the solution is for RIAA, Sony, etc. to make radio singles available for free download. Then the popular hit songs would still be free, but Sony and the rest could make money on record sales.

While I hate the idea that someone can rip off an artist by downloading a whole album online, I am enough of a realist to admit that that is now possible. The solution, I think lies somewhere in the middle for the record companies, since people will always find a way around any regulations they enact.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 4:35 PM on October 8, 2001

While I hate the idea that someone can rip off an artist by downloading a whole album online, I am enough of a realist to admit that that is now possible.

Personally speaking, I preview it online, but I segregate those horrible spluttery 128k mp3s from the nice high quality ones which I encode from the CDs which I still inevitably buy.

I also download mp3s of albums which I already own on tape or record, because to be honest the quality isn't much different then anyway.

I won't let go of my mp3 jukebox software for anyone. The idea of having to go and find each CD I want to listen to just frightens me.
posted by walrus at 3:12 AM on October 9, 2001