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Congress hears DMCA testimony | The Register
by k at 4:39 pm EDT, May 18, 2004 |
] Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA said that HR 107
] would allow the sale of hacking tools that would bust
] through the Digital Rights Management of iTunes and other
] services if the hacker is using the copies for
] "non-infringing purposes."
]
] His view was that there is no way to assure that any tool
] is only used for non-infringing purposes and that the
] only way to make this possible was to impose a tech
] mandate for copy controls, which HR 107 does not contain.
] And he went on to say that it is impossible to create a
] technology that will permit "fair uses" while prohibiting
] other uses. How disconnected from reality is the RIAA? Its seems if something *could* be used in an unlawful way, we must control and/or restrict it. [ As far as they're concerned, yeah, that's pretty much right. And he's also correct that there is no way to permit fair uses and prohibit illegal ones with the same technology. So the argument boils down to : Do my rights as a consumer trump their rights as producers? The answer has to be yes, and in a relatively free market, that's exactly the case. I'm not making a value judgement here, or I'm trying not to, but I think the US generally tries to be a free-market economy, and that generally means that it's up to businesses to ensure that their product is viable. Ultimately, in the music industry, it may well be all of us who suffer the worst, because in the absense of any compensation mechanism, far fewer people will bother to pick up a guitar and create. But then, there's a decent argument that rarifying the landscape of professional musicians wouldn't be all bad, by the way, so maybe a post-music-industry world would be just as artistic as the current one, or more so, and things would be better as people compensate, directly, the artists that most move them. I guess the point though is that the content industries may be fucked, and there may not be a solution for them in this world. The people need to feel that what they're getting is worth what they're paying, otherwise they won't do it. No matter what, broaching this topic you get into deep discussions about how people don't have the long view to see that supporting musicians now keeps them around in the future, or about how most of the money made from music is concentrated in a relatively miniscule percentage of the whole (and not the most skillful percentage either). I still think that in this economy, it's not right for laws and regulations to unduly cripple my computer so that the content producers can sell me movies that I probably don't even want to see. And for the record, I'm not anti-drm. I think Apple's Fairplay is fine. I bought it, so i can play it. I can authorize my other computers to play it across the network, and I can burn it onto a CD and re-rip it if I want to play it on my TiVo or non-apple player. As a consumer, this works great for me -- far better than Kazaa or whatever could hope to be. I'd like to think that ultimately the dust will settle and a compromise will be found... ideally one in which marketing is a minimal factor and in which the artist gets a much greater cut of the profit. Certainly an issue to keep watch on... and write your congressmonkey if it's on debate, i suppose. -k] |
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RE: Congress hears DMCA testimony | The Register
by Decius at 2:00 pm EDT, May 20, 2004 |
k wrote:
] I'd like to think that ultimately the dust will settle and a
] compromise will be found... I wish I shared your optimism. I don't. This debate started in the 70's when Bill Gates wrote his famous letter to the home brew computer club complaining about people pirating Microsoft products. Since then it has become more and more widespread, impacted more industries and institutions, and it shows little sign of abating. The impact that things like Linux and P2P file sharing networks are having on industry today is massive and dwarfs anything we've seen in the past 30 years. There is no compromise that can be found. Whether you are talking about movies, music, articles, books, software, medicines, designs for electronics.... Everything that matters is Intellectual Property. We have various ideas about how to construct economic systems in our society. They all relate to the distribution of goods and services. Ideas are neither goods nor services. We've set up a very naked emperor here. We pretend that ideas are goods. We punish anyone who doesn't go along with it. This might have been sustainable when ideas accounted for 5% of GNP, but sooner or later we are going to have to face the fact that we don't know how to build an idea economy. What makes matters worse is that we've pushed our little ruse to its absolute limits. Copyrights are perpetual. Things that are too obvious to write about are patented. The idea that what we're doing is promoting science and arts is hardly discussed or considered. We're clearly not incenting artists and scientists and engineers. The former two are considered poor professional choices from an economic standpoint and the later is quickly going the ranks. We're entrenching our economy, not based on the beleif that it brings out the best ideas in us, but based on an interest in protecting the physical things influential people garner from it. We're incenting lawyers. We're ensuring present investors make a solid return even if the model doesn't make sense. Compromise would require the RIAA to put art before their economic interests. Thats just not going to happen. Nor will you see it from anyone else in their position. We're blowing a bubble. Its a huge, glaring contradiction in our method of organizing our society, and its getting bigger and bigger and bigger with each passing year. This bubble is going to pop. But don't worry, it'll take a few more decades. |
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RE: Congress hears DMCA testimony | The Register
by k at 2:55 pm EDT, May 20, 2004 |
Decius wrote:
] k wrote:
] ] I'd like to think that ultimately the dust will settle and a
] ] compromise will be found...
]
] I wish I shared your optimism. I don't. [ You may not be optimistic, but I think even your words here don't argue against a solution. You're right that we don't have a clue how to build an idea economy, and that doing so flies in the face of everything we're used to. But, as you say, the landscape is changing and we're facing the prospect of an economy built almost entirely on conceptual products. (Enter things like automated engineering, nanofabrication, etc. and you can push that number to 100%, as all products are made for you on a pattern or recipe you provide.) We are at a stage with no real analogue in history, i don't think... My general philosophy states that things which must get done, will get done. The options are : 1. societal collapse following economic collapse (which, as we all read, may come at the hands of oil shortages before anything else) 2. finding a new model. No one wants option one (well, ok, some people do, but i'm ignoring them), and though it may take longer than it should for people to recognize it, they'll have to do something to change the model. So they will. Will it be painful and costly? Oh hell yeah, though, like the oil issue, it'll be easier and cheaper the sooner we start. I think economics still works. At some point the costs involved in butressing antiquated business models will exceed the value of the industry, and the industry will seek other ways of doing business. Humans *will* keep making music... but their method of being compensated will change, perhaps into a digital analogue of the patronage system of centuries past for all i know. RIAA is probably not going to compromise, but the industry (by which i mean the collective action of making music professionally) is going to be more fluid, and faced with growing complexity and expense, will shift to alternate mechanisms. RIAA and the big-five conglomerates they represent will fade away. I guess if i can use your 'blowing a bubble' metaphor, i see it as more likely that we'll run out of air before the bubble pops. At the heart of it all is people, and they'll get tired of the situation in one way or another. There are multiple routes to the next phase, different sources of feedback, but all of them involve, as I think you must agree, the end of models fixated on a non-existent physical product. It's not sustainable, and won't be sustained. Alternatives will be found, because they must be found. -k] |
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Congress hears DMCA testimony | The Register
by Acidus at 2:03 pm EDT, May 18, 2004 |
] Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA said that HR 107
] would allow the sale of hacking tools that would bust
] through the Digital Rights Management of iTunes and other
] services if the hacker is using the copies for
] "non-infringing purposes."
]
] His view was that there is no way to assure that any tool
] is only used for non-infringing purposes and that the
] only way to make this possible was to impose a tech
] mandate for copy controls, which HR 107 does not contain.
] And he went on to say that it is impossible to create a
] technology that will permit "fair uses" while prohibiting
] other uses. How disconnected from reality is the RIAA? Its seems if something *could* be used in an unlawful way, we must control and/or restrict it. |
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