News & Views

Well, things haven't changed since last year, so it's time for another of my long-winded rants on the wide-ranging evils inflicted on us by Big Media. They are at it again, so I'm stepping up on my soap box to spout my opinions about their behavior again.

Judge Marilyn Hall Patel recently granted the evil MPAA a preliminary injunction against RealDVD who created software which allowed consumers to copy their DVD collection onto their computers without removing the copy protection. This is a blow to consumers everywhere because it potentially eliminates one route to an amazing digital future where you could legally carry your entire movie collection around with you just like you carry your CD collection now.

But this decision isn't Judge Patel's fault. Her hands were tied by the actions of a Congress that is apparently wholly owned by rich "Big Media." The blame lies squarely with "Big Media" companies who essentially bribed and cajoled Congress into passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) under the guise of protecting their copyrights. The law was passed with zero regard for how it would affect consumer rights, because that is exactly what Big Media wanted.

With the DMCA, Congress destroyed consumer rights. We already have the legal right to make a copy of media we buy (just Google "Fair Use"), but the DMCA made it illegal to remove copy protection from media. SO, the evil media companies just put copy protection on everything, which conveniently bypasses our right to copy our media. Sneaky, right?

Well, RealDVD figured out a way to copy the media to your hard drive and play it without removing the copy protection. The copy protection is still intact, so technically it doesn't break the DMCA. Making a copy is protected by Fair Use. So, this is completely legal. Yet, Big Media still went ballistic. They ostensibly sued RealDVD for breach of contract (which RealDVD technically DID do), but they sued with the main intent of preventing RealDVD from helping us exercise our Fair Use rights to copy our media. Big Media paid good money to get the DMCA passed. They don't want anyone finding a way around it and messing with their cash cow.

What should really happen is that somebody should challenge the legality of putting copy protection (Digital Rights Management - DRM) on media to begin with. It inhibits our Fair Use rights. After all, if they can't legally put the DRM on, then it doesn't matter if it's illegal to remove it. But that probably won't come out of this case. This case is about evil companies squeezing more money from paying consumers.

So why would Congress basically make it illegal to exercise a right we've had for a long time? Because they are crooks. Our lawmakers are bought and paid for by Big Media companies with deep pockets. Despite being OUR elected representatives, and working in a government we finance with our taxes, lawmakers care ZERO about consumers. That's because they get far more money from lobbyists than what we pay them. Yes, our system is severely messed up. Further, any time somebody proposes that we outlaw lobbyists, it gets voted down by Congress, who coincidentally are the primary people benefiting from the current arrangement. Big surprise.

If ANY of our lawmakers actually cared about voters, they would introduce a Digital Media Consumers Bill of Rights. That law would protect our right to use any piece of media we buy on any piece of equipment we own. It would make it illegal for ANYONE to infringe upon that right by using DRM or by tying media to specific hardware. Of course, if any of our lawmakers cared about voters, they would outlaw lobbying by special interests. That's not going to happen anytime soon. So, what can we do?

Big Media companies are squarely at the root of this evil being enacted upon consumers. The RIAA and the MPAA are organizations populated by evil companies who abuse the legal rights of their paying customers in a quest to milk more cash from us regardless of the morality of their tactics. DRM does NOT stop piracy. Piracy has escalated even as DRM has become more strict and more common. DRM only hurts legitimate paying customers. Yet, they continue to use DRM. It's obvious why they really use it and it has nothing to do with piracy. That's just a cover.

They use DRM (and the DMCA) to support a business model which makes zero sense in a digital world by turning our government into a media-owned private police force. They bypass our previously established "Fair Use" right to make a copy of media we already bought for our own personal use. Fair Use predates the DMCA. The DMCA doesn't even outlaw Fair Use. It just creates a sweet loophole for Big Media to screw law-abiding consumers. The DMCA makes it illegal to remove DRM. So, the evil studios simply put DRM on everything, which conveniently sidesteps our Fair Use rights. I believe that was their real intent from the start. In my opinion, their act of pushing through the DMCA never had anything to do with stopping piracy. That was just the reason they had to give publicly in order to push it through. The law was designed to sustain their failing business model and generate revenue through legislation.

How does the DMCA (and DRM) support Big Media's business model?

I'll explain. If we want to use our purchased media on more than one device, Big Media bought enough legislators to force us to buy multiple copies of the same product, when we already have the legal right to make a copy. They did this by basically authoring the DMCA without any input from consumer rights groups and pushing it through Congress by buying votes through their lobbyists. It is an evil and backhanded way to force legal, paying customers to give them more money for something we already bought. The DMCA is written to help them rip off paying customers by sidestepping our rights and has zero impact on real world piracy. DRM and the DMCA don't stop piracy and never have. Only the simple-minded would think this is about copyright theft.

This case is all about Big Media continuing to use the DMCA to obstruct our previously established right to make a copy of media, all so they can continue to milk us for far more cash than they should legally be entitled to get. RealDVD breached their contract because they believe the restrictions the MPAA placed on them should be illegal. I agree with them. RealDVD tried in good faith to obey the law, as it is written. They required your original copy-protected media in order to copy it to your hard drive. They also kept the copy protection intact, which means you can't just give copies to all your friends or sell copies on a street corner. So, any notion that this case is about preventing piracy is nuts.

It's about Big Media bypassing our Fair Use rights on media we already bought. It's about milking their paying customers, not inhibiting thieves. The fact that the MPAA is even pursuing this case shows they hate their paying customers. They abuse our rights only so they can rip us off. They put restrictions on RealDVD which should be illegal. That's why RealDVD is fighting and I support them in their fight.

My suggestion? I hate to say it, because I've bought more media than just about anybody I know (850+ movies, 600+ CDs, hundreds of books, hundreds of pieces of software), but the only solution that will work is we just need to stop buying their products. I've given these companies the benefit of the doubt for far too long. Do we really want these companies to keep doing this to us indefinitely? Do we really want to keep paying $14 for a CD which costs 18 cents to make? Do we really want to keep paying $20-25 for a DVD that costs $1.50 to make? Do we really want to buy 4 copies of a movie so we can put it on 3 iPods and watch one copy at home? Do we really want to give them more cash so they can buy more politicians and eliminate more of our rights? I sure don't.

These companies are doing things the same way they have for many decades. They don't want to move into the future. They like the huge money machine they have now. They are fat, lazy, bitter old men who hate change and want no part of it. These companies are the only thing holding us back from quickly moving into a far better future for all digital media. These companies are the real problem. The RIAA should be killed off first, with the MPAA to follow if they don't change their ways.

We need to replace these dinosaur companies with modern digital-age companies who put customers needs and desires first. If Google or Amazon were running these companies, we would see a total change in how we watch movies or listen to music within a very short time. Our media collection would be stored in a virtual library online, easily accessible anytime, anywhere, and on any device we own. The media would cost less to purchase and be far more versatile. Progress and innovation would be enhanced, not hindered. Old distribution models would be dumped in favor of purely digital transmissions. Every aspect of the industry would be better for consumers if Google or Amazon replaced Big Media companies. What we need are companies who can turn that dream into a reality.

Just as an example, can anyone explain to me why music CDs are EVER made in advance and shipped on trucks to a store? It's a freaking digital file. Transmit the CD to the store over the Internet, store it on a hard drive, and only burn it when customers actually buy it. At a minimum, this would save manufacturing and shipping all those really crappy CDs which never actually sell. It also saves tons of shipping costs for the ones which DO sell. It could also allow people the option of putting the CD on an SD card, iPod, or thumb drive instead of a disk.

Who needs CDs anyway? I bought CDs to avoid DRM. I also bought CDs so I had control over the quality of the digital file. But, want to know where all my CDs are now? They're stored. I put the files on my computer, threw away the bulky CD cases, and then stored the disks in binders. Every one of them was pressed in a factory, packaged, warehoused, and shipped through multiple distribution points to end up on a store shelf. Then, I bought it and drove it home where I copied the files onto my hard drive, threw the case in a landfill, and put the CD in storage never to be used again.

That's a huge waste of resources and money just to support an ancient distribution model that a bunch of old geezers at big media companies simply refuse to abandon. The CD started as digital files on hard drives and ended as digital files on my hard drive with a bunch of expensive, wasteful stupidity in between. All of it created just so those Big Media idiots could stay rich. My suggestion? Cut out all of that middle crap and pass the huge savings on to me and the original artist. I'd buy a lot more.

What about iTunes or Amazon, you ask? Well, one thing I hate is that I lose control over the quality. Yes, iTunes does let you cut out the middle distribution part (mostly), but instead of it being a lot cheaper, it's even more of a rip off than the CDs. There is no way that copying a dozen digital files from a server should cost nearly as much as pressing, shipping, warehousing, merchandising, and selling a real CD. Yet, they are priced far too similarly. Plus, the quality of what you get is worse.

This is because evil Big Media is inflating the price far beyond reasonable. Selling 50,000 copies of a digital file on a server costs only a tiny bit more than selling 1 copy. Their markup is insane, even if you spread out the initial production costs. There is no manufacturing, shipping, warehousing, or distribution channel. Plus, even with the vastly inflated price and vastly reduced cost to distribute, the original artist doesn't get any more money at all. I'm guessing it all goes into the pockets of Big Media, so they can buy more Congressmen.

Remember, I said they need to cut out the middle processes and pass the savings on to me and the artist, not hoard the savings. Using the immense cost savings of digital distribution to make themselves far richer isn't any better than keeping the price of new release CDs at $14 for the past 25 years despite the fact that the cost of making them has dropped to pennies compared to the high original cost decades ago (about $8 each originally?). Both practices are just plain wrong, but when you have an entire industry colluding on product pricing, and Congress in their pocket protecting them, the consumer gets hosed.

If the HUGE savings of digital distribution of media files was actually passed along to the consumer, media would become so cheap that piracy would simply disappear. If it's dirt cheap and extremely easy to obey the law, why break it? Plus, everyone would own more media. The door might even be open to keeping all of our media securely online and easily accessing it from all of the devices we own. All of the media files could be stored once and anyone who owns it could point to that same file, just like on Amazon's Kindle service for books. But if the Big Media companies have their way, this bright future will never happen. They want things to stay the way they've always been.

We basically need to kill off the root source of all these problems. If you don't kill the root, the wart just keeps coming back. "Big Media" is a major blight upon our digital media future. They are the worst sort of wart that just won't go away. We just need to put them out of business. So, think very carefully before you give them another dime of your money for ANY of their products. The only way things will change is if WE change them. If we stop buying, perhaps fear of bankruptcy will bring them to their senses before they die off completely. If not, then good riddance.

So, maybe it's time to stop buying their products. Personally, I think we should all hold hands and loudly wish every single one of those evil studio execs and their vast number of lawyers the worst possible life followed by a slow and painful death. What they are doing to their once loyal customers is just plain wrong and I can only hope karma makes it right.

For more information about evil Big Media companies see: 
http://www.boycott-riaa.com
http://riaasucks.com/
http://gizmodo.com/241595/even-foxtrot-thinks-the-riaa-sucks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/10/riaa_keeps_12yearold_quiet/
http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MPAA_v_ThePeople/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/reminder-from-the-mpaa-drm-trumps-your-fair-use-rights.ars
http://kirksigmon.com/2009/05/thoughts-on-the-mpaa-lawsuits/

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, Movies, MPAA, Music, Opinions, PRO IP, RIAA

Google recently swung a deal where old orphaned works would be scanned onto its servers and made accessible via the Internet. This could make millions of previously out-of-print works instantly accessible to the entire world via web browsers. The works would comprise every type of creative work man produces, from the written word to recordings and films. This may not sound like an Earth-shaking deal to many, but it stirred up an old dream I had about the future of human knowledge on planet Earth.

In the future, I always saw the world using NetSlates. What is a NetSlate? Imagine this. Your personal NetSlate can run for weeks without charging. It has virtually unlimited bandwidth for displaying any type of media. The connection is bi-directional allowing interaction between an unlimited number of these devices in real-time. It has an ultra-high resolution, wide-color gamut display. It has incredible audio capabilities built-in, too. Perhaps it can even project full-color imagery or interfaces in 3 dimensions when it lies flat on a table surface. The device is incredibly thin, perhaps even flexible and weighs next-to-nothing.

Sounds great right? It's like a cross between the most powerful supercomputers, the best graphics workstations, and the lightest, thinnest, tablet PC's available today. Think nuclear-powered Kindle on steroids. Also, think unlimited cheap wireless bandwidth. Ok got the picture?

Now, imagine literally everyone can own a NetSlate because they are dirt cheap. In fact, they're free in many cases because advertisers give ad-supported versions away constantly. They all display basically the same information and media. Our NetSlates are totally compatible with one another because they all feed from open format, world-standard files stored on insanely fast servers connected to the wireless super Internet of the future. This is an idealist future I've babbled on about for a couple of decades to my wife, family, and friends (started thinking about this device back in the pre-WWW "CompuServe" days). I believe this is where we are finally headed now.

For proof, simply put that Google media-scanning deal in the early development context of that not-too-distant future vision of NetSlates. Everyone owns a NetSlate and all the information ever created by mankind is available instantly to all  of us. These early scanning efforts and other efforts by Google to put literally everything online are the baby steps needed to reach that admittedly idealistic NetSlate future.

In fact, the Amazon Kindle could be seen as another of those baby steps toward ubiquitous access to knowledge and the ideal of a futuristic NetSlate. Amazon has 250,000 publications available for the Kindle. Imagine if the device were also a high-speed, non-DRM, unlimited-bandwidth, browsing device pointed directly at Google's scanned-information storehouses. Adding millions more creative works which are currently out of print would make the Kindle vastly more useful than it already is. If Google and Amazon were to combine their future efforts and stick to open worldwide standards, the significance of their separate baby steps would become even more important toward the long-term future of human knowledge.

Imagine a future where bulky books, magazines, cables, and plastic discs are replaced by slim personal devices with always-on, unlimited, wireless connections to limitless media and information. Imagine there literally being no limitations to the information you could explore on your device. The barriers between us would fade as we all gain equal access to all knowledge and information.  Now, that's an exciting future, right? We will absolutely have the technology to do all of this in the not-too-distant future.

Unfortunately, my NetSlate dream will likely never fully happen. Why not? Didn't I just say we'll have the technology? Yes, I did. But technology won't be the limiting aspect of this ideal future. The NetSlate future won't happen because we'll never be given access to the total of human knowledge, no matter how far technology progresses. Knowledge is power, so it just won't happen.

The rich and powerful control the masses by throttling information. They monitor and control the sources, the quantity, the quality, and the accessibility of all information and that is largely how they maintain their power over the middle and lower classes who far out-number them. The NSA and HSA now routinely monitor all information flow, thanks to the laws passed by the scared old men sitting in Congress. Their regular efforts to regulate the Internet are another demonstration. If literally everyone had access to all human knowledge, the most powerful would lose one of their best tools in controlling us. So they will do their best to prevent this ideal future from ever happening. Just watch the news and you'll see it.

For example, those same scared old men in Congress created laws which legalize the extortion of children and grandmothers by rich media companies (like Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner, Disney, Viacom, and others). Those rich media companies now get insane amounts of control over what we do with the products we purchase from them. They take gestapo-like actions against completely innocent individuals and then are not held accountable for their extortion attempts. They aren't even required to provide proof that a law was broken before they begin their extortion and harassment process. In this way, they have more power than the local police.

These rich media companies amuse themselves by bankrupting poor college students who didn't cost them a dime of profit because they couldn't afford the media product to begin with. This tactic often takes a potential college graduate, who would have later purchased products from them for decades, bankrupts them, and puts them out on the street. So, in place of a high-earning college graduate, the rich media companies create a college dropout who hates them and will never purchase another product from them. Why would these media companies do something so stupid? It's all about control. They are blinded by their hunger for power and control, so they shoot themselves in the foot over and over.

Yes, the technology will someday exist to create NetSlates we can all afford. The technology will someday exist to create high-bandwidth wireless connections for those NetSlates which will allow all of us equal access to vast stores of online information. The question is: What information will be available to us when that full-blown technology finally arrives? That's where the bright future of the "NetSlates ideology" falls apart.

It will be the rich and powerful who will kill my dream of "widespread access to all knowledge via NetSlates." It will be the evil efforts of greedy media companies which will kill our future ubiquitous wireless knowledge and media access. Yes, we may get some useful subset of my NetSlate dream, but we will never realize its full-blown potential. We will never be allowed full access to all of human knowledge and creative works. That is the bittersweet reality we live in. Those in power will always control our access.

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, Music, Opinions, Predictions, PRO IP, RIAA, UI, User Interface

In the current edition of the Judge's Journal, lawyer and blogger Ray Beckerman has an extensive article outlining the wide variety of ways the RIAA abuses the American court system.

All I can say is, it's about time somebody created a one-stop document outlining and documenting the illegal practices the RIAA is using in their irrational witch hunt against all of their once-loyal customers. My hat goes off to Mr. Beckerman for doing the leg work that should have been done by our court system before allowing any action brought by the RIAA to proceed. Any intelligent judge reading this carefully-documented article could only reach one conclusion. The RIAA is consistently abusing our court system, and this behavior must be stopped.

Kudos to Mr. Ray Beckerman!

Labels: DMCA, Fair Use, MPAA, PRO IP, RIAA

I've made no secret of my opinions on our current recording industry. I feel the existing record companies have litigated and legislated themselves into being the focus of widespread consumer hatred. They are involved in the most self-destructive activities of any business segment in history. They are dying of self-inflicted wounds and most folks will be happy to see them gone. Everyone hates them.

More importantly, nobody really needs the set of services they provide anymore. The business models they cling to make no sense in the digital age when individual artists can record and distribute their own music nearly as easily as the big companies can and with more control. Times have changed and the record companies haven't.

The only question left unanswered is, "What's next for these failing companies?"

There are some great suggestions floating around the web for taking the recording industry in a new direction, but none I've seen were as workable as the ideas outlined in an open letter posted by Ian Rogers, the former General Manager of Yahoo Music. He wrote this letter to Guy Hands, the boss at EMI. Guy Hands is one of the more forward-looking executives in the music industry, so he is likely to be more open to innovative ideas for his company's future.

In this letter, Mr. Rogers talks about the services recording companies once provided for artists. He then talks about why those services are no longer as valuable as they once were. Finally, he outlines a new set of services the recording companies could provide in order to make themselves relevant again. Let's explore some of his ideas, intermingled with my own of course.

In the "old days," recording companies provided the startup capital needed to make a master recording. Studios were scarce and studio time cost a fortune. The equipment was cost prohibitive and it took very specialized skills to create professional sounding recordings.

In those days, recording companies also provided the cash for duplication and packaging. They paid for the large scale reproduction of the studio recordings, the album artwork, the printing, the packaging, and everything else associated with creating a retail package to put on store shelves.

Recording companies also provided distribution. Back then, shipping cases of heavy vinyl records to stores all over the country became quite expensive and logistically difficult. Although the media became lighter when moving to CDs, the shipping expenses were still huge and it was no easier to coordinate. That was the era of big record store chains and obtaining shelf space for their artists was a major service the record companies provided.

Finally, they did a lot of marketing. In those days, marketing meant getting albums played on the radio. It meant paying for premium placement in retail outlets. It meant creating "point of purchase" displays in the big chain stores. Later, it meant getting the album played on MTV.

All of this was both useful to the artist and very expensive. All of it was necessary. All of it was worth signing a contract turning over most of the income from the album sales to the companies in exchange for the services. It was simply the way things were done back then.

Things are quite different now. In the digital age, professional quality recordings can be done by the artists at home using modern computers and software, all at very low cost. File servers and the Internet make "infinite duplication" as easy as customers clicking "download" on a web page. Album packaging means "tagging" the digital audio file with album artwork. Most of the labor and cost-intensive portions of making an album have been replaced by cheap digital solutions. Even getting the word out is fairly easy in our socially-networked world.

So why do we need the recording companies? Good question.

Really, out of all the services once provided by recording companies, the only one that is still debatably valuable to artists is marketing. Viral word-of-mouth on the Internet makes getting the word out about new releases nearly trivial, but the recording companies can still help the artists in the areas the artists don't want to deal with.

For example, they could provide new types of marketing services that are good for both the artist and the consumer. Create "groups" of artists with similar sounds, styles, or influences. Ian Rogers suggests that these groups be handled as "affinity labels." These are small niche labels that only handle a certain style of music. I personally think this is a brilliant idea.

One way to think of this process is "matchmaking." There is so much music available now that customers need a way to narrow down the selection. In this case, knowing you like one artist at a given affinity label means you can assume you will probably like other artists at the same label. The service provided by the record companies would help customers select music they are almost certain to like. They would be matching artists to consumers, which would help artists sell their music.

In my mind, the affinity label could even be "virtual" and still serve the same purpose. For example, you might call all of your dark, brooding artists, "Onyx" artists. In reality, "Onyx" may only exist as a marketing "tag" you use on web sites. The simple act of tagging an artist as an "Onyx" artist would tell the consumer what to expect and boost the sales of that artist to all "Onyx-loving" consumers.

The recording companies could also provide management services to the artists. Most artists have no desire to do the detailed management associated with multiple income streams from a wide variety of digital distribution sources. Perhaps the companies could provide web-based tools and services for artists to manage their various income streams.

The recording companies could also make it simple for artists to select highly-targeted marketing services or purchase premium placement on music web sites. Put all of these services in one secured location online and make it easy for them to use. The level of automation involved in these services will make it cheap to operate them. If it makes their lives easier, artists will be happy to pony up a percentage of their sales.

The retail and manufacturing aspects of this industry are quickly fading away. It is becoming a pure digital service industry. If the recording companies focus on providing the types of services that are both valuable to artists and helpful to customers, they will reinvent themselves in a way that allows them to persist far into the current century. They will also make good money at it.

In contrast, litigating grandmothers, parents, and children until hundreds of thousands of people are telling everyone they know to stop buying your products is stupid. Treating all of your customers like criminals is a bad idea. Using restrictive DRM only encourages your customers to download illegal DRM-free media instead. Lobbying to restrict Fair Use rights only makes customers hate you for making it illegal to use what they already bought. It's common sense.

This is not the way to do business and certainly not the way to survive. If you spend all of your time doing your best to incite hatred in those who feed you, don't expect them to feel sorry for you when somebody pirates your products. When you make it difficult or impossible to use the products they purchase from you, customers don't want to give you any more of their money and they don't care a bit when you go out of business.

The one common thread in every article I read about the RIAA these days is the belief that a major change is critical for their survival. The RIAA member companies need to pursue an entirely new direction and business model. They need to become service companies instead of product companies. They need to focus on serving the needs of both the artists and the consumers. Only then, do they have any hope of surviving.

Labels: DMCA, Fair Use, Music, PRO IP, RIAA

Here comes the future! As reported in Ars Technica, the independent music labels are gaining some power with an organization they created last year called "Merlin." This new "virtual music label" has only been accepting applicants for about a month and they have already signed 12,000 labels! Perhaps they will become the blueprint of future music labels for the digital age.

It is a fact that the combined releases from independent labels outnumber the combined releases from the four major labels by 4 to 1. In the past, however, they haven't been able to wield the power to push those releases through sales channels as well as the "big four" labels because there are too many companies to deal with. So, despite accounting for 80 percent of all new releases, the independent labels presently only account for under 28 percent of total sales. With Merlin, that could soon change.

As mentioned earlier, Merlin has signed up over 12,000 independent labels in the past month or so, giving music distributors and services a single source for negotiating deals or music distribution licenses. This combined size will allow Merlin to negotiate the same sorts of deals only the major labels could get before now. This will be a boon to independent labels and their artists.

This will also make it much easier for places like iTunes and MySpace Music to carry a vast selection of music from independent labels. In fact, Merlin is already working out deals with many of the biggest players in the online music scene. Look for a steady stream of announcements to start appearing over the coming months.

In the past, there has always been discrimination against independents in the royalty amounts they could negotiate. They were second class citizens in a sense, while the "Big Four" labels carried more clout and got the sweetest deals. Hopefully, this will change now that Merlin carries the clout of nearly 28% of the total market share.

While I see this as a great step toward the music industry of the future, there are still some troubling issues. For example, some of the Merlin member companies (like Concord or Rough Trade) are also RIAA reporting companies. Granted they aren't the Big Four companies running and financing the RIAA, but they are still affiliated, however loosely. This makes me nervous about their future intentions and direction.

The ideal situation in my mind would be if Merlin maintained its distance from the RIAA and its consumer-hating activities. I would like to see them set themselves up as the new music label for "the rest of us." I'd love to see them treat their artists, labels, and consumers with respect rather than extreme suspicion and disdain. This means no DRM and no litigious primary focus.

I'll be watching how Merlin develops as a music company and you can expect to see further updates on their activities as their intentions become more clear. For now, I'm hopeful that this is the beginning of a new era for music lovers everywhere.

Labels: Merlin, Music, RIAA

As I was reading a news item today on the "ars technica" web site, I wondered how many people are still under the delusion that the details of their lives are private. In truth, our online privacy is a complete illusion. It has been for quite some time.

I have previously pointed out, here and in my blogs on other sites, how the NSA has been watching the email, chat, Twitter, file transfers, web browsing, etc., of Internet users for quite some time. I've also pointed out how the RIAA and MPAA have had hackers poking around into the personal files of individuals for years. Both facts have been documented in many places, including major TV news shows. I've also pointed out the documented cases of thousands of individuals being falsely accused and still being forced to pay huge fines due to the practice of extortion by the RIAA and MPAA.

Yet, there is still no widespread public outcry. The technical media recognize the implications of this totalitarian behavior, yet the average Joe keeps going about his daily routine as if nothing has happened. I guess he figures as long as he isn't one of those 8,000 people paying multi-thousand dollar fines for something he didn't do, then it isn't his problem.

This makes me wonder. Is freedom dead in the United States? In the future, is some other country going to have to come and rescue us from our human rights-abusing government like we rescued Iraq? Are our leaders so stupid and clueless that they don't see they are pushing us down the exact same path that led those other countries into the position of needing to be rescued? Based on what I've seen, our leaders really are that stupid. Or perhaps they are so overcome with their own lust for power and control that they don't see the parallels between their behavior and the early days of those regimes. That, in itself, is a bad sign for the future.

So what can we do about the steady decline of our freedoms in this nation? Well, you could write your representatives in the capitol, but to be honest, I think we are so far past those power-crazed morons listening to their constituents that it would do no good at all. They are paid far more by the people doing the spying than they are by us (in one way or another).

I personally think a better approach is to spread the word about what is going on to everyone you know. Educating and inspiring the masses is our only hope. Then, we can simply vote these jerks out of power when the opportunity arises. Just make sure we replace them with people who still listen. I guess this assumes that they haven't already rigged the voting process. *sigh*

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, PRO IP, RIAA

As if the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 wasn't a bad enough blow to the Fair Use rights of consumers, the clueless old farts in Congress are taking another stab at killing every remnant of consumer rights. After massive lobbying by the RIAA and the MPAA (among others), the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO IP Act) has passed the House Judiciary Committee. Oh joy.

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with making penalties stronger against folks who pirate content, right? They're criminals. So why should the rest of us law-abiding citizens be worried about it? There are two major problems I see.

One is that the actual act of "violation" is open to much interpretation by the copyright holders. This means they can claim violation in cases where Fair Use should allow content duplication. The RIAA and others already abuse the existing laws to harass thousands of innocent people into paying multi-thousand dollar fines just to avoid court battles. Do you think they will hesitate for one second to abuse this new law? Not likely.

The other problem with this new law comes in the lack of consideration as to HOW the violation occurred. As this law stands, an innocent individual can have their equipment seized and be put in jail simply because a guy sitting in a car across the street with a laptop used their wireless network to download illegal content. When deciding if you are a suspect, they only look at your IP address, which really means the IP address of the wireless router attached to your cable or DSL modem. Anyone who can access that router can make it look like you violated the law. In fact, there are lots of ways a criminal can make it look like you were the one who downloaded the illegal content. One of the most popular is called "IP spoofing" and the real pirates all know about how to use it. So this law will not catch all of the pirates, but it will destroy the lives of a lot of innocent individuals.

There are, in fact, many other situations where innocent individuals could have their lives ruined by the idiots like the RIAA who will abuse this law. What if somebody staying at your house uses your computer? What if one of your children downloads something without even knowing it is copyrighted? What if you download something that is listed as non-copyrighted by a web site and that web site was lying or ill-informed? Sure these things might be able to be proven AFTER the arrest and seizure of your equipment, but your life is still ruined.

The reality is that the copyright holders will mostly use the THREAT of imprisonment to force you to pay them large fines regardless of whether you are actually guilty. This makes me wonder what happened to "innocent until proven guilty?" It seems that Congress has eliminated that concept at every possible opportunity.

In fact, it seems to me that Congress is owned by the special interests who are pushing this law. What makes me think this? Those special interests have a documented history of abusing the law to harass innocent individuals, and yet Congress keeps giving them more power. Congress is showing complete disregard for the rights of consumers, because they have not included provisions protecting individuals from abuse or even provisions for damages when these laws are abused and ruin an individual's life.

In my opinion, Congress has become nothing but a collection of technologically-clueless individuals who pander to the highest bidder, rather than protecting the rights of their citizens. I'd love to see them replaced with a bunch of regular folks with a lot more common sense. This country would be a much better place.

Meanwhile, watch your backs because it looks like the RIAA, MPAA, and others like them are going to have even more powers to ruin the lives of their once-loyal customers.

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, PRO IP, RIAA