| The music industry |
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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) represents much of the US recording industry. It is a large organization that works to promote the creative abilities of its members, as well as to protect their legal interests. You can visit their Website to learn more about them.
There are many who see the RIAA as a big business that refuses to recognize the talents of many excellent musicians, preferring instead to promote those artists who cooperate with them to earn favor. Some talented artists find they are not "relevant" according the guidelines of a faceless committee.
This type of complaint is nothing new. In the sixties Barry Gordy blended the soul of the Blues and the syncopated rhythms of "black" and Gospel music to create the Motown sound, which endures to this very day.
At the time, promoting "black" music to a largely "white" audience did not seem especially wise, at least until the revenue started pouring in. We suspect that in today's market, Elvis Presley and the Beatles would also be considered too radical to be relevant.
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| The piracy problem |
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For years the RIAA's members have had to weigh the rights of the music buyers with their interests. While it is legal to make archival copies of just about anything you purchase, including music CDs, you may not give away copies or "lend" them to others.
Thus it is permissible to "rip" CDs you have purchased to a computer (MP3 files) or to copy the entire CD to play in the car, but you cannot share the this material with others. As for the peer-to-peer networks such as Napster and Kazaa, allowing strangers to share your music is certainly not "making an archival copy".
The copying of copyrighted music is nothing new. Ever since the invention of the wire recorder it has been possible to share music with others, who did not purchase the music.
You can still obtain service for your 1949-1950 vintage wire recorder. You can also find wire spools for sale on line. Too bad we didn't know before we replaced our Webster Electric system many years ago.
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Wire recorder history from the University of San Diego, CA. |
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Webster Electric - Al's catalog and service bulletins. |
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Gib at West Tech can service your wire recorder. |
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| Webster Model 80 |
Our Webster Model 181 |
The advent of recording tape made the process of copying relatively easy, although the large tape reels were still a bit clumsy to work with. With the introduction of the tape cassette, music copying took off with a vengeance. One cassette can hold an entire album or selected cuts from several albums. It can also fit into a shirt pocket and be played anywhere.
Peer-to-peer file sharing networks made music piracy even easier. You don't even need to buy tapes; you just download "free" music from another music lover and all seems right with the world. This is in no way making archival copies of music; it is stealing and if you are challenged in court the chances are excellent that you will lose the case.
Let's assume you download the latest tracks from Bull Durham and the Tobacco Spitters, (we surely hope there is no such band!), which costs $18.95. You will have denied a retailer their $5-10 profit along with the local sales taxes.The music moguls will lose their rather handsome profits. The Tobacco Spitters will lose their royalties.
The argument can be made that the RIAA is hurt more by the wholesale copying of "hot" CD platters and jackets overseas than by one college kid "borrowing" a few tracks. Sorry to say, the major wrong of one person does not justify a lesser wrong by another. The lost income of one Tobacco Spitters CD due to an illegal download causes the same losses as the sale of a "hot" Tobacco Spitters CD sold on a street corner somewhere.
Let's say that someone is firing a .50 caliber machine gun in your neighborhood. Somehow you are hit with a .22 caliber slug. The argument could be that you really have not really been shot because the bullet that struck you was so much smaller than the others. Either way, you are still dead or in the hospital.
So much for the soap box sermon. While piracy is wrong, we feel that what the RIAA has done in response to piracy is likewise wrong. Plus, in light of a recent court decision, it is hypocrisy.
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| Protecting their interests |
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The members of the RIAA see the copying of music as an encroachment on their intellectual property rights. To protect their interests they petitioned (lobbied) Congress, citing tremendous economic losses due to illegal copying. Congress granted them rights that no other industry has, some of which restrict free speech and some which allow them to to skirt laws that all others must obey.
Thanks to your elected officials, if the RIAA has reason to suspect that you have engaged in illegal activities on line they can force the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to reveal your name to them, without making a solid case for their actions. They do this by tracking activities associated with your IP address, which is a unique code assigned to your computer while you are on line. Most IP addresses are dynamic and can change at any time.
ISPs will normally not reveal any information about their clients. Now they are being forced to do so, and they are having to keep records that allow them to do so. The extra costs for these services must be recovered somewhere, which usually means from their subscribers. Some ISPs are still fighting the RIAA but it seems to be a losing battle.
The fear of a court challenge is enough to pressure almost anyone to give in to the demands of the RIAA. Would you prefer to pay a few thousand dollars in "fines" to the RIAA, or would you risk losing an expensive and personally disruptive court battle and being held liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages and legal fees?
If this sounds like using the court system for extortion, you are not too far off the mark. One woman is not taking this lying down. The Inquirer.Net reported on 10/03/05 that a disabled single mother is fighting back, after being threatened with a disruptive and expensive lawsuit. She is suing the RIAA for racketeering (RICO) violations. An anti-recording industry Weblog (blog) provides more details on the case.
So intent does the music industry seem to be on protecting their interests that they may have forgotten that they have certain responsibilities of their own such as not engaging in illegal activites like "Payola".
In 1959 it was discovered that a large number of radio announcers (disk jockeys) were taking money from the music industry in exchange for giving certain artists or tracks favorable treatment. A number of disk jockeys had their careers wrecked and payola was outlawed.
Apparently that has not deterred some greedy people. The State of New York collected $10 million from Sony BMG in July 2005 and $5 million from Warner Communications in November 2005 to settle payola suits. It is rumored that a number of other companies are awaiting their turn in the courtroom. Click here to read the Sony payola story.
Over the course of many years it seems that Sony has been illegally making substantial payments of money and equipment, sponsoring give-aways, and paying for special promotions. This was done with the full knowledge of the same officials who were busily pursuing college kids and grandmothers they suspected of sharing music on line. Can we say "Hypocrite"?
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| Digital Rights Management (DRM) |
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While many of the peer-to-peer file sharing services have been shut down, the RIAA is still concerned about music piracy, and when a large organization suspects they are being hurt they find methods of protecting their interests.
One such method is Digital Rights Management, or DRM. DRM is a copy protection scheme that is supposed to balance the rights of the owner of the intellectual property with the interests of the users who purchase rights to that property. They have to let you copy your CDs but they don't have to let you make unlimited copies of them.
A good copy protection scheme is invisible to the user and causes no damage. A bad copy protection scheme cripples the device that plays the music, or it forces users to take extreme measures to validate what they are doing, or it prevents all forms of copying. It is a fine line you walk when you implement such a scheme.
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| Walking that fine line |
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That line gets even finer when something backfires. Just ask Intuit.
Intuit once protected their popular Turbo-Tax software with a DRM scheme called "C-Dilla", which altered the "boot sector" on the hard drive. An altered boot sector can be damaged by some utility programs. Since the users were not aware that C-Dilla was on their system their machines were at risk.
C-Dilla restricted how users could use the program. You can imagine the wailing and the moaning and the gnashing of teeth that ensued when users found that could no longer prepare their taxes on a laptop computer and print the forms from their desktop computer unless they purchased a second copy of Turob-Tax.
Intuit released a "crack" for C-Dilla but much damage was already done. Intuit may have prevented some lost sales due to piracy but they probably lost far more revenue when large numbers of their once-loyal users switched programs the following year.
Around April of 2005 Sony BMG began releasing CDs that were protected against unlimited copying on Windows computers with a DRM scheme called XCP, or Extended Copy Protection . Since a CD cannot be written to, that protection had to involve the user's computer to limit the number of copies that could be made.
Sony's DRM scheme left the user's computer open to damage from the outside. If the DRM was removed the CD drive could become disabled or, worse, the computer might start rebooting by itself repeatedly.
This is not the first time Sony has used copy protection. An earlier scheme called MediaMax installs itself even if the user chooses not to do so. It leaves a folder on the computer that could allow others with reduced privileges to gain full access to the computer. A patch for MediaMax was released around 12/06/05.
Click here to read about XCP and the rather serious fallout from it.
Click here to read about MediaMax.
So, here we have a large music company that is so intent on protecting its interests that it is willing to place the computers of its customers at great risk. When found out it appears they are sorry, not that they did wrong but that they got caught. So, what else could go wrong? A lot, it seems.
On 12/05/05 Wired Magazine reported that Sony was paying property owners to host graffiti on their buildings promoting Sony's Play Station Portable (PSP) gaming systems.
Graffiti is a "quality of life" problem that diminishes the desirability of a neighborhood. It can instill a sense of fear or helplessness in the local residents. It is also an eyesore, whether it was paid for or the work of vandals.
Many of Sony's pictures have been defaced, adding to the visual pollution and causing additional headaches for the town and the building's owners. Some of the anti-Sony comments are not terribly complimentary.
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So, the same self-righteous officials that have been threatening people for sharing music online, and that have condoned the infection of their customers' computers, and that have been engaging in payola, have also been defacing cities with graffiti billboards.
Often it is not wrong actions that results in a law suit, it is an unrepentant attitude. One class action has already been filed against Sony and two state attorneys general have filed suits for the XCP problem. We suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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| The bottom line |
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There are now two known DRM schemes from Sony that can damage computers. We do not plan to play any Sony entertainment media in our computer. We do not plan to purchase any Sony CDs or DVDs until we are assured that the DRM problem has gone away and that our computer will not be damaged.
Notice that we said known DRM schemes. One must wonder what is going on that has not yet been discovered; it took many months for these to surface. If you wish to play Sony CDs in your computer we suggest that you check the links below to see if your CD might be infected before you play it.
- Click here to read Sony's press release explaining the XCP situation, along with our comments.
- Click here for the current list of Sony BMG CDs infected with the XCP rootkit virus.
- Click here for the current list of Sony BMG CDs infected with MediaMax.
If you have suffered monetary damage due to a Sony DRM scheme you may want to keep good records in case there is a class action suit. When a large company such as Sony abuses the public trust, not to mention their computers, for their own financial gain, it is highly likely that they will be sued.
It is not known if other companies are using DRM or whether these schemes have caused any problems. Our feeling is that playing any newer music CD on a computer could be problematic at this time. We would recommend staying aware of the situation and doing your own research to protect your interests.
Meanwhile, don't play your Bull Durham and the Tobacco Spitters CD on your computer, and please don't copy the CD for your friends, that is, if you can find a copy of it. (It is so exclusive it has not been recorded yet). |
| Links |
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| Washington Post Web log |
A blog (Web Log) that talks about the problem. |
| Web log by Mark Russinovich |
The author discovered the Sony Rootkit problem. |
| Electronic Frontier Foundation |
Activist site; find out if the RIAA may plan to sue you. |
| RIAA Search |
Search Google for "RIAA" and several million hits will come up. |
| Sony's statement |
Sony explains the problem with their DRM scheme. |
| People to People |
Experience just a little of the venom flowing toward Sony. |
| Associated Press article |
The Texas Attorney General is suing Sony. |
| List of affected Sony CDs |
The songs range from very old to very new. |
| Media Sentry |
Learn about the RIAA's information collection software. |
| The counter suit |
A woman accused of downloading music has counter-sued the RIAA. |
Read the XCP article.
Read MediaMax article. |
Read our articles concerning Sony's DRM schemes. |
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