Public Knowledge: House subcomittee: IP Bill

[Deborah Neville]

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1430

[Bob Olhsson]

Wonderful, screwed again!

[Dr. Bob]

Once again it happens... a government not of the people, nor for the people, but those who's pockets can buy the best legislation.

[dwoz]

Wonderful, screwed again!


um...I don't understand this reply. H.R. 4279 is a strengthening of IP enforcement at both the criminal and civil level...

What am I missing?

dwoz

[joerogers1970]

From reading the text of the bill, while it appears positive, my guess is that it will have little impact to the music world. The bill is very broad and in addition to music copyrights includes patent infringement, "computer hacking", etc...

IN the grand scheme of the mighty dollar (well, maybe not so mighty these days), I would see our world largely unchanged. Anyone care to guess at what the annual cost of music piracy is? RIAA's website posts a number of roughly $12.5 billion USD.

I think that the main beneficiaries of the additional teeth that the IP bill brings will be large software companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, etc... They guesstimate annual costs of piracy in that industry to be about equal to what music piracy is. Throw in the Colonels recipe and the formula for Coke and we're fairly far down the list.

These companies spends a ton more money on lobbyists and general ass kissing than the music and entertainment business does. And that is unfortuantely, what tends to get things done.

A little side story to this - There are five computers in my house. I have one studio computer, a work computer, my wife has her own and then there are two other"family" computers. One for general use and one tweeked a bit for gaming.

I logged onto the family computer the other day to get my daily womb fix and lo and behold, what do I see in the systray but Limewire. Obviously installed by my 15 year old. I poked around and found 35 songs that he had downloaded. The sad part is that I had 32 of the songs on CD that he was just to fucking lazy to go and find. I deleted the songs, uninstalled limewire and reblocked the ports that it uses (he regularly hacks my firewall) and then called my son into my office for a little heart to heart. You see, he started playing guitar a year ago and now has visions of being a rock star and living in a mansion and getting laid a lot, etc... I asked him how he was planning on living if he bacame a rockstar if for every dollar he made, he lost five. It took about an hour of me trying to explain IP and copyright laws and trying to explain that while the big bad record company wasn't getting paid, neither was the poor artist who wrote the song or the artist that performed it or the guy/gal that produced it, etc... The big, evil corporation was only one part of a long chain of people that depend on record sales to eat.

As punishment, he was made to log into iTunes and Napster and purchase each of the songs that he downloaded. He has also lost the use of his iPod for 30 days. He explained to me that it didn't matter as he could just get copies from his buddies. Next time the gang is over for rehearsal, I'll be auditing their ipods and MP3 players as well. The thing that I don't get is that my son is a good kid. He would never go into a record store and steal a CD. I think that it's because there is no "physical" thing that he's in possesion of that he doesn't see it as stealing. In his mind, he wanted to hear the songs, there was a vehicle in the form of Limewire that provided very simple access to them and he listened to what he wanted.

I work for a software company (i don't write the stuff so I can't fix my own problem here) and truly believe in technology but when technology makes it so damn easy to break the law, it bothers me. There are beneficial uses for P2P sites and such, I can't really think of too many right now but there has to be a good use for it. This is where the investment needs to be made - The management, oversight and auditing of technology. I can still go to any store and buy any CD and freely copy it on any computer. Nothing to stop me and it's easy so it's got to be OK right? Isn't it? There is technology in DVD's that makes them harder to copy. Why not a regular cd? Software usually requires a license key to make it work. That industry has figured out ways to marry software to individual computers (looks at Digidesign for f's sake).

I dunno. I unfortunately have no answers. Only questions.

[bunnerabb]

I think that it's because there is no "physical" thing

http://www.picvault.info/images/537068712_Touchdown.jpg

http://www.picvault.info/images/537071585_einstein.jpg

http://www.picvault.info/images/537071586_ya%20think.jpg

data is not a product.

[bunnerabb]

And that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you.

I just can't see why people in general keep smirking dismissively at the notion that something that has no weight, nor mass and can be losslessly reproduced by 9 year olds isn't a product.

[Deborah Neville]

A little side story to this - There are five computers in my house. I have one studio computer, a work computer, my wife has her own and then there are two other"family" computers. One for general use and one tweeked a bit for gaming.

I logged onto the family computer the other day to get my daily womb fix and lo and behold, what do I see in the systray but Limewire. Obviously installed by my 15 year old. I poked around and found 35 songs that he had downloaded. The sad part is that I had 32 of the songs on CD that he was just to fucking lazy to go and find. I deleted the songs, uninstalled limewire and reblocked the ports that it uses (he regularly hacks my firewall) and then called my son into my office for a little heart to heart. You see, he started playing guitar a year ago and now has visions of being a rock star and living in a mansion and getting laid a lot, etc... I asked him how he was planning on living if he bacame a rockstar if for every dollar he made, he lost five. It took about an hour of me trying to explain IP and copyright laws and trying to explain that while the big bad record company wasn't getting paid, neither was the poor artist who wrote the song or the artist that performed it or the guy/gal that produced it, etc... The big, evil corporation was only one part of a long chain of people that depend on record sales to eat.

As punishment, he was made to log into iTunes and Napster and purchase each of the songs that he downloaded. He has also lost the use of his iPod for 30 days. He explained to me that it didn't matter as he could just get copies from his buddies. Next time the gang is over for rehearsal, I'll be auditing their ipods and MP3 players as well. The thing that I don't get is that my son is a good kid. He would never go into a record store and steal a CD. I think that it's because there is no "physical" thing that he's in possesion of that he doesn't see it as stealing. In his mind, he wanted to hear the songs, there was a vehicle in the form of Limewire that provided very simple access to them and he listened to what he wanted.


I dunno. I unfortunately have no answers. Only questions.
Great anecdote. Thanks & Keep us posted on the Limewire affair..I'm sure there will be more to this story:)
As I've mentioned before in this forum, one of my brothers (a musician btw) educates educators as to the use of technology in the classroom..he maintains that quite often, the worst offenders of copyright are the teachers themselves..he has no theory why, just an observation that they disregard laws of copyright blatantly and without apology. This can be a headache for the school system administrators who will be implicated if the teacher's behavior is during the course and scope of employment.

[Bob Olhsson]

One of the bigger shocks I ever had was when my daughter explained that one of her high school teachers had told the class that there is no problem with people copying a video and selling it provided they don't charge more than the cost of the blank disk and a little something for their time.

Contrast this with my teachers who took up a collection in class to pay the royalty for the rights to perform school plays and the recording engineer who refused to work on the record that was to be included with our class yearbook until we could show him written permission to use some music.

None of this stuff is new except for the attitude that the only thing that matters is what you can get away with.

[Deborah Neville]

....the attitude that the only thing that matters is what you can get away with.

The emphasis of the importance of "what you can get away with" as being paramount is not a new attitude...a fairly stock attitude, among the usual range of possible values......more interesting to me is the ongoing discussion of how to characterize the values & behaviors of the YouTube generation ...Such a discussion is in many respects a discussion of to what extent media exposure (from TV/ Sesame Street through internet/ YouTube) has impacted the thinking,learning and behavior of today's youth (youth= youngsters the age of my nieces and nephews)...One line of thought observes an increase in the importance of visual "learning" and an independence from text/keyboard bound means of communication....those of us who excel in old school language skills will no longer enjoy a huge advantage over visual communicators in a world where expression is as much if not more visual than word/language based....
but I'll cue up this somewhat speculative, not so pragmatic topic sometime later in a thread positioned for dialogue
dn

[ggunn]

He explained to me that it didn't matter as he could just get copies from his buddies. Next time the gang is over for rehearsal, I'll be auditing their ipods and MP3 players as well.

Good luck with that one. While I applaud the disciplinary measures you have taken with your son, I don't see how you can take such action against other kids. You can dictate that they can't bring illegally obtained music into your house, and you can audit and purge your own son's gear, but if I were one of his friends, I wouldn't hand over my player to my bud's dad for an audit. You could take a hard line with them, but that sounds like a good way to break up his band. You can educate the kids to try and get them to do the right thing, but you can't discipline kids that are not your own.

[McAllister]

It gets worse

A few years back I was working at Dell helping create training for the telephone sales team. We made some videos, and one of the guys had some GREAT music on it - The Beatles "HELP!" among other.

I told my boss, but she basically pooh-poohed me. "It doesn't matter", she said. Another boss told me, "we put music in our church videos all the time, and that's no problem. It's all public domain." And one of my co-workers came up with this gem, "It's not like it's in a commercial - we're not making any money of it."

I was shocked. And I was ready to look for a number to the legal department of Capitol, Apple Corp., or anyone else.

Finally, in the final departmental meeting we had, I explained that this was indeed copyright infringement, a very big deal, and they were asking to get hammered.

They listened to me and pulled the music.

In retrospect I kinda wish they didn't pull the songs. Can you imagine Apple Corp's (or whoever's) legal team going after Dell?

But clearly, my coworkers placed zero value on music. . . . other than deeming it good enough to use how they wanted.

M

[Deborah Neville]

It gets worse

A few years back I was working at Dell helping create training for the telephone sales team. We made some videos, and one of the guys had some GREAT music on it - The Beatles "HELP!" among other.

I told my boss, but she basically pooh-poohed me. "It doesn't matter", she said. Another boss told me, "we put music in our church videos all the time, and that's no problem. It's all public domain." And one of my co-workers came up with this gem, "It's not like it's in a commercial - we're not making any money of it."

I was shocked. And I was ready to look for a number to the legal department of Capitol, Apple Corp., or anyone else.

Finally, in the final departmental meeting we had, I explained that this was indeed copyright infringement, a very big deal, and they were asking to get hammered.

They listened to me and pulled the music.

In retrospect I kinda wish they didn't pull the songs. Can you imagine Apple Corp's (or whoever's) legal team going after Dell?

But clearly, my coworkers placed zero value on music. . . . other than deeming it good enough to use how they wanted.

M

WOW- great narrative !!! The common misconception that if you're not "making money" it must be "fair use"....I have 2 shorts not about music but maybe relevant:
1) Policing: story from my brother (who is credited on 8 Disney animations) about M Eisner going to a kids party, seeing a Disney owned image on the birthday cake, and ducking into a bedroom to call and see if bakery had proper rights....
2) Gotcha!!!: frantic call to legal dept from trade show booth of Fortune 5 printer manufacturer because, in using some Images to demo great printing prowess owner(Disney again) of images being printed out as "Sample" WAS AT THE SHOW and complained that rights to reproduce had not been obtained...and why didn't marketing check with legal before the trade show????? It woulda been cheaper to negotiate BEFORE they had us over the barrel :) Save us from adrenaline junkies.....
Your story about music was TOPS!!!
Thanks
dn

[dwoz]

Next time the gang is over for rehearsal, I'll be auditing their ipods and MP3 players as well.


My dear friend, please do not do this. Acting in a vigilante manner against the person or personal effects of a minor whom you are not a legal guardian for, is a very excellent way to, at best, find yourself facing civil charges and at worst, criminal charges, not to mention possibly getting your ass kicked HARD by an irate dad.

dwoz

[Deborah Neville]

My dear friend, please do not do this. Acting in a vigilante manner against the person or personal effects of a minor whom you are not a legal guardian for, is a very excellent way to, at best, find yourself facing civil charges and at worst, criminal charges, not to mention possibly getting your ass kicked HARD by an irate dad.

dwoz
Has anyone besides me noticed this forum is really big on physical non-solutions, such as "ass kicking"??? :lol: ...setting ground rules for what can and cannot be done in one's home is, last I checked, part of responsible parenting....Maybe the specter of checking MP3 and ipods smacks of forcible search and seizure...is that what you're commenting on Dwoz? I did not read threats into the remark other than the promise to be a present and supervisory adult..did I miss something?

[dwoz]

Actually, Deborah...I think I'm letting him off easy. Slipperman would tear his head off and feed it to a crockodile.

I was just thinking that if my daughter came home and presented me with an empty iPod, rendered thusly by an over-zealous nut who assumed that the songs couldn't possibly have gotten there legitimately, would be given a bit of a lesson on just exactly how sanctimonious the sanctity of a child's person and effects are, and just exactly where the boundaries lie, and I would invite him to discuss just exactly how his footprints got so far over onto the wrong side of the boundary.

As far as I'm concerned, he definitely has the right to dis-invite her from his abode, but he has no right to touch her or anything of hers.

Otherwise, why would we ever need cops?
dwoz

[ggunn]

Has anyone besides me noticed this forum is really big on physical non-solutions, such as "ass kicking"??? :lol: ...setting ground rules for what can and cannot be done in one's home is, last I checked, part of responsible parenting....Maybe the specter of checking MP3 and ipods smacks of forcible search and seizure...is that what you're commenting on Dwoz? I did not read threats into the remark other than the promise to be a present and supervisory adult..did I miss something?

I posted pretty much the same thing as dwoz, minus the potential ass-kicking. Besides the inappropriateness of attempting to discipline kids not one's own, there is the question of how the self-appointed auditor could determine from seeing a song in an iPod menu whether or not the song had been legally/ethically obtained.

Certainly one has the right to curttail illegal activity in one's home; he can tell the other kids to leave their iPods at home if he has evidence that they are using them to traffic in stolen goods and disinvite them if they resist, but the auditing of their personal gear is stepping far over the line of propriety.

[joerogers1970]

My dear friend, please do not do this. Acting in a vigilante manner against the person or personal effects of a minor whom you are not a legal guardian for, is a very excellent way to, at best, find yourself facing civil charges and at worst, criminal charges, not to mention possibly getting your ass kicked HARD by an irate dad.

dwoz


I have no intentions of siezing property or doing anything other than providing some information to my sons buddies that they are either not aware of or have simply forgotten.

I have a very fun relationship with my son and his friends. I frequently sit in when their drummer is unavailable. I help them tweek amplifiers, take them to the music store when they're shopping for new gear, etc... They respect me as a musician, they enjoy some of the studio stories and such and know what I used to do for a living before I decided that I wanted a steady paycheck.

It's time to now take the conversation to a new level and start talking to them about the evil second word in "Music Business".

Right now, they all have dreams of being a rockstar. They see Gene Simmons in his big house and Tommy Lee on Cribs and they think that this is the coolest thing in the world and they want to write/perform songs, make records and get rich. I'm not going to piss in their cheerios just yet (I may not at all) but they need to understand how folks in this business get paid and they need to understand that by downloading copies of songs off of the internet, from friends, etc... is in fact stealing and is making it so that Tommy Lee had to sell the Neve from his home studio.

[joerogers1970]

Here's a recap of my meeting with my son's band:

I was asked to sit in on drums as their regular drummer wasn't around. They're in the process of learning a few Metallica songs and when I walked in, they were in the process of discussing how they could copy the songs between them as one guy had song A, another had song B, etc...

I started asking the silly questions like who actually owned the CD that the song was on, how they thought artists make money and things like that. Once they decided that no one had ever actually purchased the songs that they were listening to they started asking questions like "well, what if I heard it on the radio, no one has to pay for that as thousands of people can hear it, etc..."

We went through the different ways that folks in the music business can make money, an overview of the copyright process, history of napster, etc...

All in all, I think that they got the point. I don't think anyone ran home to clean up their iPods but at the very least, they'll maybe think before copying a song down.

I actually had my son come to me with a list of songs to see if I had CD's or legally downloaded copies available for him to listen to so maybe they did understand.

Small step but a step in the right direction. 4 down, 250million to go.

[Deborah Neville]

Here's a recap of my meeting with my son's band:

I was asked to sit in on drums as their regular drummer wasn't around. They're in the process of learning a few Metallica songs and when I walked in, they were in the process of discussing how they could copy the songs between them as one guy had song A, another had song B, etc...

I started asking the silly questions like who actually owned the CD that the song was on, how they thought artists make money and things like that. Once they decided that no one had ever actually purchased the songs that they were listening to they started asking questions like "well, what if I heard it on the radio, no one has to pay for that as thousands of people can hear it, etc..."

We went through the different ways that folks in the music business can make money, an overview of the copyright process, history of napster, etc...

All in all, I think that they got the point. I don't think anyone ran home to clean up their iPods but at the very least, they'll maybe think before copying a song down.

I actually had my son come to me with a list of songs to see if I had CD's or legally downloaded copies available for him to listen to so maybe they did understand.

Small step but a step in the right direction. 4 down, 250million to go.

Thanks for the update!!!...
It sounds airy fairy to say it, but I tell my clients if you don't want to be stolen from, then don't steal....sounds simple, but on close examination, can get more and more challenging...
dn