Copyright reform bill

[joepic]

Taken from:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13512


A new Bill that is about to be debated upon Capitol Hill. Once again, it is a way to get the government to become free security guards for the "entertainment industry". To me it seems a bit like a VAT for digital goods, only there is no value added. So, I guess it's more like "free money". When will this madness stop?

This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That’s the way Big Copyright and their lackey’s want it, and it"s bad news for you.

Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer"s memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again, Big Copyright is looking for a way to double-dip into your wallet, extracting payment for the same content at multiple levels.


For more information concerning this Bill, and also a way to fight back by alerting your (hopefully consumer sympathetic) Representative, please follow this link to IPac.

http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/06/worst-bill-youve-never-heard-of.html
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Looks like the mpaa/riaa are onto the real goal of their copyright war on customers.
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that would be true LastStand if you were actually a customer. They look at us as revenue streams. If they can not get us to buy their crap then they will just take us to court and extort our money out of our wallets. They think it is their god given right to constantly make money and have everyone else do their work for them. I just wish someone in the US congress would grow balls and charge them with RICO.

Ever wonder why no US politician or their kids have ever been sued by the media cartels? Or why they never went after president Bush cause of his "illegal" Beatles mp3's? Illegal because he did not pay for the mp3's they were ripped from his cd's that he owned, so in their view he violated the EULA of the cd because he did not own a license to listen to the cd on any other medium other then the cd itself.
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I think that the main problem we have facing us, is an overall apathy of the public, coupled with a problematic lack of understanding. In addition, what is frightening, is that so many people nowdays get their "news" from network television or the radio. These mediums are not going to have an incentive to educate the public in these type matters, as it will hurt their bottom lines.
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So under this bill, if it should become law:

1) You can make no home compilation copies. That means no mixing your own music CDs from CDs you own. You have to play what you get on a CD, song by song, or use the programming or jukebox feature of your player. In short, if you dont like all the crap on a CD that is too bad.

2) A police office pulls you over in your car and you have an unlabled CD or a hand made lable. He checks your CD and you go to jail for pirating.

3) There are no warranties on CDs and if you attempt to recover any corrupted data you are a pirate and could be prosecuted or sued.

4) DJs will be unable to create recorded mixes or archive music without negotiating and licencing every sound byte. (even though labels have released some of these mixes in the past).

The public has sat on it arse and done nothing and now they are being put in a position where most reasonable things they do with the music they purchase makes them a criminal. When are poeople going to wise up?

[CubDukat]

That sounds about right.

Nowadays, you'll get more jail time if you illegally download music that you will if you shoot someone.

Intellectual property trumps human life...

[CybermatriX]

That Bill is BS. Even if it does pass I'm still gonna continue to make compilation CDs and copies of CDs that I own. It ain't gonna stop everyone, maybe only the "goodie goodie people".

[edDV]

If Congress is starting to feel the heat over the illegal immigration issue, just wait until the media viewing public wake up. It will be fun to watch the backwards moondance.

[jntaylor63]

edDV,

Thats the biggest problem. Only people like us on these types of boards know what BS this is and how it affects us. Until it gets the same level of coverage as illegal immigration, no one will make a stink about it. Most people just see it as just music and companies are trying to keep people from stealing.

It will only be people like us who contact our senators, a few Senators who can see through the BS and CE companies that will fight for the public.

[compuser]

Taken from:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13512

So under this bill, if it should become law:

2) A police office pulls you over in your car and you have an unlabled CD or a hand made lable. He checks your CD and you go to jail for pirating.

I guess that would mean that Apple would have to remove their Burn to CD option in iTunes... even if you have purchased the songs... As would every other CD burning program...

[guns1inger]

Australia is looki g to introduce new copyright laws as part of a new "free trade" agreement with the US. They will clarify and formalise the position on some existing activities, making some legal, and making others very restrictive.

The good :

Format shifting will become legal. At present it is illegal in Australia to rip music to your mp3 player or PC. It is legal to purchase from retail download shops music in a given format (often wma), but illegal to convert this to play in your device. The new law will allow you to change format of music or video you own to play it on portable devices - so long as you do not circumvent copy-protection measures to do so.

Timeshifting will now be legal. Up until now, using a VCR to record television programmes has been technically illegal in Australia, although it has never been challenged because of the US precedent. The proposed changes seek to formally make it legal to record programmes for viewing at a later date, with the following restrictions

1. You may only watch the recording of the program once.

2. After viewing the recording it must be deleted (if stored on a memory card, HDD or similar device - e.g. PVR or DVDR HDD), or destroyed (if stored on a DVDR)

3. It may not be given to anyone else. So if you record an episode of The Bill for Aunt Mary, she has to come to your house to watch it at the same time you do, after which it must be destroyed.

4. You cannot duplicate the recording in any manner.

5. These rules also apply to timeshifting radio broadcasts.


At some point, while we weren't looking, the Nazi's who escaped to South America took over the recording and movie industry.

[painkiller]

This is utter nonsense.

It almost doesn't matter what country passes such inane laws, how will they enforce?

They can't. Only by sheer dumb luck - even if they wanted to, someone would trip up.

Even here in Baltimore - just the other day, a young murderer was freed because the prosecutors said recently the police shouldn't have been allowed to view the perpetrator's text-message admission on his cell phone - after he gave it to the police so they could look for something else.
[EDIT: As of the news tonite, he won't be released after all. Seems some are using their heads after all. Barely.]

So these laws being passed are for someone else's 'feel good, look at what we've done to protect the companies' approach to doing their bidding.

What trash.

[adam]

Why does this have to happen everytime a new Copyright bill is proposed? Some biased idiot at cdfreaks or theregister or fuckriaa gives a fundamentally flawed laymen's rant about the bill without ever reading it and suddenly there is this massive online-only resistence to it that is made up entirely of people who have never bothered to read anything other than the rant? Guess what? If you read the bill and some legal commentary on it you will learn some suprising things, namely that this is NOT a media friendly bill and that the RIAA does NOT support it. They have come to unified agreements but this bill does NOT help them, it rather takes substantial power away from the copyright holder.

This is just ridiculous. The RIAA makes big headlines by charging unreasonable royalties for online downloads, making it such that an album purchased on Itunes costs about as much as the hard copy in stores. Hotheads all over the internet bitch and moan, justifiably, and then THIS bill comes along which is aimed directly at preventing the RIAA from doing this and those same hotheads cry that the sky is falling down again and that its the RIAA's fault. Yes, this bill is largely an attack on the RIAA, but apparantly there is some online-only rule that any copyright amendment must be some sort of media conspiracy and necessarily a bad thing.

Here is the proposed bill. I implore people to always read at least a summary of a bill, from a credible LEGAL source, before judging it. Sites like theregister and such invariably post completely mistaken and often falsified descriptions of bills such as the one quoted in the initial post. Everything quoted above is completely incorrect. The bill does nothing of that sort.
http://media-cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/cmusings/SIRAof2006DiscussionDraft.pdf

Here's what this bill really does. First off it only applies to online music distributors such as Itunes. It does NOT apply to people like you and me. The incidental copying licenses it mentions refer to licenses incidental in providing the online service. In short, the bill creates a blanket compulsory licensing system for online music distribution. Guess what? Compulsory licenses are CONSUMER FRIENDLY! They are compulsory against the copyright holder. They force them to license the music, or whatever, at a set price. It prevents them from charging exorbitant royalties and it prevents them from saying, "sorry you just can't sell this artist's music." The reason this blanket system is being suggested is because currently there is no system. Online distributors have to negotiate each license and its costly for everyone and most imporantly the media industry holds all of the leverage. Another important point is that the blanket licensing system is completetly optional. If online distributors want to they can ignore this law entirely, but they don't want to because its good for them and its good for music downloaders. When this bill passes and goes into effect, and it will, than you can expect online music prices to go down.

I know exactly where the above rant came from. It came from a retarded misreading of the EFF's petition against this bill. Now the EFF does some great things but they also have a kneejerk policy to all copyright legislation. They are not necessarily opposed to the bill per se but feel that the committee needs to at least discuss, and preferably change, language requiring licenses for temporary transmissions, again used in providing the online distribution service. Basically they are arguing that the bill is too ambigious and that charging separate licenses for temporary storage classifies that temp storage as an actual copy. They are afraid this will redefine "copying" in private matters. But the Copyright Office recently issued a statement saying that a fair reading of the bill simply cannot result in this conclusion. Its really pie in the eye of the EFF. Here is a legitimate consumer friendly bill which even the RIAA opposes and they still complain, and then the Copyright Office itself tells them to lighten up. And of course the retard (I'm talking about the cdfreaks poster) couldn't even get that right and now he's done it again and pissed alot of people off over nothing.

If you bash a bill without reading it than you are part of the problem not the solution. You don't need any particular knowledge to get the gist of most bills. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who read just the first real page of the bill (pg. 2) would have immediately realized that the cdfreaks "article" was completely erroneous.

[adam]

For those that don't want to read my big rant here is the bill in a nutshell.

1) Its a good thing.
2) The RIAA opposes it.
3) The licenses are completely optional and only apply to online music distributors, not to people like you and me.
4) The goal of the bill is to create a unified licensing system, with fixed rates, for online music distributors so that they don't have to negotiate licenses individually with the labels. This forces labels to license music at a set price to online distributors, as opposed to charging however much they can squeeze out of them.
5) When implemented, it will reduce the cost of online downloads and decrease the delay between hard copy and online release.

This bill is an attack on the music industry, everything stated in the quote from the initial post is 100% mistaken.

[Supreme2k]

That's why I don't get my news from conspiracy theorists like cdfreaks and the like.

I'll stick with llegitimate news sources, like Fark.

[edDV]

This bill is an attack on the music industry, everything stated in the quote from the initial post is 100% mistaken.

Here are comments by the copyright office. Other than the "double dip on royalties" issue, It doesn't seem too bad. I wonder what the royalty amounts are? Pennies a tune?
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html

I also wonder if this will apply to music sound clip usage in limited distribution video productions. Currently it is such a big hassle that one needs custom composing or resort to pre-paid royalty libraries.

[gll99]

I'm in Canada but it's easy to get a bit riled up when we see something like this because invariably it ends up affecting other countries in some way. Stupid laws are not uncommon so the original explanation was quite believable.

I for one appreciate it when you step in and provide your expertise in law.
I'm relieved to see these comments.

Thanks Adam for clearing this up.

[whitejremiah]

if it's as adam said it is, it's not too bad.....i didn't really read the actual proposed bill through or anything, but i dont really think it will actually drop download prices, since the companies themselves will be paying slightly more to license them......i guess we can only wait and see.....i know right now, the wholesale price of an online download (not what the end user actually pays) is around 60 cents or so (that's the last number i heard anyhow, not sure if it's changed at all within the last like year or so) so they (meaning itunes, napster, wal-mart.com, et. al.) aren't really making a very heafty profit on it as is...i'd assume this will either end up doing one of two things, it will either force the wholesale prices lower, which will in turn allow the companies to churn more profit (this is a GOOD thing, as they will then be able to ideally anyhow, contract more artists to allow online music distribution) or it will force the wholesale prices down, and they will then in turn drop the prices...either way, 99 cents for a single isnt too bad, on the other hand, i've seen some dual disc cd's that total like 40 tracks, selling on napster at the flat rate of 99 cents per track FOR THE ENTIRE ALBUM so yes...40 dollars for a 2 disc cd, where normally it can be caught at best buy, target, ect for somewhere around HALF that price with artwork and better audio quality as well....given this isnt the norm , but more the exception to the rule, but the fact that it happens at all is still kinda bothersome....full cd's online should sell for somewhere between 5 and 7 dollars online...dual discs somewhere around 10 bux...........maybe if this thing does in fact go through, it will be better for the end consumer as these types of price points will become more common, if not the standard......honestly though, i know bandwidth can become costly for that type of operation but i dont think it costs them but a cent or so, MAYBE per download....there's some rather huge inflation in price going on before the song hits a pc in some rather restrictive DRM embedded format...and seeing that the wholesale price is more than half of what they sell it for and transfer fees only amount to a few cents, i get a pretty strong feeling that the inflation comes before the music even gets to napster or itunes....

[paulw]

edDV,

Thats the biggest problem. Only people like us on these types of boards know what BS this is and how it affects us. Until it gets the same level of coverage as illegal immigration, no one will make a stink about it..

And do you think for one second that the TV media will do anything to publitize this bill?? I don't think so as they're the ones pushing it..

[ROF]

edDV,

Thats the biggest problem. Only people like us on these types of boards know what BS this is and how it affects us. Until it gets the same level of coverage as illegal immigration, no one will make a stink about it..

And do you think for one second that the TV media will do anything to publitize this bill?? I don't think so as they're the ones pushing it..

Would it matter? Nobody would watch it anyways. They would Tivo past it. Plus this is actually news which most people tend to ignore unless it involves news that happens 100 feet from their location. National and international news is not something most people keep track of.

As usual though, someone else who can't read puts their own spin on the subject and starts making false statements to which they hope ignorant people will cling to and rally around. We have alot of that going on lately. You just got to sit back and laugh at them.

[EAO]

If Congress is starting to feel the heat over the illegal immigration issue, just wait until the media viewing public wake up. It will be fun to watch the backwards moondance.

edDV... didn't you hear?? There's no such thing as an illegal immigrant. The US only has undocumented workers. You know??? Like the one that was wanted for car jacking...allegedly killed a child with an ax and was shot to death for allegedly attacking a policeman in Georgia this week. That certainly doesn't mean all undocumented workers are bad... but they're not illegal.

Hope that clears it up for you.

[BobK]

For those that don't want to read my big rant here is the bill in a nutshell.

I always look forward to your comments on any thread with issues like this.

[lenti_75]

who cares....

i've waisted my time instead of drinking my coffee.... :P but good reading though.

[ROF]

who cares....

i've waisted my time instead of drinking my coffee.... :P but good reading though.

Reading and drinking coffee go well together. You should try it sometime.

[rijir2001]

A police officer could not legally go through your cds in your car if he for example pulled you over for running a stop sign. This is the same as that old story if a officer pulls someone over for speading and searches the car and finds a bloody knife in the trunk. Since it was an illegal search the knife could never be used as evidence in a court of law. There would be no reason to be looking through the driver's personal goods for a simple traffic violation.

[ROF]

A police officer could not legally go through your cds in your car if he for example pulled you over for running a stop sign. This is the same as that old story if a officer pulls someone over for speading and searches the car and finds a bloody knife in the trunk. Since it was an illegal search the knife could never be used as evidence in a court of law. There would be no reason to be looking through the driver's personal goods for a simple traffic violation.

You are completely incorrect. Most US States allow law enforcement agencies to search any property where a crime was commited. If you run a stop sign in your vehicle your car can be searched.

[edDV]

edDV,

Thats the biggest problem. Only people like us on these types of boards know what BS this is and how it affects us. Until it gets the same level of coverage as illegal immigration, no one will make a stink about it..

And do you think for one second that the TV media will do anything to publitize this bill?? I don't think so as they're the ones pushing it..

Would it matter? Nobody would watch it anyways. They would Tivo past it. Plus this is actually news which most people tend to ignore unless it involves news that happens 100 feet from their location. National and international news is not something most people keep track of.

As usual though, someone else who can't read puts their own spin on the subject and starts making false statements to which they hope ignorant people will cling to and rally around. We have alot of that going on lately. You just got to sit back and laugh at them.

The TV people seem only able to handle one story a day. Standard joke is there needs to be a FoxNews2 so that a second story can be covered.

[rijir2001]

A police officer could not legally go through your cds in your car if he for example pulled you over for running a stop sign. This is the same as that old story if a officer pulls someone over for speading and searches the car and finds a bloody knife in the trunk. Since it was an illegal search the knife could never be used as evidence in a court of law. There would be no reason to be looking through the driver's personal goods for a simple traffic violation.

You are completely incorrect. Most US States allow law enforcement agencies to search any property where a crime was commited. If you run a stop sign in your vehicle your car can be searched.

I believe I am correct.


http://www.your-criminal-defense.com/search.asp

[Marvingj]

One particularly right-thinking approach to this problem was the Register of Copyright's proposal last year. It would have guided the market to consolidate reproduction, distribution, and performance in particular entities, probably the current PROs who could offer blanket licenses to all the songs in their catalogs. Rather than simply solving the licensing issues of the services that brought this issue to the fore -- primarily on-demand streaming, which HFA claims requires a license for buffer and server copies -- the Register's proposal would have solved problems for tomorrow's technologies. After all, in 5 years, interactive streaming may be rather irrelevant.

And thus, in 5 years, Section 115 Reform Act (SIRA) may be irrelevant too. SIRA does replace the out-dated per-song compulsory license with a blanket license. But it only extends the section 115 license to cover full downloads, limited subscription service downloads that time out, and on-demand streaming. It doesn't clarify what implicates performance or mechanical rights. Podcasters still will be forced to pay HFA and PROs and face hold-out problems, and so will tomorrow's novel uses.

[adam]

i dont really think it will actually drop download prices, since the companies themselves will be paying slightly more to license them......i guess we can only wait and see.....

We will have to wait for the Royalty Board to set the fees but I really don't see how they can possibly be more because if they were than nobody would buy them. Its a completely optional licensing scheme so if it cost more than the distributor would just stick to their current licenses. Also the compulsory licenses eliminate the need for all the expensive negotiations and multilateral agreements that currently arise.

[Dv8ted2]

A police officer could not legally go through your cds in your car if he for example pulled you over for running a stop sign. This is the same as that old story if a officer pulls someone over for speading and searches the car and finds a bloody knife in the trunk. Since it was an illegal search the knife could never be used as evidence in a court of law. There would be no reason to be looking through the driver's personal goods for a simple traffic violation.

You are completely incorrect. Most US States allow law enforcement agencies to search any property where a crime was commited. If you run a stop sign in your vehicle your car can be searched.

Don't they have to have probable cause? They have to have probable cause to search your house. Why should a car search be any different?