Let me offer my thoughts:

I remember local California radio stations in the 1970s and 1980s announcing when they would play side 1 and side 2 of a new LP, so that listeners could have their cassette recorders ready. That was a blatant case of encouraging copyright infringement, but I don’t recall anybody ever threatening to prosecute the DJs of KLRB, KPFA or KAZU.

Here in Norway, you can go into any record store and listen to the CDs/tracks you want at the counter. To my astonishment, I understand that is generally not the case in the US. Unheard of to expect customers to purchase music ungeard!

I have a large collection of downloaded music. Do I feel guilty? Hell no. The fact of the matter is that I have never purchased more CDs than since I started downloading from fellow filesharers. The stuff that I consider truly great, I am more than happy to pay for! I very much WANT to offer my economic support of the artist and label in question. On the other hand, my preferences are not exactly mainstream (contemporary classical, unusual world music, CDs bearing the ECM label). (I haven’t downloaded for more than a year, however.)

* * *

Steve Jobs and Apple have found a wonderful middle ground with the iTunes music store! Kudos to them!! (Still not available in Norway...) However, I want more small label stuff available on iTMS, including all the stuff by ECM. But first and foremost -- I demand better download quality before I’m willing to pay a dime for a download. 320 kbps AAC/MP3 or Apple loss-less would be acceptable. 128 kbps is not acceptable!

As far as software goes, I have purchased all the applications that I use to to earn a living, as well as software that I use frequently in my spare time. I confess that I have "borrowed" copies of Photoshop and Quark XPress; but these applications I only use to open files that are sent to me that I’m unable to open in any other way. I do not use them for production.

* * *

The filesharing issue is complex. The fact that digital copies are "perfect" is one key factor. A major problem is the mainstream recording industry’s greed. The price of music should have been cut to a fraction with the advent of the CD, which is ridiculously cheap to mass produce.

But a far greater problem for the recording industry is its utter lack of imagination. Heck, even the porn industry has adapted far better to file sharing. I don’t hear any of their industry spokespeople complaining about lost income!

Another issue: I hear that US advertising are trembling at the sudden popularity of new "boxes" that allow viewers to watch their favourite shows and movies -- without having to tolerate commercials.

I edit a magazine in which I recently wrote a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about "illegal fonts". I offered the thought: What would happen if every graphic designer and advertising agency with an unpaid font on their Mac/PC was prosecuted. Yes, this means YOU!

Hmmm... :rolleyes:


With best regards,
ArcticStones


PS. Predicting the Supreme Court? Well, do remember that this is basically the same justices that stopped the Florida recount, with a very, very shaky non-judicial argument. Anyone read that court decision in its entirety, by the way? A real shocker!
Oops -- I guess that PS was a forbidden political expression. But I hope the moderators will tolerate it, because it is highly relevant to the issue at hand.

I'll probably get shouted down for this, but: what I'd like to see is (just like radio stations pay royalties) a *tiny* surcharge introduced to blank CDs and DVDs that gets used as royalties to be spread amongst artists perhaps in proportion to regular research (as with TV ratings).

Agreed that not all CDs and DVDs are used to burn illegally gotten product, but the price impact would be so minor (say half a cent) as to be negligable to the purchaser. Maybe something similar could be organised with ISPs, or file-sharing companies. That would create a radically new business model!

Did you know that many shops (such as hairdressers) have to pay a royalty fee to have music on in their store. It is being broadcast (narrowcast?) to an audience and being used to increase patronage after all. Although I'm sure it sometimes drives me away!

Already in place in Canada, where file sharing is "legal" (last I heard) as you paid the "Home Copying Royalty" when you bought the blank CD/DVD/mp3 player. It's also kosher to duplicate commercial stuff you borrow from the library on the same grounds. However, you are taxed for data CDR's to back up your own stuff :(

Any Canadian residents know of recent changes?

Leading the way once again! ;)

Re. Canada: Do the proceeds from the "Home Copying Royalties" then become distributed to the artists and programmers whose goods are being illegally obtained through file-sharing? If so, how do they know who should get what?

Also, what about people who illegally download stuff and store it on their hard drive, or an external drive?

Lots of holes in that policy, it seems to me.

Although not the main issue here, many years ago I worked for a locksmith (mostly picking locks for folks who'd locked themselves out of their homes, or put their keys in their mailbox and slammed the door, or left the engine running and locked their car), and I was required to carry a card identifying the license of the locksmith I worked for because a set of lockpicks were considered to be illegal if you didn't have a license. This was in New York City.

Sure are. Notice the "quotes" - English doesn't have a sarcasm marker yet. Radio stations, who use minidisc a lot, were livid that they had to pay royalties to record their own stuff. It's another tax.

Since I've never copied music to a CD, it's a tax I find so onerous that I refuse to buy CD blanks in Canada (where I live). I wait 'til I'm in the US on business and then buy a bunch. It is just a tax, and the proceeds go to "Canadian Artists", which means those who haven't made it anywhere else, like the US for example, which means, for the most part, artists whose work you'd rarely if ever download anyway. Sheesh. Canadian politicians love to be seen to be doing something about a problem as long as it involves collecting money from us to pay for this "good thing".

Very interesting indeed.

Even though we all would love to **** on the RIAA and all the big business types who are crying because they have to wait a few extra days before they can make thier next big purchase, it is still stealing and it should be illegal. However I agree that shutting down sharing programs is a horrible thing to do for the advance of technology.

I know there have been a bunch of stats released. But I want to see some I can trust... By the US Census or something, that the income of record labels has actually decreased. Because I have heard facts go both ways. Either way though I think the industry simply needs to get better at protecting thier stuff because sharing thier files wont stop with p2p programs.

The times they are a’changing!
 

I would love to purchase ALL my music from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The problem, as I see it, is that it is not hi-fi quality. I want 320 kbps or Apple loss-less, not a meager 128 kbps. And, second, a lot of the music I want is neither avaible on iTMS or in the record stores here.

But all in all, I don’t think the record industry has lost a dime on my downloading. I get turned on to more kinds of music, and I am purchasing more CDs than ever.

I, too, would like to see truly reliable statistics. I’m convinced that the figures from the RIAA are not entirely honest, and that many consumers are fed up by their greed and high pricing. I don’t think all of the sales decline can be ascribed to P2P file-sharing.

A fortunate side effect of P2P is that the quality demand on artists/labels increases. They can no longer be lazy and expect to sell a CD with just two or three decent cuts. The whole album has to be good -- and that is at is should be.

What I propose is Apple opening up iTMS even more to independent labels, as well as making alternative agreements directly with quality musicians, giving them a larger cut of the profits (and the major record companies correspondingly less).

Since it is now technologically easier than ever for musicians to record great stuff themselves, I think the large RIAA labels are going to lose their dominance. There will be more room for artists and small labels whose first loyalty is to music, not just a quick buck.

Cheers to that!

:)

Best regards,
ArcticStones

There are two core issues in this topic which have barely been mentioned in this thread, much to my surprise.

First is the issue of DRM & one's right to make "backup copies" of purchased proprietary content. The betamax issue is simply not relevant - illegal sales of unauthorized content on analog media never threatened the monster money machine. The booming industry in pirated music on cassette tapes does not cause a serious loss of sleep to the RIAA execs - perhaps a chuckle, do they even notice?. But the new threat they face is serious and dire: any computer user on earth can duplicate digital media with near production quality. What's to stop the whole neighborhood from burning CD's/DVD's and selling them on EBay or at the swap meet? How dreadful, exploiting access to technology to profiteer on someone else's creative talent and hard work! I suppose the nauseating hypocrisy of the REAL exploiters is understandable, given the magnitude of their gravy train. Those who create value in the marketplace need not fear the new technology - can it be any more obvious the only way to the future is to embrace it?

This evil power, this terrible technology is our salvation. Tons of artists are now able to produce quality music/video/etc, get it heard/seen, set up shop, make a living - without forfeiting it all to the bully middleman. The claustrophobic control, the airplay blackmail,the domination of the distribution channels is slipping through their hands like water. The rise of alternative labels and music outlets, such as Magnatune.com is an unstoppable tide, no matter what DRM and microsoft try to do. Far from the starving artists having even less than before, I think they stand to gain tremendously. And the legions of people of integrity in the industry will still be there tomorrow. Certainly the mega-corporations are not going to croak. This "rampant piracy" is just graffiti on the bridge to great change.

The stakes will change a lot - not only are the content creators being liberated; our collective sentence as captive audience is nearly over - and those whose livelihoods depended upon forcing us to endure commercials and crappy advertizing get to ride along with us as we demand better quality & less bulls--t.

Being able to purchase only the song you want, and not the rest of a questionable album, is just the beginning. However, I am still very reluctant to purchase music from ITMS; I don't like the limitation of software police on my media, telling me where and how I can play my own music. I can play my CD's anywhere I want, not just on 5 Macs. And this BS about whose machines can play what formats, more of the same sorry-ass politics from the Fear-Of-Not-Enough and the Need-To-Dominate-It-All. Steve! You're better than that! Open up those iPods, man! I'm not willing to let my passion for music be a pawn in your power games with proprietary poo-poo!

Look at earth from outer space, Give me real, don't give me fake; give me heart, give me soul...don't forget the rest of us. just open up your eyes

The verdict is in, and it went unanimously against Grokster et al.

- see http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160792,00.html

So what now? Any implications beyond file-sharing software?

My thoughts for now
 

Uh oh...

...and it was unanimous? I think the judicial argument here has to be read very carefully. For that, as much as the decision at itself, will more accurately define precedent -- and thus decide what happens in the wake of the decision against Grokster.

-- ArcticStones

Whoever feels that foxnews might not be exactly the place where journalistic excellence especially on that topic is naturally at home, may want to have a look at the website of the EFF, where lots of first-hand information is linked:

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/


including the full text of the ruling:

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/04-480.pdf

For now, I've only skimmed the judgements text, but J. BREYER, while finally concurring, actually makes a pretty strong argument in the opposite direction and holds up the Sony principle.

It is not an accident neither that the copyright-mafia goes after the commercial p2p people rather than open-source networks with no ad- and spyware-riddled clients.

The stupidity of the defendants, who answered emails of downloaders too dense to get their pirated films to play and evidence showing the defendants openly were out to capture the market of napster once it would be shut down didn't help their case neither.

Will it really take the decision of a US court to convince the filesharing public to be slightly more attentive to what kind of technology they are using ?

How hard is it to understand that open-source BitTorrent and friends should definitely be preferred over business-models based on spy- and adware ?

Anyone can read the decision at the opinions page of the Supreme Court's website:

Supreme Court Decisions

Click on Metro-Godwyn-Mayer Studios v. Grokster.

I'm always surprised when anyone thinks they have the RIGHT to steal music off the internet and gets indignant when you tell them they shouldn't. Grokster, Napster, etc., etc., were invented for the PURPOSE of piracy. They weren't valid inventions with an illegal purpose that was merely incidental.

It's a misnomer to call what they do "file sharing." You can't "share" what you don't own.

Markle

Worth listening to the Justices themselves!
 

Thanks Markle & Voldenuit (& partners),
Indeed, in such matters it is always better to go to the source itself. This makes it possible to see clearly and discuss on the basis of the facts -- and in this case on the basis of the Justices’ expressed opinions.

And thanks for the alternative to FoxNews, Voldenuit. I realize that FoxNews is highly respected in the US (i.e.: watched), and that they operate with slogans such as "Fair and balanced" and "We report, you decide". But here in Europe (and amongst the PBS-watching segment of the media savvy US population), FoxNews is not exactly known for journalistic excellence. In fact, a few months ago, Norwegian television aired a long analysis on their systematically skewed reporting. I believe it was an American PBS production. Excellent!

Well, not to be distracted -- back to Grokster and the now public arguments of nine Justices of the US Supreme Court...

Phil, turns out you were absolutely right!

Anyone interested in the topic of file sharing, p2p and music/software piracy really should read the opinion in its entirety. It is very thorough. Perhaps most interesting are the nuanced differences in opinion that appear, for instance where Justice J. Breyer takes issue with som of Justice Ginsburg’s points.

As mentioned earlier, however, the Supreme Court decision was unanimous.

Point well taken, Markle. And in my opion anyone who continues on their merry p2p ways should not be shocked if they receive a court summons from the RIAA. The hired legal guns of the recording industry are guaranteed to use this decision for all it is worth!


With best regards,
--ArcticStones


PS. For a more technological and philosophical angle, I definitely believe that Ganymede’s points deserve further discussion.

Not by everyone. It's hard to respect a "news" organization that's a wing of a political party, and gets its agenda from the White House talking points of the day. They should really just admit they're an opinion media, like talk radio, and let it go at that, instead of pretending to be a news outlet. That's how I use it, as a forum to make sure I get diverse opinions. I don't have any illusions that it's actually "news." Sometimes their efforts to huff and puff and posture at LOOKING like a news channel while being blatantly partisan is actually funny.

Markle

The link to the text of the Grokster decision provided by Voldenuit brings up exactly the same pdf file of the ruling as the one on the official Supreme Court website that I mentioned. Either link gives you the complete, unedited decision plus the syllabus (introductory official summary) and the concurring opinions.

Anyone interested in following the Supreme Court or finding the text of other decisions might want to make a note of the URL of the official site for future reference. The Supreme Court is now recessed until October, but the website is a good resource to find previous rulings.

Markle

To get a feeling for the astonishingly good understanding of technical points by the judges, listening to the oral arguments

http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grok...3_oral_arg.mp3

is really interesting. The second lawyer for the MGM et al. side when starting a propaganda talk on how this is all theft gets a rather harsh call to order from one of the judges.

I'm a little bit confused by markle's statement about an alledged "right to steal".

It would be extremely unfortunate if some slimy p2p network operators who arguably are making money by encouraging their users to infringe were to set a precedent that would then be used to outlaw technology like BitTorrent also used for the distribution of project Gutenbergs DVD and Linux distros.

Since the copyright holders have targeted 12-year olds and eldery people not even owning a computer, pretty much everybody has understood their determination to sue their potential customers.

This case is not about individuals, it is an attempt to outlaw technology because it might, among other things, allow to violate copyright. Anything going against the extremely clueful Sony decision is a Bad Thing for innovation.

Ganymedes line of thinking seems a lot more sensible here.

It is interesting to see how even artists "in the system" are increasingly fed up with the "business practices" of the recording industry and have felt the need to create their own representation:

http://www.recordingartistscoalition...ypractices.php

I think looking at the upcoming technology as an opportunity for artists and customers to deal with one another in ways profitable to both is very interesting.

Copyright was meant to make sure the creators get paid for their work.
It was not intended to protect a fat cat industry trying to prevent progress from happening since the advent of the Sony Betamax Video Recorder.

And I am pretty confident that, like Victor Hugo said:
"Rien n'arrête une idée dont le temps est venu."

( "No one can resist an idea whose time has come." )

Digital distribution of music, films and more is already there.