I wonder if I make things too complex
I got a reply on the forum I mentioned last time. I really wasn't expecting a reply, as the thread had been silent for more than a month, I think. But I got one. And the point was missed. The replier was a more reasonable sort, as far as I can tell, than the person who made the post that irritated me. Nevertheless, the point was missed.
posted by Josh
The copy protection was Steve Job's only chance of convincing many record labels to offer their tunes on iTunes.
If iTunes was "download it as MP3, copy it wherever you want" I doubt if many labels would have taken him up on that offer.
But no one is saying there's anything wrong with making copies for your own enjoyment- that is perfectly legal and ethical, on whatever medium(s) you prefer.
reply by me
I know that this is how it has to be right now: whether the recording industry is going to die, transform itself, or find a way to enforce their unreasonable rights remains to be decided.
What I object to is BS about 1) people making money directly from piracy, and 2) the notion that any of this is reasonable.
The fact is, it's not reasonable. It's how it has to be, and there are zillions of things in the world that are absurd and yet can't be changed.
I think this sort of thing eventually will be changed, and I think that the iTunes Music Store may well be part of the solution, in the long run.
I object to people not understanding the basis of copyright law, which was never to protect the artist, but rather to protect the investor—irrespective of whether it was the artist investing his own money in publishing, or someone else who might or might not pay the artist.
In fact, it is apparently possible for a band to get a major label contract, have a successful tour or two, sell a lot of albums, and end up owing the record label money. Copyright law defends the recording label. Copyright law defends Michael Jackson, who bought the rights to a large number of Beatles songs many years ago, as an investment.
This situation has always been problematic. However, the "information age" has made it all the more difficult for this situation to continue.
If you're interested in slightly more background facts, and a fair lot more ranting, I wrote an article about this (more for my own amusement than anything else) in which I quote the original copyright law.
A perspective, with examples, of intellectual property
Blah, blah, blah. I'm repeating myself—here at least. The problem, really, as I said before, is the basic nature of the law. Laws against murder protect people from being killed. This is really straightforward, and makes some basic sense, as most people don't want to be killed. Laws against tresspass, theft, and all those other things to do with physical property protect people from being denied the use of their property. Intellectual Property law protects an investor's right to restrict the use of something that can essentially be infinitely replicated for free. This is not at all straightforward.
For example, suppose I have some land. My ownership of that land means that I have the right to invite you onto that land, or bar you from crossing onto it. I can license you—for free or for a fee, as I see fit—to use the land for a narrowly specified, or completely unspecified purpose. But, whatever part you are using, I can't be using it at the same time. Seriously, two objects can't inhabit the same space at the same time.
For example, suppose I have a stick. My ownership of the stick means that I can loan or rent it to you, that we can enter into a contract about what you can do with the stick and what condition it has to be in when you return it. If you try to take it away from me, I can have you charged with a crime, and if you succeed, it's a worse crime. But, if you have the stick then I don't. And if I don't have the stick, then I can't use the stick.
These are essentially a legalish view of the natural order of things. I can't use the land if you're in the way, and I can't use my stick if you currently have it. Simple, right?
But suppose I have an idea. If I tell you my idea, I still have it. But now you have it. Strictly speaking, you can use the idea at the same time I am using the idea. Your use doesn't prevent my use. Until the printing press there was no problem. I could write my idea down, and you could read it and copy it—by hand, mind you—for whatever use you could imagine. We could both have it, and even make use of it, at the same time.
When the printing press came along, though, I could make an investment in the reproduction—rather than leaving it up to your labor. I could then sell the now physical product—my book—to recoup my investment. But the value of the book is almost solely in the words inside. The logical conclusion—in 1710—was that to protect my investment in the production of the physical product, the idea should be treated like the stick or the land.
I don't think this was a particularly elegant solution.
With the advent of modern technology, you can now copy my book an infinite number of times at a negligible cost to you. Using the internet, you can make a copy of my copy at an essentially negligible cost to me. (Although obviously, if a million of you copy it in the same month, the cost is no longer negligible...)
And yet, the first copy—the original—costs a tremendous amount of time to produce. Say 2000 man-hours. And really, I'm probably estimating low. That's a whole year of work for me, in any case. There's also editorial time, layout artists, etc., etc., etc. If I'm going to live on the writing of that book, I need to recoup enough from selling copies that it supports me for a year.
Difficult, isn't it?
A modern patch-job to a 300 yr. old problem
As you are most likely aware, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is feeling, shall we say, extremely embattled since the advent of mp3 trading on the internet. Now, this isn't the first time. They screamed bloody murder at the advent both of cassette tape and CDRs, saying that each would destroy the recording industry. But this time it's possible that they are right.
As an aside, I think this is the result of three basic problems: first, downloading mp3s is truly too convenient. Second, a perhaps overly large portion of the industry is aimed at people with no financial resources of their own—middle and high-school kids. Finally, CDs are too expensive. Given relative costs to produce the two, CDs should not cost more than records. It's absurd.
So, instead of trying to find a business model that works with the technology, they are trying to litigate and lobby to enforce their traditional and (see above) ridiculous rights. One result of this is the DMCA. Basically, the DMCA says that we have to put up with whatever mickey-mouse copy protection scheme they stick into the technology. This applies to Digital Rights Management play-count and computer-authorization features—meaning that it's literally punishable by law to circumvent those restrictions.
There's a general principle about security that everyone always forgets: a little security means a lot of hassle. By instituting laws like the DMCA they really aren't accomplishing anything: as far as I'm aware, music sales continue to fall, and trading is increasing. People are willing to put up with the hassle, or they opt for technologies that are less protected in the first place. Thus, the security is essentially nil. However, the hassle is what this whole rant is about. Having to burn to a CD and re-rip isn't much of a hassle, but if I re-encode it, will there be some difference in the two files? Probably. Will it be an audible difference? Depending on the quality of the file, probably not.
So, it's not much of a hassle? Well, no. But it's a much bigger hassle than the actual amount of security they get. And, it's at a cost in quality. To me, that makes the whole thing fairly ridiculous. Specifically, they haven't accomplished anything but to hassle their customers. WTF is the use in that? At the very least, they should be hassling someone else's customers, not their own.
A different view
I took a break from this to talk to my mom. For lack of anything better to talk about, I told her what I'd been writing about. I defined property ownership for her—the right to contractually allow or deny another person to use the "property." I distinguished this with notions of "intrinsic ownership," which is an almost metaphysical relationship between the owner and the thing owned. Intrinsic ownership (which may well be known under another name in philosophy classes) is neither legally relevant, nor practically applicable. Intrinsic ownership is what is meant by the famous quote, "who can own a rock, who can own a tree?"
When I got to the end, the first thing she went to was intrinsic value. I hadn't thought of this at all. I mean, the legal standard controlling fair use is loss of revenue. Monetary value runs through copyright law from one end to the other, inextricably.
Monetary value is based on demand, of course. So, I could write an essay and show it to one person. This one person could then accomplish something magnificent because they were so inspired by my essay. This person could change the world, because of my essay. If no one else ever reads my essay, there is no demand for it. Therefore, it has no monetary value. But it changed the world. Therefore, it has inestimable intrinsic value.
Is it possible to account for something like this in law? I rather doubt it.
What is it we really need?
Before the widespread use of copyright, artists still produced their art. For example, nothing Mozart wrote was protected by copyright, and his pay was not from royalties. Like all composers of his era, he was dependent on benefactors, conducting positions, etc., for his income. Obviously, it didn't work too well in his case, as he died completely penniless. In some cases it worked quite well. Wagner, for example, did quite well for himself, I think. This isn't too far from the inequity of the current situation: many excellent modern musicians never gain a large following or get lucrative (for anyone) record contracts. And yet Metallica remain popular and profitable to this day. Not to mention all the people who directly copy from Metallica and gain moderate fame. Shakespeare didn't earn royalties on performances of his plays, either, by the way.
It is tough to say what we need now, and I don't have the answer. I can tell you what it'd look like, to some extent: artists would be able to make a living from creative work. Technicians—those who write non-fiction, for example, where there isn't necessarily an artistic component—could make a living from their craft. In other words, the production of things currently covered by intellectual property laws, including patent law, would be encouraged. The current situation where the financial benefit goes primarily to large companies, at the expense of the artists, would be reversed.
A great deal of the current music industry exists to make a relatively small number of people very famous. All that machinery generates a pretty huge amount of money, but it also sucks it all back up again too. Conversely, the artist now and formerly known as Prince, once he finally got separated from his recording company, self-published and internet-marketed a best-of record. Reportedly, he made more money that year than he had ever made previously. That's easy if you're Prince, but what about everyone else? Well, I think if we didn't have the recording industry shoving mediocrity down our throats, people would develop different music habits. Some artists would develop very regional followings, others' would be very spread over wide areas. Some would still gain the kind of extreme fame that we associate with music superstars now. But it would all be done with a lot less direct promotion, and a lot more, "here, listen to this, it's really cool."
But I don't know what it would be like. I don't know how it would work. I just know the situation we have now sucks.
A final note
This is a lot of crap to have written in response to that one little comment by "Josh" on that forum. Most of it doesn't directly reply to what he said. But I do have one direct restatement to make about that: someone is saying that it's wrong to make copies for your own enjoyment for whatever medium you prefer. Forced by the music industry, Apple is saying it's wrong. They do give pretty liberal rights, compared to some. The fact that the music is not subscription, but can instead be played forever is very nice. Nevertheless, you must still use iTunes/iPod. I don't know for certain—I am not a lawyer—but burning to a CD and then re-ripping the track may still count as circumventing the DRM; it may be literally criminal. It is almost certainly a violation of the license agreement. The fact of the matter is, all you're allowed to do with that music is what's explicitly permitted in the license agreement. I know why Apple had to do this, and I understand that they had to. I even applaud their relatively liberal personal use rights. But this situation is totally ridiculous. We need something different. I just wish I knew what.
