Fair use Rant
This posting grew out of a conversation with a buddy about the morality of file sharing, etc. He was buying music from Apple and feeling morally superior to me because I download MP3s from bit torrent for music or video I already purchased previously. Here are a few thoughts on why I'm equally righteous and why I can't stand the following groovy cultural icons of the digital age:
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I have spent some time researching and thinking about it professionally for a consumer audio device I designed.
When both the audio cassette recorder and the VCR were being introduced, the content owners tried to have the devices outlawed, and then to have the use of them for recording previously purchased media outlawed. The courts ruled that recording vinyl onto tape is perfectly legal, although mass producing tapes for resale is illegal. Similar rulings say one can record broadcast audio/video for personal non-commercial (re)use.
Nested within these decisions was the assumption that when you buy e.g. vinyl records, you pay COGS (vinyl, cardboard, printing), something to the distribution channel, and (a shockingly small) something to the artist as a one-time right to use. (See this Artist Rant: http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/ ).
Along comes mp3 ripping/burning and file sharing.
If I buy from itunes I am paying their COGS (zero!), something to the channel (Apple), and a one-time right to use to the artist.
If I bought it on vinyl when I was 14, don't use a commercial distribution channel, get a zero-COGS mp3 file off the internet, I have perfectly and fairly compensated the whole value chain. If the artist would just make it available to me over the internet for one cent per track, I would be happy to pay them even if I already bought the right to use and they would make more than they are making with the label! In fact, I've been paying ten cents per track to AllofMP3 and feeling like their time ripping the CDs is worth the cost.
I bought the following on vinyl, eight track, cassette, CD, already:
*Everything by CSN, Stones, Beatles, Clapton, The Band, Little Feat, Eagles, Neil Young, Creedence, Aerosmith, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Marley, Santana, etc.
* Lots of Grateful Dead, Clash, Elvis costello, police, pretenders, (you get the idea)
I ain't paying again, and certainly ain't paying with all kinds of dumb ass technology that prevents the tracks from working on 3 of my 4 MP3 players!!! And I have to use Apple software and devices and do special stuff if I want to move it to another player. Hello??
I hate Apple and itunes for bringing zero innovation, tons of artificial, monopolistic restrictions, and a style-over-substance product line to digital music.
Zen players aren't as pretty, but they support a free (as in freedom) digital music scene, which is not necessarily a free (as in beer) scene, and are priced competitively for the COGS represented.
Steve Jobs is rich and famous, is a mean and ill-mannered person in my experience, and has brought as much value to us as the tobacco company executives (albeit without the medical harm).
The whole thing is annoying because our media has made Jobs/Apple the good-guy foil to Gates/MS evil act, when they are similar in deed, with Steve the bigger hypocrite by virtue of his marketing. Now he's becoming the anti-DRM convert, but only if position favoring freedom doesn't cost him a cent. This is mostly disingenuous, as Apple has been using their proprietary DRM (which they won't license to others) as their primary lever to try and monopolize the market with products that aren't cost-competitive. You are probably aware that the EU is trying hard to resist this, but the market-momentum to date makes it hard to slow Apple down. Audio posers will bootleg iPods if the government outlaws them. They have been taught that their too stupid to click on download buttons without Apple's UI genius.
- Steve Jobs, iPod, ITunes
- Media companies and content owners
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I have spent some time researching and thinking about it professionally for a consumer audio device I designed.
When both the audio cassette recorder and the VCR were being introduced, the content owners tried to have the devices outlawed, and then to have the use of them for recording previously purchased media outlawed. The courts ruled that recording vinyl onto tape is perfectly legal, although mass producing tapes for resale is illegal. Similar rulings say one can record broadcast audio/video for personal non-commercial (re)use.
Nested within these decisions was the assumption that when you buy e.g. vinyl records, you pay COGS (vinyl, cardboard, printing), something to the distribution channel, and (a shockingly small) something to the artist as a one-time right to use. (See this Artist Rant: http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/ ).
Along comes mp3 ripping/burning and file sharing.
If I buy from itunes I am paying their COGS (zero!), something to the channel (Apple), and a one-time right to use to the artist.
If I bought it on vinyl when I was 14, don't use a commercial distribution channel, get a zero-COGS mp3 file off the internet, I have perfectly and fairly compensated the whole value chain. If the artist would just make it available to me over the internet for one cent per track, I would be happy to pay them even if I already bought the right to use and they would make more than they are making with the label! In fact, I've been paying ten cents per track to AllofMP3 and feeling like their time ripping the CDs is worth the cost.
I bought the following on vinyl, eight track, cassette, CD, already:
*Everything by CSN, Stones, Beatles, Clapton, The Band, Little Feat, Eagles, Neil Young, Creedence, Aerosmith, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Marley, Santana, etc.
* Lots of Grateful Dead, Clash, Elvis costello, police, pretenders, (you get the idea)
I ain't paying again, and certainly ain't paying with all kinds of dumb ass technology that prevents the tracks from working on 3 of my 4 MP3 players!!! And I have to use Apple software and devices and do special stuff if I want to move it to another player. Hello??
I hate Apple and itunes for bringing zero innovation, tons of artificial, monopolistic restrictions, and a style-over-substance product line to digital music.
Zen players aren't as pretty, but they support a free (as in freedom) digital music scene, which is not necessarily a free (as in beer) scene, and are priced competitively for the COGS represented.
Steve Jobs is rich and famous, is a mean and ill-mannered person in my experience, and has brought as much value to us as the tobacco company executives (albeit without the medical harm).
The whole thing is annoying because our media has made Jobs/Apple the good-guy foil to Gates/MS evil act, when they are similar in deed, with Steve the bigger hypocrite by virtue of his marketing. Now he's becoming the anti-DRM convert, but only if position favoring freedom doesn't cost him a cent. This is mostly disingenuous, as Apple has been using their proprietary DRM (which they won't license to others) as their primary lever to try and monopolize the market with products that aren't cost-competitive. You are probably aware that the EU is trying hard to resist this, but the market-momentum to date makes it hard to slow Apple down. Audio posers will bootleg iPods if the government outlaws them. They have been taught that their too stupid to click on download buttons without Apple's UI genius.
posted by DRL at 11:21 AM
2 Comments:
Hours after posting this, I see the following: http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press18.htm
One label has figured out that fair use says you get exactly one (more) chance to charge folks for tunes in a non-crippled digital format. They will be able to get one last big hit ($1.29 per track) one last time with added value (higher fidelity) and no BS restrictions.
File sharing hasn't put artists out of business, but it has taken a way a monopoly built on nothing (COGS and distribution are virtually free) from the labels who were gouging us and selling us music multiple times. The Internet and digital music can and should put record labels out of business if they can't become competitively priced marketing and promotional agencies.
It will be interesting to see how apple keeps you from fair use once EMI doesn't require DRM technology.
Apple now needs to ride the hell out of its market position because you won't need to buy their players to use the non-DRM music unless they do something ingeneously evil and monopolist, which I'm confident they're working on.
One last note. I was a Mac developer for a decade or so and understand the strengths and weaknesses of MacOS, etc.
I am not an anti-apple technologist in general and I definitely think Windows is crap. But in digital music Apple is not one of the good guys. Sorry.
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