back to article Flog secondhand MP3s at your peril - law guru

Redigi, an American startup company, has found itself in trouble for selling legally downloaded digital music tracks secondhand. Last week it was on the receiving end of a copyright infringement suit in the US. The arguments that will run in the US court are similar to those that would be used here in the UK, and it is clear …

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  1. funkenstein
    WTF?

    another way around it

    if the file is on a cloud somewhere when initially bought, then when the mp3 file is sold, provided it is still on that cloud, it is still on "original media" and hence not needing to be copied again (apart for the purchaser's personal use, which is legal and not under discussion...)

    Just my IANAL £0.02

    1. FlyingMuttley

      Surely this effectively makes mp3 players illegal?

      If you download a perfectly legal mp3 to your pc and then transfer it to a device then you are making a copy and therefore not using the original file.

      1. Charles 9

        Backup provisions.

        The Copyright Act and various court interpretations and amendments since then have stated that, for the purposes of getting the music from one device YOU OWN to another device YOU OWN and getting it to work there, copying is OK in such a case because the work in question never officially changes hands. It's why it used to be legal to keep backups of software when they came of floppy disks, in case the original disks failed.

        1. Mad Mike
          Facepalm

          @Charles 9. Not so.

          If you look at the strict letter of the law in the UK, there is no provision for backups or changing of media type, hence recent proposals for law change. Indeed, for many years it was technically illegal to install software as that involved making a copy and the way round that was changes to company EULA to give you an automatic copyright permission to do it.

          However, recently many judges and the like have realised this is stupid and basically put a common sense interpretation on the law. If someone was take to court for ripping CDs onto his MP3, most (and I do say only most) would simply laugh it out of court. However, what's interesting is that they are under some circumstances assuming a person is guilty. For instance, it someone wants to sell their MP3s, they are assuming foul play and strictly adhering to the law. Why? In a digital economy, it makes no sense to treat a digital version any different to a physical version of the same product.

          It is also not right that judges choose to ignore explicit wording within law even for some events when it's a sensible decision (as most people would see it) and yet choose not to apply the same principal for other events, whether it could be an illegal act or not. Interpreting the law differently for same basic principal (just different) media etc. is not logical.

      2. BristolBachelor Gold badge

        @FlyingMuttley

        From my reading of things in the UK, you are sort of correct.

        IANAL but ISTR that copyright law allows for copies that are intrinsically made to use a copyrighted thing (e.g. the projection of book print onto your retina, or sound waves from the vibration of a needle on a record).

        However the lawyers have convinced people that when a "1" or "0" stored on digital media is represented by a voltage in a circuit, that a copy has been made. They claim that this means the person making this copy needs a license to copy the item, and hence they "allow" you to make copies under certain conditions. Without this license to make copies you would effectively be in breach of copyright law even just listening to the MP on your PC.

        I had hoped that the Hargreaves review would've sorted all that out, but it seems not.

        1. PT

          "However the lawyers have convinced people that when a "1" or "0" stored on digital media is represented by a voltage in a circuit, that a copy has been made."

          This was a wholly novel idea that was first introduced in the US case of MAI Systems v. Peak Computers, 9th circuit 1993. MAI Systems maliciously sued one of their former service engineers for leaving to work for a competitor, and convinced the court that in order to fire up a computer to run diagnostics it had to load the operating system, and when a competitor did so it was making an unauthorized copy. This was picked up by a US government working group on intellectual property headed by Bruce Lehman, the Patent Commissioner and former copyright lobbyist, and staffed by numerous other former copyright lobbyists, who thought the Mai decision was an excellent idea that should have wider application. The Lehman group's report was issued in 1994; the rest is history.

      3. jonathanb Silver badge

        When you buy a track from iTunes, you have permission to copy it to 5 devices at any one time, so on the basis that you have permission from the copyright holder, it isn't illegal.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      WHO WILL BE THE FIRST...

      to take their place on the extradition express over here from the UK?

  2. Phil Standen
    Trollface

    Someone Else's Computer

    "First of all, copyright law mostly does not allow the reproduction of a digital file on someone else's computer, even if the original copy was lawfully downloaded and is subsequently deleted."

    How about if I had rented space on someone else's computer? For example as a cloud backup space?

    How about if the Ts&Cs of that storage solution allowed them to look at my data.

    How about if I rented some space on my computer to other people under the same terms. How about if I offered a loss leading incentive (say about the cost of a song for about the space of a song)?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If we don't have the private use exception yet

    Am I breaking the law when I make a copy (or a move, because the actual data remains on the disk) from my computer's internal HDD to my NAS? Am I breaking the law again by making two copies because my NAS has RAID-1?

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Probably not, if you can argue that your mp3 is a "computer program".

      "50ABack up copies.

      "(1)It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back up copy of it which it is necessary for him to have for the purposes of his lawful use.

      "(2)For the purposes of this section and sections 50B [F3, 50BA] and 50C a person is a lawful user of a computer program if (whether under a licence to do any acts restricted by the copyright in the program or otherwise), he has a right to use the program.

      "(3)Where an act is permitted under this section, it is irrelevant whether or not there exists any term or condition in an agreement which purports to prohibit or restrict the act (such terms being, by virtue of section 296A, void)."

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Purlieu

    Flash

    Legally download directly to a usb drive on your computer, thensell the drive, legally, since you have not made a copy, the drive contents are your original download.

    Next.

    1. Wize

      And end up selling off all your music, not the few tracks you don't want.

      When you play an mp3 aren't you copying it to the PC's RAM?...

      1. Ben Tasker

        But what about

        (and yes, this is massively overkill) designing a USB stick to hold 1 MP3 (or maybe one album), and then using a ZFS like filesystem to present as one filesystem (would need adjusting so the files were a) not spread over multiple volumes and b) accessible without needing the rest of the pool).

        Then you could download to /home/$USER/mymusic which would appear to the user as one folder full of music (with subfolders if necessary). But if you plugged one of the sticks into another PC (or sold it on) it would appear as a drive with one file/album.

        A few minor design issues obviously;

        - USB bandwidth would be somewhat lacking

        - You'd need a _lot_ of USB ports and sticks for a sizeable collection

  6. Purlieu

    or cdr

    This also works if you download direct to cdr (given software that can write to cdr in real-download-time) and you have paid the levy on blank media !!

  7. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    WTF?

    Payment in perpetuity

    Does an electonic transfer of money constitue forgary? After all no physical money changed hands, the banks just make an electonic copy of the money. The banks may say that the electonic original was destroyed after the transfer and I presume that is what Redigi are doing as well.

    Also second hand CD sales are the bain of the copyright mafia, remember in 1993 when that twat garth brooks withheld his albums from stores that sell used CDs, calling the practice "evil".

    This judgement is exactly what the copyright maffia want, it makes it clear that you have to buy a new copy of a song each time you change a disk, format, player etc. Why is it that the copyright mafiaa expect payment in perpetuity for a once off piece of work, it's a bit like the teachers who taught me expecting a share of my salary for ever.

    I've bought the CD and the copyright mafiaa made money from me when I did that, they aren’t getting any more.

    1. bitmap animal
      Thumb Down

      The bank does not send a copy of your money. It takes your money and signals the other end that they have yours so can give some of their money to your target.

      Your view looks similar to when you bought a film on Betamax, then VHS, then Videodisk, then DVD and now BluRay

      A teacher may well be hacked off if they wrote a song for you at school that you then sang and it sold well, earning you royalties, and the teacher didn't earn a share for his creation.

    2. david wilson

      >>"Does an electonic transfer of money constitue forgary? After all no physical money changed hands, the banks just make an electonic copy of the money."

      Not really - the balance in an account is really just a number, or a bookkeeping fiction if you like, it's not real money, and never was.

      Even if a bank 'forged' an increase in an account held with them without a matching decrease elsewhere, it'd hardly be 'forgery' since it would only be themselves that they were screwing - if the customer withdrew the 'extra' money, it would be the bank that paid out, not a national treasury.

      >>"Also second hand CD sales are the bain of the copyright mafia, remember in 1993 when that twat garth brooks withheld his albums from stores that sell used CDs, calling the practice "evil"."

      No, I don't.

      How did that work out for him?

      Did many *other* evil musicians join in to make it a great mafia campaign?

      >>"This judgement is exactly what the copyright maffia want, it makes it clear that you have to buy a new copy of a song each time you change a disk, format, player etc."

      No it doesn't.

      When did 'they' last even try to sue someone for ripping a CD to play on their own MP3 player (or sue someone for copying a CD onto a cassette for their own use)?

      Or even for giving a mate a set of DVDs with MP3s of a complete CD collection?

      Seems 'they' only *really* get touchy about stuff either being *sold*, or given away potentially to any number of strangers on the internet.

      This judgement is about selling stuff to other people in a situation where the 'original' can't reliably be shown to have been properly deleted.

      1. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

        I think you miss my point entirely, what is a digital file, it’s a collection of 1’s and 0’s that are copied, it’s only how those 1’s and 0’s are interpreted at the end of the transfer process that ascribes any value to them. The money in my bank account may not have been the best example, and it was a bit disparaging, but there are also a lot of securities that are routinely traded that don’t physically exist either.

        “copyright law mostly does not allow the reproduction of a digital file on someone else's computer, even if the original copy was lawfully downloaded and is subsequently deleted”

        What Redigi have tried to do is create/access a new market, if Redigi have 1 copy of a song they say they will only sell 1 copy and if some smart ass tries to sell the same track again Redigi will reject it.

        Redigi also said that it would give a portion of each sale to the artists and record labels, something that secondhand sales don’t usually, sadly that is not enough to satisfy the greed of the copyright mafiaa.

        Unfortunately for the copyright mafiaa, the stable door is open, the horse has bolted, bred in the wild, multiplied, and mutated, formed herds and created its own state of existence. Meanwhile, the copyright mafiaa are still trying to close the stable door.

        @ david wilson;

        No it didn’t work out too well for Brooks, sales of the next record slumped miserably and he had to relent and allow the records stores that engaged in the “evil” practice of selling secondhand CDs to sell his new CD, I believe he now only distributes his CDs through wal-mart.

        “This judgement is about selling stuff to other people in a situation where the 'original' can't reliably be shown to have been properly deleted.”

        I don’t agree with that, this is exactly the same method politicians use to lie, hide the lie by wrapping it in a bit of the truth; you can never be sure that the original has been deleted, the only way around that is to never let a legitimately downloaded piece of music be resold, It’s a bit like presidential candidate Rick Santorum when he says he has nothing against gay people, as long as they don’t do anything gay, I guess the copyright mafiaa are the same, they’ve nothing against secondhand music sales, as long as nobody sells anything secondhand.

        1. david wilson

          @Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

          >>"I don’t agree with that, this is exactly the same method politicians use to lie, hide the lie by wrapping it in a bit of the truth; you can never be sure that the original has been deleted, the only way around that is to never let a legitimately downloaded piece of music be resold,..."

          I guess I phrased things badly.

          It's the inability to delete the important part of the 'originality' of a track - the right/ability to resell it again - which is the main issue.

          If the 'orginality' of any retained copies, wherever they may be, is not in some way deleteable by the resale, then it would be understandable why resale might be an issue for a rights holder.

          From what I can see, ReDigi establish 'legitimacy for sale' by

          a) looking at the individual MP3 file

          b) recording the fact that I have sold a file via them

          c) deleting any copies I have which their software can detect

          but that does seem to be lacking, given they have no means to tell how many copies of the same file I may have already made and distributed.

          >>"What Redigi have tried to do is create/access a new market, if Redigi have 1 copy of a song they say they will only sell 1 copy and if some smart ass tries to sell the same track again Redigi will reject it."

          If a typical Amazon MP3 I bought was copied to another person's machine, how could it be identified as being the 'same' as my copy if the file contents are actually the same for all copies of that file that Amazon sell, which is, apparently, the case for most MP3s they actually sell?

          *I* can only sell a given track once, but would that stop me giving copies to a dozen mates before selling mine, and have them all able to sell the track as well?

          Or in the case of Amazon MP3s, does it mean that once one Amazon MP3 of a given track has been sold, no-one else can sell an Amazon MP3 of that track?

          Or do ReDigi simply not deal in non-uniquely-fingerprinted MP3 files, meaning they're no use to someone who buys 'clean' MP3s?

          None of those situations seem exactly perfect - one makes a mockery of the whole patented 'verification' idea in the first place, and the others would make the site rapidly worthless for many or most users.

          Now, if they have found a way to trace the provenance of a specific copy of a 'clean MP3', which has been legitimately bought and downloaded by multiple people without any distinguishing information in the various downloaded copies, that *would* be interesting.

          If somewhat unlikely.

    3. jonathanb Silver badge

      If you have money in a bank, what it really means is that the bank owes you some money.

      When you "transfer" money, what you are doing is telling the bank to repay that debt to another person instead of you. There is no electronic copy of money being transmitted from one place to another.

  8. Mark #255
    Big Brother

    REMEMBER, PEONS

    Just because you paid money for it doesn't mean you own anything.

    Now, shut up and go back to consuming the sweepings we have provided for you; kindly await similar pronouncements regarding books, videos and computer games.

    And remember - KEEP CONSUMING!

    signed,

    THE MANAGEMENT.

    1. Jim in Hayward
      Thumb Up

      I'd like to know who downvoted your post. Must be a member of the music reselling club!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Second hand is now piracy?

    So you can't re-sell Steam games, downloaded MP3s or eBooks. If you want to do that kind of thing, buy a physical version.

    I know it's an old argument, but as the digital versions are more restrictive in their licence, why aren't they much cheaper? (Actually Steam games often are, but eBooks often aren't)

    I guess when digitally distributed video, books and music were new and shiny early adopters were happy to pay similar prices to the physical versions and now they're old hat, the distributors don't want to give up on that income.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If it's a game using the Steam infrastructure

      it appears to me you can't even resell a physical copy because you activate it on a Steam account with a code in the box. (Please correct if I'm wrong.)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Steam.

      "So you can't re-sell Steam games, downloaded MP3s or eBooks. If you want to do that kind of thing, buy a physical version."

      I have numerous Steam games. And these numerous Steam games are each on its own Steam account. And when I want to sell a Steam game, I simply sell the Steam account on eBay; I have bought and sold Steam accounts on eBay many, many times.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yes, but no.

        I'm sure you CAN do it, but that doesn't make it legal.

        When you got a Steam account you agreed to their terms and conditions which don't allow you to sell the account (or the subscriptions as they call the games).

        See the Steam Terms and conditions section E

        http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

        I could re-sell my MP3 and eBooks, that's not the point, it's the fact that the licence I have bought restricts selling but doesn't reduce the price to reflect that restriction.

        1. Jim in Hayward
          Megaphone

          Nice! Law is the law after all. Let's face it...you know when what you are doing is wrong. Why try to finagle it?

  10. Mad Mike
    Unhappy

    Real world

    And the entertainment industry wonder why copying and copyright abuse is so large!!

    The whole concept of copyright is made unenforcement in any sensible way by modern technology. You could go to a personal license. You have purchased it, therefore you can listen to it. But then, you couldn't play it on a hifi to your girlfriend. Not allowing copying effectively makes huge entertainment companies in breach of the law. MP3 players etc.etc. aren't legal as they make a copy.

    You can sell a CD, but you can't sell a download!! WTF. They're effectively the same thing. Either way, they're simply a music (or whatever) file and if you can sell one, you should be able to sell the other. Anything else just doesn't make sense.

    It's all a nonsense and the more they keep coming up with these stupid cases and media profile, the more copyright violations will occur and increase. People are fed up, the risks are low and their customers are now revolting.

    I suppose I should be looking over my shoulder as well. A couple of weeks ago, I helped someone move all their files from their old computer (disposed of properly) and onto a new computer. As part of this involved copying his ITunes files, presumably I'm guilty and so is he? After all, we copied digital music files. We deleted the original (before disposal of the machine), but that's simply what this company did!! Has he made something out of it? No. Have any of the media companies lost anything? No. So, how in gods name is it an offence?

    1. Jim in Hayward
      Thumb Up

      I disagree. You see, a CD it is a physical item. An original item. Not a RIPPED CD mind you. A download can obviously be copied...even ripped to a cd. A copy none the less.

      Everyone understands the difference. Why fake it? Why act like selling a download is the same as selling a physical CD? It's not! You don't like it? Buy the CD! You can sell it and keep your RIPPED copy too...just don't let anyone know you have a ripped copy!

      1. Mad Mike
        Thumb Down

        Jim in Hayward

        Your argument is spurious and silly. Yes, a CD is a physical item, but so is a digital file!! It's a physical item (i.e. 1s and 0s on a hard drive rather than 1s and 0s on a CD), the difference being the physical item is not seperate from everything else and individually saleable. A CD can be sold and only the tracks on the CD will be sold. However, if you sell the hard drive, you have to sell not just the hard drive, but everything else as well. The actual trade is effectively identical though. You're selling one set of files on CD or a set of files on hard drive. You're simply asking the recipient to supply their own storage medium. In all intellectual senses, the tracks in MP3s are identical to tracks on CDs.

        If you can see the tracks on a CD and be prosecuted for making a CD copy and sell it, why can't you sell your MPs and be prosecuted for copying them and selling the copy? Same thing. The difference is that one is easier than the other. However, the law doesn't and shouldn't differentiate on whether something is easy or not, just on whether it is right. So, removing your right to copy because it makes it easy to break copyright simply states they believe everyone is inherently a criminal and therefore should be prevented from doing it to stop the crime which they would undoubtedly commit. It's effectively Minority Report territory.

        They are finding people guilty of the crime BEFORE the event and crime ever happens.

        1. david wilson

          @Mad Mike

          >>"In all intellectual senses, the tracks in MP3s are identical to tracks on CDs."

          In terms of the usefulness of the data, maybe, but the thing with the CD is that, (ignoring possible counterfeiting), it is an automatic physical proof of ownership, so a buyer knows they're buying an 'original', a marketplace knows it's dealing only in 'originals', a person can only sell one 'original', and a rights-holder can see that the number of saleable 'orignals' isn't increasing beyond what they were paid for.

          Whether someone might keep a copy or not for their own use after selling a CD or digital file is a separate issue to what mechanisms might prevent the 'same' digital file being duplicated into numerous *saleable* copies.

          Are there any reliable mechanisms which everyone would be likely to be happy with?

    2. Jim in Hayward
      Thumb Down

      btw- you did not have to copy the iTunes files. You just had to login to iTunes on the new computer and request that iTune download all purchased files to the new PC. Of course, you would have had to RIP the CD's for non-iTunes content. Potentially, what you did would allow illegal content. Care to give your name, address and phone so the appropriate authorities can hit you?

      1. Mad Mike
        FAIL

        Jim in Hayward

        Whilst I appreciate I could have redownloaded all the music, my friend happens to be a very prolific customer of ITunes. Therefore, he has many GBs of files. Now, would a sensible person simply download it all again, annoying their ISP and hogging their internet connection for many hours, or would they simply copy it computer to computer? Takes minutes rather than hours and everyones a winner? My friend happy, ISP happy etc.etc. According to this posting, only one group unhappy..........the copyright holders. They would rather you buy it all again, or annoy everyone by downloading GBs again.

        Yes, what I did might allow illegal content, but then letting you out of your house might allow y9ou to murder someone, but it doesn't mean I can't. If banning everything that might allow an illegal act was the way to go, nobody could do anything. Stupid argument.

  11. ScottAS2
    Pirate

    If your cake was IP you could both have it and eat it

    Proof yet again that the physical property analogy for "intellectual property" only holds when it suits the content industries. Rhetoric treating copyright violation as theft, one illegal download equals one lost sale, etc., but no re-selling something that you legitimately bought? Stop trying to have it both ways.

  12. Purlieu

    @ wIZE

    My example was of a single track or album bought in one transaction, and placed directly onto removeable cheap media.

    It was not one's entire music collection bought at differing times and places.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We could do it that way

      Which would bring us right back to buying Compact Disks, vinyl and tapes. Now that's progress.

    2. Jim in Hayward
      Stop

      OK...so you mean you bought a 3$ US USB 512MB drive, downloaded a 8$ US iTunes album, listened to it for 6+ months and then sold it for what 4$ US + shipping (on e-Bay no doubt so with seller costs brings it to the original cost)? So you got to listen to that music at 75% original cost in the end. Add the cost of the time to do the sale you made nothing. Go For It! I prefer to just keep it. And consumers would prefer to buy it rather than save 50% IF THEIR BID WINS!

      This is a silly discussion. Fact is, if you resell it's illegal unless you buy the CD and resell that. Get over the download stuff! By the time you have worked around the law you are losing money, time or both!

      1. Mad Mike
        Meh

        Jim in Hayward

        I don't disagree at all with the idea not being practical, but banning the selling of MP3s because some might copy them and then sell the copy is finding everyone guilty before the fact. Anyway, exactly the same can be done with CDs and you can still sell them. This has nothing to do with sense or moral right and wrong. It has everything to do with protectionism and profiteering. Just the thing that made it happen in the first place.

        The industry have profiteered and taken with p**s out of their customers for years. CDs costed more than tapes. Why? They're cheaper to produce. DVDs cost more than VHS. Why? Same is true. etc.etc. With many other crimes, the activities and provocations of the industry would be seen as mitigating factors.

        1. david wilson

          >>"I don't disagree at all with the idea not being practical, but banning the selling of MP3s because some might copy them and then sell the copy is finding everyone guilty before the fact. Anyway, exactly the same can be done with CDs and you can still sell them. "

          To be fair, the worst-case scenario is that some individual (or some group of people) sell the exact same track any number of times.

          That can't be done with CDs in any practical sense by an average person.

          >>"CDs costed more than tapes. Why? They're cheaper to produce."

          Pricing things really is down to what someone thinks people are prepared to pay, not some kind of idea of 'fairness'.

          For the buyer, CDs were better than tapes in most respects (quality, convenience, durability), so they were generally prepared to pay more for them.

          If a company started making items from plastic rather than wood, and for the given use, plastic gave a 'better' product, they might well charge more even if the items cost less to make.

          Now, of course, in general industry (excluding patented processes) someone 'charging what the market will bear' has to keep an eye open for people undercutting them, which isn't a worry for someone publishing copyright material - the only legitimate 'competitor' for new CD sales is sales in other digital formats, or secondhand CDs.

          But then it's not necessarily easy to enforce 'fairness' in some patent/copyright/monopoly situation, or even to know what fairness really is.

          Even if discs were cheaper than the equivalent tapes to make, if tapes had a more limited lifespan, were harder to copy, less likely to be re-sold, maybe less likely to be lent, etc, then it might be more 'profitable' overall for a manufacturer to sell tapes cheape rthan discs even if the profit-per-item was lower.

          Sure, you could argue with some justification that once you've paid for the intellectual property, it's a rip-off to have to buy it again if a tape wears out, though the question then would seem to be how to fix that, and at whose expense, and would you expect a publisher to replace worn-out books.

      2. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
        Headmaster

        @Jim in Hayward

        No. You’re mixing credits and debits the wrong way. Ignoring P&P etc, you bought an asset for $11, it depreciated by $7 and you sold it for $4, you may think you are ‘up’ $4 on the whole transaction, but remember, you also lost an asset worth $4. Net asset gain to you. Zero.

  13. Goldmember
    WTF?

    I don't understand...

    So do you sell your track to these guys, and then have to delete it from your hard drive (maybe their software does it for you)? I've never used iTunes, but I believe that if you experience a hard drive failure for example, you can download all of your songs again from iTunes onto another device. What would stop you doing this after you sold all your tracks?

    Or do you simply prove (somehow) that you've bought the track, and then sell a copy of it to the company, keeping the 'original'? In this case, you could do it over and over again.

    Either way, it all sounds dodgy. How did they expect to get away with it?

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      @Goldmember

      I do see your point, but what is to stop a person buying a CD, ripping it to another CD and making high-quality replicas of the covers, whilst keeping the files on a computer for use on MP3 player/phone/home media server, and then selling on the CD? Where is the difference? The person still has all the relevant media, and has made some money back from legally selling the original.

      It seems to me that if you have paid substantially the same amount for an electronic copy of anything from an outlet that the publisher approves of, as you would have done for a physical copy (book, CD, DVD, whatever), then you should be deemed to have exactly the same rights of ownership over the electronic copy as the physical one. If the publishers want to reduce rights of ownership, then they should pay for the privilege by reducing the price significantly (at least 50%)

      1. Jim in Hayward
        FAIL

        The Law is to stop them. That is like asking 'What is to stop someone from killing a perfect stranger?". Hello??? Morals? The Law!!!

        1. Mad Mike

          Absolute, but wrong.

          Yes, the law is to stop them. I don't think anyone would have a problem with someone being prosecuted for copying their MP3s and selling them. That's the same as copying the CD and selling it. If copyright holders can provide someone has sold copies without deleting the original, then prosecute away. No problem there. However, what they're doing with this judgement is stopping people selling something they own on the ASSUMPTION they will do this.

          That's called being assumed guilty until proven innocent. A dangerous road to travel.

      2. Jim in Hayward
        Happy

        oh-btw-if you pay 80% of the price of the physical copy you are stupid. buy the physical copy. unless the premium is worth it for you not to have to walk, drive, travel to a store and deal with crowds to purchase the original media. hint!!!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bunch of pillocks!

    That's really stretching the principle to extremes. CDs being sold second hand, obvious physical product being sold but selling "second-hand MP3s" that are "virtual" by nature? Pull the other one!

  15. MJI Silver badge

    Sticking with hard copies

    At least you can sell them.

    Like the rather disgusting Westlife CD my daughter bought because it was cheap and she had a new CD player.

    Format shifting is a bit of a pain and to be honest I would rather start with a CD.

    Not all of us have jumped down the mp3 route, I still use MD and CD changer in the car, because it works. Still use a DVD player in the house as it is fantastic with audio (won awards and used as a transport by audiophiles - I like its SACD DVD-A support)

    At least I can buy a CD ect and if I don't like it or get fed up with it sell it at a car boot/Ebay/record shop.

    Downloading music is now leading to a whole world of hurt for consumers UNLESS you "Obtain" instead.

    1. Jim in Hayward
      Go

      Curious about your DVD comment....I use a Blu-Ray player now. It can play a normal DVD. Have an optical-audio connection to my surround sound AV receiver. What is your point? A regular DVD play puts out better sounds than a Blu-Ray? Thanx in advance for your response (or anyones)

      1. MJI Silver badge

        It is that my DVD player is good as a CD transport as well as....

        It is a Pioneer DV 575. A lot of audiophile use them as CD transports.

        However the DV 575 also supports both high resolution music formats DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD.

        CD is 16bit 44.1kHz sample rate

        DVD-A can be 24bit 192kHz sample rate, I think most of mine are 24/96

        SACD is a different animal altogether and uses a very high sample rate Direct Stream Digital

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Whoops

      Likes like I upset the Westlife fan!

  16. Anonymous Cowerd
    Facepalm

    and people wonder why I still buy CDs...

    see title

  17. Winkypop Silver badge
    Joke

    I played an old fashioned music CD out loud yesterday

    I think the guy next door may have over heard it.

    Am I screwed?

    Is he screwed?

    Help.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
      Joke

      Depends...

      Are you in the UK? Do you have a PRS subscription? (Performing Rights Society)

      1. Vic

        > (Performing Rights Society)

        They're calling themselves "PRS for Music" these days. Pillocks.

        Vic.

  18. bonkers
    Happy

    define "copy"

    "because the act of transmitting the file from one person to another necessitates the making of a copy, which is in breach of the rights holder's copyright."

    this is not absolutely necessary, merely helpful, in case of a break in the communications.

    It would be possible to define protocols, based on say Xmodem, that destroyed the original packets once they had been received and verified by the far end. This would be a "move" rather than a "copy".

    one would have to have a reasonably sophisticated recovery program, and T's &C's that say its yours as soon as you receive the first packet, though you could reverse the process and recover the original if you had to.

    1. Neil Brown

      s17(2) - (6), CDPA 1988

      s17:

      (1) ...

      (2)Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form. This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.

      (3)In relation to an artistic work copying includes the making of a copy in three dimensions of a two-dimensional work and the making of a copy in two dimensions of a three-dimensional work.

      (4) Copying in relation to a film or broadcast includes making a photograph of the whole or any substantial part of any image forming part of the film or broadcast.

      (5) Copying in relation to the typographical arrangement of a published edition means making a facsimile copy of the arrangement.

      (6) Copying in relation to any description of work includes the making of copies which are transient or are incidental to some other use of the work.

      http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/17

      1. bonkers

        Thanks Neil

        Thanks indeed for providing the source, I do like informed argument...

        Would it not be true to say that teh wording of the act still hinges on whether a "copy" has been made - i.e. if there are now two things where there was originally one? - this is certainly the commonly held notion of re-production.

        My point is that you can keep the global population of said MP3 file to one throughout the process, OK maybe 1.00001, as you need a good copy of the block in transit in case it gets lost on the wire.

        I'm not attempting to argue law, only against the premise that drew the judgement, I see it as inessential to copy a file in order to move it from one place to another.

        1. Neil Brown
          Thumb Up

          > Would it not be true to say that teh wording of the act still hinges on whether a "copy" has been made

          Yes.

          > i.e. if there are now two things where there was originally one?

          Now that sounds like a common sense interpretation of what a copy is - which is not necessarily what a copy is for the purposes of copyright law.

          You proposed a system that destroyed the original packets once they had been received and verified by the far end. The question, for the purposes of copyright law, is not whether this meant that there were two copies but, assuming we are talking about an LDMA work here (a computer program, for example), whether the act in question is one of reproducing the work in any material form.

          Although you are arguing that there is no *re*-production, simply a transfer, my understanding of your method is that there must be two copies (or, at least, two copies of small chunks) for your verification and resend on failure process to work - you must have the same bit at both ends to be able to re-send the bit if verification fails. Whether this is, in the ordinary sense of the word, reproduction, is questionable.

          The main problem, however, is that reproduction is deemed to include "storing the work in any medium by electronic means." By using your system, data which are stored on drive A are now stored on drive B; the act of storing the work on drive B would, most likely, be considered to be an act of "storing the work in any medium by electronic means" and thus be deemed an act of reproduction.

          In reality, though, how much of this is about the technical issues of copying in a digital, networked environment, and how much is about a recognition that strict enforcement of current copyright laws, which had a very different impact in an analogue environment, provide a powerful tool to create a revenue stream?

          1. bonkers

            probably just us now..

            we're on page 2 now due to raging arguments above, however I'm still inclined to add comment, if its OK with you.

            Agreed, any common conception is not necessarily relevant to a legal definition, e.g. of "copy".

            In the analogue era, the electronic storage of an item was deemed a copy, fair enough, there is this one and the original analogue copy.

            However, if the original is an electronic copy then the right to possess an electronic copy is what you have actually purchased. Therefore if you move that copy from one place to another, it should be legal.. ?

  19. Mage Silver badge
    Coat

    Fingernails

    What you need is a USB Thumb drive that can load *multiple* Fingernails.

    They exist already and just need to be cheaper and with less storage. Micro-SD card?

    Be fairly easy to make/hack a USB "thumb drive" today that can take 32 x Micro SD cards. 4 layers, two rows of 8 x slots on each side. I might make one anyway just for fun.

    Can MicroSD cards be cheap enough to be given away free with Albums, like the plastic and aluminium is "free" when you buy a CD or DVD?

    Mine's the one with a pocket full of Fingernails.

  20. Graham Marsden
    Facepalm

    Alternatively...

    ... the media companies could just sell the product at a *reasonable* price in the first place such that a second hand market wouldn't be necessary as it would be just as cheap to buy an original.

    (Yes, I know, it's a silly suggestion...)

    1. Jim in Hayward
      Go

      Yes. I agree. Although to follow the line of the law it costs about the same as the original anyway. However, lowering the cost of CD's by 1$ US and DVD's by 3$ US and Blu-Ray by 5$ US would increase the media house's sales exponentially!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are you allowed to inherit MP3s from a deceased relative?

    Or does the licence expire with the licensee?

    What if you keep the corpse propped up in an armchair in the living room and only listen to the MP3s in the company of said corpse? I ask merely for information ...

    1. Jim in Hayward

      You owe me a new keyboard! SPEW! ~lol~ Too Funny

  22. Bill Fresher

    Can't send a copy

    Does this mean that teleporting a CD would also be breaking the law?

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      No, but teleporting a copy of a CD would be.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes

      Because teleportation is (unfortunately) a copy & delete action - not a move. Think moving files between partitions rather than on the same partition - one is a copy/delete, and it's the 'copy' part they don't like.

  23. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Common sense really. If you bought, say a 7" vinyl single and resold it then it was pretty obviously the original. If you buy and MP3 file and then sell an MP3 file there is nothing to say that you are not simply selling a copy.

    I haven't really got a problem with people passing on copies of their music, and it's not a view I've developed recently. Back when I was a lad it was common practice to copy any albums you bought for anybody who would hand you a C90 to make them a copy. Call it piracy if you want. Call it copyright theft if it pleases you to do so. It was home taping and it wasn't killing music. People passing on MP3 files is the same thing. Where I do see a problem is third parties making money out of this sort of thing. I include in those third parties not only people who set themselves up specifically to make money from these practices, but people who make money out of "piracy" as a by-product of their ordinary business.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On the other hand ...

      If you sell someone your 7" vinyl single, what is there to say you haven't kept a copy on tape, the one you format-shifted for playing in the car?

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        @AC

        There isn't, and there hasn't been since home taping became possible. The only difference is that the recording industry have what they always wanted - a way to track it. The question is, should the law follow reality (a huge number of people are doing it, they have been for the better part of half-a-century, it is regarded as "normal", and so shouldn't be unlawful), or should it follow the "we have a business model that we cannot be bothered to change" minority (make criminals or debtors under private law of those who are doing what seems normal, deform hundreds of years of settled law, reduce innovation). The old-fashioned English law would probably have taken the pragmatic route of deciding that it is in no-one's interest to make large numbers of the population vulnerable to legal action. However, we don't see the judiciary standing up and saying "WTF" often these days.

      2. Jim in Hayward
        Black Helicopters

        This article is not about those who ignore the law....it's about the law.

        1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

          I think the issue that is being missed by some here is quality.

          If I were to copy a vinyl record, CD or cassette to cassette the quality of the cassette would be slightly lower than the original. And every copy I made from the original would be of that slightly reduced quality. And if anybody copied one of those copies for their friends then the quality would be reduced again. It didn't take many generations before the quality was too bad for most people to listen to.

          If I were to download an MP3 file I would get an exact copy of the file. It wouldn't matter if I got the file from a legitimate source, as a copy from somebody who got it from such a source or 97th hand from the torrent. As such the quality would remain exactly the same.

          Yes the record industry didn't like home taping as they saw every copy as a lost sale. The were wrong of course, maybe one copy in ten was a lost sale. Where they shot themselves in the foot was with digital music. No not MP3s, but CDs. Once CD-Rs came along it was possible to make an exact copy of the original CD. In introducing audio CDs they actually made the pirates' lives easier. I distinguish between people who casually shared tapes between friends and people who made money out of selling copies. Yes it was easy to copy albums to tape, copy the inlay card and sell them on a market stall, but you could hear the difference. A proper digital copy of the CD meant the sound quality was indistinguishable. Of course digital music files make the pirate's lives even easier.

    2. bitmap animal

      I'd agree that the people selling counterfeits are a big problem .

      The big difference I see is scale of the distribution of the copies. You could tape an LP for a few friends, some you didn't like you could say no to. From what I remember people would make 2-3 copies at the most for friends, and that would often be swapped for a copy of an album they had bought. There were still quite a lot of people to buy the original records.

      With file sharing one person buys it, uploads it the in theory the whole world can download it. You are not just sending the file out to a couple of friends. I see this as a very clear distinction

      1. Intractable Potsherd

        Time is the difference.

        Recording a tape took as long as the tape took to run, and unless you had a fairly sophisticated setup, you could only do one cassette at a time. It is now trivial to make copies on any computer, and trivial to say "Here it is, come and get it". My question is what is the legally relevant change - should the law take account of the ease of copy/distribution and decide that it should now step in and stop something that has a cultural history to it (proven historically to impossible), or should it take the pragmatic route and say "no-one is really hurting by this, let's do what we can to curb the worst abuses"? I favour the latter.

  24. Mad Mike
    FAIL

    Only Solution

    At some point, the obvious solution simply has to be observed. You can spend fortunes trying to enforce copyright on this sort of thing and will never succeed. As has been pointed out previously, it has gone on for years, long before computers were around. Taping from a vinyl was effectively the same. Never did music any harm and bands/companies still got very rich. So, the reason the issue is considered worse these days is that it's easier. You no longer have to 'know' someone with the music, but simply look on a download site. However, this is massively impacted by the cost of the music in the first place. Make it sensible and people will buy regardless. Those that don't would pirate it no matter what you do. It's interesting that most studies show the 'pirates' actually spending more on music than others!!

    I wouldn't be at all surprised if music companies are spending more on trying to enforce copyright than they are actually loosing in sales. This is insanity. Record companies always claim their expenses are very high because if they take on and promote 'x' bands, only 1 or 2 will actually make it. Well, the simple answer is stop trying to make your customers pay for this, get to know them better and therefore punt a smaller number of bands that are more likely to make it!! Just because the record companies don't know their customers well enough to punt the right bands, doesn't mean they should pass the cost of their ineptitude onto said customers.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the way forward

    is to take a step back.....

    The whole market for the sale of digital music needs to take a step backwards and have a major rethink. the current methods, although they do work are unfair to the and because of this make criminals of of people who just want fair use.

    It maybe the fact that the music industry do not pursue people through the courts who format shift legally owned CD's to mp3 players, but its just a matter of time.

    If you think at some point in the future you may want to sell the music you bought and paid for, then buy it on physical media. In fact, everyone should buy the music on physical media and copy it to the mp3 players, smartphones or computers.

    I would go even further and say, if you buy a MP3 file from an online digital music store then they should send you a physical copy on disk. Although it will cost you more, the fact that you have a physical item that has value, that can be resold should be worth the extra expense.

  26. Crisp

    Artists don't make their money from media.

    They make it from performing. An artist will make a lot more money playing to a packed venue than they ever will selling albums.

    1. Charles 9

      Assuming you pack the venue...

      ...and the manager doesn't take too big of a cut. But for the average garage band, touring can be a real chore. Not to mention the fuel expenses...

      1. Mad Mike
        Unhappy

        A band is a business

        Yes, assuming you pack the venue, you will make a lot of money. A band is a business just like any other. If you have poor product, you'd expect the business to fair. Poor music leads to no packed venues leads to no business. Pay the manger too much, bad business practice, business (e.g. band) fails. So, bands should realise they are a business and behave as such and stop thinking the world owes them a living. I appreciate touring might be a real chore.......Well, I find getting up in the morning to go to work a real chore, but if I want paying, that's the reality.

        Bands and media companies need to realise the world doesn't owe them a living and that if they want to be successful and earn lots, they need to put the effort in. Some do and have become amazingly successful.

        1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

          Live performance might make money for a small percentage of big acts, but most smaller acts don't. A smaller act headlining their own tour often can't make enough from ticket sales to cover the costs. And if they support a bigger act then they generally get no more then expenses covered, sometimes not even that. Supporting a larger act is viewed as part of the advertising budget as it gets the act seen and heard by a larger audience.

          BITD even big bands made little money from touring, especially in the the UK where there weren't enough large venues. Now there are plenty of arenas to play the economies of scale are different.

          The problem for smaller acts is that so many people assume that there's no need to pay for the music because the band will be rich. So the bands aren't making enough money from selling music and they're certainly not making money from touring. So they have to find other income streams. And we all know fans who claim bands have sold out because of the income streams they are using.

  27. SirDigalot

    I thought...

    That they had sort of 'fixed' this with the old minidiscs and stuff, where you can set a copy bit, but i guess no one uses mindisc anymore :( also i thought they really did not mind you copying it to a tape or other analogue media since it is degraded and changed from the origional. now i do remember making copies of mix tapes and they really were bad (though that is also to do with the crappy twin tape portable thigns we had), and i thought that there was a way on minidisc again to degrade the copy or was this another format? my mind is a bit fuzzy.

    I wish it was sensible to argue that a lossy recording is not the origional, (then again look at some of the 'artists' complaining, i would hardly call their origional great!) but since it can be copied exactly then i guess thats their beef with the whole thing.

    as far as i am concerned now i am keeping all my music and implementing a sound proof room, just in case it is classed as a public performance... maybe i should just cut my ears off and everyone elses too...

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  28. Jan Hargreaves
    WTF?

    So you are not allowed to sell the track because it "necessitates" making a copy.

    Am I being really dumb here or has no one heard of moving a file rather than copying it?

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Yes you are being dumb if you don't realize that the issue is that you can't prove that you have deleted any and all copies of the file before selling it.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hope the music industry win

    And I hope the judgement is reported in huge headlines so much so that it is driven into the heads of your honest purchaser that they are being royally screwed, especially those who buy e-books.

  30. Richard 15

    I have been saying for years that they need to establish a legal method of transfer in order to

    keep the principle of "first sale" alive. What we are now paying for is a perpetual non-transferable

    license when most of think we are actually buying music or books.

    This is one of the main reasons why I have not embraced the ebook concept.

    Right now I can go to a garage sale and buy a used book for a fraction of the cost of a new one,

    even a new ebook version.

    What is needed now is a clearing house for the licenses and a way for people to "release" the

    license they have. Currently ebooks can be "lent" to others and then the ebook self destructs.

    What we need is a way where an owner can De-authorize his copy and then transfer the

    rights to someone else. Said action must be traceable and may not be initiated without the

    owners permission.

    I propose they maintain a clearing house where for a very small fee they implement the transfer. I figure 25 cents would make it very profitable and maintainable. I would prefer this actually be maintained by a body independent of the copy right holders and in fact that the copyright holders MUST preserve the mechanism or forfeit the rights with the material then entering the commons.

    I believe the odds of this happening are slim at best.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once again, FREETARD SCUM rule this comments page.

    What everyone seems to forget is the difference between right and wrong.

    If I buy a download and copy it onto my MP3 player, my laptop, my phone it is still mine. The moment I let someone else have a copy for their use and still keep my copy, I have deprived the copyright holder of payment for their work. Why shouldn't the copyright holder get paid for the work they have put into the creation!

    Freetards are killing the creative industry so don't whine when there are no new bands releasing music or film studios releasing films as it's just not worth their investment.

    Next time I want to go to a gig, I won't buy a ticket cause I have the right to listen free? WRONG!!!!! I'm not depriving the band of their music, I'm not copying it, so all this crap about not actually stealing something by downloading free is total fucking bullshit! If I want to go and see the band, I expect to have to pay for it, so why not see the pirate downloads in their true light and accept that it is not a moral stance, you are just tight fisted cunts that want something for nothing.

    Pay or don't listen, watch or use software you have not paid for.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RTFA

      This isn't about piracy. This is about the use and resale of material that was legitimately purchased.

    2. Mad Mike

      Calm down dear.

      I think you'll find that nobody or very few on here are defending pirates. I do not defend them, but have gone so far as to say the industry have treated their customers so badly that it's hardly surprising and it's a problem (certainly at current scale) that they've largely brought on themselves through their own actions.

      I don't think anyone on here has an issue with pirates being prosecuted provided the following two things are addressed:-

      1. Media companies are prosecuted for running cartels and excessive profiteering by the DTI/competition commission etc. They have broken laws in the past and escaped prosecution. Why are they different? They've even openly admitted to running cartels which is explicitly against the law.

      2. The law is changed to allow people to legally sell what they have rightly purchased. I'm not talking about copying and selling on. Simply the same process for MP3s as has existed for CDs. You buy the product, finish with it and sell it to someone else. Same with movie content, books etc.

      As to your comments on stealing.....it isn't. It's copyright infringement, which is totally different. Yes, it's morally wrong. However, the law is currently owned by these companies and they choose to prosecute whoever they want and leave themselves above the law. That can't continue and is morally wrong as well.

      As to killing the creative industry......utter rubbish. As has been pointed out earlier, copying has been going on since the compact cassette was released and did the industry die? No. Several bands are also giving their music away for free and making all their money out of merchanise and gigs. Perhaps that the model to go with. Just because your business model has worked in the past, doesn't mean it shouldn't adapt to new times. Maybe the creative industries will start releasing stuff people want to see/listen to rather than the rubbish most of it is today.

      If they don't know their customers well enough to identify the good projects, who's at fault there?

    3. Jonathon Green

      "What everyone seems to forget is the difference between right and wrong."

      Absolutely. How dare these people behave in this way.

      I mean fancy anyone thinking that just because they've paid for something (Itunes download or other legitimately purchased digital format) they have the right to dispose of it as they think fit once they've finished with it. Ridiculous idea, carry on this way and you'll have people believing things they buy actually belong to them...

      1. Mad Mike
        WTF?

        And look who's talking about it.

        The thing I find most amusing is the people showering the world with moral outrage and indignation at copyright violation and the moral right and wrong are the media companies!!! How hysterical is that?

        Sony et al. If you want to see moral wrong, just take a hard look at yourselves. It's amazing how executives of these companies seem to be able to seperate their actions from the actions of the company.

        Sony put DRM on music that knackers peoples equipment en masse without warning or option and legally pretty much gets away with it. Various organisations use Crossley to extort money from people with unproven threats and get away with it. And they think they have the moral high ground. Who are they kidding.

        1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

          "This is about the use and resale of material that was legitimately purchased."

          Really. I think you'll find that the majority of people finding a site offering to sell MP3 files for them would think it was a great way of selling their music files and keeping the files.

          As has been said before if you sold an LP second hand then you were selling the physical object you had paid for. Now maybe you had a cassette copy, but that would not be of the same quality as the LP. However it is simple to copy an MP3 file and keep the original. After all your download is nothing but a copy of the file on the server.

          What is needed is a form of DRM that actually works and can't be cracked (yes I know it's unlikely) but with a method for passing on the rights to another user.

          Freetards can, if they so choose, believe that an MP3 file is theirs to do with as they choose once purchased (or more likely downloaded for free), but it isn't. It's odd that some people seem to realize that it would be illegal to record something from TV and sell it on DVD, but can't see that copying an MP3 file and selling it would be equally illegal.

          Before freetards jump on my use of the word illegal please notice that I didn't say criminal. Criminality and illegality are not always the same thing.

          1. Mad Mike
            Unhappy

            Grease Monkey

            It's really interesting how you seperate yourself from everyone else. Obviously, you know it's wrong and therefore don't do it. However, you 'think the majority of people finding a site offering to sell MP3 files for them woudl think it was a great way of selling their music files and keeping the files.' So, you're then judging everyone else (or at least the majority) as being freetards looking for a quick buck!! I think you need to come down off your pedestal and realise that most people are probably just like you. I doubt you have a particularly high set of morals and are therefore somehow 'special'.

            As I've said before, I would encourage everyone to be morally and legally correct and do things properly. But then, I would also say the media companies should have been prosecuted many times for their flagrant breaches of the law. Unfortunately, when you treat one group (media companies) differently and preferentially than another (customers and normal Joes), then you can't really take the moral high ground. The law requires everyone to be treated the same and when this doesn't happen, there is no moral authority available to play the moral card. This is where media companies are. Yes, pirates are morally wrong, but so are the media companies for many of their actions. Either prosecute both or prosecute neither. But, prosecuting only one is as morally wrong as being a pirate.

          2. Charles 9

            What man can do, man can undo.

            "What is needed is a form of DRM that actually works and can't be cracked (yes I know it's unlikely) but with a method for passing on the rights to another user."

            Unlikely. As far as we know, any computer process CAN be reversed (a true one-way function would prove P != NP, you see, and we don't know that, yet), so using that as a basis, we can logically conclude that there is a fair possibility that any form of protection devised (and DRM is a form of protection) can be undone. IOW, a bulletproof DRM would have greater implications than simply proof of purchase.

    4. JP19

      Why shouldn't the copyright holder get paid for the work they have put into the creation!

      Good question, and I'll ask why should they?

      The answer is because if they didn't get paid something far fewer of them would do the work and we the 'consumers' wouldn't have much to listen to, watch or read.

      And so we have copyright, not for the benefit of artists and producers but for the benefit of rest of us who want to have something to consume. The problem is copyright has been so distorted by vested interests and thick or bought politicians it is barely recognizable as something serving its original purpose.

  32. MJI Silver badge

    How about making some decent music?

    Rap - is it music?

    The Xfactor stuff - yuk

    There are a few decent bands around now but not many.

    My purchases are of 1970s and 80s rock and the occasional modern release eg Def Leppard in 2008

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      There is plenty of decent music around if you can be bothered to look for it. Indeed since there has been a recording industry there has always been more manufactured crap than quality music. You only need to look at the current run of Top of the Pops 1977 to see that.

      Where your argument really falls apart is in seemingly making a connection between the rise in copyright infringement and the perceived decline in the quality of music. "Classic" music is much more available now than it ever has been. Wind back twenty years and imagine trying to buy older albums in your local record/CD shop. Most of it was out of stock and much out of print. These days it's nearly all there on your favourite online MP3 store. Yes I remember fifteen or twenty years ago having to go to used vinyl shops to get stuff that had never come out on CD or was NLA new. But why do you need to buy "used" MP3 files when the music is available to buy from the outlet of your choice? The argument collapses right there.

      Oh and Def Leppard? FFS! They are a classic example of a band who made a few successful albums in their own style and then, when their star began to wane started to jump on any suitable band wagon. I remember Joe Elliot once saying that he wanted to work hard on a new album, even though he knew that at their (then) level of success they could put out an hour of goat farts an the album would still sell. It wasn't too long after that they decided to go down the goat farts route.

      1. Vic

        > Where your argument really falls apart is in seemingly making a

        > connection between the rise in copyright infringement and the

        > perceived decline in the quality of music.

        I'm not sure the OP actually made that connection.

        I, however, will make a connection between the utter shite being bandied around pervasively and the decline in the music companies' income. I hardly ever buy music any more - I'm not copying it, either; I just don't acquire new music because there is so very little I will listen to.

        The problem we all have is the assertion that this drop-off in profits is down to unlawful activity. It is my contention that this is not the reason - but we're still subject to stupid new laws (or proposals for laws, at any rate).

        Vic.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          RE Vic

          Yes this is it - make music and we will buy it

          When most stuff I buy is 70s and 80s and only 1 really recent - this is a worry.

          1. Vic

            > make music and we will buy it

            I doubt you would.

            I was actually a professional guitarist at the end of the '80s. "Professional" in that my music was my sole income.

            I nearly starved...

            Vic.

            1. Mad Mike
              Thumb Down

              Proving my point.

              So, you say it was late 80s before significant computer based MP3 sharing was occuring. So, we're talking about mostly tape recording if anything. So, it must have been people nicking your music and not paying for it? Perhaps, it was actually your music that wasn't popular for whatever reason? Maybe as a person running a business (effectively), you failed to provide the public with what they wanted? So, therefore, you got no money. That's a failed business, not piracy. There were plenty of other musicians who did make it big and earn a lot of money at the time, so was the piracy specifically against you? Maybe, you just need to realise the world doesn't owe you a living and maybe people didn't buy your music because they didn't like it?

              1. Vic

                Re: Proving my point.

                Who are you talking to? Me?

                > So, you say it was late 80s before significant computer based MP3 sharing was occuring.

                I don't see anyone saying anything like that in the thread. Please elucidate.

                > So, it must have been people nicking your music and not paying for it?

                No. No-one nicked anything. I didn't make much money because I was - and remain - crap at playing the guitar.

                I don't really see why you're turning this into some sort of "statement"; I was merely commenting on someone else's post that if I made music, people would buy it. They won't, because I'm a good code monkey but a crap musician.

                Vic.

                1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

                  MJI if the music you buy is mostly seventies or eighties that tells us more about your musical taste than it does the state of modern music.

                  I still listen to some of the stuff I did when I was a lad, but I also listen to modern stuff. I buy very little old music because I own most of the stuff I want already. However very little I listen to is music that has been in the charts. And therein lies a problem I see among a lot of my friends. They listen mostly to music from their formative years, particularly their teens and early twenties, very little of which was in the charts. They then compare this music to modern chart music. Why are they no longer willing to search out music they like, but expect it to come to them? Are they too lazy to search out the music? Do they no longer care enough about music to search it out? Or is it that the real reason is that they want to try to hold onto their youth?

                  When it comes to the music industry's falling income I don't think the quality of music plays a part. I suspect it's much simpler financial reasons. Consider that thirty years ago a seven inch single cost more than a single track download does today. Yes you have to factor in the retailers margins and manufacturing and transport, but really how much did it cost to transport a 7" single? Then consider thirty years worth of inflation, how much would 79p today have been worth in 1982? In terms of average earning that would be below 20p. And there we have the music industries problem. I don't think music is underpriced today, I think it was overpriced BITD. Partly because the industry had more control of the market than it does today. The reason for falling incomes in the industry is not piracy, it is that they have been forced into the real financial world rather than being able to control their own incomes. Of course they can't say that. Any attempt to push prices up to the levels they were in the seventies or eighties would fail.

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Def Lep

        Still better than a lot of pap out now, I obtained the CD as FLAC, thought pretty good, so bought the CD.

      3. MJI Silver badge

        Poorer older music

        There has always been a lot.

        To me New Romantic was pap

  33. Purlieu

    Sony

    ... didn't just put DRM on stuff they installed ROOTKIT into people's computers FFS and without warning or permission, and justified it by saying that it was to protect the integrity of their product and enhance user listening experience etc etc

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Rootkit

      And didn't Sony Japan sit on them from a great height for it?

      Sony music - even Sony fans hate them

  34. SleepyJohn
    Go

    Is this a trailer for a new Monty Python Series?

    I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this ludicrous situation. How much longer is the greedy, lazy and cretinous entertainment industry going to be allowed to plod along with a red flag in front of the rolling digital revolution before we all get so pissed off that we just slam down the throttle and run over them? I think they have had long enough now to adjust to the fact that it is no longer the nineteen fifties.

    I have just stood and watched a hedgehog snuffling in my garden and it seems to me that even he has a greater grasp of reality than these people. If it is impossible to prevent the copying, streaming and general spread of their products, which it quite clearly is, then it should not take a genius in business studies to figure that the way to make money is to utilise that free distribution rather than futilely attempt to stamp on it, in the process so pissing off your customers that they will do anything to thwart you.

    Here is a simple thought: whenever I turn on my TV there is a small, unobtrusive grey logo at the top right of the screen telling me which channel I am viewing. It doesn't irritate me, but I sort of constantly notice it. If that was on a movie then it seems to me that certain large companies might pay quite a lot of money to have their logo there, the precise sum being directly proportional to the number of people viewing it. I repeat, the number of people viewing it, not the number who have bought it. But that's probably too simple, too rational, and will not give them the sadistic pleasure of extorting their defenceless customers, which is now clearly an ingrained habit.

    They can hardly claim there is no precedent on the internet for making oodles of money out of giving valuable things away for free. I would love to see someone calculate what it would have cost in time and money, back in the nineteen fifties, to research the information that Google will now give us for free in about 2 milliseconds. And Google is hardly on the bones of its arse, is it?

    1. Mad Mike
      Thumb Up

      Absolutely.

      SleepyJohn; you're saying what loads of people have been saying for so long and are absolutely correct. Their business model has become outmoded through technology. Rather than taking it on the chin and changing their model (as any business has to do), they are just sitting tight and insisting everything else has to change.

      It's a bit like the building industry insisting modern building techniques are wrong and everyone should build with wattle and daub. The building industry has moved on with technology and so has just about every other industry. Media though.....no. Has to stay the same. Hopefully, they will go the way of all species that don't adapt, but as long as they have the money, they can buy the law and prevent that glorious day.

  35. Purlieu

    The story so far

    Basically what has happened is that the media industry spent years complaining that digital downloding would destroy the world, much in the same way that cassettes did, VHS did, etc.

    Then they suddenly realised that they could sell this stuff for as much as or more than the physical version, and at almost zero scale cost. Talk about a wet dream coming true.

    So they set up their ditribution channels (via iTunes, Amazon, etc) and the cash started rolling in. What they didn't do was allow for the buyer to get tired of his purchase and want to resell it.

    Well they wouldn't, would they. Then they get all itchy when someone starts up a second-hand mp3 website. OMG the world will end. But again, it won't. Just like VHS saved Hollywood, downloads will save the music industry.

    But it's only a matter of time before the average buyer realised that they have lost their money at point of sale by buying something with zero resale value. Not long to wait, really. Then the shit/fan thing happens.

    And the music industry will blame it on everything but themselves (again). Hey ho.

    1. david wilson

      >>"Basically what has happened is that the media industry spent years complaining that digital downloding would destroy the world, much in the same way that cassettes did, VHS did, etc."

      Surely, that's what any pressure group would do - focus on the worst case and try to do what they could to prevent it (however unlikely they might think it) or get the best advantage in general?

      You'd *expect* a worst-case scenario irrespective of how much less worse the likeliest outcome would be, so seeing exaggeration doesn't prove that they have no case, simply that you can't believe everything they say, which is the case in any number of other situations with any number of other lobbying groups.

      >>"But it's only a matter of time before the average buyer realised that they have lost their money at point of sale by buying something with zero resale value. Not long to wait, really. Then the shit/fan thing happens."

      Well, it only really hits the fan if enough people care.

      I think most people I know, and I'd *guess* the 'average buyer' in general tends not to sell *CDs* they've bought, or at least doesn't factor resale in to purchasing decisions even if logically they maybe should do, and for people like that, not currently being able to resell MP3s probably isn't much of an issue.

      >>"Well they wouldn't, would they. Then they get all itchy when someone starts up a second-hand mp3 website. OMG the world will end. But again, it won't. Just like VHS saved Hollywood, downloads will save the music industry."

      I guess a lot depends what mechanisms there are to stop the 'same' track being sold/swapped multiple times by someone.

      If there was indelible watermarking in the MP3s *and* all resale sites shared watermarking information, such 'duplication' could be detected, but otherwise it's not obvious how it could be stopped.

      eg if I buy a track from Amazon that isn't one of the fraction which is explicitly-labelled and trackable to me, that file is apparently identical to the same track bought by anyone else. There's nothing obviously in the track to stop me giving a copy to 20 mates, and all of us selling it or trading it for something else, or for someone I trade it to doing that.

      Unless, for instance, I was only allowed to resell Amazon tracks via an Amazon-run marketplace, or some other linked marketplace which knew knew how many copies I had bought and had a right to re-sell, and could updates record of how many I owned if I sold, bought, or traded tracks.

      As far as I can see, only Amazon could do the record-keeping without meaningfully infringing my privacy (after all, they already know I'd bought a copy).

      But would they want to, if it made it easy for me to buy a few tracks and then keep trading them for different tracks while keeping copies of everything to play?

      Without some reliable method of verifying my right-to-sell, few of which methods I might be keen on from a privacy point of view, the situation would seem an objectively worse one for the record company than CDs, since though I can give away copies of ripped tracks from CDs to people, and keep tracks I've ripped after selling the original CD, I can at least only sell the original CD once.

      Also, the CD resale value at any time is likely to be lower than the new value at that time due to many people preferring a new CD (even if in reality they're buying exactly the same data if they buy a used one instead).

      Not only that, but if selling online, postage costs (and commissions) put a basic natural minimum cost and delay on a transaction which does discourage people from repeatedly buying and selling CDs while keeping the tracks.

      The record companies may well be hyping up the danger compared to what is *likely* to happen, but the worst-case scenario does seem to be somewhat worse than the CD situation, or previous analogue-copying ones.

      Possibly there are technical methods to allow the reliable verification of right-to sell and enable the transfer of that right which prevent it being duplicated and which don't infringe privacy, putting MP3s on the same footing as CDs

      If so, it'd be interesting to see what the music companies' arguments against MP3 trading would be *then*.

  36. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    One thing that worries me about so many freetards is that they cling to a belief that in getting their music for free they are somehow protesting against greedy labels and publishers. Many want to believe that the bands are all lovely people who would give all their music away free if only they could. Worse still some even seem to think they are somehow supporting the bands by protesting against these companies.

    Wake up call, people. The bands are part of the system. They could, if they wanted, remain unsigned, play local pubs and clubs and punt their music over the internet for free. They don't. Why not? Is it because, through their natural altruism, they want to bring their music to as wide an audience as possible and spread love and happiness? Or is it because they want to make as much money as possible? It's most often the latter and there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money.

    We're often being told about the way the internet frees bands from record companies. We've all heard about the unsigned bands who've made the charts simply by releasing music from their bedrooms through Myspace or Facebook. And we've all heard about those acts already being signed and the whole thing being a marketing ploy on the part of the industry.

    If you don't like the industry then you don't like the bands. They are part of the industry. Nobody is making them sign up to the labels. I know plenty of unsigned musicians who make a living without being a part of that particular industry.

  37. MJI Silver badge

    Bands

    I knew a few local bands, and playing music was always their number one priority.

    Live gigs ect.

    They reall wanted a deal but could not get the right ones, but music was always first not being a rock star.

    1. Mad Mike
      Meh

      Bit of both

      I'm sure there are plenty of bands who just want to make music. I'm sure there are plenty who just want the lifestyle and I'm sure there are plenty who just want the money. That's all their choice and that's fine. It's interesting that a lot of bands/artists complain about the music companies taking all their money until they have enough profile to start dictating the situation. So, there are plenty who do complain about the music companies, but normally only after they've made it. To do it at the time, would be asking to be dropped and loose everything. So, I've heard plenty of big stars lament their treatment by the music industry.

      If the bands use music companies to get on, they are both a victim of the companies and part of the problem. However, maybe that's something they have to do initially to get on. Like working for an employer you don't like. Most people have experienced that. Would like to tell them to shove it, but you can't, so you stick it out with a bad taste in your mouth.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Record Companies

        Neither good local band could get a suitable deal, they were offered quite restrictive ones but decided not to.

        That said some demos appeared on vinyl a couple of years ago.

  38. SleepyJohn
    Pirate

    Media Industry Search Engine challenges Google!!

    Welcome to RAQUETS, the great new alternative to Google. We promise to bat your searches back and forth until you have no money left. Enter your search term and have your credit card ready!

    - You have entered 9 words. The cost of your query will be $99.99. Read these conditions then call a premium number on your cellphone at peak time and wait a while if you do not want to continue; otherwise your credit card will be automatically charged shortly after you have finished reading:

    1 - Your search term, the displayed results, all your family photos and any rectangles with rounded corners will become the Intellectual Property of Bagman Extortion Racquets inc. If you look at them we will sue you.

    2 - Your eyes will be tracked as you read the results. If you want to read them again you will be charged again, and again for successive views of all or any part of the results. If you remember results we will sue you.

    3 - You are not permitted to read results aloud where others might overhear, or leave them on the screen facing a window. If you do we will sue you.

    4 - You are not permitted to copy results to your hard drive or a usb stick or the cloud or your brain without paying Bagman Extortion Racquets an extra fee. If you don't cough up we will sue you.

    5 - Failure to comply with any of the above will result in immediate disembowelment without anaesthetic, together with a fine of $666 for each of the bits and bytes involved. We will not tolerate online piracy. Piracy is theft. Piracy is evil. If we run short of caviar in our penthouse garrets we will sue you. Stop Online Pirac ...

    8 - You have now exceeded the time limit for this search. Your credit card will be charged again. Our legal advisors (Fuckyou Fuckwit & Payme) have noted where your children go to school. This is to ensure that our service is not abused by pirates. If your children sing Happy Birthday we will sue you.

    9 - You have failed to cancel the search so your credit card will be charged again. To stop further automatic payments every 13 seconds go to a library computer in a nearby town, load this page and press CANCEL (Windows Vista only, 0200-0215 local time). If you succeed we will sue you.

    -------- Be a HIT MAN with RACQUETS! --- --- HIT the online PIRATES!! --------

    RAQUETS had three searches on its very first day, two from bored cats and one from a very fat Bluebottle. Analysts warn Google to beware of this ground-breaking, polished commercial challenge to its airy-fairy hippy business model. The Media Industry warns that if the human race continues to communicate amongst itself without paying the MAFIAA extortion money it will do its damnedest to prove the Mayans right. And finally a Mayan pops up and says that a more accurate analysis shows that only the Media Industry will end in 2012. So the rest of us will live even more happily ever after than we could possibly have hoped to.

  39. doveman
    WTF?

    Reminds me of

    the UK case where (I'm a bit vague on the details now) the judge ruled that a console made a copy of intellectual property (artwork, sound) when a console played a game, as the IP was being copied from the disc/RAM to the screen. I believe the defendant had been modding consoles, so he was charged with facilitating copyright infringement or something like that.

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