Note: This article is now several years old, and has not been updated.
This "long rant," as a reader on Slashdot put it, used to be on the home page. We have decided to make a simpler home page, and move the long piece here.
The recording industry has
created new copy protected discs that will not play in a computer. They have
also shut down the file trading service, Napster, and seek to stop all online
file trading. These actions violate our rights. In addition to these
things, the retail price of compact discs continues to skyrocket as the cost to
manufacture discs comes down. We urge all consumers to refrain from purchasing
compact discs to punish the recording industry for their actions.
New discs with copy protection schemes are intended to prevent the music
on them from being offered to users of file trading web sites. To achieve
this end, the discs will not play in a computer. Frequently, these discs
will not play in a DVD player, a car stereo, or an older CD player either.
This keeps us from listening to music we paid for when and where we want
to. Take for example, a commuter on a bus or a subway train. This commuter
puts a new CD by his or her favorite artist into a laptop, and it won't play!
This is a direct violation of our personal property rights. We have the
right to use our personal property, such as a disc we paid for, as we choose
to. It is also not possible to make a custom mix of favorite songs from personally
owned CDs, or to copy them to a personal MP3 player when these protection schemes are
used without extreme difficulty. This violates our right
to fair use of copyrighted materials.
Many of us use our computers as our only CD player. If a disc will not play in a computer, It is useless, especially to the aforementioned commuter. It is certainly not worth paying up to twenty dollars for something it cost them under one dollar to manufacture. An example of these frequently unplayable discs is Charley Pride - A Tribute to Jim Reeves published by Music City Records. It is encoded with a protection scheme called mediacloq made by Sunncomm. In addition Music City Records, Sunncomm's website lists BMG, Fahrenheit Records, and Sunbird Records as their customers. Celine Dion's CD, A New Day Has Come causes computers to crash. It also has permanently damaged some CD-Rom drives by corrupting their firmware. If this disc is placed in a Macintosh Computer, it cannot be removed without the help of a professional service technician. This disc published by Epic/Sony contains a protection scheme called Key2Audio. Another copy protection scheme is called Cactus Data Shield. It was made by Midbar Tech, which was recently acquired by Macrovision Corporation.
There are ways to get around
these protections, but they are illegal, thanks to the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), a bad law paid for by corporate lobbyists that severely limits free speech
and virtually eliminates fair use. Among other things, the DMCA makes
circumvention of copy protection illegal. It makes no exceptions for fair
use, research, or any other reason. The DMCA is trampling over free speech
and freedom of the press. Thanks to this law, a Russian programmer named
Dmitry Sklyarov was imprisoned for giving a speech at a conference. He works for
a company called ElcomSoft, who developed a program to allow an Adobe Ebook to
be backed up, or read aloud to the blind. This constituted circumvention, a new
crime created by the DMCA. All Dmitry did was talk about this software package.
There are many other examples too numerous to list here of how freedom of
speech and freedom of the press have been curtailed. Go to the links page to read more about the harm this law has
done.
File trading is fair use. As long as file traders are not selling the
tracks they rip from their own CDs, or selling burned copies of their CDs,
they are not pirates.
File trading gives artists, and the
recording industry free
promotion. While
Napster was online, CD sales were
up.
Artists like Metallica's Lars Ulrich, and rapper Dr. Dre, who claimed that
they were being robbed by Napster did not realize that they were being given
a gift. They got more exposure than radio or any other promotion could buy,
free of charge, and their new fans who discovered them online did purchase
CDs. Calling their fans thieves cost them. They have a lot fewer people
purchasing their recordings now. They forgot that fans are the difference
between a successful artist and a starving artist.
File trading gives us a chance to try before we buy. This is something record stores no longer do. It trading gives us access to rare and out of print music we cannot find elsewhere. File trading, like calling in requests to radio stations in the past, gives us the songs we want to hear on demand. Since radio today is dominated by giant conglomerates like Clear Channel, and does not deviate from its very limited play lists, we the music fans need file trading, and so does the music industry.
It is important
that we remind our legislators that they are the servants of the people,
not tools for the corporations. Some of them may have only misunderstood
the issues, but others are at the beck and call of corporate donors. It was
they who passed the DMCA, and took copyright law way beyond its original
intent at the behest of the recording industry and Hollywood. We need to
write to them, (see links page) and let them know what we, the people think.
When they won't listen, we can vote them out of office.
One Senator who has made it clear that he is a tool of the corporations is
Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D) of South Carolina. He has been dubbed, "The Senator
from Disney." His Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA),
co-sponsored by Alaska's Ted Stevens (R), would go much further than the
DMCA in violating our rights. It would force electronics and computer manufacturers
to build copy protection into everything they make including, but not limited
to, TVs, VCRs, CD players, DVD players, radios, and anything else that can
play any kind of media. Go to our links page to read the Electronic Frontier
Foundation's letter to these two Senators about the SSSCA. Initial reaction
to this bill was so negative, that he has changed its name, hoping to slip
it past. It is now the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion
Act (CBDTPA ). Its positive sounding name is a deliberate attempt to fool
his fellow Senators. Hollywood lobbyists are also trying to get the house
to take up this odious proposal
Not all legislators have sold out to the corporations. An example of
one who has not sold out is Representative Rick Boucher(D) of Virginia, a
consumer advocate who supports fair use. We invite everyone to read the article he wrote for
news.com, and an article about legislation he
has proposed to protect fair use.
A few people have expressed concern that this boycott may harm labels and
artists unaffiliated with the RIAA, who do not engage in these practices, and
find them as objectionable as we do. Any independent artists and independent
labels who wish to be exempt from this boycott may send a pledge that they do
not, and will not engage in the practices listed above. We will print it on our reader
comments page. Send all correspondence to:
To sum it all up, the recording industry needs to reform itself. Our boycott will end when they meet these demands.
Stop selling music at such an obscene mark up.
It costs less than a dollar to press a disc. When CDs were new, they cost
twice as much as LPs and cassettes. The industry claimed that the cost
to produce this new format was high, and promised that as their
costs came down, so would retail prices. This price drop never occurred. In
stores where vinyl records and cassettes are still sold, they are priced lower
than CDs, even though they cost more to manufacture. A movie on DVD frequently sells for less than its
soundtrack on CD. The
industry has colluded to fix prices, and they continue to skyrocket. In many
US markets, CDs cost twenty dollars. In many countries, CDs cost even more. For
example in Iceland, a CD can cost 2500kr, equal to 29.50 in US dollars. This is unacceptable.
Stop using protection schemes.
Using them denies us our fair use and personal property rights, and accuses us all of being thieves.
What good is a disc that won't play in a computer if our CD player is a
computer?
Leave file traders alone.
File trading gives artists, and the
recording industry free
promotion. While
Napster was online, CD sales were
up. File trading gives
us a chance to try before we buy. This is something few retailers do any more,
and those who do offer only brief samples of songs.
File trading gives us access to rare and out of print music we cannot find
elsewhere. File trading is the new radio. In the past, we could call in requests
to radio stations, and they would be played. Today, radio is dominated by giant conglomerates like Clear Channel,
and does not deviate from its very limited play lists. Music lovers need
file trading, and so does the music industry.