Loss of Privacy

A recent survey suggests that many people, particularly gamers, prefer to have physical media, but the makers of games and videos continue to push consumers towards online only content. In the US, the shift has already occurred as gamers there appear to prefer online gaming. With Microsoft claiming that BlueRay is dead, what, exactly, will the future of videos and gaming look like? A recent court ruling has said that we do not own the media we purchase, opening the door to what media producers have been fighting over for several years; we are no longer owners, we are renters.

A federal appeals court said Friday that software makers can use shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses to forbid the transfer or resale of their wares, an apparent gutting of the so-called first-sale doctrine.

The case is Vernor v. Autodesk, in which Timothy Vernor made his living from selling items (including software) on eBay. Vernor had picked up some old copies of AutoCAD from an architect’s office sale, complete with their serial numbers, and he put them up on eBay noting that they were not currently installed on any computer. Sounds legal, right?

But there’s a catch. Autodesk, the software’s developer, forced all users to accept an agreement before using AutoCAD. This agreement made clear that AutoCAD was merely licensed, never sold, and that one’s license was non-transferable. Further, a licensee could not rent, lease, or sell the software to anyone else; you couldn’t even physically transfer the discs out of the Western Hemisphere (!). Finally, if you upgraded to a new version, the old version had to be destroyed.

The copies Vernor picked up at the architect’s sale were old copies that had not been destroyed as required. Vernor believed he was in the clear to resell them, as he had not agreed to any license. But after putting them on eBay, Autodesk repeatedly tried to shut down his sales. Vernor, on the verge of getting banned from eBay, sued Autodesk and asked the court to declare his sales legal.

A federal court did so in 2008, but Autodesk appealed, and today the appeals court reversed that earlier decision. In its view, US “first sale” protections don’t apply to Vernor, because he didn’t buy the software from a legitimate “owner.” That, in turn, is because the architecture firm had only “licensed” the software, and that license could indeed allow a software company to prevent resale, lending, and even removal from the Western Hemisphere.

Very soon, we will have games, all video (movies and television), music, books, etc. be only available online. Because this will be the only available place to purchase these items, there will no longer be a used market for books, movies, or video games. While this appears to be the way things are going, it must be noted that it is a dangerous road to be traveling on. If I do not own a piece of media, it can be changed at any time, whether I want it to or not. A book could be edited. I could be forced to have the director’s copy of a movie when I wanted the theatrical release.

If a company goes bankrupt, I will lose my media because it will have been hosted on their servers. Even if I want to continue to watch the movie, read the book, play the game, I can’t because I never owned it. If I don’t want this to happen, then I will be forced to break the law so that I can continue to enjoy my media as I want.

We have already seen Amazon deleting copies of 1984 people had bought. Music lyrics sites have been shuttered due to legal threats. The same thing happened with guitar tab sites. Most games require online registration and/or activation after you purchase them just so that you can play them. Computer software updates often remove a feature that you used to have. The US border patrol will look at you suspiciously if you have encrypted data partitions on your laptop. You obviously must be a criminal if you do this.

The rights you had as a computer user to do whatever you wish with your computer and the media you purchased is changing. The shift isn’t something that’s going to happen. It’s happening right now. The question now becomes, “Will you fight back, stop purchasing any kind of media, or sit back and let it happen?”



From Boing Boing:

Baboomska mcGeesk sez, “In 1956, Buddy Holly traveled to Nashville to record several songs. One of the songs he recorded was “That’ll Be The Day”, but the producer assigned to his sessions (Owen Bradley) hated rock n’ roll, and did a terrible job on the song. After that, Buddy traveled to New Mexico and re-recorded “That’ll Be The Day” (the version that became the monster hit) at a different studio with his own (superior) arrangement, but according to his contract with Decca, he couldn’t release it, because Decca owned all rights to his music. He decided to call Decca, to try reason with them, and he secretly taped his conversation. They refused to give him the rights to his own song, but he went ahead and violated his contract. Here is the conversation he secretly taped.”

Like many places that sell digital versions of music, iTunes has a short, 30-second clip of a song so that customers can hear a portion of the song before they buy it.  While this has always been categorized under fair use and codified in federal law, the music industry now wants iTunes to pay for that 30 seconds.

At a time when many iTunes shoppers are still fuming over Apple’s first-ever increase in song prices, the demands by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), and other performing-rights groups, would likely lead to more price hikes at iTunes. For many, this would also undoubtedly confirm their perception that those overseeing the music industry are greedy.

“We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money,” said Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters’ Guild of America. “Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I’m not kidding. People think we’re making a fortune off the Web, but it’s a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn’t going to work.”

If you make 9.1 cents off a song sale, then why did you get a check for 2 cents?  I think you’re lying.  And if you can’t make a living off the songs that you write, then either don’t sell it to people who are going to rip you off, write better stuff, or get another job like most people do when they can’t make ends meet.  I’m not going to sit here and cry for you because you can’t make a living on your own.

iTunes sells roughly 500 million songs per year.  That’s close to $45.5 million and they’re still bitching that’s not enough money for them.

These people already get paid when their music is used in a TV show or a movie.  Then, they get some more cash when it’s played over the radio.  They also force businesses to pay if their song is played in said place of business.  Now, they want more money for iTunes to play a clip so that someone will buy the song and they can get paid again for the digital download.  So, that’s 4 ways they already get paid and they still want more.

In many cases, these artists have signed their rights away to the sync and mechanical in the hopes of getting larger performance fees.  Well, they gambled with their own money by signing away the rights.  It’s their fault, not iTunes or the consumer’s.  They are responsible for getting less money and no one else.

What iTunes should do is shorten their clips to 29 seconds, giving a big, digital middle finger the the music industry.  Without the clip, many people won’t know exactly which song they are looking for and will just skip buying the music altogether.  If that’s how the music industry wants to play it, then hopefully they die a quick death and people can get on with the business of sharing again.

Keep biting the hand that feeds you and, eventually, you’re going to get punched in the face.

Do you have babies or toddlers in the house? Do you enjoy filming them singing or dancing to music that’s playing in the background? Well, you’re breaking the law. Warner Music’s automatic takedown list is growing by the day and more and more innocent people are getting trapped in their insidious web.

Of course we can’t show you the videos since they’re, well, censored, but the YouTomb snapshots tell most of the story. One showed a 4 year old lip-syncing to the old Foreigner hit, “Juke Box Hero.” The other apparently showed a baby smacking its lips to the tune of “I Love My Lips”—a song originally sung by a cucumber in an episode of “Veggie Tales.” Both videos are obvious fair uses (these are transformative, noncommercial videos that are not substitutes for the original songs, and there is no plausible market for “licensing” parents before they video their own children singing) and perfectly legal—just like the video of a baby dancing to a Prince song that Universal Music Group took down in 2007.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep saying it until the folks at Warner come to their senses: it’s time to stop the censorship. The Content ID system should be set to flag possible infringing works and then Warner should have a human review those works before they are taken down.

This ridiculousness from the music companies has to stop. These are innocent children and their parents just proud of their little Johnny or Jenny and want to show the world how cute their kids are.