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EMI Says Online File Storage Is Illegal
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Apr 23, 2008 04:36 AM
from the you-will-play-only-what-you-rent-from-us dept.
from the you-will-play-only-what-you-rent-from-us dept.
WiglyWorm writes "MP3tunes CEO Michael Robertson sent out an email to all users of the online music backup and place-shifting service MP3tunes.com, asking them to help publicize EMI's ridiculous and ignorant lawsuit against the company. EMI believes that consumers aren't allowed to store their music files online, and that MP3tunes is violating copyright law by providing a backup service."
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Unfortunately (Score:4, Interesting)
Sadly, in some markets, he's probably correct. I can't speak for America, though I'd assume the Fair Use doctrine would apply, but in the UK I'm fairly certain that it's still, albeit perhaps only technically, illegal [wikipedia.org] (sorry, I couldn't find a more authoritative source) to copy CDs for any purpose, whether for transfer to an iPod for practical purposes or simply as an archival backup.
I'd hazard a guess, insofar as I'd want to try and infer reason in the minds of music executives, that online storage is probably perceived as being equal to distribution via p2p. I hope that, some day, a music company might at least try to employ someone familiar with IT. Presumably it'd save them a little time and money.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the publishers want to have it both ways - at some times to insist on a strict interpretation of traditional copyright, and at others to insist that what you bought is a 'licence' rather than a CD or computer program, and they can restrict you even further than copyright allows.
Parent
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Interesting)
EMI is saying when you upload a file to an on-line site you are lossing posestion of the file and it is entering the possestion of the site you uploaded the file too. It the uploader is still claiming rights to the file then a copy was made. Making an additional copy of the music is a right that only EMI can give. Never mind that all the music upload was not from EMI.
mp3tunes case was that they were not sharing the files, only available to the uploader, and they did nothing with the files except provide backup protection and allow the uploader purchaser access to them.
The lower court has already decided on this in favor of mp3tunes. This was back in March, the item released today was more in the area of a press release.
Then as you say this will boil down to laws not keeping up with the way technology is going. Chances are in most states in the US and most other countries EMI is probably right in the law.
Parent
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Rippling Ramifications (Score:4, Interesting)
This kind of rippling ramification will become ever more common as the legacy duplication and distribution industries get ever more desperate in protecting their obsolote business model from technological progress.
iTunes is illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is this about some obscure difference between online storage and online storage?
Re:iTunes is illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
One makes EMI some money.
One does not.
Inda says EMI is illegal.
Parent
Um, inflammatory title anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
EMI wants to gain access to copies of files that users have on their MP3tunes accounts. Now, I'm assuming that you can't just go in and browse the list of files that a user has, otherwise they'd have shot themselves in the foot by arguing on privacy grounds.
So I'm assuming that EMI came along and said, "We want all the MP3s stored in user X's account." As it's unlikely that any user has an account filled 100% with EMI music, EMI would be given access to a significant amount of music from other labels, without the consent of the copyright holders. Which seems very hypocritical, even if it's legitimised by a court order.
E.M.I,? (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is a sign
Of stupid fools who stand in line
Like
E.M.I
E.M.I
E.M.I --Sex Pistols
There's One Technicality Noone's Posted About... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, almost certainly their backup service is a massive shared folder that all their backup service users have access to. Large shared folder? Multi-user access? Starting to sound a bit more like the loathed P2P the record labels love to hate, isn't it?
Funny note: CAPTCHA word for this post was "AVARICE".
Re:There's One Technicality Noone's Posted About.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Then not only are you an old-fashioned developer, you're a lousy old-fashioned developer with no knowledge of the wider world your software is operating within. Security and legal concerns (especially legal concerns) trump the $0.00078 savings, by your estimated storage price, per copy of "Toxic". This is especially true when the architecture you're discussing would cost more time and money to implement than the safer version, what with the necessity of acoustic fingerprinting or some other technology to make sure that User1's "Britney Spears - Toxic.mp3" is the same as User2's "Toxic - Britney Spears (ub3r h0t ch1ck).mp3" is the same as User3's "251 - BS - TOXIC.mp3".
Please, by all that's holy, tell me you're just over-simplifying for the masses. Actually, don't tell me that, because there's only two options here:
- 1. You're over simplifying a complicated technology, just like the idiots at EMI/SonyBMG/ do to confuse the non-technical people judging a case, or
- 2. You're not even a developer (or are someone who's written a half-dozen PHP scripts for their buddy's website and thinks they're a developer) and are just blowing smoke on this topic.
Either way, this absurd and technically inappropriate answer isn't doing anything except to muddy the waters. Please leave that to the professionals at EMI.Parent
What is online? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I buy a CD and I put it in my PC, I will be able to access it through ssh and thus it is online. So even though nobody else can access it, it is a CD I bought I am not able to put the CD in my machine, because it is connected to the Interwebs.
A file format is neutral (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tough. The pervasive use of automotive vehicles has put a lot of blacksmiths out of business. But would the world really be a better place if we had stuck to using horse drawn carts?
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>"People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago."
Well then, supplement your CDs with sales of MP3 singles. The singles market is going through the roof, and if you provided your customers with a place to buy and download MP3 singles, you'd probably be a popular stop for the teen and 20-something market.
ADJUST to the needs of your customers.
If they are demanding singles, don't hand them CDs.
Give them singles; give them what they want.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
That would actually be a nice model if you could get the *AA onboard.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about the customer wanting old time singles and the people that
print out the plastic and vinyl disks not being willing to provide those.
iTunes is just the resurrection of the single where you could cheaply
buy the music you wanted without out being forced to buy the rest of the
dreck on some one-hit-wonder's album.
iTunes isn't something new. It's a throwback. It's the resurrection of a
product format the industry tried to KILL.
Now brick and mortar vendors are paying for that greed.
They find themselves out of the loop due to how the market fixed itself.
Your supplier's avarice is putting you out of business, not "entitled" teenagers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh how many musicians sell their own music out of their own store?
Please. Music store owners don't make the music they sell; they are a retailer of another person's product.
The smart ones diversify or change to a different product.
How many butchers went out of business when the ability for frozen pre-cut meat came on the market?
Seriously. Look at the number of butchers in your town and then figure out the numbers there were years ago before refrigeration.
People want to listen to the music and are willing to pay for their own copy of that music. The only fact that has changed is that we no longer need the bits of plastic to physically carry the copy.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
What is actually being supplied is the ability to listen to nice noises. The transport layer is irrelevant.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
If people no longer feel the need to shop at brick-and-mortar record stores because they want MP3s rather than CDs (which often force them to buy songs they don't want along with the ones they do), then brick-and-mortar record stores will find staying in business difficult. That doesn't mean you can't make money selling music, just that you have to change your business model -- sell MP3 singles instead of CD albums.
How's iTunes doing? Are they struggling to stay afloat as well, or is business doing fine?
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm not interested in those sweet boybands that some old producer with weird sexual preferences creates one after another, as those can't adapt to such an environment. so, if we get less "music" like that and more of 'underground' one... hey, go for it
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, it's completely disingenuous and completely false that you know all of the commercial music out there, and that out of all of it, non-commercial music would be better than all of it. Basically, it suggests an irrational prejudice against commercial music. I actually don't mean any offence about this; god knows I have a number of irrational prejudices of my own, but bear it in mind: not all commercial music fits that mould.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
if music is created with intent to sell it but fails - is that commercial music ?
if music is created without commercial intent but becomes widely successful commercially - is that commercial music ?
i don't think current 'commercial music' would completely die off - just as with other niches, new business models can and will work. the market will only reshape, and then become more robust (there have been several showcases lately - nin, radiohead etc).
also, one side is the motivation to create, which can adapt, and then there's the insane length of copyright. i think that current piracy is only fueled by the copyright length, as re-selling of the same product for decades only damages its perception (in this case - perceived value of the music) in the eyes of the general public.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I don't care if record stores go out of business, since it's clear that online downloads has won as the successor to the CD format, I do care about copyright. Online distribution without compensating the copyright holder will cause the arts to suffer. Yes, artists are getting ripped off by music companies, that will change as online downloads dramatically decreases the cost of distributing the work to the people. There are already companies that will list you on iTunes while leaving the copyright in your possession. The artists still get compensated in a way they find meaningful. Just because you don't like how they are treated doesn't mean you have the right to give their works away for free, thus removing all revenue they would generate for the work. An artist who finds a way to give their works away for free while still earning money on those works is making the choice, which is well within their rights, but it is NOT within your rights to make that choice for them.
Copyright serves a purpose, yes it's misused, yes the way works is sent out to the masses can be improved, but artists need to know they can earn a living worthy enough to create works. Yes, they can earn a great deal of money playing live shows, but do you honestly realize how hard it is on a person to tour? People have left bands that were earning them millions of dollars because they missed their wives! These are human beings, not some commodity to be used at your discretion.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about people working very hard at off-shore oil platforms? Can we use them? I'm pretty sure that their wage is somewhat lower than the average artist on tour, but they have to do it anyway.
Not to mention the military, far from home months on end. And don't get me started on the average wage here.
So poor artists with their luxury hotel rooms, first-class plane seats, 50 foot long limousines and multi million dollar contracts can't stand tour pressure? Too bad. Makes me cry.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
And what about people working very hard at off-shore oil platforms? Can we use them? I'm pretty sure that their wage is somewhat lower than the average artist on tour, but they have to do it anyway.
Not to mention the military, far from home months on end. And don't get me started on the average wage here.
So poor artists with their luxury hotel rooms, first-class plane seats, 50 foot long limousines and multi million dollar contracts can't stand tour pressure? Too bad. Makes me cry.
So, although the Elite touring groups do have all that cool pampered luxury, the bar for the average touring musician or group is quite a bit below that level.
That doesn't negate your main point, which seems to be "Other fields make sacrifices for the job too, and there is no reason to single out Artists" which I agree with, I might add.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon, you're aren't new here. You must have seen this one copy 'n pasted on every MP3 story?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Interesting)
Live music and self publishers.
The cost of releasing a track has dropped to almost nothing. With an $800 Boss solid-state recording deck and a laptop, we have tools that are an order of magnitude better than whole recording studios from a decade ago.
If the majors had reduced their prices to match the drop in costs, they might have kept a place in the market. As it is, their greed and stupidity means they deserve to die.
Oddly enough though, our band still produces CDs for local fans to buy at gigs, and they sell well despite the tracks being freely available on the web. A little goodwill goes a long way, I suspect.
Parent
DUPE! (Score:5, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 28 2005, @11:49AM [slashdot.org]
Parent
Re:Jumping to conclusions again. (Score:5, Insightful)
The product has become dangerous. We used to buy 12 inch LP's, cut tapes for the car, play them with slides, etc. They have gotten the word out that most of these activities are now a legal liability that can cost you thousands of dollars. My peak piracy days 30 years ago was my peak purchasing days. The average then for the population was 2 LP purchases / year per capita in the USA.
My kids have grown up with iPods and the like. The music prices haven't changed. They have 30 Gig players and you still charge dribble prices for content. If the petrolium industry sold gas like you sell music, we would be arriving with empty 16 gallon tanks and finding the stuff in pretty packages that will fit nicely in your shirt pocket. Alternative fuel is the order of the day just like alternative distribution. The players have changed. The product value has changed. Back catalog is sold at full retail. There is no exchange or upgrade path for worn media. Care to exchange some 8 track tapes and Compact Cassette tapes? I have the full license to play them, but you don't back the license to ensure I am able to enjoy it.
Why is no one buying CDs?
That one is simple. I'm supprised you had to ask, but in no paticular order...
1 The loudness war
2 High prices for little content
3 Competition for the entertainment dollar (pay TV, satelite radio, cell phones, computer games, MP3 players, and others that had no or little presense 30 years ago.)
4 Retaliation for the industry's nukes on student's finances.
5 DRM on CD's makes them incompatible and dangerous to use. I don't keep a list of safe to play CD's. The lack of the Philip's Compact Disc logo on the good bad and ugly makes shopping by the cover very difficult.
6 Free music online (not piracy)
7 Piracy (fueled by all of the above)
8 Restrictions on use... Can't leagaly do the Carson Williams light show legaly unless you buy one of the approved for use licenses from Lights-o-Rama or play it in public at a reception, etc. No weekend DJ'ing for me.
8 ?? did I miss anything?
In summary, the product is compressed, possibly won't be transferrable to the kids iPod, can't be used with a Power Point Slideshow for a wedding, can't be used for the reception dance, super expensive to keep a current library for the above, and is a very expensive legal liability if your kids post it. The product is expensive, may be defective with no recourse, and a legal liability.
"When the kids went to bed, my wife asked me, "Will we be able to keep the house, David?""
I used to work in the VCR and TV repair business. When 20 inch color TV's were $400 and VHS VCR's were $600, people would pay the rate for a couple hours it took to repair them. Now purchase prices are near what a repair used to cost. I kept my house, but found a new line of work. Your field isn't the only one hit by distribution channels providing a cheaper product.
As long as your supplier is stuck on dribbling out product and sitting on back catalog and fighting hard to keep the ASP high, the demand in going to be small. Get used to it.
If your supplier was smart, they could sell compilation CD's of high quality MP3's of back catalog. They would be iPod, Zen, Zune ready, high quality and affordable. I would pay good money for high quality collections of Chicago, Pink Floyd, Styx, Led Zepplin, etc. Toss the restrictions on use and sell collections of 50's, 60's, & 70's dance music with permission to DJ the stuff may sell a bunch more. Many DJ consoles now play MP3's instead of CD's. Make loading the MP3's on the device hard drive legal instead of a legal liability.
See any trend here. Piracy i
Parent
Re:Jumping to conclusions again. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Funny)
It's getting too expensive to find materials. We use only 100% hand-rubbed foreskin.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Funny)
have you tried putting a sign in the window saying "music piracy is a sin. buy from us and save your ticket to heaven." ?
Parent
Parent is probably a copyright violation (Score:4, Informative)
Ironically, the parent post seems to have been ripped from the diary of "Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr" on Kuro5hin, from more than 4 years ago.
See original on Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org]
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes; exactly.
Parent
Re:Well, piracy hurts real people. (Score:5, Funny)
---
As a table dance club owner, My business faces ruin. table dance sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as table dances as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My club has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the club about 12 years ago. It was one of those clubs that play obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My table dance club specialized in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't play sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked table dance club, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase table dances without profanity or violent lyrics. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer table dances. Why is no one buying table dances? Are people not interested in lust? Do people prefer to watch TV, see porn films, read erotic books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three geek world wide is watches porn. On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of porn in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the table dance industry, from dancers, to Djs to table dance club owners my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike porn, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this table dance in the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the table dance industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase (they ticket for the table dance), I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going to copy this to your friends over The Internet, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my club - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If pirates want to steal from the table dance club industry, then the table dance club industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable table dance club will allow you to buy another CD. If the pirates can't buy the table dance tickets to begin with, then they won't be able to watch them over The Internet, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the TIAA outlining my proposal. Suing pirates one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention pirates use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of pirates would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected pirates to
Parent
Re:It probably is illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
They are NOT distributing it !!!
Distribute - verb (used with object), -uted, -uting.
1. to divide and give out in shares; deal out; allot.
2. to disperse through a space or over an area; spread; scatter.
3. to promote, sell, and ship or deliver (an item or line of merchandise) to individual customers, esp. in a specified region or area.
4. to pass out or deliver (mail, newspapers, etc.) to intended recipients.
5. to divide into distinct phases: The process was distributed into three stages.
6. to divide into classes: These plants are distributed into 22 classes.
They are not dividing the file into pieces, nor sharing it amongst any other parties. They are merely serving it back to the original owner when requested. I would imagine that definitions 3 and 4 could apply, but ONLY in the context of the original owner
Your argument is like accusing a bank of "distributing" your money when you pay a cheque into the bank and then use an ATM at a different branch to withdraw the SAME money that BELONGS TO YOU !!!
The way it seems to run, this isn't a common carrier thing that is being run in good faith, like say any random hosting company, this is a company that is advertising that it will distribute copies of music that you bought from someone else to you on any device you want.
There's that word again
That changes the rules, they can't do that without a license, even if you have 5000 copies at home.
When I purchase a CD, fair use says I may make backup copies for my own personal use. It does not dictate that those backup copies MUST remain within my own home, otherwise anyone with a cassette tape in their car that they copied from a CD they own would also be "breaking the law" everytime the car left the driveway.
If I choose to put my copies in a bank, they remain my property, and the bank does not "distribute" them to ANY third party. Likewise if I choose to store my data in an online file storage repository, and said repository ONLY returns that data to me when I supply MY username and password, it is exactly the same thing.
Don't let your shortsightedness blind you to the reality
Parent
Re:It probably is illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Making copies of works that you are not the copyright holder of is illegal, unless you have a license to do so (for example, creative commons license, or the license a record company holds for a musicians work) or unless you don't need a license for other reasons. (There are quite a few reasons. Fair use is one example. See the laws for more)
The points you have listed are not "things you need to know about copyright." but more like "things you need to know about how the old fashioned greedy corporations choose to use copyright in many cases"
Parent
Re:It probably is illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing I see this service do, is offer you a location somewhere else to store your music, so that you can listen to it on a different computer (such as for instance a work-pc).
They don't distribute it to anyone else.
Each user has his/her own password protected account on which they can store their music or any other file-type for that matter, it's not limited to music, I don't think.
So, saying that is illegal, will make for instance Amazon's S3 storage solutions also illegal, or other off-site storage solutions.
Parent