[free-sklyarov] Register: RIAA/Music industry call for stronger content control measures

[Karsten M. Self]

Of interest as background on recording and media industries intentions
WRT copy prevention, fair use elimination, and closing of open standards
for media formats.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22087.html

    Music biz wants tougher DMCA, CPRM 2 to protect copyright
    By [6]Tony Smith
    Posted: 08/10/2001 at 11:08 GMT

    The music industry and its hired muscle, the Recording Industry Ass.
    of America, plans to step up its war against MP3 file sharing and CD
    ripping with campaigns targeting legal, technological and Internet
    access fronts, The Register has learned.

    Last week, the RIAA hosted a secret meeting in Washington DC with the
    heads of major record labels and technology companies, plus leaders of
    other trade bodies and even members of the US senate.

    Present, we are told by sources close to the RIAA, were Intel's Andy
    Grove; IBM's Lou Gerstner; Disney's Michael Eisner; Jack Valenti, head
    of the Motion Picture Ass. of America; International Federation of the
    Phonographic Industry chief Jay Berman; Vivendi Universal's Edgar
    Bronfman; AOL Time-Warner's Gerald Levin; EMI's Ken Berry; Sony's
    Steve Heckler; and from Bertelsmann, Strauss Zelnick.

    Also present were the CEOs of Matsushita and Toshiba, and senators
    Fritz Hollings and Ted Stevens.

    The meeting's keynote was made by RIAA head Hillary Rosen. The drop in
    CD sales can be directly attributed to "the new generation of file
    sapping services", she said, and promised that her organisation would
    pursue the companies behind them vigorously.

    <...>

    Register readers will recall the RIAA's attempts to prevent content
    distribution directly at the hard drive level through its Copyright
    Protection for Removable Media (CPRM) initiative, brought to light by
    The Register [7]late last year. Such was the level of (entirely
    justifiable) anger at the prospect of the music industry saying what
    users can and can't store on their own hard drives, that the plan was
    dropped, seemingly for good.

    But not so. "The failure of the CPRM specification to be applied to
    computer hard drives was a giant step back for the publishing, music
    and entertainment industry," said Rosen, and promised to "develop a
    new specification that accomplishes what CPRM would have done."

    In the meantime, the RIAA will be lobbying "our friends in Washington"
    for tougher laws that target "the hackers and file-sharers
    themselves", so clearly if you thought the controversial Digital
    Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was harsh enough already, think again.

    Indeed, the RIAA wants legislators to block any loophole in that law
    which can allow file-sharers to continue to distribute copyright
    material.

    For example, Rosen wants the protection granted by the DMCA to ISPs
    from the infringing actions of their subscribers to be removed. If the
    RIAA gets its way, ISPs will be as guilty of copyright violation as
    their subscribers. "Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can
    no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law," shrieked Rosen
    righteously.

    Of course, Internet companies will have an even harder job of policing
    copyright infringement than the music industry has, undoubtedly
    leading to mass blocking of file-sharing software, preventing those
    applications' legitimate usage as much as their illegal usage.

    Worryingly, legislation designed to protect computer users' privacy
    are likely to be tackled too. Disney chief Michael Eisner pointed out
    after Rosen's keynote that "privacy laws are our biggest impediment to
    us obtaining our objectives".

    So too is the ongoing ease with which music recorded on today's CDs
    can be ripped onto listeners' hard drives. Rosen pointed out that
    trials of anti-rip technologies, such as Midbar's Cactus and
    Macrovision's SafeAudio have been "extremely successful", though we're
    not as confident as she is of the claim that "no one has been able to
    circumvent them".

    <...>

    We'll leave the last, chilling word to Sony Music Entertainment's
    Steve Heckler: "Once consumers can no longer get free music, they will
    have to buy the music in the formats we choose to put out." You have
    been warned. ®

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?              Home of the brave
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/                    Land of the free
   Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA!  http://www.freesklyarov.org
Geek for Hire                      http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 232 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://frotz.zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/attachments/20011008/f6e5d138/attachment.pgp