Google sucked into RIAA/P2P fight

vnunet ^

[chance33_98]

Google sucked into RIAA/P2P fight

By Dinah Greek [02-09-2003] Search firm removes links to certain P2P sites following complaint from Kazaa creators

Popular search engine Google has been sucked into the ongoing legal battle between the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and peer-to-peer sites (P2P). Following a court ruling in favour of the RIAA, Sharman Networks, the developers of the popular Kazaa P2P site, sent a letter to Google requesting that it remove links to certain sites.

Fifteen sites are thought to be in breach of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and are said by Sharman Networks to be running unauthorised copies of its Kazaa P2P software.

The letter demanded that Google should "immediately remove or disable all access to the infringing material".

Google has now removed the URLs from its search listings.

In a statement posted at the foot of its search results, Google said: "In response to a complaint we received under the DMCA, we have removed eight result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results."

Google has also posted a link to the letter from Sharman.

It has listed the full URLs of the sites it has removed, of which all but three still worked when tested by vnunet.com.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...you will find that I never came out against making personal backups.

Absolutely no doubt about that.

I think it was the DU references that got some other parties a bit steamed.

All that aside, I think this debate is fascinating in that there are so many angles and variables that make the recording, sale, distrubution, copying and use/misuse of popular music in the digital age an issue unlike any other. The only thing close is PC software and that isn't even really close.

One thing is very clear though. The Big Labels and their attack dogs at the RIAA have misread the market for years and have bungled the entire morass and are now reduced to litigating themselves back into the profits they once enjoyed.

[Jack Wilson]

I think it was the DU references that got some other parties a bit steamed.

Check out this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID45/2810.html#1

[an amused spectator]

He came out against making backups, unequivocably:

"why do you need a backup?" - tJW

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"why do you need a backup?"

You think that is an 'unequicoval' stand against backing up CDs and DVDs?

I took it more as a question from someone who was unaware or uneducated as to the relative frailty of the CD medium. Not a defiant stand against those who wish to duplicate a disc. Taken in the context in which it was asked you can see that he thought a CD to be somewhat indestructible.

Remember when they first came out? Most folks thought you could run them through the dishwasher to clean them. Yikes!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I did. Now I have to bleach out my hard drive.

[an amused spectator]

You think that is an 'unequicoval' stand against backing up CDs and DVDs?

No. I think the succeeding comments do that:

tJW - "The proponents of digital theft apparently feel that someone can spend a year and millions of dollars producing a work and then is only entitled to sell one copy of that work. Or is even that considered greed? Everyone else who wants a free copy is entitled to it?"

tJW - "If anyone could answer the question I posed, why didn't you?"

and after being informed by some, tJW - "I still think these are the same views I would read on Democratic Underground, with the possible exception being that Demo's always ask why CD's cost $15 when they only cost a quarter to make..."

How kind.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

How kind.

No doubt that the DU cracks got some of the juices flowing here...I just don't think that he is making a stand against making backups of product for personal use. If I've misread his comments, I'll admit being in error.

[an amused spectator]

When you buy other products do you get a free copy thrown in with the deal? Like, 2 coffee makers, in case the first one breaks down? DVD's and CD's are among the most durable products you can purchase; why do you need a backup?

Do you stand by this statement, or do you retract it after having been educated?

We'll settle it now, Bloody Sam Roberts - either he stands by it or he retracts it.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

We'll settle it now...either he stands by it or he retracts it.

Zounds rrreasonable to me, Mein Herr.

[Jack Wilson]

I never said anything against making backups for personal use. I just asked why? In every case, the answer was due to accidental mistreatment of the CD. You buy a paperback and leave it out in the rain, I doubt if the bookstore will take it back.

I went on to say that the backup issue is basically moot anyway, since the plastic will be going away (as digital downloads become the norm) and then the real issue is how do you restore your rightfully owned copy when something happens to your computer.

I agree that I have been educated on this thread.

[an amused spectator]

I went on to say that the backup issue is basically moot anyway, since the plastic will be going away (as digital downloads become the norm) and then the real issue is how do you restore your rightfully owned copy when something happens to your computer.

Allow me to educate you some more. "Storage is cheap", the saying goes, and it's getting cheaper by the minute. You'll have the equivalent of the fabled Library of Alexandria on your PC before long. I think you missed my point about the ever-increasing selection of media/information. It's a buyer's market, and the sellers are trying to form a cartel.

It ain't going to work, because many of us can just ignore or minimize the cartel of the sellers. They need to examine the example of the movie It's A Wonderful Life, which became an all-time favorite AFTER it fell out of copyright.

I'm arguing for micropayments, and the continued elevation of society and for progress by making knowledge available at a fair price.

[supercat]

I didn't try real hard but I did ask and I was told there was no manfacturing defect warrenty. Sadly most of them are out of print.

A lot of good stuff goes out of print it seems. What's discouraging is that while improving technology should make it possible to keep works "alive" forever, the prodocers of these works often seem to have little interest in doing so.

A couple decades ago, publishers would print books in runs of 10,000 to 100,000; unless a book sold well enough to justify keeping the plates in storage, printing even one more copy of the book at a later date would be a major undertaking. Likewise with other media.

Now facilities exist to make publication-on-demand reasonably practical. To be sure, mass-production is still (and probably always will be) cheaper than one-off, but one-off price and quality are becoming quite reasonable.

Why, then, are there so many works which are effectively unavailable? It would seem like it should be a fairly simple matter for publishers to set up a system which would make on-demand copies of just about any of their works; the authenticity of such copies could be assured by marking them with a hologram or other such hard-to-counterfeit feature. That way the publisher would get paid, customers would have the books or music they want, and everybody would be happy.

BTW, speaking of "out of print" music, have you ever heard of the Cambridge Buskers?

[Paladin2]

I believe that I now disagree with the concept of content creators being able to transfer the copyright to a holder with all of the same benefits as granted to the creator. Though the creator should benefit during his/her lifetime (and potentially spouse lifetimes
& offspring while they are minors) those full benefits should be obtained only if the copyright is not transferred to another party.

[Paladin2]

My close reading of this thread indicates that there is hostility toward the copyright pimps but little towards the creators. On average there is a bias in favor of the original creative types.

Producers can mean both the creators and those that facilitate the recording/editing/distribution/litigation process. The latter likely have a useful place in life but many fall closer in the spectrum to the copyright grantee pimp side than the truly creative side.

So when you say "producer", to just which end of the spectrum are you referring?

[supercat]

They need to examine the example of the movie It's A Wonderful Life, which became an all-time favorite AFTER it fell out of copyright.

BTW, I've sometimes thought there should be a special class of "restoration copyright" available for people who wish to publish works that have fallen into the public domain. Currently, someone who finds the only existing print of e.g. a movie from 1919 would have no financial incentive to publish the film in unaltered form since they would receive no copyright protection. On the other hand, if they modify the film before publication they can then claim a 95 (possibly more) year copyright on their "restored" version.

I would like to see a short-term "restoration" copyright established which would provide companies that released such films with a limited term of copyright even if their creative or additive contribution was entirely mechanical (e.g. finding the film and making a decent scan). I would further like to see the copyright laws modified so that the only way a company could get a full copyright on a work substantially derived from a public-domain source (e.g. a restoration of a 1919 film) would be to release the original unmodified source under a restoration copyright and--after the restoration copyright expired--make 'best-availalble' copies of the original materials available under some statutory rate schedule (e.g. $10,000/hour for a 35mm film print, $50 each for 8x10 stills, or $250/hour for miniDV copies). Note that the statutory rate schedules would not be intended for individuals seeking movies for their own use, but rather would be intended to allow companies specializing in public-domain distribution to acquire the materials for modest cost. Compared with the costs of packaging and distribution, spending a few thousand dollars to get a good copy of a movie is pretty darned cheap.

[supercat]

But if you read the posts of my detractors carefully, you will see a pattern of hostility toward information/entertainment producers, which isn't really supported by logic, just emotion.

The hostility is directed toward the RIAA, not toward the artists, composers, and songwriters that actually make music.

Actually, much of the hostility toward the RIAA comes not just from the way they handle consumers, but also from the way they handle artists, composers, and songwriters. Historically, the RIAA has thrived on being able to offer aspiring musicians the following choice:

• Sign with us, and we'll see that your music gets lots of radio airplay and is available in major stores. You'll have to buy all your services from our 'company store', and you're unlikely to net much money once our "service costs" are deducted, but on the other hand your music will be heard by many.
• Don't sign with us, and we'll see that your music gets almost no airplay and isn't available in major stores. You'll get to pocket 50% of the MSRP of your tapes/CD's, but since you're unlikely to sell many recordings outside of your own concerts, that won't total up to a lot of money. You may or may not make as much money as if you sign with us, but you almost certainly won't be heard by nearly as many people.

When you consider that the RIAA's business model primarily involved offering musicians that "choice", it should be clear why the RIAA et al are afraid of "file sharing". Although the RIAA's losses from file-sharing may be somewhat offset by the promotional benefits it affords, the loss of good artists to file-sharing (when the artists realize they can promote and distribute their music without the RIAA) would be an unmitigated disaster.

BTW, a few more points to consider:

• Any artist who wishes to produce and sell his/her own original recording of any piece of copyright music may do so at a per-copy royalty rate of 8 cents/song or 1.6 cents/minute, whichever is higher, subject to a few restrictions(*); lower rates may be negotiated, but composers/songwriters must accept the above prices if offered.

  (*) To qualify under the 'compulsory license' provision of the copyright act, the recording must either be devoid of lyrics or have the same lyrics as the original; the melody must be preserved faithfully, though there is some room for stylistic interpretation depending upon instrumentation.

• Radio stations are required to pay licensing fees to composers/songwriters for music they play, but do not pay licensing fees to recording artists or record producers.
• Ratio stations in fact frequently receive indirect payment from record producers to play certain music.
• Web-casters who are not affiliated with broadcast radio stations are required to pay record companies a licensing fee of seven cents per song per listener for the music they play, unless a lower rate is negotiated; note that this is in addition to licensing fees payable to composers/songwriters.
• Web-casters who are affiliated with broadcast radio stations pay a much lower fee to record companies for the music they stream.

The RIAA's hatred of webcasters stems not from fears that people will make copies of the webcast music (often webcasts are at low bit rates and thus not of good quality), but rather that the webcasters aren't under the RIAA's control and may promote non-RIAA music.

The RIAA is right to fear the Internet, but not for the reasons claimed. The real reason to fear the Internet is that it can free artists from the RIAA plantation.

[Prodigal Son]

Man, that kazaa link just caused my system to crash. Defeated my firewall. Put a weird 'google eye' icon on my task bar. What's up with that- do you know?

[Prodigal Son]

But it has the potential to wipe out entire industries

Potential. What does this mean? I mean we've all got the potential to be murderers or rapists or terrorists. Potential? It's what we do that counts.

[Jack Wilson]

They need to examine the example of the movie It's A Wonderful Life, which became an all-time favorite AFTER it fell out of copyright

You better stick with the creative side because you're not gonna make it on the business end, if you make movies that don't become hits until they've gone out of copyright 50 years later. If your strategy is to not copyright them, but just give them away immediately, you will be popular with networks looking for free programming, but again, you won't make any money.

Fortunately for the studios, they have enough profitable movies to make up for the losers. At least the studios that are still in business.

I apologize if you are a successful businessman, but then I doubt if you give your product away.

[Prodigal Son]

You don't think very well. Ever hear of Craftsman?

D'oh! Bart! You don't even need a receipt! Good point.