When you buy a new PC and it comes with an OS the OS disks usually say something like "licensed for sale only with a new PC" etc. This is because it was sold at a special price to the PC mfg for install on shipping machines and not for the retail software channel. Once you buy it, you buy the license. That license is not tied to the equipment. If you wipe the original PC clean, you can install the OS on your new machine.
With regard to the audio CD, just because it is encrypted doesn't mean it is illegal for YOU to copy it. There would have to be a ruling against the 1st sale doctrine first.
Tony
posted on May 18, 2001 05:00:38 AM new
The UK view on Yahoo and Nazi items is here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005039099635089&rtmo=LStdtN7d&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/1/11/ecnyah11.html
posted on May 18, 2001 06:01:45 AM new
adone36- I'm not referring to installing the OS on a new machine, I was referring to selling the older OS disk after you upgrade your OS with a newer version. It is thus far a grey area, but MS has been cancelling auctions under this very situation. One seller in Great Britain has threatened suit against MS for cancelling his auction- we'll see. But the point becomes moot as MS modifies its licensing agreements to basically a rent/lease scheme.
The first sale doctrine is under assult right now due to language in the DMCA. The problem is, you can't copy the CD due to the anti-piracy encryption, and it is illegal to circumvent the encryption.
DeCSS [DeCSS is a program that by-passes anti-piracy CSS software on DVDs] is in the court of appeals as we speak. Not only is it against the law to reverse engineer or create by-pass programs of anti-piracy programs, the lower courts have found posting, communicating or linking to DeCSS is illegal.
A Princeton professor was warned by the RIAA not to discuss a program he developed that by-passes anti-piracy CD encryption under threat of prosecution using the anti-bypass language of the DMCA. The professor cancelled his symposium and presentation of a paper about the by-pass program. As I stated before, making a personal copy is still legal, but the owners are using technology to prevent copying, and have statutory language in the DMCA that makes it illegal to produce a program that by-passes the anti-piracy program. They have used technology and the law to make your right to make personal copies worthless.
First sale doctrine is also under assualt by the media owners by conspiring with media player makers to install chips in the equipment so that media will only be able to be used in certain "region equipment". If you buy a DVD in the US, it will not play on a DVD palyer you purchased in Europe. Some are realizing that encryption is useless and are opting towards the "time bomb" rental method. You rent the media for 30 days, after which it will no longer play unless you send them more money.
The country singers name with the new anti-piracy CD is Charlie Pride, he's been around for a while. Not a huge seller, but good enough for a test. I've heard the anti-piracy program has already been cracked for this CD.
Re Napster: Napster is definately a black market for copyrighted music. Once you have copied a piece of music on your PC and then offer it to anyone who connects is piracy - you are distributing a copyrighted work without a license. Downloading music you haven't paid for is piracy. It is no different than purchasing a single version of Microsoft office and then plugging it into a network and allowing every PC on the network to use and/or copy the application. Having copied music on your PC which you paid for and are not offering it to anyone is not piracy. Once all the copyrighted music is removed from Napster, there will be nothing there to download anyway, uless users start paying. Whether you burn the music onto a CD is not the determining factor of whether you are pirating material. Distributing the material in any form, without a license from the owner is pirating.
I agree that the RIAA is after the large scale pirates. But, the RIAA has hired a Canadian firm to police Napster clones and Gnutella platforms for copyrighted material traders. The RIAA has notified the ISPs of the users IP address. So far, the ISPs that the RIAA have contacted have sent warnings to their customers to cease offering copyrighted material within 24 hours or face disconnection. It works the same as the VERO program at eBay, as both use the language of the DMCA.
Some RIAA members have stated that if they could just keep the piracy below 20% they would be happy. But with the internet, that is unlikely.
BTW, the term ISP has become obsolete since the DMCA was passed. With the new P2P software, every PC connected to the internet is now a server- the PC has become a veritable broadcaster for us with broadband service- it appears we are all IPS.
[ edited by reamond on May 18, 2001 06:08 AM ]
posted on May 18, 2001 08:47:14 AM new
How can it possibly be "illegal" to decode an encryption?? What high court upheld this? How can you legislate that?
As for Napster, the few friends I know who used Napster were rabid audiophiles who had every CD in creation for their favorite artists. Just the sort of people the recording industry should try and alienate. When I asked how the targeting of Napster would affect them, they just ho-hummed and said there were the same type of sources in other countries.
One thing is for certain, this is all heading for a shake out. But a critical point is that a lot of it hinges on the 1st sale doctrine. And as much as the people leading these charges like to predict that it is moribund, so far politicians have shown no eagerness to do away with it or regulate the internet.
I am real curious to see what MS does. All the industry trade papers say they were amazed at the backlash to the new schemes.
Tony
posted on May 18, 2001 09:28:17 AM new
adone- There is an appeal going on right now, not for creating the bypass code, but for just posting a link to the code !! The DMCA has the language that clearly makes it illegal to creat code used to bypass anti-piracy encryption on media and to dessiminate the code.
The site that was sued is 2600.com. 2600.com lost the case at the trial level. They were being sued by the motion picture industry associations.
This development is already an assualt on fair use, which allowed a buyer to make a backup copy of his purchased media.
However, the media producers got the language into the DMCA to make it illegal to reverse engineer or otherwise produce code that will by pass anti-piracy encryption.
As far as first sale, the producers will get around that by not "selling" you the media, but only renting/leasing the media to you, and re-sale by contract [ a la shrink wrap contract or encryption] will prohibit the sale of the item. MicroSoft has already announced doing this with its business customers.
posted on May 18, 2001 09:38:15 AM newThe country singers name with the new anti-piracy CD is Charlie Pride, he's been around for a while. Not a huge seller, but good enough for a test. I've heard the anti-piracy program has already been cracked for this CD.
*waves hand* Hello!! I already stated I know how to crack the bloody thing!!
Besides, as I stated before, the RIAA hasn't learned of the European Problem with Encryption. And considering how our society today is so Lawsuit Happy, I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie Pride and his label is slapped with a Class-Action Lawsuit for promotion and selling Defective Goods!!
I agree that the RIAA is after the large scale pirates. But, the RIAA has hired a Canadian firm to police Napster clones and Gnutella platforms for copyrighted material traders. The RIAA has notified the ISPs of the users IP address. So far, the ISPs that the RIAA have contacted have sent warnings to their customers to cease offering copyrighted material within 24 hours or face disconnection. It works the same as the VERO program at eBay, as both use the language of the DMCA.
With technology today, it's dang near impossible to get everyone disconnected.
Right now, i'm using a proxy server (i'm sure the Moderators on AW can confirm this if they compare my earlier posting histories). How hard is it for the RIAA to get my IP, only thing is, i'm piggybacking thru 5 different servers?
A Princeton professor was warned by the RIAA not to discuss a program he developed that by-passes anti-piracy CD encryption under threat of prosecution using the anti-bypass language of the DMCA. The professor cancelled his symposium and presentation of a paper about the by-pass program.
Doesn't anyone smell "Right Supression" of the Freedom of Speech in this?
Some RIAA members have stated that if they could just keep the piracy below 20% they would be happy. But with the internet, that is unlikely.
The MAIN reason why people "pirate" as you state is because of High CD Prices and the abhorant system of getting music.
Singles are virtually an oversight. Cassettes and VHS are systematiclly dying out as we speak. The push now is for CD's and DVD.
The music industry trade group also said 633 CD-R burners had been seized over the course of the year, with a manufacturing capacity of more than 9.5 million counterfeit discs annually, representing a potential loss of $150 million in revenues to the music business.
"Potential" being the key word here. It's like saying that the Police Seized 15 Kilo's of Cocaine worth Half a Million...that is, unless you open the packages, and divy it up into little packets and sell them for $50 a pop.
Plus, their is a little "Fuzzy Math" in this paragraph, as I've partially revealed in my earlier post.
:\\\\\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
posted on May 18, 2001 10:30:02 AM new
I just did a search on DeCSS to find out about the latest info on the ruling against 2600 magazine. There are millions of links explaining the encryption and exactly how it works and the DeCSS program. There are even sites which expalin in detail 42 ways to disseminate the DeCSS code. It seems since the ruling (which is under appeal) thousands of sites in other countries have sprung up in protest saying DeCSS is legal here, download now!
One of the major reasons DeCSS was developed was to allow DVD to be transportable across ALL OS. CSS circumvents the creation of an "open std" DVD so the Linux crowd is at war with it.
Other cute tidbits: CSS can be used to FORCE you to watch a commercial, etc. The movie industry claims they are only interested in commercial pirates because it is not economically feasible for the avg person to pirate because the movie must be played from a hard disk (9+ gigs of space). Are these people for real? The cost of storage is plummeting and recordable DVD's will come down in price. Soon the avg guy will be the "pirate".
And for another laugh, the decrypt existed way before the release of the protected material.
Tony
posted on May 18, 2001 11:19:06 AM new
For you folks who have been around AW for awhile, you know that I have been carrying on a "heated" discussion with eBay for several months about their lack of interest in dealing with videotape bootleggers and pirates on their venue.
I just want to say "thanks" to you guys for such an interesting, informative and non-adversarial thread about copyright issues.
posted on May 18, 2001 12:05:07 PM new
Slightly off-topic, but I recently read an interesting science fiction novel called "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling. It was set in the near future, after the almost total collapse of the U.S. economy. What caused the collapse? Well, it seems that the Chinese Government started putting downloadable copies of every bit of U.S. software they could get their hands on onto the Internet. Since it was all available for free, the software companies all went belly up at the same time, thereby plunging the economy into a tailspin. And, of course, since it was the Chinese GOVERNMENT doing this, the U.S. couldn't take any action without going to war....
Probable? I don't think so. Possible? Hmmmmm....
Barry
---
The opinions expressed above are for comparison purposes only. Your mileage may vary....
posted on May 18, 2001 07:51:14 PM new
I don't fault intellectual property owners for protecting their rights. But at the same time there has to be some balance of rights between the owners and consumers.
I guess the real problem is that Congress moves on anything these billion dollar conglomerates want. The interests of people who are not millionaires or billionaires are not represented in Congress.
Silver- You' re right, the DeCSS issue is being couched in First Amendmant rights, but so far the lower court rejected that the code was free speech, and there is case law that offers that not all code is speech. This case will obviously go to the Supremes no matter which side wins the appeal.
I suppose the crux of the matter is how to protect intellectual property rights and maintain fair use copying and transfering media to other formats. The Napster and Gnutella models I think are a real threat to IP producers. With the amount of money involved, the IP producers can not set on their hands.
It will also be interesting to see what AOL does, now that they have purchased a media company with hoardes of intellectual property. Anybody want to bet that within 2 years AOL is using blocking technology on P2P applications ? It will kill their subscriptions, but AOL blocks a lot of stuff now that their users are unaware of, so perhaps they won't lose many users.
posted on May 18, 2001 10:54:53 PM newSilver- You' re right, the DeCSS issue is being couched in First Amendmant rights, but so far the lower court rejected that the code was free speech, and there is case law that offers that not all code is speech. This case will obviously go to the Supremes no matter which side wins the appeal.
DeCESS?? I was talking about SDMI!!
Besides, there are many sites on the internet that have the actual report that the professor WAS gonna talk about (course, I don't want AW to get into trouble now by posting a link;is it aganst the rules Moderators?). Trust me, it's more of a College Lecture that would put you to sleep than a paper about some code.
I guess the real problem is that Congress moves on anything these billion dollar conglomerates want. The interests of people who are not millionaires or billionaires are not represented in Congress.
Not to step on any toes here, but who "did" we elect back in 2000? Or had stolen, or hijacked, or raped, or bribed....
Anyway, it's all Big Business, SIG's, and the like that run Congress.
BTW, anyone can ship some gas to Hawaii?? I'm taking lowest quotes!!
:\\\\\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
posted on May 19, 2001 07:31:49 AM new
I think Rolex should go after the actual sellers and manufacturesr of the fake Rolex's. That's were the problem is not with E-bay.
posted on May 19, 2001 08:47:06 AM new
reamond [b]I suppose the crux of the matter is how to protect intellectual property rights and maintain fair use copying and
transfering media to other formats. The Napster and Gnutella models I think are a real threat to IP producers. With
the amount of money involved, the IP producers can not set on their hands.
It will also be interesting to see what AOL does, now that they have purchased a media company with hoardes of intellectual property. Anybody want to bet that within 2 years AOL is using blocking technology on P2P
applications ? It will kill their subscriptions, but AOL blocks a lot of stuff now that their users are unaware of, so
perhaps they won't lose many users.[/b]
I'd say wait and watch with AOL. My guess is that is going to be their strength. If the web continues it's growth {I don't think it will}, then AOL will have all it's ducks in line. Property leasing. This will thwart any "community property" thinking and draw the line, if the attorneys and the States agree on laws and definitions
[ edited by Empires on May 19, 2001 12:31 PM ]
