Page 2: Digital Content, DRM, Copyrights
Digital Content:
The history of the VCR has enabled consumers to record content and replay it in regards to fair use. Without the court decision, consumers may be paying for viewing each and every time. It is the concept of ownership that scares the content conglomerates. When a consumer goes and purchases a music CD and that CD is ripped to an MP3 player that the consumer owns, the content cartels see this as a loss of revenue. In their eyes, the consumer should have purchased the CD and should have purchased a licensed MP3 from a licensed source. Notice that the word legal is not used to describe the source of buying MP3s. What the consumer did is perfectly legal under fair use precedent but other technologies and laws are stripping this sort of basic right away from them.
The current generation of music players is all digital and the MP3 format spawned the entire movement of having a plastic disk to having a digital only file. There are enabling technologies such as the iTunes Music Store that allow consumers to purchase a single song off of an album for about $1. In the past, the content cartel known as the RIAA ensured that they make a hefty profit by bundling a few good songs and other random songs on a CD and charging $20 for it. Even as the media prices fell (CDs became cheaper to make), the price of the music did not change and people noticed. When Apple’s music store hit the market, people flocked to it and the new iPod. Little do most people know that when a consumer purchases something from the iTunes Music Store, the file that they paid for is riddled with Digital Rights Management or DRM for short.
DRM:
DRM is an encompassing term that describes many different technologies. Many are very useful. Encrypting hardware is an example of DRM as is many security devices. Unfortunately, many uses of DRM are known to stifle consumer rights and to prevent the legal copying of copyrighted work. The perfect example of DRM that infringes on fair use today is region locks present in the DVD standard. If a consumer purchases a DVD from Asia, it will not work in an American DVD player. Also, the DVDs that consumers purchase today are encrypted with a technology known as CSS. Content owners have fought against the copying of DVDs, just as they did with the VCR. Remember that creating an archival copy of a work is fair and legal and not allowing consumers to do this basic right is illegal. No consumer group has presented this argument to a court yet and since the media cartels have near endless supplies of money, the American legal system is no place to decide this type of legality anymore.
Copyrights:
The copyright law in America has changed since 1976. The law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted by the Clinton administration and gave content owners more rights over consumers than ever. Just on the cusp of the digital age, many works and creations have been stifled because of this new law. The DMCA makes it illegal to break encryption on a device. The DeCSS program that was used to allow archival backups of DVDs was again illegal. The process of copying the DVD was not illegal, though and there is the loophole. The content owners found a way to prevent fair use and still allow the fair use precedent to survive. The consumers of the world are now just feeling the problems with this type of systems.
There are many things that rely on fair use and common sense. Most people take fair use for granted, but if the content cartels had their way; we would be paying for everything we do today. If it were not for fair use documents many things would be infringement such as whistling a tune in public. This act would be a public performance. Cutting out newspaper articles and posting them on a door is infringement due to public display. Reverse engineering of computer code would be considered reproduction. Time-shifting media would also be considered reproduction. Fair use has entrenched itself in consumers very core attitude towards the media they purchase and if these rights are stripped, there will be problems.(3)
Copyright law has also deterred many other fields besides consumers of content media. The last example in the previous paragraph was deemed fair use because the reverse engineering of computer code leads to competition which is one of the founding principles of capitalism. If the copyright system was enforced to the extent that patents are, the world would be a different place. The fact that many pieces of code or algorithms can be copyrighted or are even patentable presents a problem that stifles competition. Innovation in the marketplace is spurred by competition. Just like Tivo was born out of time-shifting legislation, they saw an opportunity to create a time-shifting device that was better than the VCR and look where that has taken everyone. Most people now own a personal video recorder. This type of innovation would be moot if not for fair use. The computer industry has seen massive removable storage gains after the demise of the floppy drive. The slow large tape drives are being supplemented by faster optical drives. CDRW and DVDRW drives are commonplace in today’s world. This would not be the case if the content owners had their way. Being able to make copies of audio CDs and DVD movies are not what the media cartels want. It does not matter that there are more legitimate uses to using recordable drives (such as for file archival and backups), the mere fact that it has the possibility of copying a copyrighted work is enough of an issue for them to take action. This is why many blank media has extra fees attached to it to compensate the media companies. Most people would call this extortion but in the legal system, those with the most money usually win.
The history of the VCR has enabled consumers to record content and replay it in regards to fair use. Without the court decision, consumers may be paying for viewing each and every time. It is the concept of ownership that scares the content conglomerates. When a consumer goes and purchases a music CD and that CD is ripped to an MP3 player that the consumer owns, the content cartels see this as a loss of revenue. In their eyes, the consumer should have purchased the CD and should have purchased a licensed MP3 from a licensed source. Notice that the word legal is not used to describe the source of buying MP3s. What the consumer did is perfectly legal under fair use precedent but other technologies and laws are stripping this sort of basic right away from them.
The current generation of music players is all digital and the MP3 format spawned the entire movement of having a plastic disk to having a digital only file. There are enabling technologies such as the iTunes Music Store that allow consumers to purchase a single song off of an album for about $1. In the past, the content cartel known as the RIAA ensured that they make a hefty profit by bundling a few good songs and other random songs on a CD and charging $20 for it. Even as the media prices fell (CDs became cheaper to make), the price of the music did not change and people noticed. When Apple’s music store hit the market, people flocked to it and the new iPod. Little do most people know that when a consumer purchases something from the iTunes Music Store, the file that they paid for is riddled with Digital Rights Management or DRM for short.
DRM:
DRM is an encompassing term that describes many different technologies. Many are very useful. Encrypting hardware is an example of DRM as is many security devices. Unfortunately, many uses of DRM are known to stifle consumer rights and to prevent the legal copying of copyrighted work. The perfect example of DRM that infringes on fair use today is region locks present in the DVD standard. If a consumer purchases a DVD from Asia, it will not work in an American DVD player. Also, the DVDs that consumers purchase today are encrypted with a technology known as CSS. Content owners have fought against the copying of DVDs, just as they did with the VCR. Remember that creating an archival copy of a work is fair and legal and not allowing consumers to do this basic right is illegal. No consumer group has presented this argument to a court yet and since the media cartels have near endless supplies of money, the American legal system is no place to decide this type of legality anymore.
Copyrights:
The copyright law in America has changed since 1976. The law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted by the Clinton administration and gave content owners more rights over consumers than ever. Just on the cusp of the digital age, many works and creations have been stifled because of this new law. The DMCA makes it illegal to break encryption on a device. The DeCSS program that was used to allow archival backups of DVDs was again illegal. The process of copying the DVD was not illegal, though and there is the loophole. The content owners found a way to prevent fair use and still allow the fair use precedent to survive. The consumers of the world are now just feeling the problems with this type of systems.
There are many things that rely on fair use and common sense. Most people take fair use for granted, but if the content cartels had their way; we would be paying for everything we do today. If it were not for fair use documents many things would be infringement such as whistling a tune in public. This act would be a public performance. Cutting out newspaper articles and posting them on a door is infringement due to public display. Reverse engineering of computer code would be considered reproduction. Time-shifting media would also be considered reproduction. Fair use has entrenched itself in consumers very core attitude towards the media they purchase and if these rights are stripped, there will be problems.(3)
Copyright law has also deterred many other fields besides consumers of content media. The last example in the previous paragraph was deemed fair use because the reverse engineering of computer code leads to competition which is one of the founding principles of capitalism. If the copyright system was enforced to the extent that patents are, the world would be a different place. The fact that many pieces of code or algorithms can be copyrighted or are even patentable presents a problem that stifles competition. Innovation in the marketplace is spurred by competition. Just like Tivo was born out of time-shifting legislation, they saw an opportunity to create a time-shifting device that was better than the VCR and look where that has taken everyone. Most people now own a personal video recorder. This type of innovation would be moot if not for fair use. The computer industry has seen massive removable storage gains after the demise of the floppy drive. The slow large tape drives are being supplemented by faster optical drives. CDRW and DVDRW drives are commonplace in today’s world. This would not be the case if the content owners had their way. Being able to make copies of audio CDs and DVD movies are not what the media cartels want. It does not matter that there are more legitimate uses to using recordable drives (such as for file archival and backups), the mere fact that it has the possibility of copying a copyrighted work is enough of an issue for them to take action. This is why many blank media has extra fees attached to it to compensate the media companies. Most people would call this extortion but in the legal system, those with the most money usually win.