[Rob Babcock]

As some of you may have realized, recently several companies that make software allowing you to copy or backup your DVDs have recently come under legal attack by the movie industry. 321 Studios is fighting an injunction barring the sale of their DVD decryption software, but it's still up in the air.

Obviously the studios would like to deny Fair Use of any format, and the DMCA seems to give them the ammo they need. Older legislation like the Home Recording Act guarenteed fair use of material you legally purchased, but later legislation is eroding those rights.

At the moment it's DVD copying that's under fire. Next if could be CD copy, even copying LPs for personal use. In some countries much of this has already happened.

Here is an interesting website dedicated to protection consumers rights: http://www.protectfairuse.org/. I urge anyone who's concerned about the issue to check it out.

[rosconey]

its easier to blame people who make copies than make better music or movies-its cheaper to buy legislation than find new groups and better directors.
easier to hire lawyers than find talent

companies take no responsability for there actions anymore, instead they buy legislation  thats says they are right and you are wrong.

[Rob Babcock]

The link I provided is supported by 321 Studios.  You could say they have a vested interest, but I believe that their site is still very good.  You can type in your zip code & get all your states representatives pulled up and a letter can be sent to each of them.  It's a boilerplate letter, but you can change it if you like.  

If we want to retain any rights in the digital era, we have to start showing our elected officials the we're paying their check, not Hollywood.

BTW, 321 Studios have gone from employing over 400 people down to just 50 as a result of this litigation.

[Double Ugly]

My representatives will receive copies of the "boilerplate" letter; it seemed fine to me.

Thanks for the link, Rob.

DU

[JoshK]

The one argument that I really got a kick out of by the RIAA for why mp3 file sharing was eroding their sales, was, "look our sales are down 10% because of file sharing, therefore sharing ate 10% of our profits."

Yeah right! This also happened to be leading into a recession and music sales are fairly discretionary. After all if you loose your job, what are you going to spend your last dollar on, food or a new CD?  The music industry suffered less of a downturn than they had ever before going into a recession and they wanted to blame their slump in sales on pirating.  

Draw your own conclusions.

[ctviggen]

Not to mention that younger people typically buy CDs and when the average price of a CD nears $20, they don't have that type of cash.  Heck, I cringe at $20 CDs, and I'm an attorney.   In fact, I've been frequenting used CD places to save cash in case I don't like the CD.

[Jay S]

By the way, some studies have indicated that very heavy MP3 users - on average - may buy more CDs.  There are plenty of anecdotes of people who substitute 100% from cds to pirated MP3s but for some others MP3s actually stimulate their interest in music.  Where there is the biggest problem is in school age kids, though they arguably do not have the income to buy as many CDs as they consume as MP3s.

[TheeeChosenOne]

Like iTunes?   How Bout This?  Gives high bit rate (lossless even) OGG, FLAC for the audiophile.  Much cheaper (1 cent/1 Mb) than iTunes and very reliable:


http://www.allofmp3.com/index.shtml?r=1820691878

[Tyson]

A lot of album's have filler, and only the 2 or 3 singles released are any good.  Used to be you had to buy the whole album to get the good songs.  Now you just head over to itunes and pay $3 for the three songs you want.  Really, if the record companies embraced online downloads as a new distribution medium they would have a lot less to complain about.

I also notice that there is a similarity between movies and music, in the way that companies run the business.  Used to be there were a stream of movies and music released, and some would "catch on" and become big sellers.  Nowadays they record and movie companies relentlessly hype "blockbuster" releases and hope that all the marketing results in a huge seller/money maker for them.  When that doesn't happen they lose a "lot" of money.  Plus, the fact that they divert so many resources to just a few releases means that there's less time and money that can be spent on other (possibly) worthy releases from different artists.  Add to that higher and higher prices for the price of a CD or movie ticket, with fewer movies and music overall being released, and you have a recipe for guaranteed fewer sales.  Gotta love when companies shoot themselves in the foot and then try to make someone else to be the bad guy.

[Rob Babcock]

I remember reading about a year ago about a large label that tried to manufacture The Next Big Thing.  They had a young kid from Ireland (can't recall the name), brought him to NY, popped for about $5 million for an apt, vocal coaching, image consultants, advertising etc.  Well, the debut album sold about 500 copies!     For each attempt at creating the next fad there are probably 100 more talented but older or less visually appealing musicians that'll never be heard nationally.

At any rate, the whole copying thing is infuriating.  Older legislation guarenteed us fair use of the things we purchase, and new laws seem like an attempt at an end-run around our rights.  To ban decrypters seems to me to be pointess, potentially illegal, and downright unfair to consumers.  It also seems like a bad business move in the long run.  A format that the end user can't copy isn't very appealing to consumers that have gotten used to having flexible & convenient mediums.  I feel it will only hurt sales in the long run.