[Kosh]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060426-6679.html

Yet another bill aimed at restricting the rights of entertainment consumers was introduced to the US Senate yesterday. Dubbed the PERFORM Act ("Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act of 2006") and sponsored by the cross-party team of Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN), the proposed changes to the Copyright Act would force the use of protected formats for all streaming media services, whether online, on cable, or through satellite radio and TV

Notice the last part. WTF are these people thinking? There are a lot more juicy bits in this article too. Enjoy.

[vyper]

Right cause even ignoring the moral bankruptcy here I can see that implementing such a set of technologies wouldn't be a nighmare...

[Kosh]

Why is it that people in the US keep voting for people who do things like this? Oh wait, because no matter who they vote for, the people in office will do it anyway.

[pecenipicek]

no matter who you vote for, the same dicks stay in power, they just switch parties. its like that everywhere unfortunately


if i wasnt afraid of jail and such. i'd take a gun and shoot every bloody politician in croatia.

[aldo_14]

In a few years time....

[q]
Yet another bill aimed at restricting the rights of entertainment consumers was introduced to the US Senate yesterday. Dubbed the HURLA Act ("Horribly Unfair and Restrictive Luddite Act of 2007") and sponsored by the cross-party team of Dianne Feinstein (A-RS), Lindsey Graham (T-WAT), and majority leader Bill Frist (W-ANKR), the proposed changes to the Copyright Act would prohibit the 'unauthorised copying and storage of protected media through memorisation' and 'restrict illegal distribution of intellectual copyright by discussion or explanation'.  Under the terms of the bill, Homeland Security officers would be posted at office water-coolers and canteens in order to arrest workers caught remembering or discussing media they saw the previous night.

Political commentators have cast doubt on the likelihood of the act passing; although politicians welcome the concept of compulsary amnesia for voters, especially on policy issues, the act lacks a really impressive anacronym like 'PATRIOT' or 'PERFORM' to easily sell it to the public on C-SPAN.
[/q]

[Flipside]

Reminds me of one of the Radio Quotes from The Movies...

'Remember... Do not sing or hum along to any of the tunes on this Station, it's a breach of copyright!'

[ilya]

Political commentators have cast doubt on the likelihood of the act passing; although politicians welcome the concept of compulsary amnesia for voters, especially on policy issues, the act lacks a really impressive anacronym like 'PATRIOT' or 'PERFORM' to easily sell it to the public on C-SPAN.

Actually... get rid of the A in HURLA, or else it becomes the "Horribly Unfair and Restrictive Luddite Act Act."

Leave it at "Horribly Unfair and Restrictive Luddite Act": HURL Act

[Turambar]

 i'd say we need some kind of revolution in this country




but they went and changed the name to wii

[Rictor]

Honestly, I don't even care anymore. Because the more they clamp down on consumer's rights, the more justified and less guilty I will feel when I download their stuff anyway. I read a story that the big studios recently started selling CDs for $1.50 in China, to try to compete with pirates rather than fight them and lose, without the packaging etc, which means the other $13.50 people are paying now is pure excess.

[Kosh]

Honestly, I don't even care anymore. Because the more they clamp down on consumer's rights, the more justified and less guilty I will feel when I download their stuff anyway. I read a story that the big studios recently started selling CDs for $1.50 in China, to try to compete with pirates rather than fight them and lose, without the packaging etc, which means the other $13.50 people are paying now is pure excess.

The pirated stuff is still probably a bit cheaper, and it is the same quality.

[Nix]

Not true.  A pirated CD has absolutely no quality control over it, and who knows if the CD was recorded from another CD directly, or if they took MP3's and made an audio CD from the MP3's.  If that happened, you're getting reduced audio quality, and cheap, substandard media to listen to it on.  Most cheap CDR's today are useless if you scratch the top, even the slightest bit.  Music CD's are manufactured to be robust, with a good layer of lacquer on the label side.  Anyone ever use a CDR made by Quill?  If you sneeze on the damn label, it's useless.. 

[Kosh]

Not true. A pirated CD has absolutely no quality control over it, and who knows if the CD was recorded from another CD directly, or if they took MP3's and made an audio CD from the MP3's. If that happened, you're getting reduced audio quality, and cheap, substandard media to listen to it on. Most cheap CDR's today are useless if you scratch the top, even the slightest bit. Music CD's are manufactured to be robust, with a good layer of lacquer on the label side. Anyone ever use a CDR made by Quill? If you sneeze on the damn label, it's useless..

Pirated CDs/DVDs in this country are high quality. If you buy one and you open up the package, you wouldn't see a CDR/DVDR, you would see an exact copy of the CD/DVD. Right down to the packaging. With so many people pirating in this country, they have to make sure their products are better quality then others, or else no one would buy them.

[Flaser]

Nix, I'm getting certain that you're either a plantjob or a rabid worshipper of consumer culture/corporate state.

With the rapid expansion of FLAC and other lossless codecs (which I fing utterly needless except for archival purposes, as the loss on correctly (high/variable bitrate) encoded lossy codecs is nowhere near as serious as some claim to be even for the most keen eared audiophile) as well as broadband, I see no reason why pirated media should be inferiour.
Before you get into it, no even video is usually high quality, on par with the DVD it was ripped from.

The main problem of today's publishers is twofold: so far they could pretty much dictate the prices as they practically "OWN" the artists (don't believe me? Check some of their contracts), second they use an outdated distribution method. The net can get the media to an insane number of consumers, for a negiligible cost to boot.
They can play their crusade for the "rights" of literary property on as long as the bulk of the artist are in their deathgrip - once new publishers spring up, who will deal on line (which isn't that hard to do, compared to hard trade) they will go down along with their business model.

This means media will be cheaper to purchase, and the artitst will get their fair share too.
For you media moguls out there I have a tip: make the change yourself, you sure have the capita to invest with the profit margins as is. (Unless you're runnign a myriad lawsuits, and fight the inevitable.)

[Flipside]

Why would someone put a 'plant' on HLP?

As far as prices are concerned, I don't deny that prices have been pushed to ridiculous levels by the companies that produced them. The sensible solution would have been to just refuse to buy media until they did something about them, there are a lot of artists out there who produce stuff for free or very very cheap, it just means ignoring the 'Big names', but it is our addiction to having the 'Biggest' and 'Best known' artists that is our Achilles heel. We, and our fad addiction are pretty responsible for allowing the companies to maintain those prices for so long.