h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Promoting it in light of the fact that this is still in Peer Review might indicate bias on my part, and I certainly don't want to do that.

I'm pretty indifferent on the subject (which is pretty controversial) and the article reflects that.

OT: And for the comment about lobster pots, I've not found time to do much yet, but I reckon about 2 weeks (working VERY slowly) - it'll probably be at http://www.owlsound.co.uk/me/lobster.php (there's nowt there yet though)

I suggest that for the hacker footnote, you put:

Real 'university programmers' prefer the term hacker ...

Or "real programmers" cos it's not just university hackers

Done

i'll look out for lobster pots hitting the web

Note article's title has changed.

Also fixed "press -> publicity" and will probably get to work on the more taxing stuff today.

Right, big changes afoot...

1. I've added a footnote explaining that IPT is not the specific law that's being broken.

2. I've updated the last paragraph of "argument for it" to take emphasis away from the legal bits.

3. I've added paragraphs about CD-replication and key2audio to the "problem" section.

Tell me what you think of the changes !

~

The stuff about "IPT" still jars. Copyright violation is not "theft" in the traditional sense, and, as I have said, branding it as such unfairly demonises the users of P2P.

Note that Philips, who hold the patent on CDs, has condemned copy protection on CDs and says that those companies shouldn't be using the Compact Disc logo as they do not conform to the Red Book standard. See http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50101,00.html for a story.

Copyright violation has been branded as theft since the 8th century. It is theft. It is not unfair to brand it as such.

Whether the exact legal term should be "intellectual property theft" or "copyright infringement" I don't know but I would say it's generally regarded as theft and IPT is a well-known concept.

I like what you did to the second argument

I think you should not refer to key2audio so specifically. Since that particular technology is probably something that will pass rather quickly, or get replaced by another, the chances are that your Entry will become outdated soon. Perhaps it's better to describe in more general terms that the music industry is seeking technological ways to prevent cd copying and give key2audio as one of the examples.

Keep it up !

JAIB

I've only just found this entry in PR and like it very much.

One thing that springs to mind is the phrase "Home Taping is Killing Music" - which was the buzzword of the music industry a few years back and was printed on loads of album sleeves and covers.

Of course, it wasn't and it didn't, and the whole thing was eventually dropped as being a preposterous waste of time. Many of the same arguments apply - the only difference with being able to copy it digitally is that the quality is far better.

And, the way I see it, the drop in sales can be put down to the fact that the music industry currently seems to be trapped in a phase of investing huge amounts in promoting acts they've created rather than found and signed - which means they're looking for plasticine rather than talent, and the quality of output suffers accordingly, and large sections of the public lose interest...

Yay Number6! That's exactly what I think, but I want to make sure the article is unbiased and also gives the industry's point of view.

JAIB, I'll take that into account what you said about key2audio - I should be able to take the emphasis away from it a bit.

Thanks to all of you who've commented on IPT. I think I'm going to leave it the way it is - IPT was the way Metallica referred to the problem, and that's really the angle I'm coming from

~

I'm a little split over this article, especially as it seems to work from the assumption that intellectual property is a right, a good thing, and has no downside.

For a start, there is an ongoing war over where the line for intellectual property should be drawn, but a lot of people would agree that at the moment it is too far in the favour of the industry, and not far enough in favour of the individual.

one strand of this ip-war is that "(insert recording technology here) is going to kill the industry". this is blatant propoganda, and has sufficient examples of being proved wrong that it shouldn't be left unchallenged.

they said it about audio tapes, and you can still find them making lots of money out of the pre-recorded audio tape market.

they said it about video tape, and the main form of distribution for films is still vhs.

another strand of this arguament is "the evils of file sharing", which is now so discredited as a sensible comment that every operating system includes at least one standard method for doing just that. it is such a useful method that it is not going to go away.

one of the music industry bosses (I think it was the head of sony) let the cat out of the bag in a big way though, when in an interview he said "people will buy the content we want to sell in the format we want to sell it in".

another strand which isn't mentioned at all, but needs at least a passing mention is that the vested interests are trying to maintain their position not by working hard, but by extending intellectual property law in their favour. this is normally being done with things like the copyright expiry extention stopping stuff going back into the public domain, the digital millenial copyright act trying to force you to accept their dreadful (technically) propriatory file types, and patent arsenals to stop innovation which could threaten their position.

unfortunately for them, this is not going to work, because there are already people in the open source and high tech industries that are pointing out that this is applying massive costs to the industry for NO benefit whatsoever. and it's getting worse fast.

the article also ignores the benefits to the industry of file sharing. there is quite a bit of evidence that a lot of filesharers actually spend more money on buying music using filesharing as a "try before you buy" method.

even those that don't buy (often due to the over inflated pricing by the industry) will generally play their downloads when their friends are around, causing their friends to buy the records.

I think the article needs to reflect this much more than it does at the moment, especially as a couple of hundred years ago the time for copyright was 14 years, whereas now it is life + 70 and they are trying to get it to be even more (I have seen one attempt to get life +150 years).

Thanks for your comments, xyroth!

Your comments are very opinionated and, although I agree with most of them, I feel it would make the article unfairly biased if I added them all. (Eeeeek that sentence sounds like a waffle - if anyone understands me and can put it in better words, feel free!)

I think I'll work some of the comments into my article (you might note that there's already a reference to what you refer to as "try before you buy" in there somewhere), but adding the lot would make it sound like I was promoting music piracy, and I don't think that's what I want to do at all.

Keep the comments rolling in!

~

I am not suggesting that you add them all, after all, it is your article.

however I thought they needed presenting in this thread in order for them to be seriously considered to challenge the individual points of bias. if any of them are used, then that posting was worth it.

my main problem with the industry is that they would rather try and recreate that sort of propaganda for the new medium rather than try and solve the actual problems.

after all, the problems have not significantly changed since blank video tape came out, except the introduction of digital, and that has been ignored by the industry since they started suing napster.

the technology is so usefull that it has become embedded into every modern and connected operating system, and so it is not going to go away. this is the main point that the propagandist position fails on, with the rest being relatively minor consequences of this fact.

until the industry faces up to this problem and tries to solve it, rather than just trying to sue it out of existance, people will continue to use p2p systems for filesharing, and some of it will be intellectual property. they can no longer rely on the control of distribution for their major profit stream, but this is exactly what they are doing.

note: I am not advocating the "theft" of intellectual property, only saying that the current constraints on doing so (ie fair use constraints) are both unfair, and unsustainable.

trying to make cousin fred out to be a crook for copying his wma ormated music into his mp3 player will only increase the size of the backlash.

anyway, keep up the good work.

This is definitely a well thought out, well written article and I just happend upon it. One thing about the internet is that it does make copyright infringement violations very easy to do, not only for music. There's all sorts of people with web pages where they've included writings, comics, pictures from their favorite authors with no permission and no credit given. I know that some artists (mainly comic strips to my knowledge) do search for people who put up strips without permission from them or their copyright holders and make them take it off the pages. Same with articles. What the music industry seems to have completely overlooked in their whole copyright fuss is that a big part of those laws is to protect artists from other people using their material with no credit given. The music debate seems in no way related to giving these hard working, talented artits due credit for their time, effort, even money put into their songs, but appears totally concerned with studio profits.

One thing about the article: I think it might be worth a mention of some of the music sharing programs that have put in blocks for certain artists and songs that have been blocked from the file sharing because they were indeed copyrighted and someone complained.

both of you!

xyroth, I'm going to add a bit to the article (probably today) that swings the bias back towards the centre (a number of people seem to think it reads "biased to the industry").

betty, thanks! If only more people realised that sort of thing - of course musicians used to make all their money on their own through natural talent. Now the only talent that makes money is manufactured pop, which hasn't had creativity or emotion put into it. I think that if the record industry was killed off, it wouldn't neccesarily be a bad thing, as the talented musicians would continue to make music for fun and we'd only lose the talentless David Sneddons of this world.

And I'll add the stuff about blocking - there's a place in my article where it'll fit just fine.

Cor, this article's been in here eight days already!

~

I've been doing a bit more reading on the Web, and I've found some very interesting articles.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/608062.stm "Internet 'transforms' music industry"

A pertinent quote:

"Almost 70% of surfing music-lovers in the UK have already used [MP3], and analysts are predicting it will more than double the value of the music industry from £25bn to £62bn."

http://www.itworld.com/Net/4087/030131euantipiracy/

Report on a draft directive decriminalising noncommercial copyright violation. Does the Euorpean Commission publish draft directives? I can't find it on the Commission's website (http://europa.eu.int/), so it might be fake. It might appeal to David Blunkett, though, since the principle is the same as that of decriminalising cannabis (kill the profits and you kill the industry).

The Open Source link might be better to http://www.opensource.org/ ... just my opinion though.

For those interested in the issue of software patents (probably anyone here), see this http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/02/12/200209

I think you will agree that the USPTO's idiocy seems to have no bounds. Patents granted: 1. Databases with privacy control. 2. Web directories. 3. Online databases. 4. Databases in general. 5. The Internet.

Thanks Pete. That news article (being BBC) means I have a much better argument _for_ the use of mp3 music, which will certainly please a lot of unhappy researchers

Also, although it looks a bit odd, opensource.org does appear to be a better way to get non-OSSers to understand it (originally I thought sourceforge, but those who don't program would be _seriously_ lost in there!) ... that'll get changed in my next update.

Actually I really should get round to making this update at the weekend cos I'm hoping (fingers crossed) to get picked soon - do we need to offer do{ugh}nuts to scouts to get picked?

You might also want to include something on potential liability as seen from various jurisdictions.

If I, say, write a tool that copies a file, similar to '/bin/cp' (Ok, so I'm a unix nut), or the DOS 'XCOPY' command, and someone uses it to commit a crime, am I liable. In some places, it would seem so. However, in most places, because those tools have "Significant non-infringing uses". Napster and Gnutella CAN be used to share pictures taken on your holiday, or public domain works, but in the eyes of the media, they are evil.

I play DVD's on my linux box. This means I have broken various US law (and, if the EU Copyright directive gets adopted as written), UK law too. They are my DVD's, and I consider that I have a right to use them in the way I wish. The movie studios do not think the same way.

Anyway, I'm rambling. V.Good article.