Posted on 08/25/2010 12:03:18 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
ASPEN, Colo.--The Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday that current U.S. copyright law is so broken that it "isn't working" for content creators any longer.
RIAA President Cary Sherman said the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains loopholes that allow broadband providers and Web companies to turn a blind eye to customers' unlawful activities without suffering any legal consequences.
"The DMCA isn't working for content people at all," he said at the Technology Policy Institute's Aspen Forum here. "You cannot monitor all the infringements on the Internet. It's simply not possible. We don't have the ability to search all the places infringing content appears, such as cyberlockers like [file-hosting firm] RapidShare."
The complex--and controversial--1998 law grew out of years of negotiations with broadband providers, Internet companies, and content industries. One key section says companies are generally not liable for hosting copyright-infringing materials posted by their companies, as long as they follow certain removal procedures, once contacted by the owner.
In response to a question from CNET, Sherman said it may be necessary for the U.S. Congress to enact a new law formalizing agreements with intermediaries such as broadband providers, Web hosts, payment processors, and search engines.
The RIAA would strongly prefer informal agreements inked with intermediaries, Sherman said: "We're working on [discussions with broadband providers], and we'd like to extend that kind of relationship--not just to ISPs, but [also to] search engines, payment processors, advertisers."
But, Sherman said, "if legislation is an appropriate way to facilitate that kind of cooperation, fine."
Lance Kavanaugh, product counsel for YouTube, disagreed that copyright law is broken. "It's our view that the DMCA is functioning exactly the way Congress intended it to," he said.
The United States leads the world in the creation of innovative new Web ideas, Kavanaugh said, in part as a result of the compromises made when drafting that law: "There's legal plumbing to allow that to happen, to allow those small companies to innovate without [the] crushing fear of lawsuits, as long as they follow certain rules. Congress was prescient. They struck the right balance."
Last week, the RIAA and a dozen other music industry groups called on Google and Verizon to crack down on piracy, saying in a letter that "the current legal and regulatory regime is not working for America's creators."
Sherman acknowledged on Monday that YouTube is now doing a fine job of filtering and removing copyright-infringing videos. But, he said, Google "could stop filtering tomorrow and have no liability," as long as its YouTube subsidiary replied promptly to notifications.
And, he suggested, it could do far more: "If you enter in 'Beyonce MP3,' chances are, the first thing you'll see is illegal sites."
Disclosure: McCullagh is married to a Google employee not involved with this topic.
Update 6:20 p.m. PT: During dinner this evening, Cary Sherman told me that his response to my question earlier Monday was not a call for new legislation. Instead, he said, the RIAA would like to see congressional action only if necessary to formalize a voluntary deal with partners such as broadband providers. But a broader law enacted without their cooperation isn't what the RIAA wants, Sherman said.
“I’m not willing to see free speech hindered and the first steps taken to turning the USA into an Orwellian state”
Free speech? What the hell are you talking about?
I’ve been saying since before 2000 that this is what will be the excuse for completely shutting down the Internet in Amerca.
There’s 80+ years of used recordings for sale on the open market (used book/record stores, garage sales, thrift stores, high dollar conventions, ebay, etc.).
The consumer dollar only goes so far and there are billions of pieces of product already out in the marketplace.
The Industry “got lucky” in 1983 when CDs started to hit the market and they were able to convince baby boomers to toss out their record collection and buy back everything at inflated prices. In the 1990s it came to light that CDs were cheaper to manufacture than cassettes yet cassettes held a lower sell-through price in stores. Turns out that the labels were in collusion to price fix CDs at an elevated price structure. They settled out of court, paid millions to the trial lawyers, and sent the states that filed class action lawsuits worthless deadstock CDs for has-beens and nobodies in the name of “providing educational assistance” (per court order).
Discussion of copyright law, for whatever reason, really brings out the barbarian within. I wonder why, say, laws against stealing other people’s houses don’t occasion as many cries of “fascism.”
PAaaa-leeezzzz The new Congress will be even bigger supporters of big business. New neutrality? Buh-bye. Consumer rights? Adios.
I don’t understand your sense of optimism in this regard.
Yep...I also believe if I download a song or video in one format, it should become my possession. I should also be able to convert it to another format as I see fit. No one should tell me how to eat my Reese’s.
If they want to advertise it as “renting” a song in the future, that’s fine. If they want to play hardball and not offer legal downloads at all, that’s fine too. But don’t ask me to “buy” a song or video when it’s not really true.
You know for sure Shirley Sherrod will buy a paint set to go with her hoe.
“I’ve purchased it in 8 track, LP and CD.
Haven’t I EARNED the right to download a torrent of it to my PC?”
No, you’ve “earned” the right to your 8-track, LP, and CD (what, no reel-to-reel or cassette version?) copies. Which, incidentally, is what you paid for.
How about the truth: the RIAA’s business model based on selling a product which is marginally free to produce—an extra digital copy of something costs effectively nothing to produce—isn’t working. Supply and demand regulates prices for goods based on scarcity. When the supply is potentially infinite, the price tends toward zero.
It turns out most of us are willing to contribute $0.99 to get a song (or $9.99 for an album with ten or more songs) so that artists get paid. (cf. Apple’s iTunes business model).
I suspect there would be even more enthusiasm for paying if folks had the sense that a significant fraction would actually get to the artists, rather than almost all of it being absorbed by the bloated lawsuit-factories that call themselves “recording companies” or “record labels”.
“RIAA President Cary Sherman said the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act contains loopholes that allow broadband providers and Web companies to turn a blind eye to customers’ unlawful activities without suffering any legal consequences. “
What Crap... if I take a bottle of 151, stuff a rag in it, light it and throw it into a building, is the liquor store I got it from responsible somehow for my actions? Please!! Anyone can do illegal things with any product if they choose to to say that another company is responsible for ensuring nothing illegal is done with your product is absolute nonsense.
RIAA is an example of why Business Socialism needs to end.
We keep passing laws to “protect” this business model....even though it is a useless model in this modern era
“Turns out that the labels were in collusion to price fix CDs at an elevated price structure.”
There is no such thing as price fixing (at least, not in that sense). There’s only what the consumer is willing to spend and what he’s not. If the price set after collusion between labels holds on the market, then it is the market price.
Oh, and by the way, the cost of producing cassettes has absolutely no significance this way or that.
Bullshit.
I bought the music (MULTIPLE TIMES mind you), not the format or package.
If greedy “artists” and their front-man attack dog, the RIAA, want to change that basic understanding, they had better be prepared for a HEAVY, adverse response from the marketplace.
Wait until the e-books stop selling.
May 14, 2000 — Retail prices of compact discs are likely to drop in the coming months, thanks to a Federal Trade Commission action ending an industry-wide price-support policy begun five years ago. On May 10, the FTC announced that it had reached an agreement with the “Big Five” of the music business—Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Music, Seagram Ltd.’s Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment, BMG Entertainment, and EMI Group PLC—that will effectively end the practice of “minimum advertised pricing” (MAP) instituted as a response to music-retailing price wars in the mid-1990s. Under MAP, retailers were forbidden to advertise CDs below an established minimum, at the risk of losing millions of promotional dollars from the record labels.MAP, in the FTC’s view, is a form of price-fixing...
Even the song “Happy Birthday” is still copyrighted and subject to royalties if performed in a public place. So, when the restaurant staff comes out with a cake and sings they should be paying a vig to Time/Warner.
IMHO, copyright lasts far too long.
One word that describes the reason the Music industry is no more. RAP.
Can you tape your record to cassette or mp3 for personal use?
VCRs could tape television programming (including pay movie channels) as ruled by the Supreme Court in their Betamax decision in the 1980s.
Yet now you will find it difficult to get an all in one combination DVR.DVD+/-R machine (and some DVR systems will flush programming that you have recorded after a couple of weeks if a signal is present in the programming to do so).
The record industry didn’t do anything to solve the case when someone broke into my brother’s home and stole his music collection.
It’s still stolen music that someone is listening to for free.
We all want legal protection (or at least prosecution of the criminals when we are wronged). The RIAA thinks they get to be first in line just because Obama has stacked the Injustice Department with RIAA lawyers.
Gee I wonder why copyright isn’t working when it is perpetual...
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