I've posted some brief comments at my blog.
Sincerely
Derek Slater

This discussion space is for comments on the document "A Full, Fair And Feasible Solution To The Dilemma of Online Music Licensing By Bennett Lincoff".

Who says the widespread unauthorized distribution of recorded music is a problem? (I know, the RIAA does.) I think it is a solution to many problems: overpriced CDs; unavailability of a large selection of music; sampling (try before you buy.) Those who are downloading music fall into two categories: Those who download to sample and then buy the music anyway, thus providing the music industry with much needed sales; and those who wouldn't buy the music even if they couldn't get it online for free, whose lack of purchases therefore cannot be considered "lost revenue."

My message to the RIAA: Wake up and smell what you've been shovelling! It's not too late to turn things around and turn yourselves into a respectable business, as opposed to the mob criminals you've been acting like.

It's not just the Internet. Computers copy things. It is in a real sense a definition of what they do.

I think the author means that, under this license, the transmitter or broadcaster would not be liable for any action the end user may take, such as bypassing copy-protection on streaming media in order to download songs. It also clears up the issue of liability for the cache copies made on a user's computer while accessing streaming media. It doesn't pardon all actions by end users, it simply protects the broadcaster from legal action as a result of them.

What if they transferrred the files to portable players or burned them to CDs?

Edited by author 03-01-2003 06:54 AM
I can't speak for Bennett Lincoff, but I don't read the implications of that statement the same way at all. Entry into the system he describes is open to large and small creators alike, as long as they register their copyrights and tag their recordings for tracking, and ultimately their fair share of digital transmission revenues collected.

Similarly, as the owner and operator of a very small niche music online service, I can tell you without hesitation that

1) our service could not be duplicated by large companies

2) the requirements imposed by Lincoff's tracking plan would be easy for us to deal with (it would involve adding the relevant codes to our source database and then re-encoding our program files)

3) a system like Lincoff proposes would likely lead to far greater diversity and choice, because small players would have a fair shot at creating their own 'micro-services' and being compensated fairly for the content they transmit.

File sharing between individuals is another story. It would be possible to build P2P networks that only carried properly coded files, but that would not stop others from continuing to operate outside of the system. Nevertheless, I believe that as you say "artists would retain more independent control of their works" under an organized tracking system.

Edited by author 02-11-2003 07:36 PM
You make a very valid point, Kevin. This proposal is written with the assumption that the rights holders will be a few large corporations, the same flawed logic that congress and the government is using which is only helping the media oligopoly grow bigger and more powerful. It leaves independent artists high-and-dry. Of course, this is not surprising because this is what the business world always does.

It's time for the oligopolies to fall and bring rise to a new system wherein artists retain more independent control of their works. I don't buy into the argument that the music industry helps to filter out the best music and "mold and shape" it into it's best form. How can anyone believe that a small group with a lot of power could possibly know what the best music is for the entire world? Variety and choice mean everything!

This is the key flaw in this proposal. It assumes the existence of concentrated bodies of 'rights holders' and 'servcie operators'. The vast majority of those creating music and sharing it do not fall within these categories.

Edited by author 04-10-2003 11:06 AM
This makes the naïve and incorrect assumption that all file-sharing networks are used solely to distribute music and other artistic works. Many legitimate uses for file-sharing of data including but not limited to digital music are in existence.Any system capable of transferring a file is capable of violating copyright law, yet they are not mentioned.
Why separate out p2p-based file-sharing networks. What about other methods of file transfer like: attachments in email, DCC transfers in IRC, newsgroup postings, FTP servers, etc. None of these technologies are required to report to anyone in order to transfer files, therefore it is not only unjust to make this assumption of the file-sharing world it is also impractical to assume you can reengineer the entire set of preexisting network protocols to conform to this system.

A census is a good idea - current statistaical sampling methods are indeed flawed. However, without an incentive to take part, the attractions of free-riding are too high.

True, but the mainstream music industry has never been much concerned with legacy catalog sales, except when the numbers approach those of new releases.
The telling statistic is that 3% of titles sell 80% of the units (in 2000, re Billboard.)

First in the 1950s, when the major labels ceded niche genre and catalog artists to the indie labels, and more recently when retail consolidation made stocking slow-selling niche and catalog titles increasingly expensive and infeasible, the "industry" has turned its back on legacy recordings.

This is striking, in that the rhetoric from the music industry is predominantly the opposite of how you put it here. The accusations of 'theft', 'digital shoplifting' and so on are far more common than the idea that 'customers will do the right thing'.

Folks, the results are in! Allow me to present the understatement of the millenium:

"It is also possible that the music industry has misjudged its customers."

The music industry doesn't have clue one about it's customers. They can't take their eyes off our wallets long enough to learn anything about us. This fact is reaffirmed everytime they attempt to sue and/or charge for scouts singing songs around a campfire, cab drivers who play their radios while transporting fares and anyone who has the nerve to sing "Happy Birthday" without coughing up some dough. Once they finally find a way to completely get around our "right to privacy" they will start charging us for singing in the shower.

"...it is not reasonable for the music industry to expect public policy to support its desire to do business in a particular way."

I agree completely with this statement. The music cartel has made it blatantly obvious that they believe the government has an obligation to protect their business model -- forcing consumers to buy what they want to sell, the way they want to sell it. If this were the case, Zippo would be charging everyone $9.99 for two sticks to rub together.

The music industry needs to change and begin treating artists and consumers fairly or else we will all be viewing thier bones in a museum next to those of a T-Rex.

Why is the industries reaction “necessarily reactive”? They have known about and used digital media in some form since the 1980’s. I hardly think they’re only course of action up until this point has been to sit idly by and watch their copyrighted works get stolen for the last twenty years. It’s simply a matter of control. The industry is loosing it’s, up until now, largely uncontested monopoly of music sales. This is a result of complacency and greed. Not an inability to affect the infrastructure.

Very true, Kevin. Although, the RIAA regularly complains about ISPs using "fast music downloads" as a marketing tool in their ads, they really haven't attacked them directly or impeded their growth.

The only thing they have done, which hasn't had much short-term impact but could cause many headaches in the long run, is use the DMCA to force (or attempt to, in Verizon's case) them to reveal the names and info of some of their file-sharing customers. This has the potential to alienate the customers of these ISPs.

This doesn't mean a direct attack is not in the future plans of the RIAA. As I understand it, they are attempting to charge fees to ISPs for music downloaded by their broadband customers.

Nope, that was the incumbent telcos, and the baroque licensing regime.

This might also help to eliminate the monopolistic tactics the music industry uses, such as declining to license music to certain companies, claiming that they are having difficulty negotiating licensing terms with multiple rights holders behind particular works.

This feature will be controversial because it does not allow 'differential pricing' at the will of the rights holders and levels the returns from all copyrights. But it may be necessary to undo the current impasse and allow the online market to develop.

I would like to offer a name for this collective: MusicTrack

I would like to see a little more explanation of how this collective would be created and governed. Specifically, how it would avoid corruption by powerful established interests in the copyright industries.

Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:56 PM
There is no mention of the costs of operating the collective and how they will be assessed on members. This is a contentious issue with existing rights collectives and needs to be wisely and carefully designed.

If an example of this kind of collective operating in any other industry? If so, it would strengthen the case that such an organization could meet the challenges it faces, both in getting established and in going forward.

Would penalties be set by law? Enforcement procedures would need to be streamlined as well in a marketplace of hundreds of thousands of content suppliers and service providers.

Edited by author 04-10-2003 10:07 AM
This value has two requirements. The first is for a unique indexed value to enable random access to the information. The second is for the expressed reverse-lookup capabilty. The ISRC provides a unique value, but does not allow for the reverse-lookup requirement.

I recommend a hash of the Artist:Work (preferably a SHA-512) That way any Artist:Work can be resolved into a fixed length value (512 bytes in the case of SHA-512) that is probabilistically guaranteed to be unique (thereby satisfying the index requirement) and readily generatable to anyone who knows the name of the artist and title of the work(which satisfies the reverse-lookup requirement).

[Technical Note: I recommend case insensitivity and standardized markup for spacing, punctuation, etc. so as to facilitate the ability of people to generate these ID’s from a knowledge of the names, not the syntax the artist imposed on the title.
i.e. All capital letters and disallow certain special characters(CR, LF, etc.). ]

ISRC (International Standard Recording Codes) have existed since 1991. Their stated functionality is similar. How is the proposed universal numbering system different from these?

This could be a dispersed database, like the DNS system, rather than a centralised one

Edited by author 02-10-2003 08:05 PM
Agreed (with regret), but physical piracy was never completely eliminated either. The test should not be whether a system will be immune to subversion by the most active and technically savvy users, but whether the system would lead to general adoption of legal services by average consumers. Nothing will achieve 100% compliance.

Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:38 PM
This section seems particularly unworkable. Just as most DRM will be subverted, track marking will soon be subverted as well, as paranoid users will remove the marking and redistribute the files. I say this even though this item could truly enable a more fair system for artists (of all sizes and companies) to get paid. The copyright infringement threat hasn't stopped anyone so far.
Welcome feedback on it.

This system as described assumes that every transmission is completed. From practical experience, this is not the case with streaming services as many transmissions are stopped mid-stream by users. Partial transmissions need to be considered and handled by the system as well as complete transmissions.

It is ludicrous to assume that anyone in possession of technology capable of transmitting unmarked works should be required to pay a fee to an industry that may or may not have a legitimate claim to the untraceable transfer of works. That’s like saying anyone with a tape player that has a “Record” function should pay the RIAA a monthly fee because they possess the capability to violate copyright law. Owners of guns possess the capability to kill people, but the vast majority of gun owners do not in fact kill people.

Edited by author 02-10-2003 06:09 PM
This is the weakest section of the initial proposal and the easiest to attack on technical grounds. Much more specific ideas and procedures need to be directed to the issue of collecting royalties from users of P2P networks.

How will the system be enforced upon uncooperative rogue services with sophisticated decentralized operations? Cynicism about the ability to do this at all has led many to the conclusion that a compulsory taxation scheme will be necessary to overcome this problem.

World of Ends explains why this is a bad idea. Should be required reading for all lawyers venturing into net regulation:

http://www.quicktopic.com/19/D/BqUadhXZEuf.html

Doing this would require reinvention of network protocols to ensure that packet content cannot be faked (boiling down to FCC licenses for every router that passes packets and every peice of software that creates/recieves packets). This might be the dream end-state for the internet for governments and copyright holders, but has little compelling value to end-users.

The internet USED to exist as a dial-up store and forward system (UUCP, NNTP, etc), with fixed backbone connections. A reinvention of the internet that turns it into TV would likely mean an immeidate re-birth of the OLD store and forward internet, only supported by wireless mesh networks.

This is demonstrably false, as the network has no knowledege of the content of packets. Without the key, you can't know if an encrypted file contains copyrighted music or video of my children.