Pay Per View.....?

[clone83]

Here's yet another piece of copyright legislation that contains a bunch of unwanted consequences for the paying consumer: The Section 115 Reform Act (SIRA), in complex language that will make your head spin, introduces mandatory licenses for basically every digital copy made of a piece of music. So, if you copy a song from a CD to your MP3 player, you'd need a license to do so - and we're right there where the copyright industry has wanted to go all along: the pay per view society where each time you listen to a song, you'll have to pay for it.

I just wanted to know what everyone thinks about this because i can say my self, if im going to pay $30AUS per cd to purchase it legit and then have to pay another fee just to listen to the whole cd again or even per song again then i tell everyone now that i wont be buying cd's ever again...

[dirio49]

LOL

I feel the same way. :mad:
I just hope it does not get passed.:)

[adam]

Guys just read the bill. Doom9's example is incorrect. The compulsory licenses only apply to "Digital Music Providers." Unless you qualify as such, you are not even allowed to purchase the license. The definition of a "Digital Music Provider" given under the bill clearly excludes end users.

The licenses themselves will be bought by services like Itunes, but end users will mostly likely be the ones paying through higher download costs. But private activity like copying a CD to Mp3 just has absolutely nothing to do with this bill.

[clone83]

well we are sorry for this but as we can all see... the RIAA is heading in that direction that us as the end user is going to have to pay to listen to each song and if we want to copy the songs to our computer there will be a fee involved.(i can probably say that they will try to incorperate it into the copy-protection scheme some how, so that when we go to copy it will comeup with a popup asking for a credit card number to pay for it.)

[unmei]

then just stick to the existing technology as long as you can. Buy *only* CDs (as compared to online) and use your CD-ROM drive with care, just in case it was the last usable one :)

[foxyshadis]

The EFF has swung into action, with hysterical campaigners calling it "the worst bill you've never heard of". Congressmen tonight were being deluged with faxes and emails from angry nerds.

But Section 115 reform is only "the worst bill you've never heard of" if you don't understand mechanical copyright or compulsory licenses, insist on taking words and phrases out of context and garnishing them with heaps of paranoia. And most of all, forget the fact that it's an opt-in arrangement for a specific kind of digital media distributor - not for you or me. That's some Oops.

The fact that the Section 115 reform amendment is opposed by the Recording Industry Ass. of America president Cary Sherman should demolish the belief that it's a dark and terrible conspiracy by large copyright holders. In fact Sherman is opposing 115 reform precisely because it brings the EFF's desired solution much closer to reality. The EFF proposes a statutory license in all but name - the same flat fee model, but one that comes about through a miraculous epiphany of voluntary agreement. Through kumbaya, rather than Congress, if you like.

The RIAA (and here we must caution against a monolithic view of the lobbyist, as this covers a lot of internal tensions and contradictions) opposes compulsory licenses for digital media because it really quite likes the "relationships, split rights, side agreements and historical antiquities" as they are. Zero priced licenses mean the large labels lose control over pricing - control they've built up over a century. Rather than historical institutions, they simply become one end of a bit stream, and in such a situation, the economics don't favor them.

As much as I respect their goals, the constant clown car antics and knee-jerk hysteria are why I consider the EFF no better than the RIAA. Oh well, it's old knowledge that the only way to get your cause in the news is to mislead and browbeat.

[Doom9]

The reason why the RIAA is opposed to this is self-evident: the compulsory license means they lose control.. and they're all about control. No longer can they negotiate deals with iTunes and leave the rest of the would be music download services in the dust, and no longer can they dictate DRM terms.
However, section 2 1 a iii declares that a license is needed even for cached copies or copies kept in RAM, and a license is also needed for "the making of reproductions by and for end users". So, for you to make a copy, your music provider (and adam's correct here.. not you) needs to have a license. But, that means your music provider needs to pay extra for copies you make, and who do you think will foot the bill for that license that is required so that you can make a copy from your downloaded DRM'ed file to put it onto your iPod, cellphone, a CD or an USB stick for playback in your car?
And why would you need a separate license for a copy of a song in memory? By all means, whatever's in RAM is temporary. And we already have a lawsuit against google claiming that cached copies infringe copyright: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004433.php

The act starts out with a well meant goal and stands to achieve that - but it contains passages who could prove to be dangerous down the road. If those can be changed to reasonable language (get an engineer to write that passage for instance), I see no problem with that act - and I'd just like to point out that my report is quite different from what's floating around the Internet.. no hysteria there.. I did read the act before posting the news - those passages are dangerous regardless of the well meant intentions of this bill.

And my first point above goes towards what I wrote in the news.. under these new licenses, every music service has to pay for every copy you make - consequently, YOU have to pay for every copy you make.

I'm all for mandatory licenses, it will take a bit of control away from the studios and make the digital marketplace more competitive - but not without enshrining the "pay for every copy" principle. I wonder if Cary has figured out that these new licenses will give them the perfect opportunity to charge for each copy made and I would not be surprised of the RIAA came around with alternative proposals that still include this language.
__________________

[adam]

However, section 2 1 a iii declares that a license is needed even for cached copies or copies kept in RAM, and a license is also needed for "the making of reproductions by and for end users".

Just to clarify, these are not mutually exclusive licenses. What the bill proposes is a blanket license. You buy the single license at the price established by the Royalty Board and that allows you to do all of the things in the list you are quoting from (distribute it, make incidental copies, account for end-user copying, etc...) These various activities are actually things that are typically elements of existing licenses already. They are points of contention. When dealing with label X, Itunes may have to pay an additional fee for "cached copies." The point of the bill is to eliminate all of the hassling negotiations. An independant board sets a price and that's it. But the service is still free to negotiate an external license with the label on their own if they want, as they do now. Its a win-win situation for the online distributor and for the end-user...it really is. I think the concept of the bill itself is great. Its actually the exact system that's been in place in the US for radio for years and the only ones that complain are the labels who say they aren't making as much money, but even then its still a more workable and efficient system for them so they actually support it.

Check out what the Copyright Office had to say about the bill:http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html

Now I see what the EFF is complaining about but it really just doesn't seem nearly as ominous as they say. And they tout this as, "the death of online Fair Use." That's just plain misleading. For what they are afraid of to occur the law would have to be taken greatly out of context and THEN rewritten into another bill that regulates activity outside of this specific royalty scheme. It sounds like a very tentative arguement to me. I hope the Committee addresses the issue and just clears it up for the EFF so that there is a real unified support for the bill but I think its going to pass either way and I think it will be a good thing.

[Doom9]

Now I see what the EFF is complaining about but it really just doesn't seem nearly as ominous as they say.I fully agree with you on that.. and I didn't put it the same way in the news. It's just that I don't understand why cached copies now need a license.. that's introducing licenses for something that any reasonable human being will consider to be a license free environment. Each song sold to a paying customer of course needs a license, and the same goes for every song streamed.. that's exactly how it works for radio. Radio stations pay per song played... music distribution sites should pay per song delivered to the customer, too.
If you introduce licensing for something that never needed a license before, one has to ask why - it may never spell doom, but it has the potential to be rather disruptive.

And then there's the point you didn't get into, and neither did the EFF. This bill will hammer the "pay per copy" into stone.. it's the distributor that pays the bill, but it's ridiculous to believe that consumers won't have to foot that bill.

[adam]

It's just that I don't understand why cached copies now need a license. Each song sold to a paying customer of course needs a license, and the same goes for every song streamed.. that's exactly how it works for radio.

Ok I think I can probably set your mind at ease then. When music distribution licenses, and this bill, refer to cached copies they ARE referring to streaming, or rather they always go hand in hand. Let's say I run a site where I stream commercial music. I try to get a license for the latest single. They negotiate a price based on the rights that I procure. If I provide a stream to customers that does not cache the files than this makes it an emphemeral transmission (not saved at all, disappears as soon as its heard, at least as far as my service can control) and I pay a certain royalty for that. If I want to include caching ability than I will more than likely have to pay a higher royalty. This is how its done currently. The new bill will create blanket licenses for three types of distributions: partial, complete, and streaming, and the prices will be different of course. If I want to stream audio and cache it then I buy a single streaming license at a price set by the Royalty Board. Essentially the EFF has no problem with this, they just wish the language didn't separate out the fact that the license allows distribution AND caching, fearing that it provides some kind of precendence for this kind of separation in other areas of copyright law.

As for ephemeral streaming under this bill, there are actually provisions to do it under a royalty free license.

If you introduce licensing for something that never needed a license before, one has to ask why - it may never spell doom, but it has the potential to be rather disruptive.

But caching IS something that currently needs an additional license, in addition to the right to just stream it. The bill just consolidates them. The reason the EFF is upset is because even though this is an industry practice, to license streaming and caching separately, it is always done via private licenses. They don't want this language to actually make its way into law.

[Doom9]

refer to cached copies they ARE referring to streaming, or rather they always go hand in hand.see.. already in the first sentence you have to backtrack. There is no mention whatsoever what caching means, plus it is coupled with copies in RAM and in the network (whatever the latter means... buffers in routers and switches?)
In e1A it states that the license applies to full and partial downloads as well as interactive streaming (by which I suppose they mean you have to ability to jump to any point in the stream, and use functions like fast forward and fast reverse).

In e1Biii it states that the license covers any copies made under A.. so that includes full and partial downloads.

In listening to music, no matter how, the music is temporarily stored in RAM - you can't have it any other way unless your playback device has no RAM (in which case we'd probably be talking about some type of flash memory).

e1B alone is language that would work. The subsections are dangerous. Subsection i introduces licenses per copy, thus hammering into stone the pay per copy regiment the RIAA and MPAA so crave, ii is, well, idiotic (if you make a copy of a song you have licensed for whatever purpose you need another license? give me a break. You need the medium, then you need to pay for one license for the distribution method (download or streaming) per act of distribution (download or streaming).
And iii introduces something which has never been there before.
You don't need a license for a cached copy or a copy in RAM, you don't need a license for IP packets in a router or switch buffer.

Look at iTunes today: You buy one license. With that, you can download the song from iTunes, and you can put it on 5 devices of I'm not mistaken. You don't need a license to put it into the RAM of your iPod.. you just need one to put the MP4 files onto a device other than the PC where you made the download. You also need no license to copy the file to a secondary computer you might have (keep in mind, it passes through a switch buffer, the cpu's cache will also be used in the transfer as well as the RAM).

But caching IS something that currently needs an additional license, in addition to the right to just stream it.You are obviously not active in the IT field.. caching != download. Even the SIRA makes the distinction.. it specifically mentions downloads. Caching is something else. Caching is what google does with webpages, caching is what your CPU does with pages from your RAM.
Of course the cost for a license for a download is higher than a mere streaming license. But it's a license to listen to the music nontheless.. not a license to allow your local router to send traffic to you, or your CPU to initiate the transfer.

Either the copyright office simply doesn't get technology,in which case rewriting the language so it makes sense isn't a problem, or it's the RIAA backdoor as the EFF claims. Either way, those subsections need to go for the SIRA to make good sense for consumers.

[adam]

see.. already in the first sentence you have to backtrack. There is no mention whatsoever what caching means, plus it is coupled with copies in RAM and in the network

Don't you see that your concerns are the very reason this bill is being suggested? Under current licensing systems you need a license to stream or download, another to cache, potentially another for temporary storage, maybe another for incidental end-user copies, and all of these licenses and what these terms mean must be negotiated between the copyright holder and the online distributor. What this bill does is say forget all of that crap. There is now just one license for each type of service, (full download, partial download, or stream) and it allows you to do everything.

Did you read the Copyright Office's statement that I linked to?

e1B alone is language that would work. The subsections are dangerous. Subsection i introduces licenses per copy, thus hammering into stone the pay per copy regiment the RIAA and MPAA so crave, ii is, well, idiotic (if you make a copy of a song you have licensed for whatever purpose you need another license? give me a break. You need the medium, then you need to pay for one license for the distribution method (download or streaming) per act of distribution (download or streaming).
And iii introduces something which has never been there before.
You don't need a license for a cached copy or a copy in RAM, you don't need a license for IP packets in a router or switch buffer.

DUDE! What bill are you reading? Everything you just said is how it is done right now. The bill provides the OPTION of eliminating all of that and just buying a single blanket license. iii does not introduce a license for something that has never been licensed before. Like I said before, you DO currently need to obtain a license to cover cached data and temporary RAM storage when licensing from certain labels. iii is listing what the single license will cover, so that you won't HAVE to purchase the separate license for cached data and such.

As far as, "hammering into stone the pay per copy regiment the RIAA craves" how in the world does this bill do anything of the sort? Per the bill, the Royalty Board will set licensing fees for distribution packages. That could mean you license a single song, a whole album, and entire band's collection, or an entire label's collection. There are no limits under the bill, its no different than the licensing scheme today. And once again the licensing scheme is totally optional so the distributor is always free to ignore it and keep negotiating individual licenses however they want. The ONLY ones who are forced to do anything under this bill are the copyright holders. This is NOT what the RIAA craves. They have been against compulsory licenses since day 1.

Look at iTunes today: You buy one license. With that, you can download the song from iTunes, and you can put it on 5 devices of I'm not mistaken.

And this bill will not change this. For any given song or album, iTunes currently IS buying a license to cover those end-user downloads. Under the bill they will no longer have to. The single complete download license they will purchase will cover EVERYTHING.

You are obviously not active in the IT field.. caching != download. Even the SIRA makes the distinction.

I made the distinction as well. As I said, the bill creates three blanket licenses. One for partial downloads, one for complete downloads, and another for streaming. The streaming license has nothing to do with downloading...where did I say it did? Under the definition portion of the bill it also makes it clear that caching and temporary RAM storage only apply to the stream license. You buy a stream license and you are covered for all that you need to do to stream it to your end-user.

I also don't see any relationship at all between what you said to my statement that you currently need to buy a license both for streaming and additionally for caching. That's just a fact, I mean if you read the Copyright Office's statement of the bill this is one of the main things it is trying to get around.


Either the copyright office simply doesn't get technology,in which case rewriting the language so it makes sense isn't a problem, or it's the RIAA backdoor as the EFF claims. Either way, those subsections need to go for the SIRA to make good sense for consumers.

Well even the EFF doesn't want the subsections to go. I mean there's got to be some sort of definition of what the license grants. They want clarification that these terms essentially are limited only to the online distribution licensing scheme and that it should not be implemented in general copyright principles. I don't think doing so would hurt but geesh, that is a huge stretch.

Doom9 I really think you are inadvertantly sitting on the wrong side of the fence on this issue. According to all of your arguments you really should be strongly in favor of the compulsory licensing system (not necessarily the language used in creating it.) The EFF does not disagree with the system itself, in fact they have been suggesting compulsory licensing for various types of music distribution for years.

[Doom9]

Under current licensing systems you need a license to stream or download, another to cache, potentially another for temporary storage, maybe another for incidental end-user copies, and all of these licenses and what these terms mean must be negotiated between the copyright holder and the online distributor.I'm sure you can procure the links to the relevant laws that mandate all those licenses.

DUDE!FYI, many people consider this term very patronizing, me included. It's the same with buddy and the likes.. you can do that with people you know firsthand if this is acceptable tone.. but to a person you've never even met it's a sign of disrespect.

Everything you just said is how it is done right nowThat's quite simply not true. Fair use allows you to make copies without the need for a license. The new blanket license covers "the making of reproductions by and for end users". That implies that such activity would need a license.. something which previously only the RIAA claimed was necessary - users could still happily copy for private use without needing any license.

There are obviously two points of view to this. One is it's always been done like that, which is the RIAA POV as they like things that way since it allows them to charge for each copy, and then there's the "this is something new that works to the detriment of consumers". The latter is the position I take on this, backed by Fair Use provisions and the AHRA.

Under the definition portion of the bill it also makes it clear that caching and temporary RAM storage only apply to the stream license.obviously we're not looking at the same bill.. I'm looking at the one linked from my news, which contradicts what you're saying

‘‘(A) the making and distribution of digital
phonorecord deliveries in the form of full
downloads, limited downloads, and interactive
streams;
....
all reproduction and distribution
12 rights necessary to engage in activities de13
scribed in subparagraph (A), solely for the pur14
pose of engaging in such activities, including—
......
incidental reproductions made in
the normal course of engaging in activities
described in subparagraph (A), including
cached, network, and RAM buffer

The RAM, cache and network part clearly applies to downloads, both full and limited.

I mean there's got to be some sort of definition of what the license grants.So you'd write the traffic code like this:
All cars can go 60mph on highways, including cars manufactured by
Chevrolet
Ford
Chrysler
Toyota
Mercedes
BMW
etc..

Come on.. the word all is pretty damned definitive.. and the nice thing about it is that it's all inclusive.. if you start to list, you're effectively going to limit the reach of "all" again.

Did you read the Copyright Office's statement that I linked to? Yes I did.. but I very much prefer to read the law itself and not the interpretation of an organization that has previously been supporting the copyright industry's goals. I don't consider the copyright office to be an instituation that's neutral between consumer interests and copyright industry interests.

And the RIAA is actually in favor of the legislation.. which should make everybody suspicious. The RIAA is never in favor of anything that would lessen their grip on things and to squeeze more money out of their customers. Here's my source: http://news.com.com/House+panel+OKs+digital+licensing+bill/2100-1028_3-6081874.html

[adam]

I'm sure you can procure the links to the relevant laws that mandate all those licenses.

The only licenses mandated by law at all are compulsory ones like the one suggested by this bill. Licenses are private contracts. If they want they can force the licencee to do the Truffle Shuffle before allowing them to sell their music.

Online sales and streaming require a mechanical license and this is procured through an agency that represents the label. The most common ones are Harry Fox Agency and Copyright Management Services. You are free to contact them and ask what it takes to procure a license to stream audio. Both require that you purchase a license covering temporary storage inherant in the streaming process and copying made by the end-user. The Copyright Office's statement of the bill expressly mentions this. Here is also a good law review article that breaks things down. You can confirm what I say under the section titled mechanical licenses.

http://www.idea.piercelaw.edu/articles/42/42_3/1.Rose.pdf

FYI, many people consider this term very patronizing, me included.

Sorry I did not mean any disrespect. Where I am from the term is frequently used as a sign of frustration with someone, and that's how I used it. I sincerely think that you have the issues completely flip flopped.


That's quite simply not true. Fair use allows you to make copies without the need for a license. The new blanket license covers "the making of reproductions by and for end users". That implies that such activity would need a license.. something which previously only the RIAA claimed was necessary - users could still happily copy for private use without needing any license.

This bill has nothing to do with private copying! It is talking about licensing for online music distributions. As I have said multiple times now they do have to procure multiple licenses for all of the things you mentioned including the end-user copying. Again, this is how it is done NOW and the bill is changing this by creating a comprehensive blanket license.

Fair Use has absolutely zero to do with licenses. Licenses are contracts. Certain things can only be done with a license and that's the activity that this bill is governing. Any given Fair Use copying right that an end-user may have does not change the fact that the distributor can still be required to pay a license to account for it.

The whole fair use argument that the EFF is raising is in regards to future legislation and furture caselaw taking this bill out of context and using it as precedence in the private area. Their Fair Use arguments have absolutely zero to do with the licensing system itself. As I said before the EFF supports a compulsory licensing system for online music distribution.

As for the RIAA supporting this bill now, they do not. They initially opposed the bill and, as I said in my very first post, they have since come to unified agreements. A unified agreement is essentially an agreement not to oppose it. Usually it comes about when a bill's passing is inevitiable. When this happens it is better for there to be unified support. It makes everybody look good. There is no doubt that the RIAA has much to gain from the bill too. It completely simplifies the entire online licensing process. But compulsory licenses are not what they want.

Rather than continue quoting each other back and forth I'll just bow out. We're clearly not getting anywhere and I'm just repeating myself. All I can say is that this bill takes existing industry practices of forcing multiple licenses, and consolidates them into a single license with prices set by a government agency. If your reading of it is anything different than you already know that I respectfully disagree with you.

[foxyshadis]

The only licenses mandated by law at all are compulsory ones like the one suggested by this bill.
This isn't even compulsory. It's entirely optional and the RIAA member organizations can stonewall and refuse to use it if they feel like being pricks. But since this will become the defacto license contracts will be expected to be built around, they may not have the clout anymore to resist.

Also, you would only even have the option to pay for the license if you became a music provider, and I'm not sure the RIAA (or iTunes or whomever) could stretch piping music out of your system into the living room as being synonymous with a digital content distributor without an extremely eager judge. Otherwise, the bill does not apply to you, only whatever service-specific license itunes has imposed on you.

Caveat, I haven't read the text of the bill. It hasn't been posted to the library of congress yet, but when it will it will be listed here (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR05553:), under full text; and it isn't on eff.org, which I don't understand given their call to arms over it. Once I have a chance to, instead of being caught between a dozen conflicting half-truths, my opinion may change.

[Doom9]

and it isn't on eff.orgit is.. but it's rather well hidden. You can always refer to the link in my news though.
Here is also a good law review article that breaks things down.While I cannot comment on the accuracy of the article, the author committed at least one major blunder: The US only started respecting copyright internationally when it served the purpose of their copyright industry. Prior to that, content creators in other countries enjoyed no protection whatsoever in the US.. so the statement that from inception of the country copyright law has been an important part of the cultural landscape.. that's just major BS.
And even though I have read through the entire document, I fail to find the section that says you need a license so that the user of your download service may make a copy.

I would have no objections of those pesky subsections i-iii weren't there.. but those include a dangerous precedent that some people like to discard as irrelevant. We'll see about that. If I'm wrong, I'm just wasting my energy, if you are wrong, we are even more screwed than we are now and I will enjoy being really nasty about telling you I told you so.

[adam]

This isn't even compulsory. It's entirely optional and the RIAA member organizations can stonewall and refuse to use it if they feel like being pricks.

No, it is indeed a compulsory blanket license. Read the very first section of the bill. Also, this bill is an amendment to section 115 which is the section of title 17 that deals only with compulsory licenses for nondramatic musical works. Finally, as I stated earlier, all statutory licenses are compulsory. If this bill passes than copyright holders have no choice but to license those rights, and at those prices, to any online music distributor that requests them so long as they have met the requirements of the licensing application. The licensing scheme is only optional as to potential licencees. They are free to enter into private negotiations with the copyright holders and try to work out a better deal.