"if all ISPs in the UK staged a strike by cutting Internet access everywhere for two or three days and claim that would be the only possible way to ensure their customers aren't pirating anything, I am sure that the outrage would force another look at the law. And if they did this 2 different times, like once on Thursday Friday and Saturday, it could cause direct deposit information and payroll services to be interrupted. If they did this on again a week later on lets say Monday and Tuesday, there would be so much upset and confusion that those who think they wasn't effected will be."

Don: Please tell me who you are and what you do.

RIAA: Cara Duckworth, spokeswoman for the RIAA.

Trandlation: Cara Duckworth, Recording Industry Ass. of America mouthpiece.

Don: What can you tell me about the college deterrence program?

RIAA: Began last February. It was becoming clearer that despite cool new legal services and the ongoing educational efforts, too many students--some of music's biggest fans--were getting their music illegally and learning the wrong lessons about stealing and the law. There had to be a deterrence factor involved so that individuals knew that along with personal consequences (i.e., viruses, spyware infiltrating hard drive) there would also be legal consequences to engaging in illegal downloading behavior. Bringing lawsuits was by no means our first choice, but a necessary step we had to take.

Translation: It seems like the harder we try to make money off those ungrateful little shits the more they turn away from us. I just don't get it, I mean I don't get technology in general so how am I supposed to know about Trojans and viruses... something to do with safe sex, yes? Sony tried giving them that great rootkit for free and they just threw it back in their faces. So now we're going to start dragging our biggest customers through the courts. Makes sense when we think about it.

Don: Why college students?

RIAA: First, it should be clarified that our college campaign is in addition to the lawsuits we file against individuals using commercial ISPs to illegally download and distribute music. Second, college students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crystallized, and their appreciation for intellectual property has not yet reached its full development. These two points coupled together present challenges to those who would like to be compensated for their creative works. Understanding the value of intellectual property is important to the future job market for many of these students--industries that rely on copyright protection employ more than 11 million workers nationwide and continue to grow.

Translation: Hey, don't get me wrong, we'll make you all pay. But students in particular just don't think the way we want them to, and we at the Ass. are now forced to brainwash them through legal means. Our understanding of intellectual property is firmly fixed in the last century and we want to make damn sure that everyone else's understanding is too. For instance, we are determined not to contemplate any alteration to the standard business model and to do our best to retard technological progress that will inevitably render that model obsolete.

Don: What group of people do you see pirating the most music?

RIAA: While college students used to be some of music's greatest fans, unfortunately that is no longer the case. I would point you to the evidence of the extensiveness of music theft amongst college campuses from Student Monitor and other market research firms to show why we are focusing some of our efforts on universities.

Translation: College brats! Those little bastards! They've got the money, how else did they get into college? They're trying to improve their chances in the job market using money that rightfully belongs to us. If you'd like to see my evidence for this assumption you'll have to buy it, just like we did.

Don: How do you respond to people who say your organization is a group of bullies?

RIAA: I have to step back for a moment. These are certainly heavy issues and none which we take lightly. When an individual is caught illegally downloading music, it sometimes happens that the person creates a stir. The reality of it is that nobody wants to get caught and most people complain when they are. The music industry has lost more than $3 billion in sales over the last few years. Bringing lawsuits is certainly no one's ideal answer--we're well aware of that. But if we had sat on our hands and chosen to do nothing about the piracy problem as the music industry was hemorrhaging jobs and lost sales, imagine what the extent of theft would be today and how the legal marketplace would be struggling to gain traction. The digital music marketplace is demonstrably better because of our efforts.

Translation: They're just whining little crybabies. Wah wah wah, they're picking on me! Wah wah wah, $10,000 per track is too much! Wah wah wah, I don't even own a computer! They're the one's not buying music, they should be giving us money and they're not! Think of all the money we're losing to people who aren't paying for things we never gave them, and trust me: you won't believe how much we never gave them. It's progress that's causing all this. What are we supposed to do just let the world move on and leave us behind? Like hell! If the only way for us to keep our jobs is to make you pay for service you no longer need then so be it. Put up and pay up!

Don: How have you addressed those huge pirating cartels overseas? Are you going for a soft target?

RIAA: Our preference--first and foremost--is to take action against the services themselves that facilitate the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted works. We are actively assisting efforts by policy makers in Washington to encourage countries whose copyright laws have not kept up with the times or who do not appropriately enforce intellectual property violations. Additionally, we are affiliated with IFPI, which represents the interest of the global music community and assists in the enforcement of copyright infringement cases outside of the U.S.

Translation: You mean the physical pirates, the ones selling counterfeit CDs? What, are you shitting me? Some of those guys are real criminals, they got guns and stuff. And they don't speak American so... you know... Oh wait, do you mean The Pirate Bay? Those fuckers! Sweden's turning into some kind of commie paradise. We gotta fix that as soon as possible and it takes money to get laws passed so we need to sue more students, on the double. That thing with getting Russia's WTO membership on the line, that was great move; maybe we could try something like that.

Don: Do you think your policy of lawsuits and settlements work?

RIAA: Absolutely. Since we began this initiative, we've seen a P2P problem that once was growing at dizzying speeds essentially flatten out. People are now more aware of what is legal and illegal when it comes to downloading music. But more importantly, bringing lawsuits is only one piece of the pie--we are actively investing resources in the education of students of all ages on the value of music and importance of copyrights and, perhaps most importantly, music companies are continuously partnering with exciting new services that offer fans an array of innovative opportunities to access their favorite music.

Translation: P2P has stopped growing. That means we're winning. There is absolutely no need to interpret this result as a saturation of the P2P market. You don't honestly believe that everyone who is going to share is already sharingm do you? No. That was us. We did that. And we're going to press our advantage by continuing to terrify your kids into thinking the way we want them to, and we'll pay for that by suing the ones that don't learn. See how that works? Also, we're going to find ways to monetise just about everything you can do with music, including things no one's thought of yet. That will make everyone feel better about it.

Don: Why do you think you're such a disliked organization?

RIAA: I don't agree with the loaded premise of the question. In some online quarters, there may be lots of heat about the tough stands we sometimes must take. But amongst the general public, the favorability ratings of the record industry remain as positive as ever and surpass other forms of entertainment like movie or TV studios. I believe my answer to question No. 5 can apply here as well. But let it be said--the RIAA is much more than lawsuits. For example, we also are responsible for the Gold & Platinum program awarding artists who have achieved successful album sales and are active proponents of free speech in music. But no one likes lawsuits, and no one likes to get caught. It's not an ideal situation for any party involved. But with all the new, innovative legal alternatives in the marketplace (and more emerging on almost a daily basis), the music community is proactively offering fans ways to avoid lawsuits and get their favorite music at affordable prices.

Translation: Nonsense, there are lots of people who like us. It's just the ones we take money from or whose business model conflicts with our own that seem to have a problem. Like music lovers... and artists... and consumer groups, and electronics manufacturers, civil rights groups, Swedish communist politicians, anyone who has spent more than a few minutes actually thinking logically about the issues... oh, and the record labels too, those guys have seriously got the hump these days. Hmm, I guess we've bribed a few musicians and politicians into liking us though. And once our plans come to fruition and music lovers have no other option but to do what we tell them, we'll just tell them to like us. It'll be great!

Don: How do you respond to the people who say you're going after grandmothers and young children when you should be going after real criminals in gunships?

RIAA: I'd give them the facts and encourage them not to believe everything they read that aggressively villainizes the organization. We have a physical antipiracy unit that assists law enforcement agents in shutting down piracy operations both big and small. Oftentimes street peddlers selling bootlegged copies of music are also involved in large-scale drug and weapons trafficking, and we find clear evidence of that on raids. As for individuals themselves, we have no way of screening defendants based on demographics, socioeconomic status, or perceived sympathy. Upon initial discovery of a violation, we have an IP address, a sampling of the files that were shared, and a timestamp of the activity. We consistently follow the prescribed legal process to obtain identifying information and always try to be fair and reasonable in resolving each of our cases.

Translation: We'll go after anyone who crosses us, period. We're totally ruthless. Hell, if you're dead we'll just take what we need from your family. You remember that now, next time you start up your BT client. We use technology that produces a set of numbers that provides incontrovertible proof that the people we say guilty are guilty. We don't need to worry about network architecture, or shared IPs, or multiplexing and all that confusing stuff, that just misleads the courts. All they need to know is that we can prove anything we need to with numbers... Except street peddlers, they don't have IP addresses so they're harder to come by. Imagine if we put enough people out on the street to find those guys, there wouldn't be anybody left at the office to sue students.

Don: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

RIAA: Regarding our college initiative, a university's role in reducing the level of piracy on its campus cannot be overemphasized. We have consistently said that the more proactive a school is in the education of its students regarding its IT and enforcement policies, the offering of great legal alternatives so that students can have access to their favorite music (at deeply discounted prices or even for free), and most importantly, implementing effective technology that helps protect the integrity of its network, will lead to fewer instances of violations and fewer instances of hearing from us--a win for everybody!

Translation: We're doing all we can to fight music lovers. In fact, we think we're doing too much! So we need colleges who would otherwise be sitting there minding their own business to do our job for us, preferably without any reimbursement. If they don't then we'll just wring some more cash out of the student body and use it to bribe a few more politicians to put the financial frighteners on them. That's how it works: we bribe the politicians, the politicians scare the colleges, the colleges scare their students, the students give us money. It doesn't end there, of course: once we have our claws in them we can use the colleges to collect our money for us, straight from the students, on the pretence of providing them with legal access to music. And anyone who doesn't pay must be a pirate - we can pick them like fruit!

Our download service provides files in the WMA music format or the WMV video format, which is not supported by Apple Macintosh computers. To use your music with an iPod, simply follow the steps below:

1. Save each downloaded song to your PC


2. Burn a music CD (in CDA file format)


3. Import the music from the CD into iTunes


4. Update your iPod

"The record industry doesn't have a f---ing clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask."

'Gene Simmons: college kids killed music biz' reuters.com

"The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce. As soon as you give people the choice to deviate from it, you have chaos and anarchy. And that's what going on."

'Gene Simmons: college kids killed music biz' reuters.com

Andy Oram over at O'Reilly Radar noted the recent moves in Denmark to create a system where every ISP user might pay a monthly fee in order to access unlimited P2P music legally.

The proposal has drawn positive feedback from an unlikely source—the local "Piratgruppen."

"It's good that they admit that they cannot solve the problem of falling CD sales by suing their own fans," said Sebastian Gjerding from the Piratgruppen. "It looks like they have understood that they should offer something that is competitive compared to other, free music sources. It is an entirely new admission that hasn't spread internationally yet. IFPI Denmark is on the forefront in this matter. But it is annoying that no action has been taken so far to save many teenagers million-krone fines."

ArsTechnica.com

The Blanket License should cover all media, it should, in fact, cover anything that can be encoded, uploaded, downloaded or otherwise redistributed, music, movies, TV shows, books, newspapers, 3d printer files, essentially any media that can be rendered as data. It should be run as an opt-in for content creators alone and strictly prohibit music cartels, charities and other non-root content providers. It should also provide a means for those artists who build on the work of others to indicate and reward their contributors.

But there is one element that is by far the most important: the Blanket License must be directly democratic. By this I mean that the distribution of the revenue derived from the BL should be based on what the users are listening to, watching and using, not on some even division or some educated guess informed by random polling. We should literally be voting for our choices and the results of these votes used to calculate the creators' share.s Of course one vote a week is hardly going to be a fair measure, instead we would need at least a hundred votes a week which we could distribute as we see fit (say a maximum of five votes per voter for any one creator). This voting could allow for a mix of voluntary voting (specific choices regardless of what a user has actually downloaded) and user-controlled automated voting (a system that allows vote assignments based on the usage statistics from a media player). No one would be forced to vote, but it would be in their interests to encourage their favourite bands, actors photographers, writers and so on, and automatic voting could allow users to contribute without any real effort.

There will still be a place for record labels as marketing brokers, contracting artists for flat fees or a percentage of their earnings in return for their expertise in development and marketing their creations.

This real Blanket License would be no small undertaking, requiring the development of an international infrastructure and region-by-region legislation to remove the existing legal hurdles faced by users. But the result would be a totally egalitarian forum, the likes of which has not been seen since some mug took a handful of loose change and sang to a wax cylinder. All that would be required for an artist to make money would be to make music and find people who like it enough to vote for it, no contracts, no physical distribution, and most significantly, no risk.

"With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you."

- ArsTechnica.com

"Weirdly, Apple seems to have sold this move to EMI by saying that the DRM-free version will be a "premium" offering for audiophiles who want higher-quality music. I think that audiophiles are probably the people who have the least trouble keeping up with the latest tips for efficiently ripping the DRM off of their music -- the people who really need DRM-free music are the punters who can't even spell DRM." - BoingBoing.net

Q) Is digital rights management (DRM) sustainable over the next 10 years?
A) DRM is not where it should be. In the end of the day incentive systems (for artists) make a difference. But we don't have the right thing here in terms of simplicity or interoperability.

Blogger Michael Arrington, of Techcrunch.com, said Bill Gates' short-term advice for people wanting to transfer songs from one system to another was to "buy a CD and rip it".

"This was set before the advent, the big boom, of rock 'n' roll - the boom in popular culture which has led to a whole vast number of people making their living from these royalties.

"You can make a record in 1955 and have been getting royalties," [Music journalist Neil McCormack] said. "Suddenly they're gone."

"Our DRM is second to none," says Bob Jeves, CEO at uNetis, "It can be applied to any digital media," he starts counting off fingers, "It requires no alterations to the file, takes up no additional bandwidth, and requires no encryption or additional processing at the customer end. It allows files to be used on any device without technical obstruction. It does not compromise users' systems with invasive software, does not threaten their privacy with constant server traffic, and it cannot be stripped away by any known means." He sits back smiling as the waiter delivers his latte, the morning sun shining from the glass flank of uNetis new Paris headquarters across the street reflected in his spectacles, "This system is the best solution for artists and customers."

"And for uNetis," your reporter observes.

He concedes the point with a shrug, "uNetis has taken a rapidly failing business model and provided the means to make it work again. I don't see any problem in benefiting from that achievement."

But to some, uNetis' lack of shame is perhaps the most infuriating part of the online music retailer's new DRM initiative.

In a small flat in West London, Brian (as we will call him) scratches furiously at his arms, his face set in concentration as he glances from the rash that has spread across his skin in the last few minutes to the copy of the music file that has caused it, sitting conspicuously in the middle of his Vista desktop. Finally, unable to cope with the discomfort any longer he deletes the file, making sure to empty the recycling bin, then logs in to the uNetis web site where he navigates to the payments page. There he locates the options for unauthorised copies and uses his credit card to pay €5.00, more than five times the amount he had originally paid for the track a month ago.

"Deleting the copy isn't good enough," he says half an hour later, the rash on his forearms all but gone, "The only way to get rid of the hives is to pay. The curse is very specific."

Brian considers himself to be a rational person, a student of engineering, unswayed by religion, mysticism or superstition, a vociferousness opponent to intelligent design and a staunch advocate of reason. "I thought the whole thing was a joke. I watched the LAP [License Agreement Presentation], with Justin Timberlake and Bono explaing what we can and can't do with the data we just paid for, and took about as much notice as I ever do of those things. And then they had those... those girls talking gibberish and sprinkling god-knows-what on the uNetis server racks, and I just laughed my ass off! I was waiting for them to short something out and get sprayed with fire suppressant," he doesn't look amused now. "I mean, how could that not be a joke? But honestly I thought I was getting a good deal; I paid for my music and got a file I don't have to fight with to hear it."

It wasn't until two weeks after downloading the latest Coldplay single from uNetis that Brian started to take the curse seriously. He first noticed the itching in the hours after copying the file to his portable music player one morning and assumed it was an insect bite or allergic reaction. However, it became so irritating that he was forced to leave work early that day to find an anti-histamine. "It was the woman at the chemists that mentioned the uNetis LAP. Until then I hadn't put it together. She said a friend of hers had come down with the same thing and that it turned out to be these copied uNetis tracks on her computer." But Brian still wasn't ready to believe that his download had really been cursed. "I was up all night with this itching driving me crazy, wondering how I was going to manage work in the morning. And I don't really know what I was thinking, I just wanted it to stop. I got up and I watched the LAP again, and there is was. The witches-for-hire were talking about the hives and the itching and 'torment without respite'."

"I thought I was being an idiot. But I followed the instruction and paid the fine." And within minutes, just as with the demonstration he had shown, the rash faded. "Am I just making this whole ridiculous thing worse by talking to you about it? The more it's reported like this, the more people will fall for it, right? I mean, I still don't believe in this crap, but how can I deny what I just showed you? It's all psychology; I know that some people are more susceptible to this kind of suggestion, and that it has nothing to do with their intelligence or education. But that doesn't make me feel any less of a fool for falling for it."

In another experiment, your reporter purchased a track from uNetis and dutifully sat through the fifteen minute LAP video with the curse description and the spell casting by the three young witches (young women no doubt selected for their attractiveness as well as their alleged occult expertise). The unprotected file was then fearlessly duplicated onto a portable music player without paying for an additional copy.

Three days later there was still no sign of the promised affliction.

"It doesn't reach everyone, no," admits Jeves, "We estimate that ten-to-twenty percent of our customers are directly susceptible to the curse. But then that twenty percent convince another thirty that it's not worth the risk to even try. And, of course, we always have our consistent base of loyal and honest customers for whom the curse simply doesn't apply. They know that our artists need to be rewarded and are happy to help fund their creativity... Uh... you did pay for that copy in the end, didn't you?"

Prof. Kenneth Dique, who remains at large despite the outstanding warrant for his arrest over the CrackBaby.net distributed quantum computing affair, has also taken an interest in the cursing of media downloads. In an interview last month [Stop Breathing, 'Quantum Communist', August 2012], Prof. Dique considered the curse a logical, if repulsive, development, "This is really no different from any of those anti-piracy PSAs. They are trying to convince their customers that something bad will happen to them if they do anything other than exactly what they are told. 'You will be arrested', 'You will be fined fifty-thousand dollars', 'You will go to prison'. As with all of these things it is only a minority, and usually a tiny one, whose lives are actually and directly impacted by such actions, but the misfortune of that minority is enough to convince a whole lot of other people to act just as these pigopolists want them to. And that's the most dangerous aspect: these companies are deliberately and maliciously re-engineering our common psyche for their own benefit, and without our consent. The uNetis curse is just the most recent, the most outlandishly arrogant and the most irresponsible example of this.

"And here's a question I want them to answer: What happens when uNetis eventually goes out of business? I didn't hear any caveat in the spell about that. What happens when there is no online payment system in place to lift the curse? Do those afflicted customers have to put up with the symptoms for the rest of their lives?"

"I find it hard to take the good professor seriously," Jeves responds when Prof. Dique's observations were put to him, "He's basically just put a negative spin on all advertising: 'you will be ugly if you don't use this moisturiser', 'you will be unpopular if you don't wear these sneakers'. Everything in the world of advertising is about 'engineering the common psyche', as he put it, that's how we create mind share. All we are dong is using the exact same process to convince our customers to do the right thing and help support our service and our artists." On Prof. Dique's last point he is rather more evasive, "We have no intention of going out of business. And I can assure you we are putting in place a series of measures to ensure that our customers can always access the curse-lifting mechanism, through alternate channels if necessary." He declined to discuss the details of these "alternative channels".

And the future of uNetis magic based DRM system (provided they don't go out of business and leave their customers with a lifetime of suffering)? "We are currently in talks with several of the larger labels about modifying the terms of the curse to make file sharing, through peer-to-peer and public posting, a distinct infringement with a much larger fine. We've also had several other online retailers seeking permission to make use of the curse system to protect their own products. And there has even been some investigation into the potential use of curses with physical media and domestic media technology such as preventing the misuse of HDMI signals. That's one of the many beauties of the curse system: it doesn't require customers to upgrade their hardware - it will work all the way down to old analogue devices!"

Finally Mr Jeves was asked if he personally felt any shame over causing so many people physical harm with the uNetis curse, "No. No I don't. It's those people who are copying music without authorisation who should be ashamed, ashamed for trying to take something without paying for it, ashamed for putting future music production at risk because of their selfishness, and for bringing us to the point where this sort of measure has become necessary. In the last two months we've received over twenty-thousand payments for unauthorised copies and recovered a considerable percentage of our estimated lost revenue for that period, enough to give hope to the music industry of a real future. What do I have to be ashamed of?" He adds: "And besides, it's hives, it's not going to kill them!"

- 'You'll Wish They'd Stuck with Rootkits' by Jennifer South
Stop Breathing, October 2012.

"Like a creeping fog, DRM smothers more and more media in its clammy embrace, but the sun still shines down on isolated patches of the landscape. This isn't always due to the decisions of corporate executives; often it's the work of hackers who devote considerable skill to cracking the digital locks that guard everything from DVDs to e-books. Their reasons are complicated and range from the philosophical to the criminal, but their goals are the same: no more DRM."