HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC: A HISTORY

[defrog]

Seeing as how the RIAA/MPAA Copyright Infringement Freakout has reached the point where bringing a laptop into a cinema in the UK is forbidden because you might use to pirate the film (don’t ask me how) ....

AND seeing as how various countries in the world are negotiating a new international copyright law that only 42 people are allowed to read (after signing non-disclosure agreements) because the contents are vital to national security ...

Here’s a little weekend reading material for you: Ars Technica has put together a nice chronicle of the history of Established Copyright Status Quo vs New Technologies that threaten to undermine the status quo and kill off the music and movie business forever – from player pianos and gramophones to DVRs and digital TV.

Bottom line: the RIAA/MPAA party line (“if you allow this, the music and film business will die”) is a hundred years old. And yet they’re still here.

Going going gone,

This is dF

Comments

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

New technology is not bad for music of musicians (or for media and artists); they always find a way to make a buck. It's bad for corporations with business practices are built around grossly inflating the price of media and then taking the vast majority of the profit for themselves, which they can then use to manufacture more of the same with artificial popstars.

It's not even about 'democratizing' media: technology is threatening the Ponzi scheme that underlies the business of entertainment.

-- JF

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

All I can add is that there IS a new business model for these companies to embrace as well, but they can't capitalize until they're ready to let the old one go. And they're clearly not there yet. In the case of ACTA, they're also lobbying govts worldwide to legally keep the old model in force.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Well, more and more laptops have built in cameras, now...

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

Mine has one, but to tape a movie off the screen, I'd have to point the laptop screen away from me and hope it's pointed at a good enough angle. And there I am in the theatre, with a big laptop out on my lap open and facing away from me.

So if I was in the business of taping movies off a screen and the idea was to not get caught, a laptop is the last thing I'd use.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I'd never have thought of taking a laptop into a cinema, personally...

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I do it all the time, but for the same reason as the guy in the article -- I carry it to and from work, and sometimes I go to the movies straight from the office, so I can't drop it off at home first.