Doom For Indies?

[Sir_Matthew]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but here goes:

I'm checking the veracity of a few facts in an article I found in the FW Weekly ( http://www.fwweekly.com/ ) that was originally printed in the Honolulu Weekly. To be blunt, it scares the crap out of me. In the article, Joe Edmon explains the SDMI ( Secure Digital Music Initiative, http://www.sdmi.org/ ) technology the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, http://www.riaa.com/ ) will be implementing shortly to prevent the copying of music.

According to the article, soon when you buy a SDMI-compliant CD player, you will no longer be able to play CD's that do not contain the SDMI encoding that the labels have already begun putting on new releases. In other words, your old CD's will not play on your new player.

When I read this article, it struck me as odd that this was the first I'd heard of it, & that made me suspicious. I know that SDMI exists and that its purpose is supposedly to prevent folks from making unauthorized MP3's from the discs, but I had not heard anything about it rendering everyone's CD collection obsolete & inoperable. It seems to me that if it were true, there would be some serious public outcry by this point.

Has anyone heard anything else about this issue? If it is true, it could harm someone like me who is planning on putting out a CD by next year & is hoping it will play on the new equipment without somehow having it SDMI encoded.

Any thoughts?

 

[dobro]

"Serious public outcry..."

... is what they'll get from me and everyone else on this board if they try that on, yes.

But I don't think it will happen exactly in that way. What might happen is that you will need a new CD player to play new CDs from the majors - the bastards would love that, wouldn't they? But the manufacturers will continue to make and supply us with present-day type CD players so we can play our (by now huge) collections of CDs. In other words, a proliferation of systems - I now have, in various places, cassette players, CD players, and a CDRW drive/burner, and I'm thinking about minidisk uses, and DVD as well.

And of course, pirate software will emerge which can defeat the SDMI encoding, and we'll have the audio equivalent of the dope laws, making loads of ordinary people lawbreakers.

Thanks for the links.

 

[Buck62]

Moderator Wannabee

Yep...
There's ALWAYS a way around new technology.
If they DO try to prevent people from copying cd's, some 13 year old whiz-kid will find a way around it within a few months. I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[virtual.ray]

A matter of time

Charlie Rose had the lawyer for Napster on his PBS show last week,and they were obviously talking about the legal situation and the global questions of copyright and ownership and free speech,etc. and I remember thinking while I was watching this show that it's only a matter of time 'till the major labels start imbedding some new code into their releases to either prevent their being copied or even played w/o special equipment.I didn't know about what's discussed above at the time,but it doesn't surprise me one bit.I wouldn't put it past some of these special interest groups considering the use of viruses that would disable the equipment of the unsuspecting consumer trying to make copies.One thing's for sure,Napster was a real wake up call for these people,and I think from now on there will be a game of cat and mouse between the hackers and the record labels trying to defuse whatever new tricks they come up with.

 

[Rev E]

There's no way that they would do this. There is too much of a potential to get sued (even if they win, it's never worth it to get sued) based on Antitrust violations (e.g. Microsoft anyone?) Such an action could be viewed as a restraint of trade if ALL of the major labels adopt this standard. If it did happen, independent label trade organizations would sue... No questions asked. It won't happen.

PLUS, there's another good reason why they wouldn't do this. Such a move could/would upset the delicate balance that they already have with customers. The goal of majors is to make a profit with large volumes of product. Because of their high initial costs (promotion, artists, production, etc...) they have to sell large volumes of music to survive. There's no way that anyone with those requirements would be so stupid as to effectively "lock out" half of their customers. It just won't happen.

I'm not saying that they would not consider a copy-protection that is superior to the one that they presently use, but not one that would require a new "player", at least not anytime soon.

Prophecies from the Rev

 

[Sir_Matthew]

Say Rev...

I hope you're right, Rev. That's exactly what went through my head as I was reading the article, but upon looking at the SDMI website (link in my original post), it seemed as if the nightmare were becoming reality already.

Let's hope common sense reigns here.