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Technology Stocks : e.Digital Corporation(EDIG) - Embedded Digital Technology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Savant who wrote (6499)	7/14/1999 9:27:00 PM
From: chris431	Respond to of 18366

And stupid political maneuvers.... The article follows my comments. I think my caption is appropriate. I'm personally an opponent of overly restrictive "guidelines" but after looking over the article, the CD protection in the "spec" looks fair and reasonable to me. None the less, it makes a great and easy target for opponents, as the article itself displays. As such, the potential ammo it gives opponents likely outweighs the real benefit of the spec....4 or so copies from 1 original likely exceeds the amount produced in "personal piracy" and large scale duplicators will find a quick and easy away around this protection. The end result is a null effect on piracy yet a horrible PR mistake. The latter part of the article uses horrible analogies and suggests a weak argument on the part of EFF (an organization whose comments I more than not align with). Copying an entire book 4 times to sell or exchange with friends is neither fair use or allowed by the First Sale doctrine. EFF is really stretching the book/cd analogy. JMHO. SDMI SPEC RESTRICTS CD COPYING (TECH. 3:00 am) wired.com SDMI Spec Restricts CD Copying by Chris Oakes 3:00 a.m. 14.Jul.99.PDT The Secure Digital Music Initiative, the new standard that aims to wipe out digital music piracy, amounts to a list of choke holds that electronics manufacturers must build into portable stereo systems. No surprise there -- SDMI does exactly what music industry backers promised it would do. But the new standard goes one step beyond what some find acceptable. It limits the home duplication of standard music CDs. "This is to protect content that has no rules associated with it," said Jack Lacy, chairman of the SDMI's portable device group. A limit of four copies will only mean that CD owners will "need to keep [their copies] within [their] local circle of friends." The published specification stipulates that SDMI-compliant devices allow the CD owner to make only four digital copies per copying session. If that person needs to copy again to such a device, she must re-copy from the original CD. "Four copies can be made each time the CD is copied and stored in the local SDMI format and/or on portable devices or media. If more copies are needed, the original disk can simply be copied again," reads the specification summary. A spokeswoman for the group of record companies behind the new standard was quick to play down its significance. "It's a default rule and I think it still leaves the consumer enormous flexibility," said Susan Lewis, spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "You can still take that CD and copy it, really as many times as you want." The RIAA pushed for the SDMI specification out of the fear that technologies such as MP3 would spell a boon to pirates and mark the end of its music distribution franchise. The SDMI -- a coalition of record companies, electronics manufacturers, Internet firms, and other stakeholders -- had reportedly pushed to include within the spec a means to somehow restrict the copying of existing, unprotected CDs. Such a provision would put restrictions on what is currently possible, which is unlimited copying of CDs. In an interview last week, SDMI executive director Leonardo Chiariglione said that the group had convinced record labels to relinquish their attempts to control existing CDs and focus on future releases and technologies only. The spec's Tuesday release points to a U-turn on that stance. Lewis, however, disagrees. "What we wanted to discourage is a filling-station piracy model," Lewis said, "[one in which] you can take your one CD and make copies for the entire world." But any such limitation may find itself up against the "First Sale Doctrine" of US copyright law. The judicially established rule stipulates that the author of a piece of content relinquishes control over the use of the content once it is sold. "Under the SDMI spec, they want to change that so the author can tell you what you do each and every time -- which completely turns the First Sale Doctrine on its head," said Robin Gross, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Just as a book publisher can't tell buyers that they can or can't lend a book to a friend, sell it, or make only a few photocopies of its pages, the First Sale Doctrine would equally prevent CD publishers from setting terms on the buyer's personal use of the CD. The doctrine specifies its own exception that covers unlimited reproduction and distribution of content. With the law already encompassing these limitations, the SDMI spec attempts to encode what is already covered in copyright law. "[The CD owner] no longer has control over the uses of that work," Gross said. Cary Sherman, senior executive vice president for the RIAA, said the First Sale Doctrine is unlikely to apply to electronic content in the same way it does to physical content. "How this doctrine would apply in the context of electronic copies is not known," he said. "If there were a way to ensure that an owner of an electronic copy gave away his copy (and didn't keep a copy and give away another copy), then the doctrine works just fine. But the doctrine doesn't make sense if the owner of the copy can both keep his copy and give it away." The digital nature of music also affects what can be called reproduction and distribution, he contends. "The First Sale Doctrine applies only to the 'distribution' right. If the owner of an electronic copy sends a copy of his copy to someone else, he is not only distributing it, he is also reproducing it -- an activity which is not excused by the first sale doctrine."