(Fwd) If music be the food of law

Tue May 14 19:35:22 EDT 2002

For Your Information , Tom
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Date sent:      	Tue, 14 May 2002 18:00:01 -0500
Subject:        	If music be the food of law
To:             	Tom at Abacurial.com
From:           	NW Gibbs and Bradner <GibbsBradner at bdcimail.com>
Send reply to:  	Gibbs and Bradner Help <NWReplies at bellevue.com>

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: 
GIBBS & BRADNER
05/14/02
Today's focus: If music be the food of law

In this issue:

* Backspin columnist Mark Gibbs implores others to get behind 
  the Electronic Frontier Foundation
* Featured reader resource
* Related links

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Today's focus: If music be the food of law

By Mark Gibbs

I just drove from my home (north of Los Angeles) to Las Vegas, 
a pleasant 5 1/2-hour jaunt. It was great - I loaded up the CD 
cartridge, packed it into the car, cranked up the volume and 
rocked out baby. 

My selections included a CD I purchased ("Tales of the 
Inexpressible" by Shpongle - one of the best CDs of 2001) as 
well as several I created. The content for the latter I 
downloaded - no, not from Napster, Grokster or any of that ilk. 

Last year I subscribed to emusic.com and it frankly changed my 
life. I am a music addict and I used to spend a fortune on CDs. 
The problem was that much of the money I spent was wasted. All 
too frequently I'd hear a track or two from some album, go and 
buy it and then find that the rest of the album was far less 
engaging.

Then I found emusic.com! Emusic has several subscription plans 
and I chose the $9.95-per-month version that lets me download 
as many MP3s as I please. And what a selection there is! My 
collection of jazz and big band has exploded, I'm drowning in 
classics and my drum and bass, jungle, ambient and hip hop 
holdings are staggering.

So, in preparation for my journey I burned a half-dozen CDs 
and, as I said, off I roared.

Now, if the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) has 
its way, downloading music could become far more complex or 
even forbidden. The BPDG is a subgroup of the Copy Protection 
Technical Working Group, itself a subgroup of the Motion 
Picture Association of America (MPAA). Whew.

The objective of the BPDG is to define what features must and 
must not be included in digital playback devices (TVs, audio 
players and so on) as part of a "standard." To this end they 
have invited all of the major technology vendors to join in and 
most worryingly, this insane idea is to be enforced by law!

Yep, you read that right. Senator Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) has 
been trying since last year to sneak a bill into existence 
called the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act 
(SSSCA), which would require that any "digital media 
technology" be controlled to the extent that approval would be 
required to introduce new digital media technologies in both 
professional and consumer equipment.

So far, Intel and Phillips have spoken out against the SSSCA 
and its bastard revision, Hollings' Consumer Broadband and 
Digital Television Promotion Act, but the battle has probably 
not even begun.

The problem is that Hollywood as represented by the MPAA just 
doesn't get it: It doesn't matter what laws are passed, digital 
content cannot be controlled by its creator once it is let 
loose in the world. Sure, we can create laws that mandate 
technologies to be used in equipment maintain copyright but we 
all know how long it will take before someone figures out a 
hack.

But in all this wild posturing and positioning, these ideas 
will have an effect far greater than stopping a few CDs or DVDs 
from being copied: They will create a violent assault on free 
speech, including academic work (remember Professor Felten, who 
successfully hacked the bSecure Digital Music Initiative's 
"Public Challenge" and was legally prevented from publishing 
his results), hobble technological progress, and make consumer 
and professional products more complex, more expensive and less 
useful.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) has 
lots of background and news on these issues and we should all 
get behind the EFF and make our voices heard before this 
stupidity gets more momentum. The sheer irrationality of these 
ideas is frightening and should they get any traction in the 
real world it will set an appalling precedent for all sorts 
of controls over the IT industry.

And worst of all, it could make my drive to Las Vegas much less 
enjoyable.

Secure or insecure music recommendations to backspin at gibbs.com.

_______________________________________________________________
To contact Mark Gibbs:

Mark Gibbs (http://www.gibbs.com/mgbio) is a consultant, 
author, journalist, and columnist. He writes the weekly 
Backspin (http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/gibbs.html) and 
Gearhead (http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/gearhead.html) 
columns in Network World. Gibbs is also co-conspirator of the 
Vitally Important Information Web site, 
http://www.vitallyimportantinformation.com/ 

Gibbs can be contacted at mailto:webapps at gibbs.com. Press 
releases to mailto:pr at gibbs.com.
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Laws are the spider's webs which, 
if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, 
but large things break through and escape.
	--Solon, statesman (c.638-c558 BCE)

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