Christian Music and Copy Protection
Copy Protected Christian Work, Say It Isn't So!
I have no problem with people making a buck off their work. It's how the world turns. I provide you with something you want and you pay me for it. I really do get it and respect it. What I don't respect is intellectual property law. No, I don't use bit torrent to download illegal copies of anything (anymore, and haven't for about a year and half now) but illegal downloading (misnamed as piracy but really is just gross copyright infringement) and making a fair use copy of something is completely different. Fair use copies (making a "backup" for oneself) are completely legal. Unless the media is copy-protected. Then it's a DMCA violation if you manage to bypass the copy protection and you go to federal prison if you can't pay the fine.
The whole concept of intellectual property is quite laughable at best. Once you put it out there, either in book form or, now, digital media it's out there. Even without eidetic memory the moment a person looks at or listens to something a copy is made (haha, eat that Sanctus Real, a copy I can listen to again and again is floating around in my head, bypassing your DMCA-enforceable copy protection). The moment it passes into a computers memory, a copy is made. The moment it goes to the stamper, a copy is made.
My Personal Rant to Sanctus Real
I changed some of the stuff so it makes more sense to you, the reader. I left this message on the wall of the Sanctus Real fan page on FB. I will also be emailing them. I am not happy about this. No, I am not happy about this at all.
I just got my first new cd in almost two years. It's Sanctus Real's Pieces of a Real Heart album. I won it in a contest from WayFM's Boulder affiliate. I can play it using only one application (called cdcontrol, I run FreeBSD 8.0). I cannot listen to it using a standard GUI player (I've tried several). I cannot even make a fair use copy so I don't run down the CD (and I have run down cds in the past from constant playing). I'm very disappointed. If this is how they treat their fans (limiting them to listening to music on apps and OSes they approve of) I will not be seeking out any more of their material (whether it be on cd, dvd, grooveshark (and the like) or anywhere else).
It's too bad, too. I'm using cdcontrol right now and it's an awesome CD. I'd love to pop this onto my mp3 player (when I find it) and take it with me wherever I go. Now I won't ever want to buy another Sanctus Real album ever. Ever. I'd ask others to join me, but it's hard to get people as angry as I am over this when they probably aren't experience the same issue. Oh well. A one man protest and boycott shall ensue than.
And no, I don't want a new copy of the CD. I don't want a free digital download of it. I don't even want an apology. I want a world in which legitimate end-users aren't punished for wanting to exercise their legal rights because two entire industries cannot keep up with the times. CDs are old media. DVDs are old media. Blu-Ray, strictly speaking, is old media.
Computers and the Internet as a direct distribution channel is the new media. Copyright law needs to understand that and be amended to keep up with it instead of being amended to hamper it.
Now can someone find me a trader-friendly Christian group with a good message that isn't lost in the music?
[tags]music, money, business[/tags]
Originally published at Ameliorations 1.0.
I have no problem with people making a buck off their work. It's how the world turns. I provide you with something you want and you pay me for it. I really do get it and respect it. What I don't respect is intellectual property law. No, I don't use bit torrent to download illegal copies of anything (anymore, and haven't for about a year and half now) but illegal downloading (misnamed as piracy but really is just gross copyright infringement) and making a fair use copy of something is completely different. Fair use copies (making a "backup" for oneself) are completely legal. Unless the media is copy-protected. Then it's a DMCA violation if you manage to bypass the copy protection and you go to federal prison if you can't pay the fine.
The whole concept of intellectual property is quite laughable at best. Once you put it out there, either in book form or, now, digital media it's out there. Even without eidetic memory the moment a person looks at or listens to something a copy is made (haha, eat that Sanctus Real, a copy I can listen to again and again is floating around in my head, bypassing your DMCA-enforceable copy protection). The moment it passes into a computers memory, a copy is made. The moment it goes to the stamper, a copy is made.
My Personal Rant to Sanctus Real
I changed some of the stuff so it makes more sense to you, the reader. I left this message on the wall of the Sanctus Real fan page on FB. I will also be emailing them. I am not happy about this. No, I am not happy about this at all.
I just got my first new cd in almost two years. It's Sanctus Real's Pieces of a Real Heart album. I won it in a contest from WayFM's Boulder affiliate. I can play it using only one application (called cdcontrol, I run FreeBSD 8.0). I cannot listen to it using a standard GUI player (I've tried several). I cannot even make a fair use copy so I don't run down the CD (and I have run down cds in the past from constant playing). I'm very disappointed. If this is how they treat their fans (limiting them to listening to music on apps and OSes they approve of) I will not be seeking out any more of their material (whether it be on cd, dvd, grooveshark (and the like) or anywhere else).
It's too bad, too. I'm using cdcontrol right now and it's an awesome CD. I'd love to pop this onto my mp3 player (when I find it) and take it with me wherever I go. Now I won't ever want to buy another Sanctus Real album ever. Ever. I'd ask others to join me, but it's hard to get people as angry as I am over this when they probably aren't experience the same issue. Oh well. A one man protest and boycott shall ensue than.
And no, I don't want a new copy of the CD. I don't want a free digital download of it. I don't even want an apology. I want a world in which legitimate end-users aren't punished for wanting to exercise their legal rights because two entire industries cannot keep up with the times. CDs are old media. DVDs are old media. Blu-Ray, strictly speaking, is old media.
Computers and the Internet as a direct distribution channel is the new media. Copyright law needs to understand that and be amended to keep up with it instead of being amended to hamper it.
Now can someone find me a trader-friendly Christian group with a good message that isn't lost in the music?
[tags]music, money, business[/tags]
Originally published at Ameliorations 1.0.