Conference napalm::commusic_v1

     
     I think this agreement is paving the way for recordable CDs. perhaps
     even more so than for DATs.  A royalty isn't fair, but at least
     we/they can move ahead without all of the whining (and some legit
     concerns) about copying.  I read $.25 for tapes and 2% for machines.
     
     Dave

    
    I hate this s**t.  Good, every time I tape an old Muddy Waters record,
    Michael Jackson gets 25 cents and every time I decide I want to make
    a mixdown of one of my songs, Jon Bon Jovi gets 25 cents.  Remind me to
    send Walter Yentikoff $2000 for his birthday, too.
    
    							Brian
    
    P.S. Does this mean SCMS will go away so I can make digital copies of *my
    own f**king master tapes* if I want to?

    I would object, too, normally.  But, note that by allowing them to
    collect royalties, the manufacturers are allowed to sell gobs of these
    things.  And, the price will go dramatically *down* as a result!
    It's not a fair situation, of course.  But, given the alternatives of
    $1000 DAT recorders and, what, $8 for each tape?  I'd rather let the
    scoundrels take royalties so that I can get a recorder for $300 and
    tapes for $3.
    
    Steve

    Factoids from the Wall Street Journal 7/12/91 page B5
    
    Royalties ONLY apply to digital recordable media, NOT present-day
    analog cassettes or CDs. Royalties on players are 2% of wholesale, min
    $1 per unit and max $8 per unit. Royalties on media (i.e. DAT tape)
    would be 3% of wholesale.
    
    "The legislation would for the first time make it legal to record
    copyrighted music at home for personal use..." SCMS is retained,
    however.
    
    If blank DAT tapes are $8 retail (per -1) then they're about $4 wholesale,
    and the royalty is 12 pennies. Small price for legal copying of CDs,
    IMO.

    Assuming the retail cost of digitally recordable media/recorders gets
    to be very reasonable, what does the future look like to you?  
    
    Will people record from their radio, from cd's or from digital tape?
    
    What will they record onto--digital tape or cd's?
    
    Even though the audio quality of digital tapes is good, don't they
    still lack the durability of cd's?

    Royalties *AND* still SCMS?
    
    @#$%^&^%$#@#$%^&*!!!!!!!
    
    Hey, send the police over to my house tonight, I'm gonna dub some
    tapes from CDs.  Oh yeah, they can also charge me for working on the
    pipes in my house without having a MA. plumber's license.
    
    Maybe they can charge me a surtax for not watching MTV while they're at
    it.
    
    						Brian

re: .2

Wouldn't it be nice if we could at least choose which artist(s) received
royalty wehn we purchased the equipment?  Heck, we could donate to each other!

-TR

	It has always been legal for you to dupe your own stuff (copyrighted 
	or not) in your own home for your own use.  By own stuff I mean
	stuff you have bought that someone else recorded.

	Chad

I think that this is a disaster for the consumer. The precedent is now set and
all digital meduims will now be subject to 'royalties'. Yeah in the short
term you make out, in the long term you'll pay and pay, in many cases for
nothing.

FWIW

dbii

    "The legislation would for the first time make it legal to record
    copyrighted music at home for personal use..." SCMS is retained,
    however.
    
    It was my understanding that under the fair use provisions of the
    copyright law this was *already* legal.
    
    len.
    

    re .2
    
    > P.S. Does this mean SCMS will go away so I can make digital copies of *my
    > own f**king master tapes* if I want to?
    
    I was under the impression that SCMS only blocked d->d copied of
    masters that were encoded with SCMS, i.e. CDs and pre-recorded DATs.
    Does a DAT recorder encode your own masters with SCMS? If that is the
    case, DATs are all but useless.
    
    dp
    

Article: 850
From: [email protected] (DAVE McNARY)
Newsgroups: clari.tw.electronics,clari.news.music,clari.biz.economy
Subject: Agreement reached on digital recording
Date: 11 Jul 91 21:43:45 GMT
 
	The recording and consumer electronics industries announced a
landmark agreement Thursday ending a decade-long standoff over home
recording on digital audio recorders.
	The agreement calls for producers of digital tape recorders, which
can copy digitally recorded music to produce near-perfect versions of
songs, to pay royalties to the recording industry for sales lost to
taping.
	The compromise, encompassed in a draft of copyright legislation to be
submitted to Congress, provides for a royalty of 2 percent of the
wholesale price of recorders, with a minimum of $1 and a maximum of $8
per machine, and a 3 percent royalty on blank tapes and discs.
	Those payments would be divided through a complex formula among
record companies, songwriters, artists and publishers.
	The proposed legislation also would require that all non-professional
consumer digital audio recorders include electronics that will prevent
the making of digital copies of copies. That would be accomplished by
programming the recorders to read encoded information in digital
recordings, which would specify whether the song may be copied without
limitation, may be copied only once, or may not be copied at all.
	The pact also said that the music industry will not seek similar
royalties on conventional analog recorders or tapes.
	The pact was announced at a news conference in New York by the
Electronic Industries Association, the Recording Industry Association of
America and the Copyright Coalition of songwriters and music publishers
represented by the National Music Publishers Association.
	``This proposed legislation will settle the debate over the legality
of consumer audio taping,'' said Gary J. Shapiro vice president at the
consumer electronics trade group.
	``The royalty which manufacturers will pay on new digital recording
technologies will benefit consumers, assuring them full access to new
product and an ever-increasing, diverse supply of prerecorded music.''
	The compromise had been widely expected. Shapiro had hinted last
month that the trade group was willing to settle the issue when he said,
``It is time for this digital stalemate to be broken.''
	Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. introduced digital audio tape
players into the United States last year with the goal of selling 100,
000 units annually. But sales have been far under expectations because
of their high costs and a lack of digital product from record companies.
	Sony was sued by songwriters over alleged violation of their
copyrights because the players allow unauthorized recordings by
consumers, but the songwriters and Sony announced Thursday that the suit
will be dropped.
	The compromise could open the door for lower-cost digital recorders.
N.V. Phillips of the Netherlands and Tandy Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas,
have reportedly been developing a moderately priced system called
digital compact cassette, or DCC.
	Additionally, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. of Japan, which
makes Panasonic products and owns MCA Inc. of Universal City, Calif.,
has said it will back DCC.
	Sony, which has said it may introduce a low-cost home digital
recording machine called the Mini Disc which would use CDs instead of
tapes, also said Thursday it will ``actively support'' the compromise
legislative proposal.
	The Mini Disc, which would have a 2.5-inch diameter and fit easily
into a customer's hands, would be the first CD that could both record
music and play it back.
	The first DCC players, produced by Phillips and Tandy, are expected
to reach U.S. electronics stores in about a year, while Sony's Mini Disc
will probably be available late next year.
	Sony recently indicated it plans to license the DCC technology and
begin production possibly next year.
	Recorded music sales are estimated at more than $7.5 billion
annually, with audio cassettes making up nearly half of that.

    >>> SCMS is retained, however...
    
    What *bull****!!!  In other words, we now get to pay an additional
    royalty for something that was LEGAL BEFORE!!!!  You have *always*
    had the legal right to make backup/alternate media copies of anything
    you owned, or to copy *anything* you obtained legally _for_your_own_
    _scholarly_research_ (serious music study is considered scholarly 
    research, just as scholarly as astrophysics or biochemistry or 
    archaeology).  
    
    You would have seen the $200 machines and $3.00 tapes with or without
    this legislation.  This is just Yankitoff welfare...  
    
    And of course, now that the basic principle of taxing tape and
    recorders has been established, how long before ANALOG media also are
    taxed for the benefit of Big Music?
    
    Not long, I bet.  Look up "food chain" before bedtime, folks.  
    
    	-Bill

    This is the wrong place to be griping. Write your congressperson, and
    write to the record companies.
    
    Vote your wallet.
    
    Edd

Actually I'm wondering if anti-trust legislation might apply....

dbii

    Does anyone not yet understand why the hardware (i.e., Japanese, e.g.,
    SONY) companies want to own the software (i.e., American, e.g., CBS
    Records) companies?  Same thing in the cinema business--the hardware
    (theatre exhibitors) companies want to control the software (film
    producers and distributors).  Seems like the same dynamics work in the
    computer business.  In so many busineses the value seems to be in the
    software.  That's why Coke bought Columbia Pictures and the Japanese
    bought one of the other major Hollywood studios.  Ultimately, it
    explains the astronomical values placed on Michael Jackson, Kevin
    Costner, and sports figures.

  Speaking of films.... do you think they'll add royalties to video tape, for
  all the people that tape movies off of cable at home?  Does the cable
  company pay a fee for every movie everytime they play it?  Just curious.

-TR

	I'd wager that it will be a matter of time until we end up paying
	royalties for blank videocassettes.

	Cable companies pay a royalty for every showing, just as theatres
	do. (and club owners who have to pay royalties to ASCAP/BMI, and
	radio stations who pay to same for each play)

	/pjh	

	This sounds like we need to counter organize and lead a movement
	to defeat this.  By WE I mean the generl public, etc.  We need to
	actively send tons of letters to congresspeople and perhaps get
	a class-action suit or something.

	Chad who_is_not_volunteering_to_lead_this
	Hi_From_sunny_Utah

	

    I think the reason the music producers fought so strongly against
    digitally recording technology--as opposed to other transfer
    technologies--is that there is no detectable loss of fidelity in
    digitally recording technology.

    
    I remember getting a copy of Todd Rundgren's -A'Capella- album
    before it was released from some guy in a record store who got it
    from someone who got it from someone...
    
    Anyway, I had the opportunity to ask Todd about it one day.  All he
    said was: "I don't care, as long as the guy diddn't charge you for it"
    
    Don't you wish everyone had an attitude like his?
    
    -Ed
    
    

    Now that I'll be paying royalties to the artists I guess it's OK for
    me to sell copies of the material, no?
    
    Edd

    re video tape tax - I though the some-big-studio vs. Sony settlement of
    a couple of years back settled this once and for all.  I also though
    the fair use provisions of the copyright law also settled this.  I have
    to wonder why the RIAA felt they needed an agreement for something
    that's already legal.  Obviously I'm missing something.  BTW, fair use
    does not include piracy, and has nothing to do with the quality of the
    copy.
    
    To recall an analogy I used the last time there was a big discussion on
    this subject, maybe the book publishing industry should sue for a tax
    on copiers and blank paper...
    
    Obviously, the pirates buying bulk tape and professional recorders are
    going to escape the tax that the rest of us legal users will bear.
    
    len.
    

    What else is new?  This is the same industry that sued Tom Scholz for
    not delivering a Boston album based on the argument that they were
    losing money they were *certain to make* if he did deliver one.
    
    Maybe I should sue the state of MA for the Megabucks winnings that I'm
    bound to be getting....
    
    Besides, the average joe will never even *know* about the tax.  The only
    reason *we* know about it is that we're a bunch of technodweebs who
    actually keep up with such stuff.  My wife doesn't even know what a DAT
    is.
    
    						Brian

I agree with all that's been said so far, especially (unfortunately) .24.

It's hard to arouse public indignation about an issue concerning which the
public is totally ignorant, especially when the chief objection is a principle
rather than the amount in question. Mr./Miss/Ms. Average not only would give
(IMHO) the royalty to be paid a shrug of the shoulders, the issue of SCuMS
(that's the way *I* pronounce it, anyway) doesn't affect them adversely either.

Frankly, I would welcome the royalty solution if it removed the SCuMS thorn,
but the combination seems to me to be a digital form of double jeopardy: the
SCuMS twist is allegedly intended to prevent pirating, and the royalty is
intended to compensate for revenue which is presumed, a priori, to have been
lost by pirating.

I really think that the retention of SCuMS at this point is more a matter of
inertia than anything else- so many manufacturers are already set up for
producing DATs with this circuit included that reworking the production lines
would cost money. (No, I don't *know* this, it's a SWAG.)

Perhaps as the competition heats up, what we'll see is *pro* DATs, which are
immune to the SCuMS requirement, magically come down in price and coincidentally
start appearing in consumer outlets.

Bob

    Re .23
    
    Your analogy with the book publisher is faulty.  The proper analogy is
    to a cheap copy machine that could quickly and cheaply copy an entire
    book that looked exactly like the original book!  Under those
    circumstances you wouldn't be surprised to find book publishers seeking
    royalties on the copy machines and the paper.  That's how to understand
    music producers' problems with digitally recordable media and machines.
    
    Get it?  

    Yes, I get it.  But it doesn't in any way change the fact that we (the
    mostly - like 99% - innocent) are now going to be forced to pay for
    something we are legally entitled to do, enforced via machinery that
    will not in any substantive way affect the actual perpetrators of the
    nominal justification for this payment.  A study published in MIX last
    year clearly documented the fact that virtually all consumer blank tape
    and recorder sales were used for purposes legal under the fair use
    provisions of the copyright law.
    
    len.
     

    > A study published in MIX last year clearly documented the fact that
    > virtually all consumer blank tape and recorder sales were used for
    > purposes legal under the fair use provisions of the copyright law.
    
    All I can say is that this seriously flies in the face of my own
    observations about how people use blank audio tape.  I could believe
    it for video but not for audio, especially not with wording like
    "virtually all".
    
    Among the people I know whose taping habits I'm familiar, I'd estimate
    that well over half the tapes they own are subject are non-fair use
    copies obtained from friends.
    
    In fact, among the teenagers I know, I think I could accurately say
    that "virtually all" their blank audio tape use is illegal!
    
    Is my experience really that much different from everyone elses?
    
    Can anyone seriously tell me that "virtually all" people who use blank
    tape say "I'd like a copy of that album, can't afford to buy it, but
    I wouldn't want to cheat the artist and therefore I will not copy it."
    
    Does that sound like the real world?

    Dave,
    
    The only time I saw serious piracy happening was when I was in the Army
    overseas (73-77).  Everyone was buying stereos for real cheap at the PX
    then taping albums like crazy.  There was even a room at the rec center
    on one air base that had booths with a turntable, a cassette deck and
    an open reel deck (dating myself again...) so you could tape albums
    borrowed from the library.  We used to buy tapes by the case, and
    actually would check with friends about what albums they were buying. 
    One guy even would buy a dozen albums from the PX, tape most of them
    and bring them back as "warped", trade them in for more albums, etc.
    Oh yeah, as far as lost sales?  I was buying about *twenty* LPs a week.
    I amassed about 2500 albums in 3 years.  I also taped about 75
    cassettes.  My roommates bought fewer albums and taped more, I would
    guess.  
    
    Since then I have taped a few hundred more cassettes, the vast majority
    of which were live radio concert broadcasts or copies of LPs to play in
    my car.  I admit to taping some out of print albums I borrowed; I
    probably would have bought them if the record companies had continued
    to make them available.  In fifteen years, that was probably less than
    30 albums.  I now own (between LP, tape and CD format) 6000 (or more)
    albums.  The record industry has made off of me *personally* tens of
    thousands of dollars.  I still spend around $1000 a year on recoerded
    music.
    
    Since the Army, I've seen very little piracy.  Yes, I would expect
    teenagers (who I don't hang with too much...) to tape albums,
    particularly with the low prices on dubbing decks (when I was a kid,
    ghetto blasters didn't exist and open reel tape decks cost $200 and
    up).  Of course dubs of a prerecorded tape on a $39 double well ghetto
    blaster aren't exactly hi-fi so it's not a serious piracy issue.  
    
    How much money is lost?  Depends on the artist.  Guns and Roses or the
    New Kids probably get pirated more often than Howling Wolf or Herbert
    Von Karajan if you get my drift.  Unfortunately, I *don't* pirate
    recordings, thank you, I *don't* buy G&R anyway so charging *me* a tax
    because some pimple-faced snot wants to save himself $6 is a real joke.
    It's *really* a way to get money out of my pocket without me actually
    buying anything.  
    
    The bottom line:
    
    1. I have been denied access to the latest audio technology here in the
    US while the rest of the world has been free to buy it for years.
    
    2. I will be penalized for the actions of others if I choose to use the
    latest audio technology.
    
    3. The precedent will be set for other "protection" of software media
    in the future.
    
    						Brian
    
    P.S. Judging from lawsuits like the one the ex-Beatles filed against
    EMI, record companies don't mind piracy when it's on their side.  For
    you record club members: no royalties are paid on those "8 for 1 penny"
    deals, it's considered *promotional*.  Also all the stuff sent out to
    reviewers, etc. Not to mention royalties are not paid on cutouts
    either.  We're talking *millions* of royalty-free albums.  Oh yeah,
    artist royalties on CDs (which sell for 50% more than LPs/tapes) are
    only half the regular rate (and we're talking pennies per copy rates,
    not % of retail rates).  The industry sold a bill of goods to artists
    about sacrificing royalties to help establish the format, etc.  Ha ha
    ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....I'm roolin'....
    
    
    

    There was an article in Keyboard not too long ago about dealing with
    record companies. One of the big points made was they (RCs) will do
    anything they can get away with to avoid paying royalties to the
    artists.
    
    They ain't exactly the Musician's Benevolent Society.
    
    Edd

    
    
        Does this mean that the domestic DAT players will record at 44Khz
    as well as 48K ?
    
    Australia has had a blank tape royalty on cassettes for around 2 years,
    all money generated is supposed to be pumped back in to help
    Australian artists export overseas etc. There are also $$$ given to ARIA
    which is the same as the US BMI. 
    
        This sounds nice but when I have to pay ~ 10% per tape to send my
    own demo's it kinda starts to work against new artists. 
    
    
    SM
    

Well, maybe there's a silver lining to all of this.....

DEC and other computer companies must lose sagans and sagans of dollars
to software piracy all the time, right?  And magnetic media (tapes, disks
WORMs) allow people to make ABSOLUTELY PERFECT copies of software, right?

So how's about we levy a royalty on magnetic media, to be split up
proportionally among the large software vendors?

Oughta help out DEC's balance sheet a tad!

--jim

P.S. 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)

    It was stated in the announcement about the Philips deal that Digital
    and Philips were going to cooperate in the "CD-I" area, meaning
    "compact disk-interactive."  Anyone know what exactly is Digital's
    interest in this?

    Mike, you could ask the same question in WYNDE::CDROM and maybe report
    back..
    
    karl