Frank G's Tip of the Week

RECORDING ENGINEERS QUARTERLY PRESENTS

Finally! A new place to find Audio related stuff you didn't know about before. From cool gadgets and free plugins, to things and places only an audio guy could love. Each week I'll go off on a subject that's come up numerous times during the week, and throw some links up here that will certainly be worth checking out for one reason or another.

June 25, 2004: Skulls and Crossbones everywhere!

Last week I was on about Spybot and keeping your computers free of all the nonsense that's flooding the net. This week, Daniel Dennis was hard at work composing a "how-to" article that says everything I wanted to say, so rather than me rewording his article, I'll link to it as soon as he tells me it's ok to do so. Stay tuned, that article will show up shortly. For now, let's move on to what's bothering me THIS week.

The RIAA. Gee, what a surprise, the guy with the "No RIAA" logo up in the masthead is upset with the RIAA. Quite a stretch, eh? Has anyone purchased a cd lately? Not from the corner of 8 Mile and Greenfield, I mean from a store. There's a new FBI/RIAA warning taking up about 1/3 of the back cover art, telling you about the evils of file sharing and downloading music. Maybe I'm not paying attention, but if I just BOUGHT the @#$%ing cd, WHY are they threatening ME - the PAYING customer - with legal hassles and general badness? In theory, this is supposed to shame the people who upload the music and make it available into not doing so. Here's a secret: the people doing the uploading are NOT doing it from a retail copy. It's always coming from a promo copy, or better yet, from a pre-master (hmm...who would be able to leak a premastered cd to the internet? It couldn't be insiders, could it???

Here's what I find to be the most interesting part, this bit that's been added to the copyright info area.

"Using Internet services to distribute copyrighted music, giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for them to copy is illegal and does not support those involved in making this piece of music - especially the artist. By carrying out any of these actions, it has the same effect as stealing music."

...then the usual warnings of death, dismemberment, and large fines, etc. So, to recap, it's not ok to copy a cd and give it away. We all knew that, right? 2. It's AGAINST THE LAW to lend a cd to your friend, as you don't know whether or not they may illegally copy that which you've lent them. This alone causes every library in the US to be instantly in violation of the law. Then again, the government would probably like to outlaw libraries, along with the internet, and anywhere else that free speech and learning may occur (but that's another rant...)

Copy protection attempts have gotten so ridiculous that Philips won't allow the labels to use the standard "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" logo that we've grown familiar with over 20 years. CDs are created to specifications. When 5" discs are created that don't comply with the redbook audio standard, they are not technically "compact discs" at all. Take a close look at one of your recent cds. Do you see a new logo? little word next to a football with CD written in it? If you bring it closer to your face (because human eyes have no zoom function, unfortunately) you'll see that it says "enhancedCD". This is a new format, different from a standard cd. They do this in order to bring you "multimedia enhancement" such as screensavers and video. They really do this in order to shove the valuable audio content into a different session on the cd -- one that is less easy to access on a computer (though 2 retarded monkeys with 2 computers working for 2 minutes could figure out a way...) In order to have some sort of copy protection, they've broken a standard -- and created discs that won't play on many people's machines. When complaints are made, they are told, "Sorry, that's not a compact disc, your player wasn't designed to play those." For $99, you can buy a Sony DVD player (S-725P, I believe) that will play any disc you can throw at it (with the exception of SACD, but you don't have any of those anyway) Ever have to buy a new computer because the game you really wanted to play wouldn't run on your existing system? Forced hardware obsolescence... The first VCR my family owned (in 1978) is still running, and still looks as clear as it ever did. It also weighs (literally) 45 lbs, but it was clearly built with care to last a generation. The last VCR I bought died within 6 weeks as a result of a fuse that blew and fried the cheaply made circuit board that controlled the transport. Things are purposely built to fail in short order. The goal appears to be disposable everything. I repeat, disposable everything.

Number three (and the single most interesting bit) is that they singled out the artist as being the one who's being hurt. "Does not support those involved in making this piece of music - especially the artist." The sad part is, it's probably true. See, the labels aren't losing any money on this stuff. Why? Because they have the contractual ability to recoup every penny they've spent from the artists. So when you download music, you're not just saving $18, you're taking $1 away from the artist. Don't think about the $17 you're taking away from the non-artistic industry people, because they're really only concerned about the artists. Yeah, right... I haven't seen any artists suing groups of hundreds of people for downloading their music. I HAVE seen the RIAA, an organization that represents the record labels - NOT the artists, mind you, suing "on their behalf." Y'know, I don't remember anyone asking them for that assistance...

Remember when you could return something, just because it sucked? As late as 1989, you could go to a store, buy a record, bring it home, play it, decide it was a total piece of crap, go back and exchange it for something (hopefully) less crappy. There were already cassette recorders in every house by then, not to mention various reel-to-reel and 8-track cartridge recorders that had come through the years. Why did they start having concern in '89? The DAT recorder....that's why.... There was now a way to make perfect digital copies. This ability was going to ruin the industry, much like the VCR had "destroyed" Hollywood in the '80's.... You have to remember the media was under attack (again) at that point in history. The evil rap music was invading the suburbs, heavy metal guys in mascara threatened the masculinity of the deep south, etc. Parts of the government were already angry at the media and looking for a way to pass some legislature of any sort that would impede the industry.

What they succeeded in doing, was removing the consumers ability to refuse garbage. You know how this works now -- it's posted everywhere "Product can only be returned unopened" unless you want the same thing again (to allow returns in case of defect). How can we, as consumers and fans, regain the ability to check things out before deciding if we want to own them? We all know the answer to that as well, but it's getting more dangerous to be an uneducated media downloader. Allow me to provide some readily available information:

1. If you go here, you'll find everything that is good in the world.

2. If you get this, you'll be able to acquire that stuff.

3. If you get this, you'll be able to keep the prying eyes of Big Brother2k4 out of your system as you acquire stuff. (blocking 24000+ IP addresses at 6PM Friday...)

4. When you can't figure any of this out, read this -- and this. It's actually quite simple, but those of you with firewalls/routers have to go through an extra step or two. Well worth the hassle to become an informed consumer again. Plus, you get the satisfaction of learning something technical!

Late Night Update: The very CD I was reading from has started causing...other problems.

Until next week --

Frank G

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