This will be an interesting battle. Six major movie studios are suing the company together.

A similar lawsuit happened in 2004 against 321 Studios the company that made DVD-X Copy and DVD Copy Plus. They ceased operations. Their lawyer said that they couldn't afford to do business and fight all the legal affairs.

MPAA is all about keeping the profits high for movie studios. It's a corporation. Piracy has been proven to cut profit for them and proven over and over. MPAA studios lost $6.1 billion to piracy in 2005 globally. Not sure how they calculate that loss, but hopefully not by taking every pirated movie and multiplying it by the average price of all of them or plus and minus for the pirated movies that are purchased elsewhere 'illegally.'

Technology has improved substantially in the last decade. DMCA was established in 1998. People used to be able to copy VHS movies and nobody would care. Now it's lawsuit after lawsuit.

Good luck to RealNetworks.

They are hoping to beat the company to financial ruin,as in previous cases,and they get the figure by think of a number and multiply by a number that substantiates there bleeding heart case.And most of the fraud is being committed in far of countries were there is virtually an open marked for such dastardly crime.

I remember back in 04' 321 studios.. only reason why i stopped copying rented movies w/ dvd copy plus was it put "this is a copy made from 321 software" warning on the dvd copy lol

Since 2005 i started using "Slysoft", i recommend it to anyone wanting to back up there dvd collections :-) or what not

Whatever.. At one time I wanted to sure Realnetworks for crashing our workstations with bad software..

Lots of options for this type of software....

mpaa is so lawsuit trigger happy they'll end someday shooting their own foot suing themselves...

For a few moments a while ago I hoped a law
would pass that would make this the Feds doing
all this.

shelb,

A good media server runs over 10K and with all the extra networked players, it quickly becomes 30K, and that's without a control system. I know because we sell a lot of them.

When you purchase one of these, you have to sign an agreement that you will not store rented movies on your media server before you can put them on the network and the internet, which activates them.

Although this can't stop people from doing it, it makes them criminally liable if they do.

I completely agree that the RIAA saying that it's a crime to put your original store bought CD's on your iPod is utterly ridiculous, which is why I stopped buying music a long long time ago.

The MPAA is no better. Five years in prison for copying a movie and murderers get out in less time.

-----------------------------

PC Tool,

Having to repeatedly purchase the same song for different devices when you already purchased the CD is moronic. This is why no one wants to buy music anymore.

The RIAA screwed up long ago with copy protection, DRM, etc.... poeple are just plain sick of it.

So, it's OK to loan my brother a store bought CD but not to convert it to MP3 for my own purposes? Are you ****ing nuts?

That is like saying you can only play your store bought CD in your house player but you have to purchase a second CD for your car's player. Do you agree?

What about legally purchased MP3's? Am I supposed to buy one copy for every MP3 player I own?

The RIAA's $15 cash cow of 2 decent songs on a CD and 14 bad ones is over, and they are pissed. Period.

Having to repeatedly purchase the same song for different devices when you already purchased the CD is moronic. This is why no one wants to buy music anymore.

I agree wholeheartedly!

So, it's OK to loan my brother a store bought CD but not to convert it to MP3 for my own purposes? Are you ****ing nuts?

That is like saying you can only play your store bought CD in your house player but you have to purchase a second CD for your car's player. Do you agree?

No. CD and MP3 are different formats. As far as Copyright Law is concerned, conversion (transformation) is a right retained by the copyright holder. CD=CD, so you can use it anywhere, the same applies (or should, by copyright law) to MP3...you can move it (not copy it) from one device to another.

What about legally purchased MP3's? Am I supposed to buy one copy for every MP3 player I own?

Gah. No, you shouldn't have to, but in many cases, they try to make you think it's your only option. Again, according to copyright, you should be able to *move* the tracks between players (not copy).

The RIAA's $15 cash cow of 2 decent songs on a CD and 14 bad ones is over, and they are pissed. Period.

Sure, wouldn't you be? Losing income sucks, man. ;)

Losing income sucks for companies unwilling to embrace the MP3 format in the first place. They knew it was coming and tried to do everything to keep you from transferring them to other devices.

Then came the CD protection that doesn't work.

If they would have thought smart from the beginning and stopped trying to sue families who's neighbor downloaded some songs on their open wireless network, and everybody else, they wouldn't be in this mess.

They fought MP3 and and all other easily portable formats from the start. Now no one wants to pay for music anymore. I have thousands and thousands of dollars tied up in 500+ store bought CD's with maybe a 1000 songs that are decent because we had no choice but to pay for the s***.

They even tried to get rid of 3" CD singles @ $2.99 a pop in favor of the full length CD.

It's payback time.

Could you whine a bit more?

Sorry, but that's pretty much what it seems like here...

You don't get to decide their business model. You don't get to decide pricing.

You don't like it, so you whine about it a lot and then take it (because you can get away with it).

Sounds like a normal 3 year-old...

3 year old ....... That's sounds about right.

Just another example of the rich getting special treatment that normal people don't. $5000 home theater systems which copy hundreds of DVDs onto a hard drive for playing on huge TVs and movie screens throughout a mansion, nobody hassles those. But a cheap program to let your kiddies watch Spongebob on a few laptops without getting the disk scratched so you have to buy it over and over again, nope, they must nip that in the bud.

It also is disgusting, the claim that it is illegal to upload your purchased original CDs to an Ipod, but that the RIAA and music companies will look the other way for now, if you're lucky. Great, so I gave you $18 which you stole $16 out of and gave $1.50 to the artist, and now you want me to buy it again so I can listen to it in the gym or while running?

The whole system is corrupt. Everyone should boycott commercial media and only listen to music provided under a Creative Commons license, by people who actually want their music to be heard free. If you buy any commercial media, most of the money you spend is going right to the robbers with guns and lawyers who want to take away your rights.

Give them money, and you are supporting their reign of terror.

Just another example of the rich getting special treatment that normal people don't. $5000 home theater systems which copy hundreds of DVDs onto a hard drive for playing on huge TVs and movie screens throughout a mansion, nobody hassles those.

That's 1 person.

But a cheap program to let your kiddies watch Spongebob on a few laptops without getting the disk scratched so you have to buy it over and over again, nope, they must nip that in the bud.

That's millions of people.

It's called perspective. May I suggest you get some?

It also is disgusting, the claim that it is illegal to upload your purchased original CDs to an Ipod,

The content was sold on CD. Want it on the iPod, you should have purchased the iTunes version, perhaps?

The fact that you want it in more than one format does not give you the right to stomp on the rights of others.

Great, so I gave you $18 which you stole $16 out of and gave $1.50 to the artist, and now you want me to buy it again so I can listen to it in the gym or while running?

Interesting use of the word "Stole". I would imagine there is a contract involved. Perhaps you might want to rethink that. If they were "stealing" from the artists, the artists would be suing them, don't you think?

The whole system is corrupt.

Because it doesn't cater to your obscene greed and sense of entitlement? That, by the way, is what is disgusting...

Give them money, and you are supporting their reign of terror.

Or supporting content you enjoy and would like to see more of....

;)

My contention here is that both CD and 'iTunes' versions are both digital and both of the same sound quality.

I know, before you have a go at me, that you have to pay for both vinyl and cassette if you want both. I'm saying the physical difference between the two in the case of cassette and vinyl meant you had to pay some money to get it as the recording industry had to pay for that conversion (unless you wanted to record on to cassette yourself, but you'd still have crap sound quality).

In the case of CD to MP3 they are essentially the same recording with compression added. There should be no reason to pay for conversion (which it really isn't, it's compression) between formats when it is costing the music maker nothing to process.

Presuming you bought the CD in the first place I see no reason to charge for variations of compression method based on that original sound recording when it is at no cost to the recording industry.

The license of purchase should pertain to the music (or in this case movies) and not the format as long as the recording company doesn't have to pay for the conversion.

My contention here is that both CD and 'iTunes' versions are both digital and both of the same sound quality.

But you're not buying the format, you're buying the media and the single copy of the track in the format you received. Not the rights to alter that format or make copies of it.

It all boils down to copyright and the rights reserved to the owners of that content.

There should be no reason to pay for conversion (which it really isn't, it's compression) between formats when it is costing the music maker nothing to process.

Apple.

Not "Nuff said"?

Cost rarely has anything to do with the cost to manufacture. It has *much* more to do with what the average consumer is willing to pay and how well it is selling...hence "Apple". ;)

My argument is based around should. It is what my ideal layout would be for part of the DMCA.

Apple would still have trade with new music being released and old music that people haven't got on CD (that's still its most significant market anyway).

Notice how you are allowed to burn MP3s to CD as 'backup' but not the other way around?

Notice how you are allowed to burn MP3s to CD as 'backup' but not the other way around?

Says who? According to Fair Use case-law...it's fine. Just don't share them, or use them in a PMP. (At which point they cease to be a backup) ;)

Doing it CD to MP3 makes record companies jumpy, but not the other way around.

I don't understand.

Both should be covered by fair use, but no one is quite sure because no one has the sense to write a proper ****ing law.

MP3 is a portable format. CD is not. (The media for CD is, but not the format)

Any clearer?

it may not be a huge distinction to you and I, but tot them, it is huge-gantic™.

The title makes it sound like they did so voluntarily. It was actually a court order.

Real's product is marketed as something of a DVD archival tool, allowing DVDs to be ripped for storage or portability.

So which is it? Archival purposes are protected by Fair Use Case-law... "portability", not so much.

Example:

Ripping a DVD and storing it as a backup: OK

Ripping and using one copy in your DVD player and having the other on a flash drive to watch at work: Not OK.

Some will argue First Sale Doctrine, but that pertains to the media only, not the content. Just because it's not sold on that flash drive does not mean you are legally allowed or entitled to end-run the copyright holders legal rights with regards to that content.

Fortunately, many DVDs are now being released with a "digital copy" expressly for that purpose. It seems the industry has already decided that this software from Real is not only totally unnecessary, but duplicates (and thus may take income from) their efforts...

MPAA is crap. We all know this. But they jumped on board with "Digital Copy". Gotta at least give them credit for that. And if they're using this to sell product, their copyright bars anyone else from duplicating that functionality with regards to the protected content.

Ok...jump in and call me a shill, neo-con, troll, etc. You know you want to...

I've always thought digital content "sales"
should be like book sales-note I can read my
book anywhere, last time I stepped on one it
didn't break in half, and if I get rid of one
somehow (lose, lend, sell, toss, burn...) I
don't have it anymore.

An alternative would be spyware type fraud
filled rentals of digital content, where the
content charges the user for every use.

I actually think the current methods would work fine if it weren't for the rampant piracy issues.

If consumers want to do a certain thing with copyrighted content, given time, the industry will normally move in to fill that desire. (Digital Copy).

The time it takes depends on the demand. Sure, in the tech sector, the demand has been high for some time, but among general consumers, until the iPod took off, it was a non-issue.

Content evolves based on conditions. Rampant piracy spawns stronger DRM, consumer desire for portability spawns "Digital Copy".

If folks let it evolve without the bad (piracy/DRM), we'd be in a much better place right now, IMO.

An interesting thing about piracy numbers/losses
is how my buying dropped while piracy was getting
up to _really_ complained about and rose after the
lawsuits got going.
Coincidence.
Thing is during _that_ period I did not do any
music downloads-reason I bought so little was that
there was almost nothing new I wanted to hear.

Of course I will continue to do whatever is
easiest for me, and DRM is just a PITA, one
which was not supported on my first (500 meg)
FM Radio/MP3 Player

reason I bought so little was that
there was almost nothing new I wanted to hear.

Heh...

I hear that...

I still buy a few CDs. I've always hated MP3. Always. Unless you've ripped the CD yourself, the volume levels are never consistent and the "normalizers" destroy the music (loud parts get quiet, quiet parts get loud)...

That's the PITA... ReplayGain fixed a lot of that, but it only helps if your players supports it or you *re-encode* all of your music.... *sigh*

This uses ReplayGain to alter the scalefac:

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

It's two-pass lossless normalization and has the advantage of not requiring the silly tags that hardware players are oblivious to. Works superbly with the 8 players in the house and the one in the car.

Heh...

I usually say MP3Gain when I mean ReplayGain...I was very careful not to do so this time.

Yeah, been using it for years, but Foobar2000 has also been doing it for a while now and has a really easy and quick option to re-encode the track to those levels.

My gripe there is how that fits in with the whole "transforming" bit from the Copyright Act. If you purchase the MP3, is it a violation of Copyright to modify it by permanently applying the replaygain values to it? (since it's not really altering the media, just the levels, unlike a "normal" normalizer)

I always feel a bit uncomfortable transferring my downloaded music to my archos. (I refuse to do it without the replaygain, as it's unbearable to listen to) I suppose if they ever clearly state that it is in violation of copyright, I'll just give the player to the kid and be done with it... I'll just go back to my CDs. Blackfoot to the rescue. (Ouch...I'm thinking that might date me a bit...) ;)

Don't get me wrong....copyright needs to be rewritten. It's intent was valid, but it was for a 'far away time, in a far away place"...so to speak.

Are you not getting confused by compression and normalisation?

Given that the whole copyright thing hasn't been modernized to bring it into the digital age with any real thought, that is indeed a thorny issue and a smart lawyer could argue that since the mp3 is a copy of the original, changing the copy is irrelevant. up here in Canada (and we have had this discussion before), mp3s are viewed in the same light as library reference material and not the original work so sharing, copying, altering, whatever is a moot issue.

My personal view is that even if someone wants to argue that I don't own the material I paid for, I still have bought the right to use it in any way I see fit. Thus I never have any issues with transferring it wherever I deem suitable.

I mean, come on, back in the days of tapes, did anyone feel bad about making a tape for the car or later on their Walkman (and there's even more dating of oneself). :)

And nobody b****ed.

A whole electronics industry grew up around that concept (Nakamichi decks being the ne plus ultra of the genre).

The problem is that copyright is NEVER going to be rewritten by anyone reasonable. it will be done by politicians (filth) who are in the pay of the RIAA (VAST filth) and sponsored by the Corps (the AntiChrist[TM]).

In no way shape or form is the consumer ever going to get a fair shake until all of the above face the fact that unless they are reasonable, they will lose (as they are today and will continue to ad infinitum).

As an aside, the new Thievery Corporation and Enigma CDs are now ased. Ihave downloaded and played both and am going out this evening to buy them (they're worth it to me). Iwill then rip and encode them at my standard LAME 3.98.2 -V2 for use on my Cowon iAudio X5 and I7 (those encodes will handily squash the 192bit encodes I downloaded).

My purchase, my use, my enjoyment.

Normalization (ONLY normalization) will alter the volume level while presumably (if it's well done) preserving Dynaamic Range. I'm not sure what Foobar does in that regard but PC_Tool has used the word "re-encode" which leads me to believe that in the case of Foobar, the process is NOT lossless. I do use Foobar but I don't use the facility for ReplayGain that it has so I don't know.

>This uses ReplayGain to alter the scalefac:
>http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
>It's two-pass lossless normalization

For what I _could do I'm not your average user,
but? You want me to do _!_What just to listen
to music!?!. Pass me your hat, please.
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-10-06/

EDIT: Never mind... you already know about MP3Gain apparently... which wasn't even relevant to what you were talking about anyway. ;)

Yes, as roj stated, MP3Gain is definitely worth a look PC_Tool.

From the FAQ:

MP3Gain does not use "peak amplitude" normalization as many "normalizers" do. Audio files with very different peak amplitudes can still sound to the human ear as though they're the same volume.
Instead, MP3Gain uses David Robinson's Replay Gain algorithm to calculate how loud the file actually sounds to a human's ears.

MP3Gain does not decode and re-encode the mp3 to change its volume. You can change the volume as many times as you want, and the mp3 will sound just as good (or just as bad!) as it did before you started.

I use it on my entire library to greatly reduce the amount of digital clipping, and to provide a very consistent listening experience volume-wise. Per-track and album modes are supported. The changes are easily undone, which is a big plus for me. Not only that, but after the initial modifications are done (which could take quite some time, depending on the size of your library), changing the volume is extremely quick as the application does not have to rescan all of the files. It simply zips through assigning the new dB values to all of the MP3 headers.

EDIT: Insulting your intelligence was not my intention if you already knew about this. I simply need to read all of the comments before posting one of my own... ;)

Foobar2000 uses ReplayGain, just as MP3Gain does. Foobar200 has the *Additional* ability to hardcode those levels into the actual tracks (not just the metadata) so that the levels will be correct, even on players that don't support replaygain.

Sorry for the confusion.

normalization: Volume

Compression: quality.

I was talking about normalization (though through a method that adjust the gain of the track as a whole based on peak levels, not the standard normalization used by most that makes the loud parts of a track quieter and the quiet parts louder (effectively ruining the songs...)

I mean, come on, back in the days of tapes, did anyone feel bad about making a tape for the car or later on their Walkman

Er... Yes? Am I *that* unusual?

The issue now is that it is *so* much easier and is done *so* much faster and is *so* much more popular. It's a question of perspective. 1 person dubbed maybe 10 tapes in their lifetime. Hardcore folks more, many folks none at all. Now, nearly everyone with a computer is ripping CDs....

the Corps (the AntiChrist[TM])

Off topic question: Some guy leaves his company to start a competing organization because he doesn't like the way his old campany did business and has the business knowledge to succeed. Is he now (The AntiChrist) because he's incorporated his own business?

As an aside, the new Thievery Corporation and Enigma CDs are now ased. Ihave downloaded and played both and am going out this evening to buy them

There's a new Enigma CD? Looks like I'm heading to the store tonight. ;)

I simply need to read all of the comments before posting one of my own...

There's a thought. ;)

"Er... Yes? Am I *that* unusual?"

Yup.

Well, since it's so much easier today (which it really isn't because in my day, everyone and his dog had a tape player / recorder of some kind), it would behoove the companies to accept it and find a way to turn it to their advantage instead of fighting it. However, they have chosen the good old "that's the way it's always been done" approach which will never work in this or any subsequent era.

The old maxim of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" applies.

And as you likely already figured out, I was one of those with the high-end decks. :)

"Is he now (The AntiChrist) because he's incorporated his own business?"

Nope, as long as he does business in a manner with the is consistent with today's corporate behavior (profit above all, screw the customer, bend / break the rules, ignore the consequences, etc...).

You're not automatically the AntiChrist because you're a Corp. You're the AntiChrist if you're following the corporate standards of today outlined above (and they are standards - no one seems to think that they can succeed without following them so they are de riguer). This isn't limited to entertainment companies, although they are more publicly rapacious than most - Big Pharma, the oil companies, the automobile industry, you name it).

The new Enigma is an interesting meld of his last couple of albums and his original roots. Good stuff.

No, Thank You for the educations. :)

I did not know about the hard coding facility.

Well, since it's so much easier today (which it really isn't because in my day, everyone and his dog had a tape player / recorder of some kind),

Takes seconds now. Used to take at least a minute...even on a high-end (2x was the fastest, wasn't it?) dubbing machine.

it would behoove the companies to accept it and find a way to turn it to their advantage instead of fighting it. However, they have chosen the good old "that's the way it's always been done" approach which will never work in this or any subsequent era.

I agree, but this doesn't make them Evil, just stupid. It also doesn't give anyone else the right to stomp all over theirs.

You're not automatically the AntiChrist because you're a Corp.

Ah... You might want to consider not using the vague generalization then. ;) People will think you're off your rocker (which may or may not be true...)

The new Enigma is an interesting meld of his last couple of albums and his original roots. Good stuff.

Thank goodness. Always liked their old stuff better. Cross of Changes was one of my favorites. Gawd, I feel old again...

..and it's "edyukayshuns". :p

Fun with Phonics...