Because I resist cynicism with all my strength, I keep thinking about the problems surrounding copyright and file-copying (instead of resigning myself to assuming that the conflict will be decided in favor of which side has bought the correct politicians). I had an idea yesterday that won’t by any means revolutionize the discussion, but may cast some different light on it.
One reason the world can live with my capacity to photocopy the chapters of a book that Shelley Powers wrote (clearly the most valuable part of the book) is that a photocopy is very far from being the same as those pages from the book. They hold the same words, they convey all the insight, but the bound book is more convenient, more nicely printed, more durable, with a clever animal (or power drill) cover from O’Reilly. I might be able to sketch an animal on the flip side of one of the copies, and staple them and fold them in half, but there’s a quantum of difference between the photocopies and the book. The copy is a reproduction at an identifiable remove from the original. One wouldn’t under any ordinary circumstances prefer the photocopy to the original.
When reproducing recorded music meant transcribing records onto cassette tapes, the reproduction was tolerable again because cassettes are a volatile medium (as anyone with car stereo experience can attest), the analog-to-analog copying process degraded the audio signal, and the packaging of the tape was decidedly less satisfactory than that of the LP.
You can see where I’m going here. A dual problem arises in an age of digital recording. One element involves my capacity to make a copy of Shannon Campbell’s Grammy-award winning (yet-to-be-released) debut album, with a bit-for-bit identical set of AIFF files, a handsomely-scanned and printed cover, and a jewel case just like that which housed the original CD; since this iteration is no longer discernibly distant from the original, it isn’t simply a reproduction, but a duplication. This sort of duplication muddies the fair-use water by closing the gap that former means of reproduction opened, and I’m sympathetic to music-industry professionals who feel that that amounts to unfair use. (I’m sympathetic, in the way I’m sympathetic to anyone who loses her or his job. I’m not ready to say, “So we should shore up a business model that now no longer works.” Not that sympathetic by a long shot.)
The second complication is a nasty twist from the first. My CD of MP3s is not in any way a duplication of anyone’s album. The cover is nothing more than a printout of the list of files on the disk. The files are not duplicates of the originals, but have much less information in them. Even if I expand the MP3s into AIFF format, the signal will have been affected by the compression/decompression process (especially if I adopted the conventional bit rates of 128 or even 192).
So I offer this distinction to the legal eagles: allow “reproduction” as fair use (and encourage music indutrialists to use MP3s to their advantage instead of stifling them), but maintain laws pertinent to duplication of files.
The biggest weakness of this proposal, as far as I can tell? I mean, aprt from the fact that I’m not a lawyer and therefore am likely to be overlooking Abercromby v. Fitch, in which the Supremes ruled that You Can’t Hurry Social Change when you don’t; have standing before this court? The biggest weakness I see right away is that I’m not saying anything about video (and if Hollywood saw the chance to seal up video with a move that would ditch usic recordings, I’ll bet they’d do it in a heartbeat), largely because I don’t know much about video file formats or file trading (not being that kind of guy). Maybe I should go download a movie to see what it’s like, but reading Paul Boutin’s column about file sharing (thanks to Dave Winer for the link) makes me think that it would be a waste of bandwidth.
Posted by AKMA at November 17, 2002 03:35 PM | TrackBackAKMA, do you think it possible that "we" are satisfied with mere reproductions? That is, for some a photocopy of the book is just as satisfying as the real thing.
I think the same can be said for CDRs sans the scanned covers. Sure they are almost perfect duplications of the songs, but the entire package is still a reproduction, right?
My point being that I think people are satisfied with reproductions (a photocopy of Shelley's book or a CDR disc of the latest greatest album) and do not seek duplications.
Okay, I feel I've taken the side of the RIAA, which was not my intention. ;-) However, I think it's important to note that people who burn CDs illegally may only want reproductions, which could cause a problem with that being a defintion of fair use.
Posted by: Ryan at November 17, 2002 07:12 PMRyan,
Back when I was studying at the school with the best basketball team in the state, there was always a week toward the end of the term when the photocopiers ran for free.
As yhou can imagine, we grad students went berserk. I have whole photocopied. . . . well, to avoid potential legal complications, I have a load o' photocoopies. Would I rather have the bound periodicals and books whence those copies came? There may be some books/periodicals about which I don’t care that much, but most of ’em I’d take in a heartbeat. No hesitation.
Would I rather have full legal CDs for every MP3 I download? Again, with some few exceptions, sure I would. I'm settling for photocopies and MP3s because I don’t make as much as an RIAA flack; but with a significant rise in disposable income, I’d love to have the original versions.
Do people really prefer MP3s in unadorned cases to official releases at full quality with finished voers? Perhaps that would be a problem. I certainly hadn’t considered the possibility.
Posted by: AKMA at November 17, 2002 08:37 PMI'll ignore the comment about this university you attended with the supposed best basketball team in the state.
The UNC v. Duke game isn't far off. Tickets can be arranged, but with one stipulation: You must wear UNC blue and cheer for the 'Heels.
;-)
Posted by: Ryan at November 17, 2002 08:44 PMRyan, of course there are tickets available for a game at the Deandome. Even the home fans have more interesting things to do than to watch the Tar Heels. I’d rather keep up with the Blue Devils by reading the box scores in the paper than risk sullying my shoeleather by stepping in some spilled brie at the Smith Center.
(I can foresee some interesting online controversies brewing. . . .) 6-)
Posted by: AKMA at November 17, 2002 09:11 PMThat's harsh. . . .
Posted by: AKMA at November 17, 2002 10:51 PM:-)
Go Heels!
I think you are asking the right questions.
A CD full of MP3's potentially has two qualities lacking from the store-bought variety. For one, it can hold quite a bit more music, which is nice when you're travelling light.
A bit deeper is the fact that it represents a personal selection and arrangement of the music, which can add context not foreseen by the original artist (or, more likely, record company execs). It's at least a little bit a personal item, as opposed to simply a store-bought commodity.
My wife and I ended up putting a lot of thought and care into a set of CD's last year before Christmas. We play them from time to time (sometimes when the kids ask for them), and they bring warm feelings, quite different in any case from shuffling through the original albums and playing one track at a time.
The liner notes are an important part of the album package. Even though you could print out a convincing counterfeit, or even design your own, most people lack the time and patience. So it's one way for record companies to make the package more appealing.
The technical quality is also an important issue. MP3's proved that there is an important level called "good enough," even if expert ears, or even someone just listening carefully, can tell the difference. By the way, it's not just raw bit rate; it also depends on the quality of the codec. The free software encoder "Lame" is by far the best, but many people use inferior alternatives. I'd also like to put in a word for Ogg Vorbis, which is not only technically superior to MP3 (at 128kbps I can't hear any artifacts), but is also devoid of patent restrictions and any hint of DRM.
File-sharing of movies is clearly not ready for prime-time. The large files make it very clunky and time-consuming, and the resulting quality is disappointing even compared with homemade videotapes. But I see this as a matter of time. After all, it was only about nine years ago that I was listening to scratchy .au's of Cuban music (actually, I hosted a mirror :). Now, access to "good enough" (and better) music is becoming universal.
I share with you the hope for a new system which compensates artists fairly for their toil, but is also not rigged against listeners. If you figure it out, let me know!
Posted by: Raph Levien at November 19, 2002 12:17 AMWhen the machine compiles your code, however, it does a little bit of translation. At run time, the computer sees nothing but 1s and 0s, which is all the computer ever sees: a continuous string of binary numbers that it can interpret in various ways.
Posted by: Emery at January 12, 2004 06:43 PMLet's see an example by converting our favoriteNumber variable from a stack variable to a heap variable. The first thing we'll do is find the project we've been working on and open it up in Project Builder. In the file, we'll start right at the top and work our way down. Under the line:
Posted by: Julius at January 12, 2004 06:44 PMSeth Roby graduated in May of 2003 with a double major in English and Computer Science, the Macintosh part of a three-person Macintosh, Linux, and Windows graduating triumvirate.
Posted by: Hector at January 12, 2004 06:45 PMBut variables get one benefit people do not
Posted by: Rose at January 13, 2004 07:18 AMWe can see an example of this in our code we've written so far. In each function's block, we declare variables that hold our data. When each function ends, the variables within are disposed of, and the space they were using is given back to the computer to use. The variables live in the blocks of conditionals and loops we write, but they don't cascade into functions we call, because those aren't sub-blocks, but different sections of code entirely. Every variable we've written has a well-defined lifetime of one function.
Posted by: Bridget at January 13, 2004 07:18 AMA variable leads a simple life, full of activity but quite short (measured in nanoseconds, usually). It all begins when the program finds a variable declaration, and a variable is born into the world of the executing program. There are two possible places where the variable might live, but we will venture into that a little later.
Posted by: Mark at January 13, 2004 07:18 AMThis will allow us to use a few functions we didn't have access to before. These lines are still a mystery for now, but we'll explain them soon. Now we'll start working within the main function, where favoriteNumber is declared and used. The first thing we need to do is change how we declare the variable. Instead of
Posted by: Jane at January 13, 2004 08:51 AMNote the new asterisks whenever we reference favoriteNumber, except for that new line right before the return.
Posted by: Venetia at January 13, 2004 08:51 AMThe rest of our conversion follows a similar vein. Instead of going through line by line, let's just compare end results: when the transition is complete, the code that used to read:
Posted by: Aveline at January 13, 2004 08:51 AM