On 30/1/05 10:07 AM, "John Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is the apparent illegality of copying music to an iPod really a new > problem? We've been doing it for years copying vinyl and CDs to tapes > to protect the original or play them in the car. What about the rampant > use of the VCR? When I was younger everybody copied records to cassette so they could play them in the car etc but the record companies never cared because the quality was always inferior to the original. By the time beta videos came out the quality had improved markedly and eventually when VHS took over as the most popular format these big companies got together with the manufacturers to put in chips that prevented commercial videos from being recorded. Beta machines never had this chip and you could copy a commercial VHS tape to beta no problems. To kill off beta the big companies insisted that local video shops stop selling blank beta tapes and beta movies. Even today the professionals at tv stations still use beta but for the general public it's a dead technology. They killed off beta to ensure they had total control. Over the last few years the same thing has happened to records. Today audiophiles who appreciate the greater dynamic range of records than cd's are the only people still playing them. Record players are inherently dumb machines with no way to circumvent copying. So once again the big companies got together and phased out record production, ran campaigns denigrating record quality and converted the masses to using cd's instead (remember being told they would last forever and couldn't be scratched with adds showing people hitting them with hammers and then playing them flawlessly in their cd players). The side effect being only those with computers and cd rewriters were able to copy them. Once they realized this loophole they invented the concept of adding copy protection. By the time music downloading from the net became viable and the mp3 format was introduced these companies decided to get involved again. MP3's can't contain copy protection due to limitations in its format, therefore no commercial companies released music in that format instead settling for proprietary formats like AAC, WMA etc. This means for Apple users with iPods in Australia with no ITMS available any copyright material they place on their iPods makes them criminals. DVD's have gone through a similar process. Before consumer DVD Rewriters became available the big companies didn't care, but by the time dvd rewriters were available on computers they introduced copy protection. To date it is easy to circumvent this protection using software however for home users with stand alone recorders this is impossible without getting illegal hacks made to your machine. With the upcoming introduction of blue-ray and similar technologies the big companies will be adding a whole new type of copy protection that they think will be unbreakable. Unfortunately this means we the consumer will be forced to buy brand new DVD recorders since current machines will be incompatible with this new format. With the advent of digital tv this process continues. If you sign up for Foxtel digital and thought you'd be able to copy the Pay Per View channels you'll find you can't because they have implemented copy protection via encryption of the signal. What is also scary is the fact that from July 1 2005 all manufacturers in the US will be adding this new digital tv copy protection mechanisms to all new dvd rewriters, PVR's (like Tivo's), EyeTV's etc. Their plan is to enforce copy protection on digital tv programs as well. Perhaps only movies at first but eventually the tv stations will have total control over what you can record. These huge multinationals pump millions into political parties campaign funds on the understanding the governments will enforce their new regime of copy protection on everything. Personal freedom is a thing of the past. Welcome to a brave new world of total government control sponsored by big business. -- All the best Greg Sharp President/Webmaster [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australian Mac Users Group (AUSMUG) http://australian.macusersgroup.org
