And they call this an information society..
The new copyright law that is being pushed by music industry representatives in Finland has created quite a bit of controversy. One of the gems on the discussion is contributed by Tommi Kyyrä, of IFPI Finland:
Kysymykseen siitä, toimivatko nämä rajatun kopioinnin tekniikat muissa käyttöjärjestelmissä kuin Windowsisa, Kyyrä ei halua vastata suoraan. “Nyt pitää ymmärtää, että tietokoneella musiikin kuuntelu on extraa. Normaalisti musiikkia kuunnellaan autossa tai stereoiden kautta”, Kyyrä sanoo ja jatkaa: “Jos nyt käytät jotain Linuxia tai Macia, kannattaa harkita ihan tavallisen cd-soittimen hankkimista”. (tietokone.fi)
The question was whether the copyright protection schemes would work on other operating systems as windows, his reply translated is roughly something like this (I am not an interpreter really, so bear with me :)) :
“Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra priviledge. Normally people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos”, says Kyyrä and continues; “If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.”
Finland, the model of the Information Society, my ass. Are the music producers stupid, blind or living on their own parallel universe? Or maybe trying to appear so, to avoid the real questions?
Sorry, I am ashamed of the level of discussion on the subject in my country. For finns, EFFI website has more information.
Update: Apparently the magazine quote was pulled from the website quickly. You can see the difference here. Thanks to Ilmari for a quick screenshot action. If you wonder why people lose interest in politics, a good look in the mirror might reveal you a good hint of the cause..
September 22nd, 2005 at 14:38
Conspiracy between the music industry and microsoft
September 22nd, 2005 at 14:56
The juicy quote isn’t there any more; apparently Tietokone magazine got an angry call from IFPI demanding that the article be removed. The article stayed, but they removed all the old quotes and added a new one with some heavy duty dodging.
I’m thoroughly disgusted by pretty much everything our government and the industry has said during this mess.
September 22nd, 2005 at 15:21
In the upcoming Windows Vista there are some new, really nasty DRM protections. The OS can turn-off your display once it detects you’re watching something you don’t have rights to. New displays being produced have a special sub-system to be able to do that. And, I suppose, you will not be able to watch any DRM content without a compatible display.
This is against ALL consumer rights I can think of.
September 22nd, 2005 at 15:51
Director for IFPI in Norway, Sæmund Fiskevik seem to be living in the same paralell universe. It’s not only your IFPI director (?) who seem to live there… Also, it seems IFPI are gaining more and more power and momentum in Norway every week.
September 22nd, 2005 at 17:09
Hey, you only _bought_ the CD. Actually listening to it is a privilege, you know.
September 22nd, 2005 at 17:43
Turning off my monitor? Congratulations, Microsoft. You just convinced me to go with another operating system.
September 22nd, 2005 at 17:56
how do we email that exec and tell him to go to hell (in finnish) ?
September 22nd, 2005 at 18:00
[…] Tigert.com: And they call this an information society.. Jätä kommentti […]
September 22nd, 2005 at 18:25
it s just freaky. How can they imagine to convince people to stop sharing with this kind of mentality ! F**k the music lobby and f**k the politic !
September 22nd, 2005 at 18:28
Stuff like this makes me want to drop my CS studies and move to Siberia…
September 22nd, 2005 at 18:42
Guy, crap like these makes me believe that 1984 should be described in a savage Capitalism view, not socialist view.
Okay, we should buy a CD Player… and connect it to the mic in in our sound boards! Sounds fun, right?
For a creative future… Support Creative Commons.
September 22nd, 2005 at 19:07
Well, one thing this guy doesn’t realize is that it is a privilege for _him_ that people buy CDs from his company…
September 22nd, 2005 at 19:09
Nice headline for the blogpost!
And who said irony is dead…
September 22nd, 2005 at 21:15
Well, this will simply prevent Mac and Linux users from buying regular CDs, thus speeding up the final collapse of the current music bussiness model. So I think it’s a good new. For the next move, I suggest banning all music (like classic music) that has no copyright on it: if you think about it, you’ll find that people are playing and listening to Beethoven without giving any money to the creator, so it’s something like unfair competence against the other musicians. And that’s something that simply can’t be accepted by any modern society.
September 22nd, 2005 at 21:40
Don’t you have a Constitution up there? If you have it, it should say something against discrimination, so discriminating people with dumb criteria such as (for instance) their preferred Operating Systems is against the Law. If you don’t have it, you should get one.
BTW… could somebody please explain how using a _free_ operating system such as GNU/Linux could be a _privilege_? Is Micro$oft giving away licenses in Finland? WTF!?
September 22nd, 2005 at 22:03
Yes, we have a constitution. We have a constitutional committee which explicitly said that there are problems with the law with respect to our constitution, but the legislators pushed it through anyway unchanged.
So yeah, we are about to have a law that is very probably against our constitution. Unfortunately it seems that nobody is interested in fixing this problem.
September 22nd, 2005 at 22:10
oh…but don’t you realize?
they are doing this for YOUR SAFETY!
(LOL!) yes, that really is their marketing approach. I guess they are tired of threatening little old grandmothers and little kids with tens of thousands of dollars in settlement fees.
http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/press/20050922.html
so, i wonder how many will download the program - or how long it will be until it’s on everyone’s operating system?
September 22nd, 2005 at 22:18
Many of these CD-DRMs aren’t compatible with Macs/Linux only in that the *DRM* is not compatible. There are some schemes that don’t play with Macs/Linux, but it should be noted that many of them all don’t play in other devices that are CD players…specifically some car CD players that are also GPS units won’t play some flavors of CD-DRMs.
In the end it’s totally retarded. Am I going to buy a CD-DRM player or new PC to be able to listen to the new craptastic CD being sold today or will I just download it for free? That’s the key…it used to be that pirated copies were inferior somehow, with CD-DRMs, the pirated copies are *superior*, free and usually available sooner and with fast easy delivery directly to your computer.
September 22nd, 2005 at 22:32
“Now, we need to understand that reading books on vacation is an extra priviledge. Normally people read books at home or at work”, says Kyyrä and continues; “If you plan a vacation overseas, you should consider hiring somebody to read your books to you from your home over the phone.”
September 22nd, 2005 at 23:01
Someone Needs a Swift Kick in the balls
This is getting out of hand.
“Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra priviledge.”
No it’s not. We Paid to be able to play said music wherever we want.
“Normally people listen to music…
September 23rd, 2005 at 02:23
I’m even more disappointed with the magazine changing the story. I expect these record company guys to think this way - people should just not accept it.
The trouble is, the only way people will start to reject it, is if there’s a proper public debate, where the absurdity of the situation becomes apparent.
For that we need some decent reporting, and this magazine is just not doing that by letting a record company official dodge his own quotes.
If I were finnish/reader of the magazine, I would let them know that they have to have the balls to stand behind what they print.
September 23rd, 2005 at 13:31
Thanks for showing us once more that stupidity is really universal, whether you’re talking about politics, entertainment (music, cinema…) or pretty much anything else.
zebulon (from France)
September 23rd, 2005 at 23:25
I - just don’t know what to say. I can’t believe that something as asinine as this law could be passed through any proper channel. It just doesn’t make sense. And they think this will do what? Prevent or exacerbate piracy of music? I’m thinking the later might be more likely. If the CD I buy, cant be played on a player that I own (such as my MAC, or some car audio players, or some home theater systems, et al) then why would I purchase that CD? I wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to listen to the music on that CD, just that I’m not going to buy it. So where does that leave me? Well I know of several programs out there that will give me instant access to music, for free, if me so choose that route. This is much more appealing to me, than to spend money on something I can’t use.
Privilege my ass.
September 24th, 2005 at 00:11
[…] På tigerts blogg finns en översatt snutt från en intervju med IFPI Finland (IFPI är musikindustrins intresseorganisation). IFPI-representanten säger där angående att flera DRM-lösningar (dvs trasiga cd-skivor) gör att skivorna inte går att spela på datorer med andra operativsystem än Windows: […]
September 24th, 2005 at 00:51
[…] D’où problème : que faire si on utilise un Mac ou un PC sous Linux ? Jusqu’à présent, cette question gênante était soigneusement éludée. Aujourd’hui, Tommi Kyyrä, porte-parole de la branche finlandaise de l’IFPI, ose le dire : “si les DRM gênent votre ordinateur… allez acheter un lecteur de CD normal !” Mine de rien, le fait de pouvoir écouter son CD passe de l’état de droit à celui de privilège, contredisant ainsi un des principes de la culture : celle de pouvoir être accessible à tout un chacun, sans distinction. […]
September 24th, 2005 at 01:20
Well, we have in Finland a very odd situation as the new copyright law is underaway and there was a big scandal of it being favorable for record companies and it was suprising that representor of record companies where in a council prepairing the law. Also one big insteresting thing was that if the law is accepted ISPs can be sued to court because you can deny them for accessing your program etc. and while user klicks the file and downloads it to computer it will be saved to ISPs server so it’s braking the new copyright law. lol.
One “nice” thing in that law is that you are not allowed to upload “protected” music to your mp3 player. Without talking about that only “unprotected” music is church music. Also one interesting point in this new upcoming copyright law is that it says that you can get a jail time from organizing a conversation about the cd protection systems. what ever that means. I have understood it that if you talk about cd/dvd protections in public you will be arrested and convicted of braking the law. Well life is like we are novadays saying about the shitty things.
And about that quote: “how do we email that exec and tell him to go to hell (in finnish) ?”
Well you can allways try this: Write your opinion in english and then add to it: “Painu helvettiin” (Go to hell) and “Vitun mulkero” (You fucking bastard).
I am pretty sure that you can find more of these from insultmonger (http://www.insultmonger.com/swearing/finnish.htm), but this is the translation.
September 24th, 2005 at 08:12
If Windows Vista has massive DRM, thats great because windows is rubbish. I’d switch to linux but windows is easier to use (and all my progs run on it). If there is more crap drm, I’ll finally have enough motivation to make the switch.
Cheers Microsoft!
September 24th, 2005 at 16:03
Simon Howard (above) suggested that the recording industry believes listening to a CD is a privilege, implying that one has a right to buy a CD. In fact, being able to buy that CD is also a priviledge!
The recording industry started with records. It was a priviledge that those tracks and albums were then made available on audio cassette inthe 1970s. It was an extra priviledge that the same music was later made available, to an ungrateful public, on CD’s. Much music has been re-released on each new technology that came after gramophone records. The marginal costs of production for CDs are tiny and the gross profits on them is grotesque.
Apple has shown the way with a genuinely integrated solution of hardware, application and distribution. I sincerely hope and believe that digital music, in the form of easily downloadable tracks, is the final cycle of new methods of distributing music. The music companies were too greedy and too lawyer-driven to develop this for themselves, as they should have.
According to Steve Jobs, these greedy corporates want to increase the prices for their wares on the iTunes site! This, despite the fact they have no marketing or distribution costs via this channel. Their gross profit is surely all profit. They don’t know when they’re on to a good thing.
The record companies desparately need to start thinking creatively, without all the lawyers, and long-term. They won’t because they’ve always had a proprietorial approach which has served them extremely well in the past, and they are not capable of change.
September 25th, 2005 at 02:23
[…] “Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege. Normally people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos,” said Kyyrä. “If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.” (Translation via tigert.com) […]
September 25th, 2005 at 17:14
Wow this is asinine indeed… I’ve put up a lengthy retort to Tommi Kyyra’s comment on my blog here: http://henryc.blogspot.com.
Do what I do, DON’T PURCHASE ANY COPY-PROTECTED CDs! Sooner or later, even these recording industry idiots will get the hint.
September 25th, 2005 at 18:38
[…] Head of the Finnish music industry: “[W]e need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege.” (tags: stupid as.hell music) […]
September 26th, 2005 at 09:56
[…] A Finnish Record Exec thinks mac users should just buy regular CD’s This is in response to reports that DRMed CD’s will not play in Mac or Linux machines. He deems the ability to play CD’s through a computer an added bonus, not something that is standard. See my previous post. […]
September 26th, 2005 at 14:16
..Oh my.
I was somewhat involved in the first wave of online music stores few years ago and ÄKT/IFPI Finland showed some serious signs of retardness back then already.
It’s simple really - they never really got into the internet bandwagon in the first place and are now trying to make it up with hasty remarks and stupid, stupid decisions.
September 27th, 2005 at 20:18
Perhaps the RIAA should be forced to label all DRM “CD’s” with a large sticker stating that they don’t conform to the CD standard and thus should not be purchased if you intend to play the disc in an industry-standard player (the same type which you will find in any PC running Linux or Mac, as well as HiFi standalones). I read from Slashdot that because of this non-compliance to the standards the RIAA aren’t allowed to use the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on any of the disc/packaging materials, but I say they should be forced to go this extra step proactively labelling to let us know so that we can make an informed choice when buying discs.
You remember in the 80’s and 90’s when they started labelling every other rap artist’s albums with the ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers… well maybe this should be the karmic comeback.
Screw the RIAA, I OWN a CD player… it’s in my Mac!!!