RIAA Trying to Copy-Protect Radio

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-09-21 03:48am

The EFF is reporting that "the RIAA has been pushing the FCC to impose a copy-protection mandate on the makers of next-generation digital radio receiver/recorders (think TiVo-for-radio)."
According to Mike Godwin, "Never mind that digital audio broadcasting is not significantly greater in quality than regular, analog radio.
Never mind that its music quality is vastly less than than that of audio CDs.
In spite of these inconvenient facts, the RIAA is hoping that the transition to "digital audio broadcasting" will provide enough confusion and panic that they can persuade Congress or the FCC to impose some kind of copy-protection scheme or regulation on digital radio broadcast." "
Things like this remind me why P2P isn't a burden on my conscience (If I were to do this, which I don't of course, not even BitTorrent with Azareus...)
link

namdoolb · Post by **namdoolb** » 2005-09-21 01:09pm

Pointless.....

Anyone with half a brain can connect another device to the line out, or put a splitter on the speaker output and connect the other device there, and defeat any copy protect mechanism you can think of.

Hell, if the worst came to the worst, you could hold a microphone in front of the speaker.

Building copy protection into devices like that is a fucking waste of time and money, nothing more. The only thing it does is diminish the utility of the device, and thus diminish how many of them will be sold.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2005-09-22 09:21am

Ah, yes. The RIAA worrying their butts off about losing the cash from the market that they say is diminishing is now losing cash anyway to stupid measures.

I wonder if any corporate executives from other companies have written to them about being the idiots that they are...

Where's the link?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-09-22 09:26am

It's there, the quote tags messed it up, I deleted the quote's and it's there now.

I did remmember to post the link (Although forgetting to do so 3 times over the last week is nothing to be proud of

)

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-09-22 12:20pm

Right, because I really want a song that gets talked through the first twenty seconds, and cut off thirty seconds before it's over.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2005-09-22 12:22pm

If they're this concerned why not after recording their music they lock it into a vault where no one can listen to it?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-09-22 12:39pm

The RIAA once tried to shut down conventional radio too, but the broadcasters' lobby was too powerful. That's how they learned that it's better to go after the little guy, who can't fight back.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2005-09-22 07:12pm

Shut it down? How did they figure they would go about doing that? I mean. Me and my buddy are a duo of singers. Our music is reasonably popular. How the fuck can the RIAA tell us I can't sell the music to a radio station so they can play it over the airwaves? The station earns money from the commercials that play every once in a while, we earn money from what the station paid from the right to play the music in the first place, and finally our music sales go up when more people listen to our music and like it. Everyone is happy. So what the fuck was the RIAAs problem?

BloodAngel · Post by **BloodAngel** » 2005-09-23 10:37am

Why is the Recording Industry Association of America trying to interfere with and copy-protect RADIO? Doesn't that fall a long (understatement) ways from their primary objective?

I'd imagine they'd try to go after the right to create music next. All our music r belong to them, har har harz!!!11

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-09-23 10:52am

Adrian Laguna wrote:Shut it down? How did they figure they would go about doing that? I mean. Me and my buddy are a duo of singers. Our music is reasonably popular. How the fuck can the RIAA tell us I can't sell the music to a radio station so they can play it over the airwaves? The station earns money from the commercials that play every once in a while, we earn money from what the station paid from the right to play the music in the first place, and finally our music sales go up when more people listen to our music and like it. Everyone is happy. So what the fuck was the RIAAs problem?

Perhaps their problem is that they are not calling the shots.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-09-23 12:13pm

...why would they bother copy-protecting radio? Quality sucks, and it's not worth ever taping really. I thought their excuse for not going after radio was that it was 'promotional'? Bleah.

You know, by this same logic, it's copyright infringement to whistle a tune, which someone else may pick up.