Big Music ignores your rights
p2p news / p2pnet: Europe’s Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs has hit on a reality most p2p file sharers became aware of a long time ago: customer digital rights are being ignored by the entertainment cartels. They get you coming and going.
Digital music from corporate download services is “like a box of chocolates,” it says the BEUC in its new campaign for Consumers Digital Rights. "You never know what you’re gonna get. Consumers purchasing music downloads from major online suppliers are trapped…"
In August, 2005, it checked out different music stores and the most successful portable music players and concluded, "download sites often sell music in one single file format" and, "therefore control what you can do with the music files and the devices they will play on".
By way of an example, if someone downloads a WMA track music from MSN Music UK, it won’t play on the Sony Network Walkman (which uses ATRAC3 file format) or the Apple iPod Photo (which uses AAC file format), says the organization, going on:
"If he has chosen an iPod, he cannot purchase music from MSN Music as it is not possible to directly convert the WMA files to the other AAC format. And similar examples are rife… If your portable player only supports the file format of a given music store, you cannot choose the best offer. Yet another format might offer a better price or give you wider possibilities for using the music file (such as being able to burn it more times).
"For example ‘Rough Justice’ by ‘The Rolling Stones’ from the album ‘A Bigger Bang’ is offered for £0.79 on MSN Music UK and on HMV Digital. On MSN Music UK, three burns to a CD and unlimited copying to portable audio players are allowed, whereas on HMV Digital, five burns to a CD and two transfers to portable players are allowed.
"Downloading the same track for the same price from Apple iTunes would allow for seven copies to CD."
On top of that, the BEUC points out, service provider can change rights without warning any timer they feel like it, and users have to bite it.
"Digital Rights Management (DRM) licenses can be ‘renewed’ and ‘revoked’ by rightholders," it says. "Since the terms and conditions on these music stores allow the service provider to unilaterally change the terms this would not even break the contract."
Transferring tracks to a portable player, "requires installing and setting up relevant software on your computer," the BEUC cvontinues. "It is possible for online music stores to access a computer that is connected to their website and to change the rights of protected music which has been purchased previously. If a track is downloaded but not played, the record company could change its rules between the time of downloading and the first play. It can do this because when you play a downloaded music file for the first time, the licensing terms are automatically downloaded as well. This test shows that consumers’ rights in the digital environment are once again restricted."
The report says there’s nothing to stop the manufacture players that are compatible with all music file formats, "but industry is preventing this from happening".
It’s essential consumers are, "at least informed of the limitations of the purchased music downloads and in particular of how these limitations restrict their traditional ability to transfer music between platforms and players before they choose to purchase a file," adds the BEUC.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
BEUC – Test on interoperability , November 10, 2005
November 10th, 2005 at 6:39 pm
whereas on HMV Digital, five burns to a CD and two transfers to portable players are allowed.
What?????? two transfers?? I wipe my MP3 player often and add new music to it, i’d be stuffed if I used HMV.
November 10th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
I Own the RCA Lyra. The version I own plays MP3 files and plays them with good quality. Since mp3 is the top standard for audio information, the ability to play this format is a huge requirement in order to get me to purchase the product. The other digital audio players or legal download sites either need to use industry or open standards or go out of business as far as I am concerned. When the cartel sanctioned sites do that and charge reasonable rates (about 25 cents per song) for music (as well as stop suing customers), I might return as a customer. Until then LimeWire is an excellent alternative.
November 10th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
MP3 is not the top standard, it is just the most widely used. The top standard formats are .Ogg (I think is lossless) and FLAC (lossless).
November 10th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
That is what i meant to say anyway. It would be nice if mp3 players included those formats as well (is there a hack?), but I know that we cannot have everything.
November 11th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Some players, such as those made by iRiver, have OGG support as well as MP3 and WMA.
There is an open-source project called Rockbox that is working on creating an alternative firmware for many audio players, including some made by iRiver, Archos and recently work has started on a port for the iPod. This alternative firmware has support for many more formats, including MP3, OGG, AAC, FLAC, MPC, AC3, WAV, ALAC, Wavpack and even MIDI files.
It’s a great alternative to the original firmwares of any portable audio player that I’ve ever come across.