POLL - Should the law allow restoration of old records to CD/DVD?

To all of you at afterdawn. The law is getting to be a monster now, with the new draft legislation at the EU proposing to allow Copyright holders the right to enter your home, confiscate your equipment and freeze your bank accounts if they even suspect you have "illegal" dopies of music, ie home taped, nome made CD's etc. in your possession, WETHER YOU GAIN FROM THEM FINANCIALLY OR NOT!
I believe this is outrageous. The US are also watching this one with a view to extending the infamous DMCA to allow the same things. You can find out all about the proposals at
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/021604.html (the proposal)
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/update20040223_en.shtml
an assessment of the impact
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/usgovt_EUIPRED.html
The US govermnents thought on this.

This law has been "fast tracked", which means is is not subject to debate, but will be imposed by decree.

Please show your support - or not - by posting below.
I will edit this post daily with the running results as follows:

A/. Those in Favour of the new laws B/. Those opposed to the new laws C/. Those who think it will not apply to them

RUNNING TOTALS

Opposed to new laws 4
In Favour of new laws 0
Don't care about new laws 0


There is now an online petition at this URL
http://www.petitiononline.com/fairuse/petition.html
Your support is important - please go and sign!
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Digital Audio Specialists[/small]

 

THis is truly crazy. I would say I am totally opposed to these new laws. The loss of individual freedom is around the corner.

Have these people totally lost the idea of consumerizim? Their clearly not thinking, as this would result in less money to the developers. Right now there are three groups of people, thouse that buy and agaist piracy, thouse that buy and make freely available and those that pirate. The ones in the second and third group, either want the product to test it before buying or would never buy in the first place and what see what the product can do. The first group of peopole bought it and want to stick with it until the end of time. If any thing goes wrong they usually want service and patches for free. The second group are mainly consumers and will buy and keep buying. The third group is just good advertising that will tell there friends and family about the product. If this goes through, you lose the second and third group and only the non upgrading wining group is left. The only way to resolve this is to offer the thing for free trial, but then since you pissed off people someone will crack it. So you have recreated the third group but lost the second group.

 

Wilks ask a Mod or admin to put this up in a more noticable spot, Like on the main forum page. Then more people can see it and give you feed back.

 

Unequivocally opposed.

 

/\ /\ /\ What he said /\ /\ /\

 

Too late - it's gone through the European Parliament.
It will be law right across the EU within 18 months.

 

Wilkes, are you serious? I thought no way would that go through. It completly goes against the rights of people!!

 

Yep - totally serious.
Anyway - since when did what ordinary people want ever matter?
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/021604.html is the original proposal, and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3545839.stm confirms it has gone through.
When you add it in to the law that went through October last year in the UK, it makes everything very much "up in the air".

We have currently pulled advertising to redesign & offer "restoration" services instead. Also now need a copyright lawyer. Meeting one tomorrow & will post results of meeting so all in UK will know where we stand. As it is at the moment, I'm considered the same as a pirate! for restoring old vinyl to a format where it can be enjoyed again. Where will this leave vintage car mechanics, they don't own the patents. Furniture/Art restorers, where it will all end up is anybody's guess!

Tigre/Mods - can you lock this one down please, and I'll begin a new post with the results of the legal meetings elsewhere.

Thanks

Wilkes

 

Absolutely opposed.

And to be honest I feel really scared that something like this is even a thought. Whats next bar codes laser etched on our foreheads? no let me guess? Taking my guns? This scares me to death. I need to run check and see how much ammo I have. You never know when they are gonna start herding us all together into work camps or something..

Matt

 

Once, there was Democracy. Now, I don't know what you call it but it 'aint Democracy. The Judges in these cases should be forced to take a reality check. Their problem is that they have not plunged headlong into the 1980's yet, let alone, the new millennium. They are too tied up with 'precedents' and less concerned with the audacity to set a few new ones. Public disobedience will prevail and all of the vinyl's and tapes out there will be more likely to be distributed as a result of their shortsightedness. More power to the people.

 

Trouble is that public disobedience will only prevail if all the public are actually prepared to get off their collective arses and actually do something instead of sitting there in front of Pop Idol, or the soaps.
Experience in the UK says this is never going to happen. When there was all the trouble with the Poll tax, everyone stood firm - after all, they can't put us all in jail - and the government appeared to back down. At that point, rather than push the advantage gained, everyone said "okay, we believe you". All that ended up changing was the name.

The other huge problem is the "well I will still do as I please", or worse still "it doesn't apply to me" type of attitude.
It does apply to everyone. Freedom has a price, and that is eternal vigilance. Remember, we are supposed to be consumers - we are meant to consume, not cause trouble, and if you don't fit into the pattern you are made to feel like an aberration and ridiculed, or worse still held up as "antisocial". We have new laws about that here in the UK too. Antisocial behaviour is a criminal offence. Seems okay until you begin to ask just whose definition of "antisocial" is taken for the supposed "norm".
The last countries that did this ended up with the gulag & the concentration camps. It's truly scary, it really is.

To get back on topic (sorry about the last bit - I'll get off my soapbox now) the whole Intellectual Property/Copyright issues are - in my opinion, anyway - a kind of testing ground to see what can be got away with, inasmuch as all this legislation is breaking new ground all the time. Bit by bit (no pun intended) our freedom is being eroded away.
"we must stop piracy" - fair enough
"piracy is funding international terrorism" - say WHAT? where did that one come from??? Yet the commercials are out there for all to see in trailers added onto movies you rent from the local shop. Piracy is funding terrorism, therefore to protect our way of life we must prosecute filesharers, and don't forget the evils of MP3. Everybody knows MP3 is killing the music industry, just as home taping killed it in the seventies! Yeah, right.
If anything, MP3 downloads are at worst insignificant, and at best actually help as it gets more awareness of the music that is out there.
What is killing the music industry is things like EMI signing Mariah Carey for so much money that they had to drop (don't remember the number) loads of signed bands to pay the bill. Then, when the album didn't sell they paid her a load more money to go away again. Madness.
£80 Million to Robbie Williams? In the name of God, why?

It's the lawyers who are killing the music business, along with the armies of accountants looking for the quick killing. Bugger the long term development of artists that used to happen. Where are the bands getting signed and put out on tour to learn their craft? Gone. Instead you get a nationwide "talent" contest in the never ending hunt for yet another covers band that mime to somebody elses music. Rack up another ten mill to Simon Cowell. Ker-CHING!!!!

Aaargh. My brain hurts. Sorry to have inflicted this on you all - I'd better go before I say something I'll probably end up regretting.

 

Completely against the new laws. One thought- where is the support of our rights from blank media companies or companies who make the drives? I know they say their products are not to duplicate copyrighted materials, but come on, what percentage of their sales come from people like us? Seriously, its not like Im going to open up a blockbuster store from my basement. With some new dvd sets costing upwards of $100, they are trying to tell me I cant make backups to protect my investment? Absolutely ridiculous.

 

Mike , Thanks for the comedy.

Been building a new DAW, hence recent silence.
Nice new Dual Xeon system.
What with Minnetonka's efforts, WaveLab 5 & now discWelder Bronze going MAC soon, plus Philips signing up for MLP/DVD-A then I guess it is obviously over for DVDA.

Not.

 

That would do it!
Got well caught out not so long ago.
Quoted the usual price, per hour of material, and found out the hard way just how long it takes to do a set of old 45's in, A & B sides, clean up, get levels similar, etc.

Lucky if I make £100 in a day doing that. Still, a deal is a deal. That'll teach me. Besides - the plus point is that I'm hearing some stuff again that I had forgotten about, and peversely enough I even went out & bought my own copies of some of the albums these old singles were lifted from.
My conscience will not allow me to take a copy for myself, and besides - I wanted the whole album.

So the industry that thinks this costs them money actually made money out of me doing it!

How's that for irony!

 

THIS NEW LAW IS INSANE.

This type of law will never fly in the US, because they would first have to amend the constitution, which is a daunting task to say the least (illegal search and seizure). I can’t believe after all that Europe has suffered at the hands of the former USSR that the new EU would even give this law consideration. If this law goes through then those who are part of the EU are loosing their freedom to exist as a free thinking people. Allow one agency to have the right to enter people’s homes and you ultimately allow any agency with an apparent legitimate agenda to follow. If they try this in the states then all I can say is remember the civil rights and anti war movements of the sixties.

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"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)[/small]

 

(Gawd....) Can't speak professionally, but lovingly restoring a box of vintage 45-rpm singles would be a process that I would love to indulge in. I would have to lock myself away and disconnect the phone for a week at least.

I might never get to see or hear those singles ever again. (In my own case, I am thinking of the original pressings of the so-called 'British Invasion' pop singles of the '60's.). Irreplaceable content. On genuine, high-resolution DVD-Audio, a gift.



Oh - believe me, I was tempted by some of them, I really was.
What I plan to do is regularly get myself down all the local record fairs, and pick up the vinyl myself.
That way I will be transferring stuff I own, and won't feel like a steaming great hypocrite.

I still cannot see any problem with transferring stuff I own, or that someone else owns for them. If they want to come & nick me for this, then let them. It will make fine reading in the press.
I'm going to really tempt fate now, and say I don't honestly believe that they would dare.

Cue the knock on the door.......