Copyright / Re: Dr. Dobbs Cryptography and Security CD-ROM

Paul Bradley wrote:
 
> I don`t believe in copyright in general, but I would be perfectly happy
> to pay a US cpunk to send me a copy of this CD-ROM, *BUT*, physically
> mailing a copy like this is more risky for the US Cpunk. I don`t believe
> in ripping people off, and rarely copy copyrighted material, but I don`t
> hold with copyright laws and see nothing wrong with this being posted.

 Copyright is for the purpose of people with ideas being financially
rewarded in the same manner as those who manifest those ideas in
the physical sphere (via print, recordings, machines, etc).
 As a recording musician I expected to get money for my recordings,
just as everyone else in the chain of business did in making my
music available to the end-user. (And just as a grocer who makes
food available to his customers expects you to leave something in
the till on your way out of the store.)
 I have never had any problem with someone recording a copy of my
music from a purchased copy if they are a music lover with a thin
pocket, or can't readily purchase it. If someone with a $2000.00
stereo wants to enjoy the fruits of my labor without contributing
any money to my health and welfare, then I consider them to be just
another thief.

  The bottom line with the Crypto CD-ROM is that we should each
make an effort to support it at the level we are capable of,
in the interest of promoting strong cryto.
  Buy it, if at all possible. If you download a copy on the net
and can't afford $99.00, then send them $10.00, or $20.00, etc.
If you can't afford to send them a nickle, then do what you can
to promote their product. Provide pointers to their business,
tell people about their products, etc.
  People who will give ten or twenty dollars to a charity when
someone shows up at their door might use "shareware" for years
without taking the time and trouble to send the creator some
cash. Bottom line--take the time to recompense the vendor/creator
at the level you are able. 

  Technology may well enable us to take the product and give
nothing in return to those who made it available, but doing so
will not further our own beliefs and aims to any extent.
  If you just want to rip something off, go to the Whithouse,
rip off some silverware, and send it to Dr. Dobbs.

TruthMonger

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> wrote:

> I have copied to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) several hundred CDs. And a friend
> of mine has really gone overboard, copying more than 4000 CDs (rock, blues,
> jazz, country, you name it) onto more than 1000 DATs.
> 
> Given that a new CD typically costs about $16 US, and a blank DAT tape
> costs about $4 for a 3-hour tape, the savings are spectacular. (My friend
> uses a lot of the 4-hour DATs, but I don't trust them. They jam in some
> machines.)

You mean you don't just get the mp3 files off the internet like everyone
else?  :)

Why would anyone want to use DAT, when you can just stick the CD in your
computer and copy it.  Hard disks are so much faster than tapes, and when
you consider data compression, don't cost much more.

I have hundreds of songs on my computer and I can start playing any one of
them in about 2 seconds.  Plus I can search by title, etc...  Tapes are a
pain in the ass and I just use them for backups.

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> wrote:

> I have copied to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) several hundred CDs. And a friend
> of mine has really gone overboard, copying more than 4000 CDs (rock, blues,
> jazz, country, you name it) onto more than 1000 DATs.
> 
> Given that a new CD typically costs about $16 US, and a blank DAT tape
> costs about $4 for a 3-hour tape, the savings are spectacular. (My friend
> uses a lot of the 4-hour DATs, but I don't trust them. They jam in some
> machines.)

You mean you don't just get the mp3 files off the internet like everyone
else?  :)

Why would anyone want to use DAT, when you can just stick the CD in your
computer and copy it.  Hard disks are so much faster than tapes, and when
you consider data compression, don't cost much more.

I have hundreds of songs on my computer and I can start playing any one of
them in about 2 seconds.  Plus I can search by title, etc...  Tapes are a
pain in the ass and I just use them for backups.

Tim May <tcmay@got.net> wrote:

> I have copied to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) several hundred CDs. And a friend
> of mine has really gone overboard, copying more than 4000 CDs (rock, blues,
> jazz, country, you name it) onto more than 1000 DATs.
> 
> Given that a new CD typically costs about $16 US, and a blank DAT tape
> costs about $4 for a 3-hour tape, the savings are spectacular. (My friend
> uses a lot of the 4-hour DATs, but I don't trust them. They jam in some
> machines.)

You mean you don't just get the mp3 files off the internet like everyone
else?  :)

Why would anyone want to use DAT, when you can just stick the CD in your
computer and copy it.  Hard disks are so much faster than tapes, and when
you consider data compression, don't cost much more.

I have hundreds of songs on my computer and I can start playing any one of
them in about 2 seconds.  Plus I can search by title, etc...  Tapes are a
pain in the ass and I just use them for backups.

>  As a recording musician I expected to get money for my recordings,
> just as everyone else in the chain of business did in making my
> music available to the end-user. (And just as a grocer who makes
> food available to his customers expects you to leave something in
> the till on your way out of the store.)

You draw incorrect paralells between the physical medium and the data 
encoded on it.

>  I have never had any problem with someone recording a copy of my
> music from a purchased copy if they are a music lover with a thin
> pocket, or can't readily purchase it. If someone with a $2000.00
> stereo wants to enjoy the fruits of my labor without contributing
> any money to my health and welfare, then I consider them to be just
> another thief.

Theivery doesn`t come into it, you simply have no property rights over 
your speech. I can "say" whatever I want, that includes "saying" the same 
set of bits on a CD made by you, onto a tape or minidisc. Because MD and 
DAT are not yet common, and as Tim pointed out most consumer DAT boxes 
don`t copy original CDs or DATs, copying is less widespread than it could 
be; if I like an Artists work or a particular album I will buy it on CD 
because the quality is higher than copying to tape, and I don`t have a 
DAT machine (even if I did I wouldn`t find it useful as my main stereo is 
in my car). I don`t just say this; I do it, I have a lot of copied music 
which I listen to occasionally but all my favourite stuff (my large-ish 
collection of jazz and blues) is on original CD.

>   Buy it, if at all possible. If you download a copy on the net
> and can't afford $99.00, then send them $10.00, or $20.00, etc.
> If you can't afford to send them a nickle, then do what you can
> to promote their product. Provide pointers to their business,
> tell people about their products, etc.

I agree with this sentiment entirely: Copyright is not something to be 
enforced or condoned but if you do use someones work think about at least 
giving credit or making a donation on a voluntary basis, for one thing it 
helps stimulate the market.

>   Technology may well enable us to take the product and give
> nothing in return to those who made it available, but doing so
> will not further our own beliefs and aims to any extent.

Again, this is the right way to think of "intellectual property", not as 
real tangiable property which can, or even should be protected, but as a 
bond of trust between provider and end user, if you rip off a copy of my 
s/w and decide you like it, why not buy a copy? The same is true of 
music, source code, hard-copy books etc...

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

On Wed, 2 Jul 1997, Paul Bradley wrote:

> >   Technology may well enable us to take the product and give
> > nothing in return to those who made it available, but doing so
> > will not further our own beliefs and aims to any extent.
> 
> Again, this is the right way to think of "intellectual property", not as 
> real tangiable property which can, or even should be protected, but as a 
> bond of trust between provider and end user, if you rip off a copy of my 
> s/w and decide you like it, why not buy a copy? The same is true of 
> music, source code, hard-copy books etc...

This is why I favor copylefting all information, software and otherwise. If
a computer program is copyrighted it cannot be easily shared or improved,
while copyleft encourages this. Same for music, texts and other works -- if
a song is released under the terms of the GNU GPL or similar copyleft, I am
free to copy and modify that song as I see fit, which includes making DATs,
burning my own CDs and performing improvisations to the song (whose
transcriptions could be likened to its "source code," of which I am free to
improve upon as I see fit). The artist can be supported by purchasing hard
copy of the music (CDs etc) from her/him, as well as posters, t-shirts and
other paraphernalia (as well as outright donation), but I am no longer
restricted by the scourge of copyright law and the fictitious construct of
"intellectual property" in my thoughts and communications about the work; I
am free to share my thoughts and communications with others.


Michael Stutz
http://dsl.org/m/

At 2:55 PM -0700 7/1/97, Anonymous wrote:

> I have never had any problem with someone recording a copy of my
>music from a purchased copy if they are a music lover with a thin
>pocket, or can't readily purchase it. If someone with a $2000.00
>stereo wants to enjoy the fruits of my labor without contributing
>any money to my health and welfare, then I consider them to be just
>another thief.

Well, my stereo system costs considerable more than $2000. And I copy CDs
whenever I can.

I have copied to DAT (Digital Audio Tape) several hundred CDs. And a friend
of mine has really gone overboard, copying more than 4000 CDs (rock, blues,
jazz, country, you name it) onto more than 1000 DATs.

Given that a new CD typically costs about $16 US, and a blank DAT tape
costs about $4 for a 3-hour tape, the savings are spectacular. (My friend
uses a lot of the 4-hour DATs, but I don't trust them. They jam in some
machines.)

We get these CDs by borrowing from friends (who haven't gotten into DATs
yet), and especially from libraries. My friend has library cards at more
than 6 library systems, covering about 20 actual library sites. Each has
thousands of CDs (though there is much duplication, and a lot of junk.)

And I now have a SCMS defeating DAT machine, a Tascam DA-P1, so I can
"mine" his collection of 4000+ CDs-on-DAT and make flawless digital copies.
(The copies from a CD are flawless with any dubbing that uses the digital
I/O, but DAT to DAT copies have been disabled on consumer-grade machines
with SCMS, the Serial Copy Management System. SCMS defeaters reset the SCMS
bits to allow any number of perfect copies.)

Technology liberates the bits.

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On Tue, 1 Jul 1997, Tim May wrote:

> Technology liberates the bits.

Copyright law is not only useless on the net but inefficient; one need only
compare the performance of free, copylefted software versus proprietary,
closed software to see which is better. But now it is possible to apply the
same principle of copyleft to _all_ non-software information, too --
including text, images and music. I have done this myself with novels and
albums of music, and have posted full instructions on how to apply this to
non-software information at <http://dsl.org/copyleft/>.


m

Michael Stutz
stutz@dsl.org
http://dsl.org/m/