Washington Tries Its Best To Kill Internet Radio
Earlier this month a bipartisan group of Senators lead by Diane Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a bill that would create a variety of new restrictions for both Internet broadcasters and listeners.
Bill S.256, also known as the “Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act” (PERFORM), would, among other things, require that Internet broadcasters protect their audio streams with DRM technology. Apparently the RIAA has convinced Feinstein that unencrypted audio streams are contributing to the global piracy problem.
In a world where just about every song ever recorded is available from any number of online sources, it’s hard to believe that a significant number of listeners are sitting around waiting for their favorite song to play on some Internet station so they can record the stream, cut the song out of the stream, tag it, then transfer it to their iPod. No, something tells me that people who don’t want to pay for songs have more efficient ways of stealing music.
It’s unfathomable that lawmakers would spend time attempting to cripple a new industry that is still in its infancy.
Chances are that many broadcasters would select Microsoft’s DRM system, effectively turning Internet radio into a Windows-only medium (and ironically leaving Zune users out of the loop).
Interestingly, Joseph Biden, who is among the senators introducing the bill, has recently announced a ’08 presidential bid. Seems like an odd strategy to drum up support for his presidential campaign….
The question is, will the rest of the democratic congress follow suit and vote for the measure?
It’s like gun laws – they penalize the good citizen while the criminal doesn’t care. Everything encrypted can be unencrypted.
Hey if Diane Feinstein is for it then I’m for it…she’s a democrat
and democrats can do no wrong!
Hey Mac Guy, I was about to say the same thing. Funny how the article says how the RIAA has convinced Feinstein. I’ll tell you how they convinced her ($$)! I’m almost convinced that over half of the crap that comes from that money pitt know as Congress is heavily influenced with bribes otherwise legally known as “campaign contributions”.
1. This will suffer the same fate as AACS. It will be cracked before it begins.
2. This is rediculous. File this in the same category as Net Neutrality. Then, provide a website that lists all congressmen who vote for this kind of crap so we can all make sure these people don’t get reelected, ever.
Actually, let me add to my previous comment #1… It will be cracked before it begins – only if needed. Currently, it wouldn’t be needed because, as pointed out in the article, there are other VASTLY EASIER ways to get the raw MP3 files of the music that they want to protect.
If the music WAS protected enough that cracking streams was the only way to get the music successfully, THEN it would be cracked immediately.
BTW, don’t streams have to downgrade the quality of the audio to match the codec of the stream itself? Why would i want a downgraded version of a song to add to my collection?
This page links to the EFF Action center, and you can fill in the information to automatically send a letter to your senator.
http://snipurl.com/18gyr
Why wasn’t anybody complaining when people could record songs from the radio to cassette tapes? Recording from an audio stream to your hard drive is the same paradigm. This is more of an argument between analog and digital. Analog was okay but digital isn’t.
With each blank cassette you buy a fee goes to the record industry..that’s why.
And everybody who ever bought a blank tape for the purpose of making an original recording should have banded together to sue the living crap out of the record industry…
But were are consumers. We don’t stand up for ourselves. We just bitch about things and then pay anyway, so really, we get what we deserve.
Thanks Chris (#7), I used the link to send off my protest. The rest of us should do the same.
If you dig deep, you’ll likely find the NAB (National Assn. of Broadcasters) has something to do with this. They are terrified of what would happen if you didn’t have to tolerate their endless commercials to enjoy mobile radio. Their business plan would collapse, along with their revenue stream.
#11 – #7
Thanks… I did too.
Does anyone know what sort of volume of email traffic the EFF can generate?
Ok. I listen to Radio Paradise. They play music I would not normally come in contact with. I write down the titles and buy them on iTunes.
Enough already. The money these idiots have spent fighting this they could have concentrated on a new business model and had it in place already.
Per John’s cassette comment. Fine I’ll pay an extra $5 bucks per ipod to stop the stupidity already.
Rule of thumb: If Feinstein is for it, it stinks.
I mean, this is the senator (my senator…eeeek!) who so famously turned in ONE of the TWO handguns for which she had a concealed carry permit . Where’s S. I. Hwakkawa when you need him?
No surprise that she received money from RIAA and ASCAP, as well as Sony, Time Warner, Viacom, and many others.
Here’s a link to opensecrets.org, that shows all or her PAC contributions: http://tinyurl.com/3778rs
[ed: Plz use tinyurl.com for long urls]
Wow, the funny thing is there are next to 0 apps that allow you to steal radio streams off the net. All this bill will do is encourage people to write programs to steal streams off the net!
I just said this on another post, but it bears repeating here:
“The RIAA is dying and will eventually become a debating society fed from legacy contracts, as there will come a generation of artists who will use the web as their springboard to fame, creating a new path for artists to develop using the new media for the new ways people experience music.
There is no difference beween the problems in the newspaper, music, magazine, and other pre-electronic media industries. They are all threatened with extinction by the next generation, and must adapt or die. Look at the recent layoffs by Time Inc.
The RIAA is like a wounded animal, or a politician facing bad poll numbers. They will twist the ring in our nose as hard as they can for as long as they are able because they know if we bypass the RIAA now they are f*cked.”
Smartalix, I hope you’re right. But never underestimate the ability of obscenely wealthy people to pervert the law to their liking.
So the entertainment industry (read: Disney, Apple, Viacom, RIAA, MPAA, Sony, all the usual thieves) owns the senators from California. Why am I not surprised? Feinstein has never been particularly strong on citizens’ rights and has always been eager to whore for corporations. It’ll be interesting to see if Barbara Boxer, the other California senator and also a Democrat, goes along, as she has on several other occasions when content mafiosi called the shots.
It’s the golden rule, folks, and the a**holes with castles in the L.A. hills have a LOT of gold. Politicians gotta love ’em.
#7…thanks Chris….I just used the link as well.
This damn cowboy….15 sec shit needs to stop…..i lost my post….again.
This is a blog by a tech expert….is this the best you can do?
8, the RIAA was complaining when the cassette tape came out. They tried to ban it, lost, whined about how home taping would kill the industry, and they were wrong.
They consistently ignored the research that “home tapers” bought lot’s of music, and most of what they taped was for space-shifting.
Just look how far they’ve come in the last twenty years…
If an audio stream can come out of speakers (especially if you can get it through a set of headphones) it means that it can be captured and recorded. There’s no way around that.
17. Google Audacity. Free, records radio streams, import to MP3.
17 – Look also at http://www.highcriteria.com/
Records any audio stream. If the stream includes tag information, it’ll cut the stream into appropriately named segments (files) as well. Records to .WAV or .MP3 or, I think, Ogg Vorbis formats. Good tech and the DRM types haven’t defeated it yet, so far as I know – it just Y’s off the decoded signal into a file.
It’s not free, though. I have no connection with the company, own no stock in it, etc. I just like the utility.
For a more direct route, Quintessential Player is free and will record any stream it can play, without modifying it. Also breaks tagged streamed into separate files. See http://www.quinnware.com/
#19 – TJGeezer
“…never underestimate the ability of obscenely wealthy people to pervert the law to their liking.”
I’d humbly amend that to read “never underestimate the ability of obscenely wealthy people to have the law custom-tailored to their whims.”