the analog key
This brilliant idea from MIT (using the cable network to distribute analog content, and thereby taking advantage of the existing analog blanket licenses covering music) has been in the works for some time. Note that most universities could take advantage of this, as most universities have a blanket license for music distributed on campus. So long as there's an analog link, at least. Or, alternatively, if Congress were to change the law so that digital had the same rights as analog, or perhaps, digital with an analog decay, then bingo, "piracy" at universities would disappear.
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Saw the write-up in the Boston Globe this monring. The Globe highlighted the severity of the limitations - including (which the NYT left out) "Listeners must use a television set to hear the tunes or a VCR with speakers or a personal computer with an add-on television tuner card." That, combined with the limit of blocks (80 minutes isn't as long as a frat party) and the amount of simultaneous listeners (16? On a campus of thousands?) will certainly limit its appeal.
But I'm just glad to see a display of how ridiculous our copyright laws are...
Another aspect is convenience. Depending on how it's implemented in a specific university, if it takes more than a few minutes of prep work to get the music you want immediately, then individuals will always turn to alternatives. And based on history, the fact that they'll turn to alternatives will be used as an excuse to say that the system doesn't work, and we should prosecute all "pirates" to the fullest extent of the law.
According to NPR, thousands of students can tune into the stations at any one time - they'll just have to pick one of the 16 channels.
Sorry, but I'm not drinking the kool-aid on this one.
Seven or eight bit quality? Why not just break out the Victrola? Look, the RIAA isn't fighting piracy per se, it's fighting technology, and this kind of project diverts resources away from the technology fight (which is highly winnable) and dumps them into a glorified amateur radio station would have have absolutely zilch support but for some ideological puffing that posits it as an alternative method of "sharing" music (which is a fight that may or may not be winnable).
And while the digital/analog discussion is interesting, the bottom line is that the RIAA could change the licenses tomorrow to outlaw this kind of behavior. Will they? No, because this has nothing to do with piracy. It's a radio station--well, really 16 remote-controllable radio stations. Technologically curious, but does it highlight any inconsistencies in copyright law? Not meaningfully, I don't think--the quality is so low that it only reinforces the distinction between analog and digital.
I don't think we should be playing this game and giving Congress the invitation to further restrict analog transmission in order to "harmonize" it with digital. (This is exactly the kind of game-playing that got us into the Eldred mess, by the way--countries upping copyright limits bit by bit to "harmonize" their limits with other countries, until there was a race to the bottom.) The message should be that copyright law, except in the case of 106A visual art situations, protects the message and not the medium, and that means digital vs. analog is none of the RIAA/MPAA's business. I think that if we push the issue along these lines, at best it will let the RIAA say "look, the quality is so low nobody is recording, so there's no transmission problem, we were right," and at worst it will end up with an RIAA license change that prohibits analog transmission except over the airwaves (or somesuch).
To summarize: interesting technology, but the way it's being blown up into a demonstration of the inconsistency of copyright law is going to do more harm than good because the net result is that it demonstrates the usefulness of that inconsistency.
Sorry to post so off-topic like this, but this article may be of interest:
Spammers leaving advertising-related posts on weblogs
Now, back on topic. The RIAA isn't fighting technology. It's fighting anything that reduces their amount of direct control over what you can hear, when, where and how. They apparently haven't cared too much about loosing money (although that's what they keep crying about). However, anything that reduces their control over their members' products has always been virulently attacked.
But for the rest of Adam's pessimism, I fully agree.
We had this in college as well.
Cable radio stations do exsist on lots of cable systems that are basically doing the same thing.
Now if only they still made analog tape recorders..
Looks like the project has been shut down, citing legal concerns.
Boston Globe Story here.
-kd
I can't even imagine judges and lawyers understanding the difference between analog and digital distribution.
Didnt last so long:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/03/file.swapping.ap/index.html