Media Reports
RIAA Rides Again-Over Listeners
By Barry Fox
The Electronic Frontier Foundation in the US tells a chilling tale. The Recording Industry Association of America has been seeking thousands of dollars in damages from a couple, for alleged unauthorized distribution of copyrighted digital music.
The RIAA could not prove that the prosecuted pair actually distributed music files—except to the RIAA’s investigators who trapped them—so is arguing that it is sufficient to show that they had songs in the “shared” folder of peer-to-peer file-sharing software Kazaa.
The EFF civil liberties organization objected to the RIAA taking a legal “short cut.”
“This amounts to suing someone for attempted copyright infringement—something the Copyright Act simply does not allow,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “If the RIAA wants to keep bringing these suits and collecting big settlements, then they have to follow the law and prove their case. It’s not enough to say the law could have been broken. The RIAA must prove it actually was broken.”
This matters to the hi-fi world because people who just want to listen to music or watch movies are now being encouraged to use computer equipment which they do not understand. More and more new hi-fi products boast “network connectivity,” “Internet radio,” and “media streaming” from computers and UPnP devices by Ethernet cable and WiFi wireless links.
It is now all too easy for a third party to hijack someone else’s computer and Internet access, and use it for illegal downloading. Networks often don’t work and WiFi devices won’t talk to each other unless security is switched off and firewalls and virus protection are disabled. This leaves the system wide open to intruders.
The Internet is currently awash with messages from people who are tearing their hair out because a network that works one day suddenly stops connecting the next (sometimes after the latest Windows update) with the infuriating error message: “My network Places not available. You might not have permission to use this Network Resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available. OK.”
But the owner IS the administrator!
The fact that each Internet discussion on how to get rid of this error message suggests at least a dozen completely different trial and error fixes, including switching off security protection, tells how complex the issues are.
AOL’s broadband support Help Line will not investigate a telco line fault until the user has been led through a series of tick box test steps that includes re-setting the broadband router that connects to the phone line. The subscriber is given no warning that re-setting the router that AOL gives subscribers will remove all password protection and encryption and leave the system broadcasting Wi-Fi signals that anyone within a 300 meter range can tap into.
TESTING 1, 2, 3
All today’s audio compression systems owe a debt to the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, which invented MPEG Layer 3, now called MP3. Institute researchers recently told how they tested their prototype software in 1988 by using it to code Suzanne Vega’s 1986 a cappella version of “Tom’s Diner.”
Voice is the toughest test for any audio system because we are all being continually reminded of what a real human voice sounds like; and there is none of the masking effect which comes from surrounding a voice with accompanying instruments.
Fraunhofer’s first version of MP3 could not cope with Ms. Vega, even in mono. The development team of Harald Popp, Jergen Herre, Bernhard Grill, and Karlheinz Brandenburg were “disillusioned.”
The stereo version sounded even worse and showed discrepancies between the left and right channel processing. But the Fraunhofer developers pressed on and did more tweaking until they were happy.
“Tom’s Diner is no challenge to the MP3 format anymore,” says the Institute proudly—with no mention of the critical importance of data rate.
So it might be fun to see how Ms. Vega sounds on the “HD Radio” system which uses IBOC (In Band, On Channel) technology to cram both AM analog and digital stereo into the same AM frequency.
BLUE KNIGHT
Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the original 1966 Batman movie (with Adam West as the caped crusader, Burt Ward as Robin and Burgess Meredith as the Penguin) on Blu-ray BD. The jazzy score was written by Nelson Riddle, and Fox has come up with the neat idea of including an audio-only version in lossless 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio. This “Super Isolated Score Track 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio” option is claimed to be “an industry first for Blu-ray Disc that allows viewers to listen to the score only.”
The audio-only BD evokes memories of early experiments with audio-only DVDs, some with orchestral surround in Dolby Digital and some with a large selection of popular classics in sub-CD stereo. These discs had the advantage of playing on all existing DVD players. But they led to the production of the two new DVD-based standards, DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD, which both boasted lossless audio but needed a new player to get the full audio quality available—or play at all.
As an inevitable result of two incompatible formats offering something similar that not many people wanted or needed, both DVD-A and SACD flopped. If a DVD is used for audio-only recording now, the recording is in lossy Dolby Digital or DTS and will play back on any DVD player.
The Blu-ray Group has been threatening a new Blu-ray “Profile,” probably to be called Ver 3.0, which will follow on from Profile Ver. 1.1 (which gives interactivity with multiple picture and sound streams) and Profile Ver.2.0 (which uses an Internet connection to play BD Live discs).
A recent software update for the PlayStation 3 (PS3; Ver 2.20) converts the player to Profile 2.0, but this is only possible because Sony had the commendable forethought to build dual audio/video decoders and an Internet connection into the PS3. Many existing Blu-ray players do not have the electronic hardware needed for an upgrade to Profile 1.1 or 2.0.
Because plans for Profile 3.0 are still hazy, there is no way of knowing which of today’s players—if any—could be upgraded with new software. So there is no way of predicting what consumer confusion an audio-only Profile will produce. The PS3, for instance, has no built-in display for player control without a TV.
The Fox Batman release was scheduled for mid 2008, but so far only in the US and Canada (at $40). Because the music tracks are extras on a video BD, and Fox is a staunch supporter of regional coding, the disc will very likely be coded and will not play on BD players sold in Europe.
Although BD region coding is by letters A, B, or C, not by DVD numbers 1, 2, and so on, there is still no clear explanation of this on BD packaging, and no room for much explanation anyway because of logo clutter. The Blu-ray Group is still making no effort to explain the coding scheme to consumers. The problem affects Europe more than North America, because few if any discs are available on Blu-ray in Europe ahead of the US.
As proved by recent commercials, even the trade is confused. Amazon in Europe is now selling BDs from the US with the warning that “Region 1 encoding requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV.”
There are no multiregional players on sale, and no DIY hacks for existing players. The BD Group is committed to making regional coding undefeatable, even though HD DVD did not use any coding.
Dutch company Stegen Electronics has been promising to modify some Blu-ray players so that they ignore regional coding (www.stegen.com) but the modification risks invalidating player guarantees.
Responding to suggestions that the Blu-ray Group may be at legal risk under US Anti-Trust and European Competition law, for using regional coding to stop people in Europe taking advantage of the £/$ rate and buying cheap discs from the US, some members of the Group are now looking again at their labeling.
Says Danny Kaye, Technical boss at Fox in Hollywood: “We thank you for pointing out the inconsistencies—we’ll strive to rectify immediately.”
There is also still time for the Blu-ray Group to learn from the lessons of SACD and DVD-A, and standardize the release of music-only recordings on BD in a form which will play on all existing players, in any region.
But will they learn?
FINE PRINT
Sometimes journalists are shown new products or told news in confidence—usually a month ahead of launch to give monthly magazines time to write. We are asked to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement which specifies the product and date when the NDA expires. Although NDAs are very difficult to enforce, it is for most journalists a point of honor to honor what we sign. Until recently few people had any problems with this.
But some companies now seem to be using NDAs to try and make inconsequential news look more important; and the NDAs look as if they have been drafted by lawyers who have no idea how journalism works.
A few years ago JVC took a party of American press to Japan for a week to visit the company’s factories. When they got off the plane they were handed an NDA that covered everything they might see, and “we’ll let you know when you can write about it.”
When the journalists rebelled, saying they might as well go home, JVC altered the NDA to impose secrecy on just one item which was politically sensitive. All the journalists then happily signed.
During a recent press event held by Panasonic in Spain, we arrived to find an NDA drafted by Panny’s Head Office in Germany. Some journalists refused to sign, saying they had already seen the products at CES. Others just “lost” their NDAs. Others signed without reading, which is legally very dangerous.
Most recently Sony invited the UK press to visit the company’s HQ in Weybridge. We were asked to sign an NDA that was by far the vaguest I have ever seen.
Instead of specifying the products covered, the NDA said only that it was “regarding (but not limited to) FY ‘08 strategy, product ranges, product features and technologies, launch timings and product availability.”
The only expiration date mentioned was “five (5) years from the date of disclosure of Confidential Information or five (5) years from the Effective Date, whichever is later.”
I dared not sign a blank contract that ran for five years. So I never heard Sony’s plans for Blu-ray standalones to rival the PS3, or new Walkmen to claw back the market lost to Apple’s iPod.
It’s not just journalists who are being handicapped by legal absurdity. Rival companies often have to share confidential information, for instance in the run-up to a new format launch. This is also done under NDA. But an engineer complains: “I’m increasingly coming across the “refusal to listen” syndrome. You can be chatting to an Intel guy about processing and then you say something like “What you really need to do is add a dedicated DSP engine to your dual core processor” and he says “I’m sorry I’m not prepared to listen to what you’re saying” and walks away.”
Unfortunately in an increasingly litigious society, there is good reason for this. If the company says “we are already doing that,” it is giving away a commercial secret; if it says nothing it risks being accused of stealing an outsider’s idea.
This fuels the Not Invented Here syndrome. If something is not invented in-house it cannot possibly be any good because it shows the in-house development team has not been earning its keep.
The sad result is that companies go on producing stuff that could have been far better if only the development team had been prepared to listen to outside suggestions. I have lost count of the number of times I have suggested that the only way to make home electronic equipment, and computer software, genuinely easy to use is to sit behind a real world user and watch them struggle. I have offered to play the part of real world user. But I cannot recall a single taker from the audio, video, or computer world. M3
Barry Fox reports on the audio industry as columnist for the British publication Hi-Fi News. His commentary appears in every issue of Multi Media Manufacturer.