Abused by your keitai

[Taro Toporific]

2 Aug 2005 12:00 AM--TOKYO, JAPAN: Japan's mobile communication giant KDDI employee displays a mobile handset, produced by Sony Ericcson, "W32S", equipped with hi-fi 3D stereo speakers to play downloaded music contents [sic]...The new handset, also equipped with Sony's smartcard IC chip to use as electronic money and prepaid train ticket, will be launched next month...

Let me see now. First you must pay KDDI/au 30,000yen to purchase the "W32S" keitai. Then you have to buy the "music contents [sic]". Next you must pay DDI/au for the online connection fee to download the 3Gigillion byte music file purchased and store it on your cell phone memory (which you may have to buy addiltionally when you run out). However, you cannot make a backup of the music "contentsu" onto your home computer, CD, iPod, or any new non-au keitai you might buy.
Gee, no wonder that KDDI employee looks beat up and abused by her keitai.

[Neo-Rio]

Well they'd kindly take your money for nothing if they didn't have to trick you out of it with flashy uneccessary stuff geared to make sure that you never really own any of the "contents" at the end of the day.

The way things are going, eventually nobody will own anything. We'll just rent things from big companies who own everything.... and we'll learn to like making them rich.
All the legalize behind the rental process will take all our rights away, and at the end of the day we're all at the mercy of the companies and we have nothing to show for our money spent.
(Ok, that's a bit extreme, but you get my point)

[omae mona]

Well they'd kindly take your money for nothing if they didn't have to trick you out of it with flashy uneccessary stuff geared to make sure that you never really own any of the "contents" at the end of the day.

Intellectual property laws are actually to blame for preventing you from owning any of the contents, not the flashy gadgets. You've never owned music you purchased. You just owned the media and the right to listen to it.

The way things are going, eventually nobody will own anything. We'll just rent things from big companies who own everything.... and we'll learn to like making them rich.

That's the way it's been all along - just a lot of people didn't know.

All the legalize behind the rental process will take all our rights away

Again, I don't think you had too many rights to begin with. The people who make & own the content, or whoever they sell the rights to, are pretty much the only ones with any inherent rights. They then sell you the right to do very specific things (like listen to it privately). Nothing new here.

Now in the U.S. the "content" companies and the government have been up to all sorts of mischief with respect to limiting traditional fair use (e.g. via the DMCA), extending copyright terms, and taking away the few rights you actually DID inherently have. But these issues are more subtle than the basic question of who owns the content. And the basic answer is: it ain't you. That hasn't changed.

That all being said, this KDDI thing is stupid. Who's gonna fall for that?

[Kuang_Grade]

While an elaborate workaround and only good with cell phone plans with lots of free minutes and likely a bit spotty (also only works on Macs with Tiger), here's an interesting development that streams your itunes music to your phone via skype.

Dittybot
http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=267

How-to located here.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000420047100/

[amdg]

[Taro Toporific]

Is there no limit to consumer willingness to waste money?

Music downloads to phones dominate Japanese marketMacworld Uk - Monday - August 15, 2005
Music downloads via cell phones outpaced those to digital music players by a wide margin in Japan during the first six months of 2005, according to data released last week....
Cell phone downloads including complete songs and ring tone melodies totaled 108.9 million songs during the first half of the year and were worth 13.6 billion yen ($123 million as of June 30, the last day of the period), according to figures from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ)...more...

[omae mona]

Sorry for the late reply, but..

Intellectual property laws are actually to blame for preventing you from owning any of the contents, not the flashy gadgets. You've never owned music you purchased. You just owned the media and the right to listen to it.

Yep, there are serious fundamental problems with the reasoning behind copyright laws. And there's a very easy way to tell whether a law is fundamentally flawed - and that's when it makes everyone a criminal.

Agreed. And the message you posted about the silly Canadian law was a good example, and pretty funny. But most of the complaints I hear are about good ol' basic copyright law which makes (under most judges interpretations in the US) filesharing illegal. Don't know if that's the type of law you're referring to. But it doesn't make me a criminal (since I don't do it), or lots of other people I know. Just because a large group of people are voluntarily violating a law doesn't make the law wrong. I have plenty of complaints about copyright law, but they aren't due to the fact that "everybody's doing it". My views on laws about underage drinking are similar.

[amdg]

Sorry for the late reply, but..

Not at all.

Agreed. And the message you posted about the silly Canadian law was a good example, and pretty funny. But most of the complaints I hear are about good ol' basic copyright law which makes (under most judges interpretations in the US) filesharing illegal. Don't know if that's the type of law you're referring to. But it doesn't make me a criminal (since I don't do it), or lots of other people I know. Just because a large group of people are voluntarily violating a law doesn't make the law wrong. I have plenty of complaints about copyright law, but they aren't due to the fact that "everybody's doing it". My views on laws about underage drinking are similar.

Well, I respect your opinion, but I believe that I can change it in relation to both copyright law and underage drinking - although underage drinking is not my concern. I'll just concentrate on copyright law for now. I have several other things to do tonight and in the next few days that may keep me away from the computer but I'll get back to you.