Boh & Stellar* speak out against CD Burning
BRN>BRNT - Its A Crime Against Our Music
Original content for this article was provided by RIANZ. The original article can be found at the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand website. Both video and text content is used by permission of RIANZ.
MESSAGES:
“Our clear message is please don’t copy our music as it is like stealing or
shoplifting from everyone who works in the music industry,” says RIANZ
president Michael Glading. “If you continue to pirate CDs you run the very
real risk of being prosecuted.”
THE ARTISTS: Dave Dobbyn for one is right behind the campaign as are Ché Fu, Neil Finn, Stellar*, Fur Patrol and many others. Dave Dobbyn says: “If I don’t do anything to educate on the potential outcome of burning CDs, where will the next Dave Dobbyn come from? I’m backing this to ensure there will be a music industry around to support new artists in the future.”
TARGET AUDIENCES: The campaign is branded BRN>BRNT to talk to the primary target audience - young New Zealanders aged between 12 & 24 - in their language.
Other audiences are parents, school authorities and the media. Musicians and retailers are also targeted
BRN>BRNT: Will appear on CD boxes, inner sleeves, and posters, in store, in music ads and at events.
TAKE ACTION: The music industry intends to publicise the issue during the next three months. In the first quarter of 2002 it will take action to protect the interests of musicians and the industry.
ULTIMATE MESSAGE: If you burn music CDs you run the risk of having action taken against you – that’s the ultimate message in BRN>BRNT.
What does the law say?
In New Zealand, music on CDs is protected by copyright. Put simply, if you own the copyright you can do certain things including copying the CD – if you don’t, you can’t.
Who says so? The Copyright Act 1994 according to Bell Gully lawyer Michelle Chignell.
“Currently the owner of the copyright has an exclusive right to do certain things called restricted acts, the most obvious of which is the right to copy,” Ms Chignell says.
Section 16 of the Act sets out the restricted acts. They include copying the work, issuing copies of the work to the public whether by sale or otherwise, performing the work in public, playing the work in public and a number of other acts.
Ms Chignell says none of the rights is available to purchasers of music on CDs, except to the extent that the owner permits.
“And that is usually only the right to play the music in private – not on the Internet and certainly not to burn copies,” she says.
But what about making a copy for personal use?
“The law says this is illegal. In some countries it is permitted, but we are not one of them.”
Aren’t there exceptions?
“Yes, but they are very, very limited and narrow. They do not permit the making of copies for personal and domestic use. Instead they relate to very limited educational, librarian or archival uses and may change.”
So what can the copyright owner do about it?
“Sue you for copyright infringement or prosecute you,” Ms Chignell says. “Prosecution is for criminal offending as defined in the Copyright Act 1994 and yes it does include CD burning.”
If you offend, there are some pretty heavy fines – for example, $10,000 per infringing copy and in aggregate for the same offending up to $150,000 and there is provision for imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.
Ms Chignell says ignorance of the law is no excuse as in most laws. But some concerned copyright owners would prefer to see people better educated on what is and what is not allowed rather than suing or prosecuting every infringer as a first step.
“Some countries don’t trust people not to use blank CDs illegally so they have dramatically increased the cost of blank CDs by including a tax or levy on these so the copyright owners at least get a cut on each blank CD disk sold.
“In New Zealand we have been more trusting. But it may not last.
“It’s a bit like an honesty box at an un-manned roadside stall – the owners trust you to pay and do the right thing by them. Yes you know it’s illegal to take without paying and they are not asking you to steal by taking without paying.
“But trust is based on something. If it is obvious that trusting and educating are not enough then the remedies granted by the law will be enforced – and may even be changed to make it easier to enforce.
“Look at what has happened with the instant fines for underage drinking or illegal fishing. So if it’s illegal – don’t do it.
So who does it hurt?
“Every person involved in the making of the music and putting it in the market on CD will be harmed if you burn illegal CDs. That includes the composer, the musicians, the performers and the record companies.”
Technology makes CD piracy easy
The ease with which CDs can be illegally copied is the direct result of advances in technology.
Many baby boomers will remember duplicating cassette tape music back in the ’70s so you could have one tape for the car and one for home. Well, that was illegal too.
But one of the problems with tape duplication is the loss of a generation of quality when the tape is duplicated.
Unless you had the most expensive and sophisticated duplication equipment, tape hiss was a factor that helped make the practice less popular.
Another problem with tape for illegal copiers was the one-to-one time it took to duplicate – a 90 minute tape took 90 minutes to copy.
Not so with CDs. Because the music is digital, there is no loss of quality when it is replicated. You get exactly the same “numbers” and therefore the same music quality as on the original.
And modern burners can copy disks at one-twelfth the time it takes to play the CD. Mass production of CD-Rs on multiple tower burners is increasingly driving a global music pirate business valued at more than US$4 billion, says Terence O’Neill-Joyce from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand.
“CD pirates have been active for the past five years and in the most recent 12 months burning has reached huge levels,” he says.
“While CD burners have been available for a number of years, no one appears to have taken on board the consequences of the speed with which technology has changed.
“It’s so much more affordable and so much quicker nowadays.”
High speed compression technology has come into focus during the last two years with many computers now shipped with high-speed CD-R capabilities – the ability to write digital information onto a blank CD.
With blanks selling for between $2 and $5 each, unscrupulous CD pirates can make anywhere between 100 and 500 per cent on their investment.
While it appears that much of the CD piracy can be attributed to younger age groups, no one music type is immune says Sony Music managing director and RIANZ president Michael Glading.
“The biggest volume sellers are the biggest volume burners, it would seem. We know at Sony that some of our material for mature audiences – for example Bob Dylan – isn’t getting burned, presumably because it appeals to an older audience.
“But on the other hand, we have heard about instances of people using CD burners at their work places to copy CDs.”
Mr Glading relates the story of an acquaintance who has a relative who works at a motor vehicle distributor where they burn car manuals onto CDs.
“Apparently staff members bring in their popular CDs to be copied and shared around the people who work there and their relatives and friends.”
A recent interview with Boh on the subject of burning CD's.
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1/9/2003
Video content copyright to RIANZ