RoadRunner Blocking Use of Kazaa

"An anonymous reader submits: "You should know that RoadRunner is quietly blocking the use of Kazaa in certain markets. Particularly in Texas, they have some sort of port scanner in place which scans for Kazaa activity and then disables use of that port, rendering the program completely useless. Grokster, iMesh, and all other FastTrack programs are similarly affected. Yet RoadRunner is not disclosing the practice in any way. Not only that, I'm troubled by the possibility of them arbitrarily choosing to block other programs in the future. If this becomes more widespread, they will have many angry (and former) customers." The poster provides these four links to forum postings with more information: one; two; three; four." [Slashdot]

If this is true, it's wrong on so many levels.

Thursday's Wall Street Journal has an article on 'spoofed songs' on file-sharing services such as Morpheus or Kazaa.  The article suggests that the record companies are now uploading defective versions of their own songs (3 minutes of static for example), so as to frustrate users from utilizing the free services.  The 'major record labels neither confirm nor deny the contention' however Cary Sherman of the RIAA implicitly approved the practice, stating that copyright owners ought to be able to do 'whatever they can that's lawful to protect their rights....'

If the record companies are in fact spoofing, then the practice, from a trademark point of view, is unique (to me at least).  The owner (or licensee) of the artist's trademark is intentionally distributing an inferior or defective version of the product associated with that trademark, deceiving the user (albeit a non-paying one), in the hopes that the experience will tarnish not the trademark owner but the means of distribution.  While it seems metaphysically impossible for the trademark owner to counterfeit or infringe itself, self-tarnishment seems possible (to say the least).  Also of interest is whether the free services will respond by filtering out spoofs and advertise that they offer only real unauthorized copies. [The Trademark Blog, via tins ::: Rick Klau's weblog]

What would be really interesting is if the record labels weren't spoofing their own songs in order to avoid self-tarnishment. What if one company spoofs another label's songs instead? It still disrupts the network, but user frustration (theoretically) gets directed at the copyright holder, not the label that actually uploaded the spoofed song. Best of both worlds, really. The upright, on-the-level, always-thinking-about-the-artist record labels wouldn't do something as unethical as that, right?

A Stereo That's Small and Digital

"Sony's latest gamble is a case in point: a bookshelf stereo system called the CMT-L7HD. (All right, so Sony ran out of ideas when it came time to name this thing.) Its ingenious mission is to bring the convenience of digital music files to an everyday bookshelf system — without requiring a computer.

Every time you play a CD, the machine automatically copies its tracks onto its built-in 20-gigabyte hard drive. (If time is of the essence, you can also dump an entire CD to the hard drive in 20 minutes using a silent copying mode.) Thereafter, you can play back those songs without having to insert the original CD. The hard drive holds 300 CD's worth of music, turning this handsome unit into a self-contained jukebox.

Now, stackable stereo components that copy CD's to an internal hard drive aren't new. Sony's twist is to build this feature into a self-contained, bookshelf-size mini stereo with detachable speakers (and even an optional mounting bracket for the wall). Furthermore, those earlier machines don't even approach the L7HD's sound quality or fashion sense — or high price. The suggested list price for the L7HD is $1,000....

You can create up to 10 playlists (hand-picked song collections from any albums in any order) — one for dinnertime, another for hot dates, and so on. The system also keeps your most recently played 20 albums only a couple of button presses away.

The unit's ability to save audio onto its hard drive is not limited to CD's, either. It can just as easily store the music on your tapes or even vinyl records, thanks to the analog and digital audio inputs on the back, or even from the built-in radio. (The L7HD stores audio in Sony's own Atrac3 format rather than the more common MP3 format. But since you can copy music only onto the hard drive, never off it, the storage format makes no practical difference.)

Indeed, you can program the timer to record certain radio shows automatically, including on a daily or weekly schedule, so that they are ready to play whenever you feel like listening to them (or pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding them). If you've ever used a TiVo or ReplayTV digital video recorder, you're no doubt smacking your forehead in recognition: In effect, Sony has created the world's first TiVo for radio....

Even M-crew, however, doesn't let you copy MP3 files from your PC to the L7HD — no surprise, really, when you consider that Sony is also a record company with a vested interest in stifling the casual trading of MP3 music. (The only way to transfer MP3 files is to play them on your PC, in real time, as the L7HD records them.) But that's O.K. The very act of connecting the L7HD to a PC somehow violates the purity of this stereo's conception as a self-contained, PC-free jukebox.

If its looks, sound and concept were the end of the story, the L7HD would be a home run. But how many people will pay $1,000 for a bookshelf system destined for the kitchen, bedroom or office?" [New York Times: Technology]

The NYT doesn't understand the implications of those last two paragraphs. The fact that I can't play my MP3s on the L7HD is most definitely NOT okay. For $1000, this thing should act like a wireless jukebox, not a standalone record player. Am I really supposed to pay the labels for access to their Celestial Jukebox and NOT be able to play it on my bookshelf system? Where's the point in that? If Sony started an online music service (I can't even keep track of them anymore - have they?), it would be unusable on this system!

I understand that Sony is too scared to put an ethernet port or embedded WiFi in this thing (every other record label would probably line up to sue them), but it's short-sighted because no one is really going to buy this paperweight. Why would I when I don't even buy CDs anymore? This is as useful as a TiVo that handles cable networks but not local broadcast channels.

Normally I would be excited about this kind of device and I'd be shelling out money to be an early adopter, but it's a perfect example of how the industry is trying to shut us in a box and immobilize content at a time when consumers want more content and to take it with them.

I'm a Sony fan (digital camera, TVs, stereo), but this is a betamax product and they've missing the window to be the first entry in the field. Let's hope they make the next generation of this device usable as well as desirable.