It’s been called, bluntly, “Internet censorship” by opponents. And now, US legislation that claims to curb piracy faces mounting challenges as that opposition grows, particularly as the White House warns it will block the bills.

Today, even as a flood of delightful new music toys become available, it’s worth pausing to consider why this matters – and, if you vote in the United States, to call your Senators and Representatives (again, if needed).

Many of us who create music believe the dynamic, user-driven nature of the Web is our best chance at a bright future. Free and open Internet communication is part of the fabric of societies around the world, and for music, offers a chance to share what we do, to discover new work, and to build our musical lives. They can be the basis of some of the most vibrant businesses that support musical practice, as well as contributing intangible but invaluable creative, technical, and spiritual input into what we make.

I wanted to collect today some of the best writing on the topic, from people who know this issue far more intimately than I do. Thanks to readers for their tips on this, as well.

Essential Reading

Ars Technica has some extraordinary coverage today. In particular, see:
Even without DNS provisions, SOPA and PIPA remain fatally flawed [Ars Technica] (goes into very detailed specifics of the legal issues)

What does SOPA mean for us foreigners? [Ars Technica] (The answer might surprise you: one of the flaws with SOPA is that the definition of “foreign” doesn’t even make sense. But in short, you don’t have to be in the US to be impacted by this legislation; foreign sites are specifically singled out for action. Do read the whole article; another huge, detailed report.)

How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation [Electronic Frontier Foundation]

Google and Facebook and the like have come under attack as big corporations that benefit from Internet use and, some critics argue, from piracy. Why should they be using their deep pockets to talk about this issue? Google’s take today I think responds to that neatly. They have a beautiful infographic of a megaphone that counts all the critics – including law and Constitutional experts and human rights and pro-democracy groups – opposed to this legislation. And while I don’t know that Google always lives up to the “don’t be evil” mantra, I think digging into your deep pockets in this case is perfectly appropriate and defensible.
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

The best report-in-a-nutshell comes from The Verge, and lawyer-journalist Nilay Patel:
Why The Verge and Vox Media are opposed to SOPA

In brief:

• Sites that host user-contributed content are threatened by weaker safe harbor rules and high compliance costs.
• Overzealous compliance by search and payment providers could make life miserable for the rest of us.
• Significant flaws in due process and seizure.

Those kinds of problems threaten the whole Internet ecosystem of user-contributed work and threaten democracy and the course of law. (Uh, other than that, no problem here.)

Musicians Take a Stand

The evidence at hand makes it all the more disturbing to see groups of labels, content companies, and so-called artist advocacy groups using our name – the musical community – to claim this legislation is somehow good for us. Unfortunately, the analysis of people working in law and policy outside the content industry tell us otherwise.

At least one artist and regular CDM reader and friend, TRICIL, is blacking out his own artist site. Here’s what he had to say:

You may have heard of America’s ludicrous Stop Online Piracy Act bill that’s being brought forth for legislation.

In concert with Wikipedia, Boing Boing, and a host of other sites, I’ve “blacked out” tricil.net in protest for the next 24 hours.

For my fellow Americans, you can take action by visiting http://tricil.net and clicking the “CENSORED” bar on the top right to email your local congressman and spread the word. This will also “uncensor” my site, but you can put the bars back and take a screenshot if you’d like.

If the bill passes, sites like Vimeo, YouTube, SoundCloud, and my own are all at risk. I’ve taken my material off of those sites for the next 24 hours to show what effect this legislation could have on independent artists.

Read more at americancensorship.org

Thank you for taking a stand with me,

TRICIL

Watch the Reasons Why It’s Bad

Clay Shirky has a great video out for TED:

CDM Under These Rules

I won’t be blocking out CDM today, as instead, I’d like to continue the conversation. But what could happen to a site like this one?

• We could be targeted by a unfair compliance issue because of a complaint about content on this site – without fair protections and due process to allow us to respond.
• We could see sites we rely on – from SoundCloud to Vimeo to YouTube – face restrictive rules and compliance that would threaten their livelihood, and strangle channels through which musicians and artists make their work known.
• In a severe case, a compliance issue could literally shut down the site forever, especially given our limited resources.

But that said, I’m less concerned about a threat to CDM as the rest of the Internet on which we rely, the dynamism that made this site worth producing in the first place. And as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the Internet, I’m morally and ethically concerned about laws that deviate from Constitutional rule of law and common sense.

If you’ve found other reading on this issue or other ways to take action, I’d love to hear them.

Previously:
Opinion: US Internet Censorship Could Cripple Online Music Web; Where to Find Out More, Where to Act

And yes, you acted – and your action made a difference, as the opposition grows in strength and the legislation withers. Winning battles can sometimes be a good thing.

At the risk of causing a flame war, let’s at least look at exactly how the authorization works. Authorization is, of course, always annoying to paid users on some level, and I expect some of you will still be unhappy with the USB key approach. Looking at it on balance, there are some advantages in certain situations, when compared to software-only authorization, and disadvantages in others.

This is a preview only of a non-shipping product, based on information Propellerhead has shared and my own experience. It’s also not intended to be an opinion piece; I just want to look at the big picture in the hopes that the online discussions can be better-informed.

First, to clear up a misconception: the authorization does not slow down boot time. In fact, Record is one of the fastest-booting audio apps I’ve seen. (Note: any comment about performance is just speculative, as we don’t have a final build yet. But this is partly objective; remember, by not supporting plug-ins, Record doesn’t have to slog through your plug-in folder, something you can leave to other tools.)

The first time you load Record, you’ll see something like this if your USB key isn’t plugged in:

With the USB key, you won’t actually see that dialog again. In fact, if Record doesn’t see the key, it will give you an opportunity to insert it:

What’s demo mode? If you can’t authorize Record, it will switch to “demo” mode. (One thing it won’t do is arbitrarily quit or something stupid like that, which I have seen some hardware-based systems do.) In demo mode, you can do everything except open files. This also means the demo you’ll try at dealers or on your own machine will be more fully-featured.

What if something happens to your key during a set? If you’re onstage and someone breaks your key, for instance, you can continue to use Record you can’t just open any new files.

What if you don’t have your key? The backup method is Internet authorization. An Internet authorization is just as full-featured as using the USB key. So, for instance, if you’re at home or in a studio and don’t want to fill up a USB port with the key, you can simply use Internet authorization.

I asked Propellerhead when the Internet connection has to be active, and they reported that there are two times:

1. When you startup the software

2. Each time you open a file

This is just based on my own tests and conversations; see the full discussion at the Props site:

Propellerhead Ignition Key

So, for those of you keeping score at home, here’s what I currently understand as the tradeoffs of this approach?

Why It’s Good News

Before you start ranting in comments, some readers have already noted an advantage of this system: it makes it very possible to use Record on lots of computers. Got a couple of desktop machines, a computer at the studio, a netbook, your significant other’s machine, a laptop, and then the computer at your band-mate’s house? With most software authorization schemes – challenge and response and so on – you’re out of luck, because you have two or three authorizations to play with. This also means if a drive fails or a software authorization is lost, you have to use a (limited) supply of existing authorizations or find a serial number. With the key, you can move between all those locations, then get to someone who has a new machine and download the file there, plug in, and go. (Yes, I know, this is also possible with open source / free software, which is an excellent argument for having some sort of free host as your common denominator, but it’s still an advantage for Record.)

Why It Beats Other USB Keys

Many music software developers, of course, use USB keys, and each have their own implementations. But Propellerhead have themselves noted some of the complaints:

• Software that immediately stops working if a key is disconnected or breaks, or that immediately loses the ability to save
• Companies that charge extra for the dongle
• Companies that charge you a significant portion or the full cost of a product if you break or lose your key. (Oh, by the way, if you’re out there and that’s your policy, I have some really, really special words for you.)
• Some software requires both a USB key and challenge/response authorization of each individual machine … yeah, again, special words, not family-friendly.

Propellerhead have addressed all of these issues. Most importantly, the replacement policy: you’ll only need to pay a nominal fee to get a replacement. That doesn’t make this a perfect solution (see below), but it does beat a lot of the schemes used by other developers with hardware keys.

The basic idea of a USB key is to work like a car key, to make ownership physical and fairly straightforward. Propellerhead have said that they just didn’t like other implementations out there.

So, yes, that’s the good news. But that still leaves some complains.

Why It’s Also Bad News

So, Record beats a lot of other software that uses USB keys. That still leaves some problems. For one, if your host (Pro Tools, Cubase) uses a USB key, you’ll need another one plugged in at the same time to use Record at the same time, unless you have an Internet connection. Also, while the eight-computer setup above makes the key an advantage, if you just have a laptop and desktop, it’s probably easier in most cases just to do the software-only authorization (as in Ableton Live, for instance), and stay authorized. Then, when you’re out on the bus or train or hotel room, you don’t have to dig around for your key, and there’s nothing to lose.

In short, you’ll probably like it better than those software schemes if you move a lot between machines. If you have one laptop you carry everywhere, you may like it less.

I think the other factor in the growing dissent is a trend away from these kinds of anti-piracy schemes in general. Music DRM is dead. Computer games, though still widely pirated, have gone to less restrictions after users rebelled and piracy remained unabated. It’s even true in pro media software. Apple’s Logic and Final Cut have loosened their authorization schemes; Logic even lost its dongle. Sure, some will argue that’s to help Apple sell more computers, except having talked to their software teams, I’m fairly sure they like to sell software. Cakewalk has serial-only authorization on their products; do it once, and forget about it. Software like energyXT, once authorized, will run anywhere on a USB key. And Reaper doesn’t even require authorization at all; it’s honor system-based.

Likewise, I’m a bit disappointed that this is yet another USB key that doesn’t do anything – it seems like it’d be an ideal way to tote around presets, though admittedly, that might mean you have to buy it. I’m sure the iLok people could point out that, unlike their key, this can only authorize Record and not other software, though that’s less of an issue with an app that (for better or for worse) doesn’t support plug-ins.

It’s just not a black and white issue, as developers remain nervous about piracy and keeping their businesses open. But if developers want to understand why users are resistant, I think the evidence is there.

My sense is that this won’t be a deal-breaker for everyone, and a lot of people are enthusiastic enough about Record that they’ll live with the key, just as people live with, say, the online authorization in a tool like Ableton Live.

I do think we need more reasoned discussion of these issues, though, instead of defensive developers and frustrated users just venting. It’d also be great to see some solid metrics on how these approaches work.

Okay. I’m publishing this. If you need to vent in comments, fine; I’m staying out of it.