RIAA Nightmare: Pro-level Portable Hard Disk Recorder

ratfynk writes "Anybody interested in creating their own MP3 or WAV recordings should take a look at this device. It is a compact hard drive recorder that looks like it is the next logical step beyond ADAT. My interest is fair use, the ability to record my compositions and performance with studio grade equipment at a reasonable cost. This device seems to fit the bill. Specs are available at micsupply.com. This device looks so good that the RIAA might try to make it illegal." For a not-cheap but cheaper alternative, check out the updated-weekly Core Sound page on their PDA-based recorder mentioned a few months ago.

i doubt the riaa can stop this

[Anonymous Coward]

for one reason and one reason alone, fair fvcking use. we still have the rights in this country to purchase items to use for our convenience. they should not, and in my opinion, never will have the fvcking right to tell me that i as an american cannot buy a product because it would hurt their industry. its like telling a cay buyer not to buy a chevy because it would hurt his ford dealership.

They can try...

[armyofone]

This device looks so good that the RIAA might try to make it illegal.

The more they try, the more innovations will come along. The RIAA are fighting a losing battle. The sooner they realize it, the better off everyone, (including the RIAA), will be.

Why mention RIAA? (-2, Flamebait)

[Bonker]

I know, this story is not good enough to be posted just as hardware or audio news.

What's otherwise a fairly interesting piece of hardware has no relation to the RIAA, so it's given one to make it more interesting.

My interest is fair use?

[VValdo]

My interest is fair use, the ability to record my compositions and performance with studio grade equipment at a reasonable cost.

No, this isn't "fair use"-- fair use [copyright.gov] is an allowance for you to use someone ELSE'S copyrighted material for a limited purpose-- a review, an excerpt, until recently a sample, etc for certain purposes. What you're talking about is a legitimate use that gives you the SAME powers as the RIAA has for their own copyrighted works. The RIAA can claim that you might use this to infringe on their copyrights. You can argue that they may use the equipment they currently use to infringe on yours.

W

Actually I enjoy hearing about stuff like this...

[L0stb0Y]

I could care less if they mention the RIAA or not, I enjoy hearing about interesting new products, especially tech-type toys. So "this story is not good enough" is from your perspective...with your wonderful paradigms...so yes, it was interesting enough for me to read even without the RIAA reference.

(And a dig at RIAA just adds a little bounus humor!)

Re:Actually I enjoy hearing about stuff like this.

[Bonker]

I think the piece of hardware is quite interesting and worthy of a post on Slashdot. Unfortuneately, I nearly passed it up for seeing it as 'Oh, god. Yet another RIAA article.'

Re:My interest is fair use?

[hawkbug]

Right on man - I'm tired of people equating the RIAA with the government. There are plenty of other reasons to have equipment like this that don't involve infringing on copyrights held by the RIAA. It's just too bad that the average person who holds a copyright doesn't have as much say with Congress as the big guys do...

Why would they hate that, how about ...

[binaryDigit]

It's a very expensive product geared towards the professional. What the RIAA would REALLY hate would be an iPod with SPDIF inputs and the ability to connect to other iPods via firewire. You could then connect your cd player directly to your iPod and then transfer directly from iPod to iPod, all without leaving the digital domain and with no lossy compression.

Re:i doubt the riaa can stop this

[Jason1729]

Just like fair use protected my rights to use DeCSS to rip some DVDs to my notebook HD so I can play them on a trip? Oh, you must have meant the way fair use protects my rights to use p2p software to distribute music I record or even download mp3s of songs on CDs I have.

Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

Doesn't matter.

[supabeast!]

Wow, cheap recording equipment for the low-budget musician without a G4.

Unfortunately, it still won't produce the kind of album you get from a multimillion dollar staff of producers and engineers, and those are the guys who really make albums that sell.

Re:Actually I enjoy hearing about stuff like this.

[brer_rabbit]

(And a dig at RIAA just adds a little bounus humor!)

Humor? It's pure FUD and it doesn't add anything to the content. I don't mind a bit of opinionated journalism but this type of unsubstantiated comment is unwarranted.

Question

[gazbo]

Why would the RIAA, representing the biggest labels and by extension artists in the world, care about you recording your hilarious retro-arcade techno with William Shatner samples over the top?

They wouldn't. The RIAA care about you stealing songs on P2P. Digital recording has been around for a long time. However, there is the question of how you will position the microphones, indeed what types of microphones to have in order to capture the true sound and the room's ambiance. Assuming this is done to a satisfactory standard, who is going to produce it? Oh, right. You. Because as we all know, you are a polymath capable of performing, recording and producing. Oh, you didn't realise that mastering was a step either? Ah well. It's not like anyone's going to be listening.

So I rambled a bit - the point is, this is nothing to do with the RIAA except that they are both associated with music.

RIAA? Gimme a break

[jokell82]

This device looks so good that the RIAA might try to make it illegal

This is one of the dumbest statements I've read all day. Why would the RIAA give a rats ass about this device? It offers nothing more than PC's can already do. On top of this, it is not a consumer device, so the chance of Joe Blow getting his hands on one (or even figuring out where to buy one) are slim.

This device is meant for location recording. It'll work great for those of us that record live audio, as we'll no longer have to a) carry around laptops or b) spend time converting from formats like DAT. Some people are a little weary of it, however, due to the fact that no one has heard the preamp it uses (but most assume that it's the same as the MP2).

Oh, and if you want to check out the official website and not a vendor's site, here [sounddevices.com] it is.

What this thing really needs...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is a built in compressor/limiter. Then the amatures would grab it too. This may not produce the 'best' sound in the world but a good compressor/limiter combo would consistently produce very good sound for the hobby people (or pod people).

I can't even begin to tell people how valuable my minidisc recorder has been in recording DJ sets because of the built in compression functions like a compressor/limiter.

So good it's illegal

[siskbc]

Shit, they said that about the damned VCR. Neither their goals nor ours (a broad "us" I realize, but I digress) have changed in 20 years. They want money, we want freedom.

Despite this, they've won. Why? We don't have libbyists! The EFF doesn't have enough money. What we need are for some high-profile geeks that are commercially successful and not particularly political in the real world (read: not Stallman) to openly back the EFF, donating money and such.

Think if the EFF was even as powerful as the ACLU. Stupid laws like the DMCA would be immediately challenged and shit-canned. Copyright wouldn't last millennia. It's time to have these bullshit industry lobbying groups fear us for a change.

GPL is the only legal defense vs. stupid IP laws

[nyet]

if our IP system weren't so hopelessly corrupt, the GPL would not be needed.

Nice

[j_kenpo]

Actually a very nice device, but it lacks the ability to do SMPTE time code output (for syncronization with external devices such as the Pangolin Quadmod series laser display systems), but then again, you can sacrifice an audio channel and use an external device such as an Aquilla time code unit for this. And for a brand new device, being much cheaper than the ADATs were when they came out, this seems like a very good alternative to the bulkier rack mount solutions such as the TASCAM 24/24.

Re:Free As In

[mugnyte]

..BEER. You equate the GPL with RIAA's use of market dominance to enforce a copyright?

Howabout we get rid of the radio payola system, the ticketmaster lockout contracts, and the central radio ownership to ALLOW OTHER PEOPLE to get their music out and heard.

Dude, nobody argues with the copyright. Its the ramming of the prices down everyone's throat - for a product we KNOW doesn't cost that much. If it walks and talks like a monopoly...

Filesharing copyrighted material is - to me - a form of public protest; civil disobedience. And it's already at critical mass.

Re:The Underlying Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

>American Civil Liberties Union. These guys *try* to protect your freedoms.

This is complete and utter nonsense. The ACLU used to try to protect your freedom. Now it only will try to protect your freedom if they agree politically with your freedom.

Consider the Boy Scouts, a private organization, which has been under legal and media pressure to accept people into it which don't meet the qualifications as laid out in the Boy Scout bylaws.

Consider the Augusta Golf country club, a private orginzation, which has been under intense NT Times pressure to admit women as members.

Why hasn't the ACLU come to defend the rights of the private Boy Scouts orgizination and the Augusta Golf country club to admit whom they like?

Simple answer, the ACLU does not agree with the politics of either orginization.

ACLu == American Civil Liberties Union

I guess that a private club does not have the liberty to admit whatever members it wants.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:$2000/$4000? Why not Minidisc?

[Raffaello]

With a laptop, Mbox (small enough to be quite portable), good mics, and ProTools LE, you have an affordable, portable, professional recording solution. Professional as in, pros use exactly this setup to do recording, editing, and mixing when on the road.

Buy an iBook, or G4 PowerBook, and the above Digidesign hardware and software. That's what real pros do.

See Digidesign's website [digidesign.com].

That's true.

[twitter]

What you're talking about is a legitimate use that gives you the SAME powers as the RIAA has for their own copyrighted works. The RIAA can claim that you might use this to infringe on their copyrights.

Sure, that's what they said about Sony's DAT. Then poof, it was encumbered with DRM that kept you from making copies of your own music, recitations, bird calls, introspective silence, farts or anything as if it were owned by Micahel Jackson. We should not forget that twarted technology or the laws that did it.

It's taken this long to come up with an equivalent device. Want to bet the RIAA won't try to squash it? I would not bet on their failure.

Re:Gratitude?

[BFaucet]

The problem with this is it can piss a lot of companies off. Why? Well most big web sites are funded by advertising. Having hundreds of /. readers viewing their site is a lot of income. Were /. to make a mirror of their site, all that income would dissappear. I think this is actually considered theft by many sites... not sure what the courts feel.

Contacting the web master asking permission before posting would take far too long.

Me, I think if the site doesn't have any ads /. should mirror it for a couple days and email the web master letting them know and offering to take the mirror down if the web master so desires. In the event there are ads they should email the webmaster of whatever site asking permission and while waiting for a response post the story as is... but this would be a whole lot of work for /.

Keep in mind I'm an idiot, so my thoughts should be taken with a 25 lb. grain of salt or three.

Re:Doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely right...talent can NOT be bought or created.
Top 10 hits CAN and ARE created.

We could go on in circles on this topic (I have to deal with an italian mechanic who keeps repeating that Stallone is a great actor based on the amount of hit movies hes been in) but I could spend 1 week jamming in a club in your town and easily find at least a dozen artists with more talent than the ones you mentioned.

Talent and commercial success have little to do with each other.
You can have a hit with no talent but you can not have a hit wihtout the right business connections.

Of course, I presume that you feel that the Spice Girls, NSync Kids on the Block and multitudes others who were created (as in the famous ad which said "singing talent not necessary) than some local jazz musician who has been honing his art for decades.

Its all a matter of taste....just like food.
Hell, McDonalds must be the best food on the planet since its the most eaten.

zeke

been off planet?

[nyet]

I guess you, like 100s of other misguided /. devils advocates missed the VCR and DAT flaps, and the resulting Macrovision idiocy and DAT taxes.

Oh, and did we already mention the RIAA's attempts to legislate MANDATORY DRM into any device capable of recording sound digitally?

Which laws?

[Convergence]

Well, the webcaster royalty payment law.

Then there was the AHRA from about 15 years ago (which killed off DAT as a consumer audio technology) Oh, and the levy on blank CDR's.

I dunno, did they lobby for the DMCA, or is 5 years too old to consider it? The reason the DMCA applies to DVD's is because they *do* include an access control technology. CDDA's don't. If you broke the access control technology on SACD, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that they'll come on you like a ton of bricks.

They've agreed to lobby against CBDTPA, however, we don't know what backroom deals were involved in this. Something like: ''The RIAA will stop pressuring Congress to institute mandatory copy-protection in new computers, and the tech groups will stop lobbying for enhanced personal-use rights to media.'' appears to be the case.

They're lobbying against MOCA.

Re:This geek is content.

[jc42]

... the band doesn't get even HALF the money (or even a quarter of it for some bands).

Most bands don't gen ANY money from a commercially-made recording.

There have been any number of analyses published that explain why, unless you sell a million or more albums, you end up in debt to the recording company.

I do wonder what sort of deal a n unknown musician or band needs to sign to get their stuff on iTunes. Do you have to sign the rights over to Apple? Or will they put your tracks up on terms that give you part of the money? So far, I haven't seen any comment on this, only that Apple was making the top-selling commercial music available. Any pointers to info on this topic?

If Apple will give us nobodies a reasonable cut of the income without having to sign away the rights to our music, we'll consider them heroes. If they go the way of the recording industry and require the same sort of "standard" contract, then they're just part of the problem.

Re:They can try...

[yog]

This is just another hard disk recorder; what's the big deal? HD recorders have been around for years. These units are distinguished by the fact that they can encode MP3 and have CF slots, both of which sound like handy features to me but highly unlikely to attract the wrath of our friends at the RIAA. These products start at $2000 which is appropriate for their target market of recording professionals.

You can buy a PC for around $300 or $400 that can record to hard disk and encode MP3 and write to a CF card. So what? Nothing's new here. I like to read about HD recorders because I do some recording work, but this hardly counts as major news for /. Clearly we have a non-news day today.