Sony/BMG are trying to redefine "illegal" regarding fair use of music. I
just read an article saying that they're pushing to make it illegal for
you
to rip your own, bought and paid for, CD's to your computer or mp3
player,
regardless of whether you are sharing them or not. Their logic: ripping a
CD
to your computer or mp3 player, even after purchasing the CD, is like
"stealing only one copy".

Isn't this what the computer industry already had in place?? That you
can not make copies of a program - even ir you own it-and then install
it on more than one computer.?? They call it licensing or site
licenses which are out and out highway robbery?? I think someone or
something has got to stand up to whomever: congress - the FCC - about
this stuff. Media is getting way too over regulated in some ways and
way too underregulated in others.

One difference is that software has always been licensed, whereas music
recordings in the past have usually been sold like books, i.e., if you have
it, you have more or less unlimited use of it as long as you don't give
copies to other people.

Another difference is that software isn't just something you listen to or
read -- it's a tool that you use for productive work. I.e., you don't get a
Microsoft Word license in order to enjoy Microsoft Word; you use Microsoft
Word as a tool to create other things. Of course, that isn't an ironclad
argument for licensing, but it does explain why software hasn't been treated
like music.

Anyhow, the digital media industry is in a dither. The public wants the
equivalent of phonograph records, but the sellers want to sell the
equivalent of concert tickets (a limited and temporary right to listen).

And the public will win. Remember copy-protected diskettes? What killed
them was that copy protection interfered with too much use that was
undeniably legitimate. Ditto for DRM. Librarians in particular are worried
about DRM, because it's likely that in 100 years, some of today's music will
be unplayable, even by people who have authentic equipment and software to
play it, because nobody is around who can renew the license.

Vote with your pocketbook. Don't buy music with unreasonable license
conditions.

Incidentally, a similar kind of thing has started happening with software.
It started with Borland's "no-nonsense license agreement," which said,
basically, "copy and install this anywhere you like as long as only one copy
of it is in use at a time." (They recognized that programmers often have
more than one computer.) Today, many software packages explicitly permit
making a copy for your laptop or home computer, for use by the same person
at different times.

Ultimately we may need some laws defining fair use. There's a strong
feeling among copyright experts that, basically, copyright only gets
involved when *other people* receive copies of the material, not when you
copy your own stuff for backup purposes or for use on different kinds of
equipment.