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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. |
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