Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use - washingtonpost.com
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
Okay, these people are insane. As a person who has made my living from time to time with the creation of intellectual property, I did have some sympathy for those trying to prevent IP from becoming essentially meaningless. That said, this sort of idiocy will do nothing more than discredit their entire position.
As it should be discredited.
UPDATE: The solution is simple. Don’t buy their CDs.
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Wow, I was somewhat sympathetic to them as well, even though they made monumentally idiotic business decisions, but this is just too much.
I never had sympathy for the companies . I only sympathize with the creators of IP not the exploiters. Creative accounting allows the companies to cheat the artists and then they charge them for the promotional stuff(ads and music videos)
These people are batsh*t insane.
I can buy openly advertised products designed to let me take mp3s of LPs, cassettes and 8-tracks. When I stick a music CD in my computer, Windows Media Player automagically out of the box rips me an mp3 of every song on it. So when are we going to see Bill Gates being perp-walked out of Redmond as an accessory to theft???
What this boils down to is selectively enforced “legalized” extortion.
Waaaay ahead of you there, Buddy. It’s convenient that a reprehensible attitude toward their customers coincides with crappy music. Otherwise I might be conflicted.
I do buy some techno music, which I pay for directly and download, and buy CDs in person from local bands. (To be honest, the latter normally isn’t very good, but I know a fair number of starving artist musicians and am willing to throw a few bucks their way.)
I’d like to know how the RIAA came by the knowledge that Howell had 2000 recordings on his computer.
Pre-trial discovery, probably, though RIAA/MPAA have been employed some shady techniques “in the past”.
Don’t forget all the DRM in Vista and I’m not sure what’s in the one Windows program since it won’t install as long as I have AVG. It wants me to uninstall AVG, so I have to wonder what Gates is trying to hide in it.
As you say, the problem is greed on the part of the companies, not on the part of the actual creators of IP.
In the course of the record companies and Hollywood bribing Congress to increase their rights, we’ve lost sight of the original intent of copyright.
Protection of IP was only half of the equation. Just as with a patent, the intent was to insure that the original creator had monopoly rights to the fruits of his efforts “for a reasonable time,” and then the information would pass into the public domain in a reasonable fashion.
The definition of “reasonable time” or reasonable fashion has changed over the years, but while patents now are generally for a 20 year period (and are no longer renewable in the United States, at least), copyright has gone from something similar in duration (it’s varied quite bit until late in the 20th century, but was generally around 20 years with a right to renew) requiring either the registration of the material or at least marking it with a claim of copyright to extending for 100 years, and with copyright being assumed whether claimed or not.
The part about “passing into the public domain in a reasonable way” has been completely forgotten.
The hyper-greed of the record companies may well trigger a wave of resentment that moves the issue too far the other way.
It’s going to be interesting to watch.
So I guess that back in the old days of vinyl records and various tape formats, when I copied my reords onto eight or ten inch reels so I could listen to music or two or three hours without changing a disc, I was stealing the music.
I sure hope these idiots don’t travel much to China - home of the $1.00(equivalient) DVD.