"Michael McKelvy" wrote in message
link.net...

"Carl Valle" wrote in message
. com...

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
How many of these do you have?

http://www.eff.org/endangered/


There are two sides to the copyright law. Ripping, Re-coding, media
shifting, and file sharing do deprive artists and producers of money they
would otherwise get if the media was obtained through retail channels.
They have a right to defend their bottom line. There will be compromises
but more than likely, the recording business will win back some of the
rights they are losing to technologically enabled theft of intellectual
property.

If you look at the sitaution the united states is in right now, where
much of our exported and domestic productivity is derived from the
marketing of intellectual property, including cultral products, we have
much to lose as a society if copyrights are not enforced. How can we
expect China for example to control the production of knockoff software,
if we as americans think it's within our 'rights' to steal somebody
else's work.

Carl

If I copy a CD to tape to play in my car it's only because the copy will
sound better than the pre-recorded tape the record company wants to sell
me.

If I copy it to my HD it's because I wish to listen there as well, I see
no reason to pay twice for the same music just because I want to put it on
multiple media.

I'm not selling off my copies to anyone and I'm not likely to by multiple
copies of a given album just to fatten the wallets of record company execs
and musicians. If they want to sell more stuff they should try
encouraging better music to be produced instead of the crap that's sells
now.






I will address your last point first. If the music is crap, why would you
buy it in the first place. There would certainly be no reason to copy music
that has no value to you. By the same token, the music companies produce
work that sells, so if it's crap, it's none the less crap people are wanting
to own.

Your other point on cassette tapes is probably a valid one since there are
at present no tapes being sold. But if you were to go the other way, to copy
a tape to a CD, you would be stealing because that product is being sold.

A few years ago, I might have agreed with your argument about copying music
to some kind of server or hard disc, however, this is also now being sold by
iTunes Music store and others. Again you are copying a product that you
should be paying for.

If you look at the OEM product that you purchased, you will notice that it
says "Any duplication is a violation of copyright." When you purchase a
music disc you implicitly agree to that restriction.

Now, with the passage of the SCMS and the royalty fees collected by RIAA on
blank tape, cassette recorders, consumer DAT machines, DAT tape (audio), CD
recorders (consumer) nd CD music disc blanks, you are authorized to make
copies within the limits of the SCMS system. This is one digital copy, but
no copy of a copy. Bypassing the SCMS, even by use of analog recording
methods is outside the permission granted. The question of analog copies of
analog copies is unclear, but presumably the quality levels suffer enough
that RIAA caved on it, or couldnt figure out how to enforce it.

RIAA is currently suing for copyright violations all over the place and most
people settle out of court so it isn't clear how far they can go. Does the
home taper need to fear, maybe not... I don't want my music collection to
be compromised by having a bunch of copied, stolen albums though, so maybe
I'm the dumb one, but I buy my stuff and display it proudly in my library. I
also don't own any crap...

Carl