OK. Look.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&newsid=5714
If you give that a click…
Here’s what it means.
It means, the RIAA is now trying to say that it is illegal to buy a CD and put the songs on your computer or IPOD. They are basically saying you can’t copy the music off the cd in any way, shape, or form.
The recording and movie industries in this country are having serious problems with the legal idea of “fair use.” Fair use is the principle that says you are buying the rights to one copy of the art, not just the physical meduim the art is stored on.
This is in addition to thier last bullshit lawsuit – that it was illegal to copy DVDs because you had to decrypt them to do it, even though it would be legal to copy them if they weren’t encrypted. In other words, you have the right to the data, they were saying, just not to the means to move it.
Guess what? They won that lawsuit.
If they win this one, to comply with the law you will have to buy a downloaded copy of a song or album for your itunes, another for your CD player, etc.
These people have money, and they have clout, and they are scared right down to their bones of us, of our generation, of our sort. They are professional middlemen looking getting cut out of the transaction in the eye, and they are taking something away from all of us, every day, to keep it from happening. Yes, just copying CDs to your computer IS that important.
Decide where you stand on the matter of these pigs buying the law and controlling the art. Decide where you stand on the matter of these people telling your lawmakers what to do and your lawmakers blindly listening to them and their stupid ass money.
You need to write your congressperson about this. You need to tell them that the slow erosion of consumer intellectual property rights is a voting issue for you.