Illegal iPods?
One of my best purchases ever was back in 2004, when I finally got myself an iPod. It completely changed the way that I related to my music collection, and re-acquainted me with some good stuff that I had acquired, but fell off my radar. It also inspired me to get back in touch with albums that I had let go before, such as Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Matthew Sweet.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that I was violating copyright law when I ripped the audio off of the discs that I had gone to a lot of trouble over the years to acquire, and in some cases re-acquire.
Of course, it's simply a money grab by Big Music to encourage people to get roped into the legal music services, such as iTunes, Napster, or even Rhapsody. This isn't to say that these services don't have their place. But I fail to see why I should have to buy crippled copies of songs that I like just to have them on my iPod, when I make a copy of them with my PC, which is a time honored tradition (at least since 1992, when the Home Recording Act was passed, which gives Big Music a cut of all blank media sales, specifically to subsidize losses due to piracy. It also allows customers to make copies of music for personal, non-infringing uses, which copying to an iPod certainly is).
This is not even the most offensive part of the linked article. The Big Music exec quoted shows just how out of touch he is with regular folks, by stating that its not that expensive to re-acquire legal online versions of songs and albums that people like. This may be true, but only if you own 1 or 2 albums. Many of Big Music's best customers own hundreds (some even thousands) of CDs, and even albums before that. These are the people who will scoff at this kind of thing. It's no big deal to re-acquire one or two albums at $10 a piece. Try 500 CDs, and I think I've made my point. Not everyone has that kind of money laying around, and most people have better ideas of what could be done with that money.
iPod uploading NOT Fair Use?
Imagine my surprise when I learned that I was violating copyright law when I ripped the audio off of the discs that I had gone to a lot of trouble over the years to acquire, and in some cases re-acquire.
Of course, it's simply a money grab by Big Music to encourage people to get roped into the legal music services, such as iTunes, Napster, or even Rhapsody. This isn't to say that these services don't have their place. But I fail to see why I should have to buy crippled copies of songs that I like just to have them on my iPod, when I make a copy of them with my PC, which is a time honored tradition (at least since 1992, when the Home Recording Act was passed, which gives Big Music a cut of all blank media sales, specifically to subsidize losses due to piracy. It also allows customers to make copies of music for personal, non-infringing uses, which copying to an iPod certainly is).
This is not even the most offensive part of the linked article. The Big Music exec quoted shows just how out of touch he is with regular folks, by stating that its not that expensive to re-acquire legal online versions of songs and albums that people like. This may be true, but only if you own 1 or 2 albums. Many of Big Music's best customers own hundreds (some even thousands) of CDs, and even albums before that. These are the people who will scoff at this kind of thing. It's no big deal to re-acquire one or two albums at $10 a piece. Try 500 CDs, and I think I've made my point. Not everyone has that kind of money laying around, and most people have better ideas of what could be done with that money.
iPod uploading NOT Fair Use?
posted by BryghtSyde @ 5:39 PM
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