Slashdot Mirror
eBay Beats DMCA
pgrote writes "eBay won a court battle that brought to light a key provision of the DCMA. The judge says, "Although it may facilitate the sale of pirated material, "eBay does not have the right and ability to control such activity," a standard required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the judge wrote." So does that mean that the P2P file trading programs are legal since the pirating occurs off the sites? This is could be a very important precedent. " In talking to some lawyer friends, their perspective on part of the Napster case was that by being very difficult in the beginning, Napster almost doomed itself. But, as always, IANAL ? .
The reason the judge ruled this way in this case as opposed to the way the judge ruled in the Napster case is simple: eBay is online auctions, and auctions have been around forever. People understand how they work and they are comfortable making decisions about them. On the other hand, Napster, P2P, and mp3's are all relatively new technologies that judges don't know the first thing about, and are not comfortable with at all. Auctions have just as much control over who gets what as P2P does (and that's very little) and so the two services really should be treated similarly, but it won't happen.
~ now you know
err appeal to happen. The RIAA has money- that will sway the courts, i mean, law to their interpretation.
Just ask Bush and the DOJ about Microsoft!
In a more serious nature, tho, I'm scared to go to a used CD store and buy a used CD.... someone might have recorded that music previously and that makes me buying a pirated copy...
I am glad to hear of any victory over the DCMA, RIAA, or any other agency that doesn't like my MP3 collection.
Pseudocode is code to demonstrate a concept, not designed to be run. Like certain M$ software.
This probably wouldn't have any effect on P2P programs themselves, as the courts would have to decide whether the intent of such software was to deliberately facilitate copyright infringement, but this could take the heat off of ISPs and give them more leeway when they are told by someone (like, say, the MPAA) that a user is sending pirated software through their service. Remember the salon.com story about a person accused of copyright infringement on USENET whose access was immedeately suspended while they were on vacation, no investigation necessary? ISPs may now have more freedom to say 'prove it' when the MPAA, RIAA or another such organization comes knocking.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
EBay asked Hendrickson to submit a sworn, written statement detailing his claim through its Verified Rights Owner Program, which lets copyright holders request that eBay remove an infringing item. Hendrickson refused, saying his general complaints should have been good enough.
I love that part. EBay suggested he go through their standard procedure for filing copyright complaints, which (I believe) has worked for others in the past. He refused, snobbily. He brought a legal case, and he lost.
Good for him. If he'd done things the acceptable way instead of trying to let lawyers solve his problem, he'd probably have the problem solved already. America needs more lessons like this.
That's great new for all of us John Tesh bootleggers!!!!
Oh, and auctions are legal. Stealing music isn't. Big distinction there, buddy.
the title of the Post on /. is a bit misleading.
the case did not beat the DMCA, it clarified it.
there is a big diffrence.
/. titles are worse thaan those on the local 10 o'clock new:
tragity down town: somthing bad almost happened
god people please stop the insanity
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Think about it: If I provide you with a hammer with the purpose of you using it as a device to pound nails into wood, etc., I really don't expect to be sued if you use it to bash in a guy's head down the street. eBay wasn't created to facilitate the transfer of illegal copies of materials, though some might use it for such.
The question the courts should be asking is: did the system - let's say Napster - purposfully come about to circumvent legal aquisition of music? If I sold you the hammer with the purpose of selling you an offensive weapon, I should expect to be a party to the demise of the former human on the sidewalk.
So, Legal Eagles, were Napster, Gnutella, etc. created as P2P systems that were "turned evil," or were they "evil" from the get-go? Therein lies the answer, I think.
I suspect the legal system is going to look at the two cases as seperate issues. They will view eBay as primarily a legal trading forum with only a small portion of the use being illegal, while Napster et al. are going to be viewed as primarily illegal programs with little if any legal usage. Time will tell.
If a club does nothing about drug sales going on inside, it gets shut down or fined. If Ebay was selling organs and babies, you damn well bet something would be done. I'm not a big fan of the DMCA or anything, but does this mean I can start buying switch-blades on Ebay?
-anon
see, ebay is selling material that they don't know is legal or not.
napster is trading material, which they know is prolly illegal. but but, i own all those albums of the mp3's i downloaded.
precedent? not after napster has started it's new service... too late to change that fate.
also, wouldn't napster be precedent for this case? disclaimer: IANAL.
Runnin' On Empty
However, more importantly is that the judge threw out this case. There is no precident set by it, no question of the constitutionality raised, and only means that other judges can use it for deciding similar cases but cannot outright use this decision to finalize those cases.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Does this mean they can start allowing import games to be sold? I've bid on a number of Japanese import Dreamcast and Saturn games, where the auction has subsequently been pulled. Turns out that Sega demanded that eBay pull any such auctions, suggesting that they "promote piracy", although afaik there is no law prohibiting the resale of import games.
This is the best news I've had all week: justice was served for once. Now all we need to do is free Dmitry and overturn that damnable law.
Then again, we also have to make Linux so good that ordinary people would be insane to keep Windows, and shatter the RIAA and MPAA.
******
"What makes you think I care about your opinions?"
YAY! Down with the DMCA! (Some musical artist that isn't a freakin money hungry snobby stuck up person should use that in a song or something). That or napster could write a song like that and distribute it like mad >=)
In talking to some lawyer friends
Isn't this an oxymoron?
(My dad's a lawyer, and he taught me to love a good lawyer joke. YMMV.)
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Making unauthorised copies of a copyrighted work is illegal. That's fair do's, and a deal that I accept as right. However, it has become difficult to enforce.
It's almost impossible to catch and prosecute people who make copies of CDs for their friends, and other such illegal acts.
As a result, lawmakers and "content" providers fall over themselves making up daft laws and policies in order to combat the problem.
Instead of targetting eBay, and firing the DMCA at them (which is itself a circumvention device - it enables the law to circumvent going after the REAL criminals, and instead sends them after those who attempt to enrich society) would it not make more sense to hang around eBay for a while, bid on unauthorised material (I REFUSE to use the word Pirated), offer to pay by cheque, and then send the heavy mob round to the address, thus catching the real criminal?
Surely if such tactics could be used instead of lazily hiding behind the DMCA we wouldn't need such daft laws in the first place, and the REAL criminals would be in jail, instead of an innocent Russian hacker.
The months are just too short. I can count the number of days on one hand.
Ebay and Napster are, of course, very different. I believe the judge made his ruling via intent (as was the case with Napster).
Ebay's purpose is, of course, to let users auction items online. A very small percentage ebay auctions are pirate material (>1%).
Napster was created for mp3 sharing. While the program was used to trade uncompyrighted mp3s, the majority of the trading that went on was with copyrighted material. If you don't believe me, I might refer you to the supposed filters Napster installed. Remember that everyone simply changed one letter in the filename to skirt the filters.
Just my 2 cents
Utter twaddle. Read the article. The reason for the loss was that it was an ill advised suit. The complainant refused to comply with eBay's take-down procedure, launched straight into an arrogant lawsuit, and got (rightly) reamed for it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
at the first beam of sunlight.
I really love this:
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law meant to stimulate Internet commerce while protecting copyrights.
Then in the next paragraph:
But the other cases, such as the criminal prosecution of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov, are based on provisions in the law that ban technologies that let people circumvent copyright protections.
Now if you look at that again, you realize that Dmitry's company was the one engaging in "Internet commerce", but he's the one that got hammered.
This, to me, seems to be decent reporting, but there is a bit of "slight of hand going on".
If the DMCA was meant for commerce, why it it being applied to crypto, reverse engineering, education, etc.
And I like this:
EBay asked Hendrickson to submit a sworn, written statement Hendrickson refused, saying his general complaints should have been good enough.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Two Words: Prove it! (or in lawyer speak "burden of proof lies of^H^H with the accuser".
What gets me is that corporations are the one's fighting the battles of copyright holders, instead of the copyright holders themselves.
(but, hey, the corps own the copyright holders, so same-same, i 'spose).
I think if a corp holds the rights of an individuals IP/Copyright, then the individual should be the one doing the persecu^H^H^H^H^H prosecuting, not the corp. Mano e mano.
Just some interesting things to ponder.
Moose.
SIG, SIG out loud, SIG, SIG it proud
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I say we put the DMCA up for auction on E-Bay as a "revenue protecting licence agreement text suitable for governments funded by large buisnesses". How much do you think it would go for?
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
At the risk of becoming serious flame-bait here, anyone stop to consider, that maybe the Feds are right here, and that the warrant is sealed for a reason, and not some government-coverup conspiracy crap?
Not everything the government does is evil - lets give the facts time to shake out before we castrate the government for this one. That is, if the facts ever come out...
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
While this victory by eBay is an important one, only time will tell why. Hopefully, it will help copyright law and enforcement get back to a more reasonable path. But, it could have the opposite effect. The MPAA and RIAA may donate some money to some influential congressmen (read: bribe) and add some more quasi-constitutional teeth to the monster known as the DMCA (God that sounds corny).
Just waking up and still a bit cranky,
-- If any of the above made sense, I assure it was purely by accident.
Isn't life in this case is imitating Spike Milligan, not Monty Python?
Yes, you CAN buy switchblades on E-Bay! Elian Gonzalez was on sale once too.
-Vic
Untrue, Patel knew precisely what Napster was about, it had no real purpose other than copyright infringement and its creators had no intention of discouraging piracy. No amount of /. sophistry changes that.
eBay on the other hand has a real purpose that does not depend on infringing others copyrights and had established a takedown proceedure that was clearly in good faith.
The ratio of infringing content to non-infringing on Napster was at least 20:1. The ratio of infringing to non-infringing on eBay is no more than 1:2000.
In this case the chump refused to submit a sworn statement to state that the material was infringing so the court threw out the case. The courts are entitled to consider whether the parties are acting in good faith and protect a good faith party from an unjustified lawsuit.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The point of an auction in the UK is for a property holder to launder any possibly stolen items.
One must publicly state an auction is taking place and if you think any of your stolen property is there you go down and claim it. Any goods not claimed are now 'cleaned' of their 'stolen goods' status.
Which is why every so often the cops auction off unidentified swag they have collected from burglars etc.
I'm sure that more complicated copyright issues are not cleaned is this way but doctrine of first sale would apply.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Where did you get those stats? Define infringing and non-infringing. Since when is making a backup of your music in digital format the wrong thing to do? It would be different if people were distributing copied CD's (physically), but these are just music files on a computer, nothing wrong with that.
~ now you know
eBay won because they were big, established, and profitable. They also had clear non-infringing uses of their service established.
Napster was percieved as an upstart pirate of a company, and that's why they lost.
I don't think it has a great deal to do with the letter of the law here, but how the companies were percieved by the respective judges.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Don't be an ass. You know those weren't exact stats. In fact I would bet those numbers are even way more extreme than that.
If you are just making copies of your cd's what is the point of having napster?
This is Garrison Keillor's view on lawyers:
This is from his final "Ask Mr. Blue" column on Salon.com.
While of course many of today's problems are caused by profligate lawyering, it is true that many lawyers get into the field with an honest intention to right society's wrongs. I love a good lawyer joke as much as anyone, but let's remember that they're human beings. Gandhi was a lawyer.
Fight for your right to read books!
Since when does downloading a file over the internet constitute "making a backup of your music in digital format"? I suspect the ratio of infringing to non-infringing material on Napster was a lot higher than 20:1. While I support massive changes to the music distribution industry and to our copyright laws, let's not deceive ourselves. Napster was about sharing music you were not willing to pay for. As such it presented little or no harm to the music industry, but it was not an unfairly targeted haven for Fair Use.
/. indicates, some heroes fighting for Fair Use. Just ask people involved in the sale of things like movie trailers.
Sadly, this case with eBay has almost no value as a precedent for making P2P more likely to pass legal muster, since the doofus author wasn't even willing to go through eBay's procedures to verify that he was, in fact, entitled to challenge the sale of the material. eBay are not, as the posting here on
I do not have a signature
I'd bet Napster infringement was more on the order of 10,000:1.
> Since when is making a backup of your music in
> digital format the wrong thing to do?
Since, with odds of 10,000:1, you were actually stealing the music rather than just "backing up" stuff you already had. This is the slashdot sophistry the man was talking about.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
(standard disclaimer, IANAL, etc).
What all of these cases seem to come down to is *intent*. These are IMO, but consider:
2600's intent was to play DVD's on linux and, possibly, allow for unrestricted viewing/skipping commercials, re-establish fair use.
(the fact the judge of the case was in the employ of the MPAA *was* a conflict of interest, despite the judge saying it was not.)
Dmitry's (and his company, I think) was the same...the intent was fair use, letting blind people have access to ebooks, restoring ones rights should the computer mess up (god knows that *never* happens) and allowing the same rights printed media has
over electronic media...you have no rights to something you PAID for...excuse me?
Felten's purpose was academic research, that was stifeld because of the DMCA.
The intent was to teach his students (and others). The *intent* was education...hell, you can teach someone chemistry, from there they could make medicine, bombs, nerve gas.
Whoever coined the phrase Digital Crowbar was correct...but it is the DMCA that is the crowbar, I'm afraid. (Digital Millineum Crowbar Assault?)
People who don't see that are missing the point entirely.
The Digital Crowbar referrence was to DeCSS, but this is incorrect, it is being used to bludgeon to death the rights of the consumer, the educator, the hacker the innovator or even the curious, and yes, even the business and individual.
Moose.
The problem with being esoteric is not that people are "beneath you" it is that your *thinking/reasoning* is so far above everyone else's. (think about it)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
It takes time and money to craft a letter asserting your legal position -- whether you do it yourself or pay an attorney. It is unreasonable for ebay to require that you do additional work to comply with some internal procedure that they have developed.
It would be like your neighbor telling you that that he would not remove his car from your driveway until you filled out that "Car Removal Request Form" that he developed.
>The ratio of infringing to non-infringing on eBay is no more than 1:2000.
Utter BS
Since when? Since I discovered, for some strange reason, every recently purchased disc I own from TVT records refuses to rip properly. Yes Virginia, I *do* make backup copies of my CDs into mp3 format (since I don't have the disk space to store them uncompressed). Think they're going to provide me a free-of-charge media replacement if the disc goes bad (and yes, I do have a few cds that have failed, usually because the reflection layer delaminated from the disc in a small area - something not caused by any abuse on my part).
I found it really unfortunate that most people used Napster simply to leech and steal.
I was in the honest minority that used it largely to try music before buying it. I was a poor college student, but I bought a lot of the music I kept, and I had a number of albums on the "to buy" list.
I would not have ever used Napster for "backups" - it would've been good in extreme circumstances, like having all of your CDs get microwaved by your roommate, but there was no quality assurance to Napster files.
[If there were quality assurance, like guaranteed usage of the standards suggested at r3mix, then I might use it as a backup... (however, with the advent of HDCD, there are still advantages to the raw CD format that MP3 can't capture...) but that's just an aside.]
So, if the Napster decision was based on majority usage, the next generation of Napster-esque programs could achieve eBay-like immunity by having a reasonable security mechanisms (plausible deniability?) in place - keeping the downloaded file for a limited time period, or allowing a limited number of plays.
Of course, it will be cracked - but that would be beyond the control of the program, and that behavior would hopefully stay to a small enough minority to allow it to get through any litigation.
Overall, though, one of the things that needs to happen in this discussion is for the ranting against the recording conglomerates to be seperated from the commune-istic (not a bad thing, in an ideal world [p.s.: the world isn't ideal {yet?}]) view of information. Different fights for different times. It only muddies the waters.
0x0D 0x0A
Damn. I was really hoping they could throw out the whole takedown procedure in the first place. Or does the ruling indemnify E-Bay from any liability at all, allowing them to throw away the procedure?
I'm reminded of the posting here a week or two ago from someone who couldn't sell a personal copy of NT, CD and License, 'cause Microsoft kept complaining....
At least in the USA, when a judge "throws out a case" it doesn't just go in the wastebasket. He writes an opinion explaining why he threw the case out. That is no less a legal precedent than any other judicial opinion. What precedents do you think lawyers cite when they go into court and *try* to get the other side's case "thrown out"? That's right, they cite all the judicial opinions "throwing out" similar cases, and try to convince the judge that the case before him/her is like those.
This is, in fact, an important opinion. Anyone have a link to the full text? I am involved in a case that may be impacted by it.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
"The judge agreed with eBay's position that it is not like a real-world auctioneer that vouches for the items on sale, but rather more like a provider of the stalls at a flea market."
how is it that the digital "flea market" owner isn't libal for renting a stall to person selling pirated material, but 2600 magazine is libal for linking to site that provides DeCSS code fragments? another example of the double standard that will bring the DMCA crashing down eventually.
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
and here I thought Taco blocked Valenti's IP from Slashdot...
Check out my sysadmin blog!
How, exactly, did eBay beat the DMCA? All they did was require the guy to follow the letter of the law. He didn't, so he lost. If he had given proper notice as required by the DMCA, eBay would have been required to remove the offending material.
so now someone needs to adopt a front end to ebay and a 'micropayment trading system'. so for each CD I "sell" I get to buy a CD being "sold" with the credits I get. Work out an anonymous payment system like this and we're back on Napster via Ebay auctions.
:-)
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
I had a similar, if far more trivial, case. I posted an auction with a digital picture of the item being offered. Another seller "stole" my picture (and most of my clever auction listing text) to use in his own auction of an identical item. It was obvious that the image was the same (it was shot on my desk) and the words were clear plagiarism.
A few notes exchanged with eBay, along with an "affirmation" that I took the image with my own digital imaging device, and the offending auction listing was history. It eventually re-appeared, with a poor(er) quality picture and revamped words, but my point had been made.
Too bad for Mr. Hendrickson that he didn't comply with such an oh-so-simple request. It worked for me...
EBay provides auctions, not internet service, so they are an "ASP", not an "ISP".
Yes, eBay is an application service provider. Here, the application is an auction venue, which still counts as an "Internet service," or a service provided over the Internet. The term "Internet service" includes services other than just an upstream.
Will I retire or break 10K?
>population, but 75% of the world's lawyers.
This is complete and utter nonsense. We don't even have proportionally more lawyers than the countries that tend to be cited as examples.
For example, Japan is frequently cited as having a fraction as many lawyers as the U.S. That only holds up until you look at the legal professions in the two countries. If you look at the number of Japanese who are the equivalent of members of the bar here, it's true. The problem with the statistic is that the overwhelming amount of work that would be done here by lawyers is done there by folks with legal training (including law school) who are not formally admitted. Additionally, they tend to be in-house rather than in law firms. When you count the folks doing the tasks we send to lawyers, both sides have about the same number of lawyeres as a portion of the population.
While I'm at it, the total number of lawsuits filed in the U.S. per capita hasn't increased much over times; the U.S. has *always* been a litigious lot.
hawk
>>they violate it, they can lose their butts.
More bullshit. They're held accountable by the American Bar Association, their own brethren.
Until this, I assumed that you were merely misinformed and rabid. But now I see that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
The ABA has *absolutely* no power over individual lawyers. The overwhelming majority of lawyers have nothing to do with the ABA. This is handled by the Supreme Courts of the individual states, often by delegation (and by federal courts for matters in those courts).
That's like saying that the Direct Marketing Association holds its members accountable for spamming.
Again, please find a clue. YOu have *clearly* not looked *at all* at how disciplinary proceedings work. In many states, the pendulum has swung to far in the other direction. Two of my favorites from California:
1) public discipline for kicking an ex-fiance during an arguement *7 years* earlier.
2) A lawyer, who generally charged consultation fees, shared an ad offering free consultations. Someone scheduled an appointment without mentioning the ad. When the client arrived, he requested his consultation fee, and the client informed him that he'd called from the ad. The lawyer provided the free consultation, and the client complained to the bar (didn't like the advice, perhaps?). The lawyer was disciplined.
THese are not isolated incidents when in California. Lawyers are regularly disbarred and suspended for actual misconduct.
hawk, esq.
Don't use E2 as a dictionary.
I basically agree, but the point is that the eBay decision would seem to provide the parameters for establishing a successful (where successful is one that achieves the goal of allowing virtually unlimited sharing) P2P site that that passes DMCA muster. If the P2P site has a reactive policy for copyright enforcement, rather than the proactive one that Patel is forcing on Napster (which is technically very difficult, if not impossible), and makes the policy available up front to its users, then the P2P site should be legally protected. This means that even if the P2P sie responds to every infreingement complaint, because there are more users than employees at the P2P site or the copyright holders, the users will always be 100 steps ahead.
Thus record companies are toast; or at least their business models that charge more for a title in digital format what they charge for analog are toast.
If the record companies had developed a business model that charged pennies for songs in MP3 format, and then provided coupon points for each song purpose good toward a discount on actual CDs (or some CD-quality format), they'd be sitting on a pile of cash now. I think that's the model where we are headed, but there will be much needless bloodshed in the form of record company red ink before we get there.
I wouldn't speak so soon. It's kind of murky because I haven't been able to get the actual opinion yet, but some poster quoted an article as saying:
"The judge agreed with eBay's position that it is not like a real-world auctioneer that vouches for the items on sale, but rather more like a provider of the stalls at a flea market."
Now I am as aware as anyone that journalists often get it all wrong when interpreting legal stuff. But if the opinion says anything of this nature, then the opinion is broader than you and a lot of people are suggesting, and would likely have some precedential effect on DMCA, as opposed to just being a case-specific defect like failure to exhaust remedies. I'm trying to get the full text of the opinion.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
This is similar to holding
Fight Spammers!
What is that? IANAL... I am not a loser? I always need another lick? I Archive Nerds And Losers?
In REAL journalism (or any formal writing of any kind) one never uses anacronyms until after you have defined it.
When will you kids learn that English is a language? When will you posers quit pretending to be journalists?
I don't have the numbers, but I'd be very surprised if less than 90% of US legislators are lawyers. Lawyers write the laws, and they're not likely to write lawyer hostile legislation.
If lawyers are a protection against big government, they are then supposedly a protection against themselves. Not the most reassuring arrangement.
The Clintons basically rented out the Lincoln Bedroom for every big star and producer in Hollywood in exchange for a few bucks
Hmm .. why don't they just do that openly to raise funds (e.g. for charities, or as a source of taxes or something ..)
If a club does nothing about drug sales going on inside, it gets shut down or fined. If Ebay was selling organs and babies, you damn well bet something would be done. I'm not a big fan of the DMCA or anything, but does this mean I can start buying switch-blades on Ebay?
Just because it's unjust to dismantle their site because others may be trying to use it to violate laws and rights doesn't mean that it's just for them to do so. As I understand it, the site has a procedure for dealing with instances like that, so they evidently take an interest in rectifying those problems. As for your example of switch-blades, I'm not sure. If both the seller and the buyer are in jurisdictions where they aren't contraband, wouldn't it be okay? Anybody know the protocol there?
No. You don't have a right to back stuff up. There is nothing in the Constitution, nor in the law, that says that makers of copyrighted works must make it possible for you to copy the work, whether such a thing is Fair Use or not. The Fair Use clause _assumes_ that you have the ability to do this, and therefore grants some exceptions so that you can't be prosecuted for doing it. Fair Use does not guarantee that right to you.
:)
If your new purchases do not work as expected you MUST return them to the source with an explanation and you MUST stop buying from that source until they change their behavior. Or you could do like some have done, and crack the protection layer. Theoretically the DMCA allows for private cracking for Fair use purposes. Sadly, it prevents us from discussing such cracking in public-- so the old "when XYZ is outlawed, only outlaws will XYZ" becomes "when Fair Use is outlawed, only the extremely competent crackers will have Fair Use".
And no, I don't expect CD makers to replace your "gone bad" discs unless it's an obvious manufacturing fault any more than I expect book publishers to replace books you drop in the tub or use until the spine falls apart. If you want nice stuff, take care of it, I guess.
I am NOT on the side of the large content providers. I think the laws are treasonous in the damage they do the public good. But as it stands, the current laws don't support the notion that Napster is a "backup" of any sort.
I do not have a signature