Record Industry Wants Royalties for Used CD Sales

cuberat writes "In a continuing effort to maintain their image as evil incarnate, record companies are considering charging used CD retailers a royalty for every CD they resell. The story is in today's San Diego Union-Tribune here. When are these guys going to get a clue?"

Comments

hmmm

[Jacer]

"When are these guys going to get a clue?"

Thomas Jefferson wouldn't approve

[User 956]

When Thomas Jefferson put the idea of intellectual property into the Constitution of the United States, he did so because he realized that information leaks; once people learn something, they can reuse that knowledge. If there was no protection to intellectual property, people would not be encouraged to share knowledge with others. Writers would not write, inventors would not invent, artists would not . So in the US Constitution, it says:

Congress shall have the power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

The reason why this is important is spelled out in Jefferson's own writings:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it...He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should be spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature ... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

His assumptions are based on the fact that you can not control what people do with information that you give to them. If you hand someone a book, they can transcribe it. If you give someone a physical invention, they can disassemble it. But if you give them a new form of media, say, a song on a copy-protected CD, and they can no longer listen to it except on approved devices that they cannot copy from, why should the government provide the same protection to you? The record companies and movie studios want to have their cake and eat it too. They want traditional copyright protection, technological copyright protection, and a government guarantee of technological copyright protection. They want to deprive all those bearded Linux hippies their DeCSS, so they can't watch bootleg Buffy the Vanpire Slayer DVDs in their parents' basement. But if they have technological protection, then why should the government give them traditional protection? It was only there because information was hard to protect as property.

How far are we going to let the copyrighters go? We need to remind people that copyright, like most laws in the US, is a balance between two forces, and the scale should not be tipped too far to one side.

Here we go again....

[Eggplant62]

I said it before and I'll say it again here:

Why is it the RIAA is trying to hard to alienate it's customers? One would think that with sagging sales and rampant piracy, they'd get the message that maybe their product is *blatantly overpriced* and usually worthless in most interests.

Most of my CD purchases have been spurred by my hearing one song by the artist on the radio. I decided that I liked that song and went out and bought the CD. I've even bought CD's based on downloading MP3's and liking the music enough that it's created a purchase for the RIAA. However, in most instances, I've found that if it weren't for the one song, I'd have never bought the CD because the rest of the music packaged with it is CRAP!!

Another good reason *not* to buy their music is the current wave of teeny-bopper hiphop crap that's being pushed like it's the second coming of Jesus. One more Backstreet Boys hit and I think I'll go insane. It's a wonder the RIAA can sell anything at all when the crap they put out sucks all ass.