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Another Class Action Over Crippled Music Disks
pulaski writes "Here's a link to an interesting Baltimore Sun story. It's about the case of two Californians trying to take some major record companies to task for selling copy protected CDs. It's got the classic Cary Sherman whine but the plaintiffs apparently have some legal muscle." A similar suit was settled with the defendants agreeing to make changes in their practices.
From the article (the "Cary Sherman whine" referred to in the posting):
... Cary, mi amigo: The copy protections on video tapes and computer games don't cause your VCR or computer to become unusable. If they did, those industries would have exactly the same problem you're currently having. Putting a warning label saying "Be careful, this apparently innocent disc may eat your computer" isn't sufficient: it would be better to, oh, I don't know, maybe use a method that works without breaking things?
"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said. "Motion picture studios, and software and video game publishers have protected their works for years, and no one has even thought to claim that doing so was inappropriate, let alone unlawful." [said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America]
Umm
It's a small point but I'd like to see people start using a phrase like copy crippled instead of copy protected as protected has a positive connotation.
Would it really be that hard to put a label on the disk saying that its copy protected? If they can do it with the explicit lyrics label, they can do it with this. Although, I can see it now where the artists will start suing because they can't get their cover art on the discs because there will be so many labels on the front. Back to the longbox! :-)
quod me nutrit me destruit
Well there is a distinction that needs to be made. Copy Protection is OK (witness: video games). Protection from theft is OK. Crippling a product and calling it either Copy Protection or Protection from Theft is not.
There's a line between trying to stop people from copying/stealing and selling things that don't work in equipment that should be compatible.
I crashed a Win2k server by inserting a scratched CD. It just froze. No blue screen, no error message, it died.
Heh, I've had that happen with no CD at all. It's almost magic.
This is not intended as a troll but, seriously, CD drives and OSs shouldn't freeze up just because there is a faulty CD in the drive. This is just one more example of crappy software/hardware design. Behaviour like this gives me a strong impulse to take the computer back to the shop.
On the other hand, spitting a flawed disc out and putting up a popup with "Defective Compact Disk" would be more likely to encourage the user to return the CD and demand a refund.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
This case is simple and I'm glad a huge law firm finally saw the opening to cause the RIAA and assc. companies some major pain.
Deal with facts people, this case is not going to deal with Fair-Use Rights. This case will likely be based on the simply premise that the recording companies are mislabeling the things they sell and furthurmore being secretive about it from the public.
Copy-Crippled PCC's (Polycarbonate Coated Circles.. note I didn't call them CD's) are not CD's, they will not work in a large array of CD capable player devices, and might actually harm some of those devices. This case will likely set out to prove that the Recording Industry did not make a good faith effort to explain the limitations and possible dangers of their product, which misleadingly looks like all of their older, but different products. The RIAA will likely loose this lawsuit. All that remains to be seen is how much the law firm makes them pay.
Somedays I wish this country wasn't so litigious in nature, but others I figure out that its the only thing holding back huge mega-corporations from totally screwing us.