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Cuban Says RIAA Damages Should be $5 Per Month
Thomas Hawk writes "Mark Cuban is arguing over at Blog Maverick that with the introduction of Yahoo!'s new $5 per month music service that this needs to become the new de facto 'damages' that the RIAA ought to be able to claim when suing kids. After all, when the kids could have paid for the music via Yahoo! for $5 a month it makes it hard to say the music loss is worth more than that. 'The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They cant claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine.'"
But uploading a song is not a crime in any real sense of the word. If I lend you a book, and you make illegal photocopies from that book, I'm not a criminal for allowing you to borrow it.
Changa hates change.
A bunch of music for five bucks a month?
Where do I sign up?
Hmm. No Canadians allowed. No problem, I'll just lie about my address. It took it?! GREAT!
Okay, now how the hell do I play the tunes? Apparently, you need a special player. Which works on neither Linux nor Win98.
This service just got unbearably expensive. Anybody have a workaround? A Linux player would be ideal.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?