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RIAA Says "Don't Expect DRMed Music To Work Forever"

Posted by timothy on from the just-ask-what-and-whether-you're-buying-or-renting dept.

Oracle Goddess writes "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later, is fair, writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office. 'We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works.' In other words, if it stops working, too bad. Not surprisingly, Metalitz also strongly opposes any exemption that would allow users to legally strip DRM from content if a store goes dark and takes down its authentication servers."

4 of 749 comments (clear)

  1. Illegal by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So they're knowingly defrauding the buyer by intentionally selling something not fit for purpose?

    I assume our wise and courageous Justice Department will hand down indictments any minute!

  2. Seriously? by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Record sales are slowing down, and you are trying to cash in on the digital economy. How do you go about it? Well, if you're the RIAA, you publicly come out and announce to everyone that you are going to sell them a product that can arbitrarily stop working. Ugh, I really hope that the RIAA is not long for this world. Oh, and if they start getting bailout money I am leaving the country, mark my words. They have undermined their own business and they deserve to fail.

    --
    To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  3. They are Goblins. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Everyone knows that when a muggle or a wizard buys a goblin made object, it is not really sold. It is licensed to the user but eventually it should be returned to the maker.

    "You don't understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs."

    "But if it was bought ---"

    "---then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard. [snip] I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it [the Sword of Gryffindor] ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft."

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Re:Forever? by blackraven14250 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is basically the reason why Image Comics was formed. They (Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and some others) decided they weren't gonna give up the rights to their own creations to Marvel, so they formed what is essentially only a publisher of comics, not the typical publisher-studio combo that DC and Marvel are. They then became one of the top 4 comic publishers in the US because they were only publishers.

    So, why doesn't someone try following their lead in the music industry?