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

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."

Comments

Is he a goblin? (harry potter reference)

[sckeener]

He sounds like a goblin from the Harry Potter books, the last book in fact. Goblins in that universe think that only the creator owns something and everyone else is renting the item. They strongly dislike the practice of humans passing heritage items down the family tree and think that when the 'renter' dies such items should be returned to their creator. (ok...I geeked out a bit there...and yeah, I've read the books too many times....)

It's this type of attitude

[Flipao]

That's pushing me towards never, ever purchasing anything in a way that allows the RIAA and the companies they represent to make a dime off it.

No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so

Of course the difference here is you own the "computer or electronic device" and are solely responsible for it, this means you have the legal right and means to keep it working whereas when you're licensing a piece of media subject to DRM protection you depend on the distributor and/or copyright holder for the ability to reproduce it.

They know DRM cripples music and they know people will have to pay multiple times for it and they couldn't be happier about it.

I will dance over their graves.