Colleges Secretly Test Music-Industry Project

An anonymous reader writes "The music industry is still pushing Choruss, a controversial blanket-licensing scheme, but it is far less innovative than first described. Six colleges are setting it up now, but they refuse to have their names released because the issue is a political landmine — and who wants to be associated with the recording industry?"

Comments

Blanket licensing is never legal

[erroneus]

The Canadians have their blank CD tax ostensibly because blank CDs are used to copy music. Great. But is it then legal to copy music in Canada? No. How does that even work?!

Doing this other blanket licensing stuff will enjoy similar respect in that anything acquired will be decidedly illegal until proven otherwise and even with proof, there is little doubt in my mind the recording industry will respect it as legal.

Re:Blanket licensing is never legal

[TrancePhreak]

Last I heard it was legal in Canada to make a copy of a borrowed CD for yourself, as long as you don't sell it. This was the basis for the CD taxes.

Re:Blanket licensing is never legal

[DeadDecoy]

The music industry created a loophole in Canadian copyright laws when it asked for a levy on blank audio media. These $0.21 to $0.24 levies on blank media raised millions of dollars for music publishers, but also legalized copying in the digital age, to the consternation of the music industry. Canadian courts have ruled that consumers have the right to copy any recording from the original copy even those they do not personally own. This consumer right has been extended by the courts to include peer-to-peer downloads.

Canadian Copyright Law
So Canadians are allowed to make copies regardless of ownership because they are already taxed for it.

Re:Music's worth it; labels aren't.

[hairyfeet]

If we had a free market and sane copyright terms I would agree with you. The way I usually end any argument about "artists rights" and the *.A.As is this-

Steamboat Willie is STILL under copyright. The man has been worm food (or a Popsicle, depending on whom you believe) for going on half a century but one of his FIRST works, one made when airplanes were made out of cloth and antibiotics were still but a dream, is STILL under copyright.

If we hadn't had the public domain stolen from us thanks to treasonous bribery we all could go to a nice public domain website and download all the music up to the mid 70s for absolutely free. Artists could use that material to create new and exciting works by remixing, sampling, and using snippets in their original compositions. Instead thanks to treasonous bribery in all likelihood your grandchildren, if they are very lucky and live to be VERY old, might actually one day see the music of Jimi Hendrix and the Stones make it into the public domain. That is of course if that damned mouse doesn't cause copyrights to simply be extended forever, again thanks to bribery.

So while I haven't heard shit from an RIAA artist I would bother even stealing, I say if you like it please steal the fuckers. After all they have stolen from you, me, our children, our families, by robbing our public domain from us to fill their greedy pockets. The copyright system was a CONTRACT nothing more. In return for a LIMITED copyright We, The People, got a richer public domain. But the contract has been broken, and until We, The People, are again allowed a place at the bargaining table all rights granted by that contract should be ignored. Considering they are ignoring our end of the contract, why shouldn't we do the same?