My point was that you have absolutely no basis for which you can conclude that this legislation will be "wasteful government spending".
Will the execution of the bill cost money? Yes, it will. Will the bill provide some tangible benefit? No, it won't. Ergo: wasteful spending.
It's not the government putting the labels on everything, it's the manufacturers. Exactly how does this cost the governement or equate wasteful spending?
Good question. First, the bill orders the FTC to adopt a regulation mandating warning labels. The mere adoption of such a regulation costs time and money. If that regulation is to have any effect, it must be enforced, and the enforcement also costs time and money. Voila. Wasteful government spending.
If anything, they could make it mandatory and if a company violates the legislation, they fine them. Herein lies my traffic cop analogy where the governemnt actually makes money.
Trust me: FTC enforcement of such a regulation would cost far more than fines generate.
I'm guessing that since you included this in your comment as a reply to my comment, that asserts that I am included in this grouping you have labeled "idiots".
I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
So tell me, what is it like to be the smartest person in the world?
Keep in mind that this proposal is one of the few that can slow down the push for mandated copy protection standards. How much do you think that will cost?
Be ashamed. That's a silly straw-man argument. There is no reason to think that this bill would have any relationship to a hypothetical future regulatory bill, and even if it did that doesn't mean frivilous expense today is acceptable.
This bill is just another dumb idea. That's how our system works: we come up with a bunch of dumb ideas every legislative session, and a few good ones. Most of the time, the good ones become law and the dumb ones are forgotten.
Sorry, but that's not good enough. Even Philips is still uncertain exactly what does and what does not constitute Red Book compliance, so it would be impossible to prove that a manufacturer used the logo with the intent to deceive consumers.
Many stores won't allow returns of open cd's or games, they will only allow for exchanges for the same product.
Caveat emptor, right? Before you buy something, find out what the store's return policy is first. This is common sense.
ie the iMacs and the drives being unopenable
I saw a few of these some months ago. They CD's in question were easily removed by rebooting the Mac and holding down the mouse button during startup. The forces the Mac to eject all removeable media, and it worked fine for these CD's.
Each consumer can take these big manufacturers to small claims courts, but that is also not an effective use of our judicial system.
Of course it is. That's exactly what our small claims judicial system is for. If this were happening on a large scale, a class action would be a better way to go for all involved, but of course both the small claims and the class action routes presume that the manufacturer has some kind of liability here. It doesn't seem to me that that's the case at all.
Being that this is a republic we live in, (not a democracy), you have no direct say in what the government's business is or is not.
So... what? Opinions are forbidden now? Of course not.
Besides, I'm not telling Congress that this issue is none of their business; I'm quite certain that they know this already: this bill will not become a law. I'm telling you, and all the other people in this thread who immediately logged on to voice their approval.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a corporation has an inalienable right to sell non-labeled CDs.
Nowhere does it say that it doesn't, either. The Constitution wisely stands mute on the whole question.
And I say, if you buy a disc that you find is copy protected or it damages your computer or whatever, then too bad.
First of all, the "damages your computer or whatever" thing is just a myth. If you buy a CD that's copy protected, and you're unhappy about that, return it. If the store won't accept your return, then you should have checked their policy before you bought the CD.
There are reasonable limits to what the government should and shouldn't regulate. Baby food made from old gym mats: regulate. Copy protected CD's: don't regulate.
They are being deceptive, in some cases even using the CD logo on their packaging.
Two issues: one, deceptive practices, and two, the CD logo. Let's deal with them separately.
Is there anything deceptive going on here? No. Yes, copy-protected CD's look just like regular CD's, but only because form follows function. If they looked any different, they wouldn't work.
As for the logo, Philips has the exclusive right to say who can and who can't use that logo. Philips, not the government. If Philips says that copy-protected CD's can be branded with the CD logo, then they can be, and that's that.
This is wrong, this must be fixed, and I really don't care about the CD manufacturers.
It's only wrong if Philips says it is, because Philips gets to say who can and can't use the CD logo. And if it needs to be fixed, we already have a system in place to do so. And it's not about CD manufacturers; it's about unnecessary and wasteful government regulation.
If they won't behave properly, make them. That is what laws and the government are for.
You and I have a completely different idea of what laws and government are for. Laws and government are for the things that we, as citizens, can't take care of for ourselves. Because a framework already exists to deal with this problem-- Philips is free to license the CD logo to anybody it chooses, or to withdraw that license any time it chooses-- there is no justification for getting the government involved.
Philips can remove the license to those that choose to break the Red Book specification, and they have said they will. However they don't appear to be following through.
That's their choice. If Philips wants to revoke the licenses of those manufacturers, they can. If they don't want to, they don't have to. There is no reason for the government to get involved in something that is already being resolved to the satisfaction of both parties through the existing framework.
At that point consumers have no protection from the practice.
Consumers require no protection from this practice. Consumer protection by the FTC is, and should be, reserved for things that affect health and safety. If CD's were exploding and killing people, the FTC would have a reason to get involved. But this? This is just silliness.
I don't know whether you mean to or not, but you seem to imply that this is some kind of closely guarded secret. Every American with a junior-high-school education knows the difference between a republic and a democracy, and that the United States of America is a republic. And everybody with even slightly more education than that knows why.
Copy-protected "CD"'s are by definition, not Compact Discs. It should say so on the packaging, plain and simple.
You've got it backwards. Manufacturers should be prohibited form putting the compact disc logo on discs that don't meet the Red Book specification. (They are, in fact, already are, by the terms of their licensing agreement with Philips.) Manufacturers should not be required to put a label on their products that indicates it is not Red Book-compliant. That's just ridiculous.
If you want to be sure you're buying Red Book-compliant discs, look for the compact disc logo. If you buy a disc with that logo on it that isn't Red Book-compliant, then complain to the manufacturer and to Philips, not to the government. It's none of their business.
There has to be some enforcment of either removing the cd logos or labeling them as defective or whatever.
There already is. Philips licenses the compact disc logo to manufacturers. If those manufacturers put that logo on discs that don't meet the Red Book specification, Philips can choose to revoke their licenses.
At best benign, this law is completely unnecessary. At worst, it's incredibly wasteful at a time when deficit spending is already a serious concern.
The label of a product must be correct and not deceptive.
Generally speaking, that's true. But we don't need a new bill to enforce this measure; it's already on the books. If you find a CD that says "works in all players all the time no matter what" on it, and it doesn't, then you can sue the manufacturer.
An FTC regulation that requires manufacturers to stick a warning label on, however, is an entirely different thing. That's not truth-in-labeling; it's frivilous regulation.
This is not a warning label, this is correctly labeling a product.
Okay, fine. Mandatory addition of a correct label on a product is almost never a good idea. When health is an issue, mandatory labels are a generally a good idea. But something like this is just going to be more wasteful government spending. Either that or it's going to be unfunded and unenforced, which makes it instead just a colossal waste of time and effort.
Yes, goddammit! There should be a law against putting shortcuts on the desktop!
(For the sarcasm-impaired, the message being conveyed here is: chill, dude. Your response to the thing you're unhappy about is wildly disproportionate.)
Which Constitutional right does copy protection infringe upon, exactly?
I'm continually amazed by the number of people who invoke the Constitution are will, but who are unable to quote any part of it, even the preamble, from memory. Can you?
Guys, before you start hopping up and down about how great this would be, remember that we're talking about adding YET ANOTHER expensive and wasteful layer of bureaucratic regulation to our already absurdly litigious society.
Mandatory warning labels are almost never a good idea.
Nope, sorry. With all the current laws on streaming, expect to pay out the ass to be an internet radio station to do it legally.
Yes, you're right. I did a little reading to satisfy my own curiosity, and streaming a music broadcast over your company LAN would probably not be okay, either.
That's okay. None of these things is worth doing, anyway; you're there to work, not to listen to music.
How is streaming significantly different than just letting the employees access the music directly? You could still copy the stream, and then you're back at the same place.
You could set up a microphone and a tape recorder, too, but playing music in a public place is still okay. Broadcasting-- in the limited sense-- music for others to listen to is completely okay, despite the fact that it's technically possible to record that broadcast in ways that might or might not be okay. But handing out copies of your CD's for other people to listen to as they will is not okay.
Please stop spreading misinformation. You are absolutely wrong about everything you said in this post.
Enter your house without a warrant
The USA-PATRIOT act says nothing about this. However, police have always been able to enter your house without a warrant, under the right circumstances. The idea is called "exigency." Basically it means that under some circumstances the police are convinced that a crime is taking place, or will take place, and that going through the process of getting a warrant will put somebody's life in danger. In other words, if a policeman is walking by your door and hears "Help, help, I'm being murdered!" coming from inside your house, he can break your door down without getting a warrant.
This is not a new idea.
Tapping you phone without a court order
It is not legal to tap your phone without a warrant. The USA-PATRIOT act changes a few of the procedural issues around getting that warrant, procedural issues that were preventing law enforcement from getting warrants that were justified, but not granted due to a technicality in the law.
Putting you to jail for potentially eternity without even talking to justice, a lawyer or a phone call
The USA-PATRIOT act has nothing to say about this. Maybe you're confusing the USA-PATRIOT act with the individuals being held at Gitmo. Completely different issues.
This is the open door to a lot of crap!!!!!!
The only thing USA-PATRIOT opened the door to is a massive flood of ignorance.
Copyright only covers public distribution of copyrighted materials, not private. If I have a family of 5 people, and set up a server in my house to serve each of their computers music upon request, that is covered under fair use. Likewise with this corporation.
No, I don't think so. The law prohibits any distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works; there's no distinction in the statutes between public distribution and limited distribution. That means distribution is technically prohibited within your family, and certainly within a company.
Then what's your point? That's essentially what he's planning on doing.
That's absolutely not what he's planning on doing. Read the submission again. He's talking about setting up a repository, not a streaming server. Streaming server: okay. Repository: not okay.
The same kind of fuzzy logic which the RIAA bribed judges into accepting, to make Napster liable for the actions of its users.
Oh, boy. Naturally this had to turn into an anti-RIAA rant, didn't it?
The company wouldn't be breaking the law. Their actions fall under fair use.
Chapter and verse, please. If you think this class of use is non-infringing, please cite the statute that says so, or the court case that establishes a precedent for believing so.
Btw, copyright violation is a civil matter, not a crime.
It depends on the circumstances and on the value of the infringement. If I recall correctly, if you pirate-- illegally copy-- more than $1,000 worth of music in a 180-day period, it's a crime.
This entire non-sense with owning information is bullshit in the first place.
Oh, please. God forbid we should actually try to have a sensible discussion on Slashdot. I think we're looking at a new variation on Godwin's Law here. A discussion on the subject of copyright law will continue until one participant or the other says that "owning information is bullshit." At that point, the discussion is over.
OK, well how about streaming from a music repository???
As far as I know, streaming would be fine. I can't think of any legal problems that would arise from streaming, as long as great care is taken to make sure that the streams are not accessible from outside the company.
Because in the modern era, we have technology that can allow customization.
It was a rhetorical question.;-)
As I understand this scheme, it would not allow for the distribution of copyrighted music. It is completely internalized within the company.
It absolutely would allow for the distribution of copyrighted music. If I have read-access to the file server, I can copy the files off of the server. That's distribution.
Furthermore, I believe this guy is thinking of setting up a streaming system, which is not distributing copyrighted music.
Streaming would be fine. I can't think of anything wrong with streaming.
Btw, if one individual in the corporation does manage to distribute that music (despite the fact that it's streaming, which means the only way to do this would be to record direct-sound-output), then that person, not the corporation, would be liable.
No, the company would be liable. The company provided a facility not required for the normal conduct of business that made the act of distribution possible. The company-- actually, a person acting on behalf of the company-- set up the server, put the music on it, and clicked the button that said "Turn sharing on."
The corporation could remove all liability in these matters by having people sign a contract saying they won't do such before using the service, or, alternatively, by removing direct-sound-output recording programs and capabilities from their computers.
It would be a hell of a lot easier just to not break the law, rather than looking for complicated ways of indemnifying the company.
It's different because the company is providing a facility whereby copies of copyrighted songs can be distributed. All it takes is one instance of piracy, and the company is liable.
It *is* possible for more than one person to listen to a CD at a time. For example, I could sit in one cube and play a CD at loud enough volume for the person in the next cube to hear the music as well.
Then why don't they do that? If their motives are to facilitate anything other than just that model of use, they're on shaky legal ground at best, and almost certainly liable for damages.
Slashdot Mirror
My point was that you have absolutely no basis for which you can conclude that this legislation will be "wasteful government spending".
Will the execution of the bill cost money? Yes, it will. Will the bill provide some tangible benefit? No, it won't. Ergo: wasteful spending.
It's not the government putting the labels on everything, it's the manufacturers. Exactly how does this cost the governement or equate wasteful spending?
Good question. First, the bill orders the FTC to adopt a regulation mandating warning labels. The mere adoption of such a regulation costs time and money. If that regulation is to have any effect, it must be enforced, and the enforcement also costs time and money. Voila. Wasteful government spending.
If anything, they could make it mandatory and if a company violates the legislation, they fine them. Herein lies my traffic cop analogy where the governemnt actually makes money.
Trust me: FTC enforcement of such a regulation would cost far more than fines generate.
I'm guessing that since you included this in your comment as a reply to my comment, that asserts that I am included in this grouping you have labeled "idiots".
I calls 'em like I sees 'em.
So tell me, what is it like to be the smartest person in the world?
Immensely frustrating.
Keep in mind that this proposal is one of the few that can slow down the push for mandated copy protection standards. How much do you think that will cost?
Be ashamed. That's a silly straw-man argument. There is no reason to think that this bill would have any relationship to a hypothetical future regulatory bill, and even if it did that doesn't mean frivilous expense today is acceptable.
This bill is just another dumb idea. That's how our system works: we come up with a bunch of dumb ideas every legislative session, and a few good ones. Most of the time, the good ones become law and the dumb ones are forgotten.
This in my opinion is clearly intent to deceive.
Sorry, but that's not good enough. Even Philips is still uncertain exactly what does and what does not constitute Red Book compliance, so it would be impossible to prove that a manufacturer used the logo with the intent to deceive consumers.
There's simply no story here.
If we allow deceptive business practices...
Where is the intent to deceive?
Many stores won't allow returns of open cd's or games, they will only allow for exchanges for the same product.
Caveat emptor, right? Before you buy something, find out what the store's return policy is first. This is common sense.
ie the iMacs and the drives being unopenable
I saw a few of these some months ago. They CD's in question were easily removed by rebooting the Mac and holding down the mouse button during startup. The forces the Mac to eject all removeable media, and it worked fine for these CD's.
Each consumer can take these big manufacturers to small claims courts, but that is also not an effective use of our judicial system.
Of course it is. That's exactly what our small claims judicial system is for. If this were happening on a large scale, a class action would be a better way to go for all involved, but of course both the small claims and the class action routes presume that the manufacturer has some kind of liability here. It doesn't seem to me that that's the case at all.
Being that this is a republic we live in, (not a democracy), you have no direct say in what the government's business is or is not.
So... what? Opinions are forbidden now? Of course not.
Besides, I'm not telling Congress that this issue is none of their business; I'm quite certain that they know this already: this bill will not become a law. I'm telling you, and all the other people in this thread who immediately logged on to voice their approval.
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a corporation has an inalienable right to sell non-labeled CDs.
Nowhere does it say that it doesn't, either. The Constitution wisely stands mute on the whole question.
And I say, if you buy a disc that you find is copy protected or it damages your computer or whatever, then too bad.
First of all, the "damages your computer or whatever" thing is just a myth. If you buy a CD that's copy protected, and you're unhappy about that, return it. If the store won't accept your return, then you should have checked their policy before you bought the CD.
There are reasonable limits to what the government should and shouldn't regulate. Baby food made from old gym mats: regulate. Copy protected CD's: don't regulate.
They are being deceptive, in some cases even using the CD logo on their packaging.
Two issues: one, deceptive practices, and two, the CD logo. Let's deal with them separately.
Is there anything deceptive going on here? No. Yes, copy-protected CD's look just like regular CD's, but only because form follows function. If they looked any different, they wouldn't work.
As for the logo, Philips has the exclusive right to say who can and who can't use that logo. Philips, not the government. If Philips says that copy-protected CD's can be branded with the CD logo, then they can be, and that's that.
This is wrong, this must be fixed, and I really don't care about the CD manufacturers.
It's only wrong if Philips says it is, because Philips gets to say who can and can't use the CD logo. And if it needs to be fixed, we already have a system in place to do so. And it's not about CD manufacturers; it's about unnecessary and wasteful government regulation.
If they won't behave properly, make them. That is what laws and the government are for.
You and I have a completely different idea of what laws and government are for. Laws and government are for the things that we, as citizens, can't take care of for ourselves. Because a framework already exists to deal with this problem-- Philips is free to license the CD logo to anybody it chooses, or to withdraw that license any time it chooses-- there is no justification for getting the government involved.
Philips can remove the license to those that choose to break the Red Book specification, and they have said they will. However they don't appear to be following through.
That's their choice. If Philips wants to revoke the licenses of those manufacturers, they can. If they don't want to, they don't have to. There is no reason for the government to get involved in something that is already being resolved to the satisfaction of both parties through the existing framework.
At that point consumers have no protection from the practice.
Consumers require no protection from this practice. Consumer protection by the FTC is, and should be, reserved for things that affect health and safety. If CD's were exploding and killing people, the FTC would have a reason to get involved. But this? This is just silliness.
At least you're honest enough to admit it.
I don't know whether you mean to or not, but you seem to imply that this is some kind of closely guarded secret. Every American with a junior-high-school education knows the difference between a republic and a democracy, and that the United States of America is a republic. And everybody with even slightly more education than that knows why.
What the hell are you talking about? Not only is your analogy inapplicable, it's also wrong!
So Twirlip of the Mists... exactly which senator has employed you as his/her internet psycological camgaign expert?
I wish somebody would. I'm getting tired of educating you idiots for free.
Copy-protected "CD"'s are by definition, not Compact Discs. It should say so on the packaging, plain and simple.
You've got it backwards. Manufacturers should be prohibited form putting the compact disc logo on discs that don't meet the Red Book specification. (They are, in fact, already are, by the terms of their licensing agreement with Philips.) Manufacturers should not be required to put a label on their products that indicates it is not Red Book-compliant. That's just ridiculous.
If you want to be sure you're buying Red Book-compliant discs, look for the compact disc logo. If you buy a disc with that logo on it that isn't Red Book-compliant, then complain to the manufacturer and to Philips, not to the government. It's none of their business.
There has to be some enforcment of either removing the cd logos or labeling them as defective or whatever.
There already is. Philips licenses the compact disc logo to manufacturers. If those manufacturers put that logo on discs that don't meet the Red Book specification, Philips can choose to revoke their licenses.
At best benign, this law is completely unnecessary. At worst, it's incredibly wasteful at a time when deficit spending is already a serious concern.
The label of a product must be correct and not deceptive.
Generally speaking, that's true. But we don't need a new bill to enforce this measure; it's already on the books. If you find a CD that says "works in all players all the time no matter what" on it, and it doesn't, then you can sue the manufacturer.
An FTC regulation that requires manufacturers to stick a warning label on, however, is an entirely different thing. That's not truth-in-labeling; it's frivilous regulation.
Incidently, Canada is more of a "living and growing" democracy than the US, if you believe our PM.
Seems like a fair statement, seeing as how the United States is not now, nor was ever intended to be, a democracy.
This is not a warning label, this is correctly labeling a product.
Okay, fine. Mandatory addition of a correct label on a product is almost never a good idea. When health is an issue, mandatory labels are a generally a good idea. But something like this is just going to be more wasteful government spending. Either that or it's going to be unfunded and unenforced, which makes it instead just a colossal waste of time and effort.
Yes, goddammit! There should be a law against putting shortcuts on the desktop!
(For the sarcasm-impaired, the message being conveyed here is: chill, dude. Your response to the thing you're unhappy about is wildly disproportionate.)
Which Constitutional right does copy protection infringe upon, exactly?
I'm continually amazed by the number of people who invoke the Constitution are will, but who are unable to quote any part of it, even the preamble, from memory. Can you?
Guys, before you start hopping up and down about how great this would be, remember that we're talking about adding YET ANOTHER expensive and wasteful layer of bureaucratic regulation to our already absurdly litigious society.
Mandatory warning labels are almost never a good idea.
Nope, sorry. With all the current laws on streaming, expect to pay out the ass to be an internet radio station to do it legally.
Yes, you're right. I did a little reading to satisfy my own curiosity, and streaming a music broadcast over your company LAN would probably not be okay, either.
That's okay. None of these things is worth doing, anyway; you're there to work, not to listen to music.
How is streaming significantly different than just letting the employees access the music directly? You could still copy the stream, and then you're back at the same place.
You could set up a microphone and a tape recorder, too, but playing music in a public place is still okay. Broadcasting-- in the limited sense-- music for others to listen to is completely okay, despite the fact that it's technically possible to record that broadcast in ways that might or might not be okay. But handing out copies of your CD's for other people to listen to as they will is not okay.
Please stop spreading misinformation. You are absolutely wrong about everything you said in this post.
Enter your house without a warrant
The USA-PATRIOT act says nothing about this. However, police have always been able to enter your house without a warrant, under the right circumstances. The idea is called "exigency." Basically it means that under some circumstances the police are convinced that a crime is taking place, or will take place, and that going through the process of getting a warrant will put somebody's life in danger. In other words, if a policeman is walking by your door and hears "Help, help, I'm being murdered!" coming from inside your house, he can break your door down without getting a warrant.
This is not a new idea.
Tapping you phone without a court order
It is not legal to tap your phone without a warrant. The USA-PATRIOT act changes a few of the procedural issues around getting that warrant, procedural issues that were preventing law enforcement from getting warrants that were justified, but not granted due to a technicality in the law.
Putting you to jail for potentially eternity without even talking to justice, a lawyer or a phone call
The USA-PATRIOT act has nothing to say about this. Maybe you're confusing the USA-PATRIOT act with the individuals being held at Gitmo. Completely different issues.
This is the open door to a lot of crap!!!!!!
The only thing USA-PATRIOT opened the door to is a massive flood of ignorance.
Copyright only covers public distribution of copyrighted materials, not private. If I have a family of 5 people, and set up a server in my house to serve each of their computers music upon request, that is covered under fair use. Likewise with this corporation.
No, I don't think so. The law prohibits any distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted works; there's no distinction in the statutes between public distribution and limited distribution. That means distribution is technically prohibited within your family, and certainly within a company.
Then what's your point? That's essentially what he's planning on doing.
That's absolutely not what he's planning on doing. Read the submission again. He's talking about setting up a repository, not a streaming server. Streaming server: okay. Repository: not okay.
The same kind of fuzzy logic which the RIAA bribed judges into accepting, to make Napster liable for the actions of its users.
Oh, boy. Naturally this had to turn into an anti-RIAA rant, didn't it?
The company wouldn't be breaking the law. Their actions fall under fair use.
Chapter and verse, please. If you think this class of use is non-infringing, please cite the statute that says so, or the court case that establishes a precedent for believing so.
Btw, copyright violation is a civil matter, not a crime.
It depends on the circumstances and on the value of the infringement. If I recall correctly, if you pirate-- illegally copy-- more than $1,000 worth of music in a 180-day period, it's a crime.
This entire non-sense with owning information is bullshit in the first place.
Oh, please. God forbid we should actually try to have a sensible discussion on Slashdot. I think we're looking at a new variation on Godwin's Law here. A discussion on the subject of copyright law will continue until one participant or the other says that "owning information is bullshit." At that point, the discussion is over.
OK, well how about streaming from a music repository???
As far as I know, streaming would be fine. I can't think of any legal problems that would arise from streaming, as long as great care is taken to make sure that the streams are not accessible from outside the company.
Because in the modern era, we have technology that can allow customization.
;-)
It was a rhetorical question.
As I understand this scheme, it would not allow for the distribution of copyrighted music. It is completely internalized within the company.
It absolutely would allow for the distribution of copyrighted music. If I have read-access to the file server, I can copy the files off of the server. That's distribution.
Furthermore, I believe this guy is thinking of setting up a streaming system, which is not distributing copyrighted music.
Streaming would be fine. I can't think of anything wrong with streaming.
Btw, if one individual in the corporation does manage to distribute that music (despite the fact that it's streaming, which means the only way to do this would be to record direct-sound-output), then that person, not the corporation, would be liable.
No, the company would be liable. The company provided a facility not required for the normal conduct of business that made the act of distribution possible. The company-- actually, a person acting on behalf of the company-- set up the server, put the music on it, and clicked the button that said "Turn sharing on."
The corporation could remove all liability in these matters by having people sign a contract saying they won't do such before using the service, or, alternatively, by removing direct-sound-output recording programs and capabilities from their computers.
It would be a hell of a lot easier just to not break the law, rather than looking for complicated ways of indemnifying the company.
It's different because the company is providing a facility whereby copies of copyrighted songs can be distributed. All it takes is one instance of piracy, and the company is liable.
It *is* possible for more than one person to listen to a CD at a time. For example, I could sit in one cube and play a CD at loud enough volume for the person in the next cube to hear the music as well.
Then why don't they do that? If their motives are to facilitate anything other than just that model of use, they're on shaky legal ground at best, and almost certainly liable for damages.