Re:And what exactly is the official, from Diebold
on
CNN Reports on Diebold
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· Score: 2, Interesting
There is no explanation, at least not one who would satisfy someone savvy enough to ask that question. Every time they've touched on the subject, it boils down to, "Trust us! They're secure, really! You don't NEED a paper trail, it's a waste of time and money, this Box is all you need."
I could go dig up quotes if you want, but that really is the gist of their argument. It usually focuses on how expensive and "unnecessary" paper verifcation would be.
Gotta agree with the A.C. Our economy is already filled to the brim with fake jobs. (by which I'm assuming you mean jobs that do not actually produce anything)
The problem, of course, being that too many of those in charge don't understand the need for the fake jobs.
Rather sounds like a meritocracy than a socialist state.
Actually, yes. Both. What little we hear about the social structure on Earth suggests that people voluntarily do good works in the interest of the greater good. (pulling this from the DS9 ep, don't remember the title, where Jake wants to buy a baseball card on auction for his dad, but has no clue how a hard-currency economy works. The discussion he and Nog have on their relative social structures is VERY illuminating if you read between the lines)
But regardless, if you're in a situation where both material and labor scarcity are no longer overriding factors, a capitialistic system simply becomes impossible to maintain. And there's no evidence in the series that the Captains and other high-ranking people perform their jobs out of anything more than a love of duty and the social perks their rank provides. And since we never hear about poverty on Earth (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's stated as having been wiped out), there has to be SOME sort of socialistic structure underlying it all, since there would never be enough "meritorious" jobs for the populace.
I was just posting up the short version since the discussion he and I had went on for a couple hours and could be the basis of a full-length paper.:-)
(And BTW, we aren't actually pathetic Star Trek geeks per se... Our interest in socio-political issues is far greater, and as such, Trek provided a great springboard for our talk because it contains lots of HINTS as to the social structure, but never spells anything out. Ergo, given this set of facts about Earth around the time of Ds9, what can we deduce about the political system?)
Heh. One time a friend and I, being political geeks more than Trek geeks, sat down and attempted to work out what sort of economy the 24th century has.
Why don't they talk about the Federation economy much? Because it's socialist. There's simply no other conclusion that can be drawn based on the information we have. Once you eliminate virtually all material scarcity, and population is clearly far greater than the available jobs, it's pretty much the only viable model left. And most of the "jobs" that people hold outside Starfleet are almost certainly voluntary. (IE, Daddy Sisko runs a cajun restaurant because he enjoys cooking for people, not because he needs to make money.)
Oh, and the Federation - or at least Earth - is actually a military-industrial state. Starfleet runs the show. But it's considered a benign dictatorship because most of the people receive a fine life gratis, and if they want to really DO something, well, they sign up for Service.
But, do you honestly think the number of people who would go to such lengths to get a free book would outnumber those who buy a book because they've verified it contains the information they want?
It's not like in your scenario, the publishers are losing hundreds in book sales. That same group of students would, logically, band together and buy ONE book to share otherwise.
The authors are being extremely short-sighted here. They might lose sales in a few instances, but the overall effect should be increased sales. Just think about it. Amazon is a bookSTORE. Not a library. Why would they go to what had to be enormous cost to implement a system like this if they didn't believe it to hold high potential for very significant sales boosts?
I dunno, all copyright issues aside, I find it rather heartening that a 14-year-old in our school system actually knows of the existance of Uzbekistan.
Of course, the question is whether he can find it on a map, or if he just looks for the.uz .
Let's draw an analogy to physical CD's. If you buy them in the US, you can then move abroad and play them. But you can't (legally) buy any more US-only CD's.
Uh.... HUH? There aren't export restrictions on CDs. And the only restrictions on DVDs are those which the DVD Consortium artificially imposed. Which is technically in massive breech of a number of international free-trade treaties.
But you're right about everything else. Perhaps Apple is a bad example, since they're at least trying to be the Good Guys here. But just as a matter of principle, I won't buy music which the copyright holder can suddenly decide to take away from me. Like those suckers who bought into MusicMatch (I think that's who), who later discovered that if they don't continue paying a monthly fee, all their paid-for music goes away.
It does suck, but it's also one more reason not to buy into these sort of DRMed schemes. That it's not Apple's fault and they're just following international IP law (which is torturously evil and complex, I know) is small comfort if you just lost the rights to hundreds of songs you paid for.
And again, just as a matter of principle, if you have the music (or video or whatever) in a hard copy, then any power they have to kill the files is gone.
Now, a more interesting question is, you download files. You burn them to CD. You move to Taiwan or someplace. Apple (or whoever) says, you're being naughty, you can't use those files anymore, and revokes your license to use them.
From what I understand, Apple is pretty good about re-licensing files to you in the event of a System crash or similar event. (this is going by things I read about the Mac iTunes, obviously).
What I'm curious about is whether the export restriction is still in effect. One truly NASTY bit in the contract people discovered was that if you move outside of the US, as soon as Apple finds out (the next time you log into the service) it nukes every one of your files, and no refund. If you haven't burned them, you're screwed. A couple guys lost hundreds of dollars in music because of that.
And that's another reason I strenuously object to any kind of DRM-based "licensing" of music that doesn't give me full Fair Use rights. It means the copyright owner has the right (or at the very least, the power) to take away the license at any time, because they feel like it, and I can't do anything but buy the White Album yet again.
But ownership makes no SENSE in a digital world...how can you OWN something that has no substance? And why would you SELL something that has no value?
Your silly, inflammatory flamebait aside, did it occur to you that this argument is entirely self-defeating? By that logic, if I don't have the right to own an electronic album, neither does the RIAA. Otherwise, if it has value to them to sell, then it has value to me to own and to resell.
Somehow, $1 a song does't quite seem like a rip off does it?
Once again, my concern is not with how they deliver the product to me. If the costs on their end are prohibitively high, then they need to find a different means of distribution.
At those prices, I am only paying *slightly* less for an electronic album than I would for the physical equivilent, and in exchange I'm losing A)Physical media, jewel case, liner notes, etc, B)sound quality, and C)fair use copying rights.
Ergo, no matter what THEIR problems may be, no it is is not a good deal for me, the end consumer. The only benefit to their model in the grand scheme is the ability to download single tracks, but even that is simply bringing back the idea of the "single," which the record companies quit doing specifically because they wanted people to buy full albums. So that's hardly a progressive move.
The thing is, noone buys AUDIO CDR's. We all buy DATA CDR's and record audio to them.
There are two ironies in this, really:
1)Because of the proliferation of data CDs that accept music tracks, effectively the ONLY people buying audio-only CDs are those who are least likely to be pirating. IE those in the industry producing music themselves. (well, and my roommate, who got a standalone pro-quality CD-audio burner for insanely cheap on clearance...:-) )
2)The RIAA still makes a decent amount off the surcharge, and REALLY cleaned up before data CDs became so common. There's no evidence in their financial reports that a cent of this money went to the artists.
But my initial point still stands. The AHRA dictates that we have Fair Use copying rights, and some people are paying for that right in the form of surcharges. Just because technology has shifted so that the RIAA isn't making as much off the surcharge as they used to doesn't mean that the law is invalidated. (and, in fact, generally speaking in law, older torts take precedents over newer ones. So when the RIAA gets around to suing someone for making a personal-use copy of a DRM'ed music track, that section of the DMCA is likely to get struck down because of the existance of the AHRA)
you just legally downloaded off of kazaa as you have the legal right to listen to that song because you bought a listening license when you purchased off itunes.
Nice idea in theory, but unfortunately, wrong. The court case against MP3.com awhile back (where they were letting people stream albums they had shown themselves to own) set the precedent that ANY digital copy is illegal unless you yourself rip it directly from your own physical copy. In the US, at least. I think Canada's laws make something like that legal.
You know what saddens me? People who don't pay the artist anything because they're upset about $1 a track, in a format that is superior to mp3 at the same bit rate.
Know what saddens ME? That the artists aren't savvy enough to stay away from predatory conglomerates which do everything in their power to ensure Artists stay poor and in debt no matter how well their music sells.
I give my money to independent labels that respect fair use rights. Other people do the same. Those labels get bigger. The artists see that those labels are a more attractive option. The artists sign with them instead of the RIAA. I profit, the labels profit, the artists profit, and the RIAA either crumbles or conceeds defeat and reorganizes.
You know, I love how someone ALWAYS brings up the argument that, in essence, "they can price it and do with it however they want, so if you don't want to play along, shut up and quit bothering me."
But you don't own it. You are licensing the rights to use it (within limits), but you do not own it.
Sorry, but a buck ain't enough money for full rights to do whatever you want with a music recording.
According to both legal tort and Supreme Court judgements, when I buy music or a video, I have full rights to do ANYTHING I want with it, so long as I don't redistribute copies or profit from copies or derivitive works. The RIAA and related companies are trying to alter that so that I, in essence, have NO right except to have the music enter my ear canals.
Are you arguing that my resell rights should be restricted as well? If you're going to say I only have the right to listen to the music, then I don't have the right to sell my CDs, do I?
And BTW, I'm not "standing on the sidelines," because I actively give my money to people who aren't the RIAA. Or are you saying that I'm only allowed to complain about them if I'm still giving them money?
Magnatune goes above and beyond in allowing for redistribution. I'm just happy that the music I download is *mine* and I can do what I want with it, for personal use, without restriction.
Your defeatist attitude is quite alarming. You appear to basically be saying, "Our corporate overlords have won, there's nothing we can do but bend over and smile." That sort of attitude could lead to the collapse of our society.
And I'm not just talking about music here. Look at how widely the DMCA can be stretched. If I buy an X-Box and hardware mod it, even for entirely legal purposes, if Microsoft finds out they'll sue me. Thanks to MS's legal practices, I am in effect merely *licensing* physical hardware from them (for a flat $200 fee), since they'll come after me if I use an X-Box for anything but playing their games.
Or printers? The way the current Lexmark cases are trending, it won't be legal for you to buy ink from anyone but the manufacturer themselves.
Or car companies. There aren't any big precedents YET, but a lot of them have been poking around trying to use the DMCA to stop individuals and independent shops from servicing vehicles. (Thankfully, so far, the courts have been stopping them from doing this) How about that, you buy a car, and you don't even have the right to repair it yourself?
The princple of First Sale has to be held INVIOLATE for a capitalistic system to work. Once you sell something, it is no longer yours, and you cannot control what happens to it. This would seem to be self-evident. The other alternative - allowing the ex-owner to dictate how their product is used - introduces a slow trend that, if left unchecked, would turn into some sort of hideous corporate Socialistic system where no one besides the Corporations actually owns anything.
So I object to anything like this, not just because I personally want the freedom to copy my music, but because the erosion of First Sale principles could ultimately destroy our system.
And living in a Corporate Feifdom, because I simply accepted the situation rather than speaking out, isn't my plan for the future.
The cheapest method is, by far, going to one of the many used music stores around here (I live n NYC so this is easy) and buying the CD's I want for $5. I get lossless recordings, no DRM, and it costs less.
But don't forget - if the labels get their way and manage to transition music to being a license-only product, your resell rights go away as well.
That's the subtext to a lot of these games. Even more than pirates, nothing would make the RIAA happier than to see used CD stores become illegal.
No it's not. You only say that because it's cheaper than the massively inflated price of most retail CDs. And even that's changing - Universal's new pricing virtually destroys any cost benefit to downloading, outside of the price of gas to drive to Best Buy.
Wow. That's a remarkably defeatist attitude. So are you claiming that the multitude of small online labels who offer exactly that, don't exist? I linked to one myself, they seem to be real. Not sure where my Shiva in Chains album came from otherwise. Did I send my money down a black hole? A time-space rift? Wow. That's creepy. I just disappeared money.
Or are you taking the attitude that the RIAA is going to rule forever, it will never fall, and music lovers everywhere will always be enslaved to whatever terms they dictate? Take a look at history if you believe that.
You just purchase a license to listen to the music.
Congratulations, you've swallowed the RIAA's propaganda. As a matter of law, unless you're dealing with encrypted CDs, you have full rights to make personal-use copies of music or videos you buy, and also to resell the original CD or other product. The only restriction is that you cannot distribute *copies* in any way without permission, or hold profitable public performances.
Part of the reason that the price is where it's at is the DRM, which helps alleviate the opportuniy cost of electronic downloads.
Translation: Awwww, the poor RIAA is losing money to pirates! So I have a social obligation to accept restrictions on my Fair Use rights so that they can continue to enjoy the profits they've gotten all along!
No.
Piracy isn't my problem. It's theirs. If they're losing money because of a flawed business model, I don't care. I'm not going to buy crippled products because they think screwing the *rest* of their customers is the best way to stay profitable.
I don't want the recording industry thinking in moral or social terms--I want them thinking of simple economics.
Well, that IS the problem. They are only thinking of *simple* economics. With absolutely no regard to the future, or sustaining their business model past next quarter. They are destroying themselves with these policies, allowing them to get away with them only encourages them, and unless they recognize that in this new electronic age, their way of doing business is *fundamentally flawed*, they will only continue hastening their descent down the drain.
Ergo, by refusing to support people who do this, and instead giving my money to small European labels and online sites that respect my Fair Use rights, I'm using my consumer powers to prop up business models which I believe hold better potential for the future than the RIAA.
Absolutely. At $1 per song, you're paying roughly the same price for an album as you would for it to be on CD, except that the audio quality is degraded and you don't (theoretically) have your copying\reuse rights you would from a physical disc.
Remember, while they may not enforce it, dumping a DRM'ed tune to CD, and then ripping the CD to MP3, constitutes a DMCA violation.
For some reason, corporations in this country seem to believe that they can tell the customer what to do, rather than the other way around.
Unfortunately, since they buy off Congress to get laws like the DMCA passed, and those laws DO control the consumers, that's defacto true. It's becoming a seriously distressing pattern - whenever the consumers do something the corporations don't like, instead of adjusting their business model to fit the new consumer demand, they just get the government to pass laws to force consumers to behave like they used to.
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I could go dig up quotes if you want, but that really is the gist of their argument. It usually focuses on how expensive and "unnecessary" paper verifcation would be.
The problem, of course, being that too many of those in charge don't understand the need for the fake jobs.
Actually, yes. Both. What little we hear about the social structure on Earth suggests that people voluntarily do good works in the interest of the greater good. (pulling this from the DS9 ep, don't remember the title, where Jake wants to buy a baseball card on auction for his dad, but has no clue how a hard-currency economy works. The discussion he and Nog have on their relative social structures is VERY illuminating if you read between the lines)
But regardless, if you're in a situation where both material and labor scarcity are no longer overriding factors, a capitialistic system simply becomes impossible to maintain. And there's no evidence in the series that the Captains and other high-ranking people perform their jobs out of anything more than a love of duty and the social perks their rank provides. And since we never hear about poverty on Earth (in fact, I'm pretty sure it's stated as having been wiped out), there has to be SOME sort of socialistic structure underlying it all, since there would never be enough "meritorious" jobs for the populace.
I was just posting up the short version since the discussion he and I had went on for a couple hours and could be the basis of a full-length paper. :-)
(And BTW, we aren't actually pathetic Star Trek geeks per se... Our interest in socio-political issues is far greater, and as such, Trek provided a great springboard for our talk because it contains lots of HINTS as to the social structure, but never spells anything out. Ergo, given this set of facts about Earth around the time of Ds9, what can we deduce about the political system?)
Why don't they talk about the Federation economy much? Because it's socialist. There's simply no other conclusion that can be drawn based on the information we have. Once you eliminate virtually all material scarcity, and population is clearly far greater than the available jobs, it's pretty much the only viable model left. And most of the "jobs" that people hold outside Starfleet are almost certainly voluntary. (IE, Daddy Sisko runs a cajun restaurant because he enjoys cooking for people, not because he needs to make money.)
Oh, and the Federation - or at least Earth - is actually a military-industrial state. Starfleet runs the show. But it's considered a benign dictatorship because most of the people receive a fine life gratis, and if they want to really DO something, well, they sign up for Service.
No, there is a problem, but it lies with those who've chosen to attempt to build a business upon a fundamentally insecure product.
But, do you honestly think the number of people who would go to such lengths to get a free book would outnumber those who buy a book because they've verified it contains the information they want? It's not like in your scenario, the publishers are losing hundreds in book sales. That same group of students would, logically, band together and buy ONE book to share otherwise. The authors are being extremely short-sighted here. They might lose sales in a few instances, but the overall effect should be increased sales. Just think about it. Amazon is a bookSTORE. Not a library. Why would they go to what had to be enormous cost to implement a system like this if they didn't believe it to hold high potential for very significant sales boosts?
Of course, the question is whether he can find it on a map, or if he just looks for the .uz .
She goes into absolutely horrifying detail on how the RIAA does everything it can to make sure their artists don't make money themselves.
Uh.... HUH? There aren't export restrictions on CDs. And the only restrictions on DVDs are those which the DVD Consortium artificially imposed. Which is technically in massive breech of a number of international free-trade treaties.
But you're right about everything else. Perhaps Apple is a bad example, since they're at least trying to be the Good Guys here. But just as a matter of principle, I won't buy music which the copyright holder can suddenly decide to take away from me. Like those suckers who bought into MusicMatch (I think that's who), who later discovered that if they don't continue paying a monthly fee, all their paid-for music goes away.
And again, just as a matter of principle, if you have the music (or video or whatever) in a hard copy, then any power they have to kill the files is gone.
Now, a more interesting question is, you download files. You burn them to CD. You move to Taiwan or someplace. Apple (or whoever) says, you're being naughty, you can't use those files anymore, and revokes your license to use them.
Are the files on your CD rendered illegal copies?
What I'm curious about is whether the export restriction is still in effect. One truly NASTY bit in the contract people discovered was that if you move outside of the US, as soon as Apple finds out (the next time you log into the service) it nukes every one of your files, and no refund. If you haven't burned them, you're screwed. A couple guys lost hundreds of dollars in music because of that.
And that's another reason I strenuously object to any kind of DRM-based "licensing" of music that doesn't give me full Fair Use rights. It means the copyright owner has the right (or at the very least, the power) to take away the license at any time, because they feel like it, and I can't do anything but buy the White Album yet again.
Your silly, inflammatory flamebait aside, did it occur to you that this argument is entirely self-defeating? By that logic, if I don't have the right to own an electronic album, neither does the RIAA. Otherwise, if it has value to them to sell, then it has value to me to own and to resell.
Once again, my concern is not with how they deliver the product to me. If the costs on their end are prohibitively high, then they need to find a different means of distribution.
At those prices, I am only paying *slightly* less for an electronic album than I would for the physical equivilent, and in exchange I'm losing A)Physical media, jewel case, liner notes, etc, B)sound quality, and C)fair use copying rights.
Ergo, no matter what THEIR problems may be, no it is is not a good deal for me, the end consumer. The only benefit to their model in the grand scheme is the ability to download single tracks, but even that is simply bringing back the idea of the "single," which the record companies quit doing specifically because they wanted people to buy full albums. So that's hardly a progressive move.
There are two ironies in this, really:
1)Because of the proliferation of data CDs that accept music tracks, effectively the ONLY people buying audio-only CDs are those who are least likely to be pirating. IE those in the industry producing music themselves. (well, and my roommate, who got a standalone pro-quality CD-audio burner for insanely cheap on clearance... :-) )
2)The RIAA still makes a decent amount off the surcharge, and REALLY cleaned up before data CDs became so common. There's no evidence in their financial reports that a cent of this money went to the artists.
But my initial point still stands. The AHRA dictates that we have Fair Use copying rights, and some people are paying for that right in the form of surcharges. Just because technology has shifted so that the RIAA isn't making as much off the surcharge as they used to doesn't mean that the law is invalidated. (and, in fact, generally speaking in law, older torts take precedents over newer ones. So when the RIAA gets around to suing someone for making a personal-use copy of a DRM'ed music track, that section of the DMCA is likely to get struck down because of the existance of the AHRA)
Nice idea in theory, but unfortunately, wrong. The court case against MP3.com awhile back (where they were letting people stream albums they had shown themselves to own) set the precedent that ANY digital copy is illegal unless you yourself rip it directly from your own physical copy. In the US, at least. I think Canada's laws make something like that legal.
Nice Kosh quote, BTW. Seems especially appropriate. Perhaps, "Listen to the MUSIC and not the song," works as well. :-)
Know what saddens ME? That the artists aren't savvy enough to stay away from predatory conglomerates which do everything in their power to ensure Artists stay poor and in debt no matter how well their music sells.
I give my money to independent labels that respect fair use rights. Other people do the same. Those labels get bigger. The artists see that those labels are a more attractive option. The artists sign with them instead of the RIAA. I profit, the labels profit, the artists profit, and the RIAA either crumbles or conceeds defeat and reorganizes.
But you don't own it. You are licensing the rights to use it (within limits), but you do not own it.
Sorry, but a buck ain't enough money for full rights to do whatever you want with a music recording.
According to both legal tort and Supreme Court judgements, when I buy music or a video, I have full rights to do ANYTHING I want with it, so long as I don't redistribute copies or profit from copies or derivitive works. The RIAA and related companies are trying to alter that so that I, in essence, have NO right except to have the music enter my ear canals.
Are you arguing that my resell rights should be restricted as well? If you're going to say I only have the right to listen to the music, then I don't have the right to sell my CDs, do I?
And BTW, I'm not "standing on the sidelines," because I actively give my money to people who aren't the RIAA. Or are you saying that I'm only allowed to complain about them if I'm still giving them money?
Your defeatist attitude is quite alarming. You appear to basically be saying, "Our corporate overlords have won, there's nothing we can do but bend over and smile." That sort of attitude could lead to the collapse of our society.
And I'm not just talking about music here. Look at how widely the DMCA can be stretched. If I buy an X-Box and hardware mod it, even for entirely legal purposes, if Microsoft finds out they'll sue me. Thanks to MS's legal practices, I am in effect merely *licensing* physical hardware from them (for a flat $200 fee), since they'll come after me if I use an X-Box for anything but playing their games.
Or printers? The way the current Lexmark cases are trending, it won't be legal for you to buy ink from anyone but the manufacturer themselves.
Or car companies. There aren't any big precedents YET, but a lot of them have been poking around trying to use the DMCA to stop individuals and independent shops from servicing vehicles. (Thankfully, so far, the courts have been stopping them from doing this) How about that, you buy a car, and you don't even have the right to repair it yourself?
The princple of First Sale has to be held INVIOLATE for a capitalistic system to work. Once you sell something, it is no longer yours, and you cannot control what happens to it. This would seem to be self-evident. The other alternative - allowing the ex-owner to dictate how their product is used - introduces a slow trend that, if left unchecked, would turn into some sort of hideous corporate Socialistic system where no one besides the Corporations actually owns anything.
So I object to anything like this, not just because I personally want the freedom to copy my music, but because the erosion of First Sale principles could ultimately destroy our system.
And living in a Corporate Feifdom, because I simply accepted the situation rather than speaking out, isn't my plan for the future.
But don't forget - if the labels get their way and manage to transition music to being a license-only product, your resell rights go away as well.
That's the subtext to a lot of these games. Even more than pirates, nothing would make the RIAA happier than to see used CD stores become illegal.
No it's not. You only say that because it's cheaper than the massively inflated price of most retail CDs. And even that's changing - Universal's new pricing virtually destroys any cost benefit to downloading, outside of the price of gas to drive to Best Buy.
Or are you taking the attitude that the RIAA is going to rule forever, it will never fall, and music lovers everywhere will always be enslaved to whatever terms they dictate? Take a look at history if you believe that.
You just purchase a license to listen to the music.
Congratulations, you've swallowed the RIAA's propaganda. As a matter of law, unless you're dealing with encrypted CDs, you have full rights to make personal-use copies of music or videos you buy, and also to resell the original CD or other product. The only restriction is that you cannot distribute *copies* in any way without permission, or hold profitable public performances.
But still, w00t to Apple for being mildly progressive.
Translation: Awwww, the poor RIAA is losing money to pirates! So I have a social obligation to accept restrictions on my Fair Use rights so that they can continue to enjoy the profits they've gotten all along!
No.
Piracy isn't my problem. It's theirs. If they're losing money because of a flawed business model, I don't care. I'm not going to buy crippled products because they think screwing the *rest* of their customers is the best way to stay profitable.
I don't want the recording industry thinking in moral or social terms--I want them thinking of simple economics.
Well, that IS the problem. They are only thinking of *simple* economics. With absolutely no regard to the future, or sustaining their business model past next quarter. They are destroying themselves with these policies, allowing them to get away with them only encourages them, and unless they recognize that in this new electronic age, their way of doing business is *fundamentally flawed*, they will only continue hastening their descent down the drain.
Ergo, by refusing to support people who do this, and instead giving my money to small European labels and online sites that respect my Fair Use rights, I'm using my consumer powers to prop up business models which I believe hold better potential for the future than the RIAA.
Remember, while they may not enforce it, dumping a DRM'ed tune to CD, and then ripping the CD to MP3, constitutes a DMCA violation.
For some reason, corporations in this country seem to believe that they can tell the customer what to do, rather than the other way around.
Unfortunately, since they buy off Congress to get laws like the DMCA passed, and those laws DO control the consumers, that's defacto true. It's becoming a seriously distressing pattern - whenever the consumers do something the corporations don't like, instead of adjusting their business model to fit the new consumer demand, they just get the government to pass laws to force consumers to behave like they used to.