That sentence was in the ruling (PDF), but that was not the basis for the overturning of the DNC list. The ruling does, in fact, say that Congress never told the FTC it could do this. Congress seems to disagree on this, so I think we'll get our list one way or another, just not as soon as we had hoped.
That sentence had to do with a different issue addressed in the DMA's complaint, which had to do with telemarketers charging pre-acquired account numbers, instead of getting them directly from the callee. The judge ruled for the FTC on that issue.
Apples and oranges. You're comparing the fleeting hearing of a song on the radio (after which point it's gone), with the download of the same song which you can keep, burn, take with you, and hear any time you want. Not the same thing.
With Rhapsody, leaving the download/burn part out of it, you get better-than-radio functionality (hear a particular song streaming any time you want) for $9.99/month. If you believe that this functionality is worth 7 cents per song, then you only have to listen to 5 songs a day to get your money's worth out of Rhapsody. Yet it's considered a joke because they charge extra for downloads/burns. Well, yeah! That's because it's worth more burnt on CD than streaming to you as with radio.
I think $1/song is fine. Only artists can change the economy of the recording industry by refusing to sign ridiculous contracts, so there's really no use complaining about that.
Unfortunately, the Audio Home Recording Act (which you are describing above) is trumped by the No Electronic Theft Act, which basically says that if you are "willfully" sharing more than $1000 worth of music ($1000 / $15/CD * 12 songs/CD ~= 800 songs), even without profit motive, you are considered to be infringing. (And if it's $2500 worth, or 2000 songs, it's a felony.)
Of course, "willfully" is a pretty vague term, and I imagine that proving it in court (like in the case of the 12-yr-old New Yorker) would be difficult. Which is why the RIAA is trying to settle all these cases, at costs which are non-trivial, but cheaper than hiring a lawyer to actually fight. They will probably choose to prosecute a select number of cases that fall into the "felony" area just to make a point.
People are repeatedly focusing on the wrong thing. The RIAA can't go after downloaders; they can only go after the publishers, the people sharing the music. They want the sources to dry up.
That's what they (Sprint) told me, too. Then, I called their service department with a question about my account, and guess what one of the pieces of information they needed to verify my identity was?
I realize that this column is mostly about identity theft, but is anyone else bothered by the idea that the USPS, given specific instructions to hold your mail, can just go ahead and deliver it, and then not be responsible for the screw-up (and the resulting havoc)?
Couldn't you sue them if that happened? There are damages involved here, so I don't see why they can get away with it.
I buy a lot of CDs (yeah, I'm a sucker, what can I say?), and I still haven't seen a US-based copy-protected CD, but I've recently purchased three imports (one each from Australia, Germany and France) which were very clearly labelled as such. (I didn't know they would be copy-protected when I plunked down money for them, and I've been able to make perfectly good MP3s of the contents from the analog source.)
Neither disc has the CD logo on it, and both had very large stickers on the shrink-wrap with this logo on it and descriptions of what it meant, and what systems you should be able to play it on. (Since I refused to install the software necessary to actually play these on a computer, I have no idea how well they work in that respect.)
I'm certainly going to avoid these from here on out if I can. I've noticed that amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr and amazon.de will occasionally note that a disc is copy-protected, so I'm going to check there first before buying from here on out.
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That sentence had to do with a different issue addressed in the DMA's complaint, which had to do with telemarketers charging pre-acquired account numbers, instead of getting them directly from the callee. The judge ruled for the FTC on that issue.
With Rhapsody, leaving the download/burn part out of it, you get better-than-radio functionality (hear a particular song streaming any time you want) for $9.99/month. If you believe that this functionality is worth 7 cents per song, then you only have to listen to 5 songs a day to get your money's worth out of Rhapsody. Yet it's considered a joke because they charge extra for downloads/burns. Well, yeah! That's because it's worth more burnt on CD than streaming to you as with radio.
I think $1/song is fine. Only artists can change the economy of the recording industry by refusing to sign ridiculous contracts, so there's really no use complaining about that.
Of course, "willfully" is a pretty vague term, and I imagine that proving it in court (like in the case of the 12-yr-old New Yorker) would be difficult. Which is why the RIAA is trying to settle all these cases, at costs which are non-trivial, but cheaper than hiring a lawyer to actually fight. They will probably choose to prosecute a select number of cases that fall into the "felony" area just to make a point.
People are repeatedly focusing on the wrong thing. The RIAA can't go after downloaders; they can only go after the publishers, the people sharing the music. They want the sources to dry up.
That's what they (Sprint) told me, too. Then, I called their service department with a question about my account, and guess what one of the pieces of information they needed to verify my identity was?
So yeah, they're holding onto it.
I realize that this column is mostly about identity theft, but is anyone else bothered by the idea that the USPS, given specific instructions to hold your mail, can just go ahead and deliver it, and then not be responsible for the screw-up (and the resulting havoc)?
Couldn't you sue them if that happened? There are damages involved here, so I don't see why they can get away with it.
Neither disc has the CD logo on it, and both had very large stickers on the shrink-wrap with this logo on it and descriptions of what it meant, and what systems you should be able to play it on. (Since I refused to install the software necessary to actually play these on a computer, I have no idea how well they work in that respect.) I'm certainly going to avoid these from here on out if I can. I've noticed that amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr and amazon.de will occasionally note that a disc is copy-protected, so I'm going to check there first before buying from here on out.