Saturday, February 18, 2006

Something wicked this way comes.


Look at the coming revolution. And be afraid - be very afraid. Hot among the news that Music Copywriters will soon be looking to sue people who put lyrics of their favourite songs on the internet, here is news that Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has done an about face, and now "has reversed its position on CD ripping and now wants the practice outlawed."

Readers comments include the following gem outlining how ridiculous the situation could get.

For example, I own a LP of Led Zeppelin II, I want to play it in my car, I would have to purchase the cassette of it (this is in the 80's). Now, I want to play it in my truck (now) I have to buy it on CD (again buying it) Yesterday my girlfriend gave me a MP3 player. To play Led Zeppelin II the way THEY claim is legal, i have to buy the media AGAIN... That is FOUR copies of The Lemon Song....

and a possible outcome....

The RIAA can eat me
I used to buy a couple of CDs or more every pay day. Now, those greedy maggots are turning on their own customers. I have almost completely quit buying music at all. I've got hundreds of CDs, had to buy extra storage for them...and now they claim I don't have the right to copy them to a digital player for my own use. I hope their entire industry goes bankrupt!

Also from Kiwiblog, David Links to a fellow NZ blogger who sees a day when the internet will no longer be a free and frank medium of exchange, because corporations want to limit speeds and services for their subscribers, depending on what other services they can on-sell. An example of this sort of thing is not being able to use a P2P shareware program on one ISP, but being able to do so on another.

I heard some time ago that Telecom were looking into ways of slowing down Skype "packets" to stop this technology being used on Xtra, in competition to Telecoms own fixed wire network. Now in fairness, this was second hand information, but it did ring true at the time.

My point is that sometimes this World Wide Web poses "issues" to telecomunications companies - and they will try to limit these effects as people develop new and emerging technologies if they impact on their bottom line.

The battles for future freedoms may not be fought in the trenches, or a battlefield, but against telecommunication companies all over the world, by people who refuse to let them strip away their rights without a fight.

Never take for granted the freedoms we have now, or we may lose them forever.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rock stars already have lots of money, this is a fact, they dont need any more, if we pay for music they will just waste the extra money on more hummers/ferraris/bentlys/castles/drugs.
This is the reason i stoped paying for music a long time ago, giving them money just encourages them to continue acting like giant asses. so i agree with mark the riaa can get bent.

quote " yesterday my girlfriend gave me an MP3 player" Mark is this the russian girl? is there something your not telling us?

Anonymous said...

I agree with IG... sort of... I wouldnt pay for any of the music he downloads either!

Anonymous said...

Yeah! What Tyler said!

We know where you live!

Mark J said...

The comments in itallics were quotes from the web - not me.
While it may be true that laws concerning ownership have not changed with new technology - the direction the "fatcats" have taken ensure that you will have to licience multiple copies of music for different media.
I believe that having parted with you hard earned cash (on an over priced product - if you compare it to a DVD)you deserve to listen to that on any medium you own.
Conversely- if you get caught downloading music you dont own - then I dont have any sympathy for you. IG - the RIAA now know where YOU live.
As as for Telecom - I agree with Tyler - no more thinly veiled attacks. Any further attacks will be less thinly veiled.