Timothy Stockman;212513 Wrote: > Apparently the RIAA, at least as demonstrated by their actions, feels > that one has to have the CD in their possesion to be allowed to play > the sounds from that CD.
It's not the RIAA, it's Congress, and no one cares about the CD. The CD merely represents the license you have to listen to the music you purchased on that medium. When you purchase music online, with or without DRM, the file represents the license granted to you by the copyright holder. Copyright law defines who owns the rights to a work, and how they go about granting use rights (listening, performance, derivative works, fair use, etc.) to others. > ...the RIAA agreement requires XM to store all the physical CDs, even > though XM pays the RIAA when they air them, anyway. (I don't remember > normal radio stations being under that restriction from my days in > radio.) Terrestrial broadcasters were granted an exception -- statutory rights -- to broadcast music WITHOUT an explicit grant from the copyright holders, as long as they paid a royalty to the performer and composer. The royalty is set by the Copyright Royalty Board and is collected and disbursed through a company called SoundExchange. XM and Sirius did not qualify for the statutory rights program due to the special license they were granted to use their radio spectrum. The reached a separate agreement to license the music they play. > ...I guess more progressive recording types realize that, for most > intents, we're on the honor system anyway these days. You've always been on the honor system. The mechanisms to copy and distribute tapes and CDs have been around for a very long time. It's just that the economics of breaking the law were very high -- the time, effort, and cost involved in duplicating a CD and sending it to 10,000 of your very best friends was simply too high. Now, with the costs of sharing a CD with millions of people approaching zero, it makes it trivial to break the law and otherwise honest people seem to have no problem with actively doing so. And just to head off the whole "well, don't you drive over the speed limit? that's illegal too!" argument, I'm *very* well aware of the choices we each make and believe you are free to make yours. I'm not condemning anyone for choosing to upload or download music without a license; I am simply pointing out that in the U.S. it is illegal to do and people who would NEVER walk into a store and steal a CD seem to have no problem doing exactly the same thing online. No moral/ethical judgment there, just the facts. -=> Jim -- JimC ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JimC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=36487 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
