On Tue, Dec 12, 2000 at 06:25:31PM +0100, Philip Newton wrote:
> Mark Fowler wrote:
> > Ah, but you have a computer. That can play videos downloaded from the
> > 'net. The net is a broadcast[1] medium.
> >
> > (thank god the BBC don't enforce this one)
>
> They've been thinking about doing this in Germany for quite a while -- that
> any computer connected to the Internet can also receive and reproduce
> television and radio signals.
>
> And then there's the bit about a sum of money per computer sold going to the
> company that deals with copyrights and distributes sums to musicians[2] etc
> -- recently there have been noises that they've been considering this
> seriously. Something along the lines of "computers are suitable for making
> illegal copies of copyrighted stuff and are, in fact, used for that
> purpose". Hence, anyone with a computer is automatically considered guilty
> of regularly using it for illegal copying.
>
This is probably due to the strength of Bertelsmann (spelling?).
I'm quite amazed that the record companies even care about napster.
Cd-recorders are a much bigger threat to revenue I'd have thought.
jp
