Posted by Citizen Bob on 10/31/06 12:31

Scarey Tech - Just In Time for Halloween

Things that go beep in the night
By Peter Lewis, Fortune senior editor

Recording Madness

Remember "Reefer Madness," the 1950s scare flick intended to warn
teenagers about the danger of marijuana? One puff, and suddenly you're
a motorcycle hoodlum. And now, half a century later, comes the
Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.) with its own
horror film for teens, called "Campus Downloading." In the video,
college students are warned that they could get kicked out of school
and charged as criminals for - gasp - downloading music without
permission or without paying a "fee." Copying? Communist! Burn a mix
disc for your girlfriend, and you'll burn in copyright hell.

The scary thing is, the R.I.A.A. seems to have no concept of fair use.
And what's this banshee wail that consumers don't really buy and own
digital music, but rather only license the use of it for a fee? Silly
me, I thought I was buying music online and that I could do anything I
want with it. I must be a dope-head. And hey, you'd think the RIAA
would be able to find some decent music for the video, but nooooo.


--

"First and last, it's a question of money. Those men who own the earth
make the laws to protect what they have. They fix up a sort of fence or
pen around what they have, and they fix the law so the fellow on the
outside cannot get in. The laws are really organized for the protection of
the men who rule the world. They were never organized or enforced to do
justice. We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the
world."
--Clarence Darrow

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