RIAA Marketing, Intellectual Property Righs, Napster, and You

[onlycatfud]

so i was thinkin the other day when i was waiting on my mad 2x burner to finish an audio CD when i was vexed by the question:

the question with mp3's and intellectual property rights in general is- who is breaking the law? napster? servers? the end user? napster in the 9th circut court of appeals tryed to argue the (sucessful) defence of blank VHS tape manufacturers, that they are were not responsable for the end users use of thier product and that there were many legal uses of thier product- this was called the 1984 Home Copyright Protection Act and was signed into law- the reason napster failed to argue it sucessfully is because the record companies somehow proved napsters intention was to distribute copyrighted materials, or at least didnt do enough to safeguard the intellectual property rights (like VHS's little write-protect tabs, not possible with MP3s).

second point i want to make is the privacy and legality of having to purchase MP3s- (which another post brought up) in order to purchase an mp3 some type of server or some type of regestration for the mp3s you own- this means the RIAA or whatever agency that would be established to distribute, track, and authorize the mp3's would have a record of every mp3 owned by every user-
this is the ultimate user regestration for the RIAA, they can know who wants what music in an unprecedented marketing utilization of a <b>plantiff's</b> court victory- they could use the defeat of napster not to stop current harms (because they are still looking for some) but moreover to aid thier marketing dept. the question is, does the RIAA want napster to stop giving thier music out online? or do they want to make every user regester every song they own to the RIAA's marketing dept? im waiting to see napster crack a deal of giving all thier user information and lists to the RIAA's marketing team in order to stop the court battles... you know the RIAA would have to consider it... heh...

http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif just a thought

-catfud

[skuz]

I doubt Napster would give users infos to RIAA : read N's license agreement.

If they did, RIAA seems so bright *ahem* they would have a hard time finding SKUZ in the phone directory, or contact someone whose email is a@b.com

[kenyg]

I think the RIAA really blew it. Napster was all set to pay them 200 million a year. If I were the RIAA, I would have signed that agreement, with a stipulation to re-evaluate after 12 months.

It's my understanding that FM radio stations pay 'royalties' or whatever - now I can record from the radio all I want - without having to purchase anything. I can listen to it on my walkman, in my car, if I want, I can convert to wav and mp3.

Honestly, it is copyrighted material. The artists have a right. The RIAA has a good point. But instead of trying to kill it - they should be trying to embrace the technology.

In the end, I think all the RIAA will have acheived, is bringing much more publicity to the MP3 format than anyone else could possibly done.

MP3 trading is not going to go away.

[Roy]

Thomas Middelhoff of BMG (Bertelsman Music Group), one of the "Big Five" RIAA Companies, is trying to persuade the others to embrace Napster and keep it running until July 1. That's when it is expected to launch a legal file-sharing service paid for by modest subscriptions.

He remembers how his business benefited from cassettes, and how movies make more from VCR rentals than at the Box Office. Even more interesting is his idea that "the Napster brand could find it's way onto game devices like the PlayStation".

People who think like this often get shot! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif