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Originally posted by Hagal
A couple of questions for the group for which I would like your thoughts:
1. What legitimate reason have the powers that be lengthened copyright protection (twice) from the original 20 yrs. to now 75 yrs?(don't quote me on the years, it doesn't really matter if the numbers are accurate) |
In a nutshell, prior copyright law held that a copyright was for 28 years, renewable. Currently, copyright law holds that a copyright exists for 70 years *AFTER* the death of the copyright holder (one of the things I"d like to know is whether a corporation, which is a copyright holder, can hold a copyright for the duration of its existence, even if that means a term of copyright lasting for centuries). The original intent of of IP law and copyright was to protect the profit-making abilities of the creator of the work in question, so that he (not being sexist but copyright law is pretty old and back then, women weren't allowed to own copyrights) could provide for his family. As an aside, there are a great number of copyrights held by estates.
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| 2. If I have music on cassette that I bought before CD's were available, do I have a legal right to download songs from that cassette? |
No. You have the legal right to back up the music on your cassette into a digital format (be it CD or WAV/OGG format (note: unless you have a license from the folks at MP3, you actually don't have the legal right to create MP3 files from such content, due to copyright restrictions)) but you can't download the same content. Same line of reasing as, for instance, you downloading files to replace a CD that became damaged, was stolen, lost in an accident/fire, etc.
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| 3. If the answer to 2. is yes, then a viable reason for sharing copyrighted content is to allow folks to upgrade the quality of their existing library. |
N/A, as the answer to 2 was no.
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4. How am I to fully evaluate music for purchase if:
a) I can get a whopping 30 secs from any Amazon.com type site
b) If I open a CD I can't return it except for another copy of the same CD (at most music stores)
c) ClearChannel and other conglomerate corporations control all the broadcast media and limit my opportunity to hear new and different music
d) Listen.com and the like has an astronomically small fraction of actual music and most of it is not downloadable (try it, I did.)
e) Musicmatch et.al. doesn't let you identify a particular song to listen to (if it's not in their approved library)
f) Labelling of music doesn't provide much insight into its content or quality
g) Listening to entire records in music stores on well-used and often icky (technical term) headphones isn't a particularly viable or pleasant experience and is often limited to the cd's of the store's choosing |
Ah, here's where RIAA et al. aren't allowing the press to fully report on the issue. Also, consider the plight of the disabled, who aren't even able to have as many choices as you presented. Not to mention the outrageous price of new CDs ($20 for a CD, of which you'll
maybe like
one song...)
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| 5. Isn't it interesting that given all of the above, I'm expected to worry about the copyright holders? |
What I find more interesting is that the copyright holders aren't really benefitting that much from all this, given the relatively minuscule percentage that the artist receives in royalties from sales of copyrighted works....
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| 6. I would like punitive damages for all the crappy a** songs I now OWN a license to, having bought full cd's, only to find I despise most of the songs on it. The RIAA owes me some money or some quality music (I have the $10,000 worth of CD's to prove it.) |
See my response to #5, above. =)