[sdiy] WTO + WIPO = DMCA (fwd)

[Peter Snow]

Hi list,
Coupla days ago someone at work pointed me to a website that was a sort of online petition site.
They were decrying the recent initiative by most of the big music companies to put some kind of
sonic crap in music CDs that would prevent them from being played in a CD-ROM drive (and thus
prevent copying, in blatant contradiction to the end user's fair use rights). 

This seems to be an extension of the despicable law which says that because I buy a blank CD to back
up my data, I am a criminal who is going to make a copy of a music CD and distribute it to all my
friends, thus bilking the music industry out of millions of dollars.  As punishment for this
fictitious criminal act I must pay a certain percentage on top of the base price which goes to the
music industry to compensate them for my heinous act.  The same happened with DATs a while back -
every time I popped a new 4mm DAT in my tape backup drive at work I was heartened to know that
Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, et al were getting a chunk of my change.

What was interesting was that the only holdout against this is Philips the Dutch electronics giant. 
They are firmly on the side of the consumer.  What's more they also own the copyright to the CD logo
that appears on every CD and are threatening legal action against any music company that sells
crippled CDs with the CD logo on it.  They are suggesting also that any such CDs be sold in a
separate bin at the record store clearly labelled that they are crippled CDs and not "real" CDs,
together with a warning that they will not play on many CD-ROM players.

According to one industry expert this will have one of two effects - the other music companies will
back off and let the whole sordid mess disappear with as little fuss as possible, or it will sound
the death knell for CDs as we know them today.  I don't know what will replace them - Sony's
Minidisc?

Now if I could just remember the URL....Arrrrrgh! Oh well, here's another one on the same topic.

	http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t287-s2102775,00.html

Good for Philips - they'll get my $'s next time I buy any electronic gear.