Interesting People mailing list archives
RIAA wants your fingerprints
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 09:06 -0400
___ Dave Farber +1 412 726 9889 ...... Forwarded Message ....... From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw () gmail com> To: dave () farber net Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 08:21:50 -0400 Subj: Re: [IP] RIAA wants your fingerprints On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 7:52 -0400, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
From: gep2 () terabites com WHAT ON EARTH ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING!!!!?????
They are trying to replace the doctrine of first sale in favor of contracts, specifically single-user licenses. Both make quite plausible market models. In a fair market there would be room for both, with appropriate pricing. Frankly, most of the stuff being sold now isn't worth a premium for rights beyond listening to it for a week. If we had pricing that allowed me to pay, say, several dollars for ownership of a great recording of Beethoven's Ninth and a nickel for rights to listen to a current ditty for a week, I'd be happy. The problem now is the convergence of easy replication and concentration of market ownership (near-monopoly power). RIAA seems to be claiming, in effect, that ease of replication makes the ownership market unsustainable so they'll only enter the license market (yes, I've seen the data that questions the claim, but that doesn't make the claim go away). Then the lack of market forces to drive down the license price leaves the sellers in a position to charge (or try to charge) ownership-level prices for short-term goods. In any case, if you're planning on passing along your digital recordings to your great-grand-children, you should be worrying about whether they'll be able to do anything with the recordings. A few weeks ago I spent half a day finding a program that would read a Powerpoint file I created 4-5 years ago. What makes you think that your g-g-kids will be able to read MP3s or whatever you pass down to them, and what makes you think that they will regard the quality with any higher regard than we now regard wax cylinders (quaint, but a little goes a long way)? Mary Shaw Carnegie Mellon University ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
Current thread:
- RIAA wants your fingerprints David Farber (Jun 07)
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- RIAA wants your fingerprints Dave Farber (Jun 08)
- RIAA wants your fingerprints Dave Farber (Jun 08)
- RIAA wants your fingerprints Dave Farber (Jun 08)