Summerized -- Mossberg: Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Forno <rforno () infowarrior org>
Date: October 20, 2005 9:30:41 AM EDT
To: Infowarrior List <infowarrior () g2-forward org>
Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Mossberg: Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers'  
Activities


(Agree 100% with him.....rf)


Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20051020.html
They stand for Digital Rights Management, a set of technologies for  
limiting how people can use the music and video files they've  
purchased from legal downloading services.  DRM is even being used to  
limit what you can do with the music you buy on physical CDs, or the  
TV shows you record with a TiVo or other digital video recorder.

Once mainly known inside the media industries and among activists who  
follow copyright issues, DRM is gradually becoming familiar to  
average consumers, who are increasingly bumping up against its  
limitations.

...Using a DRM system it invented called FairPlay, Apple has rigged  
its songs, at the insistence of the record companies, so that they  
can be played only on a maximum of five computers, and so that you  
can burn only seven CDs containing the same playlist of purchased  
tracks.

...Some CD buyers are discovering to their dismay that new releases  
from certain record companies contain DRM code that makes it  
difficult to copy the songs to their computers, where millions prefer  
to keep their music.

...They believe that once a consumer legally buys a song or a video  
clip, the companies that sold them have no right to limit how the  
consumer uses them, any more than a car company should be able to  
limit what you can do with a car you've bought.

...The companies believe they need DRM technology to block the  
possibility that a song or video can be copied in large quantities  
and distributed over the Internet, thus robbing them of legitimate  
sales.

...Millions of copies of songs, TV shows and movies are being  
distributed over the Internet by people who have no legal right to do  
so, robbing media companies and artists of rightful compensation for  
their work.

...On the other hand, I believe that consumers should have broad  
leeway to use legally purchased music and video for personal,  
noncommercial purposes in any way they want -- as long as they don't  
engage in mass distribution.

...Instead of using DRM to stop some individual from copying a song  
to give to her brother, the industry should be focusing on ways to  
use DRM to stop the serious pirates -- people who upload massive  
quantities of music and videos to so-called file-sharing sites, or  
factories in China that churn out millions of pirate CDs and DVDs.

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