Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Thu, May 11, 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
> The distinction between time-shifting and the my.mp3 issue is this:
> if one is too lazy or finds it too bothersome to haul around CDs,
> fine -- there is a way around that. Buy two. In doing so, you are
> paying for the convenience of not having to lug them around. If
> there were some legitimate reason that buying two wasn't possible,
> that might make more of an argument for a fair-use application. But
> absent that -- nahhhhhhh.

So you are predicting that the Diamond Rio will be found illegal in some future court case? Otherwise, you are talking nonsense here, sir.

Part of the fury I feel in reading your prattle is that most of it is the sort of uninformed shouting that one hears from such people as Metallica's drummer or lawyers from Disney or Microsoft. The assumption appears to be that large media corporations own all popular culture and that consumers are largely pirates. The implication is that copyright has to be thrown out and replaced with encryption and pay-per-view protected by rights management schemes. I hope this attitude will fade and corporations will begin to trust and respect customers and provide them with what customers demand and will pay for. The alternative, everything pay-per-view, is to me too horrible to imagine. But if it comes about, then there are some of us who will move free communication to a different medium such as Freenet. And in that case it will matter little what the corporations and 9ball yell.

-- 
"Eric"  Eric Eldred  Eldritch Press
mailto:Eldred[_at_]EldritchPress.org
http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf