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[FYI] "Napster's heinous crime: independence"



http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18132.html

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Napster's heinous crime: independence  

By: Thomas C Greene in Washington  

Posted: 05/04/2001 at 17:49 GMT  

[...]

And still the entertainment industry, most notably the Recording 
Industry Association of America (RIAA), continues to insist that 
Napster is nothing short of a criminal syndicate. It's painfully 
apparent that the "copyright industry" as MPAA President Jack Valenti 
likes to call the Borg Collective of media behemoths which determines 
precisely what we will be entertained by and precisely how, when and 
where we shall be permitted to enjoy it, will simply not tolerate the 
existence of a distribution network which it can't control.  

[...]  

The Collective is abusing copyright laws to invade every conceivable 
corner of the business, from production, to distribution, to retail 
marketing, and even to private sales of purchased recorded media, 
Tower Records Senior VP Mike Farrace explained in his testimony.  

"If intellectual property owners had the right to control copyrights 
years ago the way they propose to do now, there would be no used 
books, no lending your records to a friend, no video rentals, and no 
donations of recorded products, software or even books to libraries 
or schools," he declared.  

But his chief concern as an Internet retailer is the way the 
multinational media giants are using digital rights agreements as a 
Trojan horse with which to insert themselves into retail transactions 
conducted on line.  

[...]

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