It's fucking all-out war on consumers.
The RIAA has done it again, this time quietly on the state level.
Two US States have placed severe restrictions on SELLING USED MUSIC CDS.
Stop and think about this for a moment, people. This organization has been a driving force behind DRM telling you where you can listen to the music you have purchased and the DMCA telling you how many copies of it you can make(zero- totally gutting fair use), not to mention countless heavy-handed attempts to bilk the US public in the name of the almighty dollar. Anyone remember the CDs that only played in some players because they had "copy protection" on them? Well now, once again, they want to force you to buy more of their product. Not by doing what a viable industry would do- which is to create a compelling product and bring it to market- but by making their product even less useful to you, the consumer.
Frankly, I think the whole thing is actually funny. They are going the SCO route, and I think it will backfire on them worse than they could imagine. Between distribution on the internet, free open source software that puts a studio in your computer, services like last.fm and Pandora, the only business model they know is disappearing, quickly becoming a relic as the technology quickly outstrips their archaic assumptions. Music is information, and people no longer equate information with a book, or a CD, or a piece of paper. The harder they push only serves to highlight the ways these restrictive technologies and laws hurt us- in everything from patent law to Windows to the Bush Administration's ridiculous secrecy laws.
Two US States have placed severe restrictions on SELLING USED MUSIC CDS.
Stop and think about this for a moment, people. This organization has been a driving force behind DRM telling you where you can listen to the music you have purchased and the DMCA telling you how many copies of it you can make(zero- totally gutting fair use), not to mention countless heavy-handed attempts to bilk the US public in the name of the almighty dollar. Anyone remember the CDs that only played in some players because they had "copy protection" on them? Well now, once again, they want to force you to buy more of their product. Not by doing what a viable industry would do- which is to create a compelling product and bring it to market- but by making their product even less useful to you, the consumer.
Frankly, I think the whole thing is actually funny. They are going the SCO route, and I think it will backfire on them worse than they could imagine. Between distribution on the internet, free open source software that puts a studio in your computer, services like last.fm and Pandora, the only business model they know is disappearing, quickly becoming a relic as the technology quickly outstrips their archaic assumptions. Music is information, and people no longer equate information with a book, or a CD, or a piece of paper. The harder they push only serves to highlight the ways these restrictive technologies and laws hurt us- in everything from patent law to Windows to the Bush Administration's ridiculous secrecy laws.