[Empeg-general] Re: Sorry about our Canadian Friends...

[Dragi Raos]

That's exactly the situation here in the US. We, as consumers, already pay a tariff to the RIAA on digital audio recording devices and media. And you'd think that'd shut them up about home copying. In fact, the whole point about the AHRA and the tariff was to shut them up. But it hasn't, has it? 

An US congressman has recently asked RIAA to explain why they think they could continue collecting media tax if they insist on 'protection' measures (I think I saw the article about that here linked somewhere here). Combined with strong intention by Phillips to keep the morons from putting CD-DA logo on broken media, and actions by Drakino and, obviously, many others, I think RIAA will back down from their 'copy protection' plans'. The fact that no such plan can work for long also helps.

The trouble is, with taxes mentioned in the leading post, RIAA has reached its ultimate goal: collecting huge money without actually working at all. I doubt that such a law could pass (or even be contemplated) without some serious Enron-type 'sponsorships'. I advise our Canadian members to write to their representatives, especially those in opposition. 

Should something like that be passe here, I will feel perfectly morally justified to actually download equivalent amount of copyrighted music (taking into account my dowloading costs and the fact that inferior rips and lack of booklet make such downloads much less valuable than actual CDs, I would value them at, say, $2, $3 tops, per album ) So, 7-10 albums per gig. Well, that's about half the capacity or more....  (The trouble is, I *want* to have physical CDs... )