RSSBill Would Legitimize MyMP3.com-Style Services
By | Published September 28, 2000, 2:21 AM
A bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers earlier this week introduced legislation that would make it expressly legal for Internet users to hear and electronically store music purchased legally.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., led a bipartisan quartet of House members
Monday in introducing the Music Owners' Listening Rights Act of 2000,
which amends copyright law to effectively legalize certain transmission of
music over the Internet. The legislation appears to be a direct response
to the mounting debate over digital music spurred by the ongoing legal
battles surrounding MP3.com's personalized music service, MyMP3.com.
The Boucher bill states that if a customer has purchased a piece of music, "the transmission of a personal interactive performance of a sound recording, and of any non-dramatic musical works embodied therein, is not an infringement of copyright."
It continues, "Simply stated, a consumer who lawfully owns a work of music, such as a CD, will be able to store it on the Internet and then downstream it for personal use at a time and place of his choosing," Boucher said in a floor statement Monday to introduce the legislation.
The move comes several weeks after a potentially massive judgment was levied against MP3.com for operating a service very much like the one Boucher described. The site's personalized MyMP3.com service was designed to allow listeners to access online versions of CDs they had already purchased, but New York federal Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that by failing to license the recordings before redistributing them online, MyMP3.com was guilty of violating Universal Music Group copyrights.
MP3.com was ordered to pay $25,000 per CD after Rakoff ruled the company's personalized MyMP3.com site "willfully infringed" on Universal's copyrights.
By Rakoff's own estimate, based on MP3.com's claim that only 4,700 Universal Music CDs were copied for use on the site, the fine would cost MP3.com about $118 million. But if more copyrighted CDs turn out to be involved prior to the penalty phase of the trial - and some indications hint that as many as 10,000 CDs could be involved - the Internet company launched by the bright, brash young CEO Michael Robertson could end up owing $250 million in penalties.
A copy of the Boucher bill is available online at http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/molra-leg.htm.
Originally I thought it was one stupid bill. After all, anyone who bought an "average" PC in the last two years can encode great quality MP3's in real-time, so for the vast majority of users (who aren't on ADSL/CABLE) home-encoding is much faster than downloading the song.
But!, the point (with MP3.com's service) was that you could later download your song wherever you'll be. Work/school/friend's house - hopefully they have a decent connection to the net.
And the best of all - it is one awesome way to legitimize MP3 sharing - completely. After all, say I own 150 CD's, and I wanna trade them with someone who has 100 CD's that I don't have. All I need to do is: a. Give him my account/password and he can "add" to my "owned-music" list his original CD's (by simply sticking them in his CD-ROM drive for a sec to prove he owns them). -or- b. I generate a new account (to give to the other guy later) and stick in the CD-ROM drive all the CD's he wants (that I own). He does the same.
Basically if this bill passes - music pirates will simply need to trade fictitious/multiple accounts, and download the files from a service like my.mp3.com
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|Why bother passing silly laws which let criminals shaft those who are talanted enougth to compose works of art such as music. Its much easier to go out and buy the CD instead of taking a pirated copy for the likes of yours truly, NAPSTER. Nail em up I say!
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|hasn't this been the computer user's argument all along?
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|How many times will you be reporting this? :) ( http://betanews.efront.c...icle.php3?sid=970021955 )
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