All entriesBoo on the RIAA, the DMCA, and Senator Hatch's INDUCE bill
Last night, to celebrate my first paycheck on salary, I went and bought a vacuum and a CD. You know that real life has set in when you celebrate by buying a vacuum. But that's not the point here. I bought the latest Hoobastank CD, "The Reason" because I really enjoy the title track. It is one of those songs that I could listen to over and over and not grow tired of. Since I enjoyed it that much, I hoped that the rest of the CD was just as good. I haven't yet had time to listen to the whole thing, but I doubt it will be a CD I'll just stick in and listen start to finish like I do my Creed CDs.
This brings up an interesting point. Personally, I would have loved to have been able to buy just the single "The Reason" in electronic format online. Sure there are many places I can purchase music online, such as the iTunes store, the Walmart.com store, Napster's new store, etc. As far as I know (and someone correct me if I am wrong, please!) each of these sites uses some sort of DRM or offers music in only a proprietary format (i.e., not mp3 or ogg). That makes the music utterly unplayable for me. First, my primary stereo is my Linux computer where all of my CD collection is encoded in either MP3 or ogg format. Secondly, I have a mp3-capable deck in my car. Of course, neither or these is capable of playing an DRM-enabled music. How am I supposed to listen to music that I legally own?
I wish the RIAA (and the government to a degree) didn't automatically assume that every consumer was automatically a criminal and a thief. I don't download music I don't have the rights to download. I don't share my music collection by burning CDs or giving the mp3 or oggs to anyone else. I just want to listen to the music I like, where I like to listen to it, on whatever devices I would like to listen to it on. I want to be able to support the artists that I like and compensate them for their creativity and work.
I wish the RIAA weren't so greedy. I wish the government would realize how horrible the implications of the DMCA are. I wish Senator Hatch and those supportive of his recent INDUCE bill that will supposedly only hurt the "bad guys" but potentially could be interpreted to make things as common as a VCR or an iPod illegal. Why?!
It is because of this and other similar such actions that I recently became a donating member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Even if you don't feel like you can or want to donate, at least visit their Action Center. You can choose a specific issue and put in your name and location and it will give you the option to have them either e-mail or fax your Congressperson stating your support or feelings against a specific issue or bill. I encourage everyone to go check it out.
