Originally Posted by hexydes
The point is, why should you even have to be buying those formats over and over? The media industry should certainly make the option available to buy in the latest and greatest format, but that fact should not restrict me from being able to create my own version of that content in the updated format, for my own personal use, if I have the knowledge and inclination to do so.
Perhaps I just love the LP version of a song. I don't have a need to buy the super, re-mastered version for my iPod, because I like what I hear on the LP. I simply want to be able to listen to the music that I paid for (by way of the LP), in a different location, with a different type of player. So I should legally be allowed to use the LP to create a personal version of the content that I paid to be able to listen to, in a different format. So if I want it on my iPod, I should just be able to hook my record player up to my sound card, record it in Audacity, and convert it to MP3.
Right now, this is legal. Copyright law allows you to make a personal backup copy of content you have legally acquired. The media industry knows this, and there is little that they can do to change that fact at this point. So what they are attempting to do is inject side-laws that will interfere with that fact. With new formats, they can simply stick DRM on the disc, and thanks to the DMCA, it is now illegal to circumvent DRM schemes, despite the fact that it is legal to make a personal backup copy of content you legally own a license to listen to. They would retroactively apply this if they could (to stop what is known as the "analog hole", which lets people employ older technology which can't support DRM to work-around the DRM issue), but they can't as easily control that. They've worked with companies like Microsoft to make it harder for consumers to take advantage of this, but it hasn't worked out very well for them.
At any rate, the media industry has pretty much taken total dominance of all artistic facets of society. They have extended, and will continue to extend the length of copyright law to a point that makes it basically indefinite, so that nothing falls into the public domain. To get around the pesky clause that people can create backups of the content they purchase a listen-license to (and thus not needing to buy nearly as many duplicate versions of the same content), they simply cross-injected the DMCA into copyright law, making it impossible for consumers to legally do what copyright law clearly states they are allowed to do.
It's not right, and they know it, but they don't care because it's making them money. Just think if classic works like Beethoven's 5th, the Mona Lisa, or the images of Mathew Brady from the Civil War, were all heavily-controlled by the media industry thanks to copyright law. There would be no way for people to use these classic works, whose authors and creators have long-since passed on, without paying exorbitant licensing fees to some jerk-off media corporation. Modern classics however, will be under their jurisdiction. Some great examples of these (and the dates they are due to pass into the public domain, assuming copyright law isn't "updated" any further):
"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali (painting) - 2026
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" by The Beach Boys (song) - 2061
"Jurassic Park" (movie) - 2088
Salvador Dali has been dead for 20 years. Who needs to be making money off of his classic painting for the next 18 years? Brian Wilson is 65 years old, and though I'm sure we'd all love to have him around, I don't think he's going to live until the ripe old age of 119 years old. Assuming he even makes it to 90 (which, lets be honest, I wouldn't want to take that bet), who is going to make money off of that for the additional 29 years? Capitol Records? Why do they deserve to continue to make money, when it should be questionable if even Brian Wilson needs to be making money off of the song almost half a century later? And Jurassic Park has probably generated almost a billion dollars at this point. Is there a reason that this movie shouldn't enter the public domain until the youngest person reading this board right now has been dead for probably a decade, other than "corporate greed"?
Copyright law is broken. It needs to be fixed. It needs to be fixed in such a way that it is very clear and simple, accounts for today's technology, and remains flexible for unforeseen technological (or otherwise) changes in the future. There should be no distinction between an "individual" and a "corporation", because that just opens the door for corporations to abuse the system. We need to come up with a reasonable length of time to let an entity have a monopoly over the work that they have created, and after that, just let it go into the collective stream of art and knowledge that is our culture.
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