Mercury News: Targeting piracy of music CDs. “In the next 12 months, different studios are going to protect CDs so you wouldn’t be able to rip or burn them,” said Jay Samit, senior vice president of new media at EMI. “But consumers want to do this.”
God, what arrogance.
Consumers don’t just want to do this. We have the right to do this. But the recording industry is absolutely determined to prevent it, and now it’s lined a key ally in the software industry. Or has it?
According to this story, EMI, the giant entertainment conglomerate, has persuaded Roxio, the former software arm of Adaptec, to add what looks like a poison pill to its CD-burning software with anti-copying technology. Oh, EMI says, you’ll be able to make some kinds of copies. But you’ll have to go to a special online site, identify yourself and the music you’ve already bought on a CD, and only then will you get very limited copying permissions. In other words, kiss goodbye to privacy in your music-buying preferences, and kiss goodbye to the fair use rights you’ve taken for granted in the past.
Roxio says it’s not going to be nearly this restrictive. I hope so.
If it is, other software makers probably won’t be so stupid. Consumers still have a little bit of choice left.