Paramount/MPAA are really out of touch
DRM, or digital rights management, is the term applied to the media industries feeble and damaging attempts to limit your idea to use the music and movies that you buy. I’m sure everyone has heard that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, or of A-holes, or something) is suing everyone whose address they can find, regardless whether they even have a computer, are dead, or don’t even know what a computer is.
And now, in a great test of consumers’ rights to fairly use the media they buy, Paramount and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America/A-holes) have sued Load ‘N Go, a company who sells iPods and DVDs, and if you buy the two together, rips the DVDs you buy to the iPod. One would think there is no problem here, but the MPAA argues that the very act of ripping the DVD is a violation of its copyright. Does that make sense to anyone else?
The main problem here is that judges and legislatures seem so out of touch with technology that this sort of fair use seems somehow sinister. It isn’t. Let’s hope that Load ‘N Go has the means to challenge the lawsuit, and that the courts give them a full and fair hearing. And that Congress sits up and takes notice of the absurdity of the situation made possible (or at least conceivable), apparently, under current copyright laws.
