According to the
SMH, Apple had this to say, amongst others, about what the proposed Copyright reform currently going through parliament would mean to ordinary Australians:
"Apple submits that the current provisions of the bill will leave the [Australian Copyright] Act still outdated and overly restrictive given today's technology and the legitimate expectations of consumers," Apple's submission said.
"Many common everyday acts of copying to ... devices, such as an iPod, computers and even to VCRs ... would still constitute an infringement under the bill's current form."
Given the silence of most of the mainstream press, it's good to see SMH finally picking up on this nasty piece of work, and that as I write it's the number two viewed story today.
A law which would punish you and I for copying CDs that we paid for and own onto
iPods (or computers, or anything else really) that we paid for and own, so that we could have them in a more convenient form is a very stupid law in today's society. We already have that law, and here is the opportunity to revise it and make it relevant, but instead they are making it even more of an attack on consumers.
Record companies really don't seem to understand that they are battling against
free - that's the price of a download off Bittorrent or similar, and if you want to make it worth my effort to buy a CD and own it, drop the prices and let me do what I want with the thing that I bought and I own.
Don't even get me started on paid-for digital downloads - that's not an option. The stupid Digital Restrictions Management that these things come with mean that if you bought (yes, there's that word again) a song off
any existing music store, and then decided (why I don't know) that the
Zune looks like a good thing to buy for Christmas to listen to music on, then
you can't listen to any of your previously purchased songs!
Microsoft want you to "buy" all your music again, and rinse and repeat in few years when the same thing happens. No thanks, give me a CD that means I have the physical media as a real backup, and I can turn into any form I want. All purely for
my use, or at the worst to pass a couple of songs onto a friend to recommend a new artist I've heard.
Record companies, and the idiot governments that listen to them when creating laws to govern the people, should actually
listen to consumers/voters now and them.
Update 30/11/2006: Wow, that's
a quick backdown, even by government standards! Maybe more of them read my blog than I thought ;)