I have just learned how to use Winamp and the CDex CD extraction program
which converts tracks on a CD to MP3 files.  As the article states below,
this action is perfectly legal but there are powerful forces wanting to
stop all of us from listening to music on our computers.  There is a lot
of truth in the article below.  If you haven't checked out PC music yet,
try doing so.  It is really a fun experience.

Kelly


The Wall Street Journal

December 17, 2001

E-World

Music Copyright Protections Threaten Users' Ability to Enjoy

By THOMAS E. WEBER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MUSIC LOVERS, beware. You may be lucky enough to get Apple's sleek iPod,
which holds 1,000 tunes in digital format, or some other MP3 player this
holiday season. Unfortunately, it could be useless in a year or two,
unable to play new music.

Don't blame Apple or the other portable player makers. It's the fault of
the recording industry, which keeps tightening restrictions on what you
can do with the music you buy. These constraints are ostensibly meant to
thwart the rampant copying unleashed by Napster and its successors. But
they also threaten consumers' ability to enjoy the music they've paid
for.

The problem is that record companies don't seem to want to sell you
music anymore. They want to lease it, collecting rent checks in
perpetuity. People who fail to keep up on their payments may well find
that their music collections have evaporated.

You can see this trend in new online music services that seek to offer
legitimate alternatives to file-sharing services -- but put all sorts of
limits on when and where you can listen to songs. It's also apparent in
new copy-protected compact discs that redefine the idea of "owning" a
CD.

IF YOU GO to the record store and buy a CD that incorporates copy
protection, you'll find that you can't "rip" it, or transfer the songs
onto a personal computer. (Because of glitches in the copy-protection
technology, you may not be able to play the disc in a regular CD player
either, but that's another issue.)

Should you care? Absolutely.

I've ripped hundreds of CDs onto my computer but I'm not a criminal or a
pirate. These are all CDs that I paid (or overpaid) for. I often prefer
to listen to the music I've bought on my computer. My PC has decent
stereo speakers, and I spend a lot of time working there. But it's more
than that. With the songs on my hard drive, I have instant access to my
entire collection -- much better than rooting through piles of discs. I
also like to transfer the files to my portable MP3 player so I can
listen at work without schlepping CDs back and forth. And I take songs
from several albums and burn them onto custom-mix CDs ("Still More 80s")
for the car.

Copy-proof CDs won't let me do any of that. Certainly record companies
are entitled to take measures to stymie widespread copying, in which
hundreds or thousands of illegal duplicates are made from a single CD.
But somehow the legacy of Napster has given all copying a bad name.

Did you know that under U.S. copyright law, it's generally considered
permissible to make copies of music you've purchased? "It's completely
legal," explains Jessica Litman, a law professor at Wayne State
University and the author of "Digital Copyright." As long as you're
making a copy for private, noncommercial use, you're pretty much in the
clear. File-sharing services have gotten into trouble by enabling
copying on such a massive scale that it's not really noncommercial even
if no money changes hands.

NOW, AFTER TWO years of complaining about services like Napster and
KaZaA without offering alternatives, record companies are finally
fielding their own online music networks. But guess what? Those networks
don't just prevent illegal copies. They block other copies, too.

Look at RealNetworks' new RealOne Music service. It costs $9.95 a month
and lets you download 100 songs (saving record companies the cost of
producing and distributing actual CDs). But you can't burn the songs
onto a CD or transfer them onto a portable player. You can't move them
to another PC either. To do that, "you will need to set up a different
customer account and purchase another subscription," RealNetworks says
on its site.

Those 100 songs, by the way, expire after a month. If you find a song
you really like, you can keep it active, but it gets charged against the
next month's allotment. RealNetworks argues, with some merit, that it's
not a bad deal. "You get to try on the order of eight to 10 CDs a month,
for half the price of a single CD," says Erik Flannigan, vice president
of music services and programming. But even so, are consumers really
ready for music that expires?

Pressplay, a soon-to-launch rival from Sony and Universal, will be a bit
more friendly to portable use. You'll be able to burn songs onto CDs,
but quotas will govern how many. "We want to show consumers we
understand what they want," says Pressplay CEO Andy Schuon. Transfers to
portable MP3 players will still be forbidden.

Eventually, online services hope to support portable players -- but only
when those devices can count how many times you've listened to a song or
check to see what date it is. That way the services can wipe out the
songs if you're behind on your rent. The approach could make listening
to new music about as enjoyable as a cab ride in a traffic jam with the
meter running.

If you object to what the music industry is doing, don't buy CDs labeled
copy-protected. If you get a disc home and you can't copy it, take it
back to the store. To keep posted on what's happening, visit
www.fatchucks.com, a Web site where music fan Chuck Heffner lists CDs
that listeners have reported have problems. And if you decide to pay for
an online music service, make sure it gives you what you want.

E-mail Tom Weber at
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