The Null Device

A propagandistic News Corp. article about the evils of coin-operated CD duplicators, how they threaten to kill musical artists, and how outrageous it is that they're perfectly legal, as a result of our inadequately lax copyright laws. (Keep in mind that News Corp., along with Disney, is one of the major advocates of legally mandating copy-protection in all electronic devices in the US.)

NEW machines installed in Adelaide convenience stores make the illegal copying of the latest CDs and computer software - which costs artists and software designers millions of dollars - as easy as buying a loaf of bread.

It also makes legal copying of CDs you already own, for backups or use in the car, for example, or of your band's demos, or whatever, easy. But we all know that consumers have no legitimate reason to copy CDs.

The machines are able to operate under the same legislation as public photocopiers, where the burden of responsibility for copyright breaches lies with the user and not the owner of the equipment.

How much do you want to bet that there'll be legislation in parliament to remedy this promptly?

There are 3 comments on "":

Posted by: Pdt-Marechal-Dr Pitr M. Thu Apr 4 08:55:36 2002

In France, it's already prohibited by Law :-)

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Thu Apr 4 09:04:31 2002

What, copying CDs? Public photocopiers? Or just copying CDs you do not own? Does France have fair-use rights to making backups for personal use of your own CDs?

Or are you referring to the EU Directive on Copyright, which is a nasty piece of work indeed (though not yet law, as far as I know)?

Posted by: David Golding http://pah2.weblogs.com/ Sun Apr 7 06:09:51 2002

I've now seen these in Melbourne. Of course, the music industry is definitely already getting a cut of the money via existing legislation.