The record companies have declared war on their customers when it comes to the fair use rights of purchased music, and it would appear that they want the government to enlist in their crusade. Previous weeks have seen South Carolina senator Ernest Hollings propose draconian copyright legislation as well as recent pro-Hollywood remarks from California's senator Diane Feinstein.Is there anybody in government who cares about the consumer instead of corporate interests? Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) may be one of the few on Jane Q. Public's side. Last week he said, "The RIAA's response [to criticism of their copy protection methods] does little to relieve my concern that consumer fair-use protections are being threatened by what we now see is the intended widespread introduction into the US of copy-protected CDs."Boucher added that, despite the labels' attempts to restrict the use of CDs, copy protection technologies will inevitably be defeated and the music on the CDs uploaded to the Internet. "The technology gains the recording industry virtually no relief from Internet file-sharing. It does, however, seriously undermine the fair-use rights of consumers who lawfully acquire music."
Boucher's remarks prompted the Consumer Electronics Association's Gary Shapiro to respond in support, saying, "We commend Representative Boucher for his attention to this important consumer issue. The ability to use a lawfully purchased CD to make compilations or transfer music to other devices is a time-honored consumer right and must be preserved as technology advances."The deployment of copy-protected CDs threatens to unilaterally eliminate Americans' fair-use right to non-commercial audio home recording. The fact that these copy-protected CDs will not play on many legacy players already in the home [or] on CD players today on the retail shelf, combined with the lack of adequate labeling, will inevitably lead to confused, frustrated, and, no doubt, angry consumers. Manufacturers also are concerned about possible audio quality degradation in these copy-protected CDs that will result in sub-par sound that consumers pay for and have a right to expect when they purchase a CD."
