[d@DCC] Globe editorial: A copyright levy on the MP3 player

[Darryl Moore]

Today's Globe editorial: A copyright levy on the MP3 player

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050815/EMP315/TPComment/Editorials

The following was sent to the Globe and Mail this morning in response.

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Your editorial's conclusion that, MP3 players should be subject to the 
same levy as CDs and cassettes is erroneous. Nobody wants these levies 
anymore. Not even the CRIA who had pushed so strongly for them in the past.

What is truly needed is the total scrapping of the levies and a concept 
of 'fair use' incorporated into the copyright act.

When I buy a CD, movie, software, or any other copyrighted material, I 
should have the right to do what ever I want with it short of 
redistributing it on anything other than the original medium I 
purchased. The idea (as the CRIA would like and your editorial 
implicitly supports) that I might be breaking any laws by 'ripping' my 
music from CD to MP3 player I find highly offensive and an affront to my 
private property rights.

Unfortunately we seem to be forgetting about these troublesome private 
property rights in our quest to protect Intellectual Monopoly rights.