Senator Calls For Copy-Protection Tags

Anonymous Coward writes "C|net has an article on a new bill being proposed in the Senate that requires all software, music and movies that employ copy-protection schemes must be prominently labeled with consumer warnings, which is being sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon."

This is a good idea

[PD]

I think this is a good idea because it doesn't infringe on the rights of any particular party. The customers have more information to make their decision. Companies have the right to sell whatever product they want, in the form that they choose. The extra information on the box is just a rearrangement of the ink that they would have to put on the box anyway, so it's not expensive to do.

Great idea!

[mr.henry]

A copy-protected CD broke my CD changer recently. It had difficulty reading the disc's table of contents, then it jumped to a random track and played for a minute or two. After that, I had problems playing *any* CD. Luckily, the changer was under warranty and I got it fixed for free.

Fat Chuck's [fatchucks.com] maintains a list of copy-protected. Be careful!!

Copy protected vs. non-copy protected.

[Rai]

If stores sold the copy protected version of a CD for oh say, $12-$15 (yeah, I know that's laughable considering how expensive CDs have become) and the non-copy protected version for $18-$20, I wonder which would sell better. Is it worth an extra $3-$5 to be able to backup the CD (and yes, I know you should able to do this without paying extra.)

Re:Labeling is great, but what I really want is...

[LinuxParanoid]

Exactly- putting together your own CD of what you thought were the best Beatles songs would be totally permissible under the "mix rights" concept, and the whole point... with the following restrictions (I'd be happy with either set of restrictions; more happy with A but totally willing to settle for B):

A) you could only distribute the resulting 'best of beetles' to a few people (under 5, or say, under 10), and you could not legally sell the results (a flavor or expansion of 'fair use' rights under copyright)

or

B) you would have to pay for each redistributed mix CD (so I would have to pay RIAA or some entity $17 to distribute one mix CD (or $2/song or whatever) to a friend, but still it could be a mix of *my* choosing) and you could not redistribute more than X amount of material (X CDs or tracks, before whatever you are doing becomes a commercial proposition which requires a special license with the companies involved, and not just generic 'mix rights' for sharing among friends).

It's a fantasy I admit. But no-holds-barred-P2P isn't what I want; "mix sharing" with close friends is what I want. I'm willing to pay for it. But nobody in the music industry is figuring out how to give it to me the flexibility that I (and I suspect millions of consumers) want to share music with my friends.