• More good news on the RIAA front

Posted: **Mon Jan 05, 2004 7:40 pm**

Belgian consumer watchdog Test-Achats (Test Aankoop), known for its crusade against Nokia's "unsafe batteries", starts the new year with a fresh assault on the music industry. It is taking the music giants EMI, Sony, BMG Music and Universal Music to court for installing anti-piracy systems on their audio CDs.

In a press release, Test-Achats says it has received lots of consumer complaints in recent months about CDs equipped with anti-piracy systems, in particular 'Laundry Service' by Shakira, '1 Giant Leap' by Faithless and Bjork's 'Greatest Hits'. Often, these CDs can't be read by PCs and car stereos, and prevent users from making legal private copies, according to Test-Achats.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34695.html
as found at /.

Posted: **Mon Jan 05, 2004 7:59 pm**

Keep the good news coming Arkady!

Posted: **Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:22 pm**

This is an issue to me for the following reason:

I am a CD nut and I have to have my CD's in my car with me. Problem is, they get tossed about a bit in the car, and damaged, so I have to copy them so I can listen to them in the car and preserve my originals. As far as I'm concerned, I bought the CD's, the copies are for my own personal use, so ... I fail to see how anyone is getting hurt over this.

I am not advocating record piracy or anything like that ... but should we not have the freedom to do with our music as we please, as long as we're not breaking any laws?

I'm very happy that the labels I do the majority of my music business with (Ninthwave and A Different Drum for example) do not do this sort of thing. I think it's pathetic, and rightly so.