The Reg is carrying a story about a lady in France who took EMI to court over a copy-protected CD - and won!
According to the story, the judge ruled that the CD she purchased, which would not work in her car CD player, was defective. This means that EMI have to provide her with a new CD that does work in all CD players (i.e. is NOT defective), or else refund the money. It also means that EMI are formally forbidden from selling defective CDs.
Of course, a CD is only considered defective as long as it can't be played in some devices, so if someone comes up with a "better" mechanism that does work well, then copy protecting is not in itself verboten.
Why do I find this interesting? Well, for one thing I live in Spain and I suspect that it would be possible to get a similar ruling here from the courts if it came to it. The government doesn't seem to be interested in helping the music industry, as can be appreciated by walking through anywhere in Madrid and watching all the illegal immigrants selling pirated CDs/DVDs/Video Games in front of the local police force.
The other reason I like this ruling is that at last someone seems to be talking sense. You see, I have a reasonable CD collection, nothing enormous, but well over 100. I think that that alone, and the fact that I keep on buying CDs even though I have a broadband connection at home and could easily never buy any music again, should be enough for the music industry to afford me some respect and not assume that I am a criminal.
Fortunately, I don't buy the kind of CDs that are usually copy protected, so it hasn't affected me much. But still, is a little respect too much to ask for? I think not. And if the situation gets really out of hand, I can always move to France... ;)
Posted by Dave at September 3, 2003 04:19 PM