A Voice Against Copy-Protected CDs

A note to the Recording Industry Association of America and all record labels.

The Compact Disc has proved to be an excellent and wonderful way to enjoy the music we love. The sound quality was far beyond anything ever experienced at the time. The CD was portable, powerful, and soon universal. The computer and low cost of recordable media has allowed consumers to make legal copies of their music, whether it is a backup copy or putting their favorite songs on one CD. MP3 files allowed consumers to copy all their music onto their computer or other portable devices for their personal enjoyment, all of which is legal. Consumers often enjoyed their music, never wondering if this CD will play in this device or not.

That is until now. It is true music files are often and easily shared by the Internet and as record labels you have the right to protect your intellectual property, but not at the expense of the consumer. Copy-protected music CDs violate consumers right and punish law-abiding citizens. Copy-protection will not stop those who insist on sharing music through the Internet.

The fact is that copy-protection will not destroy the record industry. The VCR allows consumer to record programs off television. Using the VCR a consumer could record a program and later remove the commercials. This person could also make copies of this program and distribute them. Does this hurt the television and movie industry? The answer is clearly no. The cassette tape allows consumers to record their own audio recordings. In fact, it was easy to make copies of commercial music tapes for both legal and illegal purposes. Did that hurt the record industry? The answer is clearly no. Those who do break the law will circumvent any copy-protection installed on music CDs the only ones who lose are the end-user.

Instead of punishing consumers, the record industry needs to find ways to prevent those who do break the law. This petition is a voice for the public saying we do not want our rights violated just so a few can be stopped for two minutes. We do not want copy-protection and any CD found to be so we will not buy. Copy-protected CDs will not solve the problem just deny basic rights.