E. Michael Harrington

____________________________________________________________________________________

HOW CAN THE RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA - the RIAA - ALWAYS BE SO OFFENSIVE, OBNOXIOUS AND OPPOSED TO THEIR CONSUMERS? I have bought more than 6, 500 CD's. I am, unlike most of them, a real musician and a passionate fan of music. Unlike most RIAA employees, I do not get my music for free. I buy it. I have since my first iPod, converted my CD's and put many of them on my Macintosh and then did what I feel is my right - I transferred them to my iPod.

The RIAA is claiming that it is against the law to put your CD's into your iPod.

This is why great customers and passionate music fans, such as I, have no respect for the RIAA. I expect to almost always be opposed to them. Even though I work in the music industry and for RIAA companies, I am completely at odds with most of their utterances and actions pertaining to anything having to do with technology. TECHNOLOGY is supposed to happen. TECHNOLOGICAL developments have always been at odds with business as usual but then have become business as usual.

The RIAA is simply hopelessly out of touch with reality, and very mean spirited.

I have often been wrong when I have written, spoken or suggested that the RIAA can not get dumber or meaner or more obsolete or more like totalitarian states, such as North Korea, or "sunk to a new low." The RIAA sees and seizes stupid whenever they can. They concoct new ways of failure better than any other industry.

Hopefully they will start to enforce this "NO CD's in iPOD" idea. Our FBI and police really have few other worries - they should come to the RIAA's rescue and Americans caught wiith legally purchased music in their iiPods, should be prosecuted.

I think what DICK CHENEY said to SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY should be said instead to the North Koreans running the RIAA.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Here's a story on the subject:

Macworld Daily News
Friday - February 17, 2006
RIAA claims copying CDs to iPods is unlawful

By Emru Townsend

US record-label body the RIAA and movie-industry moguls at the MPAA are attempting to argue that copying a CD to a computer for carrying on an iPod does not, and has never, constituted fair use.

A report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says 14 organisations, including the two mentioned, have submitted a filing as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's regular review process of exemptions to provisions against tampering with technological protection measures.

This means that, in essence, all rights to copy anything are held by the copyright owner. Those rights can be sold or assigned, which is why a record label can reproduce and distribute a given musician's songs. Since copyright holders haven't granted specific permission to make a copy of a song, you aren't allowed to, by the letter of the law.

Within American law, "fair use" is an exception that, among other things, allows people to make copies within certain circumstances and constraints. So making a copy of a CD for your own personal use is within the scope of fair use. That's the way copyright law has worked for quite some time.

But these new claims show that the right to tote your CD's contents around on your MP3 player were never expressly given, and that, for some reason, fair use doesn't apply. The implication is that all this time, they've been graciously allowing us to make tapes and MP3s from CDs bought for personal use.

The RIAA also claims that digital rights management has only increased legitimate access to copyright works.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=13879&Page=1&pagePos=8

___________________________________________________________________________________

I better predict this before someone else does........

DICK CHENEY WILL RESIGN on March ___ 2006. I guessed at the date - I expect it to be on a Friday at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time (the last Friday night of March would work well - the baseball season will be opening and people will forget Dick's withdrawal). It would make great sense as Dick Cheney has outlived his uselessness to this faltering presidency, and getting a new conservative in as Vice President will only help Republicans in their quest to maintain the presidency in 2008.

The closer it gets to November, the least likely it will be that Cheney will resign as that would focus negative attention on this administration. And resigning in the next 10 days is too soon and too close to RIFLE-GATE and would be regarded as too much a victory for Democrats.

I've been wrong before - about the RIAA, and about Henry Cisneros becoming the first U. S. Hispanic President, and thousands of other things. I hated seeing Tom DeLay step down and I will hate it if I am right and Cheney steps down as I love the humor that sweet affable Dick brings to "the American people."

___________________________________________________________________________________

To be continued......