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From:  Dean FH Macy <deanmacy@m...>
Date:  Thu Jun 29, 2000  10:30 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] MP3.com


Jacqueline/Connie wrote:

> I just got the newspaper from the musician's union and there is quite a
> controversy over the MP3 site and how they have made available copywritten
> music to the masses. Personally, I have not spent much time using MP3
> technology but it did cross my mind that people could get music off the
> internet instead of buying it. Anyone have any comments?

There is a lot of mis-information about MP3 giving away copyrighted music to the
masses, but it's just not true. MP3 was merely acting as a music bank for
people who had bought CD's and wanted to hear them away from home. Say you
wanted to hear one of you own CD's at the office. You subscribed to the MP3
service, got your private account and your password and uploaded your CD into
your account. Then whenever you wanted to hear you CD at work or wherever, you
accessed your account and played your CD.

The mis-information is that anyone could access your private account and hear
your music. Not so. Neither could you hear CD's uploaded to someone elses
account.

It is amazing to me that this simple music bank technology could be twisted so
much that the RIAA sued MP3 for copyright violations without having a clue as to
what was actually happening. Their main argument was that when an account
holder played his CD at the office, anyone within the sound of the music could
hear it and that, they said, was a violation of copyright. Come-on people.
This is the same argument used by HFA and ASCAP when they posted a warning that
anyone listening to another's CD playing in a public place, the park, a store, a
backyard was guilty of copyright violation and would be fined.

If you want to read more about the threats to our musical freedom and how the
powers that be want to limit us from singing or humming or whistling a tune in a
public place (another supposed copyright violation) go to your nearest search
engine, type the words Midi Conspiracy and hit go. You will be directed to
thousands of music sites with the real story.

I once posted an article on Vocalist (about a year ago) that no one seemed
interested in reading. Well, you'd better start getting interested before
Congress decides to pass a bill removing our rights to sing or hum copyrighted
material which is played in the supermarket within the hearing of another.
That's where all this is going. And once the bill is passed it will be too late
to quash it.

--
Dean FH Macy, Lit.D./Mus.D.
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"Specializing in Management of exceptionally talented youth in Music"
<http://www.newenglandtalent.org> EPI Records - NetWork Films
<http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/3/epilogue_recording_artists.html>
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"Making children do something they don't want to do is the job of the parents.
If that doesn't work, there are always juvenile detention centers." - Mike R. -



  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
2854 Re: MP3.com John Alexander Blyth   Thu  7/6/2000   3 KB

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