Jerry Brito

Rip, Mix, Sell?

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We can all agree how pernicious the DMCA is when it’s used by the MPAA to put out of business Load ‘N Go–a small company that sold iPods preloaded with movies along with the DVDs of those movies. Piracy was not an issue here because consumers had to buy the DVD of every movie loaded onto their iPod. The reason MPAA acted, of course, is because Hollywood wants us to pay twice for movies–once for a DVD and again for an iPod or PC version.

Sometimes, however, the content industry has a point. Today Todd Dominey posted on his excellent blog his experience getting rid of his 3000-CD collection and going completely digital. He ripped everything to his computer and then sold all the CDs on the Amazon Marketplace. Today’s post is a great howto for folks with big collections. The thing is that he kept the music, but every used CD he sold is arguably one new CD the recording industry didn’t sell. (There’s probably not a one-to-one correlation there, but probably pretty close.) As more folks move to digital, this practice will only grow.

As far as I can tell this is plain and simple copyright infringement. I don’t think DRM coupled with the DMCA is the solution. Given the new reality of the internet, the only choice the content industry has is to change its business model. But when you see something like this, you have to feel their pain. I believe ripping your CDs or DVDs for use on your portable devices is fair use, and I think the Copyright Office should have issued a DMCA exemption for the practice. That said, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →