Digital right lobbyists picket UK record stores


This is something most countries can only dream about, English protestors that hand out leaflets in front of a store to protest against copy right technology on CD's.

They want to tell the music industry: "The paying public are not your guinea pigs." They also say that they don't think it's right when people have to pay the same for a copy protected CD, as it has limited usability.

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Copy-protected CDs are basically the music industry's way of protecting its status quo. Technological advances have made data transmission and manipulation very cheap and fast, with knock-on effects on the music industry's level of control.

But rather than come up with a new, expansive way of looking at the dissemination of music in society, the music industry has opted for enforced control mechanisms. Copy protection comes in various forms for CDs (often to the detriment of the quality of the "listening experience"). It will prevent the CDs being played on certain devices, such as CD-ROM drive, or ripped to be sent over the Internet or played before 9pm if it contains rude words (we made that last one up).

As soon as a new system is introduced someone finds a way of breaking it, but everytime the sound quality gets worse. Which is a bad thing.

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A press release from CDR says: "If the record industries want to experiment with copy protection, let them do so in their laboratories, and not at the expense of the general public. And if they want to sell these CDs, let them make the warning labels prominent and truthful."

Source: TheRegister

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