XPost: alt.internet.hispeed, can.general   
   From: Music@Man.com   
      
   Rob McIntyre wrote:   
      
   > At this moment the industry is considering copying of music to   
   > hard drives of any kind as illegal,   
      
   When I buy a music CD (in canada) - what exactly am I buying?   
      
   Am I buying a license to play the content of the disk on any   
   personally-owned device that will play it?   
      
   Do I own the disk?   
      
   Do I own the contents of the disk?   
      
   Can I sell the CD to a pawn shop or retail re-seller of used CD's?   
      
   If I don't "own" the disk (but just have the right to play it), then   
   if I break the disk do I have the right to obtain a second disk at a   
   much reduced cost (since presumably the majority of the original cost   
   was to purchase the rights to listen to the content, which should   
   continue even if the disk is broken or otherwise unplayable). ?   
      
   Presumably I can't re-transmit the contents (ie feed the audio signal   
   from a CD into an AM or FM transmitter) such that the community at   
   large can receive it (ignoring DOT/FCC rules for the moment about   
   illegal transmitters).   
      
   I understand that in the US there is something called "fair use" which   
   basically gives americans the right (technology permitting) to make a   
   backup copy of any copyrighted material they have legally acquired   
   (VHS tape, music CD, presumably a DVD, book or novel, etc).  Do I   
   understand this correctly - and do Canadians have something similar to   
   "fair use" ?   
      
   Getting back to the current issue -   
      
   It seems that in Canada, if a music track (or entire CD) is copied to   
   some medium (the internet via file-sharing or binary nntp posting,   
   cassette tape, vhs tape, CD-R, DVD-R, MP3, SD-Ram, computer hard   
   drive, etc) that the music industry will consider (and the courts will   
   agree?) that such a copy is illegal unless the media in question has   
   some sort of use-tax applied to it at the retail or whole-sale level.   
      
   Do I understand this correctly? -> Is it the (Canadian) music   
   industry's position that if the medium does not have a music tax, then   
   the transfer of (legal) content to the un-taxed medium is in violation   
   of copyright law?  Are the (Canadian) courts in agreement with that?   
      
   If so, how does that compare with the situation in the US, where there   
   is no such tax on MP3 and blank CD-R's, yet there is also no such   
   threat by the American music industry to go after people that transfer   
   content from a (legit) CD's onto their MP3 or burn duplicate copies   
   for themselves.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)