Want to burn a CD? Get a law

Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO: That, anyway, is the view of Internet pioneer turned virtual

organizer Joe Kraus, who has proposed a technology "Bill of Rights" so

consumers can legally copy music and television programs in the digital age,

just as they have done for decades with audio and video tapes.

Digital music is so easy to copy it has spawned rampant piracy, and a wave of

laws and bills aimed at stopping it, many of which are now being debated in

Congress -- and Hollywood.

"Consumers are really losing these rights quickly and silently,"

says Kraus, who founded Internet portal Excite.com but now works full time on

DigitalConsumer.org, an online consumer advocacy group. "We're all used to

mixing tapes, we're all used to lending a book to a friend. All those things

we're used to doing are in the process of being eroded," Kraus said.

Years after music-trading program Napster's debut -- and long after a court

ordered it shut down for allowing piracy -- CD burning, the process of copying

music and other media onto a compact disc, is hitting the mainstream.

Personal computer maker Gateway Inc. sells more than half its computers with

drives which can write CDs, creating mixes of songs with perfect quality.

It is fine to do that, according to the legal concept of "fair

use", which allows a person to copy content they have acquired, or a bit of

content they don't own -- like quoting a book in a book review -- without

permission of the copyright owner.

As it gets easier to make infinite, perfect copies with digital technology,

copyright owners want to make this slightly fuzzy fair use concept cut and

dried. Kraus argues they are going too far by taking aim at the technology

itself. For example, content makers want to limit copying of digital television

and prohibit retransmission over the Net.

"If my son is in a TV commercial, I'm in New York and my wife is in San

Francisco, I can't send a copy (of the commercial) to her via e-mail. The

digital standards don't allow any retransmission over the Internet," says

Kraus. That's where the Bill of Rights comes in. It has six points, and he gives

examples of what they mean:

-- the right to time-shift -- lets you watch a tape of a television show

after it was broadcast

-- the right to space-shift, which means you're allowed to make your own CDs

for personal use, like jogging or other out-of-home listening

-- the right to make backup copies

-- the right to look at content on the platform of your choice, meaning you

can watch a DVD on a computer instead of a TV

-- the right to translate content into comparable formats, which would let a

blind person read a book with a text-to-speech program

-- the right to use technology to secure the rights above: This is the

kicker. Some new CDs can be read by audio CD players but not by computer CD

drives. This would let you use a program to overcome that anti-copying

technology, for instance. However, if you bought a license to a song for a

weekend and then used technology to keep it longer, breaking the contract, you

would not be protected.

Since it was founded in mid-March, DigitalConsumer has received requests from

some 35,000 people to request more than 100,000 faxes in favor of the bill be

sent to legislators, and Kraus hopes to find Congressional sponsors soon.

Buy hardback, paperback free?



But consumers may also want to consider the argument of movie and music
makers, who say unfairly broad fair use laws would give them no incentive to

keep producing, since everyone would be sharing, not buying.

Cary Sherman, senior executive vice president and general counsel of the

Recording Industry Association of America (www.riaa.com), a group of music and

music video producers, endorses letting consumers copy their music onto

computers and says the industry is working on ways to let that happen.

But the right to copying is not unlimited, he says. Kraus wants to be able to

lend a digital book, but Sherman wants to stop people going into publishing.

"What now has changed such that if I buy it once, I'm entitled to use that

content forever, in any format of my choosing? It means that if I buy a

hardcover book, I'm allowed to get it in paperback without paying anything more

so that I can have one at the beach house?" he asked.

"There are all these leaps of judgment here, just because technology has

made it possible." Gateway's Brad Shaw, senior vice president of marketing,

declined to endorse the proposed consumer Bill of Rights, but he encouraged

consumers to follow links on www.gateway.com to DigitalConsumer and other

advocacy groups.

"Get smart. Get out there and educate yourself," he said.