Text of COL49

[Carvill, John]

<< Except all those examples you cite are legal. Blank cassette tapes at one time (not sure about nowadays) even had a surcharge tacked onto the price of them to pay to the record companies for each tape sold. >>

Not always, or in some cases ever. Dunno about the US, but here in the UK recording (and keeping) TV programs onto VHS tapes was technically illegal. Vinyl albums used to have a little 'cassette and crossbones' symbol on them which said, bullsh1ttingly, "Home Taping is killing music. And it's illegal". Did nobody who's getting all high-horsey about e-exts ever tape a friend's album? Or, more modern version, ever watch an unlicensed video on YouTUbe, or read a PDF of an academic article that was circulating? Etc.

I'm certainly not out to wage war on copyright, and there are serious issues surrounding, say, Google's digitization of millions of books, which is a more likely source of problems for authors, as are Kindles, ereaders, iPads etc.

How many on this list have not bought at least one copy of COL49? If I wanted to download that etext (which, incidentally and irrelevantly, I haven't - for all I know the link is dead) so I could search for a phrase, why shouldn't I? Should I? I think the question bears some discussion, it's not cut and dried.