About DRM protected music that you have purchased

[SlumpBuster]

If a law is unjust, isn't it our patriotic duty to disobbey it?

Um, no. We are a country of laws, not men.

Additionally, haven't "the U.S. Congress, the Office of the President, and the FBI" broken quite a few laws in the last decade (from extarordinary rendition to illegal wiretaps to starting wars)?

Um, irrelevant. We're talking about music copyrights.

What makes that OK,

Um, never said it was.

but ripping a legally owned music track not OK?

Um, it's against the law to defeat DRM.

The laws that you refer to are only enforceable in this country because
the RIAA had the money to buy off the votes to get the DMCA passed in the first place.

Um, no, the DMCA was subjected to the legislative process.

This did not happen to the same degree in other countries. If the whole world is less beholden to the RIAA, why do we feel so self-righteous to claim that our laws trump theirs?

Um, I don't claim our laws trump theirs. However our laws do apply here.

Maybe the DMCA went too far.

Um, probably.

For example, if you were arrested for charging a cover charge at the door to watch the pay-per-view Tyson fight on your new 60" plasma tv, should you serve the maximum US jail sentence or be made to just pay a small fine as they do in France? If it was the next decade of your life on the line, I'm sure you'd opt for the French solution, regardless of what you may think of their cheese. And this becomes pretty serious when your crime is equated to terrorism. Maybe we should interrogate you filthy bootleggers by waterboarding to see who else might be involved. Who knows, we could find out all kinds of other information like who was speeding on the way home last night, who "borrowed" a couple of pens from the office, and who was involved in the office pool before the big game last week. Pretty soon, we'll be arresting and waterboarding all you filthy criminals.

Um, what?

Oh, so you don't do that, huh? Well what if it was your 15 yr. old daughter who did? You'd still be on the hook for it. There is a reason why we value our civil liberties, fair use, and privacy in our homes. Sometimes it is to bend the law to make life a little more bearable. Just like we don't want to know what you do in your bedroom, we also don't want to know if it involves a little bootlegged music. If no one gets hurt, why do we equate such crimes with much more heinous ones?

Um, intellectual property rights are a constitutional rights too.

Snoop was careful to refer specifically to "people that buy legal music." For most of us who abide by the law most of the time, DRM is a pain-in-the-a**, and only makes the enjoyment of music that much harder. To proclaim that one does not partake in crime as loosely defined as in the DMCA, is like mounting a slingshot on the porch of a glass house. If we're going to move the debate from a "personal issue" to a universal issue, then why stop at the borders of the US?

Um, Snoop is a spammer pedalling a program out of Ukraine to defeat DRM. I'm willing to bet Snoop is that antithesis of "careful" and I don't think he gives a crap if the music was bought legally or not. Whether or not the program is illegal is not just a matter of personal opinion. Any reasonable person would understand that is is designed to defeat DRM. That is illegal. The fact that you don't like that it is illegal does not change the fact that it is.

To be satisfied that the DMCA is the law of the land is just a convenience of priviledge and wealth.

Finally, um, no. Actually, picking and choosing which laws you will follow and which laws you won't premised upon what is most beneficial to you is "a convenience of priviledge and wealth."