Wired News reports on the upcoming DMCA review.

November 30, 2000 12:02 PM

Wired News reports on the upcoming DMCA review. Via Linux Weekly News: "When music is streamed, webcasters are required to pay a performance royalty. In order to generate smooth playback of incoming streams, computers temporarily store some of the data in memory in a RAM buffer. Music publishers have stated that the data in this buffer should be considered a physical creation that would require webcasters to pay a mechanical royalty, similar to what they pay for downloads or CDs." Anyone need any more on that? Time to get your congressman on the phone...
posted by baylink (3 comments total)

When your brain hears music, it must temporarily store the qualities of the sound as chemical signals traveling across synapses. Should they pay a per-synaps royalty?
posted by Ptrin at 12:15 PM on November 30, 2000

I don't know why Wired didn't link to the page at the Copyright Office Web site that contains all the information about the study. Best to be educated before you contact your congressman. Be sure to read the summaries of testimony.
posted by bkdelong at 12:23 PM on November 30, 2000

Wonder why the record companies haven't gone after companies that make CD players. Most portables have a buffer that serves exactly the same function.
posted by kindall at 2:55 PM on November 30, 2000