Re: Jail for seller of illegal Xbox chips

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

From: "mark_harrison_uk2" <mph@xxxxxxx>
> I have written to my MP once - that was in the last year - and wasn't
> about anything HA-related. (It was about a specific matter relating
> to this part of the world.) Six months later, no reply.

That's pretty poor.
Despite having very little confidence in my MP and MSP initially, both of
them have repsonded within pretty short timeframes recently. It's worth
going through somewhere like faxyourmp.com, simply because the various
parties seem to now be aware that stats are tracked and available, and MPs
who dont respond look bad.

> For the record (if you'll pardon the pun), if I were still running a
> record company today, then I would argue for our licence agreement to
> specifically allow media shifting for personal use...

My own preference would be for shortening the copyright period to twenty
years, after which the material becomes public domain. Twenty years of
exclusive rights to material should be enough to recoup the initial
investment / reward the artist.

The current cultural landgrab gives the media companies the right to
control
and restrict access to huge swathes of significant material until long
after
the people involved in that period of culture are dead! :(

> PS - Most impressed by Greenspan's comments about Intellectual
> Property - good to see that not ALL of the US Hierarchy are in the
> hands of the RIAA :-)

I didn't see this, but I'm very interested. Got a link Mark?