Digital Music Bill Tries to Level the Field

Well, Napster is pretty much dead and gone for now, although there are certainly other sites that will give you all the fun of shoplifting without the guilt. Now, new legislation is trying to pinpoint how everyone can get their cut of your music-buying dollar while taking advantage of Napster-like services for distribution and listening. According to NewsBytes , Legislation that was introduced last Thursday here in the U.S. would extend copyright exemptions to Webcasters of digital music and the major record labels are not likely to be thrilled about it. The Music Online Competition Act (MOCA), would amend copyright law to give the same copyright exemptions that radio, cable, and satellite broadcasters have to online music distributors. A lot of the legislation looks like it's aimed at keeping MusicNet, supported by RealNetworks, Warner Music Group, Bertelsmann AG and EMI, MusicNet; and Pressplay, which backs Sony and Vivendi Universal, from running the whole online distribution show. The bill is intended to keep the two services from controlling 80 percent of the market. The legislation also addresses the fact that MusicNet and Pressplay's services are based on subscriptions that will prevent users from copying the files to other media or portable music players. There's got to be a better solution than limiting us to listening to downloaded music while sitting at our computers.