business groups compromise?

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

http://nytimes.com/2003/01/15/business/15PIRA.html

Music Industry Won't Seek Government Aid on Piracy
By AMY HARMON
NYTIMES  Jan. 15

The major recording companies said yesterday that they would not seek
government intervention to prevent digital piracy, in a compromise with
computer companies that may hurt the movie industry's efforts to win
support for its own anti-piracy plan.

The music industry and two trade groups representing computer makers and
software companies said they had agreed on several basic principles that
would help ease the tensions among their industries. Announcing their
agreement in Washington, they said they planned to convene a meeting of
senior industry executives to discuss technical solutions to combat the
illegal copying of digital material.

....

the Recording Industry Association of America said that under most
circumstances it would oppose legislation that would require computers and
consumer electronics devices to be designed to restrict unauthorized
copying of audio and video material...

....

In turn, the Business Software Alliance and another technology group, the
Computer Systems Policy Project, said they would not support legislation
that seeks to clarify and bolster the rights of people to use copyrighted
material in the digital age, which the recording industry has opposed as
unnecessary. 

....

The recording industry's agreement with the computer trade groups is a
departure from its longtime alliance with the motion picture industry on
the anti-piracy front and underscores for the first time the divergent
concerns of music companies and Hollywood.

..

Consumer electronics industry officials did not join the agreement. They
said that legislation like Mr. Boucher's is necessary to ensure that
consumers can make fair use of digital copyrighted material even when it
is secured with technology meant to prevent illegal copying.

...

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said
.....We are not prepared to abandon the option of seeking technical
protection measures via the Congress or appropriate regulatory agency,
when necessary," ....

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