Security Alert: eBay Prevents Musician from Selling Own CD-Rs
“George Ziemann, an independent musician, made an album with his band and like many small operators, he then produced copies of the the album on CD-R and attempted to sell them on the Web. He listed copies on his own Web page, on MP3.COM, on garageband.com, and on eBay. All was going well… until eBay abruptly began to de-list the auctions.
Ziemann and his band were the authors, engineers, producers, and publishers of the album, and could prove that they owned the copyright and all other rights to it. Yet, eBay's 'droids' unilaterally removed all of his auctions merely because the item descriptions stated that the recordings were on CD-R media. (This disclosure is important, because some players will not play CD-Rs.)… Despite his repeated attempts to contact eBay and inform them that his products were legal, Ziemann was unable to prevent them from removing his album each time he listed it for sale.
Ziemann speculates, in his detailed account of the incident, that the RIAA has put pressure upon eBay to block sales of all CD-Rs — not only to exclude illegal copies but to prevent independent musicians from self-publishing.” [ExtremeTech]
Guilty by association. This is exactly what I mean when I say that implementation of the RIAA's proposals will leave no room for libraries to circulate material. The RIAA (and MPAA) wants to plug every hole and destroy media that could even possibly allow for open distribution.
I'm still waiting to hear about any kind of acknowledgement or proposal from them that their solutions will provide a means for libraries to circulate digital content. Odd that they are so quiet on this issue when they are so loud on others. Or maybe not. They don't talk about this, so I wish someone would call them on it. [The Shifted Librarian]