November 12, 2003
iTunes Streaming on Campus
So, I was going through my Winthrop House mail yesterday and came upon an email, subject: “iTunes – another plea!” At first, I thought someone had run into the Win2k crash bug. On the contrary, the program was working well – perhaps too well from the RIAA’s perspective. The email urged everyone to share their files via iTunes streaming so that we would have one, gigantic Winthrop House music collection.
And, of course, the plea ended with an assertion that this is “completely legal.” Not so fast. Looks like a public performance webcast to me. Apparently, similar threads on many other campus mailists have generated more discussion of the legality.
In any case, let me ask a somewhat targeted question: is this a public or private activity? That is, does this fit the copynorm “share with friends, not strangers”? We’re all part of one campus residence, but I haven’t met any of the people streaming songs.
Filed by Derek Slater at 8:32 pm under General news
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