Actually, we've staked a lot of our economic future on it (foolishly in my opinion). Relatively few engineers in the U. S. design things any more. They create intellectual property for the companies that employ them.

Tell me about it. I work for one of those engineering companies but my background is science and it drives me freakin nuts. We patent stuff that doesn't work all the time because somebody else might make it work and then we can essentially extort them. It's ridiculous.

A perfectly good illustration of my point. A CD reader and a CD writer in a PC are part of the “singular 'device'” as surely as one CD reader or one hard drive is.

The gray area isn't from the CD drive, but from the removable CD media itself. Once the file exists on a medium that is not physically connected to the original device, and can be easily transfered and used on other, unrelated devices, it is not considered part of the original device's copy, but a separate copy.

Traditionally the computer as a whole is treated as a singular "device", such that copying from one part of the device to another doesn't constitute 2 separate copies.

A perfectly good illustration of my point. A CD reader and a CD writer in a PC are part of the “singular 'device'” as surely as one CD reader or one hard drive is.

Or as surely as the reader in a CD player (a highly specialized computer system) is.

but there are way too many people making money off of IP for that to happen.

Actually, we've staked a lot of our economic future on it (foolishly in my opinion). Relatively few engineers in the U. S. design things any more. They create intellectual property for the companies that employ them.

...but there are way too many people making money off of IP for that to happen.

just me,
The recording industry is starting to get it, with many offering DRM-free downloads, and EMI even rumored to be pulling out of the RIAA. It would be fitting if the RIAA ceased to exist because it's member companies realized it was costing them more sales than it protected.

Me, I just wish they would sue her so I could see all the Republican candidates (and blog commenters) come out unanimously against personal-use copying of one's own CD's. The Menckenesque spring in my step would last for days.

Unless software license agreements are written very carefully with this in mind (I don't recall seeing any that were), that means that either the argument cited in the body of the post is nonsense, computer users are in violation of their license agreements simply by using their software as directed by its supplier, or different media will be treated differently under the law despite the fact that what's actually happening behind the scenes of their computers, CD players, and DVD players may be the same.

We are in serious need of a revision in copyright law starting with a repeal of the Copyright Act of 1999. It was idiotic to start out with.

People don't want to buy a CD for $15 with 13 songs they don't like to listen to 2 or 3 songs they do like, not when they can spend a couple of bucks or so, put it in their MP3's and/or burn it onto a CD with all songs they like.

The industry needs to get on board this train now, and advocate meaningful copyright law, if they don't it is going to leave the station without them.