Stop SIRA- paying for your music again and again and again

A story at Slashdot, The Worst Bill You’ve Never Heard Of, doesn’t refer to a pay-due payment bill but a congressional bill that would require you to, get this, pay again for music that you’ve already bought, online or offline.

More details about this scam are here at IPAC, including who in Congress to contact to let them know that you’re not happy about this. An excerpt from the IPAC article:

Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer’s memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again, Big Copyright is looking for a way to double-dip into your wallet, extracting payment for the same content at multiple levels.

Today, so-called “incidental” copies don’t need to be licensed; they’re made in the process of doing *other* things, like listening to your MP3 library or plugging into a Net radio station. If you paid for the MP3 and the radio station is up-to-date with its bookkeeping, nobody should have to pay again, right? Not if SIRA becomes law. Out of the blue, copyright holders would have created an entire new market to charge for — and sue over. Good for them. Bad for us.

To see the full bill is available online at the Copyright Office website.

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