Just a bit on the copyright laws:
“Multipurpose devices, such as a general computer or a CD-ROM drive, are not covered by the AHRA. This means that they are not required to pay royalties or incorporate SCMS protections. It also means, however, that neither manufacturers of the devices, nor the consumers who use them, receive immunity from suit for copyright infringement.”
Straight from the copyright laws section. In short, any non-computer related item must have built in criteria to prevent copying from a copy. Any other item, such as a pc cd-r doesn’t. But if a cd is copied using a pc, then not only is the consumer liable, but so is the manufacturer of the device which did the copying. IE. If they want to limit illegal copying, all they need to do is start going to the true source, the devices they sell cheap enough to make copying valid, and make those devices unable to copy more than the original, as any other commerical copying device is required to be. In a very abstract sense, it could be deemed that not only the cd-r is responsible, but the entire computer system as well as the drives copied from and to are equally liable for any copying performed if it is found to be illegal, and are able to be held accountable in a court of law. (It specifically states computers or devices).
The moral? If you are illegally copying stuff (Which I don’t, so please don’t read more into it than is meant) and are arrested, you can take (compaq, hp, so on, so forth for your computer), amd/intel (processor for the computer), sony/plextor (or whatever drives you have) all to court as part of the settlement cost. So the final moral? The law should be addendumed to remove the capability of generating “said illegal copies” from pc’s as well as from all those other fun devices. Although I agree that there should be “free replacements” for defective material after such. Back in the c64 days, I copied everything and played off the copies, disks just didn’t last long enough. Copy dies (not uncommon) make another copy and continue, keeping the orignal stored savely away.
PS: I wonder if I am violating copyright infringement by copying this from the copyright laws page?