I empathize with the general frustration at the media industries' desire to have it both ways.
However, there does seem (to me) to be a logical and reasonable limit to our rights to the music we buy. While I think it's perfectly reasonable to do whatever non-commercial activity I want with a CD I've purchased, I'm not entirely convinced it's useful or good to extend that to commercial activity. (Say: duplicating the CD you bought and selling it for profit)
And if you're anywhere on the spectrum other than the 'end copyright' extreme, it seems that you partially agree that there is some reasonable basis to the argument that a CD isn't just a CD, that there is some implied contract that limits use.
A CD isn't just a CD, that there is some implied contract that limits use.
Well, no. You should be able to do anything you want with that CD. The music on it, however, is covered by copyright, which should be protected on some level.
As far as actual copyright law, I agree that duplicating a CD and selling it is bad. I feel that duplicating a CD and giving it to your friend to hear is good (and reasonable). Some place in the middle lies taking parts of the music and creating new music out of it, which is where I find rather murky. At what point does it become too much of a sample, or at what point should royalties be owed?
But you explicitly have a commercial activity you can do with that CD: you can resell it. You can resell it so much that there's even a special term for it: "first sale doctrine". No one has a problem with me re-selling my car or a treadmill or even a television. You should (and do) have that same right with a CD.
That's why the software people are so insistent that they're selling you a "license" and not the disc itself. My understanding is that the prevailing caselaw says that the industry's argument is bullshit in the most recent case to be decided, Autodesk v. Vernor: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/05/court-smacks...
(Again, there might be more recent caselaw than this, but I personally am not aware of anything more recent than Autodesk. Please note that Autodesk technically is only binding in the Western District of Washington state, including Seattle, but other federal courts may look to Autodesk for cases that involve similar fact patterns that may appear before their courts.)
I don't agree that there are implied contract limits on your use of a CD. I also don't agree that there are normally any express contract limits on your use of a CD.
The OP references a letter from a poster who got his terms mixed up. He equates copyright law with a license/contract. That's not true. There ARE copyright laws which attach to the creative work and that would limit the use, but it's not a license.
In the end, the OP's premise is flawed regarding the music on a CD having a license attached to it.
Yes, there are limits to what we can do with any copyrighted material we purchase, but the argument is that those limits should be enshrined in copyright law and nowhere else. There does not need to be any licensing beyond that at all nor as the argument goes any limits beyond it.
However, there does seem (to me) to be a logical and reasonable limit to our rights to the music we buy. While I think it's perfectly reasonable to do whatever non-commercial activity I want with a CD I've purchased, I'm not entirely convinced it's useful or good to extend that to commercial activity. (Say: duplicating the CD you bought and selling it for profit)
And if you're anywhere on the spectrum other than the 'end copyright' extreme, it seems that you partially agree that there is some reasonable basis to the argument that a CD isn't just a CD, that there is some implied contract that limits use.