Ok, I'm trying to work out a theoretical licensing issue.

I subscribe to Netflix, which lets me watch any dvd on earth for $17 a
month.   They let me have "3 at a time".   The turnover rate is based on
how fast I watch them, and the mail service between Kent, WA and their
distribution center in Tacoma, WA.

At a maximum, if I put a Netflix dvd in the mail on Monday, it can arrive
there on Tuesday and they can have a new dvd back to me on Wednesday.   Of
course, if I drop it in the mail on Saturday, there's a one day delay.  
So, lets say, I can watch at most 1 movie a night.   Basically, I get 6
dvds per week, 4 weeks a month or 32 dvds a month.

For $17 I get the right to watch 32 dvds.   So, let's say, instead of
actually using the mails, I download the dvd rips from isohunt using the
Azureus bittorrent client.   Let's say that I limit myself to the same
maximum downloads as the Netflix postal-based system can handle...in fact,
the actual limit is my ability to consume dvds, which at a maximum is 1 per
night -- and quite frankly, after a year of Netflix, I'm so saturated with
movies that I barely get through 1 or 2 a week any more.

In the grand scheme of things, shouldn't what I'm doing be perfectly legal?  
I mean, the people who would get the licensing money are getting it via
Netflix.   In the same vein, Rhapsody at $9.99 per month should make it
legal for me to 'acquire' music freely, since I would be doing that anyway
using their client ( which only runs on Windows and so I would never want
to use it).

I think there should be some type of downloading 'indemnity' that the MPAA
should offer for $20 a month for all recorded media that says: hey, you can
download, or /upload/ as much as you want, and if anyone asks, you just
flash your MPAA card at them...all they really need are the tracker logs so
that the right artists can be compensated for the chosen media.


-- 
Texeme 
http://www.texeme.com
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