The American Spectator

p>It’s playoff time again, so I’ll be watching a lot of baseball on TV in the next few weeks. I’ll take in a lot of ads but I’ll also miss quite a few. I will, for example, take advantage of the commercial breaks to channel surf, stretch my legs, or grab something from the fridge. Does this make me a thief? Jamie Kellner, president and CEO of the WB Network, thinks so. May I go to the bathroom, Mr. Kellner? “I guess there’s a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom,” Kellner told Cableworld last year. Phew! br> br> According to Kellner, “Your contract with the network when you get the show is, You’re going to watch the spots.” I don’t recall signing any such contract. Do you? Perhaps the entertainment industry managed to slip it into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), but I’m certain I would have heard about this. br> br> The other week, a Spectator columnist raised the possibility that the 60 million Americans who have downloaded music from the Internet are moral imbeciles. Which part of “thief” don’t you understand? he asked . /p>

Well, over the last 30 years I have purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of CDs and DVDs. I always assumed that buying these products made me the owner of them. According to Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, I was mistaken. During a Washington Post online chat about the legality of consumers (like me) who make copies of CDs and DVDs for their personal use, he replied, “If you have a CD or a DVD in digital form, then you already have your personal copy.” So now Jack Valenti is calling me a thief too.

p>Who else thinks I’m a thief? EMI, the British record label. I’m a fan of Radiohead, so I bought their new album, ironically titled Hail to the Thief