-Hewlett-Packard in no way encourages the piracy of any software or music," Peter Leihn, HP's market development manager for peripherals and appliances, told ZDNet Australia. -This is much bigger than HP, and if there is anything we can do to guard against piracy we would be happy to help."
In the US some owners of copyrighted works are calling for congressional intervention in the form of government mandated standards in digital rights management (DRM) systems. However, manufacturers argue that legislative attempts to protect content by forcing them to include copyright-protection technologies in products will have far-reaching and damaging effects.
Sony Australia agrees with this stance. In an official statement, the company said: -Until fundamental solutions to copyright protection are developed, it is impossible for the hardware side of our business to stop their activities."
-Sony Corporation from the point of view of a hardware manufacturer, while fully supporting the basic stance on copyright protection outlined above, is at the same time quickly adapting to progress in technology and changes to the market environment to develop and commercialise products that answer consumer needs."
Both companies extolled the legal uses of CD-Writers. -Music downloads will bring new business opportunities both to the music and consumer electronics businesses, while offering a new lifestyle for consumers," reported Sony.
HP's Leihn agreed, saying: -A CD burner is wonderful technology, and allows you to do some wonderful things, you can copy photos to CD, you can copy home movies to CD, you can back up data so it's a lot safer, and so on."
-I think people are using these drives for a number of different uses," he added. -What's the difference between a CD burner and including a tape recorder in an all-in-one stereo?"
Copywrite is part of reasonable cost to acquire software.
Just keep your grubby fingers out of my HDD. You stuff me up and beware of class action based on invasion of privacy and confidentuality issues.