A burning issue: Music piracy and downloads

USA Today ^ | 6.4.02 | No byline

[AAABEST]

They're stealing from someone else when they swap music files.

I hate to inform you, but the "stealing" argument wore thin about a year ago. YAWN.

If you want to go there, then I hope you have never made a copy of an album, a VCR tape or posted a picture on this forum without the "owners" permission. If so, by your own definition you're a theif.

[rdb3]

Piracy is stealing, as sure as if you went walking through a friends living room and lifted a five dollar bill off his coffee table. It robs people of income they're entitled to by law and by right.

Is this so cut-and-dried in this scenario: I bought a Kirk Franklin CD four years ago from Tower Records. My CD is now missing. If I find these songs contained on this particular CD on the 'net to download for free, am I "stealing?"

[rdb3]

Wouldn't singing in the shower be considered a First Ammendment freedom of speech issue?

Actually this has nothing to do with the First Amendment if it takes place in a private residence.

I can sing in the shower all day long in my house. But if a family member is visiting, I can stop him or her from singing and I would not have violated their right to free speech.

Congress shall make no law...

[Leto]

Most intellectual property is protected for 17 years and then the patent expires. For the entertainment industry the current limit is 75 years, even if the artist passes away. At what point should material pass into the public domain?

There is a long history in law of intellectual property passing into the public domain. Whay should entertainment content be different?

[apillar]

I've tried audiogalaxy in the past, out of curiosity mainly. It's been my experience that the recording quality tends to be low and (to me at least) it was just a hassle. Usually someone would log off halfway through a download. I still purchase CD pretty much exclusively.

That being said I beleive that lawsuits and regulations will not stop music swapping and the record companies are just going to have to adapt.

All the lawsuits are going to do is drive the hubs of these sites offshore to countries with less than "enthusiastic" enforcement of International copyright laws.

The new idea on the table is Government mandated copy protection on hard-drives, cd burners ect. HA! HA! don't make me laugh, some hacker would have cracked it before the ink drys. All this would manage to do is raise the price of hard drives a few bucks.

The last avenue of attack is the "Shame Factor". This is convincing the 40 million or so people that downloading music and video is stealing (and under current law in most cases it is). Anybody that actually thinks this would work is totally clueless about the moral state of this country (as well as basic human nature) In another words "Don't waste your time."

As I said the way I view the situation, The record companies are just going to have to adapt to the new market realities. I sure many folks would be willing to pay $5.00 for a CD as opposed to the current $12-$20.

[cascademountaineer]

The Recording Industry Association of America

Sued for price fixing in 45 states by the attorney generals office of the united states.

Who's the crook?

The thing is, the RIAA is scared because the artists themselves may start uploading their own stuff directly from a digital audio equipped studio and using the internet as their distribution center. The MP3.com model is a good example.

It thereby eliminates the middlemen. Thats probably the bottom line to why they dont want to modernize.

Besides I have a hard time with an organization like the RIAA who like to claim the concept of the free market, then want to be able to institute production guidlines for CD-Rom manufacturers. And its not like they havent been on the other side of the table in court occasionally.

[Sungirl]

Thanks ..will try them all out!

[tdadams]

I don't know it's codified more specifically elsewhere, but if I recall, the "one copy" rule is based on the library and archives section of the copyright law, which permits someone "to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work". I'll post from Shemel & Krasilovsky's book later if this doesn't satisfy you.

[eno_]

I get my music from mp3.com. It's free, it's legal, and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than the same-old pop junk. Most music is made by people without recording contracts. I like surf rock. Almost all the best surf rock is made by bands who do it for fun. There just isn't any at Wal-Mart. Never will be. The same goes for a lot of other genres. So I have no need to "steal" music, never mind the fact that anyone who sent me a song without profiting from having done so would be well within established fair use doctrine.

So the RIAA and MPOA don't really have defense of copyright as their primary goal. They are defending their business model where a tiny fraction of artists get rich from recording contracts and nobody ever hears the rest. And in defnding this probably undefendable business model, they want to impose Big Brother in everyone's PC. No thank you. I will simply stop buying commercial CDs - they are too harmful to my privacy, which I find much more valuable than any music.

[tdadams]

If you want to go there, then I hope you have never made a copy of an album,

I haven't. Ever.

a VCR tape

Haven't copied a store-bought tape, but have taped from TV, which has been ruled legal by the courts.

or posted a picture on this forum without the "owners" permission.

Falls under fair use.

If so, by your own definition you're a theif.

Try again. Sorry if you're tired of following the law and feel justified in stealing money. But the law isn't diminished simply because you're tired of it.

[tdadams]

My CD is now missing. If I find these songs contained on this particular CD on the 'net to download for free, am I "stealing?"

If your car went missing and you happened across another one just like it in the mall parking lot with the motor running, are you free to take it? I'm curious?

[rdb3]

Try again, tdadams.

These are in no way comparable. There are far too many other factors that you left out which obliterate the comparison.

[AAABEST]

Try again. Sorry if you're tired of following the law and feel justified in stealing money. But the law isn't diminished simply because you're tired of it.

Nah. That's why you guys are going to lose eventually, despite all of your research of archaic, industrial revolution era copyright laws.

If you take a step back, the only reason why they were created was to address the technology of the time. In fact, the only reason why the "big five" were able to become the giant, counterproductive terd piles they've become was because of advances in technology.

The controllers are losing the battle. Tough s**t on them, as controllers hate losing control. The whole world isn't going to stop for them no matter how many file sharing companies they try to run out of town, no matter how many lists they make of 12 year olds trading Metallica tracks.

Sorry but the buggy whip makers and their tight-assed cheerleaders are just going to have to get a life.

As a mater of fact from now on every time I hear you accuse another FReeper of "stealing" or call someone a theif, I'm getting on KaZaA and downloading 5 .mp3s.

[tdadams]

For the entertainment industry the current limit is 75 years, even if the artist passes away. At what point should material pass into the public domain?

In general, I think we're mostly talking about swapping copyrighted music of current artists who are mostly still living and are entitled to make profits from their creations.

But your questions bring up an interesting digression. First it's important to understand that copyright takes basically two forms (there are actually more, but in the context of this discussion, I'll keep it simple). There is a PA (performing art) and the SR (sound recording). The PA is the underlying work, the essense of a song regardless of who or how it was recorded. The SR is a specific recording (ie - Elvis Presley's Blue Moon of Kentucky).

It's the PA copyright that goes into the public domain. Currently, it's 75 years after the death of the last living author. In other words, the Beatles copyrights won't be public domain in 2055 (75 years after the death of John Lennon), but 75 years after the death of Paul McCartney.

After the PA copyright becomes public domain, anyone is free to record it and sell it without paying any royalties.

The SR copyright does not become public domain. For this reason, if the New York Philharmonic records Mozart, that is a specific recording and you can't just copy and sell that yourself. However, you could produce your own recording of the same Mozart song all you want.

[tdadams]

These are in no way comparable.

You're right. They're not completely analogous. But analogies are rarely apples to apples. I'm pointing out the flaw in the underlying ethical justification.

[cascademountaineer]

It's only "digital information" that should be freely exchanged, as another poster here suggested.

Maybe a better question to ask is why have organizations like the RIAA moved to block download for profit as well? Hmmm...

Right now, its moving to a situation where in 10 years artists in studio's will be able to upload entire albums directly to the internet. Some of the basic technology in digital audio is already out there.

In ten years when nearly everyone in America has a cable modem, the PC will probably be the entertainment center. People will be able to download movies as well as music. On some of the higher end web tv's, information on programming and even digitalized recorded playback is automatically downloaded from a server.

Thats where the technology is heading and the bottom line is that this is actually less about copyright protection as it is organizations like the RIAA are seeking to block an emerging market.

[steve-b]

You're scraping the bottom of the analogy barrel again. Obviously, you are not entitled to a car without paying the owner of the car a mutually acceptable price. However, in the case posited by rdb3, he is entitled to a copy of the song because he has already paid a mutually acceptable price to the owner of the copyright.

One of the tricks used by the recording industry is to switch back and forth between ownership of a physical medium (like a car) and access to a copy of a work (like a song). If owning a CD is just like owning a car, then you just have to buy another copy if yours gets damaged -- and you may share it with anyone you like. If owning a CD is purely a matter of access to its contents, then there is no reason you shouldn't make backups, or obtain other copies by whatever means if yours breaks -- but you may not further distribute it. The industry wants to have it both ways -- you have to buy new copies if yours becomes damaged or technologically obsolete, but you still don't have full ownership.

It has to be one or the other. Given the nature of copyrighted works, the latter makes more sense, and is closer to the actual law, but the industry doesn't want to concede the fair-use side (backups, format conversion, etc) of the equation.

[tdadams]

The controllers are losing the battle. Tough s**t on them, as controllers hate losing control.

I think you're losing perspective here because you happen to either like illegal file sharing or you detest record companies, or both.

You seem to be confusing government controllers (which I agree need to lose power) and property (copyright) owners. If we all cheer when property owners are denied their rights, we're all in trouble. You're setting the stage for legitimizing nationalization.

So XYZ Records is big and powerful. Does that mean someone has a right to take what is theirs without paying for it? What about pharmaceutical companies? They're also big and powerful and there's a lot of people clamoring for the government to do something about high drug prices. You're helping to make the argument that it's legitimate for someone to just take something if, in their own opinion, they can't afford it or aren't willing to pay as much for it as the seller is charging.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Actually I just tried the KaZaa LITE program that was discussed on this thread and IT IS DA' BOMB. There is a link for it in here somewhere.

[Risky Schemer]

If you want to go there, then I hope you have never made a copy of an album,

I haven't. Ever.

a VCR tape

Haven't copied a store-bought tape, but have taped from TV, which has been ruled legal by the courts.

Ah, but have you ever fast forwarded through, skipped, deleted, or otherwise not watched the commercials on one of these tapes?