Are Napster, Gnutella, et al Breaking the law?

Great Debates
21

You can hardly call it “stealing” if the original copy still exists. If I steal a TV from a store that has 10 TVs in stock, they now only have 9; the store has lost something.

However, if I copy a song from someone else, I have gained something and the record company has lost nothing.

Some people like to say that the record company is at a loss, but it’s a potential maybe-loss at best: it’s possible that I might have bought the album. But that’s not a loss, it’s a lack of gain, and if I wouldn’t have bought the album (which I’m too poor and lazy to do most of the time) then the record company is in the same situation before and after.

That doesn’t make it legal, of course. Duplicating and distributing a copyrighted CD for noncommercial purposes is legal under the Audio Home Recording Act, but distributing a copyrighted MP3 file isn’t.

22

Actually, Mr2001, I have to disagree with your main premise. I think it is stealing (for those who make CDs from Napster and don’t buy the album); stealing intellectual property, so to speak. The artist doesn’t produce a “CD”; he produces music (his property) and the CD is merely the medium on which it is distributed. It’s the same idea as the artists that got in trouble for sampling another artist’s work and not getting copyright permission to use it.

I do agree with the “potential loss” though - its the record companies that are rakin’ in the cash on album sales, not the artist. Artists make a lot of their money from merchandising, hence the $25 T-shirts at concerts.