siberia, it appears that we agree to disagree. <hijack> is that allowed in the Pit, or do we have to do nothing but throw goat-felching insults at each other until the end of time? </hijack>
And of course there are also times where I download something and decide I don’t like it. I then delete it off my computer (if I don’t like it, why on earth would I keep it around?). If I had the opportunity to return for a refund albums that suck, I probably wouldn’t go through the hasstle of downloading them. Alas, the recording industry has decided that I can’t do that (but that’s another rant entirely).
EasyPhil, most of those questions are in that grey area of legality at the moment. It is legal to listen to someone else’s CD. It is legal to borrow a CD from a library or from a friend. AFAIK, it is legal to make a copy of a friend’s CD for your personal use. As far as selling an iPod or Nomad in the way you describe, I believe that is still up for debate.
What is so different about stealing something for your own use, and stealing something to re-sell? Both result in a net benefit for you, even if it doesn’t deprive someone of something else.
Deprivation is not the only qualifier for “stealing”. Stealing refers to the acquisition of goods that are not rightfully yours. Even if you copy someone else’s property (without their permission), ensuring that both you and he have a copy, that results in YOU getting something that you don’t deserve.
It is stealing. Your immature, selfish justifications don’t change that.
** jweb**, I don’t have any cites handy for it, but my understanding is that it is not legal to copy a friend’s CD for your use.
The download-to-decide argument is probably countered by the suggestions that there is the radio and other band-approved (or record company-approved) ways of listening to their music that do not involve some guy ripping all his CDs to his computer and letting you get all the music for free - band/record company websites with samples of music, for starters.
If they wanted you to download the whole CD/entire songs, the band would offer them up to you in that fashion. Wilco, for instance, offered their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot available for free download on the web well before the album was released. Once it was finally released to stores, it by far outsold any of their previous albums. The band recently rewarded fans who bought the CD by letting them use the CD as a way to download an EP of theirs for free (by putting the CD into a computer CD drive and going to a particular website, it would unlock that content). I suppose someone will end up uploading that to Kazaa or similar services, though.
So, you can make the argument successfully that offering music for download will encourage music purchasing. However, it should be the choice of the artist (and/or their record company) to do so, not some random schmoe.
It’s implicitly legal to copy a CD that you own for your own use; It’s actually legal to make a copy of someone else’s CD for your own use (or it’s converse).
The IPod E.G. would be like giving away (accidentally) your entire CD collection, while (presumably) retaining a copy yourself, also illegal.
The obvious problem is that the music industry (actually, the Entertainment industry as a whole) has relied on IP (intellectual property) being locked to a medium that could not be copied without loss - a status that is no longer quo. The rules have to change, but it’s a real knotty problem to unravel.
In my own, personal opinion though speaking as a musician, jweb’s approach (provided that he’s speaking the truth :)) seems reasonable, though it still has some sticking points. The problem is that I seriously doubt that most people approach music-downloads that way. The easy implementation of jweb’s approach would be to have sanctioned downloads (say, reduced quality, or cut-length clips) on a band’s (or its parent company’s) website. But the critical point is that as soon as anyone has “the real thing”, there is nothing actually stopping them from making lossless reproductions ad nauseum, which undermines the whole concept.
(on preview) Ditto what Ferret said: the choice should be made by the musician, not the consumer.
Just so I have a little better understanding on what we’re discussing, here, and what your opinion on the matter is, could you explain exactly what it is we pay composers and performers for?
So, if it’s legal for me to make a copy of someone else’s CD, I’m assuming it’s also legal for me to make a copy of their entire collection of CD’s onto either tape, CD, or a hard disk which would include an iPod. One or one hundred or one thousand, what’s the difference, or is their a limit?
Apparently I couldn’t proof read once, much less twice:
"It’s implicitly legal to copy a CD that you own for your own use; It’s actually illegal to make a copy of someone else’s CD for your own use (or it’s converse).
Misery
Thanks for the cite. I guess I learn something new everyday. However, illegal and immoral are two different things, and I don’t see any problem in sending my buddy a CD of different tracks, in a ‘hey, check these bands out’ kind of way. I’ve actually got him to listen to several new artists this way (and buy their albums).
Hypothetically speaking though, what happens if my copy of CD X becomes scratched or damanged and I burn a copy of friends’s CD X? I imagine this is technically illegal, but I doubt that I would get in any trouble for it.
Of course, I now get around this problem by doing two things when I purchase a new CD (and I have no doubt that these are perfectly legal):
1: make a copy of it for myself, and put the origional back in the jewel case and into the closet. That way, when I scratch the cd, I’m only out the $.05 for a blank CDR rather then $15 for a CD.
2: encode the CD into MP3 format for use on my computer. Eventually, I burn these MP3s to CD to take to work or for use in my Rio CD player (which can read MP3 as well). And no, I don’t share these MP3s on Kazaa. Once I get a portable player that can decode OGG, I’ll encode my music in that format as well (OGG has much better quality for similar compression rates then MP3).
So long as you don’t mind your activity being called criminal, then I see no problem!
Off hand, I’d say your example of sending a couple of songs to your friend is, while technically illegal, NBD so long as your friend is the type of person who’ll go out and buy it if he likes it. The biggest problem here is that the industry relies on people being trustworthy and upright, a mistake that has been made many times in the past. On the whole, people are self-serving and will try like hell to get that free lunch!
As is mentioned in the Cite, there are instances that are technically illegal yet no-one is going to go kicking in doors with their jackboots. It’s way, way, way small potatos. However, they /are/ illegal.
But there’s a strong line, IMHO between these “misdemeanors” of copying music that you’ve paid for, and paying for music that you’ve copied (and retain on some form of media), and outright stealing - that is, acquiring the product with no intention to pay for it.
I’d like someone to show me where in 17 U.S.C. it says it’s okay for someone to make a duplicate of a cd for personal purposes. Their own cd, someone else’s they borrowed, whatever.
Please show me where that exception to the Sec. 106 “Exclusive Rights” is granted.
Unless you’re a library, a non-profit, or engaged in research, I don’t see that exception granted.
But, I could be wrong, so I’d like someone to correct me if I am.
Because it doesn’t belong to them. That’s the principle behind copyright…that the creator of a work owns the work and has the right to decide who can use it. This way, if I decide you can listen to my music for free, you can, and if I decide you have to pay to listen to my music on CD, you have to. If I decide you can use my music as the soundtrack to the porn film you’re making, you can, and if I decide I don’t want you to, you can’t. It’s my song…I own it, so I get to make the rules about when and how you can use it.
Okay, but suppose you had to take out a gazillion pound loan to finance your magic hubcap invention. You try to keep your hubcap in a safe place but people keep sneaking in and making copies for free. You still have your magic hubcap but how are you going to pay your loan back? Why should people have for free what you’ve spent time and money on inventing?
The bottom line is that some people can rationalize that they should get something for free – something that someone else spent time and money to create with the expectation they’d be compensated. And the only reason they feel they should get it for free is that a traditional fence that kept them from stealing it (distribution via physical media) is now more difficult to keep locked.
The fact that there’s no lock on the door doesn’t make it moral or legal to take it.
The human mind can rationalize anything. It’s so easy when you can take something shiny from another human without any repercussions.
Probably, yes. (If you personally don’t retain any copies of the same music, arguably it’s the functional equivalent of the sale or transfer of a copy that you own, so it could potentially be OK. )
Call it “dancing around the issue”… call it “rationalization”… or “justification” (of/for what, I don’t know since I’m not advocating anything)… I call it pointing out THE FACTS!
So…
I’ll continue to say this until I’m blue in the face…
Illegally downloading music IS NOT STEALING. IT IS NOT THEFT. As much as you want to claim it is… IT IS NOT!!!
It is infringing on someone else’s copyright. Hence, the criminal charge when you’re prosecuted for illegally downloading music is… “copyright infringement,” not “theft.”
“Okay, but suppose you had to take out a gazillion pound loan to finance your magic hubcap invention”
If I spend $100 million to build a factory to manufacture a product, and nobody will buy the product at any price, that’s my problem. Society has no moral obligation to pay me back just because I sunk the cost.
The only reason they can’t steal the products – take them for free – is based in the concept of physical property rights, and physical property rights are another discussion. Free Corolla hubcaps from an infinite supply is not a physical property rights issue, because I still have an infinite supply. My central point is that the concepts of physical property rights and intellectual property rights stand on completely different grounds. It is possible to demolish one without demolishing the other.
If my magic hubcap existed, the reason the government might want to prosecute people who took free ones against my will is that, if I was making no money, I would be unlikely to invest in devising a magic hubcap for other models of vehicles. This is the innovation argument. I am arguing that the innovation argument is the true ground upon which copyright law stands. If that argument is faulty (and it may or may not be), there is no reason for copyright law to exist.
I am not trying to say that copyright law has no merit whatsoever. I have no idea what would happen if it were repealed; nor do you. I can take some different guesses, but I have no way to say which would be correct. My point is that, when you examine the real nature of copyright law and what kinds of guarantees and protections it is really providing, you find that it is profoundly different from laws against theft. Copyright violation != theft. That’s my point. They might both be BAD, they just aren’t the SAME.
