Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on this. copyright is not property read the statutes. It is a government granted monopoly on commercial exploitation.
Copying something under copyright is not automatically a violation of copyright. (As has been suggested earlier in this thread). The test is whether or not the copy results in competition to the copyright holders monopoly. And even then, there are some execeptions specifically allowed (these are commonly referred to as fair-use).
It is impossible to determine if downloading songs from the internet is a copyright violation unless you have more information about the use being made of the copy, and what licenses the downloader holds. (It isn’t illegal to download a song if I have purchased a copy of the CD, for instance).
Um. no. There is a surcharge on Audio tapes that goes directly to the music industry. So when you buy an audiotape, regardless of what you actually do with it you are paying for the privilege of copying copyrighted music onto it. Since you have already paid, it isn’t a violation if you give the tape to a friend.
The same surcharge is applied to Blank CD-R’s what a sold for audio copying (though not those sold for data copying).
Erm, the challenge mentioned above is to target the casual users and convince them they are wrong and should stop. This is not going to be an easy thing to do, especially if the best you can do is call it “stealing”. This, while correct in its way, is a difficult argument to make. There is no property, no physical item, that is being taken from anyone, which is pretty important to the concept of theft. Convincing them that taking money from the artist by denying a CD sale is pretty thin too, especially if they hadn’t planned to by the CD (which most people don’t). And finally, its inflammatory, insulting, and probably more likely to push away the folks you are trying to convince.
If that’s fine for you, just remember that enforcing copywrite laws on this scale is going to be insanely difficult. Perhaps impossible. Getting it to stop in an quantity at all is going hinge upon the record companies ability to convince the vast majority of Americans that File Sharing is reprehensible on the level of drug use…
So who’d be liable when some evil coder unravels the secrets of the RIAA’s violation messaging protocol, and spoofs it into wiping the PC’s of half a million web-surfers who never downloaded an .mpg ? Implementing a technology to remotely destroy computers exposes everyone to an increased risk of sabotage.
It amounts to the same thing under law in most cases.
**
**
Yes, you are correct, and I didn’t mean to imply that it automatically was a violation. There are four tests for fair use: whether the material was copied for commercial purposes or non-profit educational purposes, 2) the nature of the work, 3) the amount/substance of the copied portion in relation to the entire work, and 4) the effect of the use on the potential market market or value of the work. You may also use the work for purposes of parody, satire, etc.
Giving away copies of a work to a friend without compensating the holder of the copyright does not fall under fair use and is a violation of copyright.
**
Good point. Another reason to be against the whole destruction of computers thing.
If that is the case, then you are right, it’s not illegal. But only because you have paid for the right to make that copy and give it your friend. No such surcharge is levied on file sharing, which makes it different.
Incidentally, I think that’s pretty messed up. Why should I be charged a surcharge for making legitimate copies? Bah.
Is it just me or does Orrin Hatch frighten anyone else?
He seems to impose his rather autocratic will into politics; witnessed by his unwavering support of zero-tolerance drug policies and now this ‘war on file sharing’.
Oh BTW he is a Christian musician who has had multiple albums released so that may be his impetus for joining the RIAA. I don’t own any albums so I dont know how he sounds, but here is his site:
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Neurotik *
It amounts to the same thing under law in most cases.
[quote]
Not even close. The CD I buy is property (the copyright holder
cannot prohibit me from re-selling it), the right to monopolize the creation of new CD’s isn’t.
agreed.
As for downloading music. This is truly a grey area. It’s legal for me to play my CD’s for my friends. And yet, it’s impossible to play a CD without making a copy within the machine.
It’s entirely possible for somone to play a CD by reading the bits off of the CD on one machine, packaging them up and transporting them over the net, and playing them on out the sound card on the a completly different machine. (which I do througout my house, and even from home to work on occasion) This is not a violation of copyright.
It’s also indistinguishable from the act of making an illegal copy from the perspective of a 3rd party who only has access to the bits on the net and doesn’t know what is being done with them.
If I give my mother access to my music collection over the net for the purpose of playing the songs This is not a violation, or at least it wouldn’t be a violation of we did this between two rooms in the same house. Am I supposed to believe that this is suddenly theft because she and I live in different cities?
Tomorrow: Orrin Hatch suggests that people who get caught shoplifting…get their arms broken!
Thursday: Orrin Hatch suggests that people who get caught speeding…get their cars blown up!
Sure, downloading unauthorized music is illegal (FTR here, I have never done it myself). But geez, some perspective is in order here.
Interesting sidebar: I’m sure a significant proportion of people who illegally download music do it on their work or school computers. Is Senator Hatch suggesting that those computers get wrecked? There won’t be enough lawyers in the world to sort out that mess.
If copyright violation is stealing, then jaywalking and sexual assault are also stealing.
As someone noted on Slashdot, if the target of one of these RIAA “magic bullets” happens to be, say, a computer system at a hospital, then interfering with that system is a violation of the Patriot Act.
I worked in a news operation in Utah in the 1980s.
Hatch was known among the newsmen as Borin’ Orrin.
I got a call one morning from a fellow newsman, who was the only newsman to attend a Hatch speech in Southern Utah. This friend told me that he had a tape he didn’t know what to do with, it was explosive. I sent it to CBS Radio, they ran it for the rest of the day. It became national news. It was Hatch talking about the Democrats. As far as cite goes, I edited the tape that is now very well known - the one where Hatch says:
Orrin is a loose cannon. He’ll say anything. And the sheep in Utah keep electing him.
He means that copyright violation is NOT the same as stealing. Yes, it is a crime, but it is a different sort of crime. If you call copyright violation stealing, then you might as well call all crimes stealing because you remove their categorisation.
Actually, copyright comes into play the moment a song is composed, something is written, art is produced…
“Copyright” covers the right to make copies. A copyright holder (who may or may not be the originator of the work, since copyright can be sold) is well within rights to FORBID ANY COPYING whatsoever, or to place conditions upon copying such as “you have to pay me for this” A copyright holder can also refuse to release a work to the public, and there’s nothing the law can do to force them to make a work available.
Downloading is “fair use” ONLY if the copyright holder agrees with you.
In general, it has been recognized that making a back up copy of software is a right of the purchaser. So if you buy a CD you should be able to make ONE back up copy (although MegaMusicInc. would like to take that away from folks). But other than that, whoever owns the copyright makes the rules.
Copyright can be bought or sold. How is that not property?
First of all, let’s remember that not all copyrights are held by Big Evil Corporations. As a published author I happen to own some copyrighted works.
I’ve also had someone download one of my works and give it to a magazine, falsely telling them it was public domain. So they didn’t “profit” from the action. (Person in question had fallen prey to the common fallacy that if it’s on the Web it’s fair game. It’s not.)
I sure did. Once I called the magazine and explained I was the owner and it was NOT a “public domain” work they couldn’t settle out of court fast enough.
It is ILLEGAL to copy and distribute a copyrighted work without permission EVEN if you don’t make a cent on it. A back up copy for yourself, yes. Recording a song off the radio for your personal use, yes. Taking a picture of a painting, yes - selling a copy of that picture, or making copies and turning them into postcards even for your personal use, NO. Because if you do that you are distributing copies without permission. Fair use exceptions do NOT allow you to copy and distribute at will
The law isn’t very complicated, really. What gets complicated are the rationalizations of people who want a way around the law because it causes them inconvenience.
Why do artists/writers/musicians/creators get a monopoly on distribution of their works? So they can make money on it and, potentially, make a living at it. Even if they don’t earn their keep with their creations, copyright recognizes that they are the creator and owner of a work. Where you work, would you want someone taking credit for something YOU had done, even if they didn’t get a raise for it or receive other monetary compensation? Somehow, I think not.
The irony is that 9 times out of 10 copyright holders are happy to grant permission if you ask. The real problem here are some greedy corporate executives wanting a lock on peoples’ listening choices in music, not the copyright laws.
That’s quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not a different sort of crime than stealing. It’s stealing. There are different categories of stealing under the law, copyright violation is one of them. Please stop trying to justify it by saying that copyright isn’t property (it is) and that copyright violation isn’t stealing (it is).
Mirriam-Webster defines stealing as something owned or possessed (copyright fits), or something to which a person or business has a legal title (copyright fits here, too).
Anyway, I think we all agree that Hatch’s idea was a dumb one on a lot of different fronts.
Isn’t stealing when you take something away from someone? Copying it and taking the copy can’t even be noticed by the owner of the copied object, or file or whatever.
I’ll just side-step slightly for a second… Really, this isn’t the easiest thing to discuss, as what we’re really talking about is copying incredibly long strings of 0’s and 1’s–electronic information–and using other strings of numbers to make them into sounds coming out of our speakers. Copying that is merely a matter of copying the number order. Creating and copying in this manner isn’t something you can do with everyday objects, at least not yet. If we were able to copy, say, bricks, would it be stealing them if you could keep the original? Well, yes. But would it be something bad, considering that the original owner wouldn’t be affected the slightest?
If you copied half a song and added a drum roll at the end, would it be stealing? It would, at least, be a different set of numbers. I’m sitting on a fence here, but as far as I can see, free music is all good.
How is free music good for the people who have invested in the music in order to make money off it? How is it good for the artist who use it for a livelihood?
The original owner (the holder of the copyright) IS affected because if you have copied the song for free then you won’t purchase the song from him, depriving him of money he is legally entitled to.
