Well, although coming down hard on the pro-copyright side of this debate, I have to say I find Hatch’s suggestion appalling and horrifying. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
"Scuse the small hijack but I had to add this:
http://amish.blogmosis.com/archives/012511.html
I’ll say. Why, just this morning I saw two young thieves downtown, stealing their way right across the middle of the street! They didn’t apologize to the rightful owner of the way across the street, didn’t offer to give it back, nothin’.
Okay, what about works that the holder of the copyright refuses to make available? Lucas refuses to release the Star Wars Holiday Special, so, if I were to take leave of my senses and decide that I wanted to watch it, the odds of my being able to watch it in a legal manner are practically nil. However, I can download a copy of it off the internet fairly easily. There’s no monetary harm being done to Lucas whatsoever in this instance, since I cannot buy a legal copy. There are other works, such as much of Filmations catalog, which Hallmark owns the rights to, and refuses to release under any circumstances.
So if you want to watch those shows legally, you’re SOL.
So…My High School forced me to steal when I was required to provide photocopies of the articles I used for sources?
This is getting ridiculous, folks…
New Jersey, to pick a state at random, requires property to be taken and/or denied the lawful owner the use of it. For immovable property, then interest must be transfered illegally to benefit someone.
Is a song property, legally? I seriously doubt it. Think of it this way, if a person steals my CD collection, I can call the police, and they will go arrest him. I can then press charges or not, depending. So, if songs are property, then if someone sneaks in and copies my CDs without my permission, then I should be able to do the same thing, right? Under Fair Use, those copies are (implicitly) mine and they were stolen…
Which brings us to denial of use. Making a copy does not deny anyone use of the original, obviously. It does not deny the holder use of his copyright (that is, he still retains the sole right to legally decide who copies and sells his material). It does not deny the record company the right to distribute the material. The most it may possibly do is negate a possible future sale, but that’s not theft. Moonshining is not theft even though it negates the possible future sale of alcohol. Stealing a car isn’t theft because the thief might not buy a car because of it. Shacking up is not theft because it achieves basically the goal as marriage without the whole wedding bit.
Most states have pretty similar views on theft. Physical property and denial of use are the criteria, and downloading meets neither.
Now, if you can prove that the downloading was done with the intent of not buying the CD (as opposed to just having the song), then maybe I can buy calling it stealing in a backhanded sort of way. However, that’s gonna be a hard thing to prove, and you really only stand a chance when pointing at folks who download entire CDs. Then you have to show that they have disposable income and spend it on CDs often enough to convince a jury (or whoever) that had it not been for this crime, they would have bought the damn CD. And even then, it’s misdemeanor petty theft that will probably be pled out or dropped entirely.
Just keep it simple and call it Copyright Violation. That’s bad enough.
Here’s the New Jersey law…
http://www.jfrlaw.com/criminal_statutes/2c203.htm
by Broomstick:
Well, I’m not justifying, per se. Poverty is not an excuse for a woman to steal food for her starving family, and neither is it an excuse for a broke student to “steal” copyrighted material via the xerox machine.
But calling copyright infringement stealing (of the sort done by photocopying pages out of textbooks and downloading music) and using that as an argument for Hatch-like schemes for justice bothers me. We can call an abortionist a murderer, too, depending on your definition of what a fetus is. Calling it that, though, usually derails the debate because it invokes defensiveness of the counterproductive sort. Repeatedly screaming “You’re a baby murderer!” usually gets someone painted as hysterical and hyperbolic, even by other pro-lifers. Likewise, we can call declawing a cat an act of gross mutilation because it fits a dictionary definition, but with that terse label it is easy to overlook the fact that the declawing procedure is NOT conducted with a dirty butter knife sans anesthesia but rather with tons of pre- and post-op pain relief, anesthesia, and often times state-of-the-art lasers that reduce inflammation and bleeding, hastening healing time.
I could go on and on. Calling pot a highly addictive and dangerous drug does not cause people to abstain from marjiuana. Why? Because the people who favor calling pot these things lose their credibility by using inflammatory language.
If everyone is guilty of stealing because they do not consult with copyright holders prior to copying stuff (music, pages out of books, etc.) then calling music downloaders thieves and expecting them to suddenly feel remorseful is folly. I don’t know anyone who isn’t a thief in that case, so the impact of the word “steal” becomes nil. Expect to be ignored when you start throwing that word around.
A better thing to do would be to demonstrate through cites and statistics how the advent of Napster-like filesharers has hurt music sales. Has the sale of CDs dropped signficantly in the last five years? If it has dropped, can it be shown that the drop is A) definitely due to filesharing rather than a sucky economy B)a permanent falling off not attributable to natural fluctuations in the market, and C) hurting the whole industry and not just a part of it?
I have yet to see any evidence that filesharing is the Work of the Devil as so many people try to portray it, and I wish to see some.
Not at all. For instance, I don’t intend to, right now, purchase a BMW. For one thing, I can’t afford it. For another, should I ever be in the situation where I could buy a luxury car or two, there are cars I’d prefer to the BMW. I think that it is safe to say I won’t be buying a BMW at any time soon, if ever.
Now, what say someone offers me a BMW for free, and that I knew that by taking ownership of said BMW, I would not be depriving anyone else of BMW. I cannot describe how this would happen; BMWs can’t be copied like music. But let’s say I have just obtained, for free, a mythical BMW.
Now, I was never going to buy a BMW, with or without the ability to purchase one. Doesn’t mean I don’t want a BMW. So of course I can take, guilt-free an offered BMW. And, so, with the assistance of a long-winded metaphor, you can see how copying a song for free does not necessarily deprive the copyright licensee of income, and hence, in my belief, is not necessarily wrong.
Glad to get that cleared up.
Can’t believe no one attacked this inane statement. “Fair use” is a legal term, codified in law at 17 U.S.C. s. 107. The only opinion that matters when it comes to fair use is that of the courts. Because the courts disagree with you, your opinion that downloading music comes under fair use is as valid as an opinion that the sun rises in the west.
All you can do is advocate the change the law, to amend 17 USC s. 107. But until that law is amended, downloading music is, de facto and de jure (because here they are one and the same) not fair use.
Sua
Just oput of curiousity, then, do you mean to tell me that when you’re downloading MP3s off Kazaa or whatever, you only download music you dislike and would never listen to? If so, then you should get some professional help for this problem.
If not, then your analogy falls apart – you’re using those MP3s (by listening to them), without having to offer compensation to the producers/creators/originators of that music. It’s no different than using a lawyer’s legalese for a will without paying the lawyer who had to write that legalese in the first place.
If someone makes an effort to produce a product or service, and you get the benefits of that product/service without paying them for the effort, that’s stealing, IMO.
Heh heh heh…according to Wired News, Senator Hatch’s own website makes use of unlicensed software. Software that he (or, more likely, his staffers) stole/copyright violated (delete as desired).
Hey Hatch…you can start right at home, as it were. Take a hammer and bust up your CPU!
Not necessarily. It could be music that he would listen to for free, but wouldn’t consider buying. Personally, I put 45% of all radio singles into this category (another 5% I would listen to and buy, and the remaining 50% I won’t listen to at all).
Note that it’s perfectly legal to “use” music without compensating anyone. If you have a friend who owns a Britney Spears CD, you can go over to his house and listen to it all you want for free without paying.
You can listen to Britney Spears on the radio without paying, and unless you’re an Arbitron family, Britney gets the exact same royalties from the station whether you’re listening or not. You can even tape Britney’s song off the radio and listen to it later (time-shifting).
Before someone complains about this: Of course not every “use” is legal. But there is no law against listening to music without compensating the artist. Sharing Britney Spears MP3s is illegal because it violates copyright, not because people aren’t allowed to hear music without paying.
Not at all. Like BMWs, there are many songs that I wouldn’t mind listening to every now and then, but really don’t have the desire or means to put money out for. If a song is worth my hard-earned, I pay for it, but there’s a big gap between “I must buy that” and “I never want to hear that song again.” As I said with the BMW: I’d take it if someone offered me one for free, with no loss to anyone else, but I don’t want the BMW so much that I’d go and buy my own.
See the problem here isnt whether or not its illegal. Everyone and their brother realizes its illegal to download/rip MP3’s off of Kazaa, but they still do it.
Why? Because its a way of rebelling, a way of retaining control that was stripped from us, the consumerse so long ago when the RIAA became a monopoly, and yes folks, thats what it is. If you arent in bed with the RIAA, then you have no chance in the music world.
The RIAA is going to start a war, and yes, a full blown war it will be. If they start nuking people’s computers, people will retaliate. I dont know anyone personally, but I can guarantee you that there are people out there who would be willing to nuke the RIAA’s computer network. The RIAA is going to lose this war too, and with the loss of the war, will spell the end of the RIAA.
Its going to get very very ugly. If you think the RIAA is losing money now, wait until there are mass boycotts. Wait until, no CD’s move in the first 6 months of releasing. The RIAA is going to seriously regret making this poor decision.
Instead of hammering people, who will ultimately be the endusers of the RIAA, why dont they try to appeal to the consumer more. Instead of putting out all this bullshit on albums, make a site where people can pay 99 cents for a single track. End the exorbitant pricing on CDs. Those are your solutions to piracy. People are just tired of the inconvienience. Im tired of paying $20 for one song. Im tired of everything to do with the RIAA. So are many other consumers. The result, Kazaa, Morpheus, Bearshare… the list goes on.
If the RIAA thinks scare tactics will help their situation… they are gravely mistaken. Nothing will rally those who have stayed neutral more than a threat to themselves. Nuke away RIAA, just kiss your precious monopoly goodbye.
Let’s remember that the loose cannon here is Hatch, not the RIAA. I doubt that the RIAA is so self destructive that they will intentionally try and destroy their potential customers’ machines.
But they have asked for special protection under the law. The want Hatch to pass a law that makes them immune from prosecution if, in the course of their anti-piracy crusade, they break anti-hacking laws or accidedently do some damage.
It’s Hatch who seems to relish the idea of intentionally doing damage. But he’s a fool if he thinks this is actually going to happen. Software that damages hardware isn’t completely unheard of, but it’s hard to pull off even if you don’t have to deal with the kind of mish-mash of hardware that the downloading public uses. It’s a fantasy to think that this will ever be widespread unless he can legislate some sort of HCF instruction into the processors. And if he does that, it’ll get used against the RIAA as often as not.
Did nobody else read this?? 
Apparently, Hatch is as guilty of “intellectual property theft” as the people whose computers he wants to destroy!
It figures.
It also makes sense that the conservative media will bury this, and we will never hear of this again. I mean, supporting terrorist acts against people guilty of a crime YOU YOURSELF ARE GUILTY OF is nowhere in the league of, oh say, getting a blow job from an Intern, right??
To make the food example work, the woman would have to have the magical ability to copy food.
Would anyone consider it wrong for a woman with a starving family to magically make food appear out of thin air? What if she could only make brand name food appear? If you had the ability to make brand name food appear would you use it?
I think pretty much anyone would use that ability. And yet it is just as bad as using the ability to make a copy of a song. The food industry is losing a sale (even if you wouldn’t or couldn’t have bought the food) just as much as the record companies are losing a sale (even though you wouldn’t or couldn’t buy the cd).
So is it just because food is more important that making food appear would be a great ability if you couldn’t afford food, but making copies of songs appear is evil even if you can’t afford cds? But then, what if music is very important to someone? What about a musician who can’t afford cds, but who needs to hear the songs of his inspiration in order to be successful? If he has the power to make songs appear, should he use it?
I really try to feel bad about downloading music. I try to think of it as theft. But it just doesn’t work. If I had no money and could magically make food appear, of course I would do it. If I had no money and could make music appear I’d do that too. Both are equally “stealing.”
Check this out - from Hactivisimo . Hatch is a fucking moron.
You obviously do not understand the concept, Tejota. Property and intellectual property are two different things.
It just sounds like attention seeking on Hatch’s part to me. What he is suggesting is not only technically impossible as far as I can tell* but the mess it would produce is incomprehensible. Others have touched on the mess surrounding people downloading from public or other people’s machines and the risk of destroying innocent people’s data… but also, I wasn’t aware that a US law would hold any water throughout the rest of the world? Surely there would be issues if they fried a Chinese government machine?
*Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of (within this context) would be incorrectly flashing the bios or something to that effect, and I doubt even that is possible to do remotely with current setups. Even if it were it would only kill the motherboard, not the whole machine anyway. It would take new hardware to do what he is saying… and no one would buy it. If they are talking about destruction of data by means of distributing “virus-like” programs disguised as music files, then it would be pathetically simple to just check the file type if your music playing software is legit. Anyone with an ounce of computer knowledge would laugh at them.
Very silly.