Is Napster Stealing? I need to chill and stop feeling so guilty all the time...j/k.

[Baglady]

Stephen King, that cutting-edge horror writer who published a download-only version of a short story earlier this year, is working on a new project to publish a serialized story called the_Plant.

If you read the instructions at his the Plant Web site, he says:

What I Promise

1.To publish the first 10,000 or so words of The Plant in two installments, no matter what. Installment One goes up on this site July 24th; Installment Two will appear August 21st.
2.If response is good and the pay-through equals or exceeds 75%, Installment Three will go up in September.
3.When Installment Three goes up, Installment One goes down.
4.If response is strong, I promise to carry The Plant through to its conclusion. I won’t leave you hanging, in other words.
5.Above item is cancelled if I die.
6.If response is weak, I promise to pull the plug after Installment Two.

What You Promise

1. To pay for each installment of The Plant, and to pay each time you download it. Look at it this way: you couldn’t go into a bookstore and say, “I bought a copy of The Street Lawyer in here yesterday, so give me four more for free today.” Get it?
2. Not to print extra copies and sell them to your friends. If you want to print copies and give them away, I can’t stop you (in fact I can’t stop you from doing anything, which is the beauty of this thing-think of it as web-moshing). But don’t sell them. Two reasons: first, it’s against the law, and second, it’s nasty behavior. Respect my copyright. As a writer, it’s all I’ve got.

---

It can’t get more straightforward than this. He does concede that he can’t stop you from printing copies, so it’s a bit of an olive branch… but others have brought up, if the “make free copies for your friends” works into the millions that’s money Stephen King doesn’t make for his work.

[Lizard]

My, aren’t threads like this fun! I KNEW CrankyAsAnOldMan would show up here eventually. I’m willing to give her a free pass on this whole argument, since she’s talking about computer piracy. I think that’s a little different than pirating music, because a software writer is not a performer. So he has no other way to make money off his product beyond selling it.

But as for peanut brains like pldennison and Kilgore Trout and those like them…
Stop! You’re breaking my heart. Kilgore, for the THIRD TIME, go read the last two sentences of my first post to this thread. You obviously didn’t before. Nothing is more annoying than the idiots who preach about how people like me are “stealing.” I’m thinking about lumping people like you in with religious nuts who tell everyone they’re going to Hell. I don’t CARE who thinks I’m stealing. I don’t CARE if it’s illegal. I’m going to keep DLing music until I can’t anymore, because I CAN. If you don’t like it you can kiss my ass.
Some people have got on here and said they’re tired of people trying to justify their actions. Well, what the hell do you expect when you ask people WHY they do something? I won’t make the mistake of humoring you again.
I’m slightly sorry about people who might lose money from my DLing, but only slighly. Nobody is guaranteed an income here, that’s the difference between us and the Soviet Union. The Internet has made old business models obsolete. Don’t blame me I don’t want to play by the rules anymore, when I can get what I want easier, cheaper, and faster.
And if the people on here railing against the “stealing” of music are so rightous and law-abiding, why aren’t they also preaching against speeding, smoking dope, underage drinking or cheating on taxes? Could it be that their sudden concern with the law only crops up when it concerns something that might hurt THEM?
Or maybe they’ve just never done any of those other things? Any bets on which it is?

[pldennison]

Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo-stick, I’ve never seen so many strawmen! Stop them!

And if the people on here railing against the “stealing” of music are so rightous and law-abiding, why aren’t they also preaching against speeding, smoking dope, underage drinking or cheating on taxes?

A) The title of the thread is “Is Napster Stealing?” It is not, “Bitch about a bunch of illegal shit.” If you want to discuss those topics, start threads about them and I’ll give you my opinions.

B) How exactly do speeding, smoking dope, and underage drinking analogize to taking someone else’s property without paying for it? (Taxes are a separate issue, although it’s arguable whether that money is my property or the government’s.)

Could it be that their sudden concern with the law only crops up when it concerns something that might hurt THEM?

See “A”, above.

Or maybe they’ve just never done any of those other things? Any bets on which it is?

Well, gee, if you’re only allowed to bitch about illegal things if you’ve never broken the law, and I can at least assume you’ve sped, you cannot complain about murder. :rolleyes:

I don’t CARE if it’s illegal. I’m going to keep DLing music until I can’t anymore, because I CAN. If you don’t like it you can kiss my ass.

That says everything anyone needs to know about you. When presented with the opportunity to take people’s property without paying for it, as long as you feel you can get away with it, you will. What do you want, a medal for being a jerk?

I’m slightly sorry about people who might lose money from my DLing, but only slighly. Nobody is guaranteed an income here, that’s the difference between us and the Soviet Union.

Ah. So if you build a house for someone, present the bill to them, and they say, “Nah, I don’t want to pay you,” then move into the house anyway, that’s cool by you? Or if your boss walks in at 5:00 and says, “We decided not to pay you for your eight hours today, because we feel we can have your work for free,” you’re OK with that?

[Necros]

Myrr21 said:

And it IS fundamentally correct. Putting info on a CD costs very little as well. Paying the people costs more, but spread over a lot of discs, it’s damn near nothing. Basic economics here.

Jesus, Myrr21. It’s not like you haven’t had the real facts presented to you before. I guess you choose to ignore them. You might want to refresh your memory here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31358

I believe Satan rebuts your “CDs cost next to nothing” argument quite well.

and then:

And on the issue of drug price ceilings in Canada–it’s a pretty good thing, ask anybody who lives in or near Canada.

Uh huh. And just like them, people who download from Napster thinking it won’t affect the record industry can’t see past the end of their nose. Whatever.

There was some more that went like this:

1. Most of the rest of us don’t get special consideration for our work, why should musicians? As mentioned, I can make up a revolutionary catalyst and not make a dime off of it. Hell, my work could save thousdands of people, and you’re worried about musicians?

I’m sorry, but are you an idiot? If you work for yourself, and you come up with revolutionary catalysts for a living, you might want to look in to this thing called a patent. It’s used to protect intellectual property. Many people who invent things use them to ensure they they are paid for their work. If you aren’t confident in your own work enough to just out from under the “work-for-hire” umbrella, don’t blame musicians.

My point is that lots of people, in lots of fields (chemistry, bioengineering, music, writing, software, hardware, etc.) make a living off of the royalties for things that they were smart enough and creative enough to pursue. So don’t give the bullshit argument that you can’t make a dime off your creations, because you can.

And it went on:

2. If this is so much like taking food out of the artists’ mouths, then how come a lot of bands support it?

Uh, hello? Have you ever hung out with people in a band? Do you have any what they’re like? If you told them the sun was owned by corporate interests, a few of them would probably boycott daytime.
A better question is that how come no one on this board who makes money from royalties likes it? Here, at least, you can ask them directly and question their motives. Ask aha sometimes how he feels about it.

And, as if it would never stop:

In light of this debate, I encourage you all to go to http://www.theonion.com/onion3618/kid_rock_starves.html
Read it.

Ha. I’m glad you’re using The Onion to do your thinking for you. I’m sure your parents are very proud.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

[running around room waving her free pass over her head gleefully}

Wheeeee!!! Free pass!

Thanks for not bitching about my being slightly off-topic and not doing a good job tying my rant into the subject at hand (although you bright folk seem to understand the parallels).

Wheeeee-eeeeeeeeeeee

[Necros]

BTW, Myrr21 in the interest of intellectual property, you might want to credit your sig line to company I work for, which came up with it (well, Ogilvy did, but it’s a work for hire, I believe). Just to be polite, you know.

[Kilgore_Trout_1]

I NEVER DL entire albums. EVER. If I want a CD, I will buy a CD.

so if i want to merely steal the passenger seatbelt and the steering wheel out of a car on a dealership lot, that is ok. fool.

Stop! You’re breaking my heart. Kilgore, for the THIRD TIME, go read the last two sentences of my first post to this thread. You obviously didn’t before.

you obviously didn’t read the OP, dumb fuck.

Nothing is more annoying than the idiots who preach about how people like me are “stealing.”

who is preaching? if you read my post, you would see that i use napster too. i am merely stating that it is indeed stealing. you can’t deny that. i don’t give a goat’s ass about your morals. it is stealing.

I’m going to keep DLing music until I can’t anymore, because I CAN. If you don’t like it you can kiss my ass.

dumb fuck. where did you get the impression that i cared about your business? i don’t care what you do with your fucking computer. i am merely answering the OP.

Some people have got on here and said they’re tired of people trying to justify their actions. Well, what the hell do you expect when you ask people WHY they do something?

why one does something is one thing. why they justify it as legal is another.

And if the people on here railing against the “stealing” of music are so rightous and law-abiding, why aren’t they also preaching against speeding, smoking dope, underage drinking or cheating on taxes? Could it be that their sudden concern with the law only crops up when it concerns something that might hurt THEM?

when did i say i was law-abiding? when did i say the use of napster hurt me? i benefit from it greatly. idiot.

Or maybe they’ve just never done any of those other things? Any bets on which it is?

idiot.

[Myrr21]

On how long to the Pit–I’m guessing , oh, 3 more posts?

First off, I don’t let the Onion think for me. I think pretty damn well for myself, thank you. I posted the link not because I thought it would convince anybody, but because it is humourous and related to the issue at hand. Y’all comprehend humor, right?

More relavently, I know that if I DL something it is breaking the law. However, it is breaking the law in a manner that is widely socially acceptable and that I don’t consider illegal (kinda like the activities of some of the bands in question, non?).

Moreover, some of the “cures” for it would remove the ability of other bands top voluntarily release their stuff. For example, http://www.stopnapster.com advocates putting fake mp3s and anti-piracy messages onto your computer disguisd as popular music. They want to

unleash thousands of mislabled MP3 files will significantly disrupt the Napster system

Basically, they want to make it impossible to use Napster to get what you want…which would also make it impossible to get a promo song released voluntarily, at least with any certainty of getting what you want.
[hijack]
somebody has been putting “The RIAA is watching you” to respond to every search in Gnutella…it’s kinda funny.
[/hijack]

Basically, my feeling on this is that it hurts bands that are extremely rich already, and helps those that aren’t. Besides, I know many musicians who aren’t in it for the money, and would gladly do it for free, much less the millions that some bands will make anyway.

[The_Ryan]

Well, there’s been a lot of bullshit from both sides of this issue. First of all, downloading songs is not stealing. It is, in most circumstances, illegal, but it is not stealing. Several suits have been brought against people involved in this. Are any of them based upon laws regarding stealing? No, they have been based upon copyright laws. Why? Because downloading songs is not stealing. The only way that it can be considered stealing is in a metaphorical sense, and that brings in the issue of morality. There have been people saying that their actions are not immoral, and others have taken their statements to mean that those actions are not illegal. Where has anyone said that their actions are not illegal?
But on the other side, there have been some really silly defenses. For instance, there’s this statement:

And on the issue of drug price ceilings in Canada–it’s a pretty good thing, ask anybody who lives in or near Canada.

Well, of course they think it’s a good thing. And car thieves think that stealing cars is a good thing. People have a tendency to support what benefits them. Just what gives those Canadians the right to decide how much money the drug companies should be able to charge? Should you have the right to walk into a car dealership and demand that they sell you a Lexus for $500, because that’s all you can afford?

When you buy an album, you aren’t buying a CD, you’re buying an album. If you just want a CD, go to a computer store, not a record store. The question of how much the CD costs is as irrelevant to the question of how much an album should cost as the question of how much paper costs is to how much a book should cost. “You’re charging 20 bucks for this book? I could get twice as much paper down at Office Depot for only a buck.” Try that at a bookstore sometime.
Well, I guess it’s now time to sit back and wait for the benifits of trying to bring rationality to a discussion: having both sides jump on me.

[Myrr21]

Oooh ooh ooh…can I jump first?

First off, I really don’t want to get into the Canada/drug thing (whole nother issue there). But they do have the right to regulate the prices that goods are sold at in their own country. If we don’t like it, out companies don’t have to supply them. But I digress…

First off, when will somebody drop the price of a CD thing? That wasn’t the point I wanted to make–it was only an incidental remark on why I don’t feel that I’ve done something * immoral, * as compared to something illegal. OK, can we leave it at that? If you really want to go into it, I can refute the argument above, spend tomorrow looking up info and stuff, etc. I’d rather drop it though, since it’s somewhat tangential (spelling??) to the point.

Kilgore: first off, I like your screen name. That said, lay off the language; there’s a reason that this is an issue–it’s a bit of a gray area in terms of public opinion as a whole (individuals are on one end or the other, obviously).
Mostly this is because when you DL an mp3, you are NOT stealing. As the Ryan pointed out, you are breaking copyright infringement laws, but the data is still there. The person you took it from still has their’s. In your example, it would require illegally obtaining only the seatbelt and steering wheel–but while leaving the originals intact…doesn’t make too much sense does it?

That’s why it’s an issue–there really isn’t a good thing to compare it to of this sort. If it actually equated to car theft, it would be quelled pretty quickly. If it actually equated to using your neighbor’s car as the basis for building your own, few people would give a damn (this was suggested in one of these threads…too many to keep track of). I guess that’s why we have the frickin Congress looking at the issue–it’s not something that’s completely clear-cut:
Napster does not promote or encourage copyright infringement–they merely provide a pice of software that has become poularly used for that purpose. I mean, for pete’s sake, you can buy radar detectors in some states where actually using one isn’t legal–and is there ANY other use for them? At least with Napster you can also use it to swap perfectly legal things. Of course, an irony in this whole debate is that Napster has gotten somewhat vicious in its defence of * its * copyright, but I use Gnuetella anyway.

Ok, I think that–barring anybody quoting me in a greivously wrong manner or something of the sort–i’m finished with this thread. Basically, it has degraded to “I’m right” “no I’m right”, and really doesn’t look to go anywhere new in the near future. Please take the time to actually read through what I just wrote, and respond to it as a whole, not as 4 words out of a 3 paragraph post. Any post referenced narrowly enough can be made to sound stupid…

[Myrr21]

Umm, damn–used “first off” twice in that post–one right after the other, no less. Ahh the joys of typing late at night…feel free to mentally change it so “secondly”, or something of the sort…

Umm, frick–just saw the THIRD time in the post. And now I’m using “umm” too much. Definitely time to pry myself away and get some sleep.

[Lizard]

Originally posted by Kilgore Trout:
“dumb fuck. where did you get the impression that i cared about your business? i don’t care what you do with your fucking computer. i am merely answering the OP.”

Gee, Kilgore, I didn’t think you cared before you started responding to every line of my posts with breaks to call me an idiot or dumb fuck.tool Now I see that I was mistaken.fool You don’t really care at all.tool How silly of me to think so.fool

The Ryan illustrated the debate pretty well:
“Well, there’s been a lot of bullshit from both sides of this issue. First of all, downloading songs is not stealing. It is, in most circumstances, illegal, but it is not stealing. Several suits have been brought against people involved in this. Are any of them based upon laws regarding stealing? No, they have been based upon copyright laws. Why? Because downloading songs is not stealing. The only way that it can be considered stealing is in a metaphorical sense, and that brings in the issue of morality. There have been people saying that their actions are not immoral, and others have taken their statements to mean that those actions are not illegal. Where has anyone said that their actions are not illegal?”

Exactly so. “Stealing” is subjective, “illegal” is not.fool The former is a moral judgement open to interpretation, the second is a matter of fact.tool That is why DLing is only stealing if everyone THINKS it’s stealing.tool Since I don’t think its stealing, it ISN’T stealing, for ME, anyway.fool Cram that up your ass, Kilgore, you fish-smelling half-wit.tool

[SPOOFE]

Drainthelizard…

I don’t give a rats ass!

I don’t CARE who thinks I’m stealing. I don’t CARE if it’s illegal.

If you don’t care, why do you feel the need to justify your actions?

Namely:

downloading Napster might be legally defined as stealing, but it is not unethical because a “lot”… of people do it.

the stuff I download I never would’ve spent the money to buy

most of the stuff downloaded by me and my friends is either old music from the 70’s or the latest teeny-bopper hits. The old stuff doesn’t have much profit potential left, and the new stuff is making millions for its writers/recorders/producers even as I download it.

I also heard somewhere that musicians make a lot more money performing live than they do selling recordings.

Care to explain which it is? Do you care, or don’t you? Seems to be that if you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t fill your posts with such hard-reading nonsense, and instead post “I use Napster, I like it, and I don’t care if musicians lose money”.

Apathy is all well and good, just don’t lie about it

[Lizard]

Well…I was trying to humor some of the earlier respondents. But my arguments fell on deaf ears, so I essentially fell back on the old “I’m-doing-it-and-you-can’t-stop-me!-nyahh!” argument. The stuff you quoted is what I tell myself if I ever feel guilty. (WHich might as well be quantified as never.)I’m amazed that some people ask if there’s ANY justification, then viciously shoot down every justification proffered. Hey, either you have a reason or you don’t.

I’m with Myrr21 on this thread. This is it for me.