Stop dodging the question. Few are arguing the law, they are arguing ethics or practicality. We know it may violate certain laws. That’s how the thread started. I was asking how you feel about it, and why you think those examples are substantively different.
So the difference between looking at a photo online which can be viewed from multiple angles, printed, etc., and viewing it in person, is greater than the difference between downloading a song of lower quality, and having a physical CD which can be utilized in far more ways, and comes with artwork, etc.?
Also, what does small reproduction have to do with it? You seem to be taking a fairly hardline view. I don’t see why you even mention the level of reproduction.
Many modern artists sell screen prints and posters as well. The image posted on a website, accessed by Google, can often be made into a poster. The market is certainly hurt as well. Also, plenty of people are not satisfied with an unauthorized copy even if they have sampled it.
More importantly, if the standard is just damaging the market for sales, critics do that everyday. Roger Ebert should owe a lot of people money. To me, the problem is that you started off this debate pretending this was a clear cut legal and ethical issue, yet you now have come around to the fact that it’s more of a matter of ensuring a fertile environment for music or anything else. Now you talk about small levels of reproduction, and damaging the market, as if that would matter to someone who feels copying, sharing, or covering without compensation is an ethical and legal breach in and of itself.
Do you think Chris Rock expects payment when someone tells his jokes? Do you think Eminem expects payment when someone sings one of his songs? Explain to me why you think these two situations are substantively different?
What’s the difference? Again, you seem to be shifting from copying is wrong, to the quality of the copy is what matters.
Why not? Why is an interior designer’s work, which is for sale, any different from a musician’s? Don’t you think it would piss a designer off if their designs were “stolen”? Why do we protect the work of a musician more than we do an interior designer?
But how exactly are the purveyors of music (musicians, their agents etc.) using the technology incorrectly so as to be missing out on these untapped profits, in your view? They’re already selling music online through iTunes, Amazon and other services, yet the piracy continues. Wasn’t this one of the popular original complaints from pirates, earlier this decade? That there was no outlet to buy electronic copies of individual songs?
If you make it into a poster or a T-shirt without the owner’s permission, you are infringing.
That’s not the standard and I didn’t say it was. Either you’re being disingenuous or you require a much more thorough lesson on copyright law, artists moral rights, etc., than is within the scope of this thread and which has been covered repeatedly on these boards.
Actually, no, I’m not shifting anything. Why are you trying to force me into an absolutist position?
If the designer is actually creating something original, then it very well might be original enough to be considered a creative work in itself. If all the designer is doing is buying other people’s creative works and filling a room with them, that’s not really original.
I guess you missed my apology for confusing you with cosmosdan.
How is a designer putting together furniture in a unique way different from a composer putting together notes in a unique way?
They are still insisting upon being paid a premium for things that have essentially no marginal cost. They need to adapt to the economy of bits and bytes rather than the economy of atoms. They can do that the same way many other companies do. Just a few examples from Chris Anderson’s book Free (which btw, I first downloaded, then bought):
Direct Cross Subsidies: Give away music, sell hardware (eg. U2 Ipod), product placement (Jay-Z, P Diddy), or licensing to TV shows or ads (Amy Winehouse, etc.) Three-Party Markets: Give away product, sell access to audience or merchandise Freemium: Give away music, sell special advance copies and access to paying customers
I’ll stop there lest I infringe upon Mr. Anderson’s rights. Even so, I only mentioned ways to make money by giving away your music for free. You can still make money by just charging a nominal fee more in line with actual costs, or by recognizing that the bulk of one’s income as a musician will not come from selling music.
I’ll respond to this since the line by line response was already done well. Ethically it’s about protecting the rights of the artist or the creator of a product. Would you say people in general have a right to be paid for their efforts, thier work, their labor? If someone invents something or builds something, should they have a right to profit from that? If a company created a unique product to sell that you are taking for free, you are damaging them by reducing their potential income.
We can argue the details all day long but the bootom line is you are taking someone else’s work that they created to sell and try to make a living, and giving it away which damages their ability to make a living. Nobody who pirates music would find that acceptable if they were on the recieving end.
The copyright laws are imperfect but it’s a decent attempt to try and protect people who pursue artisitic endevors. That’s why there are differences called “fair Use” and there are specifc details as to how and when parts of something can be used. Those laws are an attempt to be ethical and protect creative people and their creations. Getting paid for your work is a basic principle of society that has been around for a long long time, so no matter how you try to justify it, taking their work for free is unethical, unless they decide it’s okay.
When you make fairly ridiculous examples like this it gets hard to take your arguments seriously. Can you really not see the difference? Damaging sales by giving the exact product away, or damaging it by giving an opinion? We try to balance people’s rights and protect the consumer as well as the business that is trying to sell something. People have a right to express and opinion about a product and I can evaluate thier opinion. If they tell outright lies in order to damage sales then they can get sued. See how that works? The laws are trying to find the line that is ethical to balanace the rights of the parties involved.
What inherent right does anyone have to take someone else’s work without permission and affect thier livelihood in a negative way? You don’t see anything unethical about that?
There are several facets to consider. It’s not changing the argument to discuss different facets. There’s the legal issues. The ethical ones, and the discussion of how piracy can affect creativity in the long run.
I would think the difference would be incredibly obvious. It’s a question of a reasonable balance in protecting the rights of the artists. There’s a gigantic difference in telling one or two jokes from a comedy show and selling an exact copy of the whole show. Me singing a James Taylor song to my friends is a lot different than copying and distributing a product he wants to sell. The legal and the ethical difference has to do with which one is damaging sales by reproducing a product they are trying to sell. Can you figure out which is which? If you can’t then we don’t have much else to talk about.
There have to be decisions made about what is reasonable and what isn’t based on the rights of everyone. Laws try to balance those rights with ethics in mind. I don’t know much about interior design but I assume the very nature of their work prevents exact copies from being made. I think I can safely assume if some other designer was copying the designs of another and reproducing them there would be trouble and because of the very same ethical principle. Whether there could be any legal action I really don’t know.
It’s the same way with comedy. Among comics who tour the clubs it’s considered very unethical to take someone else’s work {jokes} and put them in yor act. Same ethical reason.
Let me ask you something. Let’s say you saw and heard a great comedian who had an act that you thought was very original and hilarious. A couple of months later you hear another comedian who repeats almost all the same jokes in his act and you find out that he pretty much just copied the act of the 1st guy who wrote the entire routine. Being honest, would you think the 2nd comedian is kind of a dick or not? Would you say he’s potentially hurting this other comic’s livelihood by repeating the jokes?
Another musical example. Two musicians work the same clubs and make an okay living at it. One is a writer who does a lot of original material and fans like his songs. The other does mostly covers {that are paid for by the BMI and ASCAP fees the club owner pays so lets not go there} If the 2nd musician decides to start playing the 1st musicians originals without asking permission is that okay or is he being unethical? If the 1st musician specifically asks hiom not to and he says “fuck you I will anyway” is he then being a unethical?
Tell me your honest gut reaction.
That’s not the issue. I’ve said several times that the changing market is fine and businesses and record labels do need to adapt. If people decide to not buy CDs and only download music from various sites that are much cheaper that’s ethical and fine and chances are good that the artist is being compensated in some way.
My objection is takig someone’s work that they offer for sale , without their permission or approval, and then trying to say it’s not unethical and create bullshit arguments to justify it.
Yes markets change and the percieved value of things changes as well. That’s okay. Do it honestly.
No, you are not necessarily reducing their income. Discussing potential income is pretty arbitrary considering all the unknown variables. Furthermore, just inventing or building something doesn’t mean you have a right to profit from it. If I invent a cure to cancer, do I have a right to charge whatever I want for it? Obviously, that was an extreme example, but it illustrates why most rational people will not accept your supposition. Moreover, even the law recognizes this, hence fair use, and copyright limitations. The thing we are arguing about is where to draw the line. That’s why you hardline approach to this makes no sense.
That’s just not true. Plenty of people give the music away after recognizing the environment we are in. Plenty of other people in other occupations have had their work “pirated” for so long that there is no longer an expectation from the artists themselves, or society, that they be compensated the way musicians are.
But what is the ethical difference in your mind? Why should I be able to use your work without compensating you, so long as it’s creative? How should that matter to the creator if they object in both cases?
Of course it’s an extreme example; that was the point. Using potential loss as a ethical standard would apply equally to a critic as it does to a filesharer.
When your work has zero marginal cost, and is basically bits and bytes, it will be treated the same way we treat most abstract things.
Yet, you singing a James Taylor song to your friends would, under many circumstances, be illegal as well. Why does Chris Rock have fewer rights than James Taylor?
In both examples, you are reproducing a product that someone is trying to sell. The question is, can you demonstrate that one is damaging sales more than another? You don’t think Dane Cook’s sales and image were hurt by people doing his bits all the time?
First, of course you can copy an interior design. Second, most would see it as an ethical breach when you profit from someone else’s work. But let’s get back to the original question. If my neighbor hired an professional interior designer, and after having see their work, I buy and arrange my furniture in the same way, have I done anything wrong?
Yes, he is a dick if he is making money off the other guy. The same applies to your musician example. Clearly, there is a demonstrably economic loss experience by the first comedian. I would say the same about a person selling bootleg CDs on the street. If the second comedian in your example were just some regular guy telling the same jokes in his house, I don’t really have a problem with it.
It’s only arbitrary in that we can’t come to a number. The prinicple and the potential is obvious and easy to understand.
“Check out this great soing”
“That’s awesome, I want a copy for my Ipod and my computer. Can I buy it on Itunes?”
“Save you money man, I’ll burn you a copy”
Presto, sales and income affected. You know that happens a bunch.
. Actually it pretty much does. It doesn’t mean you will because maybe nobody cares and wants it, but if it’s your unique creation and if people want it then expecting them to pay something is not unreasonable at all is it?
There’s a big difference between some profit and price gouging. If you invented a cure for cancer would you expect to get rich or would you expect to just do okay? Would you sell the formula outright and have drug companies sell it for cost or would you think it’s fair for them to make a buck. Would you consider getting some small royalty off thier profits? Do you think that you as the inventor should have some say over any of those choices, or should someone just take it, not giving you any say?
My hardline approach is just on the basic principle. and it’s frustrating to have people try to justify something that is clearly unethical.
I suppose this is a particular issue for me because I believe it can and does hurt the struggling independent artist. So now the law somehow defends your argument? Yeah, there are clear limitations and with good reason. And yet copying and distributing a protected work is very much a violation.
Once again, and try to remember this for future reference. The owner of the work is free to decide how to market it or whether to give it away, just as companies with other products choose to give away samples etc. In NONE of those cases is it okay for the consumer to decide to take what ever they feel they have a right to. That’s not how business econimcs work.
Can you give me specifc examples where people have had their work pirated so much that they don’t expect to be compensated? I can’t think of any.
I’m not sure I understand the question but the laws are specific in ways like. "If you’re writing a review of a piece of work you get to use limieted quotes as examples That’s fair use. You can’t copyright individual notes of words but if you put those notes together in a very specific sequence you can. The specifics of the laws try to determine what exactly is fair and ethical to individuals and society as a whole. Honest , they put some rteal thought into it. They didn’t just write the laws one night when they were high.
OMG! Of course it wouldn’t. It isn’t just all one issue or another. The critics freedom of speech is also an issue so the boundaries are drawn accordingly. That’s why if you damage someone’s business with blatent lies you get to be sued.
If someone offers an opinion “Wow this CD sucks” the consumer can still listen and judge for themselves. Once the consumer has an exact copy of something he wants for free he never has to buy it. Pretty major difference. There’s just no realisitic comparison at all and I’m amazed if you can’t see it.
Music may be able to be reduced to bits and bites but it is not at all abstract. It remains a very specifc piece of work that repesents someones efforts and expense.
Do you think downloading ten music files is vastly different form making a hard copy of a CD and handing it to someone?
WTF? Who said he did? Honest , extreme examples like this don’t help you. I’m pretty sure JT doesn’t give a crap if I sing his songs to my friends and he doesn’t want everyone who might to call him to ask permission. If he ever tells me not to I will respect his wishes. When I was out singing his stuff and other artists stuff for money they were getting paid. Fair enough?
It’s common sense. If you give away someone’s exact work they’ve lost a potential customer for that exact work. If you reproduce a portion of it in an unprofessional way that has a lot less chance of of affecting their income.
To some extent but a piece of music is a lot more complex and exact than a color scheme and a style of furniture. It’s a very weak comparison. THat’s why they have specific laws about what can and can’t be copyrighted.
I bet your neighbor thinks so. It’s not a reasonable comparison. Do you suppose the desgner feels okay about you copying her work for free rather than hiring her? I think not.
Thanks for an honest answer.
I see the difference and that’s why there are specific guidelines in copyright law and why certain acts, although technicaly in violation, are not pursued. It’s kinda like me playing at home or out for money. Technically, even if you are not making money an artist has the right to ask you to not use their work if they don’t like the way it’s being used. In that case a cease and desist injunction is filed. We saw that when political groups were told to stop using certain artists materials.
The fact is that even if you’re not selling the product from the trunk of your car you are still in reality hurting potential sales by giving it away fro free. That’s so clear and undeniable. You are damaging the makers of that product by giving it away to their potential market. Pretty dam simple.
then you have to wonder if they both stole it from Steve Martin
I wonder what the guidelines are among the comics. There is outright theft and then a variation on a theme. I got some material from a guy doing a musical comedy act and he was pissed. One song he was mad about I had heard on Dr Dimento way before I heard him. In general though it’s frowned upon to do things too similar to someone else’s act. Especially if you’re playing the very same clubs they play.
Now here’s a variation on that same theme.
When my wife and I werte trying to decide what to name our daughter there was this strange timing that my daughter says was a curse. I asked my wife what she wanted to name her just as she was bending over a certain way so right after I finished the question…she farted. I said “That’s a pretty name” and we both laughed like hell. The problem is that it stuck with my daughter. We repeated the story and told her that was her middle name. I’d be sitting on the couch, look her way and say “excuse me {fart noise} could you get me a soda?” Of course she’d be mad and scream SHUT UP! and stomp off,…which only encouraged me.
When she had freinds over I’d walk in the room and start to speak to her,…and just the look of horror on her face was reward enough. She’d have this look of feaar and pleading at the same time. “Please Dad NO”
So are any jokes about naming your kids off limits?
Are you saying that if one person invents something, everyone has rights to that invention for free*? If so, why? If not, where is the line and why is it drawn there. Why is music different than say, the designs for the latest computer chip? Both are nothing but digital files. Or how about CAD drawings from an architect? I can list a huge number of things that exist as just bits on a disk somewhere that have tangable value, do you believe that all those bits should be free to whomever wants them? If not, what is the difference between the bits the make up a song and say the bits that make up your bank account and routing number? If I can morally download and use an artists bits, why can I not use yours?
Second, if you do invent a cure for cancer, you do have the right to charge whatever you would like to for it. Morally and legally.
Slee
*On a side note, your argument about artists having a right to profit from their work is silly. No one in this thread has argued that artists have a right to profit. The argument is that the artists have the right to decide how to distribute their own music. If the artist decides to sell their work and people decide to buy enough, the artist profits, if not the artist does not profit. It is called trade. The issue is, who gets to make that choice. You, apparently, believe that the artists wishes are trivial compared to yours. I disagree.
A slavish copy of a 2D work has the same copyright status as the original work. A slavish copy of a 2D work is not creative, and thus does not create a new copyright. See Bridgeman v. Corel.
If your wallpaper is of a public domain work, regardless of format-transformation, and it is a slavish copy, then it is still public domain, no matter how much photographers like to whine about their effort or how much Museum websites put false claims of copyright on their website.
If your wallpaper is of a copyrighted work, and it is a slavish copy of said work, you have not created any new copyright, and the original copyright applies. It may still apply even if you do change it, depending upon how much of it you use for your derivative work. In any event, in each case you then fall into the nebulous swamp of “Fair Use,” where one wrong move or one bad call becomes “copyright infringement.”
So your assumption is not correct - you may very well be in the wrong, depending.
What about music? In theory, a copy of a musical recording which is public domain should be public domain. Thanks to the efforts of the music industry and musicians, it can be incredibly difficult to determine if a song is in the public domain, or even who owns the song. See the write-up on this by the maker of the short film “Sita sings the Blues”, where she writes that she was getting cease and desist letters from the music industry for the copyrighted music she used in her film - but for some of the songs the lawyers refused to tell her who owned the copyright, or how the royalties were supposed to be split. AFAIK, for some of the songs she still has never been told who really owns them and how to exactly divide out the royalty payments. The opinions of some legal experts I’ve read say that it has become functionally impossible to absolutely say that any piece of music is truly in the public domain.
There was a comment earlier about recipes - recipes are often not covered by copyright.
On a further note, while I of course support the right of artists to have strict copyright protections, it’s also vanishingly rare to find one who will also support civil penalties for knowingly or negligently making false claims of copyright infringement.
“On a further note, while I of course support the right of artists to have strict copyright protections, it’s also vanishingly rare to find one who will also support civil penalties for knowingly or negligently making false claims of copyright infringement.”
Really? Seems eminently fair to me as long as it cant be used as a MAD kind of protective move by large companies. Ie if your case of copyright infringement isnt fairly open and shut you should be vulnerable to a counter suit.
Of course there are examples of lost sales, but there are also examples of sales gained. In addition, the alternative reality, where the internet and democratization of production hasn’t made it possible for some independent artists to ever make an album is far worse than one where there copyright is infringed upon. As someone said before, obscurity is far bigger problem.
Price gouging is largely in the eye of the beholder. More specifically, such appraisals should take into account how the market responds to certain prices, and how consumers feel about it. Just as charging $20 for a bottle of water after hurricane Katrina, or charging African countries insane prices for HIV meds is bad, so too is charging $15 for something that involves nearly zero marginal costs. I freely admit what the RIAA does is not nearly as unseemly as charging lots of money for water after an emergency, but the principle is the same.
Comedians, designers, cooks, etc. They are all obviously compensated, but they don’t expect their work to be scalable by force of law.
And a joke, design, or recipe doesn’t?
Again, he doesn’t care primarily because it’s unenforceable. Ethically speaking, it shouldn’t matter.
Not if the technology that allows you to give away the exact work is what made that person a potential customer in the first place. It makes what you envision as a net loss far more unlikely. This is far more clear when you recognize that there are far, far more niche artists now then there have been at any given time. To claim the internet culture and filesharing hurts them is not supported by the facts.
So do you think they should be able to be copyrighted?
Very often, it’s the large companies which can take advantage of this. They’re the ones who can send out blanket “cease and desist” emails and letters to thousands of people, based on flimsy or even no evidence of copyright infringement.
…provided you can afford the legal team to take on Time-Warner.
It’s simple: if the RIAA lawyers send a letter claiming copyright infringement exists, and they do this negligently or fraudulently, then there need to be automatic civil penalties, proportional to the income of the person who claimed copyright falsely, which are automatically awarded. Or if a website developer claims they “own” a JPG of a 500 year-old painting (which they themselves scanned from a book, without seeking permission) and threatens to sue you for having their scan in your online gallery - serious civil penalties. I’d say a floor of $10,000 automatically awarded per claim. Surely those in favor of protecting the copyrights of artists would want to prevent negligent or fraudulent copyright claims - right?
There are already penalties in the law for bringing baseless claims. Many states also have anti-slapp suit laws that allow fir quick fidmissal of abusive copyright claims. If you think there should be more then that may be worth a discussion, but it’s essentially irrelevant to the question of sherbet individuals should refrain from making unauthorized copies of protected works.
Such discussions are pretty commonly part of serious copyright law forums and they’re detailed and complicated. What you’re essentially doing us throwing up random reform proposals out of context of a thorough understanding of the state of the law and implying that anyone who doesn’t immediately sign on is intellectually dishonest.
We need to be able to put the pertinent points together so we don’t keep covering the same ground. The critical point here is that it’s the creator of the product who gets to decide how to market their own product. Doesn’t that seem reasonable? If they want to market it by giving some or all away that’s up to them and they can change their mind when they want. It’s never up to the consumer {ethically speaking} to decide for them by taking their work for free.
You may not like the rice of CDs but it hardly qualifies as price gouging. Esecially when you consider that it’s nothing that you have to have in any way. It’s not the same principle at all. We were talking about people being paid for thier work and you agreed in general that they deserve to be paid if you actually want their work. If you don’t like the price then the honest response is “I don’t want it at that price” and then the seller can make a call on price accordingly , because, as I just said, and the law reads m and ethics demand, it’s their call to make not the consumers. Deciding the price is too high so I’ll just take what I want is an unethical reaction to any seller.
scalable?
This again is something we’ve already coverd. There are sound reasons why there are limits on what can be copyrighted. The law has made decisions on what those are. Look at the jokes that were linked to. All jokes about kids names but none exactly the same. If someone could copyright a song about love gone bad there would be a shitload less songs.
even apart from the legal limits there are accepted ethical standards within the profession that are based on the same principles as the laws.
not in the same way no. As someone just linked to, a recipe that is more detailed and complex,{like a piece of music is} may be copyrighted. My guess is that if a comedian writes an entire show, they can copyright the show but not the non detailed idea of “a joke about naming kids”
Already coverd this too. I fail to see how this realisitically relates to the discussion. Are you trying to point out that from a very rigid pov on ethics, I shouldn’t play a JT song without his permission? Weak brother very weak. I already said if he asks me not to I won’t, and if he or artists in general ask people not to play thier songs at home I won’t, but that’s not bloody likely is it? OTOH artists and owners of musical works have very specifically asked people not to pirate and there is a real possibility of damages from piracy.
I don’t get your point here. A lot of the rich artists became rich before or in spite of piracy. So a rich guy gets robbed and he’s still rich. That makes the robbery not a robbery?
what I think is irrelevant to this discussion. I don’t know enough about design to make an educated judgement. Even if I said Hell yeah they should be copyrighted it doesn’t change the music issue one bit.
Apart from the principle is not the same at all. Water’s a necessity for life and also vital in emergency situations. An MP3 file isn’t a necessity for life. Further, a single MP3 file costs in the region of 80p from various online retailers, about the price of a large chocolate bar. This isn’t price gouging any more than Cadbury selling chocolate bars at 80p is.
I cannot wrap my head around those claiming that music is, in their view, too expensive, and therefore it is morally justified to take it for free. If you don’t like the price something is being sold at, then don’t buy the product. If the music industry business is uncompetitive then it will eventually die out in its current state if nobody is willing to purchase music at the prices offered. You don’t get to decide the business model of the music industry just because you want something for free.
Lets not call it stealing. Stealing involves an involuntary transfer of property from the owner of said property to the thief. Here we have the owner of a particular cd, or dvd, who has paid money for it, allowing other people to use his possession to make their own. Big big difference.
It’s copyright infringement. NOT stealing. No bands now have an empty back catalogue because their songs have been “stolen”. The warning at the start of dvds is right. Most people wouldn’t steal a car/handbag, but if their friend asks if they want a copy of a cd that they own, no law is going to make that seem unreasonable.
And the artists do control how they want to market their product. Unfortunately, technology has advanced to the stage that once their product is sold, the person who bought it now has the means to produce infinite digital copies at no cost. And, since they have paid for their cd, they are free to do whatever they want with it, imo, long as they don’t profit from it.
Another thing - we don’t need to worry about the supply of bands drying up because of file-sharing; this simply won’t happen. Music is much more than a business, musicians play for the love of music, any money they make is a bonus. I’m not going to shed tears for someone who is “struggling to make ends meet” when their job involves playing gigs two nights a week, and sitting round the rest of the time. There are plenty of people who would do this for free, while working another job.