Alereon, give it a rest. It is theft, you are a thief, and all your hot air won’t make it any less so.
Theft theft theft!
Thief thief thief!
Keep blabbing while your criminal friends pay. I can only hope we move on up to jail terms soon.
OK, Bill H., I’m a thief. Just don’t fool yourself into thinking I feel bad about it… I don’t. File sharing is the best thing to happen to music in our lifetime. It’s bigger than the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. Makes me feel good to be a part of it. So I’ll keep being a thief along with everybody else I know, and you can keep being the asshole.
And that’s the purpose of the justice system.
Some people are restrained from taking what isn’t theirs by their conscience. Others are held back by the fear of jail. In the end, it all works.
Put me down for a vote for “copyright infringment”.
A bigger problem I see here is that RIAA desire to hax0r da plan3t. Disregarding the fact that in a WWF style hack-down with the RIAA vs. anybody with a computer, the RIAA could no more win than Hillary Rosen could kick my @ss at Counterstrike. (Check their website. I betcha it’s down.)
How about this scenario: You own a small business with a decent net sales division. The night guard whiles away the time listening to Mettalica on an accounting machine. RIAA decides to exploit MS buffer overflow number 185 to shut him down, and accidentally corrupts your server’s NT kernel on the way out. Whoops! So sorry, better luck next time.
I can’t seem to find it now, but there was a strong lobby in the US to allow copyright holders to actively hack other people’s machines looking for copyright violations. All I would have to do is be convinced you could be infringing my rights, and everything would be nice and legal.
I have no love for the RIAA and Disney. RIAA’s scheme to hack into computers and mess with them if they have illegal MP3s is pure evil. Evil. And I have not much love for Disney, either. So no sympathy for them.
However, (as I have debated on multiple copyright threads), individuals should retain rights to their own work, and yes, it does mess things up when people can get around paying for something that is (hopefully) going to generate income for the creator. Because if enough people copy illegally rather than pay, it puts the person creating the stuff out of business.
I understand that some forms of “illegal” distribution help out the artist in the long run, but not always. It shouldn’t be assumed that it’ll always help them out. Besides, I’d like to think that the creator is the one who has final say over whether they want to give away “freebies” in the spirit of promotion, or not.
Also, I have a few words about Apple’s Music store, since I’m actually able to use it (being a Mac user).
Yes, you can only make 10 CDs of an “unchanged” playlist. But (though I haven’t tested this out yet) you can make many, MANY different “playlists”. Change 'em around a little, and burn more copies. Pretty much infinite possibilities there, I should think. I’m not worried about that at all.
You can only have 3 computers playing the same music at the same time, but you can “deactivate” one computer, to make room for a different computer. So that will work for most people.
The selection of music on the Apple Music store isn’t that great yet, but it should improve. If it doesn’t, I don’t think Apple Music Store has a hope in hell. But I assume that it will.
It’s a great system. I found plenty of music that I’d always wanted, but wasn’t about to get, because it was too expensive and a big hassle to get a whole CD for one or two selections. Why buy a whole CD for just one solitary song? Now I don’t have to worry about that. I buy just what I want, nothing more. It’s great. I love it. You Windows users will love it too (well, some of you will) when it’s finally available for Windows.
Make that: You Windows users who have credit cards and PayPal accounts. Am I the only person still holding out on that? It’s become nearly impossible to do any sort of commercial transaction on the net without a credit card (i had one, it was a cheap $900 disaster I don’t plan to repeat, same with checking accounts) and/or PayPal account (kind of need a credit card for that, so again no luck.)
Well, RexDart, you are left out on a lot of online things when you don’t have a credit card. That’s the nature of the beast.
Does this mean that I’m stealing if I get up to take a growler during a commercial break?
I pay my cable bill, therefore all the TV I watch is bought and paid for, with or without commercials.
Fuck. Every god damned time this comes up, I wonder why NOBODY has ever hit upon the simplest solution:
- Music is sold online or through music stores.
- If you want to buy music in electronic form, you send the seller a copy of your public key from a PGP (or GPGP) encryption key pair.
- The seller encrypts your copy with your key. You use your private key in all playback devices to decode your music file and play them back.
- Your PGP public key is kept on reference by your credit card company. If your PGP key is compromised, then you just inform the credit card company and have a new one issued (or you generate a new pair and register your public key with the company) and have the old key invalidated for new purchases - but the old one stays on file for reference.
- There are details to be handled in changing keys or handling multiple keys (especially for portable devices,) but that is just applying known technology.
The end user retains all rights to do as he pleases with his music. The artist’s rights are protected.
The end user can even exchange files with friends - he just lets them use his private key.
Abuse can be tracked and abusers found and fined.
Oop. Forgot number six.
- Watermark the downloaded files with the public key of the original purchaser.
OK, let’s see a cite for this piece of shit. Show me the actual legislation that says this is theft.
My opinion on all of this:
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The music produced now, 99% of it is is felch.
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The songs I WANT I can’t even fucking order from Sam Goody or Barns and Nobel. So yes I’m going to download them. If the record companys won’t supply my demand they can blow me.
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If I buy an mp3, CD or a tape I expect to be allowed to play it on ANY device where ever or whenever I wish. I remember some ideas for making mp3 distribution good for the RIAA was to include pay per play, limit the use of the mp3 on 1 machine or have limited number of playbacks.
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TV and TiVo. Of course people are going to skip past the ads. We’ve been doing this since people were savvy enough to channel flip. If the TV stations are going to provide free to the view content they shouldn’t complain when we change the channel/fast forward to avoid the ads.
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The reccord companies would lose less money if they stopped spending the bulk of their money on big named ‘superstars’ with little to no talent. Think about how little money it would take for Sony to snag the top 15 indy artists and send them on tours.
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If you are really worried about the RIAA kicking in your door or scanning through your harddrive and hacking your illegally downloaded mp3s get a second computer. Buy a POS 400 mhz Pentium 3 network it to your PC with an active internet connection and download songs onto the POS system. Then DISCONNECT it from the network and turn it into a jutebox. Oh no you’re safe from the evil RIAA.
One question dealing with Kazaa, Napster et al. I never see addressed is that of record companies (all, of course, not part of the RIAA) who want their material to be file-shared. Back when Napster was alive and kicking, for example, Murderecords in Canada put some of their material on it themselves. The FAQ on the Sloan (the band that owns Murderecords) website actually answered the question “How can I find [various Sloan unreleased tracks]?” with “Go to /napster/sloan/rarities.” Some of the other indie bands I listen to have their mp3s in the public domain; obviously they don’t mind having those files shared either.
Mort Furd’s suggestion of “watermarking” files would help separate the legal from the illegal–but, in absence of that move, couldn’t the RIAA’s attacks on file-sharing be considered a restraint on a legitimate source of advertisement by non-RIAA record labels?
Then the RIAA is your enemy on both counts.
I like the concept of karma – that doesn’t mean I think it actually exists. 
And EasyPhil, the difference between taping a song off the radio and swapping tracks with P2P networks is that the radio won’t play all the tracks on an album – just enough to pique your interest into getting the rest.
Is downloading music you didn’t pay for a crime? Yes. Is it stealing? Er, let’s just call it copyright infringement, because it pretty much IS that…making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work.
Should it be prosecuted? Well…no and yes. It’s ludicrous to try fining/arresting every person who’s ever downloaded an illegal MP3. Jailtime won’t frickin’ happen, because the offenders are literally in the millions. Fines might happen, but the concerned parties are going to spend a mint hiring enough people just to send the angry letters and keep track of who’s paid and who hasn’t.
I’ll tell you this for nothing, though – when the program Apple came up with is released to the Windows-using public, I’m going to be all over that bandwagon. I think it’s perfectly, extraordinarily fair…as long as artists get an appreciable portion of that money in royalties. I couldn’t care less about the poor lonely RIAA…
gex gex wrote
Well, let’s start off with the fact that
the law itself is legally titled “the No Electronic Theft law”!
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/hr2265.html
Your apology is accepted in advance. And Alereon’s as well. Don’t worry, I hold no grudges. I’m very certain that you’ll now clean up your evil ways and crime no more, right? After all, that’s the only reason you claimed you were stealing in the first place was you didn’t realize it was a crime, right? right?
HAHAHAHAHA, I crack myself up sometimes.
Bill H.: gex gex asked for legislation which defines copyright infringement as theft. You countered with a bill that does nothing of the sort. Of course, it would be rather difficult to back up your view, since it’s utterly indefensible. Now that we’ve cleared this matter up, I’ll graciously accept your apology. Go forth and sin no more.
Bill H.: FTR, I have never downloaded an illegal mp3 or other file. And I don’t consider it theft, but rather copyright violation. As this part of the law you cited makes it quite clear:
(bolding mine)
Although I’m starting to wonder what kind of dog you’ve got in this fight…
Are you the guy who sits in on shoplifting trials, shouting “Throw 'em in jail!”? That’s theft, after all. I think our jails are quite full enough as they are.
And I should also hope that you don’t tape any baseball games. After all, those telecasts may not be recorded without the express written consent of Major League Baseball. It’s at least as much copyright infringement as mp3 downloading, IMHO. You can tape a Tigers game, or whatever, and play it anywhere you want, whenever you want. And it’s perfectly illegal. As it is to tape an NFL, NHL, or NBA game, which also “cannot be reproduced without the permission of” the proper authorities.
I’m not saying we should give people who download music illegally a medal. Or that it should be permitted. But I’d like to know how come it’s so important that we call it “theft,” or whether chopping off hands, which seems to be your next logical punishment, will really solve any of the problems of the music industry.
Okay, I was pissed when they took away my Napster and I was pissed when they took away my Audiogalaxy and I will be even more pissed when they take away my Kazaa and/or SoulSeek. Why? Because none of the music I listen to is in any way controlled by the RIAA, and it’s none of their goddamned business. Hell, my music of choice is made by skinny European guys who probably don’t even know what the RIAA is.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I recognise the threat this must pose: There are music scenes where none of the artists are in it for the money, and selling 500 albums is considered a smashing success. P2P is helping these scenes prosper. The RIAA must be terrified.