On Ethics And Music Piracy

Great Debates
21

What about dead people?

I like exactly three Patsy Cline songs. I have them on my hard drive. Why is it ok to have to shell out 20 bucks for The Compleat Patsy Cline or 40 for the Time Life Library of Country music for four freakin’ songs? She’s been dead for decades.

This means there are only two groups of people who aren’t getting my money - from whom I stole, if you will: Her label and her heirs.

Her label? Screw 'em - they made enough money off of her when she was alive.

Her heirs? Well…yeah. I suppose I could feel sorry for what I do to them, but I don’t. Why? Because copyrights are supposed to protect the intellectual property of the artist, and her estate is not the artist. And I resent having to pay beaucoup bucks for a collection of tunes by a dead guy.

22

**

I’d really like to see some sort of proof to back this claim up. I don’t really believe that it is true.

**

That’s just plain ridiculous. I can’t ethically listen to music broadcast on the radio, television, or go to a public place with music playing such as a restaurant, bar, or a concert because I don’t buy CDs? Where’s the logic in that?

**

The fact that you purcase the CDs with tracks you’ve already downloaded doesn’t make downloading them right. The people who own the music have the right to distribute the music as they see fit. You don’t have a right to make that decision for them.

Marc

23

Not always. What about the artists on MP3.com who allow their songs to be downloaded? Accepting those files is ethical, legal, and not piracy.

24

chique: i agree completely. Copyright should last a few years or until the death of the artist; never beyond the death of the artist (and sure as fuck not life + 70 yrs).

mgibson: this is the first person i’ve ever come across who refuses to EVER buy a CD.

>Where’s the logic in that?

Simple. People who are so cheap that they refuse to partake in normal commercial transactions should be encouraged to leave America. By forbidding him to listen to any music, he will either be inclined to change his cheap ways (which are not good for the economy) or leave the country. Note that I’m not saying he doesn’t have the right to live in the US… only that he should be encouraged to leave by narrowly tailored laws to achieve that result. I’m assuming he’s not on the brink of starvation, of course; he said it’s his choice to be so cheap, so I assume his own economic situation isn’t forcing him to be that way.
>The fact that you purcase the CDs with tracks you’ve already
>downloaded doesn’t make downloading them right. The people
>who own the music have the right to distribute the music as
>they see fit. You don’t have a right to make that decision for them.

Nowhere did I say that it was right for me to download songs. I only said that it was more unethical for him to be downloading songs. He flat out refuses to buy any music, I don’t.

25

Kalt, your position is a bit over the top. Listening to music over the radio or in a public place, even with no intention of ever purchasing a CD, is perfectly legitimate and certainly not un-American.

Part of the free market system requires that people spend their money on whatever it is they choose, not on something either imposed by someone else or due to some outside pressure to stimulate the economy.

If njufoic doesn’t care to ever spend a dime to purchase music, fine. Just don’t use that as a rationalization to steal music from someone else. And s/he can enjoy the music on the radio or other public places til their heart’s content. Those business models are with the consent of all parties involved. Likewise, justifying the stealing of music because you do purchase CDs doesn’t hold water either.

While your point may be that if everyone that downloaded music also purchased music, the industry wouldn’t have their panties in a wad - you may be right. But it is an irrelevent point.

No, it is not unethical, and it is a risk of the business model that all involved have accepted. But as you point out, if everyone did it, the whole model would fall apart, and radio stations would no longer be broadcasting. In the general case, your argument doesn’t hold.

For example, if the television manufacturers all started building TVs that automatically blanked the screen and muted the audio for all commercial breaks, and such TVs began to have critical mass in the market, the whole “free” broadcasting industry would quickly grind to a halt. The fact that a few folks may look away and mute their TVs during commercials is an acceptable risk for them today.

And chique, your arguments come off as little more than rationalization as well.

Clearly, you are not a lawyer, because that is just plain wrong. Intellectual property belongs to whomever owns the rights, and that is not necessarily the artist (and, in fact, normally isn’t the artist). The artist normally “sells” the rights to someone else, often the record label, and often the record label agrees to buy those rights by paying residuals to the artist (and contractually, the artist’s estate in the event of an untimely demise). Whether the artist is alive or dead does not impact one iota that the copyright owner is entitled to their intellectual property rights (and btw, IANAL).

And this view is clearly irresponsible:

I can only suggest that you would feel differently if you were the owner of the record label.

And one last point: If you disagree with the length of time that a copyright exists, fine, feel free to lobby your congressman. As another thread here recenly pointed out, our elected representatives seem to continue to stretch the length of time a copyright exists whenever Disney’s franchise on Mickey Mouse® is about to run out. But don’t let your disagreement with the law rationalize your decision to break it.

26

The purpose of copyright, as described in the Constitution, is to provide an incentive for the production of art. If illegal file sharing promotes buying music, which promotes the creation of music, then it falls within the spirit of the law.

Of course, the word stealing is loaded and entirely inappropriate for this context. Comparing copyright violation to theft is like comparing jaywalking to animal cruelty. They’re both illegal, but that’s where the similarity ends.

27

Whether the “illegal file sharing” promotes music buying (which it does) is irrelevant in terms of whether it should be allowed. Just because an infringement makes the copyright owner more money doesn’t mean the infringement should be allowed. For example, if you’re the author of a book and without permission i make a movie based entirely on your book, it is inevitable that sales of your book will rise due to my movie version, so does that mean I should be off the hook for making the movie w/out permission? of course not.

This is relevant to fair use, however. Downloading (protected)songs for noncommercial, private use should be a fair use exception, but we’ll need a statute to get that. All the people who could write such a statute are getting paid millions of dollars to not write such a statute by people who will point to njufoic as an example of why such a statute would be horrible for their industry. Never mind the fact that there are not more than a few hundred people in the entire country who share his views on gross frugality.

28

So who decides whether such use is “fair use”? I’d suggest that the first decision would be the copyright owners. If someone disagrees, then it would go the courts, to interpret the laws the legistlatures have written, or the Constitution itself. This scenario has already played out numerous times, and the courts have held that such file-sharing of protected copyrighted material does not fall under “fair use”. I agree with Kalt on this, up til the point of placing blame on folks like njufoic.

That’s absurd. Such copyright violation is as much stealing as shoplifting. You are taking someone’s (intellectual) property, as protected by the US Constitution, without permission and without proper compensation. How is it not stealing?

29

I never suggested it was fair use. I think we all realize that trading copyrighted material, at least in the form of Internet P2P sharing, is illegal. (Trading copyrighted music using media such as “music CD-R” is legal, due to exemptions in the Audio Home Recording Act.)

However, I contend that it’s ethical because it falls in line with the original purpose of copyright–that is, it provides an incentive to create new material.

If you shoplift a loaf of bread from a store, there’s no doubt that the store has lost something. Before you come in, they have 100 loaves of bread and X dollars in the till; after you leave, they have 99 loaves of bread, and still only X dollars in the till. Theft means taking something away from its rightful owner.

On the other hand, if you make a copy–say, by putting the bread into a Star Trek replicator, pressing a button, and putting the original loaf back on the shelf–the original owner hasn’t lost anything. They still have everything they had before you came in. In some circumstances, you can argue that they’ve lost a potential sale, but there’s no guarantee:

Perhaps you would have bought a Metallica album if you didn’t download it from Kazaa (the record label has lost a potential sale); or perhaps you never would have bought it because you don’t have the disposable income to spend on CDs (the label has lost nothing).

Or maybe you did buy it as a result of hearing two of the tracks, which you found on Kazaa, and you wouldn’t have bought it if not for Kazaa (the label has gained a sale)!

In summary, the original owner’s loss is clear in cases of actual theft; it’s basically undefinable in cases of unauthorized duplication. The word “stealing” in a copyright debate, like the word “murder” in an abortion debate, serves only to add unnecessary connotations and distract from the issues at hand.

30

So, does anyone have any non-anecdotal evidence that suggests that illegal file sharing promotes buying music?

31

Mr2001,

Your analogy to a loaf of bread represents a common fallacy in regards to intellectual property. Luckily, the courts haven’t fallen for it.

But let’s stick with it for a minute, and assume the town likes bread, so demand for loaves exists. The baker creates the supply (before the replicator). The baker prices the bread, not based on what it costs him (he wants to make money), but on the value of the bread to the town.

If the competing bakery on the other side of town burns down, even with no increase in cost to our baker, he can suddenly raise his price - because demand remains and supply has been cut - the value of his loaves increase.

When the competing bakery rebuilds, with twice the capacity, our baker must reduce his price - because demand remains and supply has increased - the value of his loaves decreases. If that value drops below his cost to produce the loaves, he can’t just raise his prices. If he can’t cut his costs, he has to go out of business.

Now let’s assume that the ingredients to make the bread are free. And just for fun, let’s assume our baker has invented (but not patented) the replicator. He now stops making bread, and takes his last loaf, puts in the replicator, and poof!, he has another loaf of bread. He puts it on his shelf, at no additional cost. He has no reason to change the price. That is, if he makes the same amount of bread, its all margin (and if he was profitable before, he is a whole lot more profitable)[sup]1[/sup].

But now his replicator secret is broken, and soon, everyone has a replicator. After they bought their last loaf, they replicate their own bread, and no one every comes back to the baker. And he goes out of the bakery business.

[At this point, the analogy fails since bread is a commodity and consumed when used.]

So the baker pursues his other passsion - sculpting granite. Over many months, he creates the most beautiful sculpture since Michelangelo’s David. He desparately needs money. Many people expressed to desire to have one of his sculptures in their gardens. Not just a big piece of granite, but one whose value is created by the skilled hands of our baker/sculpturer. But he recognized that if he sold the sculpture like he did the loaves of bread, someone would simply start replicating his sculpture, and he would again be out of business very quickly.

Luckily, he lives in a society based on laws, where contracts are enforceable. So he decides to sell his sculptures, but only to those patrons who agree to a contract that the sculpture must never be replicated (or replicated as much as they want, but he gets compensated for each copy). Without that agreement, he has no reason to create sculptures. He can capture the value in the marketplace.

But some unscrupulous sole violates his agreement, and replicates the statue, giving one to his friend. His friend replicates it 1000 times, and gives one to everyone he knows. They do the same, and soon, even Mr2001 has one. And now, our friend can’t sell his sculptures to anyone. He is out of business again.

In a single isolated case of replication, you can say that he lost a potential sale - which would be accurate. And perhaps he could even assume that it will happen 2% of the time, call it shrinkage. He may even decide that giving a few new ones away helps him create demand, which allows him to sell even more.[sup]2[/sup]

It is not the chunks of granite that he sells (the media), it is the form, the content, the composition, as well as his skills, craftsmanship, time, and effort. If he has no way to protect those items, he has no motivation to even create them.

And that is why this country protects intellectual property. When you take someone else’s intellectual property, you deprive them of the opportunity to capture the value of their investment.[sup]3[/sup]

[ul]
Notes
[sup]1[/sup] Even if the loaves of bread have no cost to him, they still have value. What you are stealing is that value. The market has simply determined the price. His cost basis, frankly, is none of your business. And if it had no value to you, you wouldn’t have bothered to replicate it (and if you wouldn’t have purchased it, your value is lower than the price).
[sup]2[/sup] Here you see where the decision between shrinkage and promotion is made by the baker/sculpture, not by the potential customer. Giving the decision to the consumer does not provide the incentive to create new material, or make it ethical, as you claim.
[sup]3[/sup] The concept of intellectual property affects a huge portion of our gross domestic product, as well as our exports. Your ideas on intellectual property are dangerous to our economy.
[/ul]

The courts have no problem defining what you cannot. You are taking something of value from the rightful owner. You are stealing. Your “zero marginal cost” argument has no merit. Your promotional benefit argument is specious.

32

I suppose that i should have specifically stated, it is unethical for you to illegally download music from a file-sharing service, but i feel that that was implied. I stand corrected.

However, your example of downloading from MP3.com is invalid as the OP specifically mentioned an awareness of illegality of such downloading. MP3.com, however, is a site set up specifically for the legal downloading of music and is not generally considered a ‘file-sharing’ service in the context of the OP.

I don’t think that making a copy is the issue here, rather it is making a copy available for distribution. Consider ‘bootleg’ discs; whether copies of ‘released’ discs, unauthorized recordings of live shows, or ‘un-released’ studio sessions. In each of these instances the artist will never receive any compensation for her work. The bootleggers are the only ones who stand to gain. Even if they give away copies of a ‘released’ disc, each disc given away is a potential loss to the artist.

As another example, not related to the music industry, Bill Watterson has never signed a marketing agreement for Calvin and Hobbes yet there are numerous items available for sale ranging from window stickers to T-shirts. Those who manufacture and/or sell such items are making money off someone else’s intellectual property without permission or compensation. You don’t see an ethical problem here?

Again, rationalize this however you want, it is still illegal and unethical.

33

Yes on both counts. It’s fair use, the US Supreme Court said so.

34

Gee, after that long-winded post last evening, I still failed to correct one shining bit of mis-information…

This statement is wrong on so many counts. To be corrected, it would have to read something like:

“Making a digital copy of copyrighted music for personal and non-commercial use on or for devices whose primary purpose is the recording or playback of digital audio is legal, due to fact that royalty payments to the intellectual property holders is collected from the device manufacturers, and therefore built into the retail price paid by the consumer.”

The act doesn’t apply to computers with CD-R drives, and certainly doesn’t permit “trading”, it in fact requires manufacturers to install technology that diminishes the quality of digital reproductions of reproductions.

Oh, and Rex, do you have any pointers to that SCoTUS decision?

35

I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the studies.

E-Commerce News: Report: File Sharing Boosts Music Sales

Study says consumers buy CDs after hearing new bands online

MUSIC FILE-SHARING: IMPACTS ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

36

There’s no “personal use” requirement–why would you have to pay royalties to make a personal backup? Quoting the AHRA:

So if I own a stereo component CD burner and a stack of music CD-Rs, I can put a list of all the CDs I own on a web site, and mail copies of the songs to anyone who asks.

Your previous post makes the mistake of assuming intellectual property is equivalent to real property, and must be protected for the same reasons. Instead, “intellectual property” is a convenient fiction that helps us think of copyright in the same terms as something more familiar. The comparison breaks down under scrutiny, however.

The intent behind copyright, the basis of “intellectual property”, is to benefit society. Society benefits by increased access to art and other copyrightable works, and copyright provides an incentive to create such works.

But while it may seem strange at first, and it may run contrary to hypothetical thought experiments, the evidence shows that illegal file sharing promotes the purpose of copyright: it benefits society by allowing people to access art who otherwise wouldn’t have access, and it promotes sales, providing an incentive to create.

Copyright already gives more benefits to artists than they would have with real property: if you make one sculpture, you can only sell it once. You have to keep producing if you want to keep making money. But the intangible nature of copyrightable works allows artists to profit continually from something they only created once.

IMO, it’s only proper to use that same intangible nature to provide a benefit to society at the same time, by allowing noncommercial copying.

37

Actually, there is such are requirement. But first, let’s understand that the section you quoted, 1008, simply says that manufacturers or importers that comply with AHRA will not have to face lawsuits from copyright holders. It lists devices and media, but DOES NOT list “digital audio copied recording”, which is the term that would need to be in that section to have the meaning that you interpret. The section also includes the term “digital audio recording device”, which is defined in section 1008:

Further, Section 1002 requires that all such devices include the Serial Copy Management System, which prevents unauthorized serial copying by degrading the quality of a copy made from a copy. Clearly, the law has the specific intent of preventing what you claim it supports!

For every study you can cite that shows that file-trading has a positive effect on music sales, I can cite a study that shows otherwise. But doing so misses the point. It doesn’t matter if it helps sales or hurts sales.

The point is that the copyright owner has exclusive rights to their works. It is theirs to decide how and what to do with it - not yours.

If file-trading does promote sales, then they are making a bad business decision to try and prevent it. But it is their decision. Not yours.

When you purchase music, you implicitly agree to the copyright license. Violation of that agreement is unethical. It is stealing, plain and simple. When you take something of value from the rightful owner, you have stolen from them. You have deprived them of their exclusive right to control their intellectual property. If you then make additional copies and distribute them, you are further damaging them by fulfilling the market demand they desire to sell to. You are stealing from them, in an even more substantial way.

The fact that intellectual property is intangible is also irrelevent. It is, and rightfully so, treated as material property under the law.

38

That includes a stereo component CD burner, which is designed for making recordings for private use.

No–recall that I mentioned a list of CDs that I own. The hardware may prevent me from making a copy of a copy, but I can make as many copies of an original as I want. And I can exchange them for copies of originals that other people own.

That may be true–to an extent–under current copyright laws, but I believe that as far as those laws favor copyright holders at the expense of society’s access to copyrighted works, they are harmful and run counter to the very principles that justify copyright in the first place.

We already make exceptions to copyright law for fair use. In effect, the fair use exception says “Although you would like to have total control over everything you think up, there are situations where society’s benefit is more important than your profit.”

I contend that noncommercial trading is one of those situations, and the law should make a similar exception for it.

39

Just to back up a bit. This is why I believe the record companies are taking the hard line on file sharing…

I see in the future where artists can release their music online using A file sharing service of their own choosing, thus effectively cutting the record companies out of the picture

What would stop an established band or other artist from doing so?

Or they could offer custom CD’s where you could pick the songs you like and then it would be shipped to you. Or the cd could be downloaded and then transfered to cd.

40

A few comments after looking over the posts:

I expected this to be a controversial topic (both my particular situation and file sharing in general), and I’m not really sure what I think of it myself; that is, I don’t think I have a “magic bullet” argument that proves the ethics/unethics of these activities. I imagine I’m not alone in my uncertainty; a lot of file sharers will likely admit, when pressed, that there might be something unethical about their behavior.

But the thing that shocked me most was that several posters reacted as though my “cheap” philosophy was unacceptable, presumably even if copyright violation were not a part of it. I don’t quite understand this line of thinking. I mean, I’m not being so cheap that I make myself miserable, and I’m not going around shoplifting things. I find that I don’t really WANT all that much stuff, and many of the things I do want can be had for free or for low prices, if I look in the right places.

Music is one exception to that; it’s something I do kind of like, but it’s tough to get it free/cheap in a format that’s not obsolete, and it’s not “essential” enough to get me to break down and pay full price for it. That’s why I brought up this tough question. But in general, I am cheap because I enjoy it; there is a kind of satisfaction that comes from finding your stereo speakers in the trash, or building a computer from eBay parts rather than paying Dell price for a whole (and probably inferior) system, or obsessively maintaining a 1986 car in order to make it run forever. You learn a lot by living this way, rather than just throwing money at every problem.

-Andrew L