You’re kidding, right?
There is no such word as “copywritten”, and whether it is illegal to photocopy copyrighted material depends on whether the copying falls within Section 107 fair use, or is licensed. This is a nonsimple question.
Yes and no–you’re correct that, if Napster started up before that, then it’s start precedes any slump or perceived slump in record sales. I concede that point.
However, if one is going to propose a connection between Napster and record sales ( and I am not–I think they’re completely unrelated), one will have to do better than to simply point to numbers and engage in post hoc conjecture. That’s not how causality is established.
WTF?
From John Rawls’ A Theory Of Justice (O.U.P. 1973)
http://www.cla.co.uk/index.html
It is indeed illegal to photocopy published material unless you are covered by the above exceptions (in the UK at least).
Same applies to recorded music.
– Quirm
(cough) Fair Use (cough)
Or, do you not have that in the UK? Regardless of what their scarecrow text says, you can make copies within the bounds of Fair Use here in the US.
What I mean to say is, AFAIK, our version of Fair Use allows for very limited photocopying - as seen in every single school and University course that I or anyone else has likely ever been in. To claim that all photcopying is illegal is not correct.
It’s the existence of the right to make copies without a license under fair use that drives the media producers completely nuts. The DMCA, unrippable CDs, encrypted DVDs, and all these other anti-consumer things are nothing but a bald-faced attempt by media producers to stamp out fair use. They are trying, by technology, to take away what Congress will not, by law.
Hmm - ich bin kein Lawyer, so could someone p’raps explain what counts as fair use?
The impression I got from Poloin99’s post above was that if, for example, there was a particular recipe in a cookbook which I wanted, but I didn’t want to buy the whole book, I would be perfectly entitled to pop down to the local library and copy the recipe I wanted. Same applies to Napster and individual tracks on CDs.
Would that count as fair use? (Genuine question - I have no idea if it would).
Academic photocopying is one thing (although even that, as Anthracite sez, allows for only limited amounts of copying) - but (at the risk of being unfair in my interpretation of Poloin99’s post) I’m not sure that’s what the majority of Napster users are engaged in…
Unless I were a Media Studies student or summat it’s hard to imagine that I could claim ‘fair use’ when I rip off the latest Hollywood DVD…? I’m not talking about making back-up copies in case the goldfish chews the originals or anything like that (do you guys have a ‘constitutional right’ to be able to do that?), but rather people going out purposefully to obtain music/literature/whatever without paying for it (which is what Poloin99 indicated he would do).
– Quirm
Yes, I will agree that all photocopying is not illegal but in the context we were discussing, as to whether it would be ok to copy a chapter of a book to avoid buying the book, is not fair use, AFAIK. And if I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected 
Maybe the reason it drives them nuts is because of the blatant abuse by people who claim its their right to make a copy of something, which it is, then continue to make copies for their next door neighbor, their co-worker, their friends, etc…
How would you feel if it was your book, song, software, etc. Everyone thinks by stealing this stuff, they are only hurting the media giants who can afford it. But that is not the case, it hurts real, hard working people, who depend on this income. Maybe it doesn’t hurt Madonna, but we are all not Madonna (for which I am grateful).
Your attitude is not appropiate for GD. If you wish to be rude, the proper place would be the Pit. I would think that after more than a year, you would be able to figure that out for yourself.
Considering what the word means, yes I do.
I didn’t notice the wrod “right” mentioned even once before your post. Could you provide an example of such an instance?
Here’s the discussion as I remember it (bolding mine):
Critical1:
You
How?
[/quote]
bdgr
Critical1
You see a discussion of freedom and abilities and you decide that they’re talking about rights? Seems to me that you are the one misconstruing the argument. Critical1 made it quite clear that he was talking about freedom.
Whack-a-Mole said that he did not know of any drop in sales since Napster began. pldennison said that there had been a drop in sales after Napster began. I pointed out that this did not disprove Whack-a-Mole’s statement. I fail to see what anuses have to do with this.
I never claimed that. But Whack-A-Mole’s statement had to do with the beginning of Napster. If pldennison believed that that was the wrong time period to focus on, he should have stated that explicitly rather than giving data for the time period he thought was important without mentioning that it’s a different period.
That’s a blatantly post hoc argument.
pldennison
You seem to have lost track of the full history of this discussion. A review:
MusicGuy implies that Napster has hurt record sales.
Whack-A-Mole challenges anyone to find data showing a slump in sales since Napster began.
You posted data showing a slump after Napster began.
I stated that those data are not relevant to Whack-A-Mole’s statement.
In other words, I was arguing against the post hoc argument that since there was a slump in some period following the introduction of Napster, it must have been because of Napster.
Your attitude is not appropiate for GD. If you wish to be rude, the proper place would be the Pit. I would think that after more than a year, you would be able to figure that out for yourself.
Considering what the word means, yes I do.
I didn’t notice the wrod “right” mentioned even once before your post. Could you provide an example of such an instance?
Here’s the discussion as I remember it (bolding mine):
Critical1:
You
How?
[/quote]
bdgr
Critical1
You see a discussion of freedom and abilities and you decide that they’re talking about rights? Seems to me that you are the one misconstruing the argument. Critical1 made it quite clear that he was talking about freedom.
Whack-a-Mole said that he did not know of any drop in sales since Napster began. pldennison said that there had been a drop in sales after Napster began. I pointed out that this did not disprove Whack-a-Mole’s statement. I fail to see what anuses have to do with this.
I never claimed that. But Whack-A-Mole’s statement had to do with the beginning of Napster. If pldennison believed that that was the wrong time period to focus on, he should have stated that explicitly rather than giving data for the time period he thought was important without mentioning that it’s a different period.
That’s a blatantly post hoc argument.
pldennison
You seem to have lost track of the full history of this discussion. A review:
MusicGuy implies that Napster has hurt record sales.
Whack-A-Mole challenges anyone to find data showing a slump in sales since Napster began.
You posted data showing a slump after Napster began.
I stated that those data are not relevant to Whack-A-Mole’s statement.
In other words, I was arguing against the post hoc argument that since there was a slump in some period following the introduction of Napster, it must have been because of Napster.
You are indeed mistaken. Photocopying can be illegal, it can also be legal. It depends on the purpose of the copy.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Tejota *
**
I understand “fair usage”. I just don’t think it is applicable to what most people are doing when they are copying media. In the context of what we were discussing, copying a chapter of a book to avoid buying the book would not be legal unless it was for eduational purposes, which wasn’t what we were talking about.
I write software. I’ve even had stuff of mine “stolen”. Nonetheless, I refuse to accept that we have to banish fair use in order to protect IP creators.
I note that there are IP creators out there that want to make it so that you CANNOT READ A BOOK ALOUD TO YOUR CHILD without acquiring a special “reading-aloud” license.
Probably a bad subject matter choice for your example. Copyright protects creative works. You cannot copyright an idea, only an expression of an idea. As I recall, recipes are usually looked upon as lists or collections of facts, and facts cannot be copyrighted. There would have to be something mighty creative about the way that recipe was expressed for it to be protectible by copyright.
So instead let’s say it’s a one-page short story. If you’re making a single copy for your own use, you’re probably okay, because you’re not worth going after, in the eyes of the author. Even if you’re making 30 copies, enough to give out to your entire college class, you’ll probably be fine, because copyright tends to be pretty lenient when the copying is done for educational purposes. If you’re making hundreds of copies and selling them on the street, you got a problem.
You know, I’m really not against fair use either but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is banished, given all of the abuse. I couldn’t care less if someone takes a CD that I have created and converts it to MP3 so they can listen to it on the computer or portable player, whatever… But when I see my friends and my own material on Napster, knowing that we will not get paid for the downloads, it irks me.
Somehow, many people have determined that it is not only ok, but some sort of “right” to take for free what is not theirs. These people would punish their children for stealing a candy bar, but don’t think twice about loading pirated software onto a computer. Do people really believe that they can justify this becuase they don’t like the company(s) that own the rights to it. I really just don’t get it.
From the posted article:
and
So the answers to both your questions are yes and yes. Executives are well aware that their protection schemes won’t stop the committed pirate, so the best they can hope for is to frustrate the casual user. 2 weeks? Bah, I’d say a day or two at most. I remember when the first batch of cd-roms encoded with the new Safedisc 2 anti-copy protection was released, and yet on the same day I saw people posting those cd images in a newsgroup.
But if the RIAA gets its way (which musicguy seems to think is an OK situation) and fair use goes away, you won’t be allowed to make even that one copy for personal use. Hell, if fair use went away, I wouldn’t even be allowed to quote a preceding message on a message board.
Cheers for the clarification - I bet there have been some interesting legal wrangles over recipe authorship / copyright issues
Just a quick question (for my own curiosity, sort of thing): if I did indeed photocopy the short story for my own use would I be technically breaking the terms of the ‘fair use’ agreement (but on a level too trivial to be worth bothering about) or are indivduals in such cases actually exempt from the requirements? Or does it depend on the context in which I make the copies (if I am a genuine student or whatever)?
Thanks,
– Quirm