I don’t really care about the thread, per se, and i’m certainly not trying to give Zsofia a hard time. But the type of transfers she’s talking about in that thread, it seems to me, clearly violate intellectual property rights. As far as i know, there is no legal right to make digital copies of music that i own and simply transfer them, en masse, to someone else. And that’s exactly what is being discussed in that thread. The fact that people are suggesting USB keys rather than peer-to-peer software doesn’t really change the fact.
Given this board’s bordering-on-hysterical-paranoia attitude to copyright and intellectual-property-sharing topics, and the myriad interesting threads that have been shut down over the years, i’m surprised that this thread has not only been allowed to continue, but has apparently received the blessing of a moderator, who helpfully moved it from GQ to IMHO.
Personally, i’d prefer it if the people who run these boards stop being such a bunch of pussies about this type of subject, but while they’re being pussies, at least they should be somewhat consistent about it.
The mods can’t win with you, can they? You bitch about them closing threads like that, and you bitch about them not closing that thread. Relax a bit, bud.
I’m curious how they’d respond to a mix tape thread.
As an additional data point, they allowed a thread of mine about the best way to record off the radio. That’s (probably) covered by an explicit ‘carve-out’ in copyright law (the same one that makes VHS taping and TiVo legal) but that only allows a single replay of the content for time-shifting purposes. The fact the law is almost universally broken does not change the law.
It was a 5-4 decision and the idea that time-shifting (watching it once and then erasing it, mind you) is fair use was under serious debate. The notion of library building was touched on, mainly as something Sony couldn’t be held liable for if some degenerates decided to do it. Sharing was well beyond what the court was willing to consider allowing at the time: Copyright law then, as now, only looked kindly on private performances, ideally in a locked room with all the shades drawn.
This was modified later by statute. Given that the statute was the DMCA, don’t expect any liberalization regarding what it’s legal to record and share.
(I was going to link to a Staff Report by Gfactor which explained this all very well. I can’t find it with Google. What’s up?)
And so long as it is done primarily for reproductive purposes and not for enjoyment. A little enjoyment is acceptable only as a secondary by-product. Collateral damage if you will.
Because in the past they have closed discussions on peer-to-peer and bittorrent on the grounds that such discussions could potentially be applied to the sharing of copyrighted material. The participants in some of these discussions were very careful not to promote or advocate the use of the software for copyright violation, and the peer-to-peer software and bittorrent themselves are both legal technologies, with a variety of possible legal applications. Just like a VCR player or a Tivo. But the threads were shut down anyway.
And yet here we have a thread, out in the open, in which the one and only aim of the discussion is to work out the best way to copy a large quantity of copyrighted material from one person to another. Just seems a little inconsistent, is all.
Well, no i haven’t, because as i said, a moderator has already posted in the thread. By his comment, it was clear that he had read the content of the OP, and some of the responses.
Given the tendency of the powers that be on this board to pull the trigger extremely quickly on any thread that violates the policy regarding file-sharing and copyright-infringement tactics, i assumed that he had evaluated the content and determined that it was acceptable.
I mean, it’s not like the discussion in the thread is ambiguous or difficult to parse. A person asks how she can give a whole bunch of songs to another person for use on an mp3 player. Then, apart from one respondent who suggests buying an iTunes gift card, every other response in the thread is about transferring songs using USB keys, or using the iPod itself.
Maybe i should have reported it, but now that a mod has seen it, perhaps you could give your views on the matter?
Well, as i said in the OP, i wasn’t looking to give you a hard time. For all i care, you can copy every song you own to an external hard drive, and hand them all over to your mom.
But the absence of DRM on your music files doesn’t change the law regarding copyright and intellectual property rights. The change in policy on the Apple website regarding DRM doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a no-no to make digital copies of your music files for transfer to a third party. The only exception i can think of is if it explicitly states on the iTunes site that your purchase allows you to place the files on multiple MP# players, including ones not owned by you.
Also, from the point of view of board policy, they have made it very clear in the past that, even if what one particular person is doing is legal (e.g., downloading a Linux operating system using BitTorrent) they are still going to close any thread that deals with techniques for file-sharing, because of the mere potential for illegal uses.
I think it’s a ridiculously paranoid policy, and i’d be happy if it were abandoned, but while it continues to be board policy, i still don’t understand why they’ve allowed your thread to remain open.