Slashdot Mirror
The Crime of Sharing
John Perry Barlow has an editorial piece on recent developments in law and file-sharing networks. Most slashdot readers have read this sort of thing before, but sometimes it's nice to see how different people approach the same sort of persuasive argument, to bolster your own persuasive ability.
Napster existed for a long time with illegal sharring effectively stopped. Hey, isn't this what the whole Slashdot crowd claimed to want? It's a fileshare and there's no illegal swapping, so shouldn't you guys have loved it? Nope, you all moved on to Kazaa and Bearshare. I've yet to see anyone provide an actual reason for filesharing other than to pirate copyrighted material. Everything legitimate is already available on the web and ftp. It makes no sense to get all mad at the RCAA simply for trying to protect it's profits. If someone was cutting out 33% of your salary (if you have a salary, hah) would you be like "Well I can't infringe on his rights..." or would you do something about it? The record industry isn't trying to stop you from trading Linux binaries or whatever you claim to be using File Sharing for. They're just guys trying to watch their backs. Yes, I agree that most of them are overpaid whores, but that really doesn't matter. Ok label this as a troll. It's a different viewpoint! Ahh!!! I bet he even runs Windows!
IANAL (or an American) so can't answer that specifically. However, I do remember hearing that historically Anglo-Saxon law classifies theft (or stealing) as permanently denying the owner of a physical item.
This is why, in the UK, if you are arrested for joy-riding you are charged with "Taking and Driving Away" rather than simply Car Theft, because a possible defence exists that you were intending to return the car. A "temporary" theft is not realy theft (in these terms). Hence the need for a new law to be made (TADA)
It seems to me that under the same criteria copyright infringement cannot be classified theft. You might argue that it's depriving the artist (or studio, or shop) of revenue, but certainly not the physical item (the CD) Whether it is right or not is another matter.
Yes there is, its called Fairtunes