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More File Sharing Misadventures in Court
tusixoh writes "Arguments were presented in federal court on Monday in a lawsuit filed against the file-sharing services Grokster, StreamCast, which distributes the Morpheus peer-to-peer software, and Kazaa by record and movie companies claiming that illegal copying of music and movies was costing artists millions and stifling creativity. CNN has the report."
StreamCast, which redistributes the Gnucleus peer-to-peer software, with a number of added features.
Actually I believe that bit, I mean
* The ring
* 8 Mile
* Santa Clause 2
* I Spy
You know what, I believe that they're losing money from people "stealing" intellectual "property." But so fucking what? The way I see it, if you try to trample all over my God-given Constitutional rights, you deserve to lose money. At least Adam Smith would have agreed with Marx on this point.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, responsible for such hits as "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock," are among the plaintiffs and were in the courtroom Monday. The song writing duo said illegal copying of music and movies was costing artists millions and would ultimately stifle creativity.
Oh yeah, like anyone'd pay money for these songs otherwise... If anything, these guys are stifling the creativity of brand new artists by locking up the business of music in the name of the labels.
I think this case may bring to head many issues.
/. white paper? :)
I assume Limewire is in the same technological grouping as Kazaa etc.? I've been playing with it and am very impressed; it's much easier than Napster and quite capable.
I'm fascinated by the P2P technology for its possibilities as a distributed sharing technology. I'm curious though, how sharing files out of homes and businesses (I assume all these T3 lines I see don't go to people's houses!) is legally different from putting the same files on commercially hosted filespace? (In case I said that wrong, I mean the server space we rent or get gratis with an ISP account.) I don't think there is a difference, aside from it being harder to get caught.
The other Q is what % of the current file sharing is legal, and I mean under current standards of fair use for the copyrighted material. This was a factor in the VCR litigation, that the machines have significant legitimate uses outside of pirating movies or TV shows -- your nephew bar mitzvah, weddings, fair use, etc. Is a significant fraction of your sharing legal, or minor violations as where you try-before-you-buy?
I know many people believe copyright law should change. But whether you do or not, you must see this sharing technology will either cause significant changes or be banned. I don't see a stable path ahead. What would be the absolute best thing for a starving artist who wants to distribute internet only and can't afford to lose revenue to copying? For the sake for argument, let's make this person really sympathetic: If he doesn't sell 100 copies of his unbelievably wonderful epic work, he's dead, or his daughter doesn't get dialysis, or whatever is takes. With piracy unchecked, he will sell 10 copies. Without piracy, 1,000. Digital watermarks? Some sort of anti-copying technology? A sudden wave of honesty among potential buyers? Music, video, etc. long has been and always will pilfered, but if P2P increases that significantly it will hurt revenues, even if it doesn't happen to now.
How about a
Prelude to Joe's Garage
.
==
Eventually it was discovered That God
Did not want us to be All the same
This was Bad News
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary To the doctrine of
Portion Controlled Servings
Mankind must be made more uniformly
If The Future Was going to work
Various ways were sought To bind us all together
But, alas Same-ness was unenforceable
It was about this time That someone
Came up with the idea of Total Criminalization
Based on the principle that If we were All crooks
We could at last be uniform To some degree
In the eyes of The Law
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were Too lazy to perfom a Real Crime
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President,
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions
Total Criminalization
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws,
So, of course, they had to be
Tricked Into It . .
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal.
---
Miss you FZ.
It has become more apparent with each court case that the existing entertainment industry suffers from stifled creativity, since they, with their vast resources, are unable to make such an incredible technology known as decentralized filesharing work to their benefit.
Well ... Zappa, or at least his widow, is hardly indifferent to copyright. I think you may be seriously misinterpreting those lyrics.
Re the Sonny Bono Act, his widow: "I'm all for copyright term extension, to maintain the integrity of the artists' intentions," says Gail Zappa, widow of recording artist/composer Frank Zappa, "even though for most it's an uphill fight to get control." Frank Zappa got ownership of his masters before he died; his widow owns them but has sold the distribution rights to Rykodisc"
And a recent lawsuit.
There's a difference between the death of expression and the death of copyright.
What Creativity?
1) Remakes
2) Sequels
3) Taking some Current Pop Culture Icon and making a movie in which they are the star
(Score:0, Interesting)
I'll stop 'stealing' your products when:
A) You lower the price on your products to something sane and reasonable. And let's not bullshit, okay? You've been nailed twice by the FTC for price fixing, and yet somehow I still can't find any CD I want for less than $15 unless I buy it used-- and of course then I'm still a thief in your eyes, just for a different reason.
B) You don't foist crappy product on your customers. I'm tired of buying CDs on the strength of 1 or 2 good songs that got radio airplay, only to find out that the other 9 or 10 songs on the CD are complete and utter shit.
C) You allow returns of product for no other reason than customer dissatisfaction. Put the time, money and energy you're wasting on DRM into finding a way to allow this sort of thing that minimizes abuse of the system.
There you go, Hilary. Pick any two of the above and do them, and I'll happily start buying CDs again. Otherwise, fsck off and die.
Respectfully,
~Philly
claiming that illegal copying of music and movies was costing artists millions and stifling creativity.
Well, if they win the problem is they open themselves up to lawsuits from the ARTISTS who could sue thier own record companies using the same argument.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Go to IUMA.com. Their name officially is Internet Underground Music Archive, but in keeping in the Recording Industry Association and Motion Picture Association, I'd name them the Internet's Unsigned Musicians Association. They have:
Many of the bands are quite good. Click on their 'Radio IUMA' link (it's a popup window, but not very annoying), choose your genre (or all) and listen to streamed audio all the time.
[rant mode=on]
The (flawed) logic that so many people seem to use on music is:
The (correct) logic to use is this:
[rant mode = off]
Yes, there are a lot of not-so-good garage bands, but there are LOTS of good, independant bands on sites like IUMA. Many bands are professional groups with several CDs. Many groups will sell you their CD's (some post all their songs, some post only a few from each CD). All the groups would be happy if you sent them a check for $2 saying "I love your music on IUMA, send me more!"
With the number of articles being posted about the problems with RIAA, its sad that only a few of them reference free music sources like IUMA. The /. crowd who generally understands that "free software != bad software" should feel the same way about music, "free != bad". There may be lots of free stuff that isn't great, but much of it appeals to somone, or served some purpose for someone. Unlike sourceforge, most musicians don't put up songs of the form "I have a great idea for a song, its like J-Lo with an electronica beat. Pl34se help me write it."
frob.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
frob.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement