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Legal Issues Don't Bother American Downloaders
An anonymous reader writes "Ipsos-Reid has released its latest research on file trading. Bottom line, the great majority of users do not believe they are breaking the law. Only 9% feel there is anything wrong with their actions. With 40 million Americans identified as active file traders this is indeed stirring information, though not surprising. Another stat, 73% of US downloaders report that their motivation for trading was to sample music for later purchase. You can see the charts and original press release here."
Democracy will work this out and it won't be illegal anymore.
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Bottom line, the great majority of users do not believe they are breaking the law.
I beg to differ. Its pretty apparent to anyone you talk to that they know they are breaking the law, they just don't care.
OK, most people don't REALLY plan on buying more than one album in 10, 20, 50, 100 that they sample. It's not that they're saying to themselves, "Well I'll listen to this song and the maybe buy the album." No, they say "I want to here some 'X' today." Sometimes 'X' blows them away, and they DO buy the album.
The internet file sharing model isn't 'listen and buy,' it's just 'listen.'
The question we should be asking ourselves is why exactly is this any different from the library?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
...are available in this month's issue of "Duh!" magazine.
Let's look at the facts:
-The music industry is actively hostile toward their customers, referring to them as thieves.
-Meanwhile, the music industry was found guilty of price fixing CDs for a DECADE. What must they give their customers as restitution? ALMOST enough money to buy ONE new CD!
Clearly, the only solution is mob justice-- in this case, the mass downloading of music by people who are presumed guilty by the RIAA anyway. Nobody loses sleep over this except the RIAA executives who stuff their mattresses with the cash we've paid for CDs where all but 2 of the tracks are pure shit.
People don't feel bad about getting back at companies that screwed them over for years.
News at eleven.
And by I, I mean, the generally informed geek population at large.
We've all been doing this for quite some time now; Music trading (regardless of whether or not its illegal) doesn't feel like a crime. People _do_ actually use this stuff for the purposes they claim too. I often download mp3 samples of bands and djs before I'm willing to invest in their cds. The RIAA dumps all over this. Record companies should be taking advantage of this instead of trying to put an end to it.
Of course, this is just the same ol' story. The numbers don't lie though: if THAT many people are using music sharing, and in their opinion, legitimately, you're better off tapping it for your own gain, than to try and drive it into the ground, especially because it just isn't gonna happen.
IF I could mod you to "+10, absolutely right", I would. You have hit the nail on the head. Most people realize (intuitively) that downloading music/movies/software is (at the very least) a victimless crime in that 99.99% of the stuff that is downloaded and not later bought would never have been bought anyway. I think the remainder is more than made up for by the increased sales due to increased exposure.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
But, we look at it the same way as going 5-10 MPH over the speed limit while driving - we know that the risk of cops bothering to single any one of us out for a pullover while everyone else is speeding at the same time is slim, so we continue to do it.
There is a difference between what is illegal and what people believe is wrong. Before the civil war, it was illegal to help a run-away slave, even if you were in the North. Many people worked on the "Underground railroad" anyway and didn't think it was "wrong" to help slaves.
Now a days, the whole concept that you could "own" a person seems pretty strange. But then, some people today also think that the whole concept that you could "own" an idea is pretty strange.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Look here. When I bought my first portable radio it had a cassette recorder so I could tape music from the radio. Then I bought a portable CD player that had a cassette recorder in it so I could tape music from the radio or CD. Then I bought I stereo with many components and fancy connections so I could tape from my CD and my FM receiver in high quality sound. Then I bought a VCR so I could record shows, movies and even music. Then I bought a fancier one so I could make even better quality tapes and copies of movies and shows. Now I have a computer and an internet connection, a CD burner and access to even more music than I could get from my radio or FM receiver with a high gain antenna. I can make tapes and CD's of music like I always have to listen in my car or elsewhere. Now you want to tell me I'm a 'pirate', a 'thief' or a 'criminal' for doing what I've always done and I might add-something that the technology has always allowed me to do. I'm surprised that 9 percent of the people think it's wrong now. In better news, 91 percent of the people are not so gullible as to believe something that's always been legal and encouraged is now illegal.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
(a) if it seems moral and ethical (for example, I'm not taking anything that somebody currently owns away from them, and
(b) the laws are complicated, unclear, currently in dispute, and seem to stake out large chunks of "what's fair" as "You Have To Pay For This From Now On" territory, then
(c) people are going to do it, regardless of any attempts by people with lots of cash and hubris to have the laws they want passed by those whose jobs are to write and interpret the law.
Folks are accustomed to being able to listen to copyrighted programs on TV or radio without paying extra. They don't expect to take things from grocery stores without paying. That distinction seems to drive a lot of behavioral choices.
We pay for Linux distros, knowing that we can DL them for free. Why? We're willing to pay people to save us time and effort, and we have the feeling that the prices they ask are reasonable for the time and effort they expend (actually, it feels like we're getting a great deal on the results of their efforts, and Thanks!). We're not willing to pay other people to cost us time and effort with their attempts to own our choices and limit our behavior with predatory laws. That's not what laws are for.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
It prettymuch was popular interest that ended prohibition as well. The book "Drug Crazy" by Mike Gray made that point pretty clear. According to his statistics, heavy drinking (which was a crime) and violent crime rates skyrocketted. Getting rid of prohibition helped the economy (in the hospitality industry) as well as helped decrease the amount of gang activities. Human civilzation has advanced when information and communication became more common. By promoting free access to information, society as a whole ends up benifitting (that is, unless your idea of an ideal world still has outhouses and no deoderant.) What the record and software industries need to understand is that prettymuch no matter how illegal they try to make file sharing, it will still be around. Big brother isn't going to get them out of the quandry they now face. What they really need to focus their efforts on is attempts to proffit off of it, or how they should abandon what they're doing and move into a new industry. When the automobile replaced the horse as the popular form of transportation, the people who sided with the horse-based businesses had only themselves to blame. The masses have spoken, and filesharing is going to be around until it gets replaced by better, more popular and convenient technology. Those who still try to stand on their soap boxes and stop everyone have only themselves to blame when their efforts fail...
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
No. It is not the "human condition" to steal. I do not steal towels or cutlery or glasses because that is physical property that someone had to manufacture and someone else had to buy. It would be immoral and unethical for me to steal those things.
Songs are not physical property, as much as the RIAA would like you to think they are. Songs are creative entities that are sometimes captured on physical media. Given the chance, most people would welcome the opportunity to reward the authors of these entities. But because the publishers have taken an aggressive position to get in the way, people have routed around them.
I respect and reward people and companies that offer me their product and ask for my monetary support. I shun and despise those who treat me as a criminal first, customer second, and demand my monetary support.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Only 9% feel there is anything wrong with their actions.
So what are we supposed to take from this ? What percentage of shoplifters really think they're doing something wrong (I know some think they're forced to do it, or that no one is really being hurt) ?
What percentage of heroin users think there's anything wrong with their actions ?
What percentage of the 9/11 terrorists thought there's anything wrong with their actions ?
What percentage of Timothy McVeigh's philosophical brethren think anything's wrong with his actions ?
What percentage of NAMBLA members think they're doing anything wrong.
Hey, this isn't a flame. It's just that when someone trots out an obviously meaningless statement, they need to be called out. Just because people don't think that what they do isn't wrong, doesn't mean it isn't - or is.
Thats the problem - when you give people Freedom and Liberty - you just don't know what they're going to do with it.
Like - invent p2p networks and then trade files with it.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
The "minority" you speak of that caused prohibition was primarily women stretching their political muscles.
:)
/.): I did not substantiate it in any way, so you can't argue it's truth by presenting any flaw in its conception. The only thing that you might argue is that income tax is not a bad thing than angers voters.
As near as I can figure, the argument is something like this:
Women's Sufferage movement: WE NEED TO VOTE!
Everyone else: Why? Aren't things going okay for you?
Women's Sufferage movement: WE ARE MORALLY OPPOSED TO ALCOHOL!
Everyone else: I guess you've got your convictions (and a few mumbles of approval that win support to the sufferage movement)
When it came down to it, the reason was mostly just an excuse to allow women to take the power they should have already had.
The prohibition movement was a small push that turned the tide.
I'd like to think that all of the women in America hold a lot more political power than media conglomerates, and unlike perhaps Christian moral law, women have *not* been completely replaced by money and corporate interests. But enough about that...
The primary goal of politicians is to stay in office - which means convincing the majority of the public that they are helped, or at least not hindered by this politician, since politicians are elected. If they don't, they won't get reelected.
The secondary goal of a politician is to make lots and lots of money - which is often in opposition to the first goal, since doing that may require that a politician attempt to legalize corporate crimes against his constituents.
As I see it the fine line they walk is to pass all the laws they can which legalize crimes against the constituents, while enforcing as few of these laws as possible, so that said constituents will not find out, get mad, and boot them from office. Then the new guy will have to repeal the "crime is legal" law before he starts writing his own.
Seems to me Congress is doing exactly that and will continue to do so as long as possible until they really anger the voters. Then they'll change whatever law made us the angriest, wait a few years, and write it again.
I have a theory that this perturbation process actually results in corrections becoming more major as time goes by (because the problem gets worse at a more fundamental level). If I'm right, one day income tax will be repealed.
Note to anyone arguing against this theory (a little note to help the argument-impaired here on
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Otherwise, every a new format comes out, people would demand to buy a new copy on that new format at cost. Instead, they can sell you the record album, tape and CD (and if the future DVD) all with basically the same content, but at full price.
If you walk in to a store and take a CD or a shirt or whatever, that means someone else can't buy it. If you download a song, other people can still download it too. If you could clone physical objects (something like the replicators on Star Trek), then would it be a crime to clone yourself a copy of that t-shirt?
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If the statement is "9% of people feel their ACTIONS are wrong" then it implies that they only asked people who are doing the downloading. So how does that compare to the general population (taking into the people who aren't doing any downloading of mp3s). I would guess that the people who feel their actions are wrong aren't doing any downloading at all
Have you been using the Internet very long? Other than your monthly ISP fee, 99.9% of the data you get off the Internet, you don't have to pay for. So yes, to most people, downloading free songs is normal and expected.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
...I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate on Slashdot.
I hate the RIAA as much as any Slashdotter, but you have to look at where they're coming from. Sure, file sharing technology can be a wonderful tool for previously unheard-of artists to get attention, and it's an equally useful way to determine what new music DOESN'T suck. It's very useful in guiding your future music purchases...
Which is where the problem comes in. For every legitimate use of file sharing, there are easily 10 people who abuse it. How many people do you know have simply stopped paying for music because they can get it for free? Be honest. The RIAA only sees the negative side of file sharing, and to be quite honest, it can be pretty damn negative.
We need some sort of middle ground. File sharing can't go on unchecked, because that WILL hinder the RIAA's ability to profit. In the end, the RIAA is still a business and has a right to make money. However, if somehow they manage to crush major file sharing technologies, they'll alienate most of their cosumers. In addition, the artist who actually made the song should get at least some say in this matter; Metallica sued Napster over that very issue.
That's the key: a middle ground. I don't know what that middle ground is, but we definitely need it.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
I think that is they key statement. In the U.S., most of the time the things we think are wrong are the things that harm the innocent. We have no problem breaking all sorts of laws when we drive, because we do not think it is likely we will do harm to innocent victims. Industry and government knows this which is why they try to show, for example, the damage that drunk driving causes, or link illegal drugs to terrorism. Of course, some of these links are more valid than others, and such ads do backfire when the assertions are bogus.
Which is of course what is going on with the music industry. The industry wants us to believe we are stealing from artist, even though the artists I talk to say most of the money is made off t-shirts and sometimes concerts. They want us to believe we are harming the local retailer, even though the local retailer is harmed more by Wal-Mart and online sales than by copying. They have thus far resisted the urge to tell us that the high level executes are going to forced to sell their Escalades and give up their trophy spouses if we continue to trade music. They might have a better chance by citing the number of people the industry employs, but in a time when unemployment continues to rise with no end in sight, and no leadership to control it, I do not see that even that will get much sympathy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
[insert random post about getting a sense of humor here]
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. My understanding of the RIAA argument is "Record sales are down, therefore that must be caused by filesharing". Perhaps they miss the point that the general public is bored and disinterested with the bland repetitive "product" which these companies provide. Today, the music industry is not about music but about product. When was the last time you saw a fat ugly woman with a beautiful voice in the Billboard charts. Pop music isn't my taste, but I'm not being snobbish about it - it has it's place. But the fact that it is mainly marketted to 11 year olds surely tells a lot about how adult interests aren't being considered.
The RIAA was borne out of the fact that these companies were able to utilise vinyl record technology to fulfill a service which the general public wanted, to provide popular music to the mass market. Today they've stepped away from that original premise. Mainstream music today is bland because it is easier to sell music that everyone finds inoffensive than sell music which some people think is great (and obviously others will hate).
For the record, I download mp3s from filesharing networks. And what I have found is that it has instroduced me to music I wasn't aware of before and I have purchased CD's off the back of those downloads. Those people who decry filesharing have obviously never used it. mp3 quality is ok for basic PC speakers, but usually sounds poor on a decent stereo. Downloaded mp3s are freqeuently incomplete. So it doesn't replace any other medium, but is an addition. I can't use my local radio station as a sampler for the sort of music I like. filesharing lets me do that.
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
I could agree with the logic of song preview before purchase. In looking for download files, I have found MANY differenc music choices that I would not have seen otherwise. But with all the new CD's being "corrupted" and not playable on a PC, I have not purchassed anything in a long while.... Just a thought
You're implying that for some reason, performers are trying to hide the "bad" portions of their songs so listeners will somehow be suckered into buying their music. However, you have no real evidence of this. Go to www.samgoody.com - search for Sister Hazel (or whoever), and listen to the 20 second clips. It will give you a *very* good idea if you like the group or not. Now you can't hear every second of course, but what exactly are you looking for? Can you see every minute of a movie before going to it? Can you read every chapter of a book before buying it? What is so special about music that the only way to sample it is to download it and listen to it over and over until you finally conclude its ok to buy it?
The library, file sharing, and friends in the same city are the only sources for real sampling. The library and my local friends have very limited selection. That leaves...
You can always get a better idea if you'll like a CD if you listen to the whole thing. However, people are claiming that file sharing is the ONLY way to sample music, and this is simply not true. Sure it may be the "best" way, but the fact that other legitimate sampling alternatives exist makes it a very poor excuse to justify music downloading.
I rarely hear of artists (except the big M) complaining about file-sharing. I haven't heard many artists come forward saying "hey, that's not fair" or "hey, you're hurting us."
:P
Instead, I hear the big music conglomerates shaking their heads saying "hey, you're cutting through our business model" and "hey, that's not fair." And, of course, when they first said "hey, you're hurting us" a few years back, their sales went up (for a time).
The obvious change is happening: consumers don't want to buy albums anymore - we want to buy songs. Individually. And once we have the song, we want to be able to shift it between mediums as we see fit. For a long time, music companies have gotten away with albums because it was the most conveniant way of selling a bunch of songs from a band. But the technology exists now to purchase songs on an individual level - and this scares them.
It scares the agencies because they can't try and re-sell the same songs on compilation CDs. It scares some artists because filler material won't cut it anymore. It scares anyone attached to the tired old business model of dictating to customers how music is to be enjoyed.
It really scares producers because where once a flavour-of-the-month artist could sell an entire album or two, the new methods would only allow them to sell that individual song. Heaven forbid that consumers have a right to pay for only what they want.
But what scares them most of all is that, in the "new economy", artists may no longer need big distribution companies to reach an audience. No, a band can strike up their own website and share their content globally without having to even pay for the servers - their listeners will do that for them. File sharing means that distribution companies no longer have a monopoly on distribution. And they are scared because their confortable monopoly is in danger. Real danger. And it's being decided, not in the court of litigation, but in the court of public opinion.
And they're loosing. And they're scared.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works -- only the ability to express other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.
Fair use is usually a short excerpt and almost always attributed. (One should not use more of the work than is necessary to make the commentary.) It should not harm the commercial value of the work -- in the sense of people no longer needing to buy it (which is another reason why reproduction of the entire work is a problem.)
Note that most inclusion of text in Usenet followups is for commentary and reply, and it doesn't damage the commercial value of the original posting (if it has any) and as such it is fair use. Fair use isn't an exact doctrine, either. The court decides if the right to comment overrides the copyright on an individual basis in each case. There have been cases that go beyond the bounds of what I say above, but in general they don't apply to the typical net misclaim of fair use.
The "fair use" concept varies from country to country, and has different names (such as "fair dealing" in Canada) and other limitations outside the USA.
Facts and ideas can't be copyrighted, but their expression and structure can. You can always write the facts in your own words.
When does something like this stop being illegal and start becoming a "our IP system sucks" issue to the mainstream?
I mean if it was murder thats one thing, but on something so subjective as this when does it become and issue of "40 million people can't be wrong".
Considering there is only 280 million people in the US and 40 million of those are downloadingmusic (arguably that 40 million is the 40 million CAPABLE of doing it, if more people understood how to do it I would bet you anything that number would be way higher).
I guess as long as RIAA's pocketbooks are fat enough we will still all be "criminals". What kills me is the consensus amongst some people that "its theft, plain and simple".
You show me a way to not buy 95% garbage and JUST get the songs I want and I will give you a little leeway. Show me a recording industry that doesn't behave like the mafia and I will give you a little leeway. Show me a RIAA that doesn't lie (look at their claims of financial loses due to P2P) cheat (look at how they try to push legislation allowing them to tamper with other people property when and how they feel like it, via DoS attacks, viruses, etc. etc.) and steal (look at the way artists are treated, look at the LONG history of artists being royally SHAFTED by the recording industry) and I will give your argument a little bit of leeway.
The arrangement isn't ideal, I will grant you that, but who's fault is that? Mine because I dont want to be fleeced anymore for a 95% bogus product? Or the recording industry's, who doesn't feel like changing, who wishes to restrict us and our liberties (note, not freedoms, liberties) because they are too antiquated to try to adapt?
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Settle down man, the post was a joke, and was (probably) in reference to a Simpson's quote
Nelson: "Shoplifting is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark."
Give me a break! Only Americans ignore copyright regulations?? Citizens of other countries abide by copyright regulations like angels.... Why do I not believe that??
Last time I was in Hong Kong you could buy VCDs every other block on the Kowloon peninsula. Don't even get me started on Eastern Europe.
Where the Music Matters
No business has a right to make money. It's like the pursuit of happiness -- you don't have a right to happiness, you have the right to seek it out.
In the same vein, businesses have the right to attempt to make a buck; they don't have a right to be profitable. If the RIAA/MPAA/TLAA can't embrace the new technology then that's their problem, and they should die like the buggy whip manufacturers.
Or as Heinlein much more aptly put it,
(I had to google for this. Here it is (scroll down to "What Inspired Heinlein?"))
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Well, I for one think it is unjust that people who spend their time writing, singing, playing music, etc, should be paid over and over again for the same original effort. If I build a chair and sell it to someon, I've (presumably) been paid for my effort. I don't expect to continue to be paid everytime someone sits on that chair, or sells it to someone else.
Fair payment for effort taken, and quality of that effort is all well and good, and I do want the authors of the books I read and the music I like to listen to to be paid commensurate fees for their creative work.
I don't see any justification for a large company to extort royalty payments on the works of a long-dead author. No justification = unjust.
I'm not saying we can just throw away copyright. I feel we need to change the way that creative individuals are paid for their efforts, to bring it more in line with the rest of the population.
Politas
With a precedent like that, how was drugs prohibition implemented without requiring an amendment, or was no amendment ever required?
Sounds good except for the part where giving up your privacy does little or nothing to aid in preventing the kind of terror of which you're thinking and perhaps even makes it easier for the government and the corporations who lease it to come up with new (admittedly less likely to be fatal) ways to terrorize you.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Don't worry; being a Democrat is not un-American. It's just stupid. The same, however, is true of being a Republican. Think for yourselves, people!
(Yes, I know it's meant to be funny, But...)
Perhaps a better analogy would be like flailing your arms around randomly in the dark.
Almost all of the time you hit air and it's a victimless crime. Sometimes you end up hitting criminals, helping the people trying to stop you. Other times you hit regular people, and cause real damage.
Most of the time you'd never have bought that MP3 you just downloaded. Some of the time you'll go buy an album after getting that MP3. Other times you'll download instead of buying, and they'll lose the sale.
The morality of downloading music is not clear cut.
In 2006 Congress passed the Digital Piracy Prevention Act, increasing the minimum sentance for on-line piracy to 50 years in prison and a fine for the market value of the content pirated. The Homeland Security Agency was tasked with protecting the nations intelectual property and a new division created for the enforcement of on-line laws and regulations. In a bizarre parody of fiction, this force became known as Net-Force in reference to a partuclarly bad series of books published by the Tom Clancy estate.
Net Force derived most of of its power from the Patriot I, and II bills, removing its need for warrents, or even probably cause for its various searches and seizures. Rumor and accusation were enough to incur its wrath.
Ownership of a private personal computer soon became a liability in the United States. By 2014 every personal computer was required to have a unique government identification number and to pay a licence fee to the Federal Government to fund the organizations necessary to monitor it.
In 2015 the maffia entered the picture. Using chips and other components aquired overseas, small illegal hack-houses began building and distributing pirate systems. Specificly designed without the vulribilities Net Force and the DOHS required, these systems provided an expensive but unregulated medium to exchange information.
I suppose I could add more, but lets leave that up to someone else. Sure, it's largly based on that love song for napster peice... but is it really so much of a stretch?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
It's too bad the recording industry cant realize that. Two things would revitalize their profits: encourage the artists releasing MP3s of their albums (heck, make them live versions if they want) and drop the price to under $10/cd. There's a lot of albums that I simply don't want to risk or bother wasting $20 on. But, I'm preaching to the choir.
Whenever I hear people moan about the price of CDs, I feel like laughing. Don't you understand that no one is forcing you to buy them nor do you need to purchase CDs to survive (i.e., they do not provide sustenance or shelter)? CDs are luxury items - plain and simple - and the potential consumer price associated with them, therefore, is uncapped. The bottom line: if you don't want to pay the price for a luxury item, then don't buy it. The only morality issue at hand here is whether or not you believe you are entitled to steal copies of the music through unauthorized copying.
I wouldn't argue that filesharing has little or no impact on the decline in CD sales. Instead, I'd say that this is a very good thing. A large part of society is basically saying that there isn't much value in the record companies burning CD's of prepackaged music for them and selling it to them at a healthy markup. Communal file sharing can be as transformative to our society as the Gutenberg press was, but the brutal fact is that there will be some parties that will lose big as a result (i.e. the record companies), while society as a whole gets a huge win, in the increased access to artistic content. Protecting the record companies now would be akin to protecting the companies who made punch cards for the computers of years past - it's a bad bet, period.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
There is no way I could afford the CDs to all of the music I have. I honestly don't feel that there is anything morally wrong with what I do. It is illegal, yes, but morally wrong? I don't think so. I buy the CDs for most of the music I really like to show support for that artist, not necessarly to give them money, but just by the fact that by puchasing something you are voting for that something, in this case the artist, and I like to show my support when I like the music, and I still think that buying the CD is generally more convienient than downloading it.
I think of it this way. If you had a magical machine that could instantly make a copy of any product, and you went to a car dealership and made a copy of a dodge viper, and this was something you could never afford anyways, would it be wrong? Dodge is not loosing a product they need to pay to get replaced, because it is a copy, and they are not loosing money in the form of you getting something for free that you would have normally payed for without your copying machine, because you could never afford it anyways, and would not otherwise have it. Is that really morally wrong? Now it becomes morally wrong, imho, when you go and copy the car you can afford, but just don't want to pay for.
Now companies will bitch and moan, this is expected. I could very well be wrong, however I think by law they need to fight a legal battle to protect their IP, otherwise it could be argued later in court that they give up the rights to it by knowingly allowing people to "steal" it, without trying to do anything about it. And of course it is legally wrong, but taking into account my analogy above, do you honestly think it is morally wrong?
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
When was the last time you saw a fat ugly woman with a beautiful voice in the Billboard charts.
You know, I never really though about it, but it's so true - hell, The First Lady herself probably couldn't land a contract today. Oc course, leaves you wondering how Rosen got where she is...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Well, I hate to break up your analogy, but I don't have time to make a posting to continue the BTTF comparisons.
Here's the thing:
During the '80's, Saddam/Iraq obtained germ cultures from a firm in Virginia, with the blessings of the Reagan/Bush White House. That's what was removed from the Iraqi declarations lat year before the U.S. in turn handed them over to the U.N. We gave the "bully" his toys.
Wolfowitz et al had no problem with Saddam gassing Iraqis and Kurds in the 80's. There is a famous picture floating around of Wolfy shaking hands with Saddam a couple of months after he knew damned well Saddam had committed mass murder.
In '88, the U.N. attempted to pass a resolution demanding the investigation of Saddam's gas attacks against helpless civilians. The resolution was blocked by -- wait for it.... --- the veto of the U.S. in the Security Council.
Ironic, eh?
Reagan/Bush equipped and gave aid and comfort to Saddam because he was fighting the Iranians. This is fact. The same people are in Bush's White House. Fact. Another fact: they don't want anyone to remember that past. Their hands are covered with the same blood they denounce on Saddam.
We have delusions about our past: the rest of the world does not. The WH press corps has reliquished its responsiblity to question the President in any meaningful way. We do not receive accurate news coverage of our appointed President's actions: the rest of the world does.
When Saddam WAS acting the bully, he was our guy, and we didn't care. When he attacked our oil supply, he became the enemy. But he was always pathetic and helpless against any real enemy. He can't touch us, and has never shown any inclination to commit suicide by doing so.
We have become the world's only superpower. But instead of being a force for sanity and law, we've gone rogue.
We are oppressing and silencing dissent, at all levels, from our inability to wear T-shirts which oppose Bush to Bush himself holding "press conference" at which only selected reporters could ask pre-approved questions, with Carl Rove front and center maintaining a checklist, controlling the event. This is beyong bullying -- this is totalitarianism pretending to be what it used to be -- a democracy.
We have insulted and manipulated our allies into being the fall guys for our failure to make a sane argument for invading a helpless and non-threatening enemy.
We have news coverage tut-tutting "anti-American" protestors in the U.S. and around the world. An incredible, egregious lie: the protestors are anti-Bush, not anti-American. This is memetic bullying. We have bullied away all the incredible solidarity we had after 9-11. All the good will.
We have told the world we will blow up anything and anyone we want to, at any time. We have informed the world we will use nukes if we want to.
We have told the world that we will torture if we want to. That the Geneva convention no longer applies to our prisoners.
We have told the world that they can go to commie hell if they want us to sign environmental treaties.
We have told the world we no longer need the U.N.
We have told the world that we don't need the Brits to invade Iraq. Britons are understandably pissed off that even they who have supported us are crap in the eyes of the radical right.
We have told the world that we don't care what happens to international diplomacy.
We are the U.S., and people who oppose us (Bush/God) are commies, lesbos, godless, old Europeans, environmentalist pro-press whack jobs.
If Turkey won't take a bribe, then we will cut off their aid. I doubt Bush knows we hardly give any foreign aid compared to the rest of the world, and that Turkey won't miss us much. But it is the act of a bully.
We (Bush) have made it known we will punish economically anyone who opposes us. He is seemingly oblivious to the fact that our economy, via the money he borrows from abroad to pay for our tax cuts and mil
RTFA. Just to be nitpicky, the number you're looking for is 91%. "US downloaders feel that file trading activities are benign. Only 9% thought that file trading was wrong." However, that's out of US downloaders, which earlier they stated to be "almost one-fifth of the US population over 12."
Needless to say i would expect to see some correlation between people who choose to download music and people who think it's morally okay to do so. It's possible that the other 4/5ths of the population all think d/ling music is horribly wrong. Admitedly that's not too likely, but at least a fair number of them may think so, enough to counterbalance the 91% of downloaders who think it's okay. Your statement is like saying that 95% of muggers polled thought that beating people up to take their money was okay, so perhaps it should be made legal.
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The notion that an author has a right to a profit is a falatious notion. Copyright is purely a social contract in which I give up my natural rights of free speech to ensure that ideas are made available to the public. Creators have no right to profit, just like manufacturors have no right to profit. It's thier job to earn that profit. Copyright is not designed to ensure profit, but rather to provide an incentive. They only have an (artificial) right to control thier creations so long as they live up to thier half of the social contract. Furthermore, if less content is produced as a result of copyright violation, it is me, as a fellow member of society who has had my rights violated, not the content creator. This is a very subtle point, and I may not have expressed it well, but I guess what I'm trying to say is: Copyright is a mechanism designed to achieve the goal of wide disemmination of ideas. There is no goal of providing compensation to creators, that is simply a mechanism by which the goal is achieved.