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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."
Note thechoice of words. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who download mp3's are well aware that what they are doing is illegal, but may not believe in their heart of hearts that it is actually wrong - there's a semantic difference implied at the very least.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
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Music should be paid for in terms that both the musician and listener both like. Until then, war's all.
I have been downloading songs from Sister Hazel for a few months. I was told they were pretty good, so I downloaded and agreed. Yesterday I bought their new album, virtually (heard 2 songs)sound unheard (or whatever the audio equivalent of sight unseen is).
The only reason why I bought their album is because of Kazaa.
This year have purchased about 3 cds. My pre file-trading average was about 5-6 a year. I know I will get at least one more when Big Bad Voodoo Daddy releases their next one in April.
So my quantitative purchasing habits have not really changed, but my satisfaction with purchases have increased tremendously. My choices of what I buy also have changed a little.
In summary, what the hell is the RIAA worried about? I feel most people are like me, they pay for what they like, and try to do the honest thing.
--Joey
"Ipsos-Reid has released its latest research on spamming. Bottom line, the great majority of spammers 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 spam receivers this is indeed stirring information, though not surprising. Another stat, 73% of US spammers report that their motivation for trading was to offer people legitimate products and services."
I hate the RIAA as much as any Slashdotter, but does this really prove anything?
I would recommend the RIAA to work hard at making music, not the physical cd, but the actual song, what is being purchased. Once people realize that the song is what they own then they will respect it even when they see it is for "free".
The other problem is that there is no crackdown on downloaders. If you started arresting people, it would actually sink in to 90% of the users that they are breaking the law. If you could walk in to a store, grab that cool shirt you've been wanting, and walked out without being stopped, you'd probably get into the habit of it. But not only because of our conscience, the detectors at the door and the security cameras help deter us from stealing.
Obviously there would still be people d/ling mp3s, but it would be much less than the 20 million or so that do it now.
Mind you, I don't necessarily agree with the law, but I'm explaining that people don't realize they're breaking the law, why they do, and how they could be stopped.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Capitalism works because of scarcity of resources. When something is no longer scarce (say... music downloads), people aren't willing to pay much or anything. Perhaps if they hadn't destroyed copyright law, and things from 30 or 40 years ago had entered public domain, people might be more willing to pay for new music. Imagine being able to freely download/trade any music produced before 1973.
Personally speaking, I don't have much of a problem with MP3 & movie trading. Though the RIAA would like us to believe that their sales drops are caused by all these dangerous mp3's, they also fail to mention that their declining profits precisely match the declining number of albums that they've been putting out in the last couple years.
As far as movies go.... How many movies out there are really up to DVD quality? Or even Broadcast TV quality? Not many! And certainly not before the movie has been put out on DVD do you find DVD quality rips... so does the MPAA really loose money, either? I seriously doubt it.
I can't speak for the rest of the free world.. or even the rest of Americans. But personally, if I download something and actually like it, I go out and buy the CD or DVD. Not because I feel that I have to, but because there are good reasons to. DivX & mp3's don't come with spiffy inserts and the extra's that make a store product worthwhile.
/dev/random
1) Anything that to shareholders of the constituent record companies looks like lost sales
2) You having more informed choices (hence bringing the commodotized music market closer to a free market)
3) Losing ground to new distribution technology. Or realizing that record companies and "labels" are becoming less important for the purpose of getting music to an audience (being replaced by the internet, and direct marketing)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Have you downloaded Music or MP3 files from the Internet in the past month?
I did not download any illegal material in the last, month but my reply to this question is "Yes!". I did download music which was played at the background of movie trailers or flash sites. Yes, I did download MP3 files when I downloaded the ISOs of RH8.0, which include some sample MP3 files.
Not all music or MP3 downloading is illegal! Not all music is even copyrighted.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
I think much of this piracy stems from bitterness over lost jobs, high gasoline prices, gov't budget cuts, overpriced music and DVDs etc. Those who have managed to keep their jobs find themselves being given twice as much work, which they must accept or be put on the sidewalk.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying a lot of individually petty reasons can add up to a very big grudge. And we have lots of little reasons. Plus the shadow of a controversial war and vague threats of terrorism. So most people like getting their entertainment without leaving the shelter of their home.
So in total, people feel exposed and abused, and may feel the need to "strike back." How easy it becomes, then, to download some silly little file with music in it. Bunch of greedy suits, and the artists hardly see a dime of it anyway, so what's a dozen little music files?
Then there's the opposite end of the spectrum, The Collector. He (or she) downloads for the sake of downloading. "Hey, the entire Jimi Hendrix back catalog. That might come in handy one rainy evening when I have nothing to do." These people get it because they can, don't really listen to the music, and use what they listen to as nothing more than a digital radio--just listening to the latest pop hits, doing so on their terms and deleting the file when they get bored of it.
So it looks like I'm painting a picture that doesn't leave much room for the ordinary, shameful theif. Truth is, there's enough gray area to fill an ocean. Gray area with regards to the theif's ethics, and with regards to the concrete results of their actions.
The bottom line, for me: Is someone reducing your profit when they weren't going to buy it anyway? Yes, when profit is reduced exactly because the item is so easy to steal.
The story writeup has a howler of a conceptual mistake: It conflates the idea of breaking the law and doing something wrong. If you had asked American downloaders whether they're breaking the law, I'm sure the great majority would say they are. But get with it. Sometimes breaking the law is the right thing to do. Now I'm not saying that filetrading is a sort of civil disobedience, but I think, understandably, many Americans think that filetrading is as immoral as jaywalking--so, not very.
There is one other, but it's unusual: merger. That is, if turns out that there are very few ways of expressing a particular idea, copyrights on the expressions will be voided. But you'd have to challenge the copyright and prove the merger of expression and idea.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I think that as these services become even better (and I'm sure they will) I personally will feel a moral obligation to sign up for them. The music industry needs to learn their lesson--they can't get away with price bloating in the 21st century. Once they learn that and come up with viable alternatives like PressPlay and Rhapsody, I will have no problem paying them $10 to listen to whatever the heck I want, whenever I want.
I do want to make it clear, however, that I still have no problem downloading songs from Kazaa that I cannot find on the pay services. That right there should be enough for the record companies to see what they need to do to get our business back: High quality and variety, and a REASONABLE price.
They're just a fraction away from getting my business.
However, I'm actually convinced that a lot of people who would like to pay the artists (out of enlightened self-interest if not deep morals) *don't* ever buy the album not because they like being evil and naughty, but because *the physical medium* is actually more annoying than valuable, and downloads-for-money are still a novelty on both sides of the Music Industry (ack, what a term! I imagine hard hats on the music assembly line, turning out each manufactured instant hit
Illustration: I've been slowly burning my CDs to Ogg files for a while now -- I even have a pretty tall stack of CDs on my monitor right now just from the last 24 hours of ripping-with-grip -- because it's much more convenient to have the files on many fewer physical units, and because (for the tracks on my hard drive) then I can search by song title, etc. These are CDs that I've collected over the last 12-15 years, and as the collection gets heavier it gets less convenient.
Also, I think there is a slightly larger grey area than you seem to allow
My point is that there *is* some actual "sharing" that goes on in the online world just as there was before the Internet was a major social force. Wide-open directories of arbitrarily gathered music just to fill as many GB as possible, yuck, a different beast.
Aside, but related: Yes, it seems silly and transparent, just a built-in-excuse to say "well, if I own this album already (check), and could therefore potentially compress it for convenience play (check), then why not download from someone who has already done the compression work?" There's a very easy leap to say "Well, I obviously *could* buy the album at the record store down the street, and I intend to
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
ya know the way people try and make this sound is so funny to me, 'sharing information' its not like people are downloading the human dna straind to evaluate, or maybe some home made nano plans, no no they are downloading the lastest pop singles. does that really advance our world or teach people that if you dont see your victim then its not stealing. if you go to a tower records and walk out with a cd, its stealing the same as going on your favorite p2p and downloading it. do i care if people steal? no, just have the balls to admit it and stop hiding behind sharing information like your pop music has a higher command over the human race.
The item about people downloading music to obtain previews/samples of music they might later purchase has got to have the RIAA companies thinking that maybe all that money they've been spending on payol^H^H^H^H^Hpromotion might be wasted. And it can't help the owners of the cookie-cutter style radios stations feel very good about the number of people who are finding an alternate means of discovering new music.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I find a big reason I listen to MP3s is because I hear new things all the time with them. On an average week I probably download 20 songs that I've never heard of, and put them into my random rotation. Often times when I'm listening to my collection I hear something I've never heard before... which is cool.
I find myself doing a similar thing in my car. I always listen to radio in my car, not because I love the music the radio plays, but because it's random. I don't know what's going to happen next (even though it'll prolly suck).
I dislike CDs cause they're a fixed format. Every time I listen to one, it's the same thing. I don't think I'm alone in liking the randomness of formats like radio and MP3s. It would be nice if record companies could offer me something legal to listen to my genres without having to worry about downloading stuff or hearing a song more than a few times. (Maybe I should try XM Radio.)
my blog
IF downloading mp3's ripped from CD's is illegal, then why can't I make a recording at a live concert? Each concert is different; each seat and angle. I'm supporting the artist and i'm getting material not available on CD. Why is that illegal (for most concerts)? And after all, isn't that what the recording companies are doing - paying the artists (I with my ticket, they with hopefully substantially more cash) to perform live and recording it? So I don't get the fidelity and one-on-one nature that they get as well as retakes and digital remixing and tone balance and the lie. In reality, live recordings probably hurt the artist more - some bands are horrible live and the price of a ticket is often greater than a CD. Plus people tend to by shirts and stuff. I just want something I paid for... the ability to listen to what I did whenever I want. Otherwise, anyone caught on a video tape or audio tape who has exclusive deals with a corporation should be able to sue you because you taped them. Soon entertainers will sign with major labels for extended amounts of work (x amount of films) instead of pick and choose which parts they wish to audition for an turn down scripts they dislike. Soon the Media Conglomerates will own all. I just can't wait...
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
According to the Home Recording Act, I can record any signal I can pick up in my home from the radio or TV AND let any of my friends or family borrow or record from my recording.
So, it's not illegal for me to get a radio tuner for my PC and encode songs to MP3 -- yet, it is illegal to download those exact same songs in mp3 format or to post them to the web, but it is legal for me to give my radio-encoded mp3's to any of my friends. Also, the same is true for any TV shows. I can record The Sopranos, burn it to a DVD, and give it to a friend, yet I can't download the episode of the Sopranos I missed last week even though I pay for HBO!!
Anyone else think this is stupid? I can listen to any music on MP3 whenever I want -- so long as the original source was from either a CD I baught, the radio, or a friend or family member who gave it to me as long as they got it from the radio or TV -- but NOT from a stranger online... mmmkayyy. But, if I met a stranger online in person, and we were friends... they could give me a copy & that'd be legal.. so long as their source was from a the radio or TV.
I fear that laws will change to where noone can copy anything (goodbye fair use), but I'd prefer that they'd change so that noone can enforce a copyright longer than 7 years. (after 2 years, most music and movies have made their serious dough anyway -- 'cept TV shows b/c they get their major money in sindication (sp). I think a fair compromise would be -- you can't copy anything for other than personal use, parody, news media, or some other variant of free speech/fair use ... unless it's 7 years old :-) (in other words, no sharing of an exact copy of a full work with anyone unless it's 7 years old)
I personally am feeling guilty for having to download tracks from some artists. when I download something I'll listen to it, and keep it if I *really* like it, and plan to purchase the album later (I really do, I'm now buying a CD a week now, maybe two a week), so with the mp3's i have, I delete them one by one as I purchase the CD. So I have a record of what albums to purchase. I don't buy it when people say that they will buy the album later, 98% of my friends/others/relatives say that they buy more CD's because of mp3's. No! They just buy bigger HD's. Well, I'm done for now, but if CD's do cost too much for you, get them used. You'll save a lot of money and have a legal copy.
Now, about me copying my CD's to MD, that's another touchy subject!
Laws are made by the people. If 93% of the people think this is right, maybe the laws should be changed.
I was on the Academic Technology Committee at the university where I work, at one of the meetings we discussed library e-books and I didn't get the point. They were buying books that were available electronically, but the software was crippled so they could only be "checked out" by one person at a time, while that copy was in use nobody else could access it until it was "returned." I guess it destroyed itself on the user's hard drive somehow after a certain period of time and that was the return. And the text was actually image files so you could not search the text or copy and paste anything. These "books" cost more than your average library volume, although the library got a deal for buying lots of them at once. But I didn't understand why they'd bother. What's the point of getting electronic versions of a book at all? Those restrictions made the electronic copy functionally no different than the actual book -- worse in fact since you could still photocopy a real book, plus you get all the other advantages of having a physical book. We are crippling the technology as fast as we can invent it, just to protect the greed of corporations who own artists' work. I think the p2p issues are the same. Why should we cripple the internet? Why did we bother inventing it in the first place?
If you read up on some of the ancient philosophers and how they defined law you will actually find that most, if not all considered unjust laws to be invalid. While in practice the lawmakers would probably disagree and charge you with breaking the law if you chose to do so, theoretically I have no problem with there claim. Slavery would in this case fall into the unjust area of law. I doubt the 'average man' would disagree with me there. But do copyright laws fall into the unjust area? I challenge anyone to explain to me how copyright laws are fundamentally unjust. You can't get everything for free.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Hey, that's the way most musicians I've known live, you see only a very small "commercially viable" group ever make any real money from their hobby.
With a few thousand dollars in equipment you can now have a fairly professional production, make a website, put demo mp3s up and sell some cds to those that would like to support them, musicians can now make money worldwide without the record companies, and they're "living on handouts".
Record companies see the writing on the wall, the industry hasn't been very good at adapting since the player piano was invented.
indeed - music has always existed music industry or not. Piracy may (or may not) end up making the current model of selling recorded music unviable but the question is not "how will the music industry survive" but instead "How will musicians continue to be paid for making music" (a question the "music" industry has very little interest in).
I suspect that the answer to this will see a return to live music and musicians building closer relationships with their fans. There are plenty of bands already doing this. The Grateful Dead being the most famous.
The truth is people download music so they don't have to buy it. I think that "sampling" excuse is the biggest piece of crap. People buy the really really good stuff. The okay, mediocre, and good music with limited lifespans are the ones that nobody buys after downloading. Think about the excuse porn consumers give...that it's for "education." Not many people publicly admit it's for masturbation, but everyone knows what its for.
And I understand people buy the CDs that they're exposed to via downloading, but considering the amount of awesome music worth buying, I'd say people who abide by the rules are outnumbered.
One more word to the RIAA, if you don't like the situation, change the damn business model.
.smell my feet.
The problem is that the definition about what is "unjust" can change quite fast. At the times of slavery, only few people considered it unjust to hold slaves.
Another, more recent example: After the reunification of Germany, many people (e.g. members of the secret services of the GDR) found themselves punished for things they didn't believe to be unjust before.
If you think about it, most people have a relatively simple system of ethics:
1. Very important: Rules that protect people (like themselves). Most people don't kill other people, as they don't want to be killed. Even if there is no enforcement, most people follow this rules.
2. Less important: Rules which are important to keep the society running. Most people accept the statement that the government needs taxes, but they pay taxes only if they are forced to do so.
3. Least important: Rules, where people cannot see that anybody is harmed if the rule is broken.
Drinking alcohol and filesharing fall in the third class.
Since I didn't get to respond in a survey...
YES: I download copyrighted material using the Internet.
YES: I know it is illegal.
NO: I do not think it should be illegal.
NO: I don't think it is wrong.
NO: I do not think MP3s are the same as CDs.
YES: File trading will continue long after P2P is illegal (if that happens).
YES: I buy the records that I download and like.
YES: I am a musician with copyrighted works that are traded freely on the Internet.
NO: I do not worry about MP3s impacting my sales.
YES: The future belongs to record labels dedicated to releasing strong music and not attacking their music-hungry customers for trying to hear more than their budgets/radio will allow. Music file trading will cease to be illegal OR wrong when musicians and record labels realize they need not fear the demise of music media as a commodity. CDs and vinyl will continue to coexist along with music sharing, as they have since they invention of analog tape recording.
Well, noone likes taxes, but the question is as how much taxes must be taken and in what form? You know, long ago, our government operated 100% off of tariffs and non-income tax items. Now it's like 99.9% income tax.
I believe in a national sales tax, rather than a national income tax. Income taxes don't tax the wealthy (because the wealthy usually don't have jobs, they don't pay income taxes on money they've already earned in the past), instead they tax those on the way to becoming wealthy (middle-class up-and-comers and anyone else who higher tax brackets would hurt financially.
I mean, when people talk about taxes, or any other law designed to make the wealthy "pay their fair share", just remember: If Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are for it, then the new law/tax won't affect the already-wealthy.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
What, exactly, do modern day musicians (artists and 'performers') do to deserve hundreds of millions of dollars, again? They follow their calling well? So do I, and I am not entitled to millions for it.
Why is the IT job market in the dumps right now? Too many unqualified gold-diggers clogging the field.
Why is music in the dumps right now? Too many unqualified gold-diggers clogging the field.
Music was a hell of a lot better, imho, before the advent of the superstar. Not very rewarding, either -- I guess that meant you only sung if you had something worth saying.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Yeah, you tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better.
Fine then, I'll tell myself that. Meanwhile, I'll be ordering another round of CDs from CD Japan pretty soon, for instance the SaiKano OST and the GitS:SAC OST which I "borrowed" from a friend since I wasn't a big fan of the show, only the music (amongst other CDs that I have mp3s from.
Why bother, when downloading it is so much easier
I only have one reply to this: snort. I'm really sure its "so much easier" to deal with the drek, people who never let you fetch stuff, and other crap on kazaa and the like. And thats if anyone else out there actually had my interests in music.
Now, I'm completely against the people who do as you describe and resell the burnt CDs for 500% profit (at this point, I would call it "bootlegging"). But you have to face it: Today's US music industry relies on people not hearing the crap on the disc ahead of time, so that they might be fooled into buying it. Since they have managed to get their industry into such a run-down state that the only way they can manage to sell anything is by accident or deceit (wouldn't you call filling a CD with two good songs which get radio advertising time, and the remainder with remixes or other crap deceit?) they have to force people to not preview the music. So they push for laws against it.
You know what really makes me feel better? It's not telling myself that I'm going to buy the stuff I like, because I know that to be true. It's that I look out and see civil disobedience performed against the gross misuse of a once-honorable law (copyright law, to be specific). Once upon a time it let people be creative and get money for their creations. Now, the music industry (amongst others) has shifted the power of the law from protecting authors to protecting the publishers. Once upon a time, an author granted permission to a publisher to publish the work. Nowadays, the publishers use work-for-hire loopholes and other tricks to take the work by force and leave the author with nothing but debt. For instance, if you read the text of the DMCA, you'll notice that there are no rights assigned to authors of a work. If I record a song in a DRM-enabled format, I have no right to remove the DRM from it, because the DMCA protects the DRM, not my work. (And before you claim "bullshit", take a look at this where legal threats were made against a person who wrote his own tool for fixing the "don't embed" bit for fonts he created himself. It hasn't gone to court, apparently, but given that the DMCA repeals rights of due process, that doesn't matter much, does it?)
So do the American thing. Protest the commercialization of your government and download an mp3 today.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.