Pew Study: File Traders Don't Care About Copyright

An anonymous reader writes "A recent poll by the Pew Internet and American Life Project focused on that portion of the file trading community that is over 18. The major finding is that two-thirds of all file traders in this age bracket are not concerned about violating copyright laws. This remained consistant even when they split up the respondents by sex, income, and race."

Comments

Re:old news

[Mod Me God]

Yeah, there is a link here too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/31 15829.stm).

The RIAA have dismissed this, as the time the survey was taken was before their recent legal action. Note that doesn't mean the action will work, just this survey is irrelevant for the here-and-now.

Re:Sweet

[chrisbw]

Seriously though, we live in a democracy

Err, actually, we live in a republic:

1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit (the French Fourth Republic)
2 : a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity (the republic of letters)
3 : a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., or Yugoslavia

(I hope I didn't violate Merriam-Webster's copyright there...)

Even higher here

[macemoneta]

Our local (NY, NJ, CT) WB affiliate ran a poll the other day, and their result was that 92% think it's OK to share copyrighted files using P2P systems.

As they reported that number, the anchor's comment was, "As you'd expect..". I guess he thought it was OK too. :-)

Re:Are the law outdated ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Only the on-cd picture can't be done."

There are at least a dozen printers currently available that print directly onto CD's now.

Re:No kidding, really?

[uncoveror]

14 year copyright was renewable once if authors and artists still were alive, and still had something commercially viable, but they had to apply for renewal, it was not automatic. That original law was perfectly adequate to encourage authors and artists to keep creating. It was always done for the benefit of society as a whole. That is what the US Constitution means when it says, "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".

This did not create "intellectual property", a highly offensive misnomer, it created a temporary loan from the public domain, to which all ideas belong once expressed. There is similar language in the laws of many other countries.

Since copyright has ceased to serve its purpose, it is time either to return it to 14 years, renewable once, or to abolish it entirely.

Re:WHAT GOES AROUND COMES..

[mpe]

Same goes for software and DVDs. DVDs are now the default technology, yet they are higher than tapes. Instead, tapes should be lower, and DVDs should be the same price.

If anything tapes should be more expensive, since the manufacturing and transportation costs are higher. Then you have the problem of "duds" not being detected until a customer buys one and complains. With a CD or DVD you have an easy to automate pressing operation to manufacture. It's probably not that difficult to automate removing mis-pressed disks from the production line either.

What the actually title for this story should be..

[f0rt0r]

First, allow me to address the subect line. No, the law is not "outdated".

Which law? The original law created by the founders of the U.S.A, or the mangled version of the law that exists today?

If the law of the land instead said that meat-work is valuable and brain-work is worthless, you would be a poor factory worker in sweatshop economy.

He's not saying it is worthless, but he is saying that giving an author control of copyrights to a work as an incentive to create more works needs to be re-evaluated. I haven't come up with an altrernative method, but personally I would like information to spread more rapidly than it does now, with no restrictions. For "art", the value of this is doubtful, but for useful information such as works that teach people "how to" do something, it is easy to see the benefit to the country as a whole. For instance, I come up with a new algorithm that makes not only one application more efficient, but also a slew of other applications more efficient if the knowledge of it were spread. So, which is more beneficial, my putting artificial restrictions (monetary or otherwise ) on the spread ( copying ) of the algorithm, or letting it be copied freely to make applications more efficient as quickly as possible?

Add to that the fact that many musician complain about recording companies, that even if the manufacturing costs have dropped, the cost of music has increased (the cost of books has DROPPED).

This claim is often repeated on slashdot, but is it actually true ? I remember being in high-scool (1990), and I purchased cassette tapes for anywhere between $8 and $11. A CD would have cost a few dollars more (I think about 12-14), so I didn't buy CDs. Today, a CD is between $11 and $18. So I don't think the price in CDs has jumped substantially relative to the cost of living. As for books getting cheaper, when was the last time you tried to buy a text book ? I don't think this claim is correct either.

Where do you shop? I pay $22 on the average per CD.

And you can add to that the fact that many songs are unavailable at stores because the recording companies found that these were too old or that there is no interrest in these.
Whine, whine, whine. Go to a specialty music store, or buy from Amazon (very good range).

From my experience, many works are out of print and no one but the copyright holder has the ability to make them available, thanks to copyright laws. Yes, you can search used/specialty shops for the original, But what if you cannot find it. What if you can only find a copy of it on a file-sharing system because one of the few holders of the original media has chosen to share it? You forgot to handle that case.

Add to that the wories like protected-CD (well... these are not really CD as they don't conform to the standard), mandatory messages on DVD, Zone system on DVD, ... which dissappear when you've a copy... These are incentive to copy... and signs that there is some abuse of the market system...

I agree with you and the creator of the CD standard ( Panasonic ) also agrees with you. They are putting pressure on this companies to label their CD's appropriately ( i.e. impaired CD, non-compliant CD )but it hasn't stuck yet. The DVD region system is definitely an artificial price-fixing tool to sell the same product at different prices based on the local market, while preventing buyers to purchase item from outside of their market for the purpose of saving money. In this way, the seller makes more money and the buyer is stuck with a product that may not work if they relocate themselves to another market. Not to mention the fact that they might not be able to give it as a gift or trade to someone in another market ( region ).

Sorry if this is a little sloppy, the cost for making a post while pressed for time. Hopefully this port fleshes out this thread ( and one that is beneficial ).