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File-Sharing Ethics Taught In Classrooms?
shams42 writes "According to the New York Times, the movie/record industries are taking their concerns about P2P file sharing into the classroom (free reg. req.) Among other activities, they are planning to play a game called 'Starving Artist' with 5th-9th graders, where students come up with an idea for a record album, cover art, and lyrics only to be told by teachers that the album is already available for download for free."
Of course, stranger things have happened, like Coke and Pepsi sponsoring schools. What, I wonder, would the teachers make of it if a student piped up and said they were going to give the album away for free anyway? Would they be carted off to RIAA-retraining camp?
> Why are they always suing in civil proceedings rather than prosecuting with a criminal trial?
Because - for the zillionth time - copy right infringement is not theft, and not a criminal offence. It is copy right infringement, an actionable matter carrying fixed penalties. Some associated activities are criminal: screwing with your cable connection, DMCA violations. But purely copying the data is not a criminal offence.
Is that enough italics, or do we need to go over this again?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
NYT: Studios Moving to Block Piracy of Films Online
The civil version, on the other hand, is quite obviously violated. Plus the burden of proof in civil court is easier. Plus the RIAA gets some money out of it (maybe not a lot) and they don't in a criminal trial. Plus they don't have any direct control over prosecutors for either deciding to lay charges or how the case is argued or won. Plus, I think they want most of these cases settled out of court anyway.
Possibly more reasons, but I think that's pleanty.
This page provides interesting info on who makes how much money on each US$1 download song. (secure site, but apparently you don't have to pay.
I should start a download site myself.
It's worse than that. Though, there's plenty to learn about math and piracy, no file sharing necessary. Here's a taste:
Wow! You must listen to some REALLLLLLLLY stupid artists.
:-)...10 songs and thats a good chunk even if ya know some of the standard accounting practices...
The artists I work for that have major label deals all make between $1 and $2 and album.
The guys that I work for that do their own stuff -- pay for all their studio time out of their pocket, pay their managers completely out of their pocket, do all their own promotion, arrange distribution through the various means -- make considerably more than that.
Funny thing...the two guys that I consider to be equal amongst my clients make almost the same each year. One major, the other independent. One tours with a 12 piece band and puts on KILLER shows...the other puts on an acoustic show with him and MAYBE 2 others if he's feeling like it. Both are friends (I met the one through the other as he'd mentioned his friend needing help on his ProTools system)...and both privately tell me that if they were in the others shoes they would milk the system so bad that they would be mad rich.
So what would you prefer? $1.00 per album on 2 million sales? Or $7 on 30k of albums (and STILL have to split songwriting with Harry Fox doing the accounting and taking their chunk because they bill ya directly because you don't work with a label)?
There are advantages and disadvantages to all of this. I have never read a contract that wasn't clear. I've worked with a few artists that didn't read the contract and then complained about it. I've worked with artists that don't even want to know what's in their contract. Hell, I worked a video shoot a few weekends ago and a few of the artists just signed what was in front of them not realizing that this paid them solely for their work as a hired hand assigning their rights to the lead artist...I mean they would have signed it anyways if they wanted to keep their jobs, but afterwards I heard the same ones that said they were wondering how much they were going to make from DVD sales...ummm...nothing...they got one lump sum and nothing more.
Artists are not ripped off blindly...anyone that cares to know what they will get paid has it in front of them. They took a bet that it would pay off more than the alternative.
Artists are NOT starving because of any $0.00000083 payment. I know its an exaggeration, but hell, I think statutory payments for the song writer end up being something like $0.15 a song as it is (thus its always better for artists to write their own damn songs
I don't know why the parent was moded insightful...I hate responding to things like this, but even though the poster is a clueless idiot, enough others need to know this isn't the case and the truth about the industry.
You'd think so, but that would require that everyone who is an aspiring artist knows about what happens to people who sign record contracts. And as an aspiring artist who knows several other aspiring artists, I can tell you that there is no shortage of people who have no idea whatsoever what happens, and they don't want to know. All they see is Avril coming from small town Canada and making it big with tons of nubile fans and money coming their way. That is the dream they pursue.
Not everyone reads Slashdot and sees this stuff multiple times per week. And one doesn't learn it by sitting around writing music and occasionally tuning in to MTV or Fox News.
There are criminal penalties for certain levels of copying. See U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 5, Sec. 506 [cornell.edu] for the offenses and Title 18, Chapter 113, Sec 2319 [cornell.edu] for the penalties.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
That's not exactly true. Copyright infringement is actionable in a civil lawsuit (by the copyright owner) or in a criminal lawsuit (prosecuted by the US government). You should check out the the copyright act's section 506. It's a higher burden to prove criminal copyright infringement (you have to infringe "willfully"), but it still happens, and not just for cable, DMCA, etc. The bottom line is that the labels are suing because they have the money to do it and they can control the legal strategy. Also, the US government may not want to sue because it has other priorities (and a more limited budget).
The RIAA gets $2 for each CD recorder. .02% of the manufacturer's sell price for each CD-R and CD-RW sold. This is the "tax" they get to offset the copying of music.
The RIAA gets about
The RIAA has been paid a "tax" for each blank audio tape since the '70s.
Overall, this amounts to millions of dollars.
So, far, no one has found an artist that has received any part of this.
Perhaps, just perhaps, you have already paid for your copies of music.
The "establishment" wishes it were that easy. If it was than the billions spent on the war on drugs yearly would have actually reduce supply instead of increasing the market value. In America their is no better example of disporportionate punishments than the manditory sentences for drug offenders. Yet yearly surveys show that everywhere mary jane and coke are easier to attain by children than alchohol. Its seems that in order for an unpopular law to remain unbroken, it needs to remain unwritten.
Open Source Sushi
Actually, speeding itself is not dangerous. DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is.
To wit: two cars going exactly 90 miles an hour, side by side, can bounce off each other repeatedly with very little damage and with neither driver losing control.
However, take a car going 50 miles an hour and bounce off a car going 25 miles an hour, and in that moment of contact that 25 miles an hour's worth of energy has to be dissipated in some fashion, so the trajectories of one or both cars is significantly altered, as is the sheetmetal.
Of course, driving 25 in a residential zone (full of objects moving at 0 miles an hour) is better than driving 50 -- but that's because the difference in speed is greater.
That's why it's always safer to go with the flow of traffic than simply obey the limits -- if everyone else is going 75 and you're going 55, you're creating a hazard, just as if you were going 75 and everyone else is going 55...or if you were going 55 and everyone else was going 10.