NYT Promotes File Sharing

aisaac writes "An article in today's NYT comments intelligently on filesharing. Key points: downloading music is not illegal, peer-to-peer enables this useful and legal activity, and a list of good places to find good music online (including the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress. The Induce Act is briefly mentioned without analysis, but the article does not mention that some of the Act's sponsors and cosponsors have expressed a willingness to consider ammendments to restrict the application of the Act. (This according to a letter I received from Senator Sarbanes.) Let's keep the pressure on!" A Congress call-in day is being organized.

Comments

Re:Downloading music itself is not illegal...

[aardvarkjoe]

Lots of people have weird notions about what is and isn't allowed. A while ago, I got a phone call about alleged copyright infringement from my ISP, and I thought that their claim of what's allowed and what's not was interesting: they said (as near as I can remember) "Downloading copyrighted material isn't illegal, but making it available is."

Of course, both parts of that statement are, at best, half-true. Downloading copyrighted material may or may not be legal, depending on the will of the copyright holder. Same with making such material available on the internet. And generally, if sharing it is illegal, so is downloading it, which makes their statement wrong no matter how you look at it. Perhaps everyone should have to be educated on what you can and can't do within copyright law before they're allowed to touch a computer.

Following the logic.

[erick99]

I get genuinely confused about what is legal and illegal in terms of downloading copyrighted music. The NYT in this article starts out with what appears to be an overly broad statement:

DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal.

But that at least seems to be based on what is involved in the lawsuits and not purely on the law or so this next quote seems to say:

But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take.

I understand that the lawsuits have focused on people who have uploaded music and the conventional wisdom is that if you only download you won't get sued.

So, I am still confused and the article only confused me further

Cheers,

Erick

Re:They promote free music, not just filesharing!

[StevenHenderson]

I have become a big fan of "alternative" bands that have been making it to the radio scene as of late (Secret Machines, Velvet Revolver, and Modest Mouse to name a few). Modest Mouse allows the taping and distribution of their live performances and it's apparent that the Secret Machines don't have much of a problem with getting their sound out there. Nothing gets me more interested in purchasing tickets to see a show than when the bands distribute their music for free.

Better make sure the bands you cite share your ideals. What about Velvet Revolver's copy-protected CD?

Re:Close.

[the arbiter]

You're joking, right? The RIAA couldn't be more pissed about people downloading indie music, not bacause it violates their rights or their ill-gotten revenue stream, but because both downloading and indie music are the greatest long-term threat to their business model they've ever faced.

And I'll give them this: they should be terrified. They've milked a monopoly for decades and have forgotten how to compete, and now that they have competition they have no idea how to respond to it in an effective way.

Hint to the RIAA: suing your customers and bribing Congress to pass legislation aimed at peotecting your monopoly status is not an effective response...it tends to piss people off and then they tend not to buy your products.

Re:They promote free music, not just filesharing!

[geoffspear]

Yeah, and maybe Slash will think slashdot is a fan website and he'll happen to read your mention of his band while looking for groupies.

Here's a hint: Velvet Revolver is not some band playing at your local bar in front of 5 people, who are going to be googling their own name and following a link to a geek website and then changing their mind about whther they'd rather give their music away for free or take the millions of dollars they're making. They don't care if you go to their concerts; when you sell all of the available tickets, it doesn't bother you when some guy didn't want a ticket because he's too cheap to pay for your album. Really.

Re:Downloading music itself is not illegal...

[AK Marc]

Actually, dipshit, downloading copyrighted material that you don't have a license for *IS* illegal.

Then why have none of the lawsuits gone after people for it? Read what the people being sued are being sued for. So far, it appears to be legal to upload copyrighted material you have the rights to. That is, if I own the CD and share it out so that anyone can download it, I have not broken any law or copyright. It has never been tested whether you have the right to download a copyrighted piece and listen to it.

The only thing that they have filed lawsuits for is sharing/uploading material that you do not have any rights to. Why? Because that is the *only* thing that is explicitly illegal.