Slashdot Mirror
UK Record Industry Starts Suing Filesharers
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has the story that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has started a first set of lawsuits against UK file sharers. 23 people paid £50,000 to settle out of court. This is the first time people in the UK have been fined, and probably won't be the last. From the article: "We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
This is just the start of the trends which have become somewhat commonn place in the states making the hop over the Atlantic. I think read on Drudge yesterday that the MPAA is considering a similar manuever in the UK. Insiders say that they plan on going after people who are sharing 10 movies or more. For now they are only planning on targeting those who offer up movies which have yet to be released but I would imagine they will be widening that net before too long.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Seriously, 50,000 pounds for some music? They're so extreme with the amounts.
I had a doubt. If my neighbour uses my wireless network (which I have kept open as a social service) to download copyrighted stuff, can I be sued????
fuvoo: watch something
When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy.
r ow ing.fast/
Apple has sold approximately 85 million songs in the first two months of 2005, surpassing Piper Jaffray's initial estimates for the entire March quarter. Based on Apple's earlier announcement of 300 million total tracks sold, Senior Research Analyst Gene Munster says that iTunes sales could account for $83.2 million in revenue in the March quarter--or about $35 million more than the firm has been estimating. The firm also believes average daily sales rate has been 1.35 million per day since late January, which very similar to the 1.43 million daily run rate (i.e., sales of songs) in the weeks following the holidays. "We had been anticipating a more significant drop off in iTunes sales from the levels seen in the weeks following the holidays."
In addition to driving iPod sales, the firm says that Apple's iTunes Music Store will also contribute significantly to the company earnings: while it estimtates that the current operating margin on iTunes is in the low single digits, Piper Jaffray says it believes iTunes profitability will begin to increase throughout 2005, with operating margins reaching 5% to 10% in 2006.
http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/03/02/itunes.g
How many of these 23 people were under 10 or over 80 years old? And did at least half of them own a computer?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
The music companies are totally right in doing this. It IS their property, and people don't have the right to use it for free. Go use Napster or iTunes if you don't want to buy cds.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Some parents have been genuinely shocked to discover what their children have been up to
If that's all your kids have been up to on the internet when you're not watching, you're in OK shape...
I need more sleep. I just read that as 'British Pornographic Industry'.
My other first post is car post.
50,000 pounds for music? Things have sure gone up when I was a kid. Bubble gum used to cost a quarter too!
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
"...make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
Don't most artists make only a pittance on their album sales anyway, even after they have paid back the label for their 'generous' promotional contract?
Call me cynical, but claiming that the settlement money is going to go to artists seems disingenuous. Of course claiming 'lost' profits by the labels on file sharing is moreso.
Quick Vyvyan! Eat the hard drive!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy.
While I agree music is overpriced and the musicians undercompensated, it's still not a reason to download the songs illegally. It's like walking into a Wal-Mart, stuffing something in your coat, walking out, and justifying it by saying that they charge too much anyway. Stealing is stealing.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
I hate these arguments so much. Who cares what they price the music at? It is not your music, you did not make it, you did not go into contract with them and give them rights to it, you did not spend millions of dollars advertising it.
You do not have the right to just distribute or download it without paying, end of story. There is no "well if they only made it cheaper" because that is not your right to say. If you don't want to pay the price they are asking then you make the decision to not get that muisc.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
why don't they just sue for the ammount of $ they have stolen (i.e. the average cost of a CD) instead of charging these OUTRAGEOUS fees? Any body?
I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on disk somewhere.
Its so simple!
of course wave upon wave of lawsuits will probably help to slow down sharing as well.
air and light and time and space
So, way back in the day, everyone was outraged that the music industry was trying to fight piracy by litigating away P2P technology, instead of going after the people who were actually breaking the law.
Now they're going after the people who actually break the law, instead of trying to end P2P.
I think that the idea of fair use ought to be extended, but am I supposed to be outraged that this is happening? They're actually going after people who are breaking the law, instead of trying to end technologies with legitimate uses.
Isn't this exactly what we asked for?
Did anyone else read British Pornographic Industry? .. for a second there I was scared!
We all did. You're just the first to admit it.....
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Just wait until this trend spreads across all countries and continents...be afraid of the Antartic Recording Industry (ARI)....I mean, imagine being sued in a currency that doesnt exist!
Or just paying your debt with penguins.
No he's not. This is redundant across almost every story on /. I've ever seen talking about the BPI.
.. if they will sue the dead I'm sure they'd be willing to go after you as well.
air and light and time and space
...I wouldn't do that, especially if the FBI/whoever is the investigative arm in your country decides to drive by your antenna. Sounds like easy jailbait if they crack down on those like you, but that's just my inference.
Of course you might be able to sue them back if they download it to figure out if its illegal.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
honest your Honor, I was haxxored!
Hmm... How many people do you think they will sue? 10? 20? 1000? You know I don't know anybody who bothers to use p2p to pirate music anymore. There are easier ways to get old or indie albums by borrowing off of friends and everything new or mainstream is crap. My friends and I share music perfectly easy without P2P, in fact one of the first things I do with new friends is share our music collections with each other. The genie of digital copying is out of the bottle and it's going to take a lot of restriction to get it back in again. Enough restriction to destroy the music industry itself. Record sales aren't going to improve until the BPI or the RIAA stop stuffing crap down our throats, stop suing us and stop treating us like criminals, even if from their perspective we are. Society has changed, forever.
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
From TFA:
"The average compensation payment was £2,200 each, with one person paying £4,500."
make them compensate the artists
Bahahahahahahaha hahahaha hahahahaha hahaha haha whew.
Sorry about that.
Putting hard-to-find, exclusive content (like an in-depth interview, a free poster, or an offer for one of the above) into the whole CD package might help too. Of course those too (or the images thereof) can easily be copied and released into p2p nets for all to download. Or apt-get or however you call it.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
We're going to have another day where people lecture about that it's not "stealing" because it's merely "copyright infrigement" instead of actually being strong enough to regognize that it's still WRONG.
These people broke the law, and they should be punished for it.
Well, if it helps you sleep at night by rationalizing your unethical stealing of copyrighted property (assuming you do from your sarcastic statement), then by all means keep thinking like that.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
I mean, really, I don't want to pay what I consider outrageous prices for crap. I'm not downloading anything either. If you want some good music, go down to your local coffee house and listen to a good live band and buy their CD if you like their music. For the price of a coffee, I can listen to a small live concert for several hours while I do homework. You mean you can try before you buy? Amazing! The CD's I get from the local artists (and other independent artists that come through my area on tour) are much cheaper than the record-label CD's and the quality of music is sooo worth it. While the ethics of downloading the label's music is disputed, one thing I think we can all agree on is that the labels would have no ammo if people would just boycott them instead of refusing to purchase their crap and downloading music. Boycotts do work. And boycotts 'steal' nothing from the artists.
These aren't the sigs you're looking for.
my prediction: $0.00
all of it goes to the labels.
artists get nothing except % of sales and residuals, they dont get anything from legal judgements.
Assume that we all know filesharing is illegal, immoral and makes you fat.
Now take a look around you and see that not many people care and are doing it anyway.
You want to stop them doing it, considering the moral argument doesn't work?
Ask why they do it.
Then take that reason away from them.
If they continue to share, that wasn't really their reason.
The popularity of iTunes says that people are willing for pay for downloaded music.
I would suggest that the reason for this is that you can get the song you want at the price you want to pay, rather than getting a lot of stuff you don't want at a price that is too high for the whole.
Not wanting to listen to arguments doesn't make them any less valid, it only means you refuse to help out on either side of the battle.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
---Isn't this exactly what we asked for?---
Pretty much, and under the law, it's a reasonable approach. But in the long run, it's a futile one, and a foolish one.
First, the massive quantity of US lawsuits has caused no slowdown in p2p filesharing. So it's not an effective means of stopping copyright infringement.
Next, it's bad PR, and is turning off more and more consumers and artists from doing business with the major label cartels. It's also interesting that they continue to settle out of court, rather than letting any case go through. I think there's some fear on the RIAA and their equivalents' parts that a court case would 1) reinforce fair use rights and 2) set a precedent for the value of a song.
Most importantly, rather than seeing this as something that must be stomped out and trying to turn back the clock, a smarter approach is to find a way to profit from this obvious consumer demand. The same thing happened with the VCR, and now the MPAA makes more money from video sales and rentals than from box office receipts.
My opinion is they need to set up a system similar to this one. It takes advantage of the massive power of p2p, yet protects copyright and actively encourages users to only deal in legit files by giving them a financial incentive.
British Phonographic Industry, what?
I haven't listened to a phonograph in about 20 years now. Who in the world would want to listen to a phonograph or even consider trading them online? As I recall they were huge, hulking things that collected copious amounts of dust.
It's like walking into a Wal-Mart, stuffing something in your coat, walking out, and justifying it by saying that they charge too much anyway.
No, it is not. It's more like not wanting to pay $5 to rent a movie that you've heard is bad, so you walk over to your friends house and borrow it. You've just screwed the movie company out of money and should be tossed in jail for "stealing" by not paying them every time you watch it.
Learn to love Alaska
...would Linux CDs be a good substitute for the penguins? and would the ARI lawyers substitute their suits for giant North Face jackets?
Somehow I think people would be sued in Mars or the ISS before that though. I wouldn't move to a world so cold. (I'd compare the preceding to a Mudvayne song but I'd get sued. I think.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
They're determined to find anyone who distributes music who isn't them, PERIOD. They're a starving, wounded beast, cornered by its own fear and ignorance. All they know how to do is threaten people who exchange music, whether they've got a right to or not. Why can't I let a friend listen to a stream of a song that's otherwise idle on my HD, when I can loan them the CD? Why can't a few of my friends tune into my stream, when I can bring the CD to a party? Because they never had enough lawyers to force you to pay them for those fair uses. But on the Internet, these music biz weasels can finally insert themselves into every music transaction as tolltakers. Or so they think - any smart people running the biz have run *from* the biz already. So the dumb beast makes its last stand, taking down as many victims as it can.
--
make install -not war
I think It's important to note that it is generally only the uploaders who are being fined for their activities. A joe bloggs day to day downloader has nothing to worry about: "The UK internet users, ranging from a student to a local councillor, have admitted putting up to 9,000 songs each on the web for other fans to download."
Sorry... but the music being shared is NOT the property of the music association, or their individual labels.
The only thing the labels own are the COPYRIGHTS but they don't own the copy of the song itself. Holding the copyright to a song does not equal to owning a copy of the song.
For example, if I write a new song and burn it onto a CD, then I'm both the copyright holder and the owner of the copy. But as soon as I sell you the CD, then I'm still the copyright holder, but the CD AND that individual copy of the song burned on the CD becomes YOUR property.
The British Pornographic Society is less ruthless.
If a bunch of people get together and mail each other, and strangers as well, CD's can it be illegal? If not then "fileshare" that way. If so then how can mailing them be bad? What about mailign books so they can be copied? Or records? Or even just handing them personally but copying them when you have it? Can giving it, not lending, to strangers be illicet?
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
i can't wait for some multimillionaire to get busted for this sort of thing, and have them be so riled byit that they refuse to settle out of court and make a case out of it. hopefully with good lawyers.
"when the sun sets on the ghetto, all the broken stuff gets cold"
I hate these arguments so much.
Why? Because they are accurate? He isn't saying he does it for that reason, he's saying many people claim that as the reason.
Who cares what they price the music at?
Everyone that buys or wants to buy music, which is pretty close to 100% of the population.
It is not your music, you did not make it, you did not go into contract with them and give them rights to it, you did not spend millions of dollars advertising it.
You are right, I didn't. They put it in the public domain and shared it with everyone as well. They went out of their way to have me hear it. Then, after pretty much forcing me to hear it, they then try to control any second or later hearings of it. That's the business model of a drug dealer, not a reputable company.
Learn to love Alaska
In the UK is this normal practice? - If you cannot crack the bat over the head of a minor, go looking for a parent.
If this had gone to court and the courts sided with the BPI, what sort of punishment would have been dished out, and who would be punished? - the minor, or the parent, or both?
Specifically, if the parent didn't know a crime was going on (meaning they genuinely didn't know their child was downloading copyrighted material), how can the parent be held accountable?
If the parent cannot be held accountable, in these circumstances, why the hell did they settle out of court?
--all typos created using myKeyboard(TM) (patent pending)Who said nobody's buying? Many music companies recorded recorded profits last year. SOMEONE is buying that music, at the prices they dictate. If anything, it sounds like everyone is buying except for a small minority, but because they (the non-payers) are being dicks about it (sharing), it encourages other people to look into it. If it's free and no one's getting sued, what's the real discentive besides ethics (which people like the ones who are getting sued are throwing to the curb)?
If a person wants free music, then I suggest they start buying pepsi, or go learn how to play an instrument and make their own. That way, if you want to share your music with everyone else, it's your right to do so. But don't pretend that you have some sort of right to determine how best to distribute someone else's copyrighted material.
Having said that, I'm all for copyright expiration reform.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Any use of your connection is your responsibility.
Hear hear. Like it or not, Copyrights are necessary in order to promote innovations. Of course, there should be a legal equivalent of the Creative Common License (hey, sometimes people just want to get their stuff out there).
The current beef I have is that the Recording Industries are constantly ripping off their artists by keeping a LARGE portion of the music sale to themselves. And the current copyright licenses are a bit over the board (90 years? Whoa.) Artistic expression, sometimes music, but especially computer programs, are inherently built upon past expressions, having a long copyright is ridiculous for certain form of expressions.
General, these should have long or un-limited licenses...
Book, Painting, works that generally leave behind a physical copy.
These should have a sufficiently long license...
Music, Films (might fall under previous one).
This should DEFINITELY have a short copyright span...
Softwares
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
It is 50k in total not 50k each as the blurb suggests. RTFA!
Agreed. Copyright isn't perfect. The music industry thrives off of their hefty cut, and the punishment to the "ciminals" is probably too severe... ...none of that makes it right.
(Unless you're in a country with laws that say otherwise.)
I was going to make two points here...but of course you'll probably be modded into oblivion so nobody will read my other point...but I'll make it anyway.
£50,000 to settle
Who the hell has fifty thousand pounds sitting around to settle and still won't buy a freaking CD?
50,000 pounds is almost (US) $100,000. If you can afford a $100,000 settlement, just buy the freaking music.
Some people like to collect them and listen to them. My father-in-law has some very old vinyl records. I'm talking the old thick ones from people like Sinatra and musicals like Oklahoma. Stuff that he bought in the 40s. Listening to those things snap and crackle is listening to history. It's quite interesting, actually. One of these days I'm going to buy a turntable to play so he has to leave them to me....;^)
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Who cares what they price the music at?
I don't. That's why I don't buy CDs anymore! Either I download some free stuff on the internet (legatorrents... just google for it) or I listen and donate to Shoutcast radio stations.
They want me to buy something? Maybe they should consider lowering the price of their CDs. CDs are almost twice as expensive as it was ten years ago, is there a reason for it? The price should lower by itself with time but instead it's going up. Now I can buy two DVDs for the price of one CD. And for the price of 2 CDs, I can buy either a book written by Knuth or a DVD/DivX player to go with my TV. And in 5 years, they'll give you a free Intel/Windows computer for each audio CD bought at Wal-mart (the CD will cost $500 and the computer $5).
A specific term to not share? If he's doing this in violation of the agreement, then his ISP can terminate the contract.
Whether he is liable for any copyright infringements would fall under contributory infringement analysis. I can't imagine that his guilt of contributory infringement would have any connection to whether he was sharing his connection legally or not.
Except you're not borrowing it. You're keeping it permanently. Which is exactly what you would have done had you gone to the store and bought it new or used.
You've just screwed the movie company out of money and should be tossed in jail for "stealing" by not paying them every time you watch it.
Had you actually bought the item you could watch it as often as you wished without incurring any further costs.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
actually, I'm up all night downloading mp3s and other w4r3z!
Probably everyone has played a version of the lemonade stand game that teaches simple economic sense or for those more into other things the drug game w/ the same basis.
/em sends a copy of the lemonade stand game to MPAA, RIAA and now BPI.
I'm not an economist or even a leader in the corporation I work for but that game taught me that people are willing to pay what they feel is a decent price for the product they receive and will not purchase any lemonade that is $5.00 a cup even on a 99degree farenheit day with no clouds in the sky.
Apt-get???? That is not a tool for pirating music. It is a program that is used by the Debian distribution to easily download software to your computer. The software is free, and for the most part open source.
I had to do a double take, because my first impression was of an article about the British Pr0nographic Industry.
I'm not sure why you brought the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) into this.
Anyway, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) doesn't go after GPL violations when they don't own the copyright, and rightly so. All GPL violations the FSF get involved with are ones where the copyright was either theirs to begin with or where it was assigned to them.
Just because they wrote the GPL, it doesn't mean they are its sole enforcers or the ones responsible for dealing with GPL violators. Just like any copyright violation, the person (or entity) who needs to deal with it is the copyright holder.
That is fantastic! an excellent way to allow people to share things they care about without breaking the law.
Difficult to tell at a glance - is this US only or is there suport for the UK and Canada?
air and light and time and space
Music Sharing was the 'Killer App' which got many people to join the web and get broadband. The UK figures show that more people came into contact with a wider variety of music. CD sales went up despite the recession and Blatant overpricing.
Bring it on, sue our children for being interested in culture, drive them to hide their interests underground - Remember how music changed your life? You cannot keep people from it. Young people need it to help them become adults.
This will get lots of ordinary people to find out about anonimity and cryptographic networks, using proxies and getting internet accounts and phone lines in someone elses name.
Your Kids will not stop swapping music, they love culture too much but it is being kept from them by hideosuly inflated pricing schemes and self censoring coporate radio.
It will lead to many ordinary people buiding their own wireless community networks, meshing their broadband wireless routers together, it will lead to exclusive networks of trusted friends.
Then you hear loads of whining as really bad people like porno-drug-terrorists will be able to hide what they are doing so much easier.
Using Prohibition to create an economy of scarcity when we could a vital and rich nation nurturing our young creative talent ( which will be tommorows exports ).
Perhaps a sensible solution will arise before the mainstream goes underground.
Like compulsory liscensing for ISPs or a Media Tax that can compensate ARTISTS (and not the fat cat record company SPIV's) so people can continue to do what they feel is morally right share stuff that they are into.
The Music Distribution Industry is making too much money due to its total stranglehold over radio and TV presentation of music and record stores.
They don't pay music artists properly, they don't facilitate, nurture and encourage, they just feed parasitically of others creativity, blackmailing them into completely unreasnoble contracts.
They keep good art down, they have no morals, they sell garbidge to your kids who believe in the authority of mainstream media, they leech money by selling fake rebellion just for cash through their Stepford bands.
Imagine if Music Swapping was Legal.
Artists can probably make as much as they get of Record/ Media Companies by gigging and from Loyal Fans who will buy their merchandise and support them. Records will become hits because they have been widely swapped and distributed, Great performances will be archived by collectors instead of lost, orphaned to copyright.
Lets take culture away from non creative parasites, good art doesn't need publicity - word of mouth is the way good culture spreads.
These People who are suing music fans are Evil, they do not create they do not nurture and foster art, they blackmail, curtail and impoverish us as a Nation.
America may take blatant coprporate greed lying down, but in Britain the long tradition of not taking it will prevail.
If let these fascist monopolist pigs get away with this it will drive you children to hide what they do and see.
This will bring more disorder than the poll tax riots, burn the major labels, destroy playlist radio, bring it on, and burn forever in ahell of your own making.
It is morally right to share things that you like with others to turn your friends onto culture.
>>British Phonographic Industry (BPI) I swear, I read that as Pornoghraphic. My jaw hit the floor.
Thats right make music swapping Illegal then your kids will have to get their MP3s from crack houses, then you'll be sorry.
... which p2p networks are they monitoring? :o
Or you could just have thrown it into your dvd-rom drive and used mencoder to make a very nice copy. I do it all the time.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Except you're not borrowing it. You're keeping it permanently.
Partially accurate, but doesn't really tell the whole story. One thing you missed: You're not taking anything from anyone when you download music. You're simply making a copy that you're not authorized to make. You don't deprive anyone of anything.
You can't deprive someone of "potential revenue", because they never had it in the first place...
Place sig here.
People sharing files is just like people copying a movie or tv show for a friend. Lets also remember that an MP3 is NOT an exact copy. So for the record producers to say that is stealing is wrong.
Lets also look at new censorship rules being pushed by politicians in the US.
The internet is hated by TV, Music and film companies.
How long will it be before we have boxes installed on all computers checking for anything that might be copyrighted or anything that is deemed 'indecent'.
We might be seeing it already. The war has begun.
..that people ripping songs from Phonographs was so widespread.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
told be to download it from Kazaar!! Meg Lee Chin ROCKS!! Anyways - Im a Brit but aint really downloaded anything since Audio Galaxy was squished. Wheres a good place to download from, and if I like what I download - WHAT THE $*!#£ ARE MY CHANCES OF IT BEING SOLD IN THE UK?!!!
-- If you are brodcasting an mp3, you are not offering the file for download as in p2p.. however that does not stop someone from recording the stream.
-- It is the same with radio broadcasting, there is nothing to stop someone from recording the broadcast
-- now granted the quality of a radio broadcast is not the same.. but then neither is the quality of an mp3
I wonder if the day will come, when there are crackdowns on internet broadcasters as well... I hope not, shoutcast is pretty slick IMHO
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Am I the only one who at first glance read "The British Pornographic Industry" in the summary?
*sigh* This is why I hate people.
You're saying it's fine that you stole the video/audio because you intended to steal it from day one, buying it never crossed your mind.
Just brilliant, asshole.
When Origianl Napster was good I found out about lots of excellent music, obscure stuff, I was recommended it or when I found a file I liked, I would look in that persons folder and find other stuff I had never heard of or would have never discovered. I got broadband, my culture horizons were blown away.
I actually started buying cds of stuff I had found out about, and smaller label stuff on vinyl. it was a culturally rich time, now it is harder to find music you have to know what you want in advance.
I buy less cds now I swap less files.
No John Peel, No Napster, Life Sucks.
with reasonable punishement... Downloading a song is equal somehow to possibly killing someone due to reckless endangerment?
Oh right... We're 'endangering' the big corporations, NOW I understand your point.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I guarantee all lawsuits would stop within a month once the soul-sucking corporations stopped getting their infinite percent cut.
It's a rant people, don't reply like this was a thesis statement, but seriously, when are we going to make them give up the "for the artists (children)" argument? I think if the court is going to rule in their favor it should also require them to publicly announce their true actions. Which are using the legal systems to prop up an outmoded business model and integrate profit margins that they otherwise would never have earned anyway.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Except you're not borrowing it. You're keeping it permanently. Which is exactly what you would have done had you gone to the store and bought it new or used.
So, you agree it isn't stealing if I download it, watch it once, then immediately delete it. If that isn't the case, then there is no reason to bring up the "keeping permanently" issue as relevant.
Had you actually bought the item you could watch it as often as you wished without incurring any further costs.
You obviously haven't been paying attention to some of the methods they've been selling works. Your assertion only works if they are selling a license-free copyrighted work. Many media distribtors claim both licensing of works, as well as protection under copyright. Of course, one could logically claim they aren't violating the license when they download it, then claim they aren't violating the copyright by installing it. If they want to play in both worlds, they don't get to pick and choose the best of each and ignore their responsibilities. Remember, to claim the copyright protection they are looking for, they have to give the work to everyone first. They forget that fact, as, apparently, have you.
Learn to love Alaska
I bought a CD recently of 50 year old recordings. It hadn't been remastered or cleaned up in any way. I didn't special order order it but when I saw it I figured I'd never see it again. At any rate I'm the fool because I spent USD$23.95 + tax for a single CD. I'm left wondering though how many more fools like me are still around and what the fuck the record companies think the real world notion of value is? I mean, seriously - an old recording repressed to a CD with no post production, probably was sitting in the bins for 10 years and every 'artist' involved is probably dead by now. D'ya think the suits made their money on it, yet? Perhaps the only response we as consumers have is to try to press the copywrite owners into a patent-like situation where they get exclusive rights for a few years and then they lose all rights to the recording and we can do with it whatever we wish.
Copyright in its current form is broken. The system was originally meant as a way to enrich the public by giving authors a short-term monopoly on the distribution of their creations, after which they would fall into the public domain. The original intent is gone; copyright now exists only as a means to enrich the copyright holders and their grandchildren.
Until the laws are returned to something reasonable (like the original 28 years with no automatic extensions), I will continue to freely flaunt these laws without a touch of guilt. If they are going to abuse the system, I'm going to ignore it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Some questions i'd like answered:
yeah, there's always a quote like this. trying to make it sound so righteous. What about the parents who said "wtf, you're extorting 5 grand out of us for what?" they never get quoted. What attempt. It's pay a huge fine*, or go to court and risk paying a really huge fine. It can't be a deterrent and be fair. So admit it: it's not fair to the people caught, but you're desperate to scare people. I trust the next BPI press release will show how much the artists got from this (yes, sarcasm).What kind of music (artists, genres, labels) were they sharing?
Why were they singled out (uh, awful pun)- sharing >x000 songs on a fixed IP for > x days?
Are the IPs of these british organistions listed in anti-anti-P2P blocking lists? i can bet these people weren't using any blocking, but would it have helped is another question.. proper anonymous music trading networks anyone?
*and admit you've been naughty and promise not to do it again, of course. whatever that means.
interesting, the fact that two people out of such a small pool were caught *twice* suggests they are looking for something very specific, like a particular list of songs (e.g. counting the matches, then taking the IPs of those with the most?). i'm guessing that these were people with dynamic IPs, rather than those sharing e.g. at home and at work.
Well i've been expecting this to happen in the UK - really, i'm amazed its taken until 2005 - and i always said "fuck it, safety in numbers" but i have to admit it is slightly scary to know you could get caught... i guess carrry on with the indie music, people! (and you know, buy some; just don't support the pigopolists, either by buying their music, or getting caught and really funding their lawyers.
btw, do they actually have to listen to your songs to see if they are the material as named? if so, maybe having a max-uploads-per-IP in the client would help you not get into trouble, as well as being fairer, spreading things around?
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Usually this results in songs that take 5-10% less time to listen to. Excellent stuff!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Until the laws are returned to something reasonable (like the original 28 years with no automatic extensions), I will continue to freely flaunt these laws without a touch of guilt. If they are going to abuse the system, I'm going to ignore it.
I think this is the prevailing attitude around here, not the "music should be free" or "it's not stealing anyway." And this is why most of us don't really care much for copyright holders, especially of the music and movie persuasion.
The second they started pounding nails into the coffin of fair use in the US (DMCA combined with CSS on video DVDs and all the various crackpot attempts to block copying on audio CDs), combined with extending copyright for such insane lenghts of time as to destroy the very idea of public domain (is anything in the public domain in the US? The Bible, maybe? And I hear Moses was filing for an extension...) has created the general "screw me? well screw you right back" attitude from the populace.
"When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy."
... however a CD (in Canada) right now is around 12$ at futureshop. Is that really overpriced ??? What else can you get for 12$ nowadays. I mean, go for lunch at Burger King or McDonals and you end up paying around 8$. Isn't it worth paying 4$ for an album that you'll keep listening over and over ?
People keep saying that
And now i'm sure you're gonna say "12$ is not worth it for all the crap that's out there". Yes there is a lot of crap. But that has nothing to do with the issue. There's still plenty of good album that are worth paying 12$ for.
As far as i'm concerned the issue is not the price of the albums, but more how the record labels redistribute that money to the artists, etc...
A million monkeys and this is the best sig they could come up with...
Copyright law is to prevent publishing of works, you can download and listen just as you can listen to something being played on an pirate radio station.
Uploading, Republishing works on CD or VInYL, remixing, playing music in public spaces, running a pirate broadcast network is illegal.
Leeching is legal, Pir8s are leet or sued
Copyright protects the publishing rights - notice they are suing uploaders.
Downloading is legal same as listening to someone elses CD.
There is a natural right to not be excluded from the culture that surrounds you, copyright is a time limited monopoly given to publishers to encourage art and eventually enrich the public domain.
I think quite a few people said that, but only did so because they figured that there was no way the RIAA/MPAA/etc would go through with it. They were more concerned with downloading warze then the legal uses of p2p.
Now that they are taking this route, the greedy little freeloaders are scared and feel more threatened. Thus they are more vocal then those of us that are glad the RIAA/MPAA/etc are going after those abusing P2P.
If you hate people so much, there's a solution: KILL YOURSELF. Fucking asshole.
I don't keep them permanantly. I keep them until I have a hard disk failure. Then I return them.
When will the record companies learn, if they price there product in an affordable price range, people will buy.
Apple are selling songs for 99 cents. And people are still copying those exact same songs illegally over all the file-sharing networks.
Looks to me like the product is already affordable, and a lot of people still aren't buying it. Maybe you pirate-apologists have as much to learn as the record companies.
Claim its "not stealing" is an easy way to get modded up to +5 Informative by rawcocked mooks who slavishly subscribe to any ideaology that anonymously provides them with free porn.
The popularity of iTunes says that people are willing for pay for downloaded music.
The continued existence of widespread music piracy, in spite of the ready availability of downloadable music at a negligible price, at a quality good enough that 99% of the population are physically incapable of telling the difference from a live performance, and under terms and conditions that permit the vast majority of what people actually want to do, begs to disagree.
er, Grokster in the 9th circuit...
what the hell are you talking about? if you pay more than $15 for a CD, you're an idiot. if you can't find CDs on sale for $10-12, you arent looking hard enough. hell, go onto amazon, find a $15 CD, and click "buy new or used for as low as $x.xx, i have bought several brand new (still in the wrapper) CDs for under $10.
DVDs cost anywhere from $15 to $30 for a new movie release, $30 to $60 (or more) for one season of a tv show, and while similar deals can be found for DVDs, no, you cannot buy 2 DVDs for the price of one CD, unless they are the DVDs in the bargain bin that nobody wants, and you are paying full retail price for CDs (in which case you are retarded.)
You can't deprive someone of "potential revenue", because they never had it in the first place...
I'm sorry, but if I am considering buying something and then change my mind and download a copy instead, it seems quite clear to me that someone has lost revenue. Because if I hadn't downloaded my copy, I would have paid them instead.
It cuts both ways, see. If you want to argue that someone pirating something they would never have bought does not represent a loss, because they would not otherwise have bought the product, you have to concede that someone who would otherwise have bought the product does represent a loss.
i haven't bought a single cd since 1999 when i started using napster
many iterations of file sharing tools later, i'm on emule, and i have a simple solution to beating the riaa, et al:
i embrace world music, i let my mind wander
currently, i'm into filipino music (i live in new york city)
the thing to do is is to expand your musical interests to things beyond the usual pop crap, and you are also therefore using the new file sharing technology to its greatest benefit: connecting with resources that otherwise would be beyond your grasp in the pre-interent universe
embrace world music, screw the pop crap, and you win two ways:
1. you won't be on the riaa's radar
2. you'll grow new brain cells as you develop an awareness of a world beyond your nation's borders
there really is a lot of good stuff out there that isn't the usual robbie williams or britney spears crap
free your mind and give the bastards who want to market you sugar water the finger in the process
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
If anything, it is the labels / artists who should have to pay fines everytime they rattle off phrases like that. I bet they don't use that sort of language in court. No one is stealing anything from anyone. There is no property that is being exchanged, nor has anyone's actions resulted in someone somehow losing any material item. They make it sound like every d/l song is a lost sale and that a lost sale should be counted as an asset. Maybe at Enron, but that's completely bogus.
What is happening is that people are illegally infringing on the labels / artists right to distribute (ie. copy) said material. That is not stealing. If someone goes into a library and photocopies an entire copyrighted book, they are infringing on the copyright owner's right to issue copies; however, that does not compare to the person who goes into a bookstore and removes from the bookstore, without paying, the same book. THAT is stealing! Both are committing an illegal activity but they are exceptionally different in character.
Besides, copyright is a stupid law to begin with.
A company responsible for managing author's rights in Belgium is under judicial scrutiny, and searches have been performed in their offices this morning.
The accusation is that they've been stealing (yes, really stealing, not just infringing) money that was to be distributed to the authors.
While they're innocent until proven guilty, I wouldn't be surprised if they are guilty. A customer, who was playing an original work of mine, was harassed by them. One of their official representatives stated under oath that they managed the rights of my work. Not so.
The issue was cleared up quickly, but I should have filed charges for perjury.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
...who to go after? Yes they can snaffle your IP and contact your ISP, but thats surely where the stinky stuff hits the fan, surely anyself respecting ISP would tell them to reproduce with themselves and read the data protection, because I'm pretty its illegal to hand over the details of the user, especially as they are suing straight off and not even trying to press criminal charges, where there might be some merit to ignoring the DPA.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Seriously, though, according to TFA, they're going after uploaders (sharing thousands of files) rather than downloaders. For the time being, at least. So my quest to find a decent MP3 of Love Affair's 'Everlasting Love' can continue for a little while longer.
[glances around nervously] Er, I hope.
You must think in Russian.
FTA: "Record sales aren't going to improve until the BPI or the RIAA stop stuffing crap down our throats"
Actually, record sales have increased in 2004. The whole decrease was rather debateable, since that was only full on on-a-CD-through-retail sales that are getting quoted, not total product moved.. nevermind digital album sales.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Not to mention, when it makes products people will not buy, it should not blame lack of sales on other reasons.
Case in point, there are several CD's on my Buy list, that are "copy corrupted", which I will not buy until they come out in CD-DA format. (As they can no guarantee that the will work on all CD equipementI own, or will own in the future). I have no doubt that all "loss of sales",including mine, they have attributted to "pricey" (typo, but it's an accurate description). What I've done is gone to every record store in town, picked up all the CD's I would have bought, went to the counter, and asked for a "real" CD of them. When they couldn't give me one (and it got a lot of confused faces) I said I could buy them because they were an inferior product, and a lost sale, and left the store. (let them re-stock it) Only Virgin took any notice, HMV couldn't care less. HMV onloline don't even label the defective CD's (amazon do) which I'm considering reporting to the ASA) (If you're not in the UK, don't worry about the TLA's :)
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
I steal music, I steal software, I would steal your skanky girlfriend given the opportunity. I would probably even steal your Mum. Fuck off.
"Steal copyrighted property"?
Isn't what is going on duplication? That sure is what is going on from what I see, the crime is copyright infringement and not theft. No matter how you try to make any kind of quazi-legal terms, the purely legal terms always hold out in a legal deabte. Theft is in the U.S and U.K, the felenous removal of property from somebody's posession, depriving them of that. Since by copying we do not remove property from somebody, it is only logical that the crime can be called illegal copying.
The crime isn't right, but it isn't theft.
By saying "copyright infringement is a form of theft" you are commiting doublespeak, and if you believe that firmly in your beliefs, doublethink. Simple, and easy.
Is someone steals my CD, I have to convince the police its worth prosecuting, and they get due process and a court-appointed lawyer and whatnot.
If a random corp decides to sue me for "stealing" a CD's worth of music, there's no way I can actually afford to go to court, and so they get an instant $2k off me, whether I was guilty of the crime or not.
When the mafia does that they call it racketeering. I'm just waiting for someone to get that actually decided on in court.
Assuming you have thousands of friends and none of them expect you to return their movie.
Fifteen of the 23 used the Kazaa peer-to-peer network, four used Imesh, two used Grokster, one used WinMix and one was on BearShare.
Looks like slsk is still below their radar (unsurprising, being 99% dedicated to non-major label stuff).
The trouble with the "they only go after uploaders" theory is that p2p stops working if people stop sharing. You can't say "it's alright, we can still get away with downloading", when nobody dares make their files available for you to download.
No it doesn't. People clearly are willing to pay for downloaded music, because they do. If they weren't, they wouldn't. The continuing existance of 'piracy' doesn't disprove that statement.
I think part of the problem here is the habit people have of thinking in black & white. This isn't an either/or situation. People can both buy AND copy, and I suspect that's what a lot of people do, they both buy some music and then they download some, or get a copy from a friend, etc.
Why do they buy some and not others? There's the argument of quality, but I suspect it's more often because they don't have unlimited money. You say it's available at a 'negligible price'. Well, as the saying goes, 'a penny is a lot of money - if you don't have a penny.'
I think the real situation is that people are quite willing to pay for music at whatever price - but they may well quite like to have more music than they're willing, or able, to spend money on - so they'll just buy less and copy more if it's more expensive, and vice versa.
I wonder if we could initiate a class action suit against the RIAA and claim compensation for every CD they have sold because we recommended it to a friend or let them listen to a track?
Yeah but dude, if you have a slow machine it could take all day while they compile/rehearse the music.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I have a family friend who works in the music industry today who spoke to the BPI after receiving a letter detailing what the BPI was doing and how they were suing people who held copyrighted material that his company was involved with. In a telephone conversation he had with a representative of the BPI he inquired as to where the money was going to. Originally the BPI replied 'the artist' but on further inquiry they admitted that the money was going to be used to... sue more people!!!!
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
Its copyright infringement..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You can be sued by anyone, for anything.
The question is, can you afford to fight it and not just give up and pay the man.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Personally, i dont care a bit. I used to care.
They have brought this upon themselves.
They have ( are ) treated customers like criminals.
They have ( are ) manipulated the market illegally.
Fuck them. Copy it all. They can all rot in hell.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
and your trebles are belong to us.
It is totally American to steal copyrighted content. The entire country was founded on it for goodness sakes. Prove me wrong. Did the US pay Britain for the land they essentially took? No of course not. Did they pay for all the books they copied, etc? No of course not.
In fact America was literally founded off of stolen technologies from Britain and other countries and that includes music. Now that other countries are doing it to them or are the average joe is following in their own illustrious footsteps they whine and complain and make laws to prevent exactly what there is a historical precedence for.
Here's something for you. What the RIAA and the MPAA are doing is totally UN-AMERICAN and flies in the face of what made the country the nation that it is today.
hows it feel to be a brainwashed tool?
i was just wondering if it felt at all like being gay - which you also seem to be
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
It's just an 'accountablility' thing. They love that here.
They've even suggested locking up parents if their children don't go to school enough.
Yes, going to school is a good thing, but if the child won't go I don't see how locking up the parent will help.
Same here... And several times in a row :)
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
$300 Million sold $83 Million profit.
THOSE ARE SOME DAMN EXPENSIVE SERVERS, iTunes isn't going to help, it's allready totally messed up and it's just going to get worse.
there seem to be a few of us........ ?
Here in the UK the people who are likely to be involved in the clampdown are the British Video Association http://www.bva.org.uk/ and in particular the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/ though most of there work is stopping the production of illegal copies of DVDs for sale.
I believe the reason so many people on this site make that difference is because there is one. The legal system is defined by laws, which are usually written by lawyers for lawyers. There's a certain degree of ambiguity to the usual "layperson", however the ramifications and penalties of certain actions or violations can be immense; depending on the definition of the law. If there's an interpretation problem with that law there's also an appellate process with specialized courts set aside for this up to and including the Supreme Court for literal interpretation and basic civil conformance to the intent of the Constitution. To that extent, many people posting here believe (at least morally) that theft is not the same as infringement, nor should the penalties be equal. The actual law states there's a difference because legally they remain two separate entities. However, by introducing severe civil forfeitures rather than actual criminal penalties tends to muddy the waters. People (not being lawyers) tend to equate the two; for example: in my state if you are convicted of a second offense drunk driving the fines and penalties are considered criminal up to and including $1000 and 30 days in jail. Compare that to a civil proceeding, which is not criminal and the fines can START at $1000 per song. Perception, yes, however the penalties are still not inline with the rest of the judicial process and are arguably the byproduct of big money chasing a cause in the House and Senate. Either way, I think that's why people get so passionate on the subject. If the government is going to hold me responsible to abide by its laws than they better define them exceptionally well. Vice verse as a "layperson", you better educate yourself on those same laws so you know what the hell you're talking about when the situation arises. I think this is one of those times.
I still can't get the screen shots of Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple IIe out of my head.
Do you think you could counter-sue the BPI/RIAA/WFCWFC (Whateverfuckingcompaniesinwhateverfuckingcountry) if they sued you for downloading her song because she told you to?
Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.
I seriously think that the problem is the *AA are trying to focus the problem in a way better to them.
This is, every time I read that making a copy of some copyrighted material is illegal or about how sharing a file is Illegal and all the similarties that people try to find with other "Real Life" examples like this Wall Mart example, I think they are all wrong.
I personally think that, the way music/video and EVERY other kind of information should be treated is like books.
You see, before Internet was broadly adopted as medium for trading copyrighted material THE place where you could get some of those CD's, videos or other places where libraries, same as books (I personally use P2P networks to get books).
Now, when you go to a library, lets say you get a book, you dont pay anything. In Mexico, you can take that book to a stationary shop and ask them to copy it (all of it, from cover to cover) I dont know if it is not legal but, anyway you can do it.
IIRC, in the US they can not do that, but you can ALWAYS go to your house, turn on your Xerox (or scanner/printer) and make a copy for yourself.
I am going to the main point now, if instead of a book, I get a CD, what is the difference? I guess there are libraries with lots of musical material (and here in the UK, my library has lots of videos, which I can get and RIP).
Now, the *AA's are suing people who is sharing that material, but according to that, shouldnt they sue libraries to? they are sharing more than a lot of people! maybe its not online but, it IS the same.
It is up to you, if you go there and get the movie, and you can always copy it and return it so as someone else said, no one loses anything because at the end you wont copy it.
So, what if for example, I open a "Digital Library", with all the "E-books", some videos and audio available. What is the difference between that an the normal library? In that library, I offer all those books and everything for free (I have paid for all and everyone of them, as libraries do or maybe someone who owned the e-book, cd, etc donated it).
So, I am not doing anything bad or am I?
Any user could come to my library and get whatever item is currently available.
For me that raises another question. If in that library I have music, and well, I buy a some music from iTunes, and I want to make it available, I cant do it can I?.
And, one last thing is, when I buy a CD/DVD I watch it, and after several plays, I can sell it. What if I buy a CD in iTunes?? I again, can not do that (at least I cant but if it is possible, correct me).
This gives me an Idea, ok, imagine I buy a CD in iTunes, and listen to it, but at the end, i dont like it. What should I do with MY cd? I dont want it, I want to sell it, so, could I go to Ebay and sell it?
Because all o the things I mentioned before and others I think what this **AA just wanting to screw the people. And personally think that record labels are also trying to screw musicians, and they should be independent (something as that Stinger thing Valve did) and sell their music on the internet. At the end, they could sell their music directly via iTunes, allofmp3 or any other place without having to pay all the royalties to those darn corporations.
Well, that where my $2 MXN.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Especially as you age; either the medical, the movie, or the music industry, or the local school and library district.
It used to be when you aged, you had no wealth in general so no one bothered. But now they do.
btw. sorry for all the spelling erros and horrors... here its 2:00 am... and I need to finish a frigging article =oS I guess I should not been reading /. at all
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
"you can be sued as you are RESPONSIBLE and LIABLE"
No, you are not.
Can you point to any legal precedent for this flight of fancy?
"It would be a good idea to block p2p ports on your router."
And which would they be, Einstein?
This is pretty dumb. Its like you learned a little bit about TCP/IP that they have "ports" that I guess you figure are like those places where ships go and park.
But then you get all fuzzy, but you do know you can block these port thingies. I guess so that ships can't get in?
Or what exactly did you have in mind?
Do you realize this is pretty much impossible to do without rendering your network useless?
Oh wait, let me put it in a way you can understand:
"The big ships can't dock in the port at all if you block them, and that would be bad!"
" I don't know"
If you stop right there, you'll be 100% accurate. If you add any more of those words, you'll be incorrect.
So lets just agree that you don't know what you're talking about.
You're welcome!
Roadrunner is saying They (roadrunner) will hold you responsible for the connection. But that has nothing to do with the MPAA.
I know this is hard for some of you kids to see the difference, but this is a significant difference from what you're suggesting.
Thank god I live in Brazil.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
...and to make them compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from.
and for 1000th time - unauthorized copying isn't stealing goddammit!!
Really? I'd love to see how the settlement checks are disbursed to music composers. I'm sure that the audit determines exactly which songs were downloaded and then settlements are sent to the artists on a proportionate basis! Er, or suppose it is just possible all the money goes to the lawyers and the recording industry--Nah, that couldn't be the case...
It should have read:
From the article: "We are determined to find people who illegally distribute music, whichever peer-to-peer network they use, and to make them compensate the... heh, the ar... hah ha ha ha ha, he hee hee, ha ha.. whew, excusee me. Ahem. Let me try again. Hee hee. Compensate the art HA HA HA ha ha, no no, let me finish, the artists, HA HA HA ha ha ha, ha ha hee hee hee, COMPENSATE THE ARTISTS HA HA HA, ha ha ha ha, artists, ha ha, compensation!,HA ha ha, hee hee, ha ha, ha ha, haha, ha... whew. ahhhh. heh. Ok, Compensate the artists and labels they are stealing from."
I'd like to try and track down some of these people; so far all I've found is the BPI press release, where they give the initial letter for the surname only.
It would be good to actually hear from some of these people (is there any chance they are stooges for the BPI?).
Another example of the sheer greed of the music industry. Record sales have actually been increasing in the UK in recent years - so they can't claim that file sharing is damaging their bottom line. This is amazing in the face of the growth of marketing driven, manufactured popular music, most of which is of a very low quality, and file sharing may indeed be partially responsible for helping to drive this profit growth.
Personally, I believe that all music should be free. It is not a full time job to produce music, and if artists want to make a living from music, they can do so through sales of tickets for live performances and appearances. There is no excuse for the blatent fleecing of consumers by record company monopolies. The growth of an online distribution model will hopefully eventually relegate these greedy, bloated, self interested companies to history. I will never buy another CD. Taking legal action against your own customers is a counterproductive, foolish, and desperate action.
additionally, if you didn't know you woudl still be held accountable because ignorance of the law is not a valid defense.
You are confusing "Ignorance of the facts" and "Ignorance of the law". Ignorance of facts can be a very valid defence, depending on whether you ought to have known the facts.
Given the very close-to-pornness of current music videos, is there really a difference?
Interesting to see what happens if some of these cases come to court with someone like EFF taking the defence brief and standing the financial risk of losing. There is a significant public interest in knowing and understanding what the laws are. Meanwhile, BPI should quit saying they can enforce the law ; that's intimidation which is criminal ; only the courts can enforce the law. The BPI can bring evidence and representation before the courts, same as anyone else can.
It would be fun to role-play this. In principle, the laws are set up by the Queen (as constitutional leader). I wonder if she had this outcome in mind for her loyal subjects. If not, I wonder if she'll change the laws. Copyright is a 'choice' thing.
Music 'libre' at http://www.etree.org/ . They like it if you share. They won't sue their customers. Better model.
You'll probably be OK if you're acting like an ISP, but you may well still have to go to court (mostly to prove it wasn't you).
Only elephant seals accept penguins as currency, and they're way too ethical, polite and pleasant smelling to work in the music business.
Blank until
if it weren't for the filesharing, I WOULD NEVER BE EXPOSED TO THE ARTIST I AM LISTENING TO
solve that quandry and get back to me with your holier than thou attitude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Its copying.
Calling it "sharing" makes it sound cool, but it is an incorrect use of the word for exactly the same reason the use of the word "theft" is incorrect: you are not depriving yourself of anything for the benefit of others, you are not making use of a single communal resource, you are not apportioning resources, you are simply making a copy (theft is "sharing" someone else's resources without their permission). Copying is copying, sharing is sharing, the two do not mean the same thing, and that's why there are two different words.
You can gripe about semantics all you want, but both sides are guilty of playing word games and being free with euphemisms. And if the definition of "sharing" can be flexible...sauce for goose...etcetera...
Blank until
"Of course, there should be a legal equivalent of the Creative Common License"
The CCL is simply an application of existing copyright law. In order to achieve the same effect with music, you just distribute a recording with suitable notices: instead of "Unauthorized copying prohibited, all rights reserved" you write "Unauthorized copying for profit prohibited without express consent of the artist, free for use in public domain works"; this is perfectly legal. Since copyright prevents only unauthorized copying and your terms specify when copying is permitted, you have granted a limited license to make copies under certain conditions.
There is absolutely nothing that requires a musician to exercise complete control over a work, and in fact copyright guarantees an artist the right to release their work in whatever manner they see fit without control being usurped by a record company. It's not a question of the option existing, more a question of musicians adopting the idea.
"Artistic expression, sometimes music, but especially computer programs, are inherently built upon past expressions"
Sometimes music? Sometimes music? With the charts full of polished punks* and disco divas, I could have sworn I was back in the 70's, except people are wearing less brown. All forms of creative work rely on past instances for reference; music, art and literature, certainly, but programming...that's tricky. Most of what I learned 20 years ago is totally useless today (remember when bubblesort was the latest thing in programming? I do). I very much doubt anyone reaches for a FORTRAN manual when they're trying to debug Java**; writing machine code for a bare bones Z-80 is a world away from API calls. Considering the pace of change and the complete design philosophy shifts, I'd argue that prior expression is less important for computing than the arts***.
Otherwise, I'd agree. Copyright durations are too long (though you don't want to make them too short, otherwise the **AAs will simply shelve works until the copyright has expired, neatly avoiding the whole issue of paying royalties at all). It is interesting that you believe the forms that have the highest input costs should have shorter copyright durations than paintings (the only field where the artist stands to gain more by dying than producing more work and often earns little recognition in their lifetime), though it's no surprise that those are also the most profitable endevours...
*The punk version of "spit and polish" leaves out the last two words.
**Unless they're a masochist or very, VERY drunk.
***Not putting anyone down, I just consider programming to be more of a science than an art, if only because its dealing with mechanical (electrical) cause and effect: in theory, the behaviour of a computer should be perfectly predictable, like any well constructed circuit (though if it was we wouldn't need computer science courses). That said, ever since Og first ground ochre into a paste to make mammoth pictures on the cave wall, art and science have been inseperable; you can't make art unless you can manipulate your environment, and the better you can manipulate the better your expression. And art inspires science: about the only device from Star Trek that hasn't been attempted is a warp core, and I'm pretty sure that's only because nobody has enough dilithium...yet...
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Yes, the analogy is absolutely correct, and should apply, but only in a perfect world. 90 percent of this copyright and digital laws which are there are only to protect the interests of the Corporates and not for the consumers or the musicians. You are also forgetting the difference in content in a Library vs. a Bookstore or Amazon.com. There is a huge difference there.
Vicki
Amazon==Bookstore != Library
I think there is nothing confusing here, the Library does not sell information, it only lets the people get it.
Now, I dont really know how the libraries work (about the law) if they have only to buy the books/videos/cds or they need to pay to have the "right" to share it with the citizens
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'