Slashdot Mirror
Teens Don't Think CD Copying is a Crime
An anonymous reader writes "An article in the Orlando Sentinel reports on a poll done by the LA Times and Bloomberg. The informal study looked at teenager attitudes towards copying media. Only 31 percent said they thought it was illegal to copy a CD borrowed from a friend who had purchased it. Attitudes about ill-gotten media were less clear, and the article admits than even the legal system is slightly fuzzy on this issue." From the article: "Among teens aged 12 to 17 who were polled, 69 percent said they thought it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21 percent said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music for free. Similarly, 58 percent thought it was legal to copy a friend's purchased DVD or videotape, but only 19 percent thought copying was legal if the movie wasn't purchased. Those figures are a big problem for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, both of which have spent millions of dollars to deter copying of any kind. The music industry now considers so-called 'schoolyard' piracy -- copies of physical discs given to friends and classmates -- a greater threat than illegal peer-to-peer downloading, according to the RIAA."
In Germany the copy from a legally bought CD given to a close friend is legal. So the law was made according to the natural feeling of the public.
Although that copying has been limited recently by the addidion 'you may copy - but not if the media is protected by a _WORKING_ digital protection'. Well.. most CD anti-copy schemes today are easy to overcome and this very soft rule has not been tested in court yet. The musiv industry just plainly tries to keep their too high prices up by suing everyone around and lobbying for more limiting laws.
Spelling errors were made for your amusement only...
Audio home recording act ... the one that requires cd recorders to include the Serial Copy Management System also allows copying for private use i.e. to play in the car, give to your friend etc.
This is completely legal here in Canada.
"My fellow Americans, these are not the droids the nation is looking for."
No, the fact that CDs are not encrypted does not mean that you are allowed to copy them without restriction. Fair Use allows you to make backup copies, or create copies for your car, or rip them to your computer, but you are not allowed to give a copy of the CD to someone else. That's unauthorized redistribution, and is not even close to a legitimate use. AFAIK lending the CD to a friend, provided that copies are not made, is fine. Although I suppose there might be an issue if you lend the CD while using a backup copy for yourself at the same time. I'm not sure.
You might be referring to time shifting devices, which were ruled legal decades ago.
The same Fair Use rights apply to DVDs. The difference is that the CSS encryption in commercial DVDs qualifies as an "effective technological measure" under the DMCA. Tools that are capable of breaching such technological measures cannot be distributed. So while you have a right to rip a DVD that you own to your hard drive under linux, it's illegal for someone else to make available to you the program needed to do that.
This article (or rather, its summary, as I did not RTFA) does not mention teen opinions of legitimate copies, but only illegal copying for friends.
Please correct me if I said anything inaccurate.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material for personal use may be a civil violation, but it is NOT a crime, and never has been. If teens don't think copying CDs is a crime, good!
You notice that all these RIAA filing sharing suits are SUITS, not indictments? What does that tell you?
Copying is a crime if it's done commercially. I think it might also be a crime if the material is hosted on a computer for sharing, but prosecutions for that are very very rare.
The entire idea of criminal copyright infringement is a fairly new concept. Copyright violation is a civil matter unless it is done on a commercial scale.
Violations of civil laws are not crimes.
I don't know why this concept is so difficult to grasp by slashdotters, because clearly teens have figured it out.
Go read the problem with music and link it to your particular artistic endeavor, and then come back and tell me if your real problem are the teens "ripping" your profits.
Rudd-O - http://rudd-o.com/
Actually, under the Berne Convention, copyright laws in all signitory jurisdictions must give the author copyright on their work without the author having to explicitly state anything.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Thanks to the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act), making a copy of a friend's CD is indeed legal!
The reason that "Music" CD-R is more expensive than "Data" CD-R? License fees paid to the RIAA to cover the copies made in this way. The artists are supposed to get compensated from those fees, but like so much where the RIAA is involved, the artists are being left out in the cold.
Let's insist that the facts be reported rather than the RIAA and MPAA's propaganda, shall we?
Who, me?