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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."
... hard at work!
This is not the greatest
in a related study, 95% of teenagers said they don't care if its legal, they want their goddamn Kanye West CD.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
You want to know what is a crime? I'll tell you what is a crime. It's a crime that these large organisations reap the profits from pressed pieces of plastic onto which are recorded hideous noises that sound like gang-warfare in Harlem and Watts, and then use this money to harass families and children for every last red cent so they can line their pockets.
So yeah, copying a CD is not a crime.
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...
a greater threat than illegal peer-to-peer downloading, according to the RIAA
Yes, because, at least for p2p, they have their sueing and scare-tactics. The RIAA didn't get their claws on CD-burning technology early enough to prevent its use for pirating music, so they see it as a greater threat.
I thought it was ok to copy CD's and VHS, didn't they decided that was legal in the 80's? As far as I know that hasn't been overturned. The only thing that makes copying DVD's illegal is the encryption. Regular CD's are still fair game, right?
In further news, the RIAA and MPAA have recently decided that everything is, in fact, a greater threat than everything else. "We intend to launch our initial wave of lawsuits against everything very soon," said industry spokesman Blodug Fossergrim. "Everything else will have to wait."
It must be noted that NOT ALL CD OR DVD MEDIA SOLD IS COPYRIGHTED.
Many artists - and DVD video creators - encurage you to copy and spread their work/information.
Thus; just asking "is it legal to copy a CD" is misleading.
For example, the documenaties you can download from http://torrentchannel.com/ are completely legal to copy and share with your friends.
It is legal to copy a CD you made with a song you wrote yourself where you yourself are singing.
It is not legal to copy a CD where the copyright belongs to some member of the very evil MPAA.
Thus; it is a bit stupid to just ask "Is it legal to copy a CD", the obvious answer to that question is "YES, it IS LEGAL - unless the Copyright holder of the work on that CD objects to it"...
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
What's funny is that we suddenly have 10 year olds with a criminal record because they took advantage of a service available on pretty much every computer. I'm not putting a dent in studio sales by downloading a movie. They hardly make anything on the DVD sales compared to ticket sales. Didn't they teach us on Sesame Street to share?
The teenage demographic is their prime target. They want these kids to continue to consume the music they put out without questioning it, thusly creating a pattern for them to follow their entire lives.
Thankfully, these kids have decided that it's more reasonable to think that sharing music with friends of yours isn't a crime. This creates panic in the RIAA because if enough people come to think that way, it suddenly won't be illegal. As much as you can say that the law will still be on the books, if enough people are breaking the law, how well does that law hold up?
These kids are just exhibiting common sense, and common sense is the enemy of the **AA's.
The RIAA brought this on themselves with an aging business model where media sells for far more than its worth to many consumers.
Is it right to deny your friend a copy of your CD because some company claims to own the right to make copies of it? It's a stark moral choice: do you help your friend or do you defend the rights of the owner? It's pretty obvious to me which one is right. Unfortunately it's probably just as obvious to others that I'm wrong.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is completely legal here in Canada.
"My fellow Americans, these are not the droids the nation is looking for."
I wonder if on the grand scheme of things whether the RIAA et al's resistance to free copying will end up being an endnote in history books because later generations will simply ignore them, thinking (and rightly so) that they are living in the past?
Why should they have to limit themselves simply because the recording companies refuse to adapt?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I personally don't go to any concerts because the price of a ticket is inflated. I'd pay 10$ for a show of musician I wanted to see, but not $50 and upwards per seat. At $10 a seat, the musicians and everyone involved would still get paid. I think the problem comes in that if they add in additional supply(extra days playing concert), the demand would be satisfied too much, and they'd be unable to charge the inflated price for the tickets. So instead of playing a $50 concert one day, and a $10 one the next, they'd be playing maybe two concerts for $20 a piece for a loss of $20 per ticket and extra work involved(theoretically). I know they're aiming for the profit mark on the supply/demand curve and not caring about the public's greater interest. I guess this is where fanboys come in. They buy the tickets for the inflated price, never knowing its inflated, while the people who have some demand, but less are left to skip the concert and listen to the CD. Even if mega musicians in today's age never sell an album because of piracy, they could technically just start playing more concerts and still make way more money than your average man.
God spoke to me.
It's only natural for a kid to share their favorite music with their friends. The only part of this that should be criminal is the quality of the music being exchanged in these swaps.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Let me stake out a position here:
I think that most people who are happy to freely duplicate copyrighted works have never been in the position of selling anything of their own.
I think that people who sell their own materials (be it books, music, software etc.) are more likely to be aware of the effort that creators put into their creations. Such people are more likely to identify with fellow creators. They are thus less willing to duplicate material without fair recompense because they know how wretched they feel when they see copies being made of their own materials.
These beliefs lead me to make the following testable proposition: A person who starts selling their own original materials will be less willing to duplicate the copyrighted works of other people.
I welcome informed discussion. Of course, this is Slashdot, so I expect the signal-to-noise ratio to be woeful!
AussieScribe
Tomorrow's headline: Teenagers are not literate in copyright laws! There was the same response as this to the article about evolution illiteracy. The average person simply doesn't know.
Doesn't know, and doesn't care... Apathetic and amoral are the values that prevail today. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. But I would've preferred to hear that Teens don't think copying CD's is illegal in a defiant stand against the RIAA, "THE RIAA CAN SUCK ON THESE", said one young man as he pointed his two index fingers to the sky, instead of I want to listen to MY Justin Timberlake/Ciara/Fergie and nobody's gonna stop me...
Of course enjoying the fruits of someone's work without paying for it (when they expect to be paid) isn't theft!
Last night I went to see a movie I've been looking forward to all summer. And the cool part was, it was free! You see, the guy who takes the tickets at the theater is kind of old and it's easy to sneak by him. Geez, they're not even going to try to protect their rights! Anyway, it's not theft, because there were empty seats in the theater, so they weren't going to get any money even if I didn't go. And besides, everything Hollywood produces is crap.
Then I took the subway home. It didn't cost me anything because I jumped the turnstile. One of my friends said I was committing "theft" -- obviously he can't think for himself. I mean, the city was running the train anyway, and there were empty seats. Besides, the subway sucks, and they fill the route with lots of stops I'm not interested in (I only want to pay for the stop next to the theater and the one near my apartment).
There used to be a bus line that was more convenient, but the city shut it down, with some lame excuae about not making enough money to justify the expense. That just shows that they suck and don't deserve my money anyway! Fight the Man! Transportation wants to be free!
I probably won't go to that theater any more. I heard they're installing some new "security system" to prevent people from getting in without paying. That really pisses me off! How dare they! It just goes to show how evil they are. And besides, it serves them right if they lose money -- watching movies in a big theater with other people is an outdated business model!
sample size?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
**AA needs to just sue the f**k out of the kids. I mean, it's been an effective tactic so far...
. . . that said P2P file sharing was a silver bullet that was going to destroy their whole business? Now they are saying that 'Schoolyard Piracy' is more of a threat? Schoolyard Piracy has been around Forever. Ever since cassette recorders hit wal-mart shelves, people have been copying each other's purchased music. And it was probably going on before then, but I wasn't around so I wouldn't know. Even though people were copying music from each other in this physical, sneakernet, manner, the recording industry (and, comparatively, software industry) flurrished. And aside from the occational 'copying is bad' print ad, the music industry never cared. What changed? People also used to record songs off the radio all the time. Now XM is in trouble for simply providing a device capable of it. What changed? Personally, I buy music if I think it's good enough to buy, which is actually quite often. I like owning the physical cd, and I don't like getting music that is DRM protected because I don't like the lack of trust I'm being given. So if I buy music online it's from emusic.com. Just last week a friend of mine copied an album for me- it's awesome, I decided after listening to two songs I wanted to buy it- but it's not available on emusic, so I've been spending the week trying to physically find it so I can give the artist and record label money for it. The only reason they don't have my money yet is because they refuse to make it available in a reasonable format online. Who's fault is the lack of this sale? You know what happened when software companies started acting like this? Open source software started showing up. . .
Then, finally, show a music executive, laughing, having lunch at some expensive restaurant, drinking fine wine, getting some young artist to sign on the dotted line. "Copyright Infringement" [fade to black] "It's NOT theft."
"
You've got the wrong image, there. You need footage of a teenager actually getting to meet his all-time favorite talent. You know, right there in the green room, for a one-on-one with, say... I don't know, Green Day or Avril Lavigne. The teenager says to Green Day, "Dudes! You guys totally rock. You're like the soundtrack of my life - I listen to you all the time, and I really can't wait for that next CD you're working on. I know you've been working on it all year and everything, but you won't mind if I just rip my copy off, right? I mean, I love you guys, just not enough to actually pay you what you're asking for your work. You know, a buck a song is totally unfair to me, personally, even though I want you to entertain me even more in the future, cuz you guys just totally kill with your songs about The Man and everything. Hey, are you going to eat that extra back-stage food? One of those club sandwiches would go great with my $3.75 half-caffe-double-shot-no-whip-skinny-iced-latte.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
Let me stake out a consumer viewpoint...
Perhaps you've got some talent that is vaguely interesting to me...
I don't owe you anything, but I choose to SUPPORT your expression by listening/reading/watching and sharing the news with others...
At some point in the process you are just pleased as hell that anybody cares at all...
Soon your art is broadcast over airwaves onto my property, into my car, on commercials between my kids cartoons, on my elevator and your excerpts are slipped into the pages between jumk mail that's dropped in my mailbox uninvited. You sell your services to advertisers/promoters who are trying to take my money. Your clothes line is produced by third world sweatshops and sells for 3X more than the generic brand. You are trying to sell me a perfume with your name on it (and some pimple cream too) and you have a commercial on the air urging me to imbibe addictive substances so I can get a "free" mp3. You sell pictures of your frigging baby to the news media.
Do I protect your financial interests when my friend asks to copy a song? Probably not...
Wait, you're not THAT artist? You're struggling, selling CDs at your show and living at home waiting for your big break? Ah, then, nevermind, because nobody is copying your damn CD!
ART is not some magic invisible soul cream. If you are selling your art, then you are selling your thoughts. Good luck to you on that, but don't cry about how people are stealing your thoughts. That's just crazy talk. Unless someone steals the plastic you bought and put your thoughts on, then they didn't steal anything from you. A law may say that its theft to listen/read/watch your creativity uninvited, but laws also once valued some people at a fraction of the value of others. Laws are just constructs of the general consensus, and that consensus is changing.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
"teens dont realise its wrong to copy everything from friend and not buy"
actually it is not wrong , on the contrary, where i live it is good to share information and aid friends. by making copy of information i ease it spread and harm noone. Biz models that work on artificial scarcity are evil in their nature. We already have enough problems with natural scarcity of material resources why wold we bring in yet artificial scarcity ?
Being a jew also was a crime, ad even punished by death penalty...
1. Get everyone to produce their own content
2. Find out the world of hell distribution is.
3. They all understand that the internet is a miracle from god to spread their work.
4. The world is a better, more culture rich place
5. Profit???
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Don't copy that floppy!
I fear the Y2038 bug
It is human nature to share stuff, especially when sharing it does not reduce its value to the sharer and can actually increase its value by giving the sharer greater status or encouraging the sharing of other knowledge in return. Human society is built on sharing knowledge. If we were not naturally inclined to share knowledge, we would never have progressed beyond the level of small nomadic family groups - the human equivalent of a pack of apes.
It's also no surprise that kids feel less comfortable sharing something that was not initially paid for - we all inherently understand that it takes work to create or discover new ideas. But we also inherently understand that the work (and thus the cost) is in the creating, not in copying. Under the current system of charging for each official copy, the simplest reconciliation of the two is to be sure that the lineage of the copy you receive includes at least one paid-for copy. It doesn't quite match up, but it is probably the closest that monst kids are going to get given all the other constraints on their lives.
I'm sure there are more than a few people just itching to condemn me for supporting thieves with no respect for copyright owners. Save it. This is slashdot, we've all heard it before a million times. This post is not about morality, it is about human nature for better or for worse.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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/
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.
Man, I just love these kids. Wait a sec, I'll tel you while.
As a quick intro, I'm not even 30 yet, but I still remember the good old days when we used to record dozens of casette tapes with songs from the radio, play it for ourselves, play them on parties, copy it to other friends. Then, if someone managed to get an original tape from somewhere (where I grew up these things were really not that easy to get) we just were just exstatic, everybody copied it and we listened to it till the tape rotted away. We never ever felt we were doing anything that could be labelled as s crime, crime is when you kill someone, not when you listen to music.
These days I buy CDs. I have CDs from most of the bands that we were listening to when we were kids too. If I weren't listening to them on those tapes, I probably wouldn't have bought these disks. If one of my friends would ask me to borrow him a disk, I would do it with no second thought, they would do the same. I know some associations would label us as criminals, still, while I rarely would download music these days, I would still like to know what I'm buying before I'm buying it. I make oggs and mp3s of them to listen to on my portable and on my laptop. If somebody would label me a criminal, I'd smack'em. Still, if I couldn't make a copy or I couldn't lend it to a friend, I'd rather not even buy it.
So, why I love these kids ? Because they are not that brainwashed yet to forget what fair use should mean. In time, they will be, they have no escape. Still, I hope someday someone will realise that drming everything and dog, constraining people up to their necks [well, ears in this case], closing down everything and trying to control and watch everything and everybody is not a solution to anything. Instead of trying to establish even more harder lockdowns, they should just sit down, use their brains and figure out a bussinness model that suits every side - artists, listeners, studios. Yes, I didn't include associations in that list.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Copyright infringement is one issue where personalising it is actually misleading. The biggest reson that copyright infringement is not theft isn't connected to bad analogies with car theft, but with the fact that infringements also act as advertising, and often the infringer wouldn't have bought it anyway.
Strangely enough, the displacement of sales and the advertising effect appear to counter each other almost exactly. However, copyright infringement remains an abuse of trust, so it is still wrong; it is simply mistaken to believe that it leaves the artist out of pocket.
I will say here, to make my position clear, selling pirated goods is theft. What is different? People appear to have a certain sum of money that they spend on music/videos etc; if pirated goods are bought, that money is redirected from the artist or his/her representative, since that cash is no longer in the hands of the purchaser. Accordingly, I would have profiting from piracy be a crime with a fine proportional to the money made, rather than the degree of infringement.
Wikileaks, no DNS
And the funny part is: making low number of copies for close friends or relatives or personal use, as well as copying a borrowed CD for your personal use IS LEGAL. In most of Europe.
Land of the free, indeed.
-m.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060809/od_afp/usatta ckspolloffbeat_060809145351;_ylt=ArnrtaXH3JkyylylP
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
RIAA doesn't really care if you steal or not...
It is nice to know that 69% knows that copying a CD s not theft. So how are we going to explain to the other 31% the same.
Copying a CD is not illegal. I have plenty of Linux CD's I copy, give away or let people make a copy. I still need to figure out where I can get a refund of the extra tax I pay.
It might be illegal to copy the content on it, but that will differ from case to case. Yet that is something different alltogether.
Also this discussion as getting a bit stale. I remeber that I copied music on casette to give copies away, to play in the car or to just be able to listen to only those few numbers I wanted to hear in the order I wanted to hear them.
So what do you do when you have say 100 CD's and only want to listen to only one number from each? I turn those into MP3's and listen to them in the car that way.
These people want me to change the CD each and every time, making me a danger on the road where I might kill children. Please **AA, think of the children!
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
They don't go the next step, so a lot think its legal - but do they think it should be legal? Ie, now that they have been told its illegal are they going to stop or decide "Well, that law is clearly wrong and i'm not going to follow it" ?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
For an MBA case study I came up with a business plan for a record company that actually gave away CDs and still had gross revenues approaching 70%! How? It's simple.
e als_itunes_stats/ [Accessed September 10th 2005]
You can get CDs pressed in China for as little as $0.25 in quantities of 10K. Even cheaper, approaching $0.10 in sufficient volume. Domestic record companies already own the means of production, so I'm sure their cost would approach $0.10 per CD if not actually be sharply lower.
My business plan called for giving these CDs away, primarily at live shows but this could also be accomplished via other channels. CDs given away are intended to be nothing more than loss leaders, contain maybe six tracks, with advertisements and "hidden extras" such as Bios also included and, most importantly, prominently contained URLs leading people to iTunes.
Now it gets profitable.
iTunes pays 70% of the selling price to the distributor / band / whomver owns the music.
Give away some tracks on CD, get people interested and then reap massive margins from electronic distribution rights. The average customer on iTunes purchases SIXTY tracks (Smith, 2005). The average customer will more than pay for that CD. Just the average; we're not talking about the higher volume, rabid fans either.
I did a market analysis and we projected annual growth rates in excess of 60% from the iTunes distribution channel.
So I think record companies have it half ass backwards. Give the fucking sound away, and they'll make more money in the long run.
----
References
Smith, T., 'Apple Touts iTunes customer total', [online], Available from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/08/apple_rev
A message from our sponsor
You're wrong when you say it doesn't apply to computers.
17 USC, Chapter 10, Subchapter A, Section 1008 specifically states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. - (emphasis added)
Section 1001 defines a "digital audio recording medium" to be:
any material object in a form commonly distributed for use by individuals, that is primarily marketed or most commonly used by consumers for the purpose of making digital audio copied recordings by use of a digital audio recording device.
In more common language, this refers to audio/music CD-R discs, which are made to work in digital audio recorders. These discs are different from the more common data CD-Rs, in that they contain special digital markings (standard data CD-Rs won't work in digital audio recorders). In addition, by law a royalty has been paid on this blank media. These royalty payments are in turn distributed to copyright holders (see Section 1006 of the law cited above). They usually cost slightly more than data CD-R discs, but they can be found for less than $0.50 each.
So go ahead, make copies onto music/audio CD-R discs, even give copies to your friends. You can do so legally and without any moral problems - you've paid for the right to do so. As a matter of fact, not copying CDs would be theft - the music industry stealing from you through these forced royalties. (And the RIAA fought for this law. Thanks, RIAA!)
Oh, and if you also use those audio CD-R discs for downloaded music, then that would be legal, too!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'd stop jaywalking and driving over the speed limit. Prostitution is illegal in Illinois, but if I could afford a hooker I'd hire one. The fucking President of the United States doesn't care about "legal", why in the hell should I?
When did they outlaw taping, anyway? And what country are we talking about here; legal WHERE? I understand they collect a tax on blank media in Canada. And what happened to the Home Recording Act of 1976 in the US?
Does somebody have a link to the actual law against taping? Because if it's against the law, I've been breaking it a lot longer than any teenager has been alive, and will CONTINUE to do so. I'll also continue to vote against asshats who want to outlaw NONCOMMERCIAL copying.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
... a crime would be what the majority of the people believes to be a crime.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
I actually tried this, and got knocked back!
I'm a huge fan of a Melbourne (Australia) 3-piece punk/rock/rockabilly band, and I copied their CDs several times to give them to friends overseas. When I met the lead singer/guitarist of this band at a pub, I told him about it and offered to give him $20 AUD, or at least buy him a drink. He politely declined, and told me he was happier that I was spreading good word-of-mouth for the band.
I've bought enough merch and been to enough concerts that my conscience is fine with giving my mates copies of this band's music - and, having spoken to the other band members of several occasions, they don't mind either - but I got the impression that small-scale copying of CDs isn't a huge deal for relatively-sucessful artists.
Maybe these guys are unusually generous, or maybe they get more dosh from tours than from CD sales, so I can't condone my course of action for _all_ artists... but, hell, if illegally copying one CD leads to one new fan (who would otherwhise not exist, such as in the case of my international friends), isn't that a net win for the band/artist?
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Except then you'd' be full of shit, since copyright infringement is theft.
Actually, you would be wrong. Copyright infringement isn't theft, it is ----- infringement. To have theft, you need something tangible to steal. Copyrights, by definition, are intangible property. So, in effect, you aren't stealing anything, you are infringing on the copyright owner's right to say how their intangible personal property is to be used, but in the end, it is still their intangilbe personal property.
By definition, you cannot steal something that is intangible. You can steal the medium it is recorded on or the documentation of what the intangible item is, but, you cannot actual steal what you cannot physically posses.
The simple solution, if you want to legally copy a CD is to do so via analog through a wireless speaker connection. That way, you can use the broadcast exemption already allowed. Of course, I should add IANAL and your mileage may vary.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner.
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?
You know why teens don't think CD copying is a crime?
Because it isn't.
Not inherently, anyway. The natural state of information is free. The pigopolists have made up (read: bought) laws that create an artificial crime out of duplicating otherwise freely available bits. It's all in their imagination, of course, but they've managed to make their farce a reality. Teens see right through that farce and are just ignoring it. Good for them.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Re: the clip: Funny that they should mention Tetris as one game which might disappear if it were copied, since that was subject to its own copyright infringement by various software houses back in the late 80s. An infringement which ultimately led to its mainstream exposure, perhaps? It's OK for them but not for us? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris#History
There will ALWAYS be music and musicians. One cannot say with any certainty that there will always be a music industry.
Just a thought.
Heard any good sigs lately?
And in other news, 100% of all laws polled agree that copyright infringement is not a crime!
It seems that most kids today are coming to the realization that copying data for personal use isn't theft, as a practical matter and shouldn't be as a legal matter. The source they copy the information (be it software, a movie, or music) from still retains exactly the same use of the information as it had before the copy was made -- NOTHING is missing or stolen.
I'd really like to see FIJA (Fully Informed Jury Amendment) implemented so that these kids could just use their common sense to effectively nullify the efforts of despicable organizations such as RIAA and MPAA in court. These kids seem to understand the idea of "No harm, no foul."
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
Even though you have money and bought your music outright, these days, you don't really own the rights to it. Much like money, yeah, you sweated your butt off for it and now you have it on payday. But, do you really own your own money? (Deep and resounding) Nuuuuupe! Just try burning your money! Technically, that is destruction of government property. You really don't own your own money and you don't really own your own music either. Music and money certainly to go together very well. That's a "Virtual Détente" (or a virtual ownership, based strictly upon the mommentary possession thereof), it appears that, you have it but you don't. Also, since the government has the true and final ownership over your own hard earned money, similarly, does that also mean the government also owns your music too? Or, is your music just another "medium for exchange and trade" and in the final ownership of each recording company? The latter certainly appears to be the case, with the abundance of P2P networks! Wether truely legal or not, appears to be irrelevant, as it is generally publicly accepted as "that's how it is." Much like, how the general public has accepted "corruption within the government."
The one problem is that the AHRA really does not apply to computers:
As for computers themselves:
Computers as a whole don't fall within subsection (3) because their digital recording function is not "designed or marketed for the primary purpose of
There was a court case about all this some years back. The RIAA was arguing that computers and computer peripherals such as mp3 players did fall within AHRA. They wanted this to be the case so that they could 1) get royalties, 2) require computer and peripheral manufacturers to implement the SCMS system of DRM that is mandated by the AHRA. In the case, RIAA v. Diamond, both the district and circuit courts found that computers were outside of the AHRA. The cases are worth reading. They even look at the legislative history in which Congress, in debating the law, also said that this law wouldn't apply to computers.
What the AHRA does apply to are Audio CDRs, whether or not you use them in computers or in standalone Audio CDR burners.
Oh, and if you also use those audio CD-R discs for downloaded music, then that would be legal, too!
Of course, if the computer that the downloads go through has RAM or a hard drive that's involved with the downloading, you might still be screwed. The AHRA only protects you against infringement suits with regards to fixation in the AHRA-compliant media. Fixation in other media wouldn't qualify unless you had a sympathetic court that isn't fond of the MAI v. Peak line of cases. The 4th Cir. maybe?
Oh, and jZnat is correct re: how to cite the USC.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Think about it--what is more important--the questions about the 2004 vote or copying a CD?
...where 93% of those polled believe it is a crime to actually purchase a CD and the remaining 7% just responded "Micro$oft suxors".
"Teens Don't Think CD Copying is a Crime". I do not know about the United States, but it is not a crime to copy music in Denmark. When you are copying someone elses copyrighted works you are breaking copyright rules, and the copyrightholder can take the case to a civil court. You will not be arrested by the police. Teens are clever.
The music industry is making teens addicted to music though advertising. Maby it is not good music, maby teens can not afford it, but they got to have it. When you claim to own culture and insist on advertising it, you are inviting to copyright infringement. Apocalypse is near.
Music, movies and litterature is NOT a product. It is culture, and as a society we are dependent on it. Stealing from a drugdealer is not so bad, is it?
I was at a concert in January. Afterwards there was a meet-n-greet with the band. When I handed the CD insert of one of his albums to the guy, while standing there with 3 t-shirts I'd just bought, I made a point to tell him that I wouldn't have bought the CD and wouldn't have been here tonight at the concert, if I hadn't downloaded his music first.
His response?
"Good!"
This just in: in a remarkable show of cooperation between the **IA and the public education system, elementary schoolers are now taught how to recognize copyright infringement at home and in public and report it to the **IA for legal action. Says one local child, "I'm so glad my teacher told us about those evil pirates. And now my parents listen when I ask them for something...." taking a page from George Orwell.
quia potentia mens mentis
"Teens Don't Think CD Copying is a Crime"
That's good, because the type of CD copying discussed in TFA isn't a crime. It's a civil offense.