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."

Comments

Your education tax dollars...

[Fyre2012]

... hard at work!

Re:Your education tax dollars...

[DJ Rubbie]

Education tax dollars, hard at work. Funny how you got modded off-topic with this statement. Those are the very cash RIAA will be seeking, and if their past behaviors are any indication, those are the funds they would like use to convince government and school board to use to counter 'school-yard piracy'. I won't be surprised if they strong arm their way into schools to make music copying via this method as severe as dealing drugs on school property. At the very least, we will likely be seeing more education campaigns against copyright infringement and equating that with theft in the near future.

Re:Your education tax dollars...

[QuantumG]

What we need is anti-campaigns. Here's my idea. Show the victims of theft.. like a woman who has just had her handbag stolen. Crying, shocked, trying to tell a police officer what happened. Show someone freaking out when they discover that their car has been hot wired. Show people being laid off because the factory they worked in is being shutdown. For each one you have a caption that lists the crime. "Bag Snatch." "Grand Theft Auto." "Corporate Embezzlement." 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."

What they don't tell you

[AndresCP]

in a related study, 95% of teenagers said they don't care if its legal, they want their goddamn Kanye West CD.

You want to know what is a crime?

[abscissa]

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.

Re:You want to know what is a crime?

[kfg]

You want to know what is a crime?

It would certainly be a help, given the topic.

A crime is what you can be prosecuted for by the state and do jail time for. Something found in the criminal code.

What if copying a CD were a civil violation, between private interested parties? Something could be illegal and yet not be a crime. What a crazy world that would be, huh? If only.

KFG

Re:You want to know what is a crime?

[enjahova]

So now we have a whole generation that knows they are stealing but don't know why they feel okay with it. We have a whole generation of kids that we have to "fix" with reeducation. They are still sheep, but they are knocking over the fences.

I used to care about being legal. I spent a lot of time reading about copyright law and following cases and history. I concluded that copyright infringement is a crime. It is illegal to do what I do very often. I just don't care anymore. I honestly do not care whethere SONY/BMG or Universal miss out on my 16$, I don't care if my generation thinking that way costs them their whole goddamn business. Copyrights were instated to promote the progress of the sciences and the arts, not gaurantee a multibillion dollar industry its profits. Some people I know cry about it, but I know in MY heart that music will still be made.

And I think these kids, some of them, are starting to get it. Maybe now they are just enjoying free stuff, but they are setting the standard. We want instant distribution, we want to share our culture, and we want it now. If the record labels can't fill the demand, someone will, and lots of people will make money off of it. Perhaps together we can profit from this tragedy.

Pitiful that is...

[cronostitan]

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.

Threat Matrix

[Ray Radlein]

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."

What's funny

[misey]

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?

Re:What happend to Fair Use

[terrymr]

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.

No wonder the RIAA is pissed

[NexFlamma]

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 pure and simple truth

[IlliniECE]

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 wrong?

[QuantumG]

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.

Re:Is it wrong?

[Surt]

I think on a moral level, it's fairly straightforward. Consider free speech. Should any entity or company be able to restrict what you can say, if what you say is not physically threatening anyone? Most rational people would say no. So start reading the ones and zeros off of your cd.

Should any entity or company be able to restrict what you are allowed to write down, or remember? No again. So record the spoken ones and zeros to cd.

Any restriction on such activity is clearly immoral, and the other side hasn't a leg to stand on.

Yep...

[cbirkett]

This is completely legal here in Canada.

Re:Another misleading poll...

[Prof. Pi]

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"...

IABAL, but I thought that under the default definition of copyright, you can't legally make a copy. That's why the GPL has to spell it out. So, your statement would be more properly stated as "No, it is not legal, unless the Copyright holder of the work on that CD explicitly permits it."

It's only natural

[reub2000]

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.

Re:What happend to Fair Use

[Workaphobia]

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.

They don't value other people's effort

[Aussie_Scribe]

Let me stake out a position here:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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

Re:They don't value other people's effort

[Surt]

I would guess that:
1. Is just wrong. Surely a good fraction of people have tried to market their artistic work at some point. And in slashdot, I would expect that proportion to be nearly 100% given the nature of the audience.

2. With or without any experience trying to sell an artistic work, surely an even larger proportion of the population has at least created an artistic work and can appreciate the effort involved. And surely many can appreciate the joy of seeing their materials being copied, rather than feeling wretched. Not everyone is a control freak, and real artists want their works to be appreciated by as wide an audience as possible, regardless of recompense.

3. Would obviously need to be settled by experiment, but I think the experiment is doomed due to the definitional difficulties (just how much selling of their own materials is required?)

Re:23 comments, not one good

[Chaffar]

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 it's not theft

[Prof. Pi]

At the very least, we will likely be seeing more education campaigns against copyright infringement and equating that with theft in the near future.

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!

Re:Of COURSE it's not theft

[1u3hr]

Of course enjoying the fruits of someone's work without paying for it (when they expect to be paid) isn't theft!

Yes, you're right! I don't have time now to read the rest of your excellent comment, but it's good to see that some people at least understand the difference betwen "theft" and "infringement".

Cut. Try another scene.

[ScentCone]

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."

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, did copyright infringement run over your dog or something?

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[enjahova]

Then the RIAA exec walks up to the kid, empties his pockets and stuffs the valuables and cash into his own. He then tosses the major artist a couple coins. Finally he spits on the kid and says to him "let that be a lesson to ya" in a mafioso voice.

This is fun, I think I'll start casting for my own PSA

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[ScentCone]

Wow, did copyright infringement run over your dog or something?

No, but since everyone in my family makes their livings in the production of one form or another of things that can (and do) get ripped off, it's a very familiar topic.

But more importantly, I'm just sick to death of kids who spend $30/week on overpriced coffee, and while drinking it with their friends bitch about how their favorite performers have the gall to have their life's work sold for a dollar or less per song. I've seen my work ripped off (in ways that do not magically contribute to a larger audience for me that will eventually somehow contribute to my bottom line - that recurring notion is really BS in most circumstances), and have seen the same things happen to other writers, artists, etc. that are close to me. Of course you want more people to enjoy your creative work - but you also have to wake up to the fact that if you're a professional who spends your entire waking life producing that work, it has to pay the bills. No one owes creative people a living - that is, no one except the people who choose that artist to be their entertainer when that artist has set a price for that experience.

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Blain]

Yeah, except for the part where they're already getting paid for their perceived losses due to the copying of CDs. Remember the Home Recording Act? The one that says that record companies get paid a "tax" on all recordable media that's sold as compensation for those perceived loses due to copying on that media? The one that, strangely enough, doesn't list computers as a recording device?

If it did, then a kid copying his CD for his friend would be legal, so long as the one doing the copying wasn't getting paid for it. If the copying is done with a cd copier, then it's legal already, paid for by you and me and everybody else who backs up their data using cdr/dvdr.

I'll grant, it might break the flow of your stream of stereotypes.

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Mr. Freeman]

More like "Yeah, I love your music, just not enough to buy the album of which over 80% of the revenue you don't even see because it all goes to the recording companies. But here, I'll give you $10 to make up for pirating it later. It's more than you'll make if I actually go out and BUY it".

Now, we just need a way to let everyone see their favorite band in person so this conversation can actually happen.

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Andrew Aguecheek]

Yeah, that's fair enough. Of course, if they can't actually afford to buy your work, does your answer change, or should they just be deprived of it? Personally, I'm a very broke student, I really can't afford to buy music. Either I get it free, or I do without. (Oh, and I can't help but notice Green Day seem not to have gone bankrupt due to kids sharing tracks... are they drug dealing on the side do you think?)

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Znork]

"No, but since everyone in my family makes their livings in the production of one form or another of things that can (and do) get ripped off, it's a very familiar topic."

Perhaps you should consider lobbying for alternate methods of compensation that lets you get paid anyway.

There have been various suggestions ranging from direct payments to authors for every incarnation of a copy actually sold (ie, bypassing the entire publishing structure and levying a point-of-sale fee instead), to pure taxation and payment per copy schemes. All of which would get a far higher percentage of the money spent on creative content to the actual authors.

Consider how much money the *AA's claim is being lost to illicit copying, compared to how much money is actually spent on, and intended for arts that _never reaches the artists_.

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[QuantumG]

The goal isn't to "make a living", any guy who sings at the pub can do that. The goal is to "make it big" and every artist who can hold a tune thinks they have a god given right to it, if only they could get "discovered". Who puts this nonsense into their heads? Why, the labels of course.

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[ladoga]

Isn't it alarming that probably over half of all teenagers are criminals according to your legistlation? What do you want to do, lock em up? Make them pay for RIAA? Laws are ought to be made to serve the public (not few select individuals) so situation where such share of citizens would be criminals is absurd.

Im pretty sure that the percentage who copy CDs and DVDs from they friends is much higher than 58% who consider it legal. Here in finland it's prolly something like 99.9%. Back in my school days everyone copied cassettes and CDs. Most of kids bought music of bands they really liked and copied the rest. Have to wonder why the music industry didn't die in 80s or 90s. ;)

Re:Cut. Try another scene.

[Anonymous Coward]

How much money does a teen steal from you when he or she rips off your CD? 11, 12 cents, if you're lucky?
Now how much does the music industry steal?
Did you know, for example, that if you sell a thousand copied of an album through the music industry, you will make pennies, whereas if you sell that many yourself, you will make much much more?
Here's a quick example. A friend of my uncle's got his song played on a national radio station here in Britain as a record of the week. He then sold ten thousand copies of his self-produced CD. If he had a record deal, he would have earned about two-hundred pounds for that. But he didn't have a record deal. He had the CDs pressed and printed by a local professional reproduction service for about two pounds each. He sold each album for ten pounds. Eight pounds profit per CD multiplied by Ten thousand CDs is? He bought a new house with that.

I realise this is a rare event, but it needn't be. And it goes to prove just how unnecessary the music industry really is. I do believe in paying for music. But if I had a choice, I'd rather pay the artist than the middle manager, the T-shirt guy and the tour promoter.

Hello idiots, copying a CD is NOT a crime

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Hello idiots, copying a CD is NOT a crime

[Peyna]

Copyright infringement is a crime if (1) it is done for profit; or (2) it involves a retail value in excess of $1,000 over 180 day period.

You don't value other people's interest...

[patrixmyth]

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.

oh, really, you're being ripped off by teens?

[Rudd-O]

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.

Re:Another misleading poll...

[sepluv]

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.

Record companies should GIVE product away!

[The Mutant]

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.

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_reve als_itunes_stats/ [Accessed September 10th 2005]

In a real democracy ...

[DoktorTomoe]

... a crime would be what the majority of the people believes to be a crime.

The best part is that the teens are RIGHT!

[DrLlama]

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?