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."
... 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
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...
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."
The RIAA brought this on themselves with an aging business model where media sells for far more than its worth to many consumers.
This is completely legal here in Canada.
"My fellow Americans, these are not the droids the nation is looking for."
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.
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
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.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Wow, did copyright infringement run over your dog or something?
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.
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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/
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?)
Tomorrow, I may eat another house plant
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
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?