How to Turn A Music Lover to Piracy

dugn writes to tell us The Consumerist is running a story about how a run of the mill (read non-tech-savvy) music lover was pushed to become a pirate. "I've devoted a not-inconsequential chunk of my life to collecting music; to tracking down obscure records, cassettes, 8-Tracks and CD's of all genres and styles. And now apparently that is all but over. Music has somehow evolved from tangible things into amorphous collections of 1's and 0's guarded over by interested parties as if they were gold bullion. How so very sad."

Comments

Not a license to listen

[edraven]

"You don't understand," I said, "These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them."

"Well" she responded, "You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to."

Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said.

She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can"

This seems to be a common misunderstanding brought about by, I think, the inherently confusing nature of, let's face it, archaic copyright law in a modern context. A license grants the licensee the ability to legally do something from which normally they are legally prohibited. There are no laws that prohibit anyone from listening to music. What we have are laws that prohibit anyone apart from the author of any kind of creative work from (among other things) making a copy of that work. If you're not the author and you want to make a copy of a creative work then (with a few exceptions provided in copyright law) you need a license, because otherwise it is illegal for you to do so. When you purchase music online, you are buying a digital copy from an entity that is entitled by license to produce that copy. You are not buying a license to anything, and you don't inherit the rights which that license grants. Your buddies have just as much legal right to listen to the song you downloaded as you do, and just as little legal right to make a copy of it. That's how it works.

Re:An etymological question

[dylan_-]

It's pretty old. In its entry for pirate (in this sense) OED has:

1603 T. DEKKER Wonderfull Yeare sig. A4, Banish these Word-pirates (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme.] 1668 J. HANCOCK Brooks' String of Pearls (Notice at end), Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies. 1703 D. DEFOE True-born Englishman in True Collect. I. Explan. Pref. sig. B3v, Its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates.