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Downloading Copyrighted Material Legal In Spain
Sqwuzzy notes a judge's ruling in Spain that makes that country one of the most lenient in the world as respects sharing copyrighted material over P2P networks. "The entertainment industries in Spain must be progressively tearing their hair out in recent months as they experience setback after setback. ... After Spain virtually ruled out imposing a '3-strikes' regime for illicit file-sharers, the entertainment industries said they would target 200 BitTorrent sites instead. Now a judge has decided that sharing between users for no profit via P2P doesn't breach copyright laws and sites should be presumed innocent until proved otherwise." This ruling occurred in a pre-trial hearing; the case will still go to trial.
I'm pretty sure if I go to microsoft.com or any other website the content over there is copyrighted, but yet it's legal for me to download it. I can even download software they provide free of charge, and they are copyrighted, but it's still 100% legal.
Just why would anyone think downloading something that has a copyright on it would be illegal?
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
Even in the complete absence of copyright, the first sale can never be lost to piracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_performer_protocol
http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html
Plumbers only get paid once for installing my toilet, no matter how many people use it. I'd rather a world with no professional musicians than no professional plumbers.
Wow, never thought I'd see common sense creep into any courtroom when it came to copyright. Doubt it will last.
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees." - Albert Camus
Big Content has always had to deal with the cost-of-doing-business, just like every other industry. Sharing a video tape, a book, a CD or whatever else it has to produce, does take away from their business (though there is discussion that sharing leads to future purchases in the same way giving out free food at the grocery is an advertising expense).
From a business perspective, I am absolutely certain it has become cheaper to produce their content to CD over Tape (or DVD over VHS), and even more cheaply as a digital download. Content, just like insurance/financial services, is one that should could thrive if it embraced the newer, cheaper methods of production/sales/distribution than trying to do things the old way.
I'm glad that the court is identifying that internet-based sharing is no different in essense, than sneakernet sharing which is always something the companies have had to deal with and has always been a cost-of-doing-business. The fact that it is "online" is ultimately irrelevant, and even if greater sharing drives down sales (which is debatable), online/digital distribution should also lower costs which if done properly, should allow them to remain profitable. Business is about adaption. No business has a fundamental right to exist. Suing your customers and taking rights they either explicitly had, or felt they had is no way to keep those customers, in which sharing and distribution become irrelevant.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
no profit
copyright laws were created so that some other guy with a printing press or vinyl press wouldn't make and sell copies of a book or recording all on his own without regard to the creator
it never was intended, and never had anything to do with, the idea of someone reproducing material and giving it away FOR FREE
simply because such a person would be insane: all that expense for nothing. to not be motivated by profit is simply nonsensical on the old media world, which was the whole point in copyright: keep the profit with the creators
but the issue of effortless file sharing is a fundamental change in how media works, and has more to do with traditional publishers coming to grips with a new reality. IANAL, but i would like to see a legal argument that says copyright law is only valid for the pursuit of those PROFITING from illicit copies, that those copying for free are essentially outside the scope of the spirit of intellectual property laws and their intent and purpose. which is a fundamentally true argument: the internet is new technology and makes possible what was not possible before, so to apply laws from an old era onto it without thought is to fail to understand the issues in play
such an approach would draw a nice line between the old media world and the new media world as defined by the new economic laws the internet forces onto the world, welcome or not
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In the Netherlands for example we pay about 24 eurocents on every empty cd or dvd we buy
And this makes sense? I buy all my music and use CD/DVD for data copying. So I'd have to subsidize someone who doesn't feel he has to buy music/movies? What a joke.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
No. David Bowie gets to pump himself out to the AudioPlumbers union
and can't just sit on his ass and collect his royalty check. He has
to work in order to get paid just like the rest of us.
He gets to "play for his dinner" like the rest of us.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
By selling services instead of copies. You can't pirate technical support, programmer man hours, etc..
Well, they'd do it by erecting technical barriers to copying. DRM plus a million. Because they would have to.
And it still wouldn't work.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That's not "fair use," if you have to pay a tax to do it. Fair use is by definition non-infringing use of copyrighted material. As such, copyright holders should receive no compensation for it.
We have a similar tax on blank media here in Canada, and people use a similar line of media industry propaganda to justify it, but the notion is just plain wrong. Fair use is non-infringing activity, and citizens should fight to ensure the concept is not eroded by groups who would like to see it done away with.
I don't care why you're posting AC
No recoup of expenses, either. This is a money driven world, not some socialist utopia where your needs are taken care of.
Sure it did. It grants control over redistribution to the creator. It paid no mind as to whether it was going to be charged for or not, or who distributed it.
No. No, no, no. The -purpose- was to give people who created works an incentive to release them by allowing them a means of turning their work into collateral. Instead of having to sit idle until someone came along and paid them, they could take the initiative and produce works of their own accord, and (if they didn't suck) not starve in the process. They could do like any other tradesman and focus entirely on their chosen field and leverage it to live.
Unless you'd like to think that you could spend a day doing manual labor and still have the energy to write software, make music, or create films. Sure you could, but it probably wouldn't be as good or in anywhere near the quantity.
Except it's not limited like that at all. If it were, it'd be pointless, which it definitely is not.
No it's not. It's simply a super efficient distribution channel. The physical channels would be just as efficient if copyright weren't in effect at all. What people -should- do is leverage that efficient distribution and communication to create new works and license them under terms they agree with, instead of jacking the works of others.
I'd buy into the argument that the internet and P2P were truly revolutionary if -new- works and more fairly licensed works were giving the RIAA and MPAA a run for their money. But they aren't. All they're doing is giving the MPAA and RIAA a run for their money by trading works owned by the RIAA and MPAA. Thus they prove the RIAA and MPAA's point.
You can use the repaired toilet as much as you want just as you can play a purchased track as much as you want. Regardless of your opinion on copyright, this is a bad analogy. I'm happy to discuss whether limited copyright or no copyright is better, but flawed arguments don't help anyone.
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since you said Intellectual Property, what about stretching your claim to patents: if person X patents an item, and person Y makes the item for free and gives it away, is he in violation of the patent even though he isn't selling it? what if Y does it to flood the market and put person X out of business, because his other product lines can support the cost? I thought that IP law protects X in that regard. Perhaps the same or something similar could be said for copyright.
Well I happen to be such a musician and in the real world it doesn't work like that. I started with the guitar at age 6... I'm 30 now and still learning. Along the way I picked up other instruments like bass and piano and even the trumpet are no secrets to me anymore. I have been in about 17 bands thru the years and reality is, when I write a good song, I want to perform it. And no mp3 can replace the good feeling the people have when they see the guys and me performing. And that is where a little money comes from. Ticket sales. My songs? Please, download them, give them to your friends. And when you see a poster hanging in your town with my bandname on it. Buy a ticket and come see us perform. You'll have a great night. And we will have a little cash to do what we really want to do. Just play.
I can see where you're coming from, but in the end, don't you just want to be listened to? Sure, we don't give away free cd's and shirts at gigs, but if people want to copy them... If it weren't for ripping those old tapes I probably wouldn't know half what I do know about making music. Offcourse it would be great if we all could be U2, but for me, music is my life, my love. I like to share that. Don't have to get rich. Being able to make a living out of it is a gift as it is.
What is this "presumed innocent" thing? Is it some new legal thingamabob?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Get real. Let's see: "Transformers 2 might be nice, perhaps it's in the public domain". You fail.
Are you suggesting being in possession of copyrighted material without the copyright owner's permission is legal ?
Absolutely! I bought a used CD yesterday, and am certain that the copyright owner did not authorize or endorse that purchase. Yet, I am now the rightful, legal owner of that CD - their permission or desire to the contrary be damned.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If they could prevent re-sale, they would. Haven't there been plenty of stories about copyright owners trying to prohibit re-sale in the license agreement?
Certainly. But the issue at question here is legality, not copyright holders' desires.
and then sell those drives all over the world.
. . . which would immediately break the not-for-profit stipulation . . .