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Spanish Judges Liken File Sharing To Lending Books
Dan Fuhry writes "A three-judge panel in the Provincial Court of Madrid has closed a case that has been running since 2005, ruling that the accused are not guilty of any copyright infringement on the grounds that their BitTorrent tracker did not distribute any copyrighted material, and they did not generate any profit from their site: '[t]he judges noted that all this takes places between many users all at once without any of them receiving any financial reward.' This implies that the judges are sympathetic to file sharers. The ruling essentially says that file sharing is the digital equivalent of lending or sharing books or other media. Maybe it's time for all them rowdy pirates to move to Spain."
Yep, expect international pressure to be put on Spain to change their laws. After all any laws we make are obviously better.
It's no worse an analogy than calling copying 'theft.'
The real problem with the file-sharing phenomenon is that it *has no* accurate analogy. Nothing like this has ever been possible in history, and until it wasn't even imaginable by most people until it had already begun. The first-world legal system, relying so heavily on comparison and precedent, is woefully unequipped to deal with events that do not fit into an existing paradigm. That's why judgments range from "100 biiiiiilion dollars" to "Nothing to see here, move along". Hell, capitalism isn't even prepared to deal with something like this. Asking a market analyst what happens when the cost of production reaches zero and is available everywhere is like asking a physicist what happens inside a black hole - neither one has the foggiest fucking idea. All they know is that the conventional rules of the last 200 years don't apply, and that anything going in will never come out.
Brave new world indeed.
No, America is trying to strengthen copyright law so that it can make more money.
Multimedia is one of America's biggest exports. It is economically obvious (at least in the short term) that those who look after the country should strengthen copyright law.
It's up to other countries to flip the bird or extract economically equivalent concessions in return.
IANA (I am not American.)
Sure. Calling it robbery. As they do in German, there it's a "Raubkopie" ("robbery copy").
You know what a "robbery copy" really is? When I go to Best Buy and force the store clerk at gunpoint to copy a CD for me. Then you may call it that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This decision highlights the pervasive anti-commercial bias in society. It often has no practical basis. Often, the making of the money adds no extra damages to the crime itself. The bias against commercial sharing is no exception.
Commercial sharing involves sharing the same works to the same people. It has the same demand-killing effects that non-commercial sharing does. It affects the artists in the same way. The only real difference I can see is that the artist, unlike with non-commercial sharing, might actually be able to compete with the non-vanishing price point of commercial sharers. If anything, commercial sharing is better for artists than non-commercial sharing.
Why do we make such a distinction? Why is it so much worse for a person to receive an ill-gotten stream of money than, say, an ill-gotten stream of free entertainment? It makes no sense to me. I cannot support a decision not grounded in (not so) common sense.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I think the ruling makes sense, you just disagree with it. Of course, sharing a file is not identical to lending a book. If they were identical then there wouldn't have been a trial or a ruling.
The judges realized sharing a file was not identical to lending a book. File sharing is rather new to the courts and the judges needed to figure out the legality of this new "file sharing" activity. The US courts have sided with the corporations and have deemed that file sharing is just like making and distributing counterfeit physical books and cds. But sharing a file is not the same things as printing and selling copies of a book. If we apply your logic to the rulings in the US courts then we would have to conclude that those rulings don't make sense either.
The truth is that file sharing falls in between lending and counterfeiting. IMO, it is the US rulings that make no sense. The reason is that with file sharing, the recurring cost for producing digital information that people want is actually negative. For example, if a particular torrent file is popular then there will be a lot of seeders for it. The US courts are trying to hobble the miracle of zero or negative recurring costs while the Spanish court's decision unleashes the incredible efficiency of distribution via file sharing.
You asked how can someone make money writing a book. The answer is easy, I (and many others) pay for web sites and books and music that I like even if I am not required to. I see it as my votes for things I like. I want to keep the things I like going so I gladly contribute. I agree that legalizing file sharing might have a drastic effect on publishing industries. These industries, for the most part, have devolved to transforming scarcity into profit. Once scarcity is no longer an issue, their scarcity based business models will either transform or die. While this may be painful for workers and investors who stick with the outmoded model past its expiration date, for society as a whole it is a good thing. Authors who inspire readers enough to donate money or pay in order to keep the author rolling will survive. Many authors will thrive. Less inspiring authors won't do as well but since it costs only about $200 to self-publish a book, the barrier for entry, even for lousy authors is very low.
In general, the creation of artificial scarcity and artificial inefficiency make society as a whole less wealthy while they make a few individuals more wealthy. This is morally indefensible.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Several other countries in Europe tolerate self -growing/-producing small quantities of cannabis too.
It seems that the old world is better at making distinctions between large organised crime rings, and a couple of people in a corner doing stuff harming no-one else.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The real difference between file "sharing" and lending books seems to be that shared media (e.g., music, video) files) tend to get copied and passed around--they never are returned--and are thus dissimilar to lending a book. It's like comparing apples and oranges. To make lending a book like sharing media files, one would need to make copies of the book and pass them out to any interested persons--something that is clearly a violation of copyright in most instances (i.e., even fair-use limits how much of a work may be reproduced for protected uses).
Since music often is broadcase on public airwaves, I do believe it deserves different treatment than books, however. I liked the interpretation of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1983 that allowed for the transfer of CD recordings to tapes, because the tapes could not preserve the same level of sound quality (effectively degrading the audio to a level comparable to that heard on radio broadcasts). I wish media companies would allow people to rip and share audio files at sub-optimum levels (perhaps even limiting the allowable audio quality of then protected rips and files by statute). This would allow them to protect their "pure" digital media while facilitating legal file sharing that tends (in my understanding) to expose more customers to more music which, in turn, drives new album/track sales.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
First: Primarily my argument disputes the copryight oligarchist argument that copy==theft, and intends to use an existing institution (libraries) which are well respected, to obviate the emotional association the oligarchists are attempting to establish with their copy==theft propaganda campaign.
Second: who says the impact of a local library on sales is negative (I'm assuming that you mean a reduction in sales of x%). This is a completely unwarranted assumption. I'm an avid library user, but my library use does not have a negative effect on my purchasing of media. Quite the opposite in fact. On the other hand, it does allow people access to more culture and information and culture than they could otherwise afford. This enriches us all. Oh hey, look, the same arguments apply to file sharing (I'm an avid file sharer, but it doesn't affect the amount I spend on media at all .
Third: While libraries and copying might negatively impact sales, the amount of "harm" done by their existence has to take into account the totality of their effects. They increase our net cultural and intelectual wealth, by providing information and culture to people regardless of how much they can afford them. They provide new mechanisms for the propagation of culture and information, freeing us from the necessity of oligarchal, profit motivated distribution firms. They provide small artists, intelectuals and creators a much more level playing field, allowing ideas and culture which are less marketable, less acceptable to the oligarchists (who act as defacto, dollar oriented censors). This gives us a richer, more vibrant culture. It also allows unestablished creators more access to revenue. These benefits have to be weighed against the "harm" of reduced sales and profit for the big mass media creators and publishers.
If copyright weakens, shortens, declines, or disappears entirely, incentives for creation won't disappear, they will simply change. I personally believe they will change for the better, but trying to justify that belief would be a long discussion, and full of conjecture. The above statements are however firmly grounded in objective, testable fact.