If I understand correctly, your argument is that because you (a) paid money, (b) are physically capable, and (c) are not dismayed by penalties imposed on other people, you have a moral and ethical right to proceed as you will. But this is clearly broken reasoning: all the same elements appear in taking out a contract to have someone killed, and I sincerely hope that you do not believe this gives you a moral and ethical basis to kill someone. You do not understand correctly.
A correct understanding would be that because I paid money, and a sale took place, it is my property, not theirs.
Metalica could not legally come in to my house and demand that I give them my Cd (if I owned a Metalica CD).
Also Under current copyright law, the law is clear: to "distribute"(in a legal sense[required in cases like this to allege copyright infringement]) one has to do so for commercial gain.
P2P networks are free. It is not a violation of copyright law to use them, even to download music or movies.
The law is quite clear. District Judges have consistently ruled that this is so. Despite the music and film industry's theories that it is copyright infringement, this is not the law. It is quite clear that this is a matter for Congress to pass new legislation, not the courts.
I would suggest reading the motion to quash submitted by defendant John Doe #3. It clearly lays this out.
I hate DRM, but I've never heard a good argument for why we should just throw all of intellectual property rights out the window. Because they don't work.
It is an illusion of control.
An illusion.
I do not think that intellectual property rights should be thrown out, But in certain areas, with certain things, they should be changed.
Utility patents expire after 10 years.
That's a patent, for some great invention or piece of engineering or whatever.
But copyrights for sound recordings last 50 years from the date of recording.
For films it's even more absurd: 70 years from the date of the last major player(director, producer,screenplay author, sound director,etc) involved to die. 70 years after the last one of them dies the copyright expires.
That's ridiculous.
50 years is to much too.
Ten. Ten years. Thats it. That's long enough.
And the litigation laws regarding this should be changed too.
There is no reason why someone should be sued for millions of thousands of dollars over the loss of one infraction.
That's just stupid.
And as the laws currently stand, I have no pity for those who would be ripped off and lose money over copyright infractions epecially in the music and film industry.
They are acting like jerks and have not stopped the loss one bit.
That's why the laws should be modified: they don't work. They don't help the creator of the item, nor do they help the consumer or end-user.
They just don't work.
Maybe it's easier to take an example outside of the music industry. For example, say that I write a creative text, and publish it online as a PDF file that I sell, and that I do not grant the right to redistribute my work. If I later discover that someone who legally obtained my work is now hosting it online for others to obtain, and even have evidence that an actual unauthorized redistribution has taken place (i.e. someone linking to it with a comment suggesting they've downloaded it), do I not have a right to protect my intellectual property? Even if all I have is a time and IP address, shouldn't I be able to seek appropriate civil action against the infringing party? No.
Legally yes, you have the right to.
But morally? Ethically? No, I would say probably not.
The problem is you don't have any control over it once it is published in a reproduce-able format. And especially after it goes online.
Practically speaking, suing one person does nothing to prevent another form doing the same or downloading it.
So it doesn't protect your intellectual property.
I even have a problem with the idea that it is yours to begin with: a copyright is all well and good, but I have a problem with the idea that you own something that I have already bought.
I'm not leasing the pdf, I own it.
It's mine, and I'll do what I want with it. Copyright isn't going to change it.
It's a piece of paper somewhere that I may or may not agree with. And in any case there's nothing you can do about it except try to sue me, which won't prevent anyone else from doing the same, and is certainly not going to encourage me to cooperate with you.
Besides, I own the pdf. I have direct control over the file and can do whatever I like to it. Copy it, Modify it, send it to Tajikistan, whatever.
Litigation doesn't prevent it and then,after the fact, doesn't even discourage it.
This has been proven by the music industry.
At best it pisses people off.
At worst you loose customers and waste a lot of money on pointless litigation and look like an ass in the process.
So this really isn't helping the music industry.
It gets back to the old MIT hacker argument: How can you sell something that can easily be copied, distributed, and re-produced for free?
It is possible (people make millions selling bottled water) but you can't sell things people don't want.
people don't want to pay 15 bucks for a cd that cost 10 cents to make with 12 songs they don't want and one they do.
And they don't have to.
They can download it for free.
And that's the bottom line no matter what they (RIAA) say.
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Agreed.