"This was on the front page of the LA Times a few days ago and presents the record industry in a much better light: "
Tell me, how does this article put the Recording Industry in a better light?
The article makes them not only look bad, but also stupid. They should be experienced enough to know their market (and not sign 90% flops.) A company deserves to go out of business if they have that bad of a view of their market. Other businesses don't survive with those kind of averages. If you want to succeed in business, the first rule is to LEARN your market.
That's one of the most idiotic defenses for overcharging customers and underpaying artists I've ever heard. "We're so stupid we sign on 90% flops and give each of them $750,000!" Either they really are that stupid, or they're lying.
The movie studios make NO money off of rentals. First Sale Doctrine applies and Blockbuster buys the copies and can rent them out as often as they like without paying anything more back.
"But if you think CDs are three times too expensive, just by 1/3 the number of CDs!"
That is what the problem is - people, whether they are using Napster or not - are buying fewer CDs. Because of Napster, the blame is not placed on a product already too expensive so people are buying less of it. They accuse Napster of stealing their profits.
In the 80s, when Videotapes first came out they ran about $80 each. People didn't buy very many - they rented and copied (or waited for HBO.) When the price came down to an average of $20, the sales tripled (at least!)
Currently, I spend an average of $20 per YEAR on CDs. I used to spend (when they averaged $12 per CD) about $30 per MONTH on CDs. This has everything to do with price. If a CD were $5, I'd probably spend even more money, but for $20 each, I'll just listen to my older music and the radio - very, very few CDs are worth $20 (the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon CD is $20 - you can get the entire movie for hardly anything more.)
Drop the prices - increase the sales. Raise the prices - increase the downloads. It is really that simple.
Check your history a little more closely - Search on 'Stationers Guild' rather than copyright. Pre-Statute of Anne, the publishers belonged to a Guild and the law protected them against each other so long as they agreed to censor anything the government wanted censored. This law did not have any expiration and therefore the 'copyright' was perpetual - until Queen Anne abolished the entire cycle.
Also, you should read the Constitution a little more carefully - you typed it out, after all - "by securing for limited times to authors" - hmmm, that sounds a little bit like it is an author's law vs. a publisher's law, just like the Statute of Anne. And the limited times thing is another aspect of the English Statute.
The United States does not support the 'Moral Rights' of an author, as does European law (though, being a signatory to the Berne Convention, we're supposed to.) Our copyright laws are SUPPOSED to promote the progress of the arts by offering creators an incentive. No longer, now it is used to protect publisher's profits - just like the Stationers Copyright.
Here's the direct link to Pamela Samuelson's paper: http://webserver.law.yale.edu/censor/samuelson.htm
The church was the main source of complaint when the printing press was first invented - not only did monks lose income they made from copying, but also it eliminated the church mandated censorship of literature.
The first copyrights were not much better than the church regulation had been. While copyright protected one publisher (who had to pay the author a small pittance) from other publishers, it left in place the ability to censor everything that was printed - this time in the hands of the publishers and the government.
In 1710, Queen Anne enacted a copyright law called the Statute of Anne that was a copyright for authors and, at the same time, created the Public Domain (before this copyright was perpetual.) Our Constitutional basis for copyright is based on the Statute of Anne, copyright for authors instead of publishers.
Modern copyright law, however, has mutated back to something resembling the Stationers Guild Copyright - might as well be perpetual, benefits the publishers (more than the authors) and is a tool for censorship (especially the way the RIAA and the MPAA wield it!)
Check out my website for more on copyright - Pamela Samuelson has written an excellent paper on how copyright is moving full circle.
"Why should I pay out good money when I've got the music already?"
Let us, for the moment, ignore that downloading music does not pay the people who created the music, since the recording companies tend to take more than the lion's share, many people use the money as a reason TO download.
Instead, I want to offer reasons to purchase the music on CD - 1. Quality of the tracks (a good MP3 is near CD quality, but how many of the tracks on Napster were good quality?) 2. Inability to find the entire album (when I like an artist, I want all their music and, on rare occasions, the best songs aren't released and those other tracks are often very difficult to find.) 3. Photos (and lyrics) generally included with the purchase of the CD.
If the Recording Industry cut the prices they charge for CDs, a lot more people would be buying them as opposed to downloading. One hit wonders will still probably lose album sales, but quality albums would be purchased.
When copyright lasts 95 years, how much that is audio or visual can be in the Public Domain?
If it was published after 1923 and the copyright holder did not miss the single renewal required between then and 1976 then it is not Public Domain and may never become Public Domain if Disney continues the current trend of requesting extensions from Congress every 20 years.
This is just one more example of American Culture being hoarded by private interests.
I think you should read Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright." She goes into nauseating detail about how copyright laws are created in this country - and it isn't by Congress. Congressional members are handed the pre-written law, created by the businesses involved in copyright ownership, and Congress simply signs it into law once all interested parties (minus the Public, of course) find the wording acceptable.
If this isn't politics made and enforced (through lawsuits) by business, I don't know what is. The businesses are certainly making the laws, at any rate. And, unless you contest the removal of material from your ISP, they are basically enforcing the law as well (under the DMCA, the ISP must remove any material that someone 'claims' is copyrighted.)
Re:We can do something about this kind of thing.
on
Launchcast Sued
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· Score: 1
This is the reason why Boycotts need to be LOUD. If the companies involved, their retail outlets, the politicians, the news correspondents, and everyone else in the world know that YOUR GROUP (organize, organize, organize) is boycotting the Recording Industry for the following reasons.....
Several years ago the Fishing Industry came head to head with a very successful Boycott of Tuna products and now they use Dolphin safe nets. The boycott was noisy and organized and determined. That's what a boycott needs to be.
Get permission to picket, hand out flyers, write congress and the businesses involved. Don't just post on/. "I'm boycotting the Recording Industry - haven't bought a CD in months." That's not enough - the internet will be blamed for dropping revenues. But an organized and determined boycott is hard to ignore and lay blame elsewhere.
"I have to wonder if we are infringing copyright everytime we whistle *The Simpsons* on the john?"
Last time I checked this was still legal. Since you are by yourself at that time (or should be!) you are engaged in a private performance. However, should you whistle this in front of your family and friends over for a visit this becomes a public performance and you are then liable for copyright infringement.
Check out my website for more on copyright or invest in Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright" (only if you have a strong stomach. Her detail on the way Congress handles copyright issues is nauseating.)
Maybe you aren't playing her right - my Sorceress usually takes out all of her opponents in short order. She's certainly more powerful than the Amazon - and she can still fight to recover her body on those rare occasions that she is actually killed.
"Copyright only covers individual creative works -- not characters."
Wrong. Copyright protects the characters through the part that gives the creator a right to control derivatives. A character loses copyright protection when the first work he/she/it appeared in is elevated to the Public Domain. Mickey Mouse's first published appearance was in 'Steamboat Willie' which would have become Public Domain in 2004, and therefore freeing Mickey from Disney's locked vault.
For more information on copyright - visit my website or read Jessica's book.
Re:vote its important!
on
Congress@Work
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· Score: 2
Never say "the fact is that if you did not vote, then you really cannot complain."
Sometimes, shoot, most of the time, it really doesn't matter which idiot is voted into office. There is only one group of people who cannot complain about their politicians and they are the ones who voted for those elected. You put him there, deal with it!
Nor do I believe this because I don't vote. My method of voting is quite simple. If they are incumbent, they get voted OUT as it is obvious they didn't do the job they were hired to do. Either they didn't argue hard enough or they didn't argue at all and stupid laws got passed and we all have to suffer for it.
Want to do something about the political situation? Don't just write your rep or your Senators - become a Candidate and replace them. Next year, all the reps are up for renewal. Let's try to put an entire new House in place.
If you think MP3s are such great quality you have obviously never used Napster or any GNUTELLA client. MP3s available from these sources are usually, at BEST, decent. While looking for an old, out of production song, I had to download 3 different copies to get even one that was decent.
Yes, you can make good quality MP3s - I've done that too so I could listen to favorite songs without needing the CD in the drive, but, apparently, most people who open their collections to the net do not take the time and effort to rip quality MP3s.
But even if MP3s were CD quality, that wouldn't excuse putting copy protection on them. The copyright act is their protection and it protects them too damn well already. Copy protection is a method of theft, taking away certain rights that the buyer is supposed to have. You bought it and, while they may think of it as a licensing agreement, the law still sides with you as a purchaser. Copy protection is one more step to changing that.
Quit listening to the people who have already stolen up to a hundred years of access through the Public Domain, and start thinking for yourself. Do some research on the subject, read the history. http://www.limitingcopyright.com is a good place to start.
At one time we had that law - "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to AUTHORS and INVENTORS the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Hmmm, I wonder what happened. Probably some publisher said, 'we don't need to worry about what that old part of the Constitution says, publishers are the ones who really should own those copyrights - and they also should last forever. We can even say this whole thing is to benefit the authors, I'm sure the Public will buy that."
On this one, those people representing the U.S. to the Hague Convention, and all of the politians in Washington need to see, first hand, the Slashdot Effect. Write, email, whatever - don't let them take away the rest of your rights to creations that should be destined for the Public Domain.
Hey! Don't use the dictionary to try to support proper usage. The dictionary is a source of usage, period, whether or not the use is proper or improper. If a word is used that way (thanks to copyright holders!!!!) it will be in the dictionary.
The point I was trying to make is that the Napster user is NOT distributing the files. Their presence on the harddrive is immaterial. I do NOT log on to Napster to SHARE music - I do it to FIND music (generally works that aren't available in the stores.) Because I keep the music on my harddrive in one convenient space and don't generally do more than clean up the appearance (I'm easy to filter, in other words,) does not mean that I am contributing to copyright infringement or distributing these works. They are, very simply, just on my harddrive in a convenient (to me) directory.
The Napster program was designed to take advantage of this (that people would want to keep their music in one place) and lists those files it finds as available.
Now, if you want to police potential infringers, just abort any transfers and you are, in effect, preventing any infringement.
Again, simply having those songs, in that directory, doesn't make you liable for even Contributory Infringement. They would have to prove that you facilitated people to download from your computer, which they might be able to do for Napster, but I certainly hope they couldn't prove such a thing for an individual Napster user.
"Let's all remember; if you are making copyrighted music available to others online, you *ARE* breaking the law, regardles of how rediculous we all think it is."
Napster is being accused of Contributory Infringement, not direct infringement and neither Napster nor the Napster user are actively distributing the copyrighted material.
Simply having the songs on your harddrive is NOT illegal since you may own the CD and ripped them so that you could listen to the music while using the CD-ROM drive for something else. Nor are you required to place those mp3s in any specific directory so, if you want you can put them into your 'Napster Download' directory and still not be breaking any law.
No population problem? Tell that to all of the Wildlife that humans are encroaching upon. Tell that to the atmosphere which is suffering from too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen.
I guess you are right in a way, though. There's no population problem, just too many humans. Replace some with Siberian Tigers, Giant Pandas, etc and so on - and don't forget to replace a few greedy Brazilians with some foliage for the Amazon Rainforest (where a lot of Earth's oxygen is converted.)
Even the suggestion that Earth can maintain a lot more population is an insult to anybody even mildly interested in the state of the environment. Humans are the WORST thing to ever happen to this planet and I'm including the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and the effects of the ice age.
Visit my web page - I have 2 articles concentrating on Napster and the debate surrounding file sharing. In a nutshell, here's my opinion:
The ability to find files on other people's computers and to download those files is nobody else's business but the 2 people involved. If a person were downloading music and then selling it the Recording Industry would have a reason to complain, but there is no money exchanged. (Prior to the NET act of 1998, Commercial Gain was a requirement in Copyright Infringement cases. Copyright Infringement, historically, has been a suit brought against other publishers, not agaist the Public.)
If music is broadcast over the radio, it has already been given to the Public. Downloading something one has heard on the radio is no different than using a tape recorder to capture that music when broadcast.
And, if copyright law had some sensible term limits, anything older than 20 years (more than an adequate length of time to compensate the creators) would be in the Public Domain, which would mean all music released before 1981 would, and should, be available for unrestricted downloading. Also, this would enable a service such as Napster to claim 'substantial non-infringing uses,' an argument the court has already wrongly rejected.
Most pro-Napster (non-'let's get something for free' or 'the RIAA makes too much money already') arguments are going to focus more on the unreasonable side of copyright law. It would be very difficult to argue that Napster isn't illegal - I think, under current copyright law, and as Napster is normally used, it is illegal. I just happen to fervently believe that current copyright law is extremely excessive and a complete mockery of what the authors of the Constitution intended. (Read letters to Congress on my page.)
"If the law is obsolete, is the proper way to get it changed just to disobey it?"
Maybe not the 'proper' way to get it changed, but sometimes it's the ONLY way to get it changed. When a few people disobey a law, they are criminals - when everyone disobeys a law, the law is no longer a valid law. In some situations, the law will not be changed until it becomes apparent that no one is going to obey it. I think copyright is one of those laws - as long as anybody is still obeying these laws, they will become ever more restrictive.
Strangely, I'm not advocating completely disregarding copyright - I just want some serious changes made. Copyright term no longer than patent term. Copyrights for creators only - NO CORPORATIONS. A healthy, vibrant Public Domain from which all creators can draw, and the Public can access without prior permissions.
There used to be a saying "Ain't ain't a word because it ain't in the dictionary." Well, by that logic, ain't is now a word as it has a place in the dictionary.
Dictionaries are not a source for the proper usage of a word; they cover all usage. If a word is commonly used that way, it will be in the dictionary as such. This does not make it proper.
Therefore, do not use the dictionary to support your opinion that copyright infringement is piracy. Words are power, and a word with such terrible connotations is exactly what these people want, just as they want you to think that expiration of copyright means these works FALL into the stinking hole of the Public Domain (and they are asking for these extensions to copyright in order to SAVE these works from such a horrible fate.) I choose to think of the expiration of copyright as an ELEVATION to Public Status, something to be heralded.
100% correct. At least Entertainment Industry propaganda has not infected everyone. Copyright Infringement is not theft, you are not stealing when you infringe upon someone's copyright, mass copying is not piracy.
Besides, since the mid 1980's copying for home use has been legal (Universal Studios vs Sony.) If it is legal to make a copy for your own use, well, then it's legal and where you found the copy is more or less immaterial unless you stole the CD (or whatever) you copied.
"The biggest thing to hit in the follow-up brief would be to point out the logical inconsistencies in the DA/MPAA's arguments which Michael so clearly pointed out. The argument about how a DVD that eventually falls into the public domain will be accessed struck me as a particularly powerful one."
I think the main reason these people aren't worried about what will happen when a movie is elevated to the Public Domain is that they don't expect it to ever happen. 20 years at a time Congress is going to extend term limitations - this has already happened, in 1976 and again in 1998 - until copyright is finally declared to be perpetual and no longer limited by the Constitution.
http://www.limitingcopyright.com
Hope you're still reading replies! Give me until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week and the original letter will be on my website - along with Congressman Nathan Deal's reply.
And if others would like to post their letters to politicians (with or without replies) to my copyright based website, send an email with both attached.
The website is: http://www.limitingcopyright.com
My email address is susan@the-lanman.com
Slashdot Mirror
"This was on the front page of the LA Times a few days ago and presents the record industry in a much better light: "
Tell me, how does this article put the Recording Industry in a better light?
The article makes them not only look bad, but also stupid. They should be experienced enough to know their market (and not sign 90% flops.) A company deserves to go out of business if they have that bad of a view of their market. Other businesses don't survive with those kind of averages. If you want to succeed in business, the first rule is to LEARN your market.
That's one of the most idiotic defenses for overcharging customers and underpaying artists I've ever heard. "We're so stupid we sign on 90% flops and give each of them $750,000!" Either they really are that stupid, or they're lying.
The movie studios make NO money off of rentals. First Sale Doctrine applies and Blockbuster buys the copies and can rent them out as often as they like without paying anything more back.
"But if you think CDs are three times too expensive, just by 1/3 the number of CDs!"
That is what the problem is - people, whether they are using Napster or not - are buying fewer CDs. Because of Napster, the blame is not placed on a product already too expensive so people are buying less of it. They accuse Napster of stealing their profits.
In the 80s, when Videotapes first came out they ran about $80 each. People didn't buy very many - they rented and copied (or waited for HBO.) When the price came down to an average of $20, the sales tripled (at least!)
Currently, I spend an average of $20 per YEAR on CDs. I used to spend (when they averaged $12 per CD) about $30 per MONTH on CDs. This has everything to do with price. If a CD were $5, I'd probably spend even more money, but for $20 each, I'll just listen to my older music and the radio - very, very few CDs are worth $20 (the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon CD is $20 - you can get the entire movie for hardly anything more.)
Drop the prices - increase the sales. Raise the prices - increase the downloads. It is really that simple.
Check your history a little more closely - Search on 'Stationers Guild' rather than copyright. Pre-Statute of Anne, the publishers belonged to a Guild and the law protected them against each other so long as they agreed to censor anything the government wanted censored. This law did not have any expiration and therefore the 'copyright' was perpetual - until Queen Anne abolished the entire cycle.
m
Also, you should read the Constitution a little more carefully - you typed it out, after all - "by securing for limited times to authors" - hmmm, that sounds a little bit like it is an author's law vs. a publisher's law, just like the Statute of Anne. And the limited times thing is another aspect of the English Statute.
The United States does not support the 'Moral Rights' of an author, as does European law (though, being a signatory to the Berne Convention, we're supposed to.) Our copyright laws are SUPPOSED to promote the progress of the arts by offering creators an incentive. No longer, now it is used to protect publisher's profits - just like the Stationers Copyright.
Here's the direct link to Pamela Samuelson's paper: http://webserver.law.yale.edu/censor/samuelson.ht
The church was the main source of complaint when the printing press was first invented - not only did monks lose income they made from copying, but also it eliminated the church mandated censorship of literature.
The first copyrights were not much better than the church regulation had been. While copyright protected one publisher (who had to pay the author a small pittance) from other publishers, it left in place the ability to censor everything that was printed - this time in the hands of the publishers and the government.
In 1710, Queen Anne enacted a copyright law called the Statute of Anne that was a copyright for authors and, at the same time, created the Public Domain (before this copyright was perpetual.) Our Constitutional basis for copyright is based on the Statute of Anne, copyright for authors instead of publishers.
Modern copyright law, however, has mutated back to something resembling the Stationers Guild Copyright - might as well be perpetual, benefits the publishers (more than the authors) and is a tool for censorship (especially the way the RIAA and the MPAA wield it!)
Check out my website for more on copyright - Pamela Samuelson has written an excellent paper on how copyright is moving full circle.
"Why should I pay out good money when I've got the music already?"
Let us, for the moment, ignore that downloading music does not pay the people who created the music, since the recording companies tend to take more than the lion's share, many people use the money as a reason TO download.
Instead, I want to offer reasons to purchase the music on CD - 1. Quality of the tracks (a good MP3 is near CD quality, but how many of the tracks on Napster were good quality?) 2. Inability to find the entire album (when I like an artist, I want all their music and, on rare occasions, the best songs aren't released and those other tracks are often very difficult to find.) 3. Photos (and lyrics) generally included with the purchase of the CD.
If the Recording Industry cut the prices they charge for CDs, a lot more people would be buying them as opposed to downloading. One hit wonders will still probably lose album sales, but quality albums would be purchased.
When copyright lasts 95 years, how much that is audio or visual can be in the Public Domain?
If it was published after 1923 and the copyright holder did not miss the single renewal required between then and 1976 then it is not Public Domain and may never become Public Domain if Disney continues the current trend of requesting extensions from Congress every 20 years.
This is just one more example of American Culture being hoarded by private interests.
I think you should read Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright." She goes into nauseating detail about how copyright laws are created in this country - and it isn't by Congress. Congressional members are handed the pre-written law, created by the businesses involved in copyright ownership, and Congress simply signs it into law once all interested parties (minus the Public, of course) find the wording acceptable.
If this isn't politics made and enforced (through lawsuits) by business, I don't know what is. The businesses are certainly making the laws, at any rate. And, unless you contest the removal of material from your ISP, they are basically enforcing the law as well (under the DMCA, the ISP must remove any material that someone 'claims' is copyrighted.)
This is the reason why Boycotts need to be LOUD. If the companies involved, their retail outlets, the politicians, the news correspondents, and everyone else in the world know that YOUR GROUP (organize, organize, organize) is boycotting the Recording Industry for the following reasons.....
/. "I'm boycotting the Recording Industry - haven't bought a CD in months." That's not enough - the internet will be blamed for dropping revenues. But an organized and determined boycott is hard to ignore and lay blame elsewhere.
Several years ago the Fishing Industry came head to head with a very successful Boycott of Tuna products and now they use Dolphin safe nets. The boycott was noisy and organized and determined. That's what a boycott needs to be.
Get permission to picket, hand out flyers, write congress and the businesses involved. Don't just post on
"I have to wonder if we are infringing copyright everytime we whistle *The Simpsons* on the john?"
Last time I checked this was still legal. Since you are by yourself at that time (or should be!) you are engaged in a private performance. However, should you whistle this in front of your family and friends over for a visit this becomes a public performance and you are then liable for copyright infringement.
Check out my website for more on copyright or invest in Jessica Litman's "Digital Copyright" (only if you have a strong stomach. Her detail on the way Congress handles copyright issues is nauseating.)
Maybe you aren't playing her right - my Sorceress usually takes out all of her opponents in short order. She's certainly more powerful than the Amazon - and she can still fight to recover her body on those rare occasions that she is actually killed.
"Copyright only covers individual creative works -- not characters."
Wrong. Copyright protects the characters through the part that gives the creator a right to control derivatives. A character loses copyright protection when the first work he/she/it appeared in is elevated to the Public Domain. Mickey Mouse's first published appearance was in 'Steamboat Willie' which would have become Public Domain in 2004, and therefore freeing Mickey from Disney's locked vault.
For more information on copyright - visit my website or read Jessica's book.
Never say "the fact is that if you did not vote, then you really cannot complain."
Sometimes, shoot, most of the time, it really doesn't matter which idiot is voted into office. There is only one group of people who cannot complain about their politicians and they are the ones who voted for those elected. You put him there, deal with it!
Nor do I believe this because I don't vote. My method of voting is quite simple. If they are incumbent, they get voted OUT as it is obvious they didn't do the job they were hired to do. Either they didn't argue hard enough or they didn't argue at all and stupid laws got passed and we all have to suffer for it.
Want to do something about the political situation? Don't just write your rep or your Senators - become a Candidate and replace them. Next year, all the reps are up for renewal. Let's try to put an entire new House in place.
If you think MP3s are such great quality you have obviously never used Napster or any GNUTELLA client. MP3s available from these sources are usually, at BEST, decent. While looking for an old, out of production song, I had to download 3 different copies to get even one that was decent.
Yes, you can make good quality MP3s - I've done that too so I could listen to favorite songs without needing the CD in the drive, but, apparently, most people who open their collections to the net do not take the time and effort to rip quality MP3s.
But even if MP3s were CD quality, that wouldn't excuse putting copy protection on them. The copyright act is their protection and it protects them too damn well already. Copy protection is a method of theft, taking away certain rights that the buyer is supposed to have. You bought it and, while they may think of it as a licensing agreement, the law still sides with you as a purchaser. Copy protection is one more step to changing that.
Quit listening to the people who have already stolen up to a hundred years of access through the Public Domain, and start thinking for yourself. Do some research on the subject, read the history. http://www.limitingcopyright.com is a good place to start.
At one time we had that law - "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to AUTHORS and INVENTORS the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Hmmm, I wonder what happened. Probably some publisher said, 'we don't need to worry about what that old part of the Constitution says, publishers are the ones who really should own those copyrights - and they also should last forever. We can even say this whole thing is to benefit the authors, I'm sure the Public will buy that."
On this one, those people representing the U.S. to the Hague Convention, and all of the politians in Washington need to see, first hand, the Slashdot Effect. Write, email, whatever - don't let them take away the rest of your rights to creations that should be destined for the Public Domain.
Hey! Don't use the dictionary to try to support proper usage. The dictionary is a source of usage, period, whether or not the use is proper or improper. If a word is used that way (thanks to copyright holders!!!!) it will be in the dictionary.
The point I was trying to make is that the Napster user is NOT distributing the files. Their presence on the harddrive is immaterial. I do NOT log on to Napster to SHARE music - I do it to FIND music (generally works that aren't available in the stores.) Because I keep the music on my harddrive in one convenient space and don't generally do more than clean up the appearance (I'm easy to filter, in other words,) does not mean that I am contributing to copyright infringement or distributing these works. They are, very simply, just on my harddrive in a convenient (to me) directory.
The Napster program was designed to take advantage of this (that people would want to keep their music in one place) and lists those files it finds as available.
Now, if you want to police potential infringers, just abort any transfers and you are, in effect, preventing any infringement.
Again, simply having those songs, in that directory, doesn't make you liable for even Contributory Infringement. They would have to prove that you facilitated people to download from your computer, which they might be able to do for Napster, but I certainly hope they couldn't prove such a thing for an individual Napster user.
"Let's all remember; if you are making copyrighted music available to others online, you *ARE* breaking the law, regardles of how rediculous we all think it is."
Napster is being accused of Contributory Infringement, not direct infringement and neither Napster nor the Napster user are actively distributing the copyrighted material.
Simply having the songs on your harddrive is NOT illegal since you may own the CD and ripped them so that you could listen to the music while using the CD-ROM drive for something else. Nor are you required to place those mp3s in any specific directory so, if you want you can put them into your 'Napster Download' directory and still not be breaking any law.
No population problem? Tell that to all of the Wildlife that humans are encroaching upon. Tell that to the atmosphere which is suffering from too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen.
I guess you are right in a way, though. There's no population problem, just too many humans. Replace some with Siberian Tigers, Giant Pandas, etc and so on - and don't forget to replace a few greedy Brazilians with some foliage for the Amazon Rainforest (where a lot of Earth's oxygen is converted.)
Even the suggestion that Earth can maintain a lot more population is an insult to anybody even mildly interested in the state of the environment. Humans are the WORST thing to ever happen to this planet and I'm including the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and the effects of the ice age.
Visit my web page - I have 2 articles concentrating on Napster and the debate surrounding file sharing. In a nutshell, here's my opinion:
The ability to find files on other people's computers and to download those files is nobody else's business but the 2 people involved. If a person were downloading music and then selling it the Recording Industry would have a reason to complain, but there is no money exchanged. (Prior to the NET act of 1998, Commercial Gain was a requirement in Copyright Infringement cases. Copyright Infringement, historically, has been a suit brought against other publishers, not agaist the Public.)
If music is broadcast over the radio, it has already been given to the Public. Downloading something one has heard on the radio is no different than using a tape recorder to capture that music when broadcast.
And, if copyright law had some sensible term limits, anything older than 20 years (more than an adequate length of time to compensate the creators) would be in the Public Domain, which would mean all music released before 1981 would, and should, be available for unrestricted downloading. Also, this would enable a service such as Napster to claim 'substantial non-infringing uses,' an argument the court has already wrongly rejected.
Most pro-Napster (non-'let's get something for free' or 'the RIAA makes too much money already') arguments are going to focus more on the unreasonable side of copyright law. It would be very difficult to argue that Napster isn't illegal - I think, under current copyright law, and as Napster is normally used, it is illegal. I just happen to fervently believe that current copyright law is extremely excessive and a complete mockery of what the authors of the Constitution intended. (Read letters to Congress on my page.)
"If the law is obsolete, is the proper way to get it changed just to disobey it?"
Maybe not the 'proper' way to get it changed, but sometimes it's the ONLY way to get it changed. When a few people disobey a law, they are criminals - when everyone disobeys a law, the law is no longer a valid law. In some situations, the law will not be changed until it becomes apparent that no one is going to obey it. I think copyright is one of those laws - as long as anybody is still obeying these laws, they will become ever more restrictive.
Strangely, I'm not advocating completely disregarding copyright - I just want some serious changes made. Copyright term no longer than patent term. Copyrights for creators only - NO CORPORATIONS. A healthy, vibrant Public Domain from which all creators can draw, and the Public can access without prior permissions.
There used to be a saying "Ain't ain't a word because it ain't in the dictionary." Well, by that logic, ain't is now a word as it has a place in the dictionary.
Dictionaries are not a source for the proper usage of a word; they cover all usage. If a word is commonly used that way, it will be in the dictionary as such. This does not make it proper.
Therefore, do not use the dictionary to support your opinion that copyright infringement is piracy. Words are power, and a word with such terrible connotations is exactly what these people want, just as they want you to think that expiration of copyright means these works FALL into the stinking hole of the Public Domain (and they are asking for these extensions to copyright in order to SAVE these works from such a horrible fate.) I choose to think of the expiration of copyright as an ELEVATION to Public Status, something to be heralded.
100% correct. At least Entertainment Industry propaganda has not infected everyone. Copyright Infringement is not theft, you are not stealing when you infringe upon someone's copyright, mass copying is not piracy.
Besides, since the mid 1980's copying for home use has been legal (Universal Studios vs Sony.) If it is legal to make a copy for your own use, well, then it's legal and where you found the copy is more or less immaterial unless you stole the CD (or whatever) you copied.
"The biggest thing to hit in the follow-up brief would be to point out the logical inconsistencies in the DA/MPAA's arguments which Michael so clearly pointed out. The argument about how a DVD that eventually falls into the public domain will be accessed struck me as a particularly powerful one." I think the main reason these people aren't worried about what will happen when a movie is elevated to the Public Domain is that they don't expect it to ever happen. 20 years at a time Congress is going to extend term limitations - this has already happened, in 1976 and again in 1998 - until copyright is finally declared to be perpetual and no longer limited by the Constitution. http://www.limitingcopyright.com
Hope you're still reading replies! Give me until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week and the original letter will be on my website - along with Congressman Nathan Deal's reply.
And if others would like to post their letters to politicians (with or without replies) to my copyright based website, send an email with both attached.
The website is: http://www.limitingcopyright.com
My email address is susan@the-lanman.com