Have you even bothered reading the laws I pointed you to? For fucks sake, education is one of the specifically exemptions to the exclusive control.
Yes, I have, and yes, education is a specifically listed exemption, in a short list beginning with the phrase "the purpose and character of the use", to which I spoke, and the word "including", which implies an incomplete list.
And yes, in our legal system, if someone is shot in the commission of a crime that you were part of, you can be charged for her murder or wounding regardless of if you had a gun or not.
Did I say I was part of the crime being committed? Maybe I was just walking down the street, with my legal, licensed, weapon, for which I also have a concealed carry permit, when someone else shot somebody. Who said anything about being involved?
(and yes, your suggested usage is well outside)
You still haven't proven that.
Something that I've been trying to leave out of this, but now see that I may have to bring up is DRM. Let's say I do buy a CD and wish to convert it to MP3s; ok, problem, that disc contains DRM that prevents that by altering the way my computer operates. By legal precedent, format shifting has been declared well within my rights. Are you saying that their right (which I've many times over admitted is violated by downloading, so you can quit pointing it out, by the way) shouldn't be fair game after they've violated mine? Because, I'll tell you what, the reason I download first is so that CD never has to enter my computer to be copied, so I don't run the risk of falling victim to the next Sony root-kit.
Back to my scenario: I've purchased a CD, I can't copy it because of DRM. I could crack the DRM to copy it, but that would be a violation of the DMCA. I'm stuck, I have a legal right to format shift this CD, but no legal means by which to do so. What do I do? I download; it's a civil infraction, rather than a felony, and I have the plausible defense that I was carrying out the only non-criminal means to exercise my right to format shift purchased media.
Are you telling me it's alright for them to violate my rights? Seriously? Because that would make you a hypocrite. Or should I claim lost profit because I'm legally entitled to make MP3s of that CD but they're preventing that. It sounds pretty even to me, regardless of the order in which the download and purchase are made.
I also notice that you didn't reply to the post in which I attempt to separate your morality from logic and the facts of the situation. I would really love to hear your thoughts on that matter.
I think your parse engine is broken. If someone else caused the damage and the loss is already existent, your still not allowed to use it in that way. This goes beyond any loss in value or wear and tear.
Did I say I was going to use it because it was opened? NO!
I said opening it caused damage. I was agreeing with you. Read it again.
Where I disagree with you is when you apply the same logic to copying a digital file. I didn't break a package open, I didn't degrade the value of the original file, the original file is just as it was before being copied.
Provided I'm not distributing it further, you'll find that I'm actually quite within my rights; it is whoever distributed that copy to me who is in violation.
Speaking to the purpose and character of the use, my personal, non-commercial, copy is protected. Under our legal system, you either violate or you don't violate; there is no "well, you had a gun, it was loaded, she was shot, you're guilty even though the bullet came from someone else's gun". That's simply not how it works. If you, in turn, tell me that copying failing just a single test is a violation, I'll have to point out that educational copying of entire works has been, and is, protected, even though it fails test 3; it passes test 1 and will often pass tests 2 and 4.
Further, my having made a personal copy, in order to evaluate a purchase decision, would seem to increase market value (should I choose to purchase) or not affect it at all (should I not choose to purchase), provided that I do not distribute copies myself. That takes care of test 4; passed.
Look at that, my personal copy passes twice as many of those tests as most educational copies.
Flat out, plain and simple, if I buy it, you made profit, if I do not buy it, you did not make profit. you maintain the right to make a copy, regardless whether I make one as well, or not. My copying does not make your right to copy suddenly disappear. Further, equating the right to copy with some magical instant profit is a fallacy.
If I have no money whatsoever and I download an MP3, I was clearly not going to pay for it, there was no chance for profit, thus there was no profit lost. If I, subsequently, purchase the album, there was profit gained; if I do not, there was still no profit lost, as there still would have been no sale, thus no profit, at the time of the download.
You're letting your morals dictate your logic. That's where you're wrong.
Do I agree with you morally? There's a fair chance that I do; tell me if you're morally averse to downloading music pre-purchase, with the intent to purchase at a later date, and we'll know for sure.
Logically, though, you're not making any sense. You're using the same logic that allowed the financial industry to trade on nonexistent funds, leading to our current economic situation; sadly, the recording industry is also following that same logic, which will, eventually, lead to their collapse.
When you separate your feelings about an issue from the logical facts of the issue, you look at it differently. The only reason I've gone on with you for this long about this is that I can see things from your point of view, when I start feeling my logic rather than thinking about it. As my bro-in-law is a musician, this is a debate I've had many times and heard from many points of view.
In the end, even the musician in the family agrees with me on the facts and logic. And I wholeheartedly agree with him on the moral issues.
I've downloaded his entire catalog several times over (only part of it is available from his website). I've also bought the entire catalog. IT works out the same; the downloads don't cost him a penny (ironically, the legal ones, hosted on his site do), and his sales aren't affected. He fully supported my downloading because he knew, at that time, I couldn't afford the CD. As soon as I could, I bought it.
OK, suppose that someone else opened the tape and you saw it.
...said in reply to...
I'm pretty sure that opening the cassette tape with no intention of purchasing it would not only be morally questionable, as it reduces the value of the item, it may also be considered malicious destruction of property, for the very same reason. That's also ignoring the fact that the act of playing that cassette, in order to dub it, also degrades the original cassette.
Did you even read what you replied to? Regardless whether I, or anyone else, sees it, it still degrades the resale value of the item, as it is now an open package and is no longer considered new; it also may be considered malicious destruction of property in some jurisdictions. Regardless of any amount of wear and tear that may or may not occur, the fact that the package is now open has caused a loss for the retailer.
Walmart could agree to such a deal, you wouldn't have technically broken the law but walmart would have and a profit would have been lost.
In my hypothetical situation, Wal Mart is allowing you to bring in your own equipment for the sole purpose of listening; that your equipment is capable of (and is) making a copy as you listen is inconsequential to them, as they did not expressly permit it.
See above and show where fair use is perceived in the same way you are speaking of.
You do the same and show me where it's defined at all. It's a legal defense, not a piece of legislation, which is why I said it may be protected; you also may get a judge who sides with the industry and lose your ass over it. That's the thing, right there, what is and is not considered fair use is left to the interpretation of every party involved, it's not simply spelled out in the law. You can't prove me wrong and I can't prove you wrong; which is why I said 'may be protected' rather than 'is protected'. It depends how the judge sees it.
Because your last paragraph said you if you pirate something today, you might buy it legitimately some other day, and you may still buy the bootlegged version.
Oh, what brings me to my last point. Just because I pirate (download for free from an unlicensed source) today doesn't mean I won't purchase tomorrow. If I buy from a bootlegger today, though, you can be sure I won't be buying from you. That's how you determine lost profit; who obtained a copy elsewhere and will never pay us for it?
No, that paragraphs says if I pirate, I may, eventually, buy from you; if I buy a bootleg, I will never buy from you. In the first instance, you may have lost profit, in the second, you have lost profit. Well, really, sales, noo profit; many things are sold at a loss (see: PS3) with the hopes of recouping that loss with accessory sales. For example, a label may choose to sell a new artist's CD for less than production/distribution/shelving costs in order to promote an upcoming concert tour.
You have or someone has in order for you to get the pirated or bootleged version, taken that right of control away from the copyright owner and used it for their own purposed. It doesn't matter what happens down the road, the legal right has been taken.
So, are we arguing lost profits or violated rights here? They're really two different subjects and you're purposefully confusing the issue by treating them as though they're one in the same.
The actual content isn't the issue here. It's the rights to the content that is. When you down load something, someone has taken the rights given by law away from the copyright owner. The distribution, regardless of what you do with it later, equals a lost profit.
Again, you're confusing the issue. Are we talking about lost profits due to piracy or violated rights due to privacy? Every time I point out that a pirate may eventually purchase, or may have never had the intention to purchase (first case, eventual profit; second case, no chance for profit) you bring up how it's taking away someone's right to distribute their work. Actually, that's also a fallacy; just because I'm distributing a copy of an MP3 doesn't preclude you from doing the same.
Pick one argument and stick to it, for the same of ever having a chance to make me see things your way.
Let's look at it this way. Suppose you go into a bank and take $2000 from one of the cash draws without filling out any paperwork or speaking to the teller. You robbed the bank. You can't walk in a week later and say "I want to deposit this $2000 and apply it to my withdraw last week" and expect the robbery charges to disappear. And yes, this is a "right of control" of property, the robbery exists before any loss of use or wear and tear on the money ever takes place. When that control of property is used to create a profit, any act you do or cause to be done that takes that right away is a loss of profit. There is no other way to look at it.
I'll concede that, in this instance, you're absolutely right. The bank was completely missing that $2000 for a week. When I download an MP3 a week before purchasing the album, nobody had to go without that album. Care to try again, using a proper definition of robbery? (hint:larceny by threat of violence)
I'm pretty sure that opening the cassette tape with no intention of purchasing it would not only be morally questionable, as it reduces the value of the item, it may also be considered malicious destruction of property, for the very same reason. That's also ignoring the fact that the act of playing that cassette, in order to dub it, also degrades the original cassette.
Beyond that, provided that Wal-Mart were willing to allow you to bring in your own equipment and open a cassette under the guise of preview, the personal copy you may make would likely be protected as fair use, provided that you did not further distribute it. So, yes, I guess I am going to claim that it's legal and fine to dub a cassette tape, provided the owner of that cassette (not the content, the physical cassette) has given you permission.
That's right, personal copies, even of borrowed media, are protected by fair use.
Now that I think of it...
A modified BitTorrent client which only allows one user to "borrow" a chunk of a torrent at a time (even locking the owner of the physical disk from accessing it) may actually allow all such transactions to be protected as fair use. If I'm lending sole access to that chunk of disk to you, and you choose to make a (fair-use-protected) copy of it, I haven't violated any law; while you have access, I, nor anyone else, would have access.
Would it be slower? Probably. Would it be protected? Probably. Would it be fought by the industry? Probably. Would they lose? Probably. Did you ignore my point? Probably. Did I go off-topic? Yup, sorry.
I'm not going to go into a whole long post this time, simply because each time, I've replied to each point you've made, and each time, you've almost replied to each point I've made, except in this last post; here, you made much less of an attempt to veil the agenda you're pushing.
This becomes increasingly clear in your response to my last paragraph, in which I highlight the difference between infringement which can definitely be counted as loss of profit and infringement which can possibly be counted as loss of profit. Your reply alluded to judgment of the legitimacy of piracy; either you have a severe comprehension problem, I wasn't clear enough, or you're getting a tad impatient with the fact that I'm not simply giving in and agreeing with you.
That said, I buy CDs from time to time; I don't buy DVDs, but that's only because, between birthday, christmas, and random gift, I typically receive all the ones I want throughout the year. How do I determine which CDs and DVDs I want? I download them and listen. I delete what I don't want, and begin acquiring legit copies of what I decide I do want.
Is my piracy still lost profit? I fail to see it.
The only thing I download without paying for is TV shows, and that's purely a moral thing. When TV was all broadcast, it was paid for by advertisements; when the community antenna came along, everyone who contributed an antenna was granted access free of charge because it improved the system. That eventually became paid cable, which, because it was being paid for outright, did not include commercials, excepting the commercials already existing on the free-to-air channels. That system works for me. I'll pay a nice monthly fee for no commercials. So, what do I do? I pay for the channels the shows I want to see are on, but I download them to watch them commercial-free. Purely a moral standing against being constantly bombarded with ads for harsh chemical cleaners and chemically-enhanced corn-syrup-based pseudo-foods, to subsidize a service I'm already paying for.
I still fail to see how I'm causing loss of profit for anyone, here. If I didn't download, I wouldn't be buying; there's your lost profit. If I'm not going to buy, I'm also not going to keep the download; the same as borrowing from the library, but I can do it at quarter-past-midnight if that's when it's convenient for me to do so. If it leads to more actual sales than would have happened otherwise, or at least no lost sales, where's the loss?
Yes, my right to my property is a construct of law, damn right it is. I acknowledge possession of this laptop because it exists on my lap. I acknowledge possession of the series of bits that make up an MP3 because it exists on my hard drive.
I also acknowledge the RIAA affiliate label's possession of every copy of that song that they had in their inventory before I 'pirated' it, because all the CDs, tape reels, cassettes, digital copies used in editing, MP3s and AAC files meant for online distribution, short snippets for sale as ringtones, and whatever format those little fake-SD-card kids toys use, DO still exist in their possession, or in the possession of the stores and other distribution channels to which they were sold.
Are we arguing property rights or copyright?
As for the assumption that pirating means lost profit, that really only holds water in cases of for-profit piracy. If I'm selling bootleg DVDs, every sale I make is someone who was willing to spend money, proof being that they did spend money, to attain that DVD. Those are the only instances of piracy that one can, with any certainty, declare when calculating lost profit. Me downloading an MP3 for free? Would I have paid? Maybe (no, but I'll pay if I like it enough to listen more than a couple times).
Oh, what brings me to my last point. Just because I pirate (download for free from an unlicensed source) today doesn't mean I won't purchase tomorrow. If I buy from a bootlegger today, though, you can be sure I won't be buying from you. That's how you determine lost profit; who obtained a copy elsewhere and will never pay us for it?
It used to work with cassette apes, where the act of playing it (in order to copy) put about the same amount of wear on the tape as a weekend drive put on the car and there was about the same chance of the tape deck eating it as there was of getting in an accident.
No wear and tear on the MP3 and no chance of the rights holder OR the unlicensed distributor losing access to it or having its performance degraded.
Oh, and they can still sell it while I'm listening to it.
So then it would be ok if the rental company didn't have anyone wanting to rent the car, you put absolutely no wear on the vehicle, and didn't get in an accident?
There, fixed that for ya.
As for your claim that the wear and tear is minimal, do you have any idea what happens when you neutral-slam an automatic transmission? Let's see how fast this thing can take off; then, let's see how fast it can go! I don't care if I crack the bell housing on the transmission and bring it back with worn piston rings and no oil, you have no clue who I am.
You can't assume people who haven't given you a copy of their license and insurance card will treat your vehicle the same way as people who have.
You almost have a point about the possibility of an accident being an invalid argument. Here's the problem, though: when I take that car out for the weekend, there's a very real possibility of an accident; when I take that MP3, there was no possibility that I was going to pay for it, anyway.
As for your last point, I demand compensation, in the amount of $700 billion, for the time it has taken me to draft and submit the response. Failure to pay would constitute a lo... wait, what?
It's still a lost profit if you steal a rental car for the weekend but never would have paid the rent on it.
How much sooner will that MP3 need an oil change, a tune up, and a new set of tires, if I listen to it all weekend? Did I put undue wear on its transmission? What condition will the brakes be in when I return it?
You've simply left too many variables undefined for your argument to hold any water.
So, if I buy CDs this month instead of paying rent, I've put more money into circulation?
No, I'm pretty sure I'm not buying $600 worth of CDs; if I pay rent this month, I'm pretty sure I'm not buying any. In my case, buying CDs would be stealing from the American people as a consequence of loss of income.
Nice try, Biden; just let Obama do the talking from now on, ok? He might have been able to get that by me.
Do you know what a caricature is? Artistically, it is a drawing where the artist draws a person grossly out of proportion, with a strong emphasis on any way in which the subject differs from "normal".
Apply that to an argument. It means to latch on to the first thing that doesn't make sense to you and blow it way out of proportion.
It's a very effective tactic, when you only need it to work long enough to get out of hearing distance of your opponent; especially in a room full of their peers. I have a coworker who "wins" arguments like that all the time, except that we all know he does it, so he's really losing every time he opens his mouth; even if he's right.
Ok, so, it took you a minute to start the download. That's a good metric, we'll go with that.
Let's assume you have 2 CD/DVD drives and can rip a CD in 10 minutes. Ok, so you can average a CD every 5 minutes.
If I have 60 CDs, I can spend 1 hour starting downloads, then go to bed for the night
or
I can spend 5 hours laboring over my PC, swapping discs in and out, typing in track and album titles, artist names, production years, picking out the correct genre for each disc (or even track)
Which is more convenient?
Oh, and, let's just assume that yes, I did rip each CD, manually, as I bought them. Sure, for one-at-a-time, one-off rips of a disc or two at a time, it's more convenient to know everything's tagged accurately.
But, I have CDs from the late 80's, long before everyone had PCs and PCs had CD drives. I got my first CD-ROM drive 2 weeks before Napster came about; back then, ripping a CD took over an hour and a half. I had been ripping 1 CD per day and, when I heard about Napster, I gave it a try. Sure, it took longer than that to download songs on my dialup connection, but it was more convenient to be able to start downloads of a couple dozen CDs and forget about it for a while.
I had 15 CDs ripped when I heard about napster. 2 weeks later, I had 50 CDs downloaded. Sure, a single rip may be faster, but multiple downloads, which can be done unattended, are more efficient and more convenient.
You know what? Now, I download first, and buy later. I only keep what I intend to buy. If I only like one song on an album, I wait for the single; meanwhile, I don't let the rest of the album take up space on my drive.
After getting burned a few times, spending $20+ on an album with one good track, while the single, sitting next to it on the shelf, was only $1.99, I had decided to stop buying music altogether. Until, that is, I began to think of downloading as a convenient way to preview entire albums to determine whether they were worth my hard earned money.
So, it started out as a convenient way to get my CD collection onto my PC and it became the vehicle by which the music industry is still able to get into my wallet; yet, they want to put it to sleep. Remind me, why do I support them?
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Have you even bothered reading the laws I pointed you to? For fucks sake, education is one of the specifically exemptions to the exclusive control.
Yes, I have, and yes, education is a specifically listed exemption, in a short list beginning with the phrase "the purpose and character of the use", to which I spoke, and the word "including", which implies an incomplete list.
And yes, in our legal system, if someone is shot in the commission of a crime that you were part of, you can be charged for her murder or wounding regardless of if you had a gun or not.
Did I say I was part of the crime being committed? Maybe I was just walking down the street, with my legal, licensed, weapon, for which I also have a concealed carry permit, when someone else shot somebody. Who said anything about being involved?
(and yes, your suggested usage is well outside)
You still haven't proven that.
Something that I've been trying to leave out of this, but now see that I may have to bring up is DRM. Let's say I do buy a CD and wish to convert it to MP3s; ok, problem, that disc contains DRM that prevents that by altering the way my computer operates. By legal precedent, format shifting has been declared well within my rights. Are you saying that their right (which I've many times over admitted is violated by downloading, so you can quit pointing it out, by the way) shouldn't be fair game after they've violated mine? Because, I'll tell you what, the reason I download first is so that CD never has to enter my computer to be copied, so I don't run the risk of falling victim to the next Sony root-kit.
Back to my scenario: I've purchased a CD, I can't copy it because of DRM. I could crack the DRM to copy it, but that would be a violation of the DMCA. I'm stuck, I have a legal right to format shift this CD, but no legal means by which to do so. What do I do? I download; it's a civil infraction, rather than a felony, and I have the plausible defense that I was carrying out the only non-criminal means to exercise my right to format shift purchased media.
Are you telling me it's alright for them to violate my rights? Seriously? Because that would make you a hypocrite. Or should I claim lost profit because I'm legally entitled to make MP3s of that CD but they're preventing that. It sounds pretty even to me, regardless of the order in which the download and purchase are made.
I also notice that you didn't reply to the post in which I attempt to separate your morality from logic and the facts of the situation. I would really love to hear your thoughts on that matter.
I think your parse engine is broken. If someone else caused the damage and the loss is already existent, your still not allowed to use it in that way. This goes beyond any loss in value or wear and tear.
Did I say I was going to use it because it was opened? NO!
I said opening it caused damage. I was agreeing with you. Read it again.
Where I disagree with you is when you apply the same logic to copying a digital file. I didn't break a package open, I didn't degrade the value of the original file, the original file is just as it was before being copied.
Provided I'm not distributing it further, you'll find that I'm actually quite within my rights; it is whoever distributed that copy to me who is in violation.
Speaking to the purpose and character of the use, my personal, non-commercial, copy is protected. Under our legal system, you either violate or you don't violate; there is no "well, you had a gun, it was loaded, she was shot, you're guilty even though the bullet came from someone else's gun". That's simply not how it works. If you, in turn, tell me that copying failing just a single test is a violation, I'll have to point out that educational copying of entire works has been, and is, protected, even though it fails test 3; it passes test 1 and will often pass tests 2 and 4.
Further, my having made a personal copy, in order to evaluate a purchase decision, would seem to increase market value (should I choose to purchase) or not affect it at all (should I not choose to purchase), provided that I do not distribute copies myself. That takes care of test 4; passed.
Look at that, my personal copy passes twice as many of those tests as most educational copies.
Flat out, plain and simple, if I buy it, you made profit, if I do not buy it, you did not make profit. you maintain the right to make a copy, regardless whether I make one as well, or not. My copying does not make your right to copy suddenly disappear. Further, equating the right to copy with some magical instant profit is a fallacy.
If I have no money whatsoever and I download an MP3, I was clearly not going to pay for it, there was no chance for profit, thus there was no profit lost. If I, subsequently, purchase the album, there was profit gained; if I do not, there was still no profit lost, as there still would have been no sale, thus no profit, at the time of the download.
You're letting your morals dictate your logic. That's where you're wrong.
Do I agree with you morally? There's a fair chance that I do; tell me if you're morally averse to downloading music pre-purchase, with the intent to purchase at a later date, and we'll know for sure.
Logically, though, you're not making any sense. You're using the same logic that allowed the financial industry to trade on nonexistent funds, leading to our current economic situation; sadly, the recording industry is also following that same logic, which will, eventually, lead to their collapse.
When you separate your feelings about an issue from the logical facts of the issue, you look at it differently. The only reason I've gone on with you for this long about this is that I can see things from your point of view, when I start feeling my logic rather than thinking about it. As my bro-in-law is a musician, this is a debate I've had many times and heard from many points of view.
In the end, even the musician in the family agrees with me on the facts and logic. And I wholeheartedly agree with him on the moral issues.
I've downloaded his entire catalog several times over (only part of it is available from his website). I've also bought the entire catalog. IT works out the same; the downloads don't cost him a penny (ironically, the legal ones, hosted on his site do), and his sales aren't affected. He fully supported my downloading because he knew, at that time, I couldn't afford the CD. As soon as I could, I bought it.
Did he lose profit to me? Explain.
OK, suppose that someone else opened the tape and you saw it.
...said in reply to...
I'm pretty sure that opening the cassette tape with no intention of purchasing it would not only be morally questionable, as it reduces the value of the item, it may also be considered malicious destruction of property, for the very same reason. That's also ignoring the fact that the act of playing that cassette, in order to dub it, also degrades the original cassette.
Did you even read what you replied to? Regardless whether I, or anyone else, sees it, it still degrades the resale value of the item, as it is now an open package and is no longer considered new; it also may be considered malicious destruction of property in some jurisdictions. Regardless of any amount of wear and tear that may or may not occur, the fact that the package is now open has caused a loss for the retailer.
Walmart could agree to such a deal, you wouldn't have technically broken the law but walmart would have and a profit would have been lost.
In my hypothetical situation, Wal Mart is allowing you to bring in your own equipment for the sole purpose of listening; that your equipment is capable of (and is) making a copy as you listen is inconsequential to them, as they did not expressly permit it.
See above and show where fair use is perceived in the same way you are speaking of.
You do the same and show me where it's defined at all. It's a legal defense, not a piece of legislation, which is why I said it may be protected; you also may get a judge who sides with the industry and lose your ass over it. That's the thing, right there, what is and is not considered fair use is left to the interpretation of every party involved, it's not simply spelled out in the law. You can't prove me wrong and I can't prove you wrong; which is why I said 'may be protected' rather than 'is protected'. It depends how the judge sees it.
Because your last paragraph said you if you pirate something today, you might buy it legitimately some other day, and you may still buy the bootlegged version.
Oh, what brings me to my last point. Just because I pirate (download for free from an unlicensed source) today doesn't mean I won't purchase tomorrow. If I buy from a bootlegger today, though, you can be sure I won't be buying from you. That's how you determine lost profit; who obtained a copy elsewhere and will never pay us for it?
No, that paragraphs says if I pirate, I may, eventually, buy from you; if I buy a bootleg, I will never buy from you. In the first instance, you may have lost profit, in the second, you have lost profit. Well, really, sales, noo profit; many things are sold at a loss (see: PS3) with the hopes of recouping that loss with accessory sales. For example, a label may choose to sell a new artist's CD for less than production/distribution/shelving costs in order to promote an upcoming concert tour.
You have or someone has in order for you to get the pirated or bootleged version, taken that right of control away from the copyright owner and used it for their own purposed. It doesn't matter what happens down the road, the legal right has been taken.
So, are we arguing lost profits or violated rights here? They're really two different subjects and you're purposefully confusing the issue by treating them as though they're one in the same.
The actual content isn't the issue here. It's the rights to the content that is. When you down load something, someone has taken the rights given by law away from the copyright owner. The distribution, regardless of what you do with it later, equals a lost profit.
Again, you're confusing the issue. Are we talking about lost profits due to piracy or violated rights due to privacy? Every time I point out that a pirate may eventually purchase, or may have never had the intention to purchase (first case, eventual profit; second case, no chance for profit) you bring up how it's taking away someone's right to distribute their work. Actually, that's also a fallacy; just because I'm distributing a copy of an MP3 doesn't preclude you from doing the same.
Pick one argument and stick to it, for the same of ever having a chance to make me see things your way.
Let's look at it this way. Suppose you go into a bank and take $2000 from one of the cash draws without filling out any paperwork or speaking to the teller. You robbed the bank. You can't walk in a week later and say "I want to deposit this $2000 and apply it to my withdraw last week" and expect the robbery charges to disappear. And yes, this is a "right of control" of property, the robbery exists before any loss of use or wear and tear on the money ever takes place. When that control of property is used to create a profit, any act you do or cause to be done that takes that right away is a loss of profit. There is no other way to look at it.
I'll concede that, in this instance, you're absolutely right. The bank was completely missing that $2000 for a week. When I download an MP3 a week before purchasing the album, nobody had to go without that album. Care to try again, using a proper definition of robbery? (hint:larceny by threat of violence)
I'm pretty sure that opening the cassette tape with no intention of purchasing it would not only be morally questionable, as it reduces the value of the item, it may also be considered malicious destruction of property, for the very same reason. That's also ignoring the fact that the act of playing that cassette, in order to dub it, also degrades the original cassette.
Beyond that, provided that Wal-Mart were willing to allow you to bring in your own equipment and open a cassette under the guise of preview, the personal copy you may make would likely be protected as fair use, provided that you did not further distribute it. So, yes, I guess I am going to claim that it's legal and fine to dub a cassette tape, provided the owner of that cassette (not the content, the physical cassette) has given you permission.
That's right, personal copies, even of borrowed media, are protected by fair use.
Now that I think of it...
A modified BitTorrent client which only allows one user to "borrow" a chunk of a torrent at a time (even locking the owner of the physical disk from accessing it) may actually allow all such transactions to be protected as fair use. If I'm lending sole access to that chunk of disk to you, and you choose to make a (fair-use-protected) copy of it, I haven't violated any law; while you have access, I, nor anyone else, would have access.
Would it be slower? Probably. Would it be protected? Probably. Would it be fought by the industry? Probably. Would they lose? Probably. Did you ignore my point? Probably. Did I go off-topic? Yup, sorry.
I'm not going to go into a whole long post this time, simply because each time, I've replied to each point you've made, and each time, you've almost replied to each point I've made, except in this last post; here, you made much less of an attempt to veil the agenda you're pushing.
This becomes increasingly clear in your response to my last paragraph, in which I highlight the difference between infringement which can definitely be counted as loss of profit and infringement which can possibly be counted as loss of profit. Your reply alluded to judgment of the legitimacy of piracy; either you have a severe comprehension problem, I wasn't clear enough, or you're getting a tad impatient with the fact that I'm not simply giving in and agreeing with you.
That said, I buy CDs from time to time; I don't buy DVDs, but that's only because, between birthday, christmas, and random gift, I typically receive all the ones I want throughout the year. How do I determine which CDs and DVDs I want? I download them and listen. I delete what I don't want, and begin acquiring legit copies of what I decide I do want.
Is my piracy still lost profit? I fail to see it.
The only thing I download without paying for is TV shows, and that's purely a moral thing. When TV was all broadcast, it was paid for by advertisements; when the community antenna came along, everyone who contributed an antenna was granted access free of charge because it improved the system. That eventually became paid cable, which, because it was being paid for outright, did not include commercials, excepting the commercials already existing on the free-to-air channels. That system works for me. I'll pay a nice monthly fee for no commercials. So, what do I do? I pay for the channels the shows I want to see are on, but I download them to watch them commercial-free. Purely a moral standing against being constantly bombarded with ads for harsh chemical cleaners and chemically-enhanced corn-syrup-based pseudo-foods, to subsidize a service I'm already paying for.
I still fail to see how I'm causing loss of profit for anyone, here. If I didn't download, I wouldn't be buying; there's your lost profit. If I'm not going to buy, I'm also not going to keep the download; the same as borrowing from the library, but I can do it at quarter-past-midnight if that's when it's convenient for me to do so. If it leads to more actual sales than would have happened otherwise, or at least no lost sales, where's the loss?
Oops, I guess that was a long reply.
Yes, my right to my property is a construct of law, damn right it is. I acknowledge possession of this laptop because it exists on my lap. I acknowledge possession of the series of bits that make up an MP3 because it exists on my hard drive.
I also acknowledge the RIAA affiliate label's possession of every copy of that song that they had in their inventory before I 'pirated' it, because all the CDs, tape reels, cassettes, digital copies used in editing, MP3s and AAC files meant for online distribution, short snippets for sale as ringtones, and whatever format those little fake-SD-card kids toys use, DO still exist in their possession, or in the possession of the stores and other distribution channels to which they were sold.
Are we arguing property rights or copyright?
As for the assumption that pirating means lost profit, that really only holds water in cases of for-profit piracy. If I'm selling bootleg DVDs, every sale I make is someone who was willing to spend money, proof being that they did spend money, to attain that DVD. Those are the only instances of piracy that one can, with any certainty, declare when calculating lost profit. Me downloading an MP3 for free? Would I have paid? Maybe (no, but I'll pay if I like it enough to listen more than a couple times).
Oh, what brings me to my last point. Just because I pirate (download for free from an unlicensed source) today doesn't mean I won't purchase tomorrow. If I buy from a bootlegger today, though, you can be sure I won't be buying from you. That's how you determine lost profit; who obtained a copy elsewhere and will never pay us for it?
A horrible analogy, however.
It used to work with cassette apes, where the act of playing it (in order to copy) put about the same amount of wear on the tape as a weekend drive put on the car and there was about the same chance of the tape deck eating it as there was of getting in an accident.
No wear and tear on the MP3 and no chance of the rights holder OR the unlicensed distributor losing access to it or having its performance degraded.
Oh, and they can still sell it while I'm listening to it.
There's a difference: in the case of the drive-in, I'm on your property; in the case of the MP3, your property is on my property.
Right, I took the car, with no identifying documents left behind, and I'm treating the fucking thing with kid gloves?
What kind of car thief are you?
Is it really a subsidy if it's the result of way-more-than-marginally increased taxes for the parties receiving the payments?
Sounds more like an investment account to me; give us everything you've got and we'll give some of it back if you're lucky.
So then it would be ok if the rental company didn't have anyone wanting to rent the car, you put absolutely no wear on the vehicle, and didn't get in an accident?
There, fixed that for ya.
As for your claim that the wear and tear is minimal, do you have any idea what happens when you neutral-slam an automatic transmission? Let's see how fast this thing can take off; then, let's see how fast it can go! I don't care if I crack the bell housing on the transmission and bring it back with worn piston rings and no oil, you have no clue who I am.
You can't assume people who haven't given you a copy of their license and insurance card will treat your vehicle the same way as people who have.
You almost have a point about the possibility of an accident being an invalid argument. Here's the problem, though: when I take that car out for the weekend, there's a very real possibility of an accident; when I take that MP3, there was no possibility that I was going to pay for it, anyway.
As for your last point, I demand compensation, in the amount of $700 billion, for the time it has taken me to draft and submit the response. Failure to pay would constitute a lo... wait, what?
It's still a lost profit if you steal a rental car for the weekend but never would have paid the rent on it.
How much sooner will that MP3 need an oil change, a tune up, and a new set of tires, if I listen to it all weekend? Did I put undue wear on its transmission? What condition will the brakes be in when I return it?
You've simply left too many variables undefined for your argument to hold any water.
...as a consequence of loss of income
So, if I buy CDs this month instead of paying rent, I've put more money into circulation?
No, I'm pretty sure I'm not buying $600 worth of CDs; if I pay rent this month, I'm pretty sure I'm not buying any. In my case, buying CDs would be stealing from the American people as a consequence of loss of income.
Nice try, Biden; just let Obama do the talking from now on, ok? He might have been able to get that by me.
It's a cut above the rest!
The music industry LOVES piracy. It allows them to beg "will you please pay our inflated prices to cover the cost of your friends' piracy?"
I accuse you of theft.
Prove it.
The fact that he stated it publicly is proof that he accused you.
Modded: +5 LULZ
Very welcome.
It may be, but that doesn't make the validating statement of his argument any less true.
Do you know what a caricature is? Artistically, it is a drawing where the artist draws a person grossly out of proportion, with a strong emphasis on any way in which the subject differs from "normal".
Apply that to an argument. It means to latch on to the first thing that doesn't make sense to you and blow it way out of proportion.
It's a very effective tactic, when you only need it to work long enough to get out of hearing distance of your opponent; especially in a room full of their peers. I have a coworker who "wins" arguments like that all the time, except that we all know he does it, so he's really losing every time he opens his mouth; even if he's right.
Ok, so, it took you a minute to start the download. That's a good metric, we'll go with that.
Let's assume you have 2 CD/DVD drives and can rip a CD in 10 minutes. Ok, so you can average a CD every 5 minutes.
If I have 60 CDs, I can spend 1 hour starting downloads, then go to bed for the night
or
I can spend 5 hours laboring over my PC, swapping discs in and out, typing in track and album titles, artist names, production years, picking out the correct genre for each disc (or even track)
Which is more convenient?
Oh, and, let's just assume that yes, I did rip each CD, manually, as I bought them. Sure, for one-at-a-time, one-off rips of a disc or two at a time, it's more convenient to know everything's tagged accurately.
But, I have CDs from the late 80's, long before everyone had PCs and PCs had CD drives. I got my first CD-ROM drive 2 weeks before Napster came about; back then, ripping a CD took over an hour and a half. I had been ripping 1 CD per day and, when I heard about Napster, I gave it a try. Sure, it took longer than that to download songs on my dialup connection, but it was more convenient to be able to start downloads of a couple dozen CDs and forget about it for a while.
I had 15 CDs ripped when I heard about napster. 2 weeks later, I had 50 CDs downloaded. Sure, a single rip may be faster, but multiple downloads, which can be done unattended, are more efficient and more convenient.
You know what? Now, I download first, and buy later. I only keep what I intend to buy. If I only like one song on an album, I wait for the single; meanwhile, I don't let the rest of the album take up space on my drive.
After getting burned a few times, spending $20+ on an album with one good track, while the single, sitting next to it on the shelf, was only $1.99, I had decided to stop buying music altogether. Until, that is, I began to think of downloading as a convenient way to preview entire albums to determine whether they were worth my hard earned money.
So, it started out as a convenient way to get my CD collection onto my PC and it became the vehicle by which the music industry is still able to get into my wallet; yet, they want to put it to sleep. Remind me, why do I support them?
Is Outlook more secure than Thunderbird? I've been under the impression that the opposite was true.
It doesn't occur to them that a malfunctioning toaster could suddenly delete their car.
Never occurred to me... but my toaster blew up this morning and when I went to leave for work, my car was gone. I thought it had been stolen!