Comments on Verdict in File Sharing Case is In.
I pretty much stopped sharing music after Itunes. I still download the occasional band not on there and I do download movies I don't care to see in the theater.
File sharing was more justified when the only alternative was going to the store and buying a cd. Not only is that wasteful, but annoying. Today the only real jsutification is that you don't want to pay.
The whole sue your customers thing is just stupid, especially when going after individuals who are not affirmatively doing the sharing. However if someone knowingly makes copyrighted works available to others the owner of that material has every right to go after them and in fact falure to protect copyright can result in it being lost.
There is nothing stopping artists from distributing their music how they see fit. The EFF's hippy fantasy of all music being 'by the people' isn't going to happen. At least not as long as people want to be famous and make tons of money.
But, there are and always will be muscians who choose to distribute their music freely. The key is that the choice belongs to the person who created the content, not some college student who thinks the world owes them free shit.
Oy. Stick a tax on blank CDs and mp3 players, the same one that's on blank tapes, and pay out to the artists based on how much their shit gets swapped. Done. Artist gets paid, we all get to swap, everyone's happy.
Even if the Internet service provider keeps very detailed access logs, it’s nearly impossible to prove that a certain IP address was used by a particular person at any given time.
Jammie Thomas's attorneys tried this ("must have been someone outside with a laptop!"), and it didn't fly.
Copyright is meant to encourage the creative process, not to fatten corporate coffers or limit the available means of distribution.
Is that the purpose of copyright? Is that why copyright was established? questioncopyright.org makes the case that copyright is not, and never was, meant for creators, but was designed by and for distributors; it is a product of the time when distribution was expensive (the good old printing press) and a mechanism was deemed necessary to let publishers recoup their high costs.
Given the extraordinary low marginal cost of copying and distribution of many things nowadays, a mechanism (copyright) is no longer needed to encourage distribution.
Of course, the RIAA sticks to the same terminology as Motley Fool, claiming every copyright violation is a grabbing of bread from the hand of a starving, tormented artist and that the entire creative process on Earth will shut right down unless copyright is rigorously respected and enforced.
By your logic, libraries should be illegal.
If I buy a cookbook, should it be illegal for me to share some particularly choice recipes with my neighbour? Should it be legal if I write them down longhand, but illegal if I photocopy the relevant pages?
If I buy an apple, should it be illegal for me to plant the seeds and grow my own apples? Would doing so be tantamount to "stealing" from Safeway? Should it be legal for me to grow my own apples, but not share them with my neighbours?
The equation of sharing with "piracy" is fucking lazy thinking. In addition to which, even the criminalisation of piracy (selling, as opposed to sharing, unauthorised copies) is a major violation of the free-market we're supposed to be worshipping.
Um, really? To-day I downloaded new rekkids from Beirut, Chuck Prophet, Ben Lee, Devendra Banhart, The Foo Fighters, John Fogerty, The Pipettes, and Polly Jean Harvey.
I'll listen to them all, delete the ones I don't care for, and keep the ones I like. Then I'll pay to go see the bands I quite like when they tour their fine new long-players.
And if bands begin to adopt the Radiohead distribution model (or, say, Matador's Buy Early, Get Now regime), well, I'll probably even begin shelling out for the records I do like.
Unless the artist wants to be J.D. Salinger and not offer his or her work to the public, the "hippie fantasy" has, quite clearly, become a reality.
Which doesn't preclude the artist becoming rich and famous -- although it may spell the end of the major labels.
Oops,
The blogmaching ate some of my post. Here it is with quoted selections (hopefully) intact:
File sharing was more justified when the only alternative was going to the store and buying a cd. Not only is that wasteful, but annoying. Today the only real jsutification is that you don't want to pay.
By your logic, libraries should be illegal.
If I buy a cookbook, should it be illegal for me to share some particularly choice recipes with my neighbour? Should it be legal if I write them down longhand, but illegal if I photocopy the relevant pages?
If I buy an apple, should it be illegal for me to plant the seeds and grow my own apples? Would doing so be tantamount to "stealing" from Safeway? Should it be legal for me to grow my own apples, but not share them with my neighbours?
The equation of sharing with "piracy" is fucking lazy thinking. In addition to which, even the criminalisation of piracy (selling, as opposed to sharing, unauthorised copies) is a major violation of the free-market we're supposed to be worshipping.
There is nothing stopping artists from distributing their music how they see fit. The EFF's hippy fantasy of all music being 'by the people' isn't going to happen. At least not as long as people want to be famous and make tons of money.
Um, really? To-day I downloaded new rekkids from Beirut, Chuck Prophet, Ben Lee, Devendra Banhart, The Foo Fighters, John Fogerty, The Pipettes, and Polly Jean Harvey.
I'll listen to them all, delete the ones I don't care for, and keep the ones I like. Then I'll pay to go see the bands I quite like when they tour their fine new long-players.
And if bands begin to adopt the Radiohead distribution model (or, say, Matador's Buy Early, Get Now regime), well, I'll probably even begin shelling out for the records I do like.
Unless the artist wants to be J.D. Salinger and not offer his or her work to the public, the "hippie fantasy" has, quite clearly, become a reality.
Which doesn't preclude the artist becoming rich and famous -- although it may spell the end of the major labels.
@5 Libraries are different. Their books aren't copied. There is also a difference between sharing between friends and sharing across the internet.
Look, personally I am a fan of news ways of distributing content and have no problem with atrists who want to make their money of of live performances only. However its not for me to tell them whole to distribute their content. But the choice is in the hands of the person who made the content.
You are of course free to make your own content, just like you can grow your own fruit. What you can't do is force someone to distribute content the way you want them too no more then you can force Safeway to sell you an apple for free.
The funny thing is that buy arguing that muscians must conform to your method of distribution you are doing the same thing you accuse the RIAA of doing. If an artist wants to go with the RIAA and only sell their music in record stores who are you to tell them that no, they have to allow it to be disturbed in a manner you approve of.
I am not a fan of how Nike does business. That doesn't mean I steal Nikes, it means I don't buy them.
shitbrain has a much cooler blog than giffy, and i like his/her argument and style much better.
Not buying Nikes is a passive-aggressive display of your distaste for Nike's business. Graffiti on Niketown saying "I hate corporations" is taking the offensive, even if you, the graffiti person, are holding a bag of your newly bought Nikes.
What is it about this topic that brings out all the 'tards?
All you 20 year old college students that justify your theft by saying you're sticking it to "the man"- go ask a REAL LIFE MUSICIAN what they think about your taking money out of their wallets. Because that's what it comes down to.
If you like an artist, buy their album. Otherwise most of them are going to go away because they can't make enough touring to cover the cost of recording and gear.
everybody knows this: digital media and the internet have made record companies completely unneccessary. not obsolete; unneccessary. as in, they don't have a product to sell any more. and its hard to make money when you have nothing to sell. sure folks will pony up for records, since they sound better, but cd's are basically the worst of both worlds. there will be NO money in CD-making within a couple years, save blank ones. screw these head-in-the-sand fuckers
Libraries are different. Their books aren't copied.
Their CDs and DVDs sure the fuck are. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So long as the libraries materials are available to me, that means I don't have to purchase them. That means, by your logic, that every time I check out materials from the library, I'm "stealing" profits from the materials' publishers.
There is also a difference between sharing between friends and sharing across the internet.
If this were true, you would have illustrated the difference.
Look, personally I am a fan of news ways of distributing content and have no problem with atrists who want to make their money of of live performances only. However its not for me to tell them whole to distribute their content. But the choice is in the hands of the person who made the content.
That's not the point. The point is that no matter how the publisher chooses to distribute content, as soon as it's offered to the public, it's (the content, that is, as opposed to its packaging) instantly available, for free, to anybody with a phone line.
As it should be. If I want the packaging and whatever other rigamarole, I'll go ahead and buy it. But if I just want the tunes, man, I'll go ahead and download them.
The new Dinosaur, Jr. record was released in May. You know when I downloaded it? In frickin' January. That's how much control publishers have over the distribution of their content. Granted, that's kind of an extreme example. But it's not all that extreme.
You are of course free to make your own content, just like you can grow your own fruit. What you can't do is force someone to distribute content the way you want them too no more then you can force Safeway to sell you an apple for free.
You're missing the point -- I presume willfully. But in case you're genuinely confused, allow me to restate:
Arguing that I ought not be allowed to do what I will -- including making copies of it and sharing those copies with millions of other people -- with a CD I've purchased is precisely analagous to arguing that I ought not be allowed to do what I will -- including planting the seeds, growing my own tree, and sharing the resulting fruit with my neighbours -- with an apple I've purchased.
See? I don't need to go to Safeway to get more apples, because now I've got my own apple tree. By your logic, I'm "stealing" profits from Safeway.
All you 20 year old college students that justify your theft by saying you're sticking it to "the man"- go ask a REAL LIFE MUSICIAN what they think about your taking money out of their wallets. Because that's what it comes down to.
Don't know whether you consider Courtney Love a REAL LIFE MUSICIAN, but she has written eloquently on the topic.
If you like an artist, buy their album. Otherwise most of them are going to go away because they can't make enough touring to cover the cost of recording and gear.
In fact, it's quite the opposite: the artist makes money by touring, the label makes money by selling units of plastic.
Josh -
Why does it "feel right" to you for people to share music/software/movies without paying for it? Sure, if an artist wants to make their music available for free, I'm all for it (and in some cases it might be the smart move for an unknown band). But I don't understand the justification to copy and hand out someone's music for free if they don't consent.
Prince gave away his latest record for free. He gets it.
Theres no money in selling music.
Theres only going to be money in selling the 'stuff' (ie the nonrival goods) like tshirts, special boxed sets and tickets to the shows
Shitbrain and Bob are right.
Digital audio is just information. It's bits -- a string of ones and zeroes. Copyright infringement is not theft, it's copyright infringement -- the unauthorized copying of information. Right or wrong, it's impossible to prevent.
If I can hear something, then I can remember it, and I can record it. Should I be penalized for recording it with a machine that "remembers" what I heard better than my brain can?
It's just information. You can't stop the flow of information any more. It was once very difficult and time consuming to move information, as it happened by word-of-mouth. It got easier when we developed written language. It got easier when we developed the printing press. With computers, it's easier than ever. The value of someone else moving information for us is approaching zero, as is the profit associated with doing so.
Bargaining power has shifted from the producers to the consumers of recorded music. Musicians need to get over this and make a living by charging for admittance to live performances and receiving "tips" for recorded music. Radiohead gets it.
Josh, I want to know the same thing that #11 asked...why does file sharing "seem right" to you? I agree that file sharing may be here to stay whether we like it or not (or "a key ingredient of the future", as you put it) but that doesn't necessarily make it right. It seems wrong to me because the artists who created the music have no say in whether their work gets file-shared, and they don't see a cent from it. Why shouldn't they get paid for their work?
@14 It's pointless adressing the Josh. He's a weasal when he know's he's going to lose a challenge.
Good Morning btw :)
Prince gave away his latest record for free. He gets it. Theres no money in selling music.
But there used to be. There used to be massive piles of it. In fact, billions of dollars are still made "selling music" but the number is starting to contract.
So the hysterical reaction by the music industry is understandable. They're going to become irrelevant, it is inevitable, but it hasn't happened yet and they won't go quietly.
Libraries are protected under the first sale doctrine, so the loaning of CD's and books is perfectly legal.
What I have a beef with is that ripping your own rightfully purchased CD for personal use is "prohibited."
shitbrain- though I still disagree with you, thanks for Courney Love link. It's nice to read something from back when she was a sane and articulate artist.
anyone signed to a major label is arguably less a real live musician than a complete tool. if you buy music from a major, buy it used. none of the money goes to the artists anyway.
Their CDs and DVDs sure the fuck are. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So long as the libraries materials are available to me, that means I don't have to purchase them. That means, by your logic, that every time I check out materials from the library, I'm "stealing" profits from the materials' publishers.As others have pointed out that falls under the doctrine of fair sue. You might also notice that libraries ask that you don’t copy the works you check out. Making a few tangible copies available to people at a library is a far cry from telling everyone they can have their own personal copy for free.
Just because some sharing is allowed doesn’t mean that all sharing is allowed. Just like its legal to drive 60 on the freeway, but not 160. We can argue over where the line should be drawn, personally I think that a lot of DRM goes to far in restricting fair use, but to say there should be no line eviscerates IP.
That's not the point. The point is that no matter how the publisher chooses to distribute content, as soon as it's offered to the public, it's (the content, that is, as opposed to its packaging) instantly available, for free, to anybody with a phone line.
For that matter, why can't I just gather some musically inclined friends call ourselves The Foo Fighters and put on a concert playing their music. Bet it would work at least once or twice.
Arguing that I ought not be allowed to do what I will -- including making copies of it and sharing those copies with millions of other people -- with a CD I've purchased is precisely analagous to arguing that I ought not be allowed to do what I will -- including planting the seeds, growing my own tree, and sharing the resulting fruit with my neighbours -- with an apple I've purchased.
See? I don't need to go to Safeway to get more apples, because now I've got my own apple tree. By your logic, I'm "stealing" profits from Safeway.
The musical analogy would be a note. You don’t pay for the notes you pay for the labor, skill, and resources the musician put into crafting the notes into a song you like. They don’t own the notes anymore then Safeway owns all apples, however they own that particular configuration of notes just as Safeway owns a particular apple. Unlike growing an Apple, when you distribute someone elses content freely over the internet you aren’t contributing anything at all. You are just imposing your idea of how they should distribute their content on them. Its quite arrogant actually.
IP is just as legally protected as other forms of property as it should be. People want to be rewarded for their work, whether its a cure for a disease, a work of fiction, or a song. The way they get rewarded is through people paying money to take advantage of their product. No IP means that fewer people would be willing to take the risk to develop content that any lazy pretend revolutionary with a computer could copy. Whether its music or not.
Sure its easier to steal then other forms of property. Just like its easier to steal from poorly guarded stores. The ease of the crime does not make it any less of a crime.
In fact, it's quite the opposite: the artist makes money by touring, the label makes money by selling units of plastic.
The person who puts the time, energy, and resources into creating something should get to control how that something is distributed. Its no more right to force a band to give away its music then it would be to force Radiohead to use traditional channels.
Anyone could see this woman wasn't going to win her case- for one thing, she was dumb enough to use the same username and password for her KaZaa account and her email & Myspace. Then, she swapped out her harddrive right before turning her computer over as evidence. And finally, and her lawyer was fucking clueless- tried to argue that she might have "at some point" had a wireless router, (thus the person-outside-the-window defense) when any computer expert could (and did)tell the court about how wireless routers are assigned unique IP addresses labelling them as such.
Still, it sucks that a single mother living below the poverty line on an indian reservation is being driven into bankruptcy just to prove a point.
Greg J wrote:
It seems wrong to me because the artists who created the music have no say in whether their work gets file-shared, and they don't see a cent from it.
Generally speaking, yes, that's correct. Similarly, if I deliver a speech, I have no say in whether someone writes down what I said and hands that piece of paper to someone else. Attempting to control the flow of information is futile, especially now that we have all these machines that are made specifically to move information around quickly and reliably (i.e., computers).
Why shouldn't they get paid for their work?
Copying bits of information around isn't much work any more, and the artist didn't do it.
You know why books still sell --why someone can charge money for providing a copy of ,i>that information? It's because the printing of the book is relatively difficult for the reader, and the book is more valuable than an electronic copy.
In the case of CDs and digital audio files, record companies are trying to sell us something we can do better and more cheaply ourselves.
We already have a tax on blank CDs, DVDs and tapes for this very reason.
Just ignore them. Your probability of being caught is something like 0.000001 percent - much lower than your chance of being busted for smoking pot in Seattle.
My chance, of course, is 0.0 percent since I never do either (sorry).
It’s easy to say Radiohead and Prince “get it.” They’re multi-millionaires who don’t even need the money anymore.
Touring has always been the bread and butter of true artists. The "artists" who stand to lose the most are studio creations like Britney Spears who can't survive on shear musical talent alone, as well as the Record Labels that created them.
Personally, I can't wait for the shift.
So Phil, I should be able to print off my own copy of Harry Potter on say a machine like this
http://www.instabook-corporation.com/#english
and sell it to who ever I want. Hell why should the publisher ever pay for a book? When someone sends them a manuscript they like, why don't they just print it, sell it, and keep all the money. After all, writing the book took no work and you can't own information.
You all are missing why this verdict is so absurd.
Ms. Thomas was found to have infringed on copyright by *distributing* files, not downloading them. Somehow, despite ZERO evidence that she had distributed any files at all. Then, the jury decided that for each of the 24 songs in question (fair market value of $1 each), Capitol Records was owed $9,250. For that verdict to make any sense, it would require the believe that Ms. Thomas distributed 222,000 copies of the 24 songs at issue.
Anyone who says this verdict was correct either doesn't know what they're talking about, or doesn't give a shit about justice.
Don't know whether anybody is still reading this thread, but...
As others have pointed out that falls under the doctrine of fair sue. You might also notice that libraries ask that you don’t copy the
works you check out.
Uh, this has nothing to do with Fair Use. Anyway, the point isn't that
libraries are legal; we all know that they are. The point is that, by
your logic they ought to be illegal.
Making a few tangible copies available to people at a library
is a far cry from telling everyone they can have their own personal copy for free.
If I can access the materials any time I want, then, it's a very near cry indeed.
Just because some sharing is allowed doesn’t mean that all sharing is allowed.
Wait, is that in the fucking Bible, or something? Take a look at what you
wrote there, dude. Looks absolutely fucking absurd, doesn't it?
Just like its legal to drive 60 on the freeway, but not 160.
That's because there are safety issues involved. One may as well argue
that it's okay to jog around Greenlake, but that it's not okay to run around. Sharing files poses no safety risk to anybody (so far as I'm aware).
We can argue over where the line should be drawn, personally I
think that a lot of DRM goes to far in restricting fair use, but to say there should be no line eviscerates IP.
Personally, I would argue that not only should file-sharing (which is, note, most decidedly NOT the same thing as piracy) be legal, but that so should what we call piracy: let the consumer decide whose packaging they prefer.
I would draw the line at misrepresentation. If I want to, say,
"reverse-engineer" Coca-Cola's recipe, brew up my own batch, slap on my own packaging, and put it on the market; then, obviously, this is just healthy competition -- stifled by the enforcement of "intellectual property" rights.
But if I brew up some other product, and sell it as Coca-Cola, with the same packaging, then people will buy it expecting it to be something that it is not. So that's where I'd draw the line.
So shitbrain I take you would not be upset if I took your blog
and repackaged it as my own.
Well, this is a bad example, as the blog doesn't generate revenue. It's
instructive, however: as trivial and as juvenile as the blog may be, it takes a lot of time to put it together. I do it because I like the process. Since I'm not J.D. Salinger, I elect to share it with the
public, to whom it now belongs, the content of which to do with as it will.
As far as plagiarism goes (note that we're now quite far afield from file-sharing, which has nothing to do with repackaging contents as one's own), it's dishonest, and therefore not exactly upstanding behaviour. But that doesn't mean that it ought to be illegal. It just means that you're kind of being a dick. But as far as the consumer is concerned, the content is the content, irrespective of who created it.
Hell why can't I take the content from The Stranger, strip the ads, and distribute it.
If it's worth your time and energy to do so, then, you ought to be allowed to do so. Note, however, that if you're distributing it without the ads, you're going to have to charge for it to cover your printing and distribution costs. So the consumer has a choice: pay for ad-free Stranger, or get it for free -- but with advertising. Enforcing property rights eliminates the consumer's choice.
I'm sure Dan and the gang don't really need the money from ad
revenue (bet most of it goes to their parent company anyways) and people would probably rather read a Stranger without the ads. Everybody wins right? They can make money off of speeches or something.
Well, let's say that they had to go out of business because consumers, while they like the content, don't prefer its "official" packaging. That just proves that the enforcement, by the state, of "intellectual property" rights had created value artificially.
Artists will create works. If they want to try to sell those works, let
them test the market -- the free market.
But nobody has an exclusive claim upon human culture. I hear a lot of Bob
Dylan in the (fantastic) new Josh Ritter record. So if we're to be forced to pay the creator for its content, should we pay Josh Ritter, or should we pay Bob Dylan? Or should we pass by Bob Dylan and pay Woody Guthrie's estate?
Or maybe we should acknowledge the obvious: culture isn't a vacuum. Every
work is a product of the culture. All art is derivative. No one person
owns any content any more than they own "culture". "Intellectual property" is bullshit.
For that matter, why can't I just gather some musically inclined friends call ourselves The Foo Fighters and put on a concert playing their music. Bet it would work at least once or twice.
I think that it would be more less impossible for it to work even once. I'll say this much, though: I'd rather see Hell's Belles live that AC/DC. They're competent enough that it's as though you were seeing AC/DC, but you get to see them in a club setting.
Actually I think its you who is missing the point. Apples and
IP are like well, apples and oranges.
Hold that thought...
In the case of Safeway they are taking a freely available natural product, an Apple, and for the sack of argument, planting it, watering it, pruning, it etc.
Actually, it's the farmer who does that, but, okay.
You pay them for the labor and resources they put into to growing the Apple.
Exactly! You're paying for the convenience of not having to grow your own apples.
They own the apple as they created it,when you give them money you now own the apple seeds and all.
Well, actually, Mother Nature created it, the farmer grew it, and Safeway bought it. Exactly like culture created the artist, who made the record, which the label bought from him or her.
If you want to now put in the labor et al you are free to do so.
Right.
The musical analogy would be a note. You don’t pay for the notes you pay for the labor, skill, and resources the musician put into crafting the notes into a song you like. They don’t own the notes anymore
then Safeway owns all apples, however they own that particular configuration of notes just as Safeway owns a particular apple.
Kind of convoluted, and you're painting yourself into a corner; but, okay.
Unlike growing an Apple, when you distribute someone elses content freely over the internet you aren’t contributing anything at all.
So it's not about property rights, it's about how much work I put into it?
Well, newsflash, but ripping, encoding, tagging, and uploding music is fucking time-consuming. People do it, though, because they dig the content and want to share it.
But now, knowing that we have to put our own time and energy into the
process in both cases, we're back to square one. Either I can use an apple I bought at Safeway to grow my own tree and I can use a CD I bought at Border's to make my own copies; OR I can't use a CD I bought at Border's to make my own copies and I can't use an apple I bought at Safeway to grow my own tree.
Which is it?
You are just imposing your idea of how they should distribute their content on them. Its quite arrogant actually.
No, you've got it backwards. The state is imposing upon the consumers its own idea about how culture should be disseminated.
And that idea is fucking bogus.
IP is just as legally protected as other forms of property as
it should be.
I agree: property, whether "intellectual" or physical, is theft.
People want to be rewarded for their work, whether its a cure for a disease, a work of fiction, or a song.
I would argue that people want to return to the culture that they
have taken from. They want to enrich the culture that has
enriched them.
The person who puts the time, energy, and resources into creating something should get to control how that something is distributed.
If the work is truly original -- that's true in about zero percent of the cases -- then, sure, the creator should be free to control the distribution of the content. But why would they want to?
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