Filesharing (theft) Some facts about music and copyright:

[Faceman]

I guess the problem with music copyright can be compared to magic tricks (honestly, just watch me go)
What are most peoples first reactions to a cool magic trick?

• Cool [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
• Can you show me how to do that?
• I gotta show this to (insert name of a friend)!

Now magicians keep their tricks secret, so they will tell you that NO, they CANNOT show you how to do this, and NO you CANNOT show it to a friend. And because magic is complicated you are outta luck.
But with music (be it sheet music or recorded) it is a lot easier, so you just have to watch the artist during a gig and you can learn how to play a certain song, and even show it to a friend (by the way, would that be illegal? [img]graemlins/uhoh2.gif[/img] ). You could even learn how to play the song and play it for yourself (and you friends) the whole time without buying a sheet or the record (copyright infringement?), and you could record yourself playing that song (COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!) and listen to it with your friends.
It's only a small step from here to copying the whole song from the CD, and many people do it because they conceive music as something abstract, a feeling, something you don't have to subscribe to.
Another example:
I read a joke in a newspaper and god am I LMAO right now
Later on I tell it to a friend who breaks down in laughter too.
Now answer me, is it copyright infringement IF

• he remembers the joke and thinks of it every other day, because it's so funny ?
• he writes down the joke, so he doesn't forget this masterpiece ?
• I write down the joke for him ?
• I simply xerox the newspaper page for him ?

It's the small line we cross between things we remember - which is undoubtedly free - and things we keep stored mechanically that is the trouble with the whole copyright issue.

The problem is, that due to the copyright laws the music industry has evolved to a point where it can only survive if these laws are upheld, so if they fall a lot of heads will roll at first, but I rest asssured that music and artists will emerge a lot stronger and a lot more respected from this turmoil when it's over.

[ 02-05-2004, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: Faceman ]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by WillowIX: I have no problem with copyright but I do not agree with the statement "you do not own the contents of the CD", and I know it's not yours Yorick. [img]smile.gif[/img] If I buy a CD I should be able to do whatever I want with them short of supplying others with the music, that is I should be able to do whatever I want with them for private use. Otherwise I should be able to buy the CD for $1 and pay a small loan fee. Surprisingly no store agrees with that. LOL And Yorick, file sharing does not equal theft, that's nothing but RIAA propaganda. It has several other uses than that.

Willow, filesharing is theft and MORE! It is theft if you take the file without paying the asking price or receiving permission from the owner, and it's even worse to then pass it on to someone else.
What else do you calling robbing someone?

Theft theft theft.

Filesharers are thieves pure and simple. No it is not propoganda. It's a logical assesment. I own my songs. If you buy a CD or I give you a CD you own the one physical copy. Read my first post again. It is very clear you NEVER own the song when you buy the CD.

You cannot as I said, do anything with it other than personal entertainment. You cannot advertise or increase you business with it without asking or paying for the right to use that. This is very clear Willow. I've written very lengthy posts detailing this and provided legal links. You can't just plop into the thread with a "Is not, it's like this" with nothing more than your words in a few sentences and expect to be taken seriously.

If you don't believe it is theft, show me why. Show how it doesn't break the law, how the artist, recording owner and all involved in the song are seeing a return on their work when you steal it.

Until then, I'm sorry but you are unequivically wrong. Filesharing is theft. If you steal files and pass them on you are a thief.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Yorick, thanks for the Aussie law articles. For the US, what you would want to research is what's known as the "fair use doctrine." Oh, and in the US, IIRC, performing the work in public DOES create a copyright issue. While it's a printing/publishing concern more than a RIAA concern, the biggest copyright infringers are university professors. Just think about all those photocopies you were distributed in school.

When I taught at tertiary institutions, I would get the students to buy the textbooks rather than photocopy anothers words. for recordings we used students own songs, or purchased charts.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Faceman: You could even learn how to play the song and play it for yourself (and you friends) the whole time without buying a sheet or the record (copyright infringement?), and you could record yourself playing that song (COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!) and listen to it with your friends.

That only becomes copyright infringement if you sell the recording. If you make money off the song. However, the law requires you to pay a compulsory license out of sales.

There is nothing that suggests you cannot sing or record a song for your own personal enjoyment. You just don't own the song, so can't advertise with it, sell it etc

[ 02-05-2004, 08:13 PM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

[Seraph]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: While it's a printing/publishing concern more than a RIAA concern, the biggest copyright infringers are university professors. Just think about all those photocopies you were distributed in school.

I would imagine that in the US all those photocopies would have fallen under Section 107 of the US copyright code "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

[Night Stalker]

Originally posted by Yorick: Willow, filesharing is theft and MORE! It is theft if you take the file without paying the asking price or receiving permission from the owner, and it's even worse to then pass it on to someone else. What else do you calling robbing someone? Theft theft theft. Filesharers are thieves pure and simple. No it is not propoganda.

You are so wrong and so simple in your position here. File sharing in of itself is NOT theft. I understand that this topic is near and dear to you. Maybe it's abit too near, for you are missing the forrest for the trees. File sharing is much bigger and more complex than a means of pirating Intellectual Property.

I highly suggest you read up on the Open Source Software movement. As software is very similar to music. You can find plenty of information at

www.eff.org
www.stallman.org -- This is Richard Stallman's personal site. He is the one that started the free software movement (which is different than Open Source). I perosnally think some of his ideas are abit too far out there, but they do show a model (Open Source more particularly) for the Music and Movie industries to profit on free ideas.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

But

Originally posted by Yorick: That only becomes copyright infringement if you sell the recording. If you make money off the song. However, the law requires you to pay a compulsory license out of sales. There is nothing that suggests you cannot sing or record a song for your own personal enjoyment. You just don't own the song, so can't advertise with it, sell it etc

The highlighted sentence is actually a direct contradiction to everything you have been saying since your opening post, Yorick. You have said from Post One that individuals are NOT ALLOWED to make a copy of a song for ANY reason...not even their own personal enjoyment.

I've also noted that you have consistently told people their opinions aren't valid if they aren't a musician and "living the life". To my knowledge, that would mean the ONLY IW member whose opinion IS valid here would then be yours. I don't know of any other members that are trying to make thier living as a musician.

I also noted that when examples WERE given of other musicians that disagreed with your viewpoint, you basically said their opinions weren't valid either. The Grateful Dead, Journey, and Van Halen were called dinosaurs (of course, they all still get a bucket-load of play time on the radio). And Madonna is a good businesswoman, but nobody considers her a great vocalist...well, nobody except the fans that have purchased about a gazillion of her albums.

I'm sorry, Yorick, but all I really see here is "If you don't agree with me, then your opinion doesn't count". You just told Willow that she can't just pop in and offer an opinion that differs with yours and the law you've quoted. Yet, when others have provided links to other sites and laws that contradict the copywrite law, they are dismissed out of hand.

I actually agree with you to a certain point. Certainly songs cannot be used in movies, commercials, or to promote a store without paying the original artist a royalty fee. The same goes for artists doing covers of other artist songs. The BIG difference between THOSE users and the individual consumers is that the individual consumer is NOT trying to "make money" off the copies they make or the files they share or download. For the most part, they are doing it for personal entertainment, something you just agreed they are allowed to do. They don't own the song. They can't sell it or advertise with it. But - as you just said - there is nothing to suggest they can't sing or record a song for their own personal enjoyment.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Yorick, thanks for the Aussie law articles. For the US, what you would want to research is what's known as the "fair use doctrine." Oh, and in the US, IIRC, performing the work in public DOES create a copyright issue. While it's a printing/publishing concern more than a RIAA concern, the biggest copyright infringers are university professors. Just think about all those photocopies you were distributed in school.

I am a major believer in the 'fair use' doctrine as it is currently provided for in British laws. (I'm less familiar with US rules, but according to your descriptions they don't look much different) - I would hate to see Aussie rules (as described by Yorik) applied in the EU\US.

Under the fair use principle, creative works continue to be owned and controlled by the originator. The artist/author will continue to be paid and will have full powers to exercise control over the public distribution and permformance of his work and will have the rights to claim royalities.

At the same time, the users are not hamstrung by restrictive rules which may prevent their ENJOYMENT of that work and thus deter them from purchasing or EXPOSING that work to their friends.
For example, if I throw a private party to a 100 friends, I wouldn't play music at that party if I had to pay royalties for every song I played. This would deny the artist vital exposure.

Copyright is a tricky area of law and society has to strike a balance between protecting the work to encourage continuing creativity - but not be so heavy handed as to stifle inovation and prevent the work from gaining exposure. What would be the state of music today if the person that invented the electric guitar exercised control over all persons who wished to use one?...
What if the Wright Brothers had patented both the bi-plane and single wing plane design?

I believe (as you do) that we have struck a good balance in both the US/EU - I very much hope that Austrailia follows suit so that the number of its home grown successful artists can increase to that of the UK. The world would be a richer place for it.

[ 02-06-2004, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Timber Loftis]

Seraph, the language of the law you cite is exactly what I was citing. Ten cuidado (be careful), however, because the true bounds of the "fair use doctrine" is defined by caselaw. There's a lot of research involved. Suffice to say, education institutions have largely been given a "by" (pass) on the issue. If my memory form law school (5 years ago) serves correctly, under technical interpretations photocopies handed out to a class may infringe on copyright. However, professors have been given a pass so long as they cite the original work. In effect, it's like university plaigarism policies (based on the "gold standard" UVM policy) have been integrated into the judicial view of copyright law. However, dissenting cases can be found.

Yorick, as NightStalker pointed out, you confuse the pracitce of "filesharing" with the reproduction of copyrighted materials. Filesharing has more uses, and is not per se illegal in and of itself. However, the current famous use of filesharing has involved copyright infringement, so the issue gets confused. File sharing is a tool that can be exploited, just like burning CDs. In each case, there are instances where the TOOL of file sharing can be used perfectly legally. No slam on protecting copyright is intended here, I'm just pointing out that people should be able to use file sharing to share files legally.

I point this out in part because I know NightStalker has been working on ways to prevent the illegal transfer of copyrighted files while preserving the practice of legal file sharing.

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Skunk: For example, if I throw a private party to a 100 friends, I wouldn't play music at that party if I had to pay royalties for every song I played. This would deny the artist vital exposure.

You wouldn't have to pay royalties for playing songs at a party. However, if you were paying a DJ, and he was spinning music made by others, one would hope he was paying some sort of license, as he is making money from others music. Some DJs make thousands of dollars from others music.

The issue is income. Depriving artists of income on one hand, and using the artists work to make money on the other hand.

Playing songs at a party is not depriving anyone of income and not making you money. If you CHARGE entry for your party - built on a reputation of playing certain songs - then you are using those songs to generate income, and should by rights hand some of that back to the creators.

As I said, in Australia venues pay a license that covers any songs played in their venue. These fees are not exorbitant by any means, and the royalties per song are very very small. Think cents.

The issue is, that if someone makes a hugely successful product, and people make money off it, the originator is not left starving.

As a society we still have a way to go. Visual artists will starve while their art is sold for millions, Aboriginal Australian artists in particular are exploited in this manner.

I advocate a licensing system for visual art in the same manner as intellectual property. When you purchase a painting, you don't own it, you own the license to possess it for life, but if you resell it, the originator sees a royalty from it. Say 5% or 10% for example.

In this way, the struggling artist, who sells their ORIGINAL work for $500 to pay for food, doesn't lose out if their work one day sells for $100,000.

[ 02-06-2004, 02:13 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]