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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
 Posted - 07/23/2003 : 11:05:41
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"Buy our crap or go to jail," seems to be the RIAA's attitude. Apparently they are going after thousands of "file swappers." This is from an industry that routinely gouges it's consumers, while shaving the 'artists' royalties. Pounding 'artistic' expression round pegs into square formats of three minutes or less, and limited to market tested styles.
They have a 'sweet' scam going, so can understand why they are fighting to hold on to it. But should we allow them? If a CD is "bought," then who has a say in how it's is used? Or are they saying you don't own it, then what did ya pay for? When we can buy blank disc's for about 10 cents apeice, knowing they pay much less, the reason for file-swapping's birth becomes apparent.
Love music, all types of music, currently am exploring electronica. Have yet to see any promotion or very many commercial releases of it. Why, most tunes stretch well beyond the three minute rule, perhaps? So what is the RIAA telling me? If me buys their product, its really only a lease of the product meant to be consumed by me only? Would playing one on me HiFi system too loudly with the windows open, be considered "file sharring" as well?
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/23/2003 : 12:00:03 [Permalink]
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I find the music industry in general offensive.
Many of my tapes come from recording Back Porch Music from Public Radio, the rest are from purchased cd's that I use for a master. I gave a lot of these tapes away away to other drivers, and traded some, here and there; you'd be suprised how many truckers like jazz, classical, and 'homemade' music. I still pass some along.
I don't know how to file swap on line, but I think I'll now find out. Unfortunatly, it is my understanding that most of the file swapping is modern pop and country, most of which is indeed crap (I like the Dixie Chicks, though).
But I wonder; will this turkey fly the distance? The people running the RIAA seem to be more greedy than smart, or so it looks to me. They could be cutting their own throats, here. I've read that music sales have been at record (snicker) levels over the past, couple of years. How will the sales do with a fair percentage of pissed-off customers? I think they fail to realize that someone has to lay down bread for the cd in the first place.
It'll be interesting to watch.
I agree that once the cd is purchased, it's mine. I'll give a copy of it to anyone I want to.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Fireballn
Skeptic Friend
Canada
179 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 15:18:46 [Permalink]
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| How exactly is the RIAA going to enforce this? Are they going to have random sweeps of citizens computers? Or are they going to check the registry at say 'KaZaa'? It has envasion of privacy written all over it. Oh yeah and f@ck them..... |
If i were the supreme being, I wouldn't have messed around with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers 8 o'clock day one!
-Time Bandits- |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 15:25:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by NubiWan
"Buy our crap or go to jail," seems to be the RIAA's
Before I comment, what the hell is the RIAA?
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Fireballn
Skeptic Friend
Canada
179 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 15:59:36 [Permalink]
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| Here's a pretty good site........http://www.boycott-riaa.com/ |
If i were the supreme being, I wouldn't have messed around with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers 8 o'clock day one!
-Time Bandits- |
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Florduh
New Member
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 19:51:20 [Permalink]
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| OK, you can start hating me now . . . Why do so many people view an artist's work as something they're entitled to for free? The theft and distribution of copyrighted music is largely excused by most otherwise honest people because the large music industry (or any large industry) is easy to hate, and also, downloading files is so easy to do undetected (for the most part). Would you sneak into a theater to watch a movie for free and consider that morally OK, that is, not stealing? Would you republish someone's novel to distribute to your friends, and perhaps sell a few? Copyrighted articles and stories are not free for the taking - one must get permission and usually pay a fee for their use. Professional photographers own the rights to their original photos, and a magazine had better not publish one without paying a royalty set by the owner. An artist and the publisher of creative works are entitled to receive benefit from the use of their creation. If it's good enough to own, isn't it good enough to buy? The amount of profit is irrelevant. If you resent the amount of money an artist or corporation is making from their products, you have the right to not buy them. You do not have the right to steal them. The laws protecting creative artists are well established since their institution many decades ago. Today, however, it is so much easier to pinch someone else's work electronically that people feel they can get away with it, and besides, everybody else is doing it. Regardless, it is still simply wrong to steal, and that's what we're talking about here. Feel free to blast me now, my music stealing friends already have (oh yeah, they also steal software, thus keeping the prices of that high for the honest buyers, too.) |
I wanted to be born again, but my mother would have no part of it. |
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Darwin Storm
Skeptic Friend
87 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 20:33:25 [Permalink]
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| I agree that theft is wrong. However, both the music industry and its supporters are going to illegal extremes to combat it, which is just as wrong. Legally, they are trying to pass a bill that would make having a SINGLE song available online (such as when you are online one of the pnp networks) a criminal offense punishable with 5 YEARS jail time and up to $250,000 dollar fine! What ever happened to the punishment fits the crime. Additionally, the music industry refuses to get their act together and offer their music online at a cheap price. A recent survey showed that people who downloaded music bought more cds than people who didn't , often an entire cd of a few songs they downloaded. I know alot just steal the stuff, but the music industry and its paid lackey's aren't interested in solutions. They want the old days, and will use any tactics they can to enforce it. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 20:54:42 [Permalink]
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As a creator of works (not yet music, but soon), I've gotta agree with Florduh. And for another reason, also:
If you feel that copyright laws are unfair, write your goddamned Congressperson. Protesting against bad laws by breaking them is morally okay only if you're not hurting anybody else in the process (Rosa Parks comes to mind). Protesting copyright law by stealing from people who didn't have anything to do with writing copyright law is ethically indefensible.
Personally, I don't understand why anybody would have a problem with copyright law, anyway, unless they want to enjoy someone else's work for far below the asking price, which is, pure and simple, theft. Doesn't matter if you're a plantation owner with slaves, or a geek on Kazaa downloading songs.
filthy wrote:quote:
I agree that once the cd is purchased, it's mine. I'll give a copy of it to anyone I want to.
The CD is yours to listen to, by yourself or with friends, as you please. You can even jump on it, burn it, snap it in half, etc.. However, the rights to copy it are not yours. It is even illegal to make a "backup copy" of a music CD, unless that right is granted to you explicitly by the copyright owner.
The ignorance of the law expressed in the first three posts in this thread is simply astounding, and sickening. Do any of you (NubiWan, filthy, or Fireballn) create original works subject to copyright (besides these posts here on SFN)?
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 20:57:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Florduh
OK, you can start hating me now . . . Why do so many people view an artist's work as something they're entitled to for free?
I hope this doesn't sound like yelling at you. It's just another point of view. And I of course do agree with you that art is not free, unless the artist wants to release it.
As an artist, photography, painting, etc. I have sold works. Once that person buys it, it's theirs. I can't tell them what to do with it, unless there's a contract. When a photographer 'shoots' someone, they have to get a signed release from anyone in the photo before they can publish it. If someone writes or sings a song and gets paid for the orginal 'copy' they got their money. Like a painter selling the orginal painting. I think it all comes down to contracts and agreements between the artist and patron.
If there is a contract with musicians but it can't be enforced, what good is it?
It is difficult thought, to compare selling records/music to other art forms. Unless one performs live and charges for the show. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 21:38:10 [Permalink]
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Snake wrote:quote:
As an artist, photography, painting, etc. I have sold works. Once that person buys it, it's theirs. I can't tell them what to do with it, unless there's a contract.
Baloney. Unless the work was specifically commissioned by your customer, or you explicitly tell them that they can copy it, then the right to copy your original work remains with you, Snake, even if you no longer own the original itself. Your exclusive right to copy your work, granted to you implicitly at the moment your work becomes 'fixed', stays with you unless you explicitly assign that right to someone else (or it was a work-for-hire). The copyright remains in effect for 75 years after your death (or is it 90, now?). That's the law, no contract necessary. And it's international law, too, with many, many countries as signatories.
Honestly, the only difficult part of copyright law to understand is "fair use," but we're not talking about that. We're talking about blatant and unapologetic copying of a work without the right to copy that work. These are not abstract, obscure, or even subtle bits of law. It is concrete and should be easy to grasp. That it's not is simply amazing to me. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2003 : 22:48:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Unless the work was specifically commissioned by your customer, or you explicitly tell them that they can copy it, then the right to copy your original work remains with you, Snake, even if you no longer own the original itself. Your exclusive right to copy your work, granted to you implicitly at the moment your work becomes 'fixed', stays with you unless you explicitly assign that right to someone
I've always wanted to check into copyright laws but thought it might be expensive.
So you mean, that ceramic piece I did and sold and then borrowed back to enter in a show which won a 1st place ribbon but I gave back to the person who bought it, is really mine after all? Damn, I did want to have it back in my collection after that award.
Of course a photographer never sells his negatives and can print more but the print that is sold then belongs to the buyer. Personaly I would be proud if someone thought my work was so nice they wanted to reproduce it. But I have the neg., so I don't think they could do as good a job.  , considering too that I once spent 5 hours in the darkroom making 30 prints just to get a good one that I liked. And if you x-out the plate on a lithograph that's the end of the run. I'm not sure I would care if someone copied one of the originals, for example to print in a news paper. Only the original is worth something. Same for an oil painting.
I guess with technology reproductions are better but used to be with music the next generation was never as good.
Anyway, I'm happy if someone admires what I do, the money is not as important.
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2003 : 05:07:00 [Permalink]
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See; http://www.loc.gov/copyright/title17/
(from the US Copyright Office)
A quick point...I do mostly agree with the sentiments of Florduh, Darwin Storm and Dave W. though the whole story isn't as simple as someone stealing copyrighted material because it's cheap and easy, even though it's ultimately neither for the average peer to peer user. However, it is a violation of law in many cases.
Posted by NubiWan quote:
Would playing one on me HiFi system too loudly with the windows open, be considered "file sharring" as well?
Chapter 1, Section 114.c of the Copyright Law of the United States has the following; "This section does not limit or impair the exclusive right to perform publicly, by means of a phonorecord, any of the works specified by section 106(4)."
So, you can rest easy about that one.
Posted by Fireballin' quote:
How exactly is the RIAA going to enforce this? Are they going to have random sweeps of citizens computers? Or are they going to check the registry at say 'KaZaa'?
Yeah, keep your files shared on a site like Kazaa to a minimum. They are supposed to be after those people that share a large number of files. What "a large number of files is" is anybody's guess, but here's a good start;
Section 506. of the Copyright of the US -- Criminal offenses
(a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT. — Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either —
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
No, copyright laws were not intended to prevent the user from reproducing their own legally acquired Copyrighted material. As a matter of fact, while someone can make the claim that taping a ball game for personal use is technically illegal, it is not necessarily a criminal offense. However, it can fall under the scope of civil law. In that case, I do not think that the copyright owners are going be able to prove a reasonable loss from your reproduction.
Let your neighbor borrow the tape--Same thing.
Sell the tape--Hire a lawyer, because you've just committed a criminal act.
As far as peer to peer sharing is concerned, the courts and recent legislation seem to be mostly in favor of the Record Industry, but there's a lot of fight left. But, as someone mentioned earlier in this thread, the fair use argument doesn't usually hold water concerning file sharing.
I, for one, have shared a large number of copyrighted files online. However, I did not allow entire albums, or artist collections to be uploaded. I allowed only a couple of samples. I enticed with large collections, but did not allow large amounts of downloads to a single user. My objective was to introduce people to Blues and/or Louisiana Blues, and sometimes I had quite a few interesting chats.
My objective was to share the love of music, and to critique it. While, this may fall under the fair use argument, the record companies don't agree. I am no longer an ambassador for Louisiana Blues artists. I have thousands of MP3 files of Blues, Jazz, Country, and various forms of American roots music, (most of which I own the copyrighted CD, vinyl or tape), but can no longer share my passion online.
Posted by Dave W. quote:
If you feel that copyright laws are unfair, write your goddamned Congressperson.
Dave, I mostly agree with your sentiments, but this is an excursion into futility. The record industry will give my Congressman quite a bit more money than us simple working class music lovers. The rest of the population could care less about this issue. I'm resigned to the fact that I've already lost this form of entertainment.
Finally, I will grant that the law is established mostly on this issue, but if someone thinks that buying digital downloads of MP3's online is a fair alternative needs their head examined. It's a whole lot cheaper and easier to find a local record shop to order the CD than it is to download an inferior product at a higher cost per unit and then to have to burn it. The problem of quality becomes much exagerated if you depend on downloading 'pristine' copies of songs from a peer to peer network. Then, try to tag and catalog those files! Jeez!
I usually, and have for the past five years, ordered my music in CD or DVD form from online retailers.
But, you know what, I have never paid for an album that I have not already sampled large portions. Since my tastes in music are not in line with popular radio styles, I seldom purchase any longer. Because of these actions on the part of Record Companies that got us to buy into the CD format by promising lower prices that never materialized, and are now attacking their own best customers with the threat of criminal action, I, and thousands more, will be the big losers right along with the record companies.
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"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2003 : 07:42:01 [Permalink]
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Snake wrote:quote:
I've always wanted to check into copyright laws but thought it might be expensive.
No, all laws in the U.S. must be publicly available. With the advent of the web, as pointed out by Tim, they're often online.quote:
So you mean, that ceramic piece I did and sold and then borrowed back to enter in a show which won a 1st place ribbon but I gave back to the person who bought it, is really mine after all? Damn, I did want to have it back in my collection after that award.
As far as I know, ceramic artworks are neither copyrightable nor patentable (unless they serve a purpose other than 'art', of course). For one thing, they're a heck of a lot more difficult to copy exactly than, say, a book. But you missed the point, anyway: even if the ceramic were copyrightable, when you sold it, you sold the property rights to the piece (its ownership), but unless you explicitly told the new owner that copying it was okay, you did not sell them your rights to copy it. I own a DVD of "Big Trouble in Little China," and I can use it as a coaster, or a hockey puck; I can give it away, I can even sell it to someone else. But I don't have the right to copy it, even for my own private use (notwithstanding that it'd cost the copyright owner more in a single hour of lawyer's fees than they could recoup for such a tiny violation of the law).quote:
Of course a photographer never sells his negatives and can print more but the print that is sold then belongs to the buyer. Personaly I would be proud if someone thought my work was so nice they wanted to reproduce it. But I have the neg., so I don't think they could do as good a job. , considering too that I once spent 5 hours in the darkroom making 30 prints just to get a good one that I liked.
Yeah, I understand all that, but it doesn't mean that people who buy your prints automatically also purchase the right to copy them.quote:
And if you x-out the plate on a lithograph that's the end of the run. I'm not sure I would care if someone copied one of the originals, for example to print in a news paper. Only the original is worth something. Same for an oil painting.
People regularly try to copy oil paintings, and sell them as if they were originals.quote:
I guess with technology reproductions are better but used to be with music the next generation was never as good.
"Used to be" is the key. While Tim's got a good point about the quality of MP3s being somewhat lower than original CDs, it's quite easy to not compress them, and distribute precisely the original audio data. Just takes 10 times longer to up- or download.quote:
Anyway, I'm happy if someone admires what I do, the money is not as important.
I like the "as" in there. If someone makes hundreds of millions of bucks from one of your photos, and you only got the money for which you sold the print to them, how important would the money be then? Actually, forget that question: would the idea that someone else was profiting from your work get you upset enough to punish that person by taking their profits from them? The money itself, of course, isn't the issue. The pocketbook is simply the place that such a profiteer will be hurt worst.
Tim wrote:quote:
No, copyright laws were not intended to prevent the user from reproducing their own legally acquired Copyrighted material.
If that is an implicit right - to be able to copy works you've bought one copy of already - then the "you can make one backup copy" clause in many software licenses is a waste of verbiage, no? That software companies go out of their way to explicitly grant that right is an indication, to me, that copyright law does prevent such an act.quote:
As a matter of fact, while someone can make the claim that taping a ball game for personal use is technically illegal, it is not necessarily a criminal offense. However, it can fall under the scope of civil law.
Criminal or civil, the right to copy does not automatically exist once you buy a VCR or Tivo, or a CD or DVD, for that matter.quote:
In that case, I do not think that the copyright owners are going be able to prove a reasonable loss from your reproduction.
They wouldn't waste the time. Just having a lawyer write a letter to the offender is going to mean a loss of money unless the offender has racked up more than four or five hundred bucks worth of illegal copies, and sends the copyright owner a check without any more hassles. Going to court over copyright infringement would require at least many thousands of dollars of loss, along with a reasonable expectation that the infringer can cough up the dough if so ordered, and even then the owner is going to recoup - net - dimes on dollars, at best.quote:
Dave, I mostly agree with your sentiments, but this is an excursion into futility. The record industry will give my Congressman quite a bit more money than us simple working class music lovers.
No, that "write your Congressperson" line was all about the sentiment. I'm well aware of the realities of the situation, but it's still indefensible on several levels to protest a law by hurting other citizens. Neither the RIAA nor, for example, Metallica, had anything to do with setting up copyright law. Protesting against the law by stealing from them is simply idiotic. It's not a form of "civil" protest. And if you're not protesting copyright law, but instead protesting high prices, then Florduh was spot-on in that the way to fight against high CD prices is to not buy CDs, and that that also means you've got to deprive yourself of owning the CDs you're not buying. Refusing to buy a CD, but copying it for free from someone else isn't protesting, it's theft.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2003 : 11:21:37 [Permalink]
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Boy, do I get conflicted every time I think about this. It's kind of like the way I feel about the platinum record hanging on my living room wall: on the one hand, it's kind of cool looking and it's neat to know that I have an engineering credit on a record that sold 3 million copies, on the other hand, it's for a record I would never even think of buying, in a genre I can't stand, by an artist who I didn't particularly like. I'd infinitely rather have had a bit of recognition be gained by one of the unknown artists to whom I gave away my labor because making their record seemed a worthwhile thing to do.
The heads of the RIAA are simply morons. The labels obtusely ignored the opportunity that affordable high-quality digital distribution offered both to promote their product and to sell it in a way that would genuinely serve the entire range of customer wants- from the kid who just wants one song at a decent price to the enthusiast who will pay the tab for an entire album, along with all the value-added stuff that could come with an album back in the days of vinyl.
Now that the computer industry has proven once and for all that trying to freeze an economic state of affairs by ignoring or suppressing technology simply doesn't work, and has coincidentally defined a pathway for the distribution systems of the future to follow, the only thing the labels can think of to do is to try solutions of such comical authoritarianism that one would think that they were calculated to make downloaders look like the satyagrahis of the salt campaign. That's not only counterproductive for the music industry, it's a foolish notion to have abroad, because the folks downloading other people's work are behaving in a manner that is very far from Ghandian.
Salt was both a necessity of life and a natural resource, which anyone willing to do a little basic work could avail himself of. It had no owner.
Recorded music is neither a necessity nor a natural phenomenon. It's the product of human labor, other peoples' labor
The saltmaker performed work, wreaking a transformation in his materials as he crystallized salt from brine.
The downloader neither does work nor contributes anything to determining the nature of the final product. He just appropriates the labor of others without any sort of compensation.
The standard-issue excuses don't hold up very well, either. CDs are too expensive? Did you know that adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the albums that sold for $4.99 back in 1972 would cost $21.93 today? The real cost of an album's worth of recorded music has actually gone down. The music is @#$% that isn't worth buying? Then why is it worth stealing?
You are not obligated to possess recorded music; you're perfectly free to withhold your custom until the industry as a whole finds a way to deliver a product that meets your desires, or to take your business to producers who suit you better. If you want to believe that being dissatisfied with the items in a store, the prices or the people who own it entitle you to a five-finger discount there, then please, try experimenting with this hypothesis down at the supermarket or department store, and see how far your arguments get you with the people who work there, or with the judge.
The suits who set the policies of the music industry are indeed a load of clueless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. The industry has gone from being run by thugs and gangsters to being infested with lawyers and MBAs and things; ethics have not improved as a result- artists and workers are still being @#$%ed in ways that would glad the heart and challenge the imagination of a Mo Levy, and the change in quality of mass-market music indicates that the thugs and gangsters had better ears and broader minds.
After a decade and a half of working on the factory floor of the record industry, noone loathes these clowns more than I.
However, the @#$%ing suits are not the ones the downloaders are punishing. It's doubtlessly easier to rationalize ripping off music if you think only of a faceless corporate entity as the victim.
So, let me put a face to it- my own (you can just visualize Baby Cthulhu over on the left, although I'm not that good looking). I still try to earn a living by selling my technical expertise to the makers of recorded music. Down here in the trenches where the actual production goes on, times are tough. Over the current year, my own income, which has only ever been that of a skilled workman, has dropped by more than 25% and Dobbs only knows where we're all going to end up.
So, the next time you want to download a ripped version of a commercial record, kindly say, out loud, "Hey, I think I'll just take a little bite out of ol' Ktesibios' flesh".
If that doesn't help you develop a clear perspective, send me a PM and I'll arrange for you to drop by the studio where I work and meet some of the other working folk whom you're @#$%ing. 
edit- speling and gramma
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"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
| Edited by - ktesibios on 07/24/2003 11:32:30 |
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2003 : 11:48:17 [Permalink]
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Tim quote:
"Posted by NubiWan
quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Would playing one on me HiFi system too loudly with the windows
open, be considered "file sharring" as well?
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Chapter 1, Section 114.c of the Copyright Law of the United States
has the following; "This section does not limit or impair the
exclusive right to perform publicly, by means of a phonorecord, any
of the works specified by section 106(4)."
So, you can rest easy about that one."
Whew, well that's a relief, though doubt my neighbors will share it...
Dave W. quote:
"The ignorance contempt of the law expressed in the
first three posts in this thread is simply astounding, and sickening.
Do any of you (NubiWan, filthy, or Fireballn) create original works
subject to copyright (besides these posts here on SFN)?"
Didn't realize SFN posts were copyrighted..! To answer your
question thou, have at various points in my life, and may well
again. Although have never used the "protection" that copyrighting
claims to provide, as yet. Find the system you defend, "astounding
and sickening," such as bio-tech firms copyrighting the DNA
strings of people, who were test subjects in the hope of advancing
medical science, freely. So what is the harm? Nothing till those
same people need certain types of tests, that would 'violate' terms
strictly applied, of the copyright... (Tests that require samples of
their DNA. Hospitals and doctors, that are law-suit shy, refuse to
do them without a written release.)
RIAA types abound, such as a blurb caught but once, of course
they intend to go about their 'work' quietly, of 'mining' the public
domain for literary works that remain un-copyrighted, and
claiming the rights, perfectly legal. The fragment of an education
me do enjoy, comes primarily from reading books for free in the
public libaries, the very model of "file-sharring." Do you find them
"astounding and sickening" as well, Dave? These enrichments
brought to you by such types, whose only 'creative talent' lies in
the maniplation of the legal system, and they apparently make a
good living at it, too. In fact better than most of the artists they
"protect."
Understand what is a sake here, we aren't talking about "works," but a picture, a piece of music, or a book, that gives a rewarding experience to the consumer, just as the artist intended and takes their satisfaction from. Should they also recieve material rewards for their efforts? Absolutely, unfortunely the RIAA and their like, also want to define the 'acceptable' format, as well as controlling distribution, while taking a very generous skim. Technology threatens their vise grip on creative processes, and am all for it. It's their obivious greed that brought it forth. And btw own about 450 legal cd's, and intend not to buy an additional one, thanks to the RIAA's efforts.
Wish you luck in your creative efforts, Dave, may you be over ran with groupies. If you have success, please tell us when you first encounter "kick-backs."
PS; Dunno what's up with the spacing here..? |
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Tim
SFN Regular
USA
775 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2003 : 13:18:04 [Permalink]
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Posted by ktesibios quote:
CDs are too expensive? Did you know that adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the albums that sold for $4.99 back in 1972 would cost $21.93 today? The real cost of an album's worth of recorded music has actually gone down. The music is @#$% that isn't worth buying? Then why is it worth stealing?
I do not now, nor have I ever believed that the theft of copyrighted material is justified by the cost of that material. The point is that the record companies promised a reduction in the cost of their product if the consumer invested in the new technology. I do not consider an increase in cost, even though that increase was not in line with cost of living increases, a 'reduction'.
New technology is the one area that does tend to actually drop in real price once the consumer embraces that technology. Even the technology to create these formats has dropped significantly in real cost. However, Copyrighted data storage mediums do not follow that rule, and I hardly think that the artists as a whole are showing a marked increase in real earnings because of this.
Again, this is no excuse for theft, but it is one factor in showing how the consumers and probably the artists are not the ones reaping the benefits of this new trend.
I question whether their is any evidence that online file sharing is actually damaging the record industry as a whole, and if the pursuit of criminal investigations concerning file sharing is in anybody's interest. Any real evidence here?
Posted by NubiWan quote:
The fragment of an education
me do enjoy, comes primarily from reading books for free in the
public libaries, the very model of "file-sharring." Do you find them
"astounding and sickening" as well, Dave?
Exceptions in copyright law are made for library archives, education facilities and even students to some degree. Again, the exceptions are geared towaed not allowing commercial gain or personal profit. I guess that some people think that actually having to go to the library to borrow a book, (or music), is different because you have to return the medium it is recorded on. With the internet, you get to keep it forever and ever. Amen. |
"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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