Why or why not?

And the reason is likely that
1 - P2P networks have more current content at higher bit rates than YouTube
2 - P2P networks are easier to monitor than an individual connection to YouTube

of removing any material a copyright holder tells them to remove. Youtube is not the offender you are looking for. This is all about the P2P networks. If a copyright holder is concerned about Youtube, they can check for their content pretty easily and tell Youtube they don't want it on Youtube. Youtube will remove it.

content that has copyright protection. Never have. Never will. It's breaking the law, and I don't do that.

If someone says you can have a copy of their computer file, that has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright infringement.

First, I wouldn't accept a file of any kind unless I knew what it contained.
Second, I know what materials are copyright protected, and wouldn't accept any such file.
Third, if I know what's in the file and that it is copyright-protected, I wouldn't be interested.

You're making a naive argument that doesn't hold water. And, if you're downloading files when you don't know what they contain, you're taking some big risks. If you don't know that movies and commercial music isn't copyright-protected, you're not paying attention.

You can do as you please, but don't try those patently ridiculous arguments on me to try to justify illegal behavior. Both of us know better.

I stated my position. I don't download copyright protected property I haven't paid for. That's what I do. You can take any risks you choose.

There are tons of videos, games, and music that is not prohibited from free download. If you see a link to a music file and it doesn't say it is copy right protected how do you know it is?

There are lots of usages for p2p that aren't copy right issues.

are found, it says right there that they are free. Pretty much everything else is copyright-protected. For example, tell me the name of one movie from a professional studio that has come out in the past 10 years that is not copyright-protected. One book from a regular publisher. One piece of professionally-created music that came out with some company's label.

Yes, there's free stuff, but you won't find it on those torrent sites. What you'll find there is ripped stuff that is copyright-protected. The assumption for anything created by professionals should be that it is protected.

If people are downloading free, public-domain stuff, these watchdogs aren't interested. They don't care about that.

Download without permission, I mean. From a torrent site.

What then?

(Note: I am thinking of at least one fairly recent well-known example here).

So it's not always clear what is and is not copyrighted.

There are plenty of mixed trance albums that are simply free but there is usually nothing that says they are free.

The digital cat is out of the bag. It can't be put back in no matter how much the industries complain.

I know the Internet permits millions of people to share a file simultaneously but the basics are the same -someone posts a file for someone else to listen to. How is that different from someone loaning you a CD?

the CD to play. When you copy a file, you both have the content to use. That's the difference. It's called copyright for a reason. The owner of the copyright gets to determine how the work is copied. CDs are copies of the work, and they're distributed in that way to control the copies. While it's easy to rip a CD, and it's even OK to rip one for your own use, it's not legal to give another copy to someone else in most cases.

You may disagree with the law, and if you do, you should try to change it. Until it's changed, though, violating it can cost you plenty.

Otherwise, we would see disclaimers on some CDs that say something like, 'You cannot copy this to your computer' or some other nonsense.

Fair Use does not let a copyright owner dictate such terms. It's more broadly worded, I believe.

And like I said, the digital cat is out of the bag. It doesn't matter who protests the distribution of digital files, ultimately, it doesn't even matter about one's interpretation of copyright law. It will still occur.

I'm not trying to rationalize anything, by the way. By your interpretation, I'm a thief but that's okay with me. Have been for years, ever since Napster turned the digital world upside down.

from youtube.

Now, please don't say something like "everything on youtube is copy right free because they check" because that simply wouldn't be true. There are gazillions of copyrighted materials on youtube.

So tell me, is this video copy right free?

It is a "vocaloid" song - it uses the yamaha voice synthesizer. The voice is from "Kaito" a Japanese singer, who's speech was captured at a phonetic level and used to sing a song the original singer never sung. The song was originally by Klaus Nomi, who died of AIDS in 1983, and whose original performances exist as videos of his live performance. It was originally posted to Nico Nico, the japanese video sharing site were music is often mixed.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Now, is that copyrighted? And who would own the copyright? Yamaha who produced the software that produced it? The Japanese singer whose voice was used? The individual who actually did the programming for the music and video? The estate of Klaus Nomi? The record company that Klaus Nomi was under contract to in the late 1970s? Nico Nico?

I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know if it is copyrighted or not. But the mere inclusion of it on youtube is certainly no guarantee that it is not copyrighted. I wouldn't begin to know how to find out if there is a copy right on that.

And that is on youtube.

Now take something like bit torrent. If I open up transmission, there are plenty of files that are copy right free and plenty that are not. And, no, the copy right free doesn't say right in the torrent name that it is copy right free necessarily, and frankly I think the "assume it isn't free unless it is free" idea isn't a workable one in this world.

Make *NO* mistake about it. '

So your statement is silly. Of course it's about maximizing profits. That's what copyright is for.

Ask Trent Reznor who had a huge fight with his label over intellectual property that he ultimately disbanded his group because of it. Ask Radiohead who made more money giving their album away for free than they ever did on a label.

The fact is that the label or corporate entity is the one in charge of the intellectual property not the content creator. The RIAA works for them - they couldn't give less of a shit about the content creators or the fans. They only care about the labels and their executives, that's it - they don't give a shit about anyon else.

Anyone can assign their copyright to anyone else. Copyright ownership can be transferred, just like any other property.

I've been a professional writer most of my adult life. The contracts I signed with various publications actually assigned some aspects of my copyright in what I wrote to the publication, while I retained other aspects. Typically, they got the right of first publication, along with the right to use the material in other publications owned by the same publisher. I retained all other rights.

In very few cases, I was paid again by someone else for the same material. That was rare, though. What was more common was the translation and publication of the writing in foreign countries in publications owned by the same publisher.

I assigned some of my rights to the publication as part of my contract with them.

I still own the copyright to every one of the things I wrote. Not that it does me any good, because all of what I wrote was time-sensitive, so it lost value over time.

Today, I write web content for small business websites. The copyright is held by those businesses. I assign it to them. It's work for hire.

If you're not a person who creates intellectual property, you'd have no reason for knowing all of this. Similar arrangements exist between songwriters, composers, and the companies that publish and sell their music. In the motion picture industry, similar arrangements exist, with many participants getting a percentage of revenue from the films. Same with television. Today, the actors in most television programs receive residual payments every time the program is broadcast. It's all in their contract.

The songwriter gets checks. The composer gets checks. Sometimes that happens for decades after the piece was written. Cover bands pay to cover other bands' music. Everyone gets a check. Classical music groups pay for the music they play, and can't use photocopies of that music unless they own a paid-for copy. The publisher, composer, if living, and copyright holder get paid.

If your high school drama class performs a play, they pay a fee to the publisher of that play, which pays the playright. It's all in the contracts.

Copyright is extremely important for those who create intellectual property. Without it, nobody makes a living.

Screw piracy!

Yeah, ISPs still want you to pay your monthly access.

Too many privacy concerns.

They don't necessarily need to check content. An IP address is generally traceable unless you try to hide it. I think they will notice if your IP address shows up among a pool of addresses associated with sharing content, and they could monitor just how much traffic your IP does to decide what to do about it.

They don't need to actually browse a user's hard drive.