Are people who download copyrighted music without permission from the artist thieves?

are some of the worst offenders when it comes to pirating stuff online.

as charged...

I just want to dilute certain words, such as criminal. The poll was actually a toss up between pirating songs vs. driving six mph over the speed limit. Two things many of us do.

in fact AS a singer songwriter I encourage people to go to my sites and listen (or watch) FOR FREE

or the "sweat of my brow", or any such theory.

The purpose of American copyright law is spelled out in the Constitution:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

(emphasis mine) Art. 1, § 8, US Constitution

Therefore, to the extent that copyright law does not promote science or the arts, then it is arguably unConstitutional.

In other words, downloading as song isn't "stealing" because an artist has a "natural right" to the "sweat of their brow"; rather the right to copy material is something the American public give up, to "promote...science and...the arts." So downloading isn't "stealing" in the moral sense; morality is clearly not the basis of US copyright law.

A corporate lawyer I suppose.

There is a difference between physical property and intellectual property. There is also a legitimate philisophical question as to whether or not intellectual property should be treated under law the same way that physical property is.

It was a justification, a rationalization for doing what is not right. If you want to argue about the property law of intellectual rights, then you need to be open about saying that no one has the right to his creation. When did the creation of a song become worth less than a widget? The post under discussion was patent silliness wrapped up in legal speak gibberish.

Patents and copyrights are in economic terms a monopoly. We give this monopoly to artists, scientists, corporations, etc. so that they will have an incentive to produce. At a certain point this can become counter-productive because corporations simply hold on to their patents and copyrights while not producing anything of value to society with them. At this point it would be more beneficial to society for these to become public domain so that others can take this work and develop something new from it rather than allowing the corporation to continue to have a monopoly.

To answer your question I do believe that people should have a right to profit from their intellectual property. I do not believe that they should have the right to profit from it for all of eternity. I also don't believe that there should be laws that implement statutory damages so that holders of intellectual property can sue thieves for amounts that are drastically more than the property that they actually stole.

I also think there are some circumstances under which government should be able to coerce people, within reason, into distributing their intellectual property in ways in which they might not wish to. If I invent a cure for AIDS or cancer, I should not be allowed to hoard this cure to myself. Nor should I be able to sell it for a billion dollars per treatment.

I am not arguing with you that illegally downloading music is theft. It is absolutely theft. I am also not arguing that there is any moral justification for it. There isn't. But I also don't think that you can have a serious discussion about illegal downloading without also having a serious discussion about intellectual property laws.

Copyright does run out after a while.

Musicians and writers should have a right to profit from their creations, certainly during their lifetimes. Or are you saying that the intellectual work that goes into writing a book is worth less than the work that goes into building a widget?

But I don't necessarily agree that copyrights should be held for a lifetime. I also think that in the case of books, the copyright should, under most circumstances, be held for significantly longer than say the patent for a drug or the copyright on Mickey Mouse.

My reasoning for that is that books are widely available, relatively inexpensive (free from the library in fact), and building on another author's work is perfectly legal so long as you give proper credit to the author. The only reason I see not to give extremely long copyright protection for a book is if the publisher chooses to stop publishing the book and it isn't widely circulated thus depriving society of access to it.

For example, the rights to Mein Kampf are still held by the publisher but for obvious reasons they don't publish it anymore. Yet there are legitimate academic reasons to read Mein Kampf and thus I believe that copyright laws should either compel the publisher to continue publishing it or make it become public domain at an earlier date.

In contrast to books and one author expanding on the work of another, a cartoonist can't even think about drawing a character that even resembles Mickey Mouse without facing a lawsuit from Disney. Certainly Disney should have the right to profit from a character that they created. But letting them continue to have a monopoly on Mickey Mouse after all these years is not productive to the goal of encouraging artists to produce intellectual property.

Face it...these laws have been severely changed not to benefit the artist, but to benefit the corporation who distributes the artist's materials.

And while everyone is here arguing over downloading music....something that is a clear violation of copyright law and settled, these companies are going out and pulling down youtube videos that even have the tiniest snippet of their songs, no matter how transformative. They are taking copyright law too far and are now going after people for fair use.

Meanwhile, the rest of you can still argue about the downloading of music and claim it is the artists you are helping. The artists do not benefit from copyright law, any more.....they sign a contract a POOF!...all those protections go away and they now belong to a corporation. And that corporation will screw them out of their intellectual property rights and bankrupt the musician. It has happened to many, many, many musicians.

Take a look at what is going on youtube now with Warner music. They are now taking down videos of bands from their own official channels So is copyright law helping the artist? HELL NO...it is only there to benefit the corporation by giving them the legal power to stir up a lot of legal shit.

Copyright law has gone far beyond sensible into just another cash-cow for corporations. Free monopoly, and all they have to do is get an artist to sign on the dotted line.

I'm the one that agrees with you that music copyrights last for far too long and that the extent to which the law technically allows intellectual property holders to control their intellectual property is ridiculous.

I am just adding information to the discussion because music copyrights are actually something I know a bit about.

I use a lot of "rest of you"..."all of you", etc. to indicate that I am talking to a general population.

to discuss cures for aids along with ripping off music is that, just like the OP, that kind of argument is just used as a rationalization for their petty theft. I believe you can have a serious discussion about stealing art without red herrings and their cure. The way to judge them is not that they are both copyrighted items, but rather judge them by the effect of the act. One is for the benefit of mankind. One is for the benefit of petty thieves.

Or you can discuss your feelings about the term of copyright. However, the OP wasn't about time limits or humanitarian limits. It was just a rant about having to pay for music hidden in big language.

Had the OP wanted to take on the deviousness of the music industry, he could have had a good point. Their business practices work counter to the aims of the copyright system by limiting expression and stifling creativity. It was always hoped that the internet could be a means of getting music from the artist and writer to the intended audience without the intervention and expense of corporations. The problem is that whenever an author or artist has tried, their work was ripped off without compensation. On occasion, the public is its own enemy.

is legal nonsense.

(asportation = carrying away) with an intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession.

So taking a CD is clearly larceny. If you apply those principles to downloading a song, however, you'll find you can't satisfy either the asportation or intent to deprive elements...

Someone has to possess something before one can "take it away".

Turn the question around: Are YOU guilty of theft every time you hear a song on the radio without paying for it? After all, the artist would make more income if you paid him/her every time you heard the song...

As you can see, whether you're "taking away income" is entirely a function of whether or not the artist had a right to said income in the first place. You're jumping to the conclusion without justifying the interim steps. Or like your math teacher used to say: "Show your work!"

If I get a massage from someone, do I have to pay them? I am not taking anything away.

Edit: this is the best article I can find on the subject. You'll have to educate yourself.\

ASCAP or BMI usually collect fees on behalf of performers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_Music_Incorporated
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCAP

Not those who own the Right of the Performance. Recording artists are not compensated for broadcasting their performances over the radio, nor is their permission required.

Please read the link I've posted directly above yours. :hi:

"A non-profit making entity, BMI issues licenses to users of music, including:

* television and radio stations and networks;"

A lot of artists own their publishing rights in the new digital age. I do for all my stuff, and I would never sell them. Can't blame them for publishing.

It is indeed hard to discuss these matters with people with no background information on the subject.

"A lot of artists own their publishing rights in the new digital age."

It is standard in all major label contracts for artists to assign the publishing rights to their record label, who then license them to ASCAP et al. The rights in any particular recording are separate and distinct.

So, for example, it is perfectly possible (and quite likely) that Michael Jackson, say, owns the rights to the composition "Strawberry Fields". However, John Lennon (or his heirs) can still own the rights to the recording "Strawberry Fields".

The permission of the holder of the rights to the former (i.e. composition rights) must be obtained for a song to be played on the radio. The permission of the holder of the rights to the latter (performance rights) is not required in order to play the song on the radio; nor are royalties paid to the holder of the performance rights for this use.

which if they retain all their rights, they do.

How did that happen?

First, radio stations pay ASCAP & BMI royalties.

It has always been accepted as a given that radio play translates into increased record sales and for that reason, it's ridiculous to demand radio pay performance royalties rather than those who directly make money from the increased sales.

The only reason the RIAA got away with its fascist demands for performance royalties is because Mark Cuban deliberately set out to fuck over smaller webcasters and independents when negotiating CARP fees, knowing he would be well-rewarded.

The tight-fisted squeeze the labels - and in many cases, misguided artists - are putting on broadcasters will have the most devastating effect on the few radio stations that still operate with some independence and musical integrity.

AFTRA, by the way, is a bullshit excuse for a union. They're screaming on behalf of major label musicians, but they never said a single fucking word to protect the jobs of the tens of thousands of people who sold records for those artists everytime they mentioned the artist's name and said something good about them on the air.

Furthermore: if it wasn't pure bullshit, no record label's promotions representatives would ever make phone calls to radio programmers pressuring them to play their songs, let alone take the same programmers out for lunches, dinners, concerts, and the occasional snort or spliff.

composition rights (of which the above poster is obviously unaware of, and strangely incurious about for someone with such a strong opinion on copyright in general...)

Then forgive me for jumping down your throat. It's just that the particular campaign you chose to quote is something that's going to make radio suck even harder, if passed.

Copyright in recorded music is a particularly complicated and sometimes counterintuitive topic. I lecture on it and I've seen eyes roll, heads shake, and shoulders shrug a lot when I get to this topic.

First, one has to separate the musical composition from the recording of that composition. The composer of a song is the presumptive owner of the copyright in that song, although composers often end up selling their rights. In any event, those rights include separate rights of performance and reproduction. The composer's right of performance is typically handled by a "performing rights society" -- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC in the US -- that ensures that the performance of the song receives compensation. That compensation is almost always handled through a "blanket" license that gives the licensee -- which includes radio stations -- the rights to perform all of the songs in the rights' societies' library. The composer's reproduction right -- the right to authorize the song's reproduction on a CD for example -- is handled by a separate entity, the Harry Fox Agency, which is operated as an arm of the National Music Publishers Association. There is a statutory license under the copyright act that allows the reproduction of copies of a song on CDs without having to negotiate a separate license. So if someone wants to record their own version of Michelle, written by Lennon and McCartney, they can go ahead and do so under the terms of the statutory license.

Second, just as the composer has separate rights of performance and reproduction, the record company that produces a copyrighted "sound recording" of a musical composition has its own separate rights of performance and reproduction. THis wasn't always the case and for a time in the late 60s and 70s there was actually nothing in the Copyright Act to protect record companies from having someone make copies of their records and sell them. That is no longer the case. You cannot simply copy the actual recording. However, you can "copy" a recording in the sense that you could assemble your own musicians and record a version of an existing recording that is note for note the same. Indeed, this is necessary since otherwise once someone recorded an instrumental, any other person recording the same instrumental might be accused of copying. The record companies also have more limited rights when it comes to the performance of a sound recording. Indeed, for years, record companies had no rights with respect to the performance of their records. So if a radio station played a record, ASCAP, BMI et al collected royalties on behalf of the composer of the music, but nothing got paid to the record company or to the performers qua performers (if the performer also was the songwriter, he/she got paid -- or their licensee got paid -- for the performance of the composition).

The law changed in 1994 with the enactment of the Sound Recordings Performance Rights bill (a piece of legislation that I helped draft, although its nothing to be proud of). It gave record companies, for the first time, a limited performance right when records are performed by digital subscription services. It has been expanded since then to cover performances on the net -- webcasting -- but it does not, and never has, given record companies a performance right with respect to free over the air broadcast radio. The stations,who do pay performance royalties to the songwriters/composers, resist paying the record companies for playing their records, arguing that the record companies get promotional benefit from airplay -- that radio stations playing records help the record companies sell records. The recording industry has been pushing for the last couple of years to get this part of the law changed -- and they've wisely formed a strategic alliance with the musicians and performers, who generally are left completely out of the equation by copyright law unless they happen to also be the composer of the song or the producer of a recording of the song. Judiciary Chairman Conyers is a big supporter of artists -- particularly old blues artists who have historically been screwed out of royalties by everyone. By promising that half of the money paid to the record companies by the radio stations would go to the artists, the record companies have the radio stations on the defensive and its not out of the question that in the next year or two, record companies, who already get paid by webcasters and pay satellite services and services like MUZAK, will also get payments from radio stations.

Finally, there is an entire further part of the issue that revolves around the concept of "digital phonorecord deliveries" -- what happens when a recording isn't pressed in a record company factory and sold in a brick and morter retail outlet, but rather is downloaded by a consumer, not just for one listen (streaming) but for retention and multiple playback at the convenience of the person doing the download. How this all sorts out has been a topic of debate for years and is a debate that continues today. In fact, an administrative law panel called the Copyright Royalty Board just today issued an order relating to the royalties for digital downloads. Notably, the Copyright Office and the CRB appear to be at odds over certain issues, leaving matters quite muddled.

See, I warned you it was complicated.

What I'm telling you is that you are missing the forest through the trees and all of these allegedly "pro-artist" concerns are for rubes.

Everytime the labels and congress have teamed up to craft legislation that supposedly benefits artists, the end result is you end up killing diversity a little bit more by making things more expensive for small businesses with integrity, and easier for Clear Channel to drive us out of the market. No one playing Andrew Bird, Beck, R.L Burnside and Willie Nelson is getting rich.

It's like the musical equivalent of agribusiness-driven legislation that screws small farmers by regulating them out of the market. Think about that the next time you're at Whole Foods and can't find any USDA-labeled organic livestock product from local farms, but plenty of Coleman's.

"Judiciary Chairman Conyers is a big supporter of artists -- particularly old blues artists who have historically been screwed out of royalties by everyone. By promising that half of the money paid to the record companies by the radio stations would go to the artists, the record companies have the radio stations on the defensive and its not out of the question that in the next year or two, record companies, who already get paid by webcasters and pay satellite services and services like MUZAK, will also get payments from radio stations."

If I throw on a BB King song and say anything remotely positive about it, I've just given the artist 3:50 minutes worth of free advertising. Could you please direct me to whom I should send my invoice? If his label, and other labels, have repeatedly screwed artists, THEY should be the ones making it up, now, not the 15 radio stations in the country that might actually be still playing BB King in spite of the fact we aren't getting any label support and the label would be perfectly happy if we flipped format and went all Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana to fall in line with their promotions budgets.

Downloading, btw, to touch on the OP, was initially, partly, driven by frustrated musicians and disk jockeys who were working to get around tight playlists and help good music, that wasn't being promoted, get heard.

Major record labels have one main agenda above everything: they want to control distribution (they'd love to have sole rights), they want to set the agenda on what artists get heard and what artists don't, and those decisions are rarely based on anything resembling "art." I have known labels to ask commercial radio not to play certain artists or songs from new albums, usually because it doesn't coincide with their promotional agenda and sometimes because they plan on dropping the artist and want leverage.

Regarding CARP, these are Mark Cuban's own words.

When I was still there (the final deal was signed after I left Yahoo!), I hated the price points and explained why they were too high. HOWEVER, I was trying to get concession points from the RIAA. Among those was that I, as Broadcast.com, didn't want percent-of-revenue pricing.

Why? Because it meant every "Tom , Dick, and Harry" webcaster could come in and undercut our pricing because we had revenue and they didn't. Broadcasters could run ads for free and try to make it up in other areas so they wouldn't have to pay royalties.

As an extension to that, I also wanted there to be an advantage to aggregators. If there was a charge per song, it's obvious lots of webcasters couldn't afford to stay in business on their own. THEREFORE, they would have to come to Broadcast.com to use our services because with our aggregate audience, if the price per song was reasonable, we could afford to pay the royalty AND get paid by the webradio stations needing to webcast.

More importantly -- and of course I didn't tell the RIAA this -- we had a big multicast network (remember multicasting? Yahoo! didn't seem to after I left). Well, multicasting only sends a single stream from our server, so that is what we would record in our reports for the RIAA, and that is what we would pay on.

So that was the logic going into the Yahoo!/RIAA deal. I wasn't there when it was signed, but I'm guessing and I've been told that there weren't dramatic changes.

Now, no one asked me any of these things prior, during, or after the first or second pricing. I'm not sure that this matters. But if it does, here it is: The Yahoo! deal I worked on, if it resembles the deal the CARP ruling was built on, was designed so that there would be less competition, and so that small webcasters who needed to live off of a "percentage-of-revenue" to survive, couldn't.

There you have it, if anyone cares.

Mark Cuban
Dallas Mavericks

Its not question of not seeing the forest for the trees. There were several posts talking about publishing rights, and performance rights and the like. My post was simply intended to spell out what the law is today and to note the current proposal to change it with respect to the performance of records by radio stations (and also to note the continued controversy surrounding issues such as digital phonorecord downloads).

If you want to know my position on the issue of royalties for the performance of records by radio stations, its as follows. There needs to be some sort of equitable approach whereby webcasters owned by radio stations, independent webcasters, and radio stations are not treated differently from one another. WHether that means that they all pay or none pay or some other more creative solution that accounts for legitimate differences in the services is a difficult question.

I would make one other point -- I don't know that the Natl Assn of Bcasters serves its members interests all that well when it argues that radio stations shouldn't pay record companies because the stations provide a promotional benefit to the record companies and, at the same time, defend the practice of local television stations should have a free hand to demand compensation from cable and satellite providers who retransmit their signals to local audiences that would have a hard time receiving those signals if they had to rely on rabbit ears and rooftop antennas.

It should be apparent I'm all too familiar with it.

re: Local TV & cable. Obviously, that's out and out protectionism with rationalization after the fact. HD is going to change things for city-dwellers, but people out in the sticks will still need satellite to pick up their local channels. Dish and Direct both charge consumers $5 for locals but propaganda claims stations receive .01 per consumer. Man, someone's making out really good there.

While labels go straight to DC with their lobbyists to put the squeeze on radio, TV and cable are left alone to negotiate and come up with their own compromise. That should tell you a little something about how unbalanced the fight against small business ownership in radio is.

You do realize it costs money to make a recording, even just to cover the costs, someone has to pay for it. Why should an artist have to bear that burden alone, shouldn't the people who listen to music have to at least pay for the recording process?

Doesn't it cannibalize other sales? How is someone even to merely recoup the money needed to make a record, if people send their shit around without paying for it even once?

:)

without compensating that person.

Your radio example is flawed because royalties are collected and disbursed based on airplay. It's not a perfect system, but it makes your radio argument moot.

and loading onto MY ipod implicates "somebody else's labors".

"Your radio example is flawed because royalties are collected and disbursed based on airplay."

Recording artists are NOT compensated for radio airplay. Read my short explanation upthread, or onenote's more ponderous block of text, if you like.

but from the moment they create a work, they own all rights. It's only by their choice do they enter into a contract to sell those to a record company.

If I don't sell someone my performance or publishing rights, then I own all the rights, and if I either sign a contract with every radio station (pretty impossible) or go through ASCAP/BMI, I will earn royalties from being played on the air.

It's impossible to make the recording industry more democratic if people take away the little money independent artists earn. How are we supposed to stand alone without a record company if we don't make any money?

I don't download anything, either legally or illegally. I collect records and cds. I am not an enemy to recording artists. However, the current system isn't terribly fair to recording artists, either.

I'll give you an example: Matthew Sweet (one of my all time favorites, fwiw,) recorded a song called "Girlfriend" back in 1991. He sold the rights to the composition to his record company, like virtually all young artists do.

In 2007, the song "Girlfriend" was featured in the game "Guitar Hero III". Matthew Sweet wasn't asked his permission to use the song, and he didn't recieve a penny in royalties. The game company used a sound alike vocalist to produce a recording that sounded as close to Mr. Sweet's original as possible...

Should I have to pay Darwin's descendants royalties?

The problem here is that music isn't a tangible thing- even the actual recording of it is only an idea. Same thing with writing.

Aren't I using Darwin's idea (or, likely his idea- at least the term is his) in the same way, whether I use his sentences from his work or not when speaking of "natural selection?"

What about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Doesn't that "belong" to Thomas Jefferson- or whomever he stole it from?


Ideas can't be owned. That's the problem. By their nature, they are far too mobile and thus belong to everyone. But that's their beauty, as well.

If you aren't permanently depriving the owner of anything when you download a song without permission, I guess you aren't permanently depriving the owner of anything when you make 1000 copies of a record or book and sell them for half the price the copyright owner was selling them for.

I DON'T believe the existing contours of copyright law are sacrosanct. They are a function of statutory law, and as such, are subject to change.

For example, the Court has embraced a broad definition of "fair use" as an exception to copyright law...

Fair use was initially a court created doctrine. It was codified in 1976 in Section 107 of the Copyright Act, as follows:

"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. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors."

The courts have applied fair use with varying degrees of strictness. However, I'm not sure where one finds support for the claim that the "Court has embraced a broad definition" of fair use. Indeed, Rick Boucher has spent years trying to get Congress to pass legislation that would expand fair use beyond where the courts generally have gone.

First, its a bit of mystery why one would think that a case determining whether the use of copyrighted material in creating a "parody" of the original work is fair use is in any real sense relevant to the issue of whether downloading without authorization for one's personal enjoyment of the work without transformation of the work is fair use. After all, one of the key statements in the Acuff-Rose case was the court's reassertion that "The fair use doctrine thus "permits courts to avoid rigid application of the copyright statute when, on occasion, it would stifle the very creativity which that law is designed to foster."

But leaving aside the fact that treating downloading as infringement doesn't "stife" creativity, its hard to come to the conclusion that the Court adopted some generically "broad" definition of fair use. Heck, even with respect to parody, it didn't adopt a broad application of fair use. Rather, the court said "parody, like any other use, has to work its way through the relevant factors, and be judged case by case, in light of the ends of the copyright law." The court also made clear that it was not finding that "anyone who calls himself a parodist can skim the cream and get away scot free. In parody, as in news reporting, context is everything, and the question of fairness asks what else the parodist did besides go to the heart of the original. It is significant that 2 Live Crew not only copied the first line of the original, but thereafter departed markedly from the Orbison lyrics for its own ends. 2 Live Crew not only copied the bass riffand repeated it, but also produced otherwise distinctive sounds, interposing "scraper" noise, overlaying the music with solos in different keys, and altering the drum beat."

In other words, extrapolating from the Acuff-Rose court's handling of parody, and the specific parody in question, to the conclusion that the Court has embraced a "broad definition" of fair use is quite a stretch. Again, as the court pointed out, the codification of the doctrine was not intended to to change, narrow, or enlarge it in any way.

The ultimate ruling was, of course, exactly as you've explained it.

I've only seen 3 Supreme Court arguments live, and this one was really interesting. Fun to hear the Justices asking questions about 2 Live Crew and rap music.

Even Luther Campbell (Luke Skyywalker) was there to observe that day.

Weird Al submitted an excellent amicus curiae brief to the Court on this case, iirc.

I'm not interested in an argument into the semantics of the word "broad". Nor is the case in question particularly on-point w/r/t the issue of downloading music.

Feel free to start a thread discussing the contours of the Fair Use right if you will; it is a mere parenthetical as to the present issue. :hi:

On edit: I find it humorous that you are willing to write a treatise directed at me regarding the semantics of the word "broad", but haven't responded to correct the numerous erroneous assertions made in this thread--for example, that recording artists receive royalties for radio air play. :silly:

You didn't provide one. And you certainly didn't provide a case with any relevance to the issue of the application of fair use to downloading.

And I haven't read all the posts on this thread, because I was focused on this subthread. But now that you've directed my attention to the discussion of the various rights at issue when sound recordings are played on radio, I will weigh in with some information on that as well.

:hi:

"And you certainly didn't provide a case with any relevance to the issue of the application of fair use to downloading. "

Errrr....you didn't ask for one! (For someone who carps on the word "broad", you're not terribly precise with your own language!) :silly:

And in the meantime, Professor, perhaps you might lecture the topic starter about the difference between composition and performance rights (that is, if you're interested in anything but stroking your own ego!) :hi:

Seriously under seige....have you heard about the shit-storm that Warner is starting on youtube? In short, thousands and thousands of videos being removed for even having the tiniest bit of Warner music in them. What they are doing has not gone to court, nor will it ever. They are just arbitrarily ripping down videos with no concern at all for fair use or for the work the youtube user put into the other 90% of the video.

It's a really big problem getting bigger each day....all sparked from the idea that because people download music somewhere, these companies can do whatever they want to protect their intellectual property.

Nevermind that the companies have become nothing but bloated litigation factories. They have not put out decent music in years, they refuse to recruit talent from abroad (unless you count American Idol), and they frankly chew and spit out musicians like bad tobacco.


Sorry...as you can see, I am really irked about how copyright law is handled in this country....as usual, it is all to benefit the corporation, and none of it protects artists or the customers.

indefinitely for corporations is a perversion of what copyright is supposed to be. The times were supposed to be limited in order for people to have exclusivity for a short time before going into the public domain where anyone can make derivative works from it.

Regards

:eyes:

For example, it seems to me that 100 years might be a tad more than "limited Times", yet I have seen copyrighted Peter Rabbit stuff, and that was written in the 1890s. And (correct me if I'm wrong), but I believe Disney still has full rights to Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh, which both date from the 1920s.

But thanks to Disney and some other monied interests they got the copyright extended retroactively in 1998. Mickey Mouse should have gone into public domain in 2003 with Donald and the rest of the gang following soon after.

From http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_sprigman.html



Irony of irony being that Disney makes its money copyrighting characters after they've dropped into the public domain. (Jungle Book, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella)

Regards

as an album, then a cassette tape and then a CD...I felt like I had already paid plenty!

Look up "fair use" and get back to me! :hi:

:hi:

Besides, many of us hardly recognize the law when it comes to matters of ethics, such as stealing. Even if there was no government, many of us would still consider some people to be thieves.

This is an extreme example, and I do not believe thievery to be equal to enslavement. I am merely pointing out the law does not determine ethical behavior.

You paid for a lifetime license to listen to the music not for the vinyl, tape or cd it is imprinted on.

If you already own the CD why do you need to download it? I generally agree with you that it should come under free use law that a song you own on a tape should be legal to download. After all it's legal for you to copy a record you have onto a tape. Or burn your record, tape or CD into an MP3. It gets tricky though because the song you download may be of a different quality than the quality you may have gotten had you just burned the tapes you own.

But your often downloading something ripped from a CD that's been digitally remastered. While you own a tape or record that wasn't. So you're technically not doing something that would be free use of something already own. For some people that's a big hang up.

I think many more might be inspired to buy a whole CD if they downloaded and liked one song on it.

That's been true in my case, anyway. If I hadn't been able to sample a full cut (and the snippets at Tower and Amazon are woefully inadequate), I might never have bought the CD.

The really good stuff isn't being shared online. You can trust me on that one.

of course it is. If it's old copyrighted material that the RIAA still thinks it can make a buck on and has pretty much extended the copyright into perpetuity, it's a little hazier. The law was never meant to be like that.

However, as a sales gimmick, you'd think the artists and publishers would realize it's pure gold.

What a new and interesting angle!

Yes, they are stealing. But for some reason, I hesitate to call them thieves.

Weird...

The record execs are the thieves.

The unique nature of digital media means that no physical media has to be stolen to produce more copies. This means that unlike stealing a material object like a necklace or a car, it is possible for someone to steal something with no real harm to the "victim".

The only harm comes from the prevention of a sale.

In the case of music, most people can afford a single album, so it does prevent an actual sale. The question however, becomes more complicated when many thousands of pirated albums are concerned. It is not reasonable to believe that person with little extra cash would buy so many albums, but if they had enough to buy some of them, which ones did they steal that prevented sales? That's the question.

On the other hand, with software, it's much easier, because most of the pirated titles are so expensive that it's implausible for someone to have cannibalized an actual sale. As long as they purchase the product from that company they can, then no potential sales are harmed, and in fact the company may experience a boost in business, because they may very well purchase that software for professional use because they know how to use it, if they ever get enough money.

Perhaps there should just be a general license for a recording, I agree with other people that once someone has purchased a copy, they've done their part.

When this issue was roaring was fine.

The ones who aren't okay with it are:

session musicians
non-touring song-writers
record company lawyers
record label VPs (oddly enough, record label promo guys, on the lower levels, are all okay with it)
corporate radio programmers

session musicians
non-touring song-writers

Session players tend to get paid when they do the work, and for a set amount. They're making the same money if the album goes platinum or doesn't sell at all.

Almost all of my musician friends are touring musicians, as NashVegas describes. They too were at best indifferent to mp3s.

Session musicians pick up a paycheck by showing up to work; I suspect song writers are also paid outright for music they write, but I don't know that for sure. I am pretty certain that both of those groups are doing the same thing as touring musicians: making their real money from sources other than the music royalties.

The reason why is simple: record labels consistently cook the contracts and the books so that musicians already receive a bare minimum of compensation for the sale of their music. The smaller labels regularly violate the law by misreporting sales and even not sending out royalty checks at all. Nobody I know expects that to change if illegal music downloads are somehow stamped out.

On the other hand, free and wide distribution of mp3s does wonders for attendance at live shows, which can be very lucrative for touring musicians--sometimes even enough to pay the bills.

Musicians also tend to be rather picky about sound quality and presentation, both of which usually suck when it comes to listening to stolen mp3s through $1.99 earbuds. Some have told me that they don't care about mp3s because they are a sub-standard medium and therefore not worth worrying about.

I've never seen anyone go back and try to verify this, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the musicians who are most outspoken about music downloading have albums nearing release or contracts to renegotiate. In other words, even those folks may be trying to tap into a different revenue stream than the one they are complaining about losing.

Session musicians and non-touring songwriters take very few risks, compared to touring musicians.

Session players get a paycheck no matter what sales do. Song-writers get paid for sales, but don't recoup whatever profits are missed with file sharing.

Instead, they get to have home lives.

with the same energy they go after 14 year old kids, I'll consider NOT downloading music that was already paid for by someone else.

They are legit now. They charge for their songs.

I believe after Napster (original) was shut down, that it returned as a pay-to-use service. Unlike I-Tunes, it was a subscription based service (I think) where you paid x per month for unlimited downloads.

Artists have a right to protect and profit from their work.

If not, then I have no qualms about downloading it through alternative means. If the owner is stupid enough not to make their work available via legal download then they only have themselves to blame.

I ALWAYS try to buy what I want first. If the recording company and/or artist isn't willing to provide an easy way for people to legally buy what they want, then I have no issue downloading it for free.

I tried, they failed.

Recorded music is the real ripoff!

Your point is interesting. Live music is more like getting a massage. (a deep massage if there is a mosh pit)

I vote no, since they are part of the performance, if you will.

And that's all I'm saying. Beyond this statement, y'all can draw your own conclusions.

I don't expect the current standards to survive much longer, and that will be a problem for creative types like me...

But the culture has moved to the point where people do believe that if its free and they can get it, well it's fine,

Well, almost anyway.

actually did an extremely astute interview wherein she discusses who really gets ripped off by the music industry. The pirates are not the people who are consuming the musical product--it's the record companies that screw the artists.

When you buy a book, are you penalized every time you share it with friends and family? Well, I suppose once eBooks really take off, they'll try to do just that (just look at the screw job you get with Kindle, which is a proprietary format you're not allowed to transfer to read on your computer or elsewhere, and Amazon retains the right to rescind your "ownership" at any time after you've paid to BUY the damned things and simply remove them from your device). I'm ashamed to say I think Apple (devoted MacAddict) has refused to get in on eBooks in a big way is because they 1) don't think people read anymore and 2) haven't realized they could corner the market on that, too.

I'm sorry, but once I buy something, I should have the right to do whatever the hell I want with it.

I like the motto they use to fly at textism: Intellectual property is theft.

:wtf:

(1999-2001)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster

(2002-present)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster_(pay_service)

SO many people do it... and not your average internet pirates... Housewives, Students, Professionals alike... everyone does it.

The RIAA and MPAA are always slow to come around to understand a new medium. They went after people for dubbing tapes as well.

Since these organizations are dinosaurs they seem to have no understanding that their pricing system and complete dismissal of the concerns of their customers are just going to keep this going and probably make it worse.

Many artists actually lose a lot of money because of how recording contracts work, regardless of how many records they sell. Some friends of mine had one of these contracts. They basically got a loan up front to record in the studio, record a music video and begin their tour. Before the record even dropped they were hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole. They also had to pay the label back for much of their own PR. The album sold moderately well for its genre but they were still in the hole even after 2 years of exhaustive touring.

Bottom line is the recording industry are actually the thieves here.

They could use a lesson in marketing from Trent Reznor.

Nine Inch Nails now makes most of their money off of touring and they gave away their last album as well as 400 GB of video footage from their latest tour to fans for free. The album prior they released online for a $5 download.

Sure you can look at that and say "Well that's great for NIN because they're well known" but he also produced an album for Saul Williams who is more of an independent rapper/spoken word artist. They put that online for free (lower quality) and $5 (high quality). Sure a ton more people downloaded the free version BUT all the sales of the high quality version went straight to Saul. He didn't have to pay the label for attorneys, high profile studio time, a big name executive producer (although Trent doing it for you helps), publishing rights... he just put the download out there and made money.

And all of the free downloads increases interest in his tours where he can make more money from the increased attendance and not having to pay back a label for touring costs.

The old way of doing things is extinct.... the RIAA just is afraid of changing their system of ripping people off.

Rp

Like people who take from the penny jar when they're short one cent at the gas station.

The record industry execs are the real thieves. Pretending that people are stealing from the artists is ridiculous. Almost none of the money goes to artists. They're already being robbed by the recording industry if they aren't on an independent label.

If you really care about artists making money then download an album illegally and send a $5 check to the band directly. That's plenty more then they make when you buy a CD.

Always do the legal thing and companies could do more to release obscure stuff as well.

But as a person who creates intellectual property, and not being a giant corporate entity, I have far more reason to protect what I make.

I know others won't see it that way. And to you, I can only say this: "Fuck you. :loveya: " :D

Having said all that, our society will ultimately litigate itself to asphyxiation anyway...

Disclaimer: I've only read selected comments in this thread. I wasn't aware of it until the copycat was posted, then locked, without me being able to respond to some rather ignorant charges leveled against me. Since it was locked as a copycat, I'm simply coming over here to the original.

First, a portion of my income since I was eighteen and published my first story has derived from my own intellectual property. Another portion for the past few years has derived from assistance I provide to another person whose income comes from her intellectual property. I have written software. I have written and published essays, short stories, and non-fiction articles. I have developed help systems for software and written technical manuals. I have developed websites.

I have, in fact, been in the position of filing a copyright infringement complaint, details of which I'll be happy to reveal if anyone is interested.

The assumption that because I hold an opinion of intellectual property law that does not label all those who engage in acts of what the legal system defines as piracy, I must never have been an artist or created anything or done any work with my mind is both insulting and stupid. That kind of argument is a big reason why piracy flourishes. Many "artists" separate themselves from the public upon whom they rely for an income, place themselves above them as though the product creator is superior in both ability and morals, and then lord it over the world as though they have the keys to the kingdom.

Notice I said "some." Most artists aren't like this, but the ones that are can be extremely loud and obnoxious and, unfortunately, have too great an impact. Fundamentally the problem is not the artists themselves, nor the producer of any kind of intellectual property (this is not all just about so-called art), but the people who control the flow of information, i.e. corporations.

Second ... and my main point ... most of you (based on personal observation) running around decrying the morals of file-sharers have not the first clue what you're even talking about as you don't seem even to know what file sharing is. I share gigabytes of files every month, every last bit of it completely legal.

Many of you also seem only concerned with your own ox. I've had a person insult my opinion on this, within the last few hours, who runs around with a copyrighted symbol on their post that I am quite certain they never paid to use. Nor do they even seem aware of the irony. I ask many of you to look in the Video Forum and tell me how much content you can find that is not being "pirated" in some way, a way that the networks themselves at least interpret as pirating. How many people screamed bloody murder (rightfully, imo) at the swearing in ceremony being the subject of an incessant stream of take-down notices from the copyright owner. It's a government event, you say, and we own it, you say. Certainly, if we choose to be there and see it with our own eyes and can fit into the crowd, sure, but the people that took the pictures *own* those pictures, and you, by current law, can claim no right to see them, nor any right to let others see them.

That's how absurd our IP law is. We, a nation with one of the deepest investments and widest distributions of technology of various kinds, can't watch the inauguration unless we watch it through an "approved" transmission vehicle because of that IP law.

I am not opposed to people getting paid. I believe government funding for artists should be quadrupled at least. I think people who *write* books that sell for $20 should get paid $19 of them. But I also believe that public events should be transmitted without copyright restriction. I believe that when I buy a book, I should be allowed to lend it to anyone who wants it or copy the whole thing for myself for safekeeping and that I should be able to recite a few words from it to make a point or strengthen an argument or just to entertain. The people pushing and in most cases getting ever-stronger copyright and patent laws don't want any of that. These are not by and large artists. These are corporations who want to own and control the flow of information and define for you what you know and believe.

It's not just about some kid downloading the latest Metallica song, as much as Lars and his ilk would like to believe the world really does revolve around them.

Some people on this thread aren't interested in a serious discussion of piracy or intellectual property laws. They just want to preach and recite anecdotes.

Are people who burn DVDs of things they taped on Tivo and give them away thieves?

I would say selling copyrighted material for a profit is theft but going after people who download copyrighted material as if they are criminals is just petty.

Obviously, these sorts of nuances give the copyright fundamentalists difficulty.

Bloggers on the left and right are very concerned, as it may completely stifle the blogosphere across the whole spectrum as we know it.

Just so we're clear, unless you mean "free" in the spirit of a creative commons license or something similar, whether the owner of a copyright charges for a copyrighted work has no bearing on whether using that work constitutes theft.

If I write an article and place it at a publicly accessible location for others to read, I still own the copyright. Just because you can download something from a public network does not grant you any right to use it.

My own foray into copyright infringement derives from this very issue. I have written many articles that are scattered about the Internet. A certain collection of them was published at a website that did not charge for access. Additionally, I had not charged the owners of the site for their use and maintained all extant rights to them. Someone came along and collected all these articles and published them elsewhere at a site that had restricted access. It did not charge for access, but you had to sign up to get an account.

The individuals who ran this website did not ask my permission to republish the articles. At length, and after much discussion with the site owners in which I tried to come to a peaceable settlement (none of it involving money), I was left in a position of having to send a formal take-down notice through an attorney, which also involved the individuals' ISP.

I repeat. None of this involved money.

Very interesting story.

Your story reminds me of some users of the forum, Gamefaqs. Video game addicts create detailed game faqs and walk-throughs and then publish them on that site. Many of those faqs say that they do not want other websites to post their material. Some list acceptable web sites which have permission to use their materials for free.

Why do you think they care?

:) I rather like it myself ...

I'm familiar with Gamefaqs and the phenomenon you mention. I actually have a FAQ there, although in my copyright notice I don't restrict its use except the limitation that it cannot be published anywhere that charges for access.

I'm not sure of all the reasons really. Some of it, based on my readings of various sub-forums there, involves rather petty wars between different gaming sites, e.g. between Gamespot regulars and Gamefaqs regulars before the shuffling of users. Then there is the thing where kiddies run around trying to claim l33t status based on their FAQ, which it turns out they didn't actually write. Also -- and I think this drives a lot of the hardcore FAQ authors like Dan Simpson -- many gaming sites charge for access to cheats, guides, walk-thrus, etc. and will look around Usenet and other places like Gamefaqs for their content, or at least that was once very common. A famous gaming site had a walk-thru for a game at one time it turned out it had lifted entirely from a Usenet posting, and you had to pay for an account to read anything beyond the first couple paragraphs.

My personal case involved a variation of the l33t thing. The owners of the offending website were history buffs with a large degree of web development talent but none for writing or research, in addition to having no credentials or contacts. So, what they did was snap up articles written by others, being certain to shy away from the top-tier historians, concentrating on people like me who aren't "professors" or PhDs but who have their own niche and respect within the community. I was far from the only one that had to deal with them. Their mistake -- and the reason I caught them -- was they lifted a few articles from a site that had paid its authors, and the editor of that site and I knew each other since I'd written for him too. He found his authors by searching sites like these people started, and when he ran across that site he noticed that more than a few articles looked very familiar. The guy e-mailed me and said he thought he recognized my writing on a particular subject.

The tragedy is I and many others would have let them use our stuff if they'd just asked.

There are other reason I and others don't want their stuff used in certain places even when we don't charge. A lot of my stuff is misappropriated to certain websites I consider having a racist agenda, and I crawl them occasionally to see if they've lifted anything lately.

I didn't think of that. I don't blame you.

What game did you make a faq for?

I played the original DOS based game (which I purchased :-)), and after I'd beaten it, I hacked the game save file with a HEX editor so I could write up an items/monsters list and figure out if I had discovered the most efficient way of completing the final puzzle. Out of that came my first FAQ, which I uploaded to a BBS. This was back in something like 1988 or so. And, I've felt compelled to play all the games in that series since.

The one I have up there is a specialty FAQ, not a walk-thru.

Are people who taped things off the radio and made copies for their friends in the 80s thieves?

I did that, and yes, I believe that may be thievery. (Sound quality was pretty crappy if I remember correctly)

Are people who burn DVDs of things they taped on Tivo and give them away thieves?

Someone offered to pirate an entire series for me on DVD, I said no and bought it at the store.

really the song or the TV show is only there to bring in an audience so they can expose them to commercials.

And in both cases, the copyright owners have already been paid whether you copy and distribute the material or not.

Nobody pays to watch a TV show that isn't on cable and nobody pays to listen to radio programs so how can you steal something that nobody pays for?

If the RIAA was smart they'd set up website with free downloads with an advertising-driven business model and stop trying to suck every penny they can get out of their customers. That's what this is about... not the intellectual property rights of musicians.

There should also be a distinction between enjoying a piece of intellectual property and using it (in the sense of incorporating it into something which I claim as my own work). Obviously the artist should be paid if I "use" their work in my own work (especially if I then plan to sell it) but why should I pay to "enjoy" their work at my leisure when it's freely distributed on the radio anyway?

As a side note, this discussion is increasingly redundant as pretty much anyone can now go to last.fm and listen to almost any music they want for free. The technology for downloading MP3s will be extinct before this issue is resolved. Instead of investing all of this time and energy in lawyers, the RIAA should be coming up with a better business model for coping with the technology of the future.

On edit: One company that's getting this right is Comedy Central. You can watch whole episodes of the Daily Show online with commercial breaks (fair enough) every ten or fifteen minutes and no one calls you a thief because you don't have cable but still want to watch Jon Stewart. It's completely possible to work with your audience rather than against them.

In a perfect world intellectual property rights could be just as well enforced as physical property rights. But we don't live in a perfect world. We should write and enforce our intellectual property laws with this in mind.

that could have been used to track trends and sales we have a distributed system. It can be made so secure that content is encrypted from point to point and only decrypted during use. That requires a password, which law has held you can not be forced to give up.

Regretfully that system can be used for actual criminal behavior and can be difficult to break.

I would have paid a penny a song. That is what it is worth. Or better yet let me choose a price and rate on if it sucks or not.

then I had to replace them with cds ...then I had to replace them with mp3s. hmmm Didn't I purchase the right to play the songs on the records in the first place? Why should I be forced to buy the same songs over and over again? Fuck them and the horse they rode in on!

Couldn't pull the songs off of your CDs though?

Those who try to defend it end up twisting themselves into giant logic pretzels justifying their desire to get something for nothing.

They aren't even honest about their justification attempts.

It's that simple. I've had this argument dozens of times with the thieves and it's really old.

Throughout human history the theft of phsyical property has been understood to be morally and legally wrong. We are raised to understand this from a very young age.

However, theft of intellectual property is different and often the theives aren't even aware of their crime. If I show my copy of a DVD at a gathering with 100 of my friends I'm probably stealing intellectual property because I'm supposed to get a public screening license. Of course the DVD doesn't specify how many people is too many for it to be "home use". And I wasn't taught by my mother from a young age that screening a movie for too many people is stealing so for all I know I may walk through life completely ignorant of my need to get a public screening license.

Furthermore many intellectual property laws are impossible to enforce and there's no way around that.

So while it is theft, it's simply not realistic to treat theft of intellectual property in the same manner as theft of physical property.

So while it is theft, it's simply not realistic to treat theft of intellectual property in the same manner as theft of physical property.

I am not advocating any sort of punishment for my fellow DUers.

and from merchandise sales.
Downloading hurts big record labels, not the artists.

that's a whole different matter.

movies are ok to download...

**

...My greater point was the existence of similar behavior for a while with little ill effect on the art itself.

When we made cassettes, everyone knew the audio quality would suffer. If you really liked what you heard, you went out and bought the album and only used it as a rarely played master copy, what with friction and all. When you wore the tape out, or it was eaten by a stereo, you just made another copy from your nearly pristine LP.

Then came CDs. We would tape copies of those for friends until computer technology allowed us to burn CD copies. Still, most of us still like having that master copy, the label-issued copy with superior sound quality.

Even now, I buy CDs and rip them to my computer so I can listen to those files at home or on my iPod when I'm mobile. But I can't shake the necessity for a master copy, a label-issued copy that can be relied upon should the iPod or Mac crash.

As far as mixed tapes/CDs: I loved them. There was a real art to making a good assorted recording, not unlike being a DJ. Mixed recordings my friends made for me prompted plenty of album sales to yours truly when songs caught my attention.

to download/burn per song but you get just what you want, and it seems like wherever they do BMI/ASCAP will be standing right there. I know I would be if I were them. You may recall all the dust up about Napster, I can't remember whether they made them start to either charge end-users per, or reenumerate back to BMI (seems like if they had to they'd pass the charge to the user-end), but I do recall it was a big deal that caused Napster some issues they had to deal with and I do mean like HAD TO!! And there's almost always some lawyer-type standing round with their hand out when that happens :(

yes, people who download copyrighted music without permission or without paying are thieves.

Downloading and sharing music is copyright infringement, which is an entirely different crime.

I buy albums from bands I like. I download music to find new bands.

apparently, a guilty conscience can be a real bitch...:rofl:

:spray:

'without permission' means without permission.

I would be more inclined to say that downloaders are thieves if they were directly pirating the musicians' copyrighted material.

As the situation stands now, downloading is inevitable with ANY release. Even the record companies have given up trying to prosecute individuals.

Something similar to the iTunes model is the only thing that's going to last.

On the one hand, it may mean the end to large contracts to musicians. On the other hand, record companies may be dying a slow death.

It's a new world now. Different solutions must be implemented or the mass recorded music may end.

artists and labels have a license to use the song on recordings.

the utter ignorance of intellectual property law and how the music industry works here is astounding.

Where's that option.

If ya can't beat em ...join em.

the concept of intellectual property at all. Someone who creates something that is valuable should be entitled to reap the benefit of his/her creation, and copyrights, patents and trademarks are the legal mechanism to guarantee that they do. Downloading music or anything else copyrighted or patented is stealing and is a violation of U.S. laws. It is also a dishonorable thing to do. There is no real difference between illegally downloading someone's music and just walking into a record store and shoplifting the same music on a CD. The acts are equivalent in my opinion. I'm ashamed at the number of people who replied to this poll with a "no" answer. It really makes this web site, and by extrapolation all Democrats and liberals, look bad.

The publishers reap the benefit when they sell the rights to radio stations who reap the benefit when they are paid by advertisers. When a customer buys a CD almost none of that money goes to the artist.

And since CDs are becoming an increasingly obsolete technology, the challenge for the recording industry should be to find an advertising-driven business model based on new technology rather than bitching about how no one is buying CDs anymore because they can get music online (a more convenient technology). I get music online because I don't want to pay $15 for a CD that only has one song I like not because I'm a thief. I watch TV shows (like the Daily Show) online because I live overseas and can't get it any other way. And I'm happy to watch a few commercials before the show so that everyone gets paid. To call people thieves for taking advantage of more convenient technology without regard for whether or not they would be happy to pay a little if you came up with a better business model is just lazy and irresponsible.

Check out last.fm - it has a great business model. Customers can build up a library of any songs that they like and then stream a radio station with only their favorite songs (once they've chosen twenty or so). If they pay a subscription price, they can listen to any song they like when they like or make mix-tape-like stations with different themes. There's some advertising on the site and they have a few other features for subscribers. Everyone gets paid, the customer gets what they want and nobody gets called a "thief" for wanting to enjoy the works of artists in the most convenient way possible.

The Napster ruling was a re-do of the failed attempt to stop tape recording in the 60s with the advent of the cassette tape, followed by the failed attempt to stop the recording after the advent of the video tape, both struck down by respective SCOTUS rulings.

It took 20 more years of constant lies, half-truths, and the twisting of values understood for centuries, for the reich wing to successfully pack the Courts with their pro-corporate ideologues, and deny 30+ years of precedent, to the point that supposedly progressive liberals now defend this obscenity, while ignoring the fact the the biggest thieves in the music industry are and have always been the labels themselves.

Jesus said rich people don't get into heaven, his spokesmen vetoed that too.

You're just used to corporate music.

and a large number of those bands have absolutely no problem with the free distribution of their music. they realize the more ears that hear their music, the more concert tickets, merchandise, and even CDs and albums they sell.

Before you lose, I worked at WEA...

Extra credit, do you know why large chain restaurants won't allow the staff to sing "Happy Birthday" anymore?

What is being taken without permission.

Of course permission is given because they own the industry and if you want to be heard outside of a bar or on the street you will sign that production deal. Extortion is still theft.

Of course permission is given because they own the industry and if you want to be heard outside of a bar or on the street you will sign that production deal. Extortion is still theft.

Many bands start their own labels. There is no extortion involved.

If anyone is a thief, it's the damn recording companies who charge and arm and a leg for a CD where 3/4 of the music is horseshit.

why do you think the artists who start their own labels, which you mentioned directly above, do so?

create their own labels?

Like if you could copy a book from the library.

The thieves are the ones who earn money from the work without compensating the artist.

on the radio.

and they mostly suck, so I usually don't support the band.

sometimes I "steal" songs for free on the 'net that suck much less often & I sometimes buy the CD.

Regardless of how they justify their actions, they are still thieves.

Who would guess that thieves can be rude?

Of course, I have indirectly called some posters thieves, which some may consider an insult.

Because it's the same thing, isn't it? After making copyrighted material freely available, Google just got hit with a huge fine after a lawsuit by the Author's Guild.

I am glad google was fined.

And that means creating legal methods of downloading books. The technology for Itunes existed years before it went live but the RIAA resisted because they still wanted to force people to buy the entire CD. Part of the reason file sharing never became socially unacceptable is that there was no legal alternative when it started. It is more taboo now than it used to be because there are legal alternatives to download music but nowhere near what it could have been if Itunes had come out four years earlier.

Intellectual property theft is going to happen, end of story. Government can do certain things to stop some of it but not all of it. The RIAA relying exclusively on the law for protection and not taking matters into their own hands is as dumb as the guy who doesn't lock the doors to his store and thinks that it's okay because the police will catch the people who steal from him. There are ways to distribute music that greatly mitigate the risk of intellectual property theft. Radiohead, for example, told people to pay what they think they should for their album and it made significantly more than it would have if they had just sold it in a store. I'm not saying that will work in every case, but it's one of many innovative ideas that these businesses could use to deal with this problem.

Someone else produced it. It's for sale. I took it without paying for it.

So yeah-- all creative justifications and defenses aside, it's stealing. Something I've done, though my personal shame is somewhat reduced in knowing that RIAA are thieves also.

It's not the heist of the century - it's a fairly paltry crime, really, IMO - but it's definitely theft...

in stores.
The only music I download anymore is free live stuff from www.archive.org. by bands that permit tapers.

As far as I am concerned the whole industry is nothing but a three ring rip-off circus.Everyone,form the record companies to the musicians to the fans,are all ripping each other off on a regular basis.

Thankfully, times change