Since the "downloading from KaZaA" thread was closed...
 

...for a VERY STUPID and illegitimate reason....I'm posting this on a new thread.

Musical Scares
By James V. DeLong 07/01/2003
excerpted from www.techcentralstation.com



The Record Industry Association of America dropped the other shoe last Wednesday when it said that its anti-downloading enforcement actions will no longer be limited to the purveyors of swapping software. It will go after the users themselves, finding them via the same programs that are used for swapping. As a start, it will target major uploaders

It is startling to realize that until May 1999 no one had heard the name "Napster," considering how completely that program upended the world of music and, indeed, the entire universe of intellectual property. By February 2001, when a federal appellate court upheld the music industry's copyright infringement suit and pretty much shut down Napster, almost 80 million people had signed up for it. The fallen torch was picked up by Kazaa, Morpheus, BearShare and other refiners of P2P technology. In 2002, these had 57 million users in the U.S. and accounted for 5 billion downloads, and by May 2003 Kazaa alone had been downloaded 230 million times, worldwide.

If the music industry could, it would far prefer to sue only these intermediaries and avoid going after the users. The downloaders are its customer base, and suing your customers is one of the great no-nos of business strategy. But the industry is in a tough legal and political box, and has been left with little choice.

In Napster's technology, a list of songs available on the network at any given time was compiled on the company's servers. Someone seeking music then searched this list, and was directed to the appropriate computer in the home of a fellow user of the network. This let the courts enjoin Napster as a business, and its practice of listing available songs even if they were under copyright, without eliminating Napster as a technology.

Napster's progeny operate in a decentralized fashion.. A search request goes not to a central server but to a group of nearby computers. Each of these sends it to another group, each of which sends it on, and so on. There is no central node involving copyright infringement for a court to get a purchase on.

This allows the producers of the software to say:


"Hey, we are just innocent software providers. We tell people not to infringe copyright. See? Look right there on our website. Or here, where we say, 'support the artist; buy the record.' And P2P is a valuable technology; you can't outlaw a technology just because it might be used to perform an illegal act. If you don't like infringement, go after the infringers."

We all know that this is tosh. It is like a mimeo sheet circulated during Prohibition that said: Warning: This page contains information on how to manufacture the illegal substance known as beer. . . . Do not follow these directions or you will be breaking the law. But it is a solid point legally, at least as far as P2P is concerned, since P2P is indeed a valuable technology. Determining the legality of a program according to the subjective motives of its distributors is not a comfortable position for the legal system.

The point is even more forceful politically, because the tech community is frightened witless, and with good reason, of anything that smacks of legal limitations on innovation or government specifications of allowable technology.

In rejecting the music industry's recent effort to enjoin Grokster, the trial judge hewed to this line of thinking. Whatever the motivations of the company, it did not control what the users did with the product. He likened Grokster to companies such as Sony or Xerox, which can know full well that VCRs and copying machines will be used by many to infringe copyrights without themselves becoming liable for these actions.

Given this concatenation of forces, the industry decision to proceed against swappers, albeit cautiously, was inevitable. The timing was facilitated by the growing number of paid download services, especially the recent success of Apple's iTunes. In the past, a swapper could argue that the industry had no right to insist that people buy $18 CDs when it should be delivering its bits over the Internet for a pittance, but the moral force of this argument is declining as the bits do indeed become available over the Internet.

And it is important to be clear that the contest is fundamentally moral. As part of its announcement, the RIAA lined up a slew of artists and composers to say, "Look, this is our livelihood you are taking, and it is not right." This is good, but it does not go far enough. RIAA should have added some consumers saying:


"We like music, but we are not 18th century dukes who can hire their own composers and orchestras. What we need is a method of pooling our funds with other music lovers so that we each pay a little to the artists we like and the middlemen who get the stuff out, and in return we get a cornucopia of music delivered over the Internet. (Let's call this method "a market.") Someone who free rides, who takes advantage of our monetary support of the music industry without contributing himself, is not acting morally. Someone who deliberately sets out to destroy the market for ideological reasons -- because he thinks "music ought to be free" or some similar juvenile slogan -- is worse. He is the equivalent of a medieval barbarian, who destroys the basis of civilization out of aggressive ignorance. Someone who sets out to destroy the market so he can sell ads as he does so is the moral equivalent of a World War I 'merchant of death' arms dealer."

The record industry can win in the long run only if this moral case is heard and understood by the public. There are encouraging signs. The reaction to Wednesday's announcement was muted, not what must have been feared at the RIAA. An overwrought academician said in the LA Times: "The RIAA pits itself against ordinary Americans who use file-sharing programs legitimately," which is a bit of a non-sequitur, since the very purpose of the initiative is to go after only those who use programs illegitimately, and the RIAA actually benefits from academic illogic because it shows the defects of its opponents' case.

Also, the swapping software industry made a tactical, perhaps a strategic, mistake. The CEO of Streamcast responded to RIAA with a promise to organize the illegal swappers to lobby Congress against the enforcement initiative, a stance that totally contradicts Streamcast's avowed opposition to copyright infringement. Its website says:


StreamCast Networks does not condone copyright infringement. Due to the nature of peer-to-peer software, StreamCast Networks is unable to monitor or control the types of files shared within the Morpheus community. If you locate a file being shared by a user who you believe may be in violation of copyright law, please report your concerns to the user directly.

The lawyers who must defend Grokster appeal by arguing that Streamcast is just an innocent purveyor of technology, uncondoning of any illegal activity, must not be terribly happy today -- they will see their CEO's statement again in court, and the contrast with the purported policy only makes it more striking. In the court of public opinion, the statement demonstrates an affinity with the early 20th century figure Sir Basil Zaharoff, widely known as "the merchant of death."

The music industry must do its part. It must get the pipeline of paid services open and flowing, and ensure that the material is readily available at competitive prices. It must avoid enforcement actions against people who upload material that is not available through these legitimate channels, even if it is under copyright. It must be very careful not to go after the wrong people, and, when it makes mistakes (which it will) it must grovel handsomely.

But if it does these things, the moral contest can be won. And I, as a consumer who is salivating over the thought of an Internet full of classical music at low prices, will be delighted.

---Mike

hey mike, i asked this before, but assumed you had me on "ignore"

which would you prefer?

A- download capable: i heard of a band named doubledrive .(thru a net forum) download 2 songs from net, if i like, i probably purchase a CD. if not, i possibly DL newer songs later again for 2nd evaluation.

B- no DL capable: never know if i might like DD or not.

im not saying either is right or wrong, and dont know if DD has a site or samples, but have been curious about your band, but would be very unlikely to buy CD without hearing your beats.

keep on rocking. respectfully, - ben

I've answered this before, but I'll answer it again:

Downloads are a GREAT marketing tool, and a great way to sample an artist's music....and my band offers samples on our own site, and elsewhere such as www.mp3.com, www.amazon.com, etc...and I have no problem with people downloading music that artists WILLINGLY provide for such purposes.

The problem is when people make an artist's songs available for download WITHOUT the permission of the artist. I don't care if it's my band or my worst enemy's band...the principle is WRONG, and it's illegal.

Mike

is that a B ??? :confused:

What?

Mike

YA! why was MY thread closed?:mad:

i for one hate KaZaA mainly because of it's hidden spyware and foistware payloads. i just recently cleaned up my kid's PC and got stumped when it lost access to the internet despite having an ip connection. it turns out that the naming services settings, i.e., DNS, had been messed with and basically turned off.

i think KaZaA will die a natural death in time now that the legit sites are up.

BTW, Thrillbilly, I think he answered "A".

I thought it was closed because Bard posted some sort of nonsensical gibberish message that had nothing to do with the discussion at hand and effectively disrailed the debate.

What was that reason Mike?
You are eloquint and passionate in your defense of your position, Mike. It is hard for me to disagree with you because I believe in the nobility of free interprise. But that may be precisely why I disagree with you. I have compared the sale of intelectual property to the sale of the right to use fire. That we should be paying the decendants of that caveman as we pay George Harrisons estate for the right to listen to his music.
The courts have a very difficult issue to sort out. Just like the wagon builders of a century ago, the RIAA should look at some other way to protect their members interests, because the public has a new and differant way to get to the music they want.

But fire isn't any sort of property - not an invention, not a creation, but rather a natural phenomenon. Cavemen didn't make it, they discovered it. It can't be any more patented or protected by law than a new moon or comet that's discovered.
That being said, anyone can have free access and the right to make fire simply because there's no way anyone can own it. And of course, nobody can own it because nobody made it. We don't pay Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison for the use of electricity, do we?

Music is not something that appears out of nowhere. It's not like sunshine, rain, or the wind. Someone - in fact, a lot of people - have to labor very hard and spend a lot of money to make it and shape it into a form that makes it accessible to the public. You aren't born with an inherent right of liberty to enjoy, at no cost to you, the music you like - any more than you have an inherent and God-given right to drive a Ferrari if you want to, or live in a bigger house that might seem more appealing to you than where you live now. I take particular issue with your phrasing here: "because the public has a new and different way to get to the music they want". As if wanting it alone justifies having it. I have a new way to get to all those Aston-Martins I want; I'll just break into a dealership and tow one away. All sarcasm aside, I can't see where it's OK to simply take music that I want from the internet but not OK to walk into a music store and shoplift a CD; in both cases I get the music I want, without paying for it. Will someone please explain to me the difference, morally, ethically, or otherwise?

Fire is very much like music. It occurs naturaly but it takes a man to make it useful. It took a series of decisions by a man to recognize fire and then to put it to many digfferant uses which we still continue to do today. What I mean to say is that so many advances are made in technology that don't have the same protection as a music copywrite.
Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison's heirs probably should be getting royalties because of the magnitude of the effect of their ancestors inventions. Can you say the same for the writer/performer of "Itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini" who may still be getting royalties whenever it is sold?

I disagree. Fire is nothing like music. You're right that fire occurs naturally and that man has developed ways to harness it, but to argue the same of music is not an adequate analogy. You may as well say that a Picasso is worth nothing because while he organized paints and colors in a certain manner, they already existed prior to his intervention and therefore he hasn't created anything of any new or inherent value. It's rubbish to say that, of course, because art is more than just utilizing pre-existing natural resources (color, sound) and "putting it to different uses", as you put it. Music, in fact, does not occur naturally; I will grant you that sound does, but I'm not interested in listening to just sounds. Someone has to have the talent and iungenuity to use sound to create something new and inherently more valuable than sound alone. That's music, and I'm glad to rightfully pay the people who create it for the right to listen to it.

Ben Franklin didn't "invent" anything - he simply discovered something that already existed. Why should he get royalties for that? He didn't create a new technology, didn't develop any new use for electricity, he just conclusively proved that it existed. There's nothing to pay him for, really.

Thomas Edison, in fact, did patent his design for lamps and collected many royalties from their sale. He was involved in a famous lawsuit against the U.S. General Electric Company where he suid them for infringing upon his patent. He won an injunction preventing them from making lamps that utilized his patented technology. A case of intellectual property being rightfully defended against those who would steal it.

Why don't we pay Edison's heirs today? Because it expired, per the law, in 1897. Otherwise we would be.

As for Tiny Tim, why shouldn't he get paid royalties for that song? After all, he wrote the damned thing, and even if you don't like it, people still buy it. It's how the poor man, God rest his soul, made a living. You'd take the food right out of his mouth, and on what grounds? If he wrote a song, performed it, and people buy it, why shouldn't the man get paid? I'm confused.

Ok Guys. To set the record straight, I believe in the right of a misician or anyone else who comes up with a unique idea or product (two very destinct but equally useful entities) to sell that item to the highest bidder. It is the foundation of a capitalistic soceity that I would defend to the death. I am saying that the way they deliver their product has nearly become like setting it out on the counter and telling people to use the honor system to pay for it. The existance of Kazaa, Morpheus is to the music industry as the invention of the auto was to the wagon industry. Please excuse me for not coming up with a better analogy but the point is that a tech advance made the cd no longer a safe place to store music that you have for sale.
I am saying that it is too late to try to sue people. The barn door is wide open and the horses are in the next county. I don't agree that it is right just that it is. When Riaa starts filing suits, the stuff will hit the fan.

What's the name of that hawk that uses embers to ignite fields to drive out mice? Thomas Edisons heirs are getting regular checks and song rights are passed down or sold.

You're so wrong you’re almost right again.

Did the other thread cover used cd's?

If you buy a used cd from someone/somewhere, the artist doesn't get any royalties, right? If so, one copy of an album could be used by any number of listeners throughout it's lifetime, but the artist would only get the royalties from the first consumer. If the argument against file sharing is that you are listening to music without compensating the artist/label for it, then couldn't a similar argument be made about the market for used cd's?

No and NO. As long as that CD is in existence the rights go along with that CD the rights for were paid for at the time of purchase. If you were selling copies of that CD you would have a problem.

how about this - our local library has a pretty good collection of CD's that i will browse through from time to time. i usually take home a half dozen and rip them into mp3's and load them all in my nomad jukebox. that way i'm assured of the quality of the mp3's and i don't get the incomplete songs that used to abound on napster. i return them the following day to the librarian's confusion ("done listening to all of them already?").

is there any copyright infringement in this case? i equate it to borrowing black vinyl records and transcribing to tape which nobody every raised any eyebrows about...

Well, in a roundabout way. I aked Mikemover, who wrote that he used cd burning to make copies of his cd's in case htey were lost or stolen. I asked him if they were in fact lost or stolen, did he make payment to the record label because there were now two copies out where only one had been paid for? He didn't answer. I know this is all so stupid. It is so stupid because RIAA is trying to enforce a stupid licensing program that depends on old technology where it was hard to make copies. It is now easy and unfortunately, a large segment of our population is not consientious enough to honor this honor system. As I said before, it's not right it just is.

Why would I pay again for something that was stolen from me, unless I was buying another copy? It's the THIEF'S fault that it's stolen, not mine. That's a ridiculous question. If your car was stolen, would you call up Mercedes and offer them more money, even though it will not get you another car like the one you had?

So because it's EASIER to steal, we should just deal with it? Another ridiculous self-serving statement.

Mike

Thread cleaned up.

Of course not!! That's because MB develops an idea and sells it,ONCE. It took the music industry to come up with the idea of selling the same thing over and over again, and then gripe when people get around it.
As I said before, I am not a downloader, I am just making an observation from my point of view which is what this forum is about.
mikemover, just take a walk through Walmart and look at the throngs of the great unwashed and tell me that those people, the cd buying public, won't copy music for free rather than pay for it now that Kazaa is legal.

I hope you guys kissed and made up.

Let's take another example. Suppose I bought the vinyl version of an album years ago. Take Nazareth's Greatest Hits. I bought this thing when it was new. It was junk. (Not the music!) The record was warped and I could only play a few of the songs. I returned the record and got a new one, but it wasn't much better.

That record was paid for, in full, but I never received all the music supposedly bought. Years later, I took out my Narareth album, and realized how much I would enjoy having all the songs on it.

So, I downloaded the album off Win MX. Am I a criminal? I already paid the artist for the music. They got their royalty. Even if the record was not defective, am I stealing when downloading a copy?

Food for thought...

Separate post...

I think the problem is that the music buying public has been feeling a little hosed lately. I know that the last few CD's I bought, I bought only after listening to most of the tracks on-line. I have become gun-shy about shelling out $20 to get an album with one song that's well written and strongly performed, and eleven filler tracks of obviously second and third rate crap. Lots of performers have gone this route.

People have cottoned on to this strategy, and have decided to simply find the one song on-line, and not get ripped off for the rest of the CD, which is more often than not, lame.

Now, this does not justify the theft from the artist, but it leads to the problem, and once identified, we can start working toward a solution. We need to be able to buy songs one at a time.

Suppose you could go into a music store and instead of buying individual artist's CD's, you could make your own compilation CD with tracks that you wanted. Say for $0.50-$1.00 a song. I could pay at the store, and not risk on-line buying (though that makes sense too) and have a finsished CD to take home. Do I think this would work? Maybe. The main problem would be that a musician could sell their music directly to the store, or to the consumer on-line, and cut out Sony. How mush of that $20 CD does the artist typically make? I have read it is often less than $1.00!! The other $19.00 goes to the record company and the music store, among others.

We are at a crossroads. Consumers want good value for their dollar, and are tired of being charged for a crappy product they never asked for to get the one they really wanted. Artists are at the point where they might be able to cut free of giant music companies and reach their audience directly, and maybe even make more money for their efforts. Record companies want to un-ring the bell and return to pre-Internet days where they were in complete control. No one seems headed in the same direction, yet.

Does the RIAA think they'll make serious inroads suing the fans? Stop dealing with the symptom, and solve the problem.

We didn't kiss: We made out! lol I kid I kid...

Right on Blackmercedes!!!!
I asked mikemover how much he was paid for his cd's and got no answer. That means very little. But he is part of the music world and doesn't want to rock the boat(my opinion). So he defends the indefensable. You are definatly right when you say the music industry wants to return to the pre internet days, just like the horse drawn wagon manufacturer wanted to do when they saw what Henry Ford was working on.

(the thread was eliminated)
I am new to this. I suppose the moderator or mikemover knows why it was closed. Whats up?

I'm a bit confused...

Is this not the market determining the course of the industry?

I thought that libertarians are for such things - ie no government regulations, let the "market sort it out."

blackmercedes
 

Can't argue with that at all. I listen to a lot of Blues so I buy a lot of "Best of's". Even the greats like Hooker, Thornton, King and Waters had a few clinkers in their albums. The only contemporary album I have bought in the last few years was Keyes Songs in A minor because it has about six songs that are good.

By the way, why is downloading stealing anyway, I thought it was sharing? If I share something with someone else, is that a crime? [/B][/QUOTE]


LONG NOTE! Sorry.


I think the argument stems from the concept of intellectual property rights. Copywrite law was written to protect the income of writers. The word "copywrite" refers to who owns the rights to the written material. Before copywrite laws, authors were ripped days after a first edition printing and got no value from ripped material. Authors sought protection through law and copywriting was born.

In the USA, the constitution allows congress to set terms of copywrites and patents. Over the centuries the length of time has been extended and recently the entertainment industry has gotten Congress to extend it well beyond the lifetime of the artist.

Music is granted the same protection, it is copywrited. When you legitimately buy music, a portion of the sale price is remitted to whomever owns the rights to the music (this includes music at live performances). At the time of acquistition you have certain limited rights among which are that you *may* sell or transfer that original item to anybody else. However, you *may not* sell or transfer any copies of it to anybody else. You may make as many copies as you wish of the music. Making copies and distributing them, such that the receiver does not compensate the rights holder, is stealing money from the folks who own the copywrite. That is the law.

The law is abundantly clear, its legitimacy settled many generations ago. The argument about mp3's is confused by the ease of copying, not by the clarity of the law. Thus, you as a user of the music are burdened with ethical decisions. The law is clear, you must decide whether you wish to follow the law.

No matter how we try so desparately to avoid the label, anybody who illegally deprives a rightful owner of the value of his property is a thief.

If you rip copywrited material for others or accept it from others without paying a royalty, you are a thief.

Truth hurts.

Sharing and copying are different, and easy to recognize. If I loan you my CD so that you might enjoy it, that is sharing. If I make a copy for us both to enjoy, that is copying.

The difference is clear in law, and the RIAA is within the law to pursue though of us that infringe on copywrites.

However, the real issue is the need for the industry to adapt to the wants and needs of it's consumers. Technology is a bell that cannot be unrung, and simply making your customer base into a large group of criminals to be sued or arrested is not the right step. Why bother doing all this when you could devote the resources to making the industry "whole" again in the eyes of the customer.

There has to be a way to make this work. We've been here before when recordable mediums were introduced to the dismay of the RIAA. They refused to adapt and lobbied hard against their very own customers and artist's fans. Now, the advent of MP3 has bit them on the ass, and they have NOT earned the respect of the public. Heck, most people view the record companies and many artists as petulant brats that have too much money and way too big egos to match. I'm sure there are many folks that feel good about not buying the CD, thanks to the animosity created over the last 10-15 years.

"There has to be a way to make this work."

Ohmygod, Blackmerceds and I agree on something!

I think the entire entertainment industry (including recording) has lost touch with the buying public and with the technology that we use. Until they understand that their world has irrevocably changed, they will increasingly alienate the public. Pursuing Joe and Jane Q. Public is sure not going to pay them the rewards they seek.

No matter how stupid, short-sighted, self-aggrandizing and monopolistic those ego-centric dolts are, they still have artists by the throat and the law on their side. I don't think the entertainment industry cares any more about artists' opinions than it does consumers'.

Nonetheless, by copying and sharing an artists work, we are stealing money that the artist has earned by his talent and effort. I'd love to cut about twenty layers of parasites off the back of the artist, allowing the artist to charge a reasonable fee for his product and reducing the price to the consumer.

I think this new marketplace that is emerging through the internet, of which Apple's seems to be a huge first commercial success, scares the industry spitless. Great! Couldn't happen to a more deserving nest of snakes.

The "market" does not determine THEFT. The law does.

Mike

The average artist's percentage as specified in most standard major-label recording contract varies anywhere from 12-17% of album sales, minus packaging costs, minus comps, minus...blah, blah, blah. In other words, not much. This figure can go up (in some contracts) after certain sales milestones, etc...It varies, but that's an average range. This low figure points to yet another longstanding problem in the music industry, but that's another topic altogether.

I do not defend the state of the industry...It is corrupt and behind the times, and has been for quite some time. I am defending the right of the individual artists to earn a living and not have their work STOLEN from them by their audience.

Mike

I have been out of touch in Jamaica for the last week. No phone, no e-mail. Wonderful vacation.
You are in a delima mikemover. When you defend the RIAA stance you are defending a business deal that you don't like but have to live with. My sympathies. I guess the only alternative is to publish your own label but I bet the snakes have all the cards stacked against you if you try that.
Given how you feel about the "snakes" I think it is fair to say that they would do just about anything to keep their share of the pie which includes pressuring lawmakers to protect their future income. Like a lot of things in this world it is unfair. I suppose the only thing that could change it would be a rebellion of the artists but I think you guys are too busy to try that. That could change though if the RIAA becomes nasty enough. It could be a chance for you to break out from under the control of the snakes. You would have public sentiment when the public found how little you make on a cd. It is terrible that you have to pay all the cost for the pittence you get.

link to almost any FREE music you want: FM, no static at all :D

If he has enough time/money he can try to change the law.
Historically our laws were formed by the rich and powerfull. Every once in a while the little guys would rebel and make a change, usually temporary. (think Magna Carta)
Not until 1776 did a rebellion finally make a major change that had staying power.
Ours is trully a government of the people by the people. The problem, if there is one, is that most of us are too busy to get involved when something isn't right. We could change these stupid copywrite laws if we had the money and time. I think they will be changed when someone who has a personal interest takes the time to do it. I call them stupid because they leave the mikemovers with a pittance while the leaches take 90% of the proceeds.

The issue that pushes this button the hardest is: morality

The morality of “downloading” music lies somewhere between the two extremes of speeding and murder. Almost everyone speeds without ANY regard for the law (except for getting caught), and almost everyone wants murder punished to the maximum penalty, thus assigning their own personal “value” to their moral choices.

ie: spock will not steal a subway sandwich because he feels its morally wrong, but probably has knowingly exceeded the posted speed limit without feeling moral guilt. (apology to spock if he has never speeded)

This problem is exacerbated when someone’s own personal moral values is questioned by others.

Would you question my morals for speeding? Probably not. Would you question my morals for murder? Most likely so. Do both examples break the law? Yes.

If I do speed (even once), am I morally “corrupt” ??? I would think that most would answer no, and leave my personal choices unevaluated, and thus accept my illegal actions as being my business, and not theirs.

If there is no gray, and there is absolutely only black and white, anyone who has ever knowingly exceeded the posted speed limit by even one mph, is “immoral”, and NO LESS immoral than “down loaders”.

I will be the 1st to admit right here; I have knowingly speeded, and therefore am immoral.

hey spock, hows it going dude? :)

let me see if i understand the vulcan logic:

downloading is illegal, breaking the law, and is immoral.
speeding is also illegal, breaks the law, and is not immoral?

is the argument that it is not an "important" law valid?

Thrillbilly, you almost make a somewhat good point. I think a fallacy arises when you postulate that all transgressions are equal in the quoted near-syllogism, above. Obviously, they are not all equal otherwise we'd be nailing ol' Mr Spock's green hide to the wall for speeding same as for murder or downloading ripped songs.

Society and individuals generally recognize that there is a gradation to lawbreaking and it usually is correllated with the degree of harm inflicted. Small harm in speeding, big harm in murder, intermediate harm for grand theft of some poor sob's 500e. Stealing a song is probably closer to speeding than grand theft, but it is still doing harm to a specific individual and to a measureable degree. That makes it substantially different from speeding, in my eyes.

Hey guys, We are still trying to figure life out. It's complicated. Many of our laws came into existance when our lawmakers were wearing powdered wigs.
Remember that it was against the law to kill deer in Notingham Forest, but the evil sheriff enforced the law nonetheless. Of course the Robin Hood story is fiction, but the stupid laws that man has dreamt up are not.
I don't know what my opinion is worth but in my 54 years I believe that common sense usually wins out. A good example is the military draft, the death penalty going away and then coming back and before my time prohibition. I guess it's true we have to learn from our mistakes.

Hey! I'm impressed you guys! A civel debate going on on this forum! Way cool:cool:
But I am amazed that this subject can be debated for such a long time. The law is the law. Black and white. No grey there. But I suppose degrees of "blackness", or we'd all be on death row for going 56mph in a 55 zone;)

botnst, thanks for your reply.

again, the issue here is that of selective morality.

that is, everyone will evaluate which laws they they feel are important and to what degree they choose to abide.

speeding IS breaking the law. no question there, right?

if you willingly speed, you have made an decision that the rules just dont (or shouldnt) apply, and you can do what you want regardless of the rules, thus applying a selective moral judgment.

to rephrase the question ive seen asked here:

stealing the sandwich is illegal, and "wrong", so i wont do that.
but...
speeding is also illegal, and "wrong", but i just dont care.

botnst- none of this is directed at you. you just seem to be able to contribute in a positive manner.

I'll see your rephrase and raise you a rephrase plus a perspective change.

Rephrase
There is a gradation to lawbreaking and is usually is correllated with the degree of harm inflicted. Small harm in speeding, big harm in murder.

Perspective
A possible difference between sandwich stealing and speeding (assuming lack of extenuating circumstances like stealing for a starving child or speeding to get a cardiac victim to hospital) is that there is a victim in a theft who is deprived of property. In the case of speeding, the victim is the common good of society. The loss to the individual who sells sandwiches is a direct harm while the loss due to speeding to me, as part of the commonweal, by Spock zooming through a sublight zone in hyperdrive, is distributed among the population for whom the speed limit affects.

Extension
Extend that to ripping and uploading music for distribution. The burden of purchase is strictly assumed by the originator of the ripped tune. The benefit of the royalty from that initial transaction accrues to the artist and the pit of snakes who own a portion of the royalty. By circumventing royalty payment at each transfer of that tune, the user gets the benefit of the artists, sound engineers, producers, etc without compensating them for ther creativity and expertise. This is why it is stealing--everybody who receives the tune without compensating the artist is taking the artist's just compensation.

The recording industry shafts the public
The system was designed for physical recordings. The recording industry is failing miserably at addressing the new paradigm. This recalcitrance is screwing-over the artists and the public. The public ain't stupid--obviously physical production costs go to near zero for net distribution. The artist still gets the same flat rate. The music industry doesn't have to pay all of the manufacturing costs but STILL charges the same amount. They realize a huge profit by holding internet prices to physical sales prices.

technically, this is called getting screwed.

The response to all of this is where the moral issue arises.

Is it morally justified to take something of value from somebody just because you think the system is unjust? The decision to download is bound to the copier--nobody is forcing it. Thus, the decision is an individual's moral choice and is a direct reflection of that individuals moral character.

i must offer that breaking the law is breaking the law, and the gradation only comes to play with the degree of prescribed punishment incurred for said offense.

i just cant get behind an offering of "i know what the law is (as with speeding) but dont think that that particular law should apply to my moral position"

PS- i did DL several years ago (and did not share, i was a leech), but have not since then, and DO NOT support the position that (illegal) downloading is OK.

i am ONLY questioning the issue of selective morality. - ben

and some more news
 

[QUOTE]mikemover, just take a walk through Walmart and look at the throngs of the great unwashed and tell me that those people, the cd buying public, won't copy music for free rather than pay for it now that Kazaa is legal

Thanks GA-W123 Diesel, that article confirms what I said. . That article is good. What I don't understand is why the mikemovers, the supposed rebels,(isn't every musician a rebel?) even bothers dealing with the existing music industry, for about 10% of the proceeds.

The thread that wouldn't die
 

FYI.

Botnst

Revealed: How RIAA tracks downloaders
Music industry discloses some methods used
Thursday, August 28, 2003 Posted: 9:45 AM EDT (1345 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recording industry is providing its most detailed glimpse into some of the detective-style techniques it has employed as part of its secretive campaign against online music swappers.

The disclosures were included in court papers filed against a Brooklyn woman fighting efforts to identify her for allegedly sharing nearly 1,000 songs over the Internet. The recording industry disputed her defense that songs on her family's computer were from compact discs she had legally purchased.

According to the documents, the Recording Industry Association of America examined song files on the woman's computer and traced their digital fingerprints back to the former Napster file-sharing service, which shut down in 2001 after a court ruled it violated copyright laws.

Compared to shoplifting
The RIAA, the trade group for the largest record labels, said it also found other evidence inside the woman's music files suggesting the songs were recorded by other people and distributed across the Internet.

Comparing the Brooklyn woman to a shoplifter, the RIAA told U.S. Magistrate John M. Facciola that she was "not an innocent or accidental infringer" and described her lawyer's claims otherwise as "shockingly misleading."

The RIAA papers were filed Tuesday night in Washington and made available by the court Wednesday.

The woman's lawyer, Daniel N. Ballard, of Sacramento, California, said the music industry's latest argument was "merely a smokescreen to divert attention" from the related issue of whether her Internet provider, Verizon Internet Services Inc., must turn over her identity under a copyright subpoena. "You cannot bypass people's constitutional rights to privacy, due process and anonymous association to identify an alleged infringer," Ballard said.

Using forensics
Ballard has asked the court to delay any ruling for two weeks while he prepares his arguments, and he noted that his client identified only as "nycfashiongirl" -- has already removed the file-sharing software from her family's computer.

The RIAA accused "nycfashiongirl" of offering more than 900 songs by the Rolling Stones, U2, Michael Jackson and others for illegal download, along with 200 other computer files that included at least one full-length movie, "Pretty Woman."

The RIAA's latest court papers describe in unprecedented detail some sophisticated forensic techniques used by its investigators.

For example, the industry disclosed its use of a library of digital fingerprints, called "hashes," that it said can uniquely identify MP3 music files that had been traded on the Napster service as far back as May 2000. Examining hashes is commonly used by the FBI and other computer investigators in hacker cases.

By comparing the fingerprints of music files on a person's computer against its library, the RIAA believes it can determine in some cases whether someone recorded a song from a legally purchased CD or downloaded it from someone else over the Internet.

Copyright lawyers said it remains unresolved whether consumers can legally download copies of songs on a CD they purchased rather than making digital copies themselves. But finding MP3 music files that precisely match copies that have been traded online could be evidence a person participated in file-sharing services.

"The source for nycfashiongirl's sound recordings was not her own personal CDs," the RIAA's lawyers wrote.

The recording industry also disclosed that it is examining so-called "metadata" tags, hidden snippets of information embedded within many MP3 music files. In this case, lawyers wrote, they found evidence that others had recorded the music files and that some songs had been downloaded from known pirate Web sites.

Congressional hearings promised
The industry has won approval for more than 1,300 subpoenas compelling Internet providers to identify computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has promised hearings on the industry's use of copyright subpoenas to track downloaders.

The RIAA has said it expects to file at least several hundred lawsuits seeking financial damages as early as next month. U.S. copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song offered illegally on a person's computer, but the RIAA has said it would be open to settlement proposals from defendants.

The campaign comes just weeks after U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.



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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The riaa went after a couple hundred I think to make an example of them. I think their action made a lot of people nervous.

Update!!! A 12 year old honor syudent girl charged with theft of music!!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32731.html