MP3's...

[XVII]

I really dont even know if you would consider downloading MP3's that would normally be on CD's that you'd have to buy, and downloading them for free.

If not stealing, why not? (Also wondering if the RIAA [recording company] is doing something they should by trying to illegalize MP3 downloading)

If stealing...how so?

 

[A Taffer]

I really dont even know if you would consider downloading MP3's that would normally be on CD's that you'd have to buy, and downloading them for free.

If not stealing, why not? (Also wondering if the RIAA [recording company] is doing something they should by trying to illegalize MP3 downloading)

If stealing...how so?

It is electronic theft using the internet. By downloading those songs or software over the internet there is no way for any money to reach the people who make the software or songs because you haven't paid for it. You just simply took it. Now if you went to a pay website and paid first and then downloaded the money gets sent to the people who made the music. That wouldn't be theft. As far as the RIAA I know they are taking a lot of people to court for songs at least....software makers I'm not sure what they are doing. The internet is hard to regulate so I doubt this will be fixed anytime soon that works for all countries.

 

[mala]

it is stealing
see my comment on the other thread

however what the riaa is doing by going after kazaa and other file sharing programs is equally evil

if some drunk gets in a car and runs people over you dont go and tear up the highway they used now do you

and mp3s are not just about brand name music here
the mp3 is just a format of media
it's what in the file that is important.

btw the riaa isnt a recording company

 

[mala]

It is electronic theft using the internet. By downloading those songs or software over the internet there is no way for any money to reach the people who make the software or songs because you haven't paid for it. You just simply took it. Now if you went to a pay website and paid first and then downloaded the money gets sent to the people who made the music. That wouldn't be theft. As far as the RIAA I know they are taking a lot of people to court for songs at least....software makers I'm not sure what they are doing. The internet is hard to regulate so I doubt this will be fixed anytime soon that works for all countries.

realistically the riaa is only going after, as far as downloaders go, the bigtime people
who download 100's of gigs
them going after johny 10mb isnt worth theyre time/money/image

as far as stopping mp3s more realistically they are looking into two things

1 is getting filesharing programs banned, read about their legal fights over kazaa (they lost last i heard, prolly in appeals though)

as well as hardware methods
one which is very worrisome is that when you buy a computer in the next couple of years it might come installed with special tracking chips that see what you have on there and then transmit that info back to whoever owns the rights.

other things are cds that cant be read with a computer cd device
mp3s/movie formats that cant be burned to disc
dvd burners that refuse to read certain formats
etc...

 

[doofus125]

realistically the riaa is only going after, as far as downloaders as well as hardware methods one which is very worrisome is that when you buy a computer in the next couple of years it might come installed with special tracking chips that see what you have on there and then transmit that info back to whoever owns the rights.

I find that to be a violation of my rights and my privacy....that will basicly tell them all of my business that is none of their business.....

 

[ashibaka]

I download foreign music through filesharing programs. I don't think it's stealing... the person I would hypothetically be stealing from is the artist, and he's not going to get a cut if I spend $50 on an import CD.

Which is worse...
- paying someone $50 to buy a secondhand CD, and the artist gets nothing
- paying someone nothing to download an MP3, and the artist gets nothing

C'mon

 

[SqueezetheShaman]

Well, ashibaka, they do get more than nothing. They get like a whole couple cents.


Most artists I like support file sharing, if they do, I do. There are many groups I wouldn't be aware of without it. Groups i will spend money on at concerts (where they actually make money) and possibly even buy their CDs also.

 

[Kelly]

What about if you download a few songs from an album to preview before purchasing said album (deleting them after a few listens)?

 

[Edge]

It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement.

If I go to a new car lot in the middle of the night and drive off with one of their cars, I've stolen the car. However, if I go to a car lot in the middle of the night, wave my sparkly magic wand, duplicate one of their cars and drive off in the copy, what crime have I committed?

 

[doofus125]

I download foreign music through filesharing programs. I don't think it's stealing... the person I would hypothetically be stealing from is the artist, and he's not going to get a cut if I spend $50 on an import CD.

Which is worse...
- paying someone $50 to buy a secondhand CD, and the artist gets nothing
- paying someone nothing to download an MP3, and the artist gets nothing

C'mon

Both violate copyright laws.....secondhand cd's are just as bad if not worse because you paid for pirated music, allowing someone else profit from something that isn't theirs in the first place....

 

[mala]

It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement.

If I go to a new car lot in the middle of the night and drive off with one of their cars, I've stolen the car. However, if I go to a car lot in the middle of the night, wave my sparkly magic wand, duplicate one of their cars and drive off in the copy, what crime have I committed?

 

[mala]

It's not stealing. It's copyright infringement.

If I go to a new car lot in the middle of the night and drive off with one of their cars, I've stolen the car. However, if I go to a car lot in the middle of the night, wave my sparkly magic wand, duplicate one of their cars and drive off in the copy, what crime have I committed?

its still stealing
it's called intellectual property

ya know what
let's leave the realm of music and talk about books

someone writes a book
someone else scans it in and posts it on a website w/o permission.
that's stealing as well

and yes its true
writers are going thru the exact same thing
people scan in their books and post them on websites/newsgroups/etc... and they get passed around like that

the problem is that people can't seem to believe it
they think that if the product cant be touched and felt in ones hand then it isnt theft because it didnt exist in the 1st place

 

[doofus125]

its still stealing
it's called intellectual property

ya know what
let's leave the realm of music and talk about books

someone writes a book
someone else scans it in and posts it on a website w/o permission.
that's stealing as well

and yes its true
writers are going thru the exact same thing
people scan in their books and post them on websites/newsgroups/etc... and they get passed around like that

the problem is that people can't seem to believe it
they think that if the product cant be touched and felt in ones hand then it isnt theft because it didnt exist in the 1st place

Great Prespective!!!!! I never looked at it that way before....

 

[Edge]

Um, no. Stealing has a very specific legal definition. Copyright infringement doesn't qualify, whether bookwarez or ripped music.

By claiming that pirating music or software or books is "stealing", you're trying to use moral language to describe an essentially amoral act, obscuring the issue by painting it with an incompatible brush. There is no Biblical or other moral law that says that, if I write a paragraph, no one else can repeat that paragraph without my express written consent and a material reward.

Which is not to say there shouldn't be secular laws that say something to that effect, but that there is room for moral... equivocation. The issue bears thinking about, and knee-jerk responses aren't particuarly valid.

 

[doofus125]

Um, no. Stealing has a very specific legal definition. Copyright infringement doesn't qualify, whether bookwarez or ripped music.

By claiming that pirating music or software or books is "stealing", you're trying to use moral language to describe an essentially amoral act, obscuring the issue by painting it with an incompatible brush. There is no Biblical or other moral law that says that, if I write a paragraph, no one else can repeat that paragraph without my express written consent and a material reward.

Which is not to say there shouldn't be secular laws that say something to that effect, but that there is room for moral... equivocation. The issue bears thinking about, and knee-jerk responses aren't particuarly valid.

In the bible we are told that we are to follow the law (both God's law and the Law of the land) and I don't know about where you live, but copying music and downloading it is called pirating, better known as stealing......

 

[Donny_B]

The internet revolution has brought some legitimate legal questions in the Copyright Laws and "Fair Use". The Copyright Laws are designed to protect the copyright owners, but in defense of the rights of consumers for copying for personal use, Congress put in provisions of "Fair Use". Definitions of "Fair Use" are still being worked out by the courts.

In 1984, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (in Sony vs. Universal Studios) that "Time Shifting" was a fair use...the BetaMax VCR could be used for videorecording of TV programs so that a TV show could be watched later if it was for non-commerical home use.

In 1999, in RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia, the courts legitimized portable MP3 players, calling "Space-shifting" or "Format-shifting" fair use. For non-commerical use, you can change music to MP3 format for playing on a portable MP3 player, or make a copy for your car CD player.

David Boies, who defended Napster, argued that file-sharers copied music for non-commerical use, which was permitted by RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia. "So when Napster's users engage in noncommercial sharing of music - noncommercial copying of music - is that activity copyright infringement?

"We say it is not, for two basic reasons. The first is that this kind of noncommercial consumer copying is recognized as fair use under common-law theories and doctrines, and under the Supreme Court's criteria. And second, with respect to audio recordings - that is, music - the Audio Home Recording Act directly says that noncommercial copying by consumers is lawful. The 9th Circuit, in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, in 1999, read that statute as permitting all - and all is the word of the opinion - all noncommercial consumer copying as lawful."
Source: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.10/boies.html

The courts ruled against Napster, but millions of MP3's were shared by millions of people while it lasted. In spite of court rulings, file-sharing programs still flourish, which has resulted in the RIAA now going after individual file sharers.

We probably haven't heard the last of it. One of the individual file sharers being sued, will no doubt appeal and this could end up in the US Supreme Court. And Congress may pass new laws to clarify the use of file-sharing programs.

For now, the law of the land is that the file sharing is illegal.

See http://www.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.php

 

[mala]

Um, no. Stealing has a very specific legal definition. Copyright infringement doesn't qualify, whether bookwarez or ripped music.

By claiming that pirating music or software or books is "stealing", you're trying to use moral language to describe an essentially amoral act, obscuring the issue by painting it with an incompatible brush. There is no Biblical or other moral law that says that, if I write a paragraph, no one else can repeat that paragraph without my express written consent and a material reward.

Which is not to say there shouldn't be secular laws that say something to that effect, but that there is room for moral... equivocation. The issue bears thinking about, and knee-jerk responses aren't particuarly valid.

and you are entitled to your opinion on this

however i was not using morality anywhere or at least trying not to
i base most things off of common sense.
and i never said anything about one paragraph
i meant the whole book
heck lemme take games workshop as an example
they publish these codexes every 3-4 years
big books with pictures in them. cost about 15 dollars or more each
anyway you can go on kazzaa right now and download all of them without paying a cent.
you can call it copyright infringement but at the end of the day it is theft

btw http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ copyright laws in the us
i'll read over them to see how they treat net crime.

and as far as biblical reasoning goes commandments 8 and 10 seem to work for this.

anyways like i said before there is a huge disconnect between real goods and intangible goods.

theft of music, books, etc... online i think should be put in the same category as theft of virtual money
if someone hacks a banks computer and transfers money to his accnt the feds/bank aren't gonna try to nail him for copyright theft of the money.

 

[cheezit]

Just out of curiosity, how is downloading a song from the internet any different than recording the song off of the radio? At least with the downloaded song, someone, somewhere along the line actually paid for the CD it came from. In many cases, the radio station that broadcasts the songs were given the music to play, free.

 

[mala]

quality of the material is one issue
most radio stations pay premiums or have contracts to play songs as well as having paid for a license
you cant go and download an entire album off the radio and then burn it to your own cd
you havent been given permission to do so (that is a big factor that people choose to ignore. it doesnt matter if you can do something one way and not the other way if you havent been given permission by the owners and creators. if you choose to ignore that and reason it as being unfair then that is your fault and not theirs. if its a matter of unfairness then well life isnt fair and we dont live under communisim.)

and that someone somewhere has paid for it arguement is not true.
in most cases warez, book warez, stolen music is released by people who havent actually paid for it but that work in some key distribution position (not management but key as in where they are standing rather) and they grab it and get it out as it goes to the stores.

Q) are the prices of cds too high?
A) yes

Q) is the riaa and its movie counterparts trying to make as much money as possible
A) yes

Q) does the above excuse people from taking what they want?
A) no

 

[A c E]

first of all why the hell isn't there just one ****ing post about mp3's and secondly...the artist who make the songs for money aren't really artists...
music is a way to express urself...it should not be sold