[old, but good]

Illegal Art: Where intellectual "property" and free expression meet.






http://www.creativecommons.org/
http://www.publicknowledge.org/


http://illegal-art.org
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/

Quote :

"The laws governing "intellectual property" have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out. Borrowing from another artwork--as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s--will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed. The irony here couldn't be more stark. Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it. The Illegal Art Exhibit will celebrate what is rapidly becoming the "degenerate art" of a corporate age: art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property. Some of the pieces in the show have eluded lawyers; others have had to appear in court. Loaded with gray areas, intellectual property law inevitably has a silencing effect, discouraging the creation of new works. Should artists be allowed to use copyrighted materials? Where do the First Amendment and "intellectual property" law collide? What is art's future if the current laws are allowed to stand? Stay Free! considers these questions and others in our multimedia program. -- Carrie McLaren * * * For in-depth information about copyright law and its impact on free expression, please see the new "copyright" issue of Stay Free! magazine, which includes the Illegal Art Catalog and will be available at all exhibit events. See also Articles and Illegal Art Links. Illegal Art is sponsored by Brooklyn-based Stay Free! magazine."

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/538/freedom_of_expression/

Quote :

"Freedom of Expression™ By Kembrew McLeod The power of corporations to censor was greatly expanded by the passage in 1998 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was written by and for the lobbies that paid to push it through Congress--the software, entertainment, pharmaceutical and other intellectual property industries. Most significantly, the DMCA severely curtails the "fair use" of copyrighted goods. The fair use statute was written into the 1976 Copyright Act to prevent overzealous copyright owners from controlling all uses of their goods. Fair use allows artists, writers and scholars to use fragments of copyrighted works without permission for the purposes of education, criticism and parody, among other things. The problem is that the DMCA, passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, places the judicial powers of deciding what is fair use and what is not into the hands of copyright and trademark owners. They, of course, are not very liberal in their interpretations of how their intellectual property is used by others. For most intellectual property-owning corporations, any use is stealing. The DMCA gives corporations the power to essentially purge from the Internet what they deem to be copyright and trademark violations, usually by forcing Internet service providers to remove offending Web sites. The act encourages such behavior because the law states that ISPs and Web host companies can avoid liability only if they comply with copyright owners’ demands to quickly remove so-called infringing materials. Search engines are also liable under the law for simply pointing users to Web sites, though they too can avoid lawsuits if they cave to the demands of overzealous copyright owners by removing certain search results. Intellectual property owners can simply make your voice disappear if they do not like what you have to say about them--whether you are liberal, conservative or neither. This is something that was much more difficult in a non-digital world. This recently happened to a parody Web site that targeted Dow Chemical and the infamous chemical spill that killed an estimated 20,000 people in Bhopal, India. In 1984, a pesticide plant in Bhopal owned by Union Carbide, now part of Dow, sprung a leak and killed 5,000 residents, after which the plant was abandoned without a cleanup, gradually claiming an additional 15,000 lives since. Shortly after the parody Web site went online in 2002, lawyers for Dow sent the site’s ISP, called The Thing, a cease and desist letter, claiming that the site was in violation of the DMCA because, "The Web site displays numerous trademarks, images, texts and designs taken directly from Dow’s Web site." Soon after, the ISP itself--also a provider for other artistic projects, including Artforum magazine--was informed that its high-speed connection provider, Verio Inc., would terminate its service. Now the parody site cannot find an ISP in the United States that will host it. -------------- Another way content can be policed online is the way domain name disputes are arbitrated in cases of so-called cyber-squatting--when a domain name that incorporates a trademark is registered by someone other than the mark’s owner. In 2001, professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa conducted two studies that demonstrate that the arbitration process is unfairly balanced in favor of corporate trademark owners. Two organizations, the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), decide the lion’s share of domain disputes--94 percent. Why do these organizations dominate the process? Trademark owners, the complainants, can choose where a case is heard, and Geist’s two studies demonstrate that NAF and WIPO actively choose judges who favor complainants. It’s no surprise that WIPO’s arbitration panel has removed custody of hundreds of domain names and turned them over to corporate trademark owners. The WIPO doesn’t just rule against someone who is squatting on McDonalds.com or VivendiUniversal.com, but anyone who registers an obviously satirical variation of that trademark, such as VivendiUniversalSucks.com. Indeed, on November 7, 2001, the panel ruled that very domain name may cause confusion among the public, and pulled the plug on a group of Vivendi Universal critics. In one of the more surreal examples of intellectual property jurisprudence, WIPO argued that "certain members of the public in general and ‘Internauts’ in particular, not being English speakers and/or aware of the meaning of the word ‘sucks’ in the Internet world, would be likely to understand ‘sucks’ as a banal and obscure addition to the reasonably well-known mark VIVENDI UNIVERSAL and that, accordingly, refers to services provided by the Complainant." -------------- It’s important to understand that trademark law has no formally written "fair use" statute, and this gives much less room for Freedom of Expression™ on the Internet, and in the offline world as well. Federal law protects trademarks from being portrayed in an "unwholesome or unsavory context," which allows courts to suppress uses of famous cultural icons that are unauthorized, even when there is no reasonable possibility of confusion. For instance, in 1977 an environmental group used a caricature of the Reddy Kilowatt trademark in literature that was critical of the electric utility industry, and the company responded by filing an injunction for the unauthorized use of their mark. This injunction was upheld by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The court ruled that, essentially, you cannot use a trademarked property to express yourself--it constitutes a type of trespassing. In Canada, the Manitoba Court of Appeal similarly ruled that striking Safeway workers could not appropriate the Safeway trademark in their union literature. The Court ruled that "there is no right under the guise of free speech to take or use what does not belong to [you]." If you were wondering why I included the ™ symbol in the paragraph above, it’s because I own the federally registered trademark, Freedom of Expression™ (No. 2,127,381). Apparently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office did not find the idea of someone controlling this phrase morally, socially and politically unsettling, and it granted me ownership of the mark in 1998. If, for instance, the ACLU wanted to publish a magazine titled Freedom of Expression™, it would have to seek my permission and pay royalties--and if I was in a bad mood, or didn’t agree with the ACLU’s agenda, I could sue them for the unauthorized use of the phrase. Don’t worry ... I wouldn’t do anything like that. I’m not Disney. But I am considering pursuing legal action against AT&T for their use of Freedom of Expression™ in a recent ad campaign."

12/17/2010 4:45:38 PM

Art, in any form, is a product of the human mind. Individuals can choose to keep their ideas private, or they can release those ideas, making them available for anyone to use. You could argue that without intellectual property, entertainment giants such as Disney, UMG, Viacom could not exist. I would argue that'd we'd be a lot better off without them, as we could finally be rid of corporate rap/rock/pop and god awful television.

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 10:43 AM. Reason : ]

12/18/2010 10:41:44 AM

Patents and copyrights have their place and are necessary in some ways to ensure that R&D costs are recouped and companies, inventors, authors, artists, musicians, etc. have protections for the product of their intellect. The real problem is not that these things exist, it is the length of time that such exclusivity is granted. Copyrights should not be indefinite.

12/18/2010 12:48:26 PM

Quote :

"Art, in any form, is a product of the human mind. Individuals can choose to keep their ideas private, or they can release those ideas, making them available for anyone to use. You could argue that without intellectual property, entertainment giants such as Disney, UMG, Viacom could not exist. I would argue that'd we'd be a lot better off without them, as we could finally be rid of corporate rap/rock/pop and god awful television."

Art in most forms is the product of extensive human labor.

Music would get along fine without copyrights, because it's not cost/labor intensive to create and artists can make money playing live.

Television, movies, books, and video games (and other software) would all suffer greatly by removing copyright laws, and not just the crappy stuff.

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 3:07 PM. Reason : ]

12/18/2010 3:06:51 PM

Quote :

"Music would get along fine without copyrights, because it's not cost/labor intensive to create"

lawlz

12/18/2010 4:54:13 PM

Not nearly as much as the other things I mentioned, are you going to deny it?

An album can be made by 3-4 people in a studio over a few weeks.

12/18/2010 5:06:25 PM

studio time is expensive, not to mention the time that goes into writing songs

12/18/2010 9:20:08 PM

Quote :

"Not nearly as much as the other things I mentioned"

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 12:12 AM. Reason : Except books, those don't cost a lot to make, just a lot of time]

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 12:13 AM. Reason : But again, authors can't earn money touring like musicians, so they still need copyright laws]

12/19/2010 12:09:06 AM

It's not cost/labor intensive to type out the final version of a novel.

12/19/2010 2:29:09 AM

I'm still lolling about making an album being a quick easy thing

12/19/2010 1:53:39 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilZshY6uUo

Quote :

""Rock Hard" is a song by the Beastie Boys, released by Def Jam Records on 12" in 1985. The song (and the accompanying songs on the 12") features the band's debut rap effort, and it contains samples from the AC/DC song "Back in Black" which was used without obtaining legal permission - thereby causing the record to be promptly withdrawn. Later, when the Boys planned to include the out-of-print song on their 1999 anthology, The Sounds of Science, AC/DC refused to allow the sample to be used. Mike D spoke to AC/DC's Malcolm Young personally on the phone when their lawyers refused to clear the sample, and later said that "AC/DC could not get with the sample concept. They were just like, 'Nothing against you guys, but we just don't endorse sampling.'" Adrock then added "So we told them that we don't endorse people playing guitars."[1] The cover design is also famous for now being the official Def Jam records logo for vinyl releases; to this day, vinyl singles released by Def Jam have this design. Long removed from print, it was considered a rare collector's item until Def Jam reissued the single in Europe in 2007.[2]"

12/19/2010 2:08:44 PM

I'm not feeding the troll.

12/19/2010 2:18:51 PM

Quote :

"Under the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), breaking the encryption on any software program is a federal crime. In 1999, the hacker magazine 2600 posted DeCSS on its website, 2600.com; this code, which breaks the encryption on DVDs, enables Linux computers to play DVDs (when encrypted, DVDs can only be played on Microsoft products) and also allows DVDs to be copied. The movie industry sued 2600's publisher, and although the court ultimately ruled against the magazine, the case inspired hacktivists to create art that incorporates the code. In so doing, the artists argue that computer language is speech and should be protected under the First Amendment. For more examples, see Gallery of CSS Descramblers, (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery) from which these were taken. Anonymous Web page, circa 2000 http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/Poosheebla-dvd.html This DVD logo, formed from the characters in the CSS-auth source, was generated by an anonymous hacker using the MosASCII tool created by Robert DeFusco. To view the entire source code, click "Select All" on your browser's Edit menu. Anonymous "DeCSS Haiku" Text, 2001 http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/decss-haiku.txt This poem is both a commentary on the DeCSS situation and a correct and complete description of the descrambling algorithm. As its anonymous author told the Wall Street Journal, "A program is a literary work. The idea was to show how strange and difficult it is to classify computer programs and technical information as something other than speech." Although the vast major of readers can't make use of the haiku, programmers are likely to know how to translate the poem back into software code."

12/19/2010 2:23:11 PM

12/19/2010 2:27:21 PM

Quote :

"It's not cost/labor intensive to type out the final version of a novel."

Yeah I mentioned that in case you didn't bother/were unable to read my edit. They would still be hurt more than musicians with no ip laws.

Quote :

"I'm still lolling about making an album being a quick easy thing"

So are you going to deny that it costs more to make a high quality movie, TV show, or video game than it does to make a high quality album?

Making quality music is less about money and more about talent.

12/19/2010 3:17:33 PM

LOL

12/19/2010 4:31:35 PM

^^ gonna have to agree...

Cost to make the Beatles albums <<<<<<< Cost to make Titanic

12/19/2010 4:47:35 PM

^^ In other words "no"

nutsmackr = PWNT

12/19/2010 4:50:26 PM

Most musicians make a shitload more money touring than off of album sales. If you removed music copyrights it would hurt record labels more than musicians. Hell, with technology today you barely even need a studio to record anymore.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 4:57 PM. Reason : asdfsdaf]

12/19/2010 4:57:03 PM

Yes, it costs less to make an album than a movie, but that doesn't mean music should be less protected by copyright laws.

As for making more money off tours than albums, tell that to the likes of Scott Walker, Brian Wilson, and other musicians who don't tour.

None of that changes the fact that studio time is expensive, songwriting and recording takes time and without the means of protecting those people's rights to recompense themselves for the time and effort it takes music will suffer.

As an aside, for most bands touring is not a money making venture. The money still lies in the record sales.

Quote :

"If you removed music copyrights it would hurt record labels more than musicians."

Here is your cost breakdown on a $15.99 album

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?m=20041015

Removing copyrights for musicians would have a huge impact on artists.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 5:16 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 5:12:14 PM

why does this instance on touring keep coming up?

12/19/2010 5:25:04 PM

If you want to profit from making music, perform or release albums that are worth having a physical copy of. If I download a song, I haven't taken anything from that band. I'm listening, and if I like it enough, I'll see the band when they come to my area. I might even buy some merch. With the Internet, more music is being distributed and enjoyed than at any point in human history. The result is more vibrant local music scenes, with less money getting funneled into shitty pop music. Maybe, just maybe, people are capable of creating amazing art without the promise of mansions and expensive cars.

12/19/2010 5:27:29 PM

Who said anything about getting rich? The only thing I'm seeing is the artists right to be compensated for their work. As in, if you download their album and listen to it, you should have to compensate them. Otherwise you are engaging in theft. Whether or not the song sucks doesn't come into the equation.

12/19/2010 5:35:58 PM

No, it's not theft. If I download a song (that I wasn't going to buy anyway), who is harmed? How exactly are they harmed?

12/19/2010 7:19:49 PM

you took possession of their work without providing compensation. That is theft.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 7:25 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 7:24:23 PM

Quote :

"f you want to profit from making music, perform or release albums that are worth having a physical copy of."

I really don't know how to compensate artists fairly for their work in this environment, but I know that expecting them to cling to a dying technology to make money isn't the way to do it.

12/19/2010 7:31:07 PM

Just to note, "Thriller" costed $750k in 1982, in 2010 dollars that would be almost two million.

I would hate to live in a world where that album was never made.

12/19/2010 7:52:35 PM

Quote :

"you took possession of their work without providing compensation. That is theft."

I'm not taking possession of their work. No one will ever be able to replicate the sound of that band. Those songs were created by the band, but the recordings are not property. The recordings can be duplicated countless times. As such, the recordings do not have value as, for instance, an instrument or any physical object would. The recordings are not scarce.

There's not much that I get this fired up about. You, and people like you, are the reason we have Nickelback and Kesha. Who has the money to pay 15 bucks for a CD? Are you god damn kidding me? Go to shows and support bands. If there are any actual musicians here that have an ounce of fucking brain matter, you would rather people download your songs for free so that your fan base expands. RIAA loving motherfuckers still doing their best to keep music corporate, despite all the gains that have been made in the past two decades.

For all the bitching that you statists do about the lower class, the poor, and the unfortunate, have you ever thought about the fact that they would never, ever gain access to most music if it had to be purchased legitimately? If you were to actually go to shows, and talk to the fucking bands, you would realize that your mindset is not at all consistent with how the artists feel. You need to seriously rethink your position on this.

12/19/2010 7:58:18 PM

Quote :

"Those songs were created by the band, but the recordings are not property. The recordings can be duplicated countless times. As such, the recordings do not have value as, for instance, an instrument or any physical object would. The recordings are not scarce."

If that's the case, most of us wouldn't be paid any money. For example the code I write is not scarce, you could make millions of copies of it for nothing, but it would not exist if I did not make it.

Quote :

"You, and people like you, are the reason we have Nickelback and Kesha."

No the large amount of people who like and are willing to purchase their music is the reason we have nickleback and kesha.

Quote :

"For all the bitching that you statists do about the lower class, the poor, and the unfortunate, have you ever thought about the fact that they would never, ever gain access to most music if it had to be purchased legitimately?"

It has nothing to do with that. I have no problem with people who steal music, just realize it is stealing. You can't justify it with "well it doesn't cost much to make" or "they can make money off touring" or whatever, it's still theft.

12/19/2010 8:15:09 PM

Quote :

"If that's the case, most of us wouldn't be paid any money. For example the code I write is not scarce, you could make millions of copies of it for nothing, but it would not exist if I did not make it."

Like someone said recently in a different thread, that explains why open source software has been such a failure.

Quote :

"No the large amount of people who like and are willing to purchase their music is the reason we have nickleback and kesha."

There's only so much to choose from at Wal-mart. If people understood that they had unrestricted access to all the music ever recorded, at little to no charge, do you think they would have listened to Photograph five thousand times? Radio, of course, is reinforcing the problem that music copyright creates. The unrestricted flow of music has substantial benefits to music and humanity as a whole.

Quote :

"It has nothing to do with that. I have no problem with people who steal music, just realize it is stealing. You can't justify it with "well it doesn't cost much to make" or "they can make money off touring" or whatever, it's still theft."

Okay. Band records song. I find the song on the internet. I download it and listen to it. How have I infringed upon the rights of that band? Are they less than whole, at that point? Have I taken anything, other than potential profit, and haven't I also increased their potential profit, as I'm more likely to support them in ways where more money goes directly to the artist, rather than middle men?

12/19/2010 9:04:50 PM

Quote :

"You, and people like you, are the reason we have Nickelback and Kesha. Who has the money to pay 15 bucks for a CD? Are you god damn kidding me? Go to shows and support bands. If there are any actual musicians here that have an ounce of fucking brain matter, you would rather people download your songs for free so that your fan base expands. RIAA loving motherfuckers still doing their best to keep music corporate, despite all the gains that have been made in the past two decades."

you are a leach. My desire for people to buy albums is so that a vibrant and functional indie music scene can exist. If artists want to give their songs away for free then they should be able to, just like artists should be paid for the albums they do put out.

It is one thing to download an album before you buy it and another thing to download an album and never buy it, despite listening to it.

But as for you, you are nothing but a leach. You suck the artists dry and then complain when they are replaced by the likes of Kesha and Nickleback. Congratulations on fucking the artists you claim to support.

Quote :

"There's only so much to choose from at Wal-mart. If people understood that they had unrestricted access to all the music ever recorded, at little to no charge, do you think they would have listened to Photograph five thousand times? Radio, of course, is reinforcing the problem that music copyright creates. The unrestricted flow of music has substantial benefits to music and humanity as a whole."

Despite not getting much radio play and exposure from mainstream music media, Arcade Fire had one of the best selling albums last year and sold out Madison Square Garden. I suggest, if you are really interested in hearing good music you stop buying it from Wal-Mart and get into your local record stores, or better yet go out to a show.

Quote :

"Okay. Band records song. I find the song on the internet. I download it and listen to it. How have I infringed upon the rights of that band? Are they less than whole, at that point? Have I taken anything, other than potential profit, and haven't I also increased their potential profit, as I'm more likely to support them in ways where more money goes directly to the artist, rather than middle men?"

you have taken the fruits of their labor and failed to compensate them properly for it. You have stolen from them.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 9:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 9:07:45 PM

Quote :

"you have taken the fruits of their labor and failed to compensate them properly for it. You have stolen from them."

A friend of mine has a compact disc of major recording artist Elvis Costello's album This Years Model. My friend uses an audio cassette tape to make a copy of the aforementioned album. This friend then gives me the tape and I gleefully listen to it in my 1990 Aerostar. Question: am I thief?

12/19/2010 9:20:21 PM

LOL

I still have to laugh at $15 being too much to pay for an album one can listen to over and over again, but cover charges and ticket fees aren't too much.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 9:37 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 9:23:44 PM

Quote :

"Like someone said recently in a different thread, that explains why open source software has been such a failure."

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, so I'll address both. Much of the internet runs on open source software, but at the same time pretty much every that uses that software pays it's own developers to use and implement it.

Quote :

"If people understood that they had unrestricted access to all the music ever recorded, at little to no charge, do you think they would have listened to Photograph five thousand times?"

Probably, people go to walmart to get a specific CD they have heard from elsewhere. You could have every CD in walmart, people would probably still go for the same stuff.

Quote :

"How have I infringed upon the rights of that band?"

Ok. You develop a new drug, and then start selling it. I copy your drug and am able to sell it for less taking advantage of all the research you had to do.

Quote :

"Have I taken anything, other than potential profit, and haven't I also increased their potential profit, as I'm more likely to support them in ways where more money goes directly to the artist, rather than middle men?"

If I steal money from you but promise to give it back, I've still stolen money from you.

This is simply a logically indefensible position.

12/19/2010 9:39:35 PM

Quote :

"Ok. You develop a new drug, and then start selling it. I copy your drug and am able to sell it for less taking advantage of all the research you had to do."

I'm not reselling the song/album/whatever I downloaded from the internet.

Quote :

"If I steal money from you but promise to give it back, I've still stolen money from you"

If you steal money from me, I no longer have it. If I download a song from the internet, the group/label/whoever still has it.

People need to get away from the term of "theft". There is no theft when you download something illegally. Until a new term or law is put into effect, there will continue to be no way to logically defend digital media as property.

If you come over to my house and see the Picasso on my wall and decide to paint a copy for yourself, what have you taken from me? NOTHING! THIS is the same as downloading a song from the internet. The only difference is that some people will call one stealing because it's a song/movie and other people will realize that you can't steal something that doesn't physically exist. Wrong or right, make sure that you understand analogies when trying to explain why it's wrong &/or illegal.

12/19/2010 10:07:17 PM

Quote :

"If you steal money from me, I no longer have it. If I download a song from the internet, the group/label/whoever still has it."

They are still out the money they would have made selling you the song

Quote :

"People need to get away from the term of "theft". There is no theft when you download something illegally. Until a new term or law is put into effect, there will continue to be no way to logically defend digital media as property."

It is theft. They have an item for sale at a certain price and you are taking possession of that item without paying for it. That is theft.

Quote :

"If you come over to my house and see the Picasso on my wall and decide to paint a copy for yourself, what have you taken from me?"

If you have a Picasso in your living room and I make a perfect copy of it, I am taking millions of dollars from you in two ways

1. You spent millions of dollars in order to purchase the picasso, I am getting the picasso for free.

2. You once had a 1 of a kind item. Through my perfect copy of said item, I have no doubled the number of them in the world. Your picasso is now worth less money as a result.

Also, you don't have the right to allow anyone to make copies of the painting.

Quote :

"THIS is the same as downloading a song from the internet."

Not really at all. The Picasso was painted by Picasso. You just happen to have possession of it. You aren't the artists.

Quote :

"The only difference is that some people will call one stealing because it's a song/movie and other people will realize that you can't steal something that doesn't physically exist."

Actually, it is the same. Picasso's estate still owns the intellectual rights to that Picasso painting, even though you own the physical painting. You are not allowed to make reproductions of it without permission of the estate.

Quote :

"Wrong or right, make sure that you understand analogies when trying to explain why it's wrong &/or illegal."

Exactly, you should understand your analogies when trying to explain things. That goes for you too.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 10:33 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 10:31:02 PM

Quote :

"I'm not reselling the song/album/whatever I downloaded from the internet."

To them you are, you are downloading it from the internet and selling it to yourself for free.

Quote :

"If you steal money from me, I no longer have it."

So if I go to a car wash, get my car washed, then refuse to pay for it, am I not stealing?

Quote :

"If you come over to my house and see the Picasso on my wall and decide to paint a copy for yourself, what have you taken from me? NOTHING! THIS is the same as downloading a song from the internet."

No, that's not the same. It would be the same if you heard the song, then decided to record your own copy that YOU made. You need to understand that it is theft. I am a strong supporter of free music, in fact I haven't payed for music in years. But all of my music is downloaded with the artist's permission. If you want good free music and you don't want the moral weight of stealing, there are a great number of musicians who will gladly give you their music in exchange for your support. There are many blogs devoted to getting that music out there as well as the musician's sites themselves.

12/19/2010 10:48:02 PM

Quote :

"They are still out the money they would have made selling you the song"

I would have never bought the song so they aren't losing anything.

Quote :

"It is theft. They have an item for sale at a certain price and you are taking possession of that item without paying for it. That is theft."

They are not selling "an item". They are selling data. This is where the problem exists. Nothing else can be stolen where the owner still has possession. It's illegal copying.

Quote :

"If you have a Picasso in your living room and I make a perfect copy of it, I am taking millions of dollars from you in two ways 1. You spent millions of dollars in order to purchase the picasso, I am getting the picasso for free. 2. You once had a 1 of a kind item. Through my perfect copy of said item, I have no doubled the number of them in the world. Your picasso is now worth less money as a result. Also, you don't have the right to allow anyone to make copies of the painting. "

Seriously? Picasso's paintings are copied every year. Your COPY does not decrease the value of my ORIGINAL. It's easy to date a painting and obviously yours could not match in this respect. One could even argue that by making a copy of this painting, you are INCREASING the value of the original. More copies means more exposure. More exposure means more popularity. More popularity means prices increase. Do I need to continue? My original will always be worth the most and the more popular the artist is, the more popular my painting is likely to be.

Quote :

"Not really at all. The Picasso was painted by Picasso. You just happen to have possession of it. You aren't the artists."

Your point? Since when do bands host their own websites, produce their own music, & market their own music? Furthermore, I most likely downloaded the song from a torrent which resulted because someone BOUGHT THE CD. In other words, a copy of something that someone owns.

Quote :

"Actually, it is the same. Picasso's estate still owns the intellectual rights to that Picasso painting, even though you own the physical painting. You are not allowed to make reproductions of it without permission of the estate. "

Actually his estate does not own the rights to all of his paintings as many were donated and the law is vague at best as to whether any copyright exists. Perhaps I should have said Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa since there is no copyright on it. My mistake.

Quote :

"To them you are, you are downloading it from the internet and selling it to yourself for free."

I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond to that. I'm selling it to myself for free? I'm pretty sure even RIAA would refuse to use a statement like that. I whittled a figurine out of a stick earlier. Do I need to pay myself before I can keep it or can I sell it to myself for free?

Quote :

"So if I go to a car wash, get my car washed, then refuse to pay for it, am I not stealing?"

Did I use the record label's soap, water, or cause wear & tear on their equipment (or labor)? No. The "product" exists and a copy can be made without the label providing anything else. Once again, this is a failed analogy.

Quote :

"No, that's not the same. It would be the same if you heard the song, then decided to record your own copy that YOU made"

I'm sorry but wtf is the difference between painting my own painting that's a copy and recording my own song that's a copy? You just described exactly what I already said.

Quote :

"You need to understand that it is theft"

You and others need to understand that it is NOT theft. Morally wrong or not, illegal downloads are not the same as theft. The majority of people that download illegally would have never purchased the song/movie/whatever in the first place so there is little lost revenue. What revenue is lost is made up by the people that then purchase higher quality copies of what they downloaded in the first place or just want to support the bands that they enjoy. Nothing is taken from anyone else.

You have made an assumption about me because I disagree with your argument and you know what they say about assumptions. I pay for my music and my movies. I will occasionally download something to see what it is. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't like it, I don't buy it. Am I stealing? No. Am I downloading illegally? Yes. Is anyone losing money because of it? No. Is anyone MAKING money because of it? Yes!

12/19/2010 11:34:37 PM

Quote :

"I would have never bought the song so they aren't losing anything."

Yet you took possession of it. Claiming that you would never have bought it is like having illegal cable and when you get caught for it, claiming you did nothing wrong because you never intended to pay for cable.

Quote :

"They are not selling "an item". They are selling data. This is where the problem exists. Nothing else can be stolen where the owner still has possession. It's illegal copying."

data is an item. Again, look at the stealing cable example.

Quote :

"Seriously? Picasso's paintings are copied every year. Your COPY does not decrease the value of my ORIGINAL. It's easy to date a painting and obviously yours could not match in this respect. One could even argue that by making a copy of this painting, you are INCREASING the value of the original. More copies means more exposure. More exposure means more popularity. More popularity means prices increase. Do I need to continue? My original will always be worth the most and the more popular the artist is, the more popular my painting is likely to be."

Not exact identical copies. Downloads are exact identical copies and no matter how you try to justify your theft it is still theft of services and goods.

Quote :

"Your point? Since when do bands host their own websites, produce their own music, & market their own music? Furthermore, I most likely downloaded the song from a torrent which resulted because someone BOUGHT THE CD. In other words, a copy of something that someone owns."

My point is you do not own the publishing rights to the painting, the band owns their publishing rights.

It doesn't matter that the person you downloaded the album from bought the album or not (most cases not since albums leak long before they go on sale), you did not buy the album. In other words you stole from the person who owns the publishing rights

Quote :

"Actually his estate does not own the rights to all of his paintings as many were donated and the law is vague at best as to whether any copyright exists. Perhaps I should have said Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa since there is no copyright on it. My mistake."

Only if he gave away the publishing rights would his estate no longer own the publishing rights.

As for Da Vinci, that is in the public domain. Not even remotely germane to the current discussion of stealing songs.

Quote :

"I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond to that. I'm selling it to myself for free? I'm pretty sure even RIAA would refuse to use a statement like that. I whittled a figurine out of a stick earlier. Do I need to pay myself before I can keep it or can I sell it to myself for free?"

You are not the musician who created the music. Therefore your stupid stick question doesn't apply.

Quote :

"Did I use the record label's soap, water, or cause wear & tear on their equipment (or labor)? No. The "product" exists and a copy can be made without the label providing anything else. Once again, this is a failed analogy."

The label provided the ability for the artist to make the album. You stole their goods and services. You suck at analogies, btw.

Quote :

"I'm sorry but wtf is the difference between painting my own painting that's a copy and recording my own song that's a copy? You just described exactly what I already said."

One is an exact copy of the original, the other one isn't. I'll let you figure out which is which.

Quote :

"The majority of people that download illegally would have never purchased the song/movie/whatever in the first place so there is little lost revenue."

That doesn't make it not theft. Again, see cable theft.

Quote :

"s lost is made up by the people that then purchase higher quality copies of what they downloaded in the first place or just want to support the bands that they enjoy. Nothing is taken from anyone else."

Except people aren't downloading crappy bit rates. They are downloading exact identical copies and not paying for it. It is theft.

Quote :

"will occasionally download something to see what it is. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't like it, I don't buy it. Am I stealing? No. Am I downloading illegally? Yes. Is anyone losing money because of it? No. Is anyone MAKING money because of it? Yes!"

If you like it, I hope you buy the albums. If you don't like it, then you should delete the album from your computer. That is precisely what I do and I don't know anyone who has a legitimate problem with that. I'll also download an album from another source if a download code isn't included with my purchase of the album.

[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 11:55 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2010 11:50:06 PM

Quote :

"I'm selling it to myself for free?"

Yes, you are taking sell that they should have made.

Quote :

"The "product" exists and a copy can be made without the label providing anything else."

So if I splice into my neighbor's cable line, am I "stealing" cable? What about patent laws?

Quote :

"I'm sorry but wtf is the difference between painting my own painting that's a copy and recording my own song that's a copy?"

Because you would have made the painting, you didn't make the song, you just copied it. If you made your own cover of the song and recorded it, then it would be similar to painting the same painting.

Quote :

"The majority of people that download illegally would have never purchased the song/movie/whatever in the first place so there is little lost revenue."

That's irrelevant. You don't define theft by whether or not it "would have been purchased".

Quote :

"What revenue is lost is made up by the people that then purchase higher quality copies of what they downloaded in the first place or just want to support the bands that they enjoy."

You don't define theft by whether or not you will "make it back".

12/20/2010 12:07:10 AM

^^You basically ignored half of that.

The argument that they lost revenue is bogus if I was never going to buy anything to begin with. They can still sell as many copies as they would have had I never downloaded anything. Once again, "stealing cable" is not theft. Illegal? Yes. Immoral? IMO, yes. Theft? No. Find a new word.

Data is not an item like a hat is an item. That is my point. Data is not physical. You cannot make a copy of a hat without material/thread/labor/etc. Data is 1s & 0s that can be copied/changed/deleted without any physical change.

Most digital recordings are not exact identical copies. Differences in bitrate, codec, etc. By your statement, I'm fine to throw a movie into Handbrake and make a copy of it in a different resolution. It's not an exact copy so it's ok, right?

You do bring up a very good point about albums leaking before they go on sale. Since this is sometimes done on purpose by the studio to drum up excitement, is it theft then? What if I don't get their copy but I get another copy that somebody else ripped and uploaded?

My "stupid" stick question was in response to a stupid statement. Selling something to myself for free is a pretty retarded argument that doesn't begin to make sense. I decided to play along.

Label provided ability to make the album? That's fine. What finite resources did they use that I stole? Water, soap, labor of physically washing my car or wear & tear on the machinery for physically washing my car are all things that you can steal. There is no water or soap used to make a digital copy. There is no labor involved in making a digital copy. I do not pay the owner of the car wash for having a good idea and then go home and wash my own car using my own soap & water. Car wash is a completely irrelevant analogy to digital media.

I'm sorry that you can't understand the difference between the physical and the digital. The record label can make 1 master copy of an album. From that original copy, they can produce an infinite number of copies at (basically) no cost while using no resources. It is impossible to prevent them from the ability to make as many copies of their "product" as they wish. In my business, I can sell one of my customers a new sunroom, buy the materials, & go build it. The customer can then copy my sunroom using their own materials and tools. If this customer comes and takes one of my trucks and builds a sunroom using my materials & my tools, then they have stolen from me. I cannot reproduce the truck, tools, & materials that they have taken from me without resources. If they have their own materials, they don't need to pay me so that they can copy my room. This is me making a copy of the digital album.

Should it be illegal? Sure. I have no problem with the artists & record labels making a profit. I'm in business and I understand that. That doesn't mean that it is theft. The damage to the company or artists is simply not the same. It's 2010 and we need to stop using ancient ideas with new technologies. Copyright law & patent law are two areas that are in need of severe reform. They're just too outdated to still be relevant in today's society.

BTW, I forgot to add before that yes, I do usually delete what I don't like.

*edit*

^who says that they should have made the sales? You & them? If I had a choice of payment up front or nothing then they would get nothing. Thanks to the horrible people in the world, I have a choice of what I spend my money on. Once again, they are not losing sales. With me, they are potentially gaining sales. At minimum, they can sell just as many as they could have had I not downloaded a copy. As a plus, I would possibly purchase a copy if I enjoyed it.

According to the cable company, you would be stealing cable. Are you actually stealing it? No. It hasn't gone anywhere. I will say that this example is slightly more appropriate because at least if you're splicing in to your neighbor's cable, there's a chance that you have degraded their signal and are taking away some of their enjoyment. If I download a digital copy, I take away nobody's enjoyment. What about patents? As I said above, patent law is in serious need of overhaul. I can't imagine anyone that follows patents at all would disagree. Perhaps you feel that people should be able to patent a vague idea and then profit off the hard work of others when someone makes a product that is vaguely related to your idea while completely ignoring the fact that you put little effort into the idea and basically didn't have any clue whatsoever as to how to make it actually work?

If I paint the painting or if I push the button on my computer to make a copy of a song, I'm still producing something new that looks/sounds like the old one. In neither situation am I taking anything from anyone else nor am I depriving anyone of the ability to enjoy their investment/creation.

You are correct in that you don't define theft by whether it would have been purchased or not. You define theft by loss. With digital media, there is no loss. You can debate that there is loss of profit but there is also profit created that would not have been there before. As I've already said, it's illegal but it is not theft. When someone steals my hat, I cannot do with it what I want. I've lost a physical item that costs money to replace AND I've lost potential profit. You want to put the same definition on digital media when it is plainly different.

[Edited on December 20, 2010 at 12:56 AM. Reason : .]

12/20/2010 12:39:01 AM

Quote :

"I'm not reselling the song/album/whatever I downloaded from the internet. "

If there's no copyright law, what's stopping you from selling it?

Besides, lets shift this away from just music, like I said earlier musicians can still make a good living without copyright law (note to nutsmackr, I'm not advocating removing copyright protection from music) by touring.

How do you propose people who develop movies and video games get compensated for their work?

12/20/2010 1:59:37 AM

First, I'm not advocating abolishing copyrights. I'm advocating overhaul. There's a pretty big difference there. The current system doesn't work for many reasons.

Unless I'm missing something, they are making money now. I call that compensation. Did I say that all digital media should be free somewhere? I don't understand how your question has any relevance to this at all. It's as if you think that by correctly identifying illegal downloads as something other than theft that suddenly nobody is going to go to the theater or buy DVDs/iTunes/etc. anymore. I've said repeatedly that it may be immoral and should probably be illegal to download digital media. That does not mean it's theft though.

Look, calling illegal downloads theft is just incorrect. It does not fit the definition. It's like calling all deaths murder or labeling all assaults as attempted murder. Just because the end result is the same does not mean that the action is the same. According to the RIAA and all of you that call people thieves, they ARE the same. If you can't understand the difference between me stealing your car and me making an illegal copy of your song then I'm completely astounded that you were accepted at NCSU or any other university. Hell, the penalty for getting caught sharing that illegal copy is worse than getting caught with your car. That's absolutely ridiculous.

[Edited on December 20, 2010 at 8:40 AM. Reason : .]

12/20/2010 8:37:43 AM

There are several people like indy and d357r0y3r who think copyright law shouldn't exist. If you're not one of them fine, my question still stands for them.

[Edited on December 20, 2010 at 9:36 AM. Reason : ]

12/20/2010 9:34:24 AM

Quote :

"Look, calling illegal downloads theft is just incorrect. It does not fit the definition"

You are stealing their royalty payments. That is theft.

12/20/2010 9:47:20 AM

I have varying thoughts about different forms of intellectual property protection, but I want to emphasize...


I think people should have the right to live without copyright, or intellectual property laws altogether. If you understand the nature of these laws, you understand that they are not universal. They exist to facilitate certain markets. Don't care? Fine, live without those markets. We don't allow a market for prostitution, and that's a market we actively have to suppress. Digital media is a market we actively have to create. It should be a civil matter for any sovereign nation-state.

This is not how it's treated. The effort to develop global standards for regulation that supports the global digital media market shows that many politicians think that protection for intellectual property is totally how it should be.

Quote :

"You are stealing their royalty payments. That is theft."

Try making this point again, recognizing the market distortion between the requested price from the copyright holder and the low barrier to attaining the material through illegal means. You're not stealing $0.99 that the song would have made off iTunes, you're stealing $0.99 times the ratio of sales at requested price versus free.

12/20/2010 11:04:34 AM

Lots of thought experiments in this thread

Suppose you're sucking the fat, throbbing cock of the recording industry.

Information should be free

12/20/2010 11:39:53 AM

Quote :

"Lots of thought experiments in this thread Suppose you're sucking the fat, throbbing cock of the recording industry. Information should be free"

Why do you hate good movies, TV, and games?

12/20/2010 11:55:48 AM

pretty much all media; movies, games, music, and tv, have been going downhill in terms of originality and quality as of late. i'm all for cutting out the profits involved and cut all the people* who are in it for the money out of the system; so they'll quit cluttering the cultural landscape with shit they came up with following a focus-group analysis.



*this includes not only producers, marketers, businessmen, etc but even creatives. if a lack of monetary payback is what's keeping you from exploring your passion then it isn't that much of a passion and frankly i'm not interested in anything you produced with payback in mind

[Edited on December 20, 2010 at 1:58 PM. Reason : .]

12/20/2010 1:54:42 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcOdNc_seyM

there's a link to a funny person, who I don't find especially funny, making a point relevant to this thread

12/20/2010 2:16:06 PM