Why should it be considered Illegal in a land where legalized theft is king?
The sad thing is that Canada is just a few years ahead of us and we will catch up with them soon I am afraid to say....
http://www.whatashock.com "There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martydom or deliberately courting persecution..."
C.S. Lewis
It gets tricky when it comes to file sharing. You can call the people downloaded pirated material theives, but the companies were not targeting those people, since they are harder to catch. They were instead going after those who may have bought the material legally and chose to share what they might have legally bought. Yes chances are that most of what they were sharing was obtained illegally as well, but the plaintiffs never attempted to prove that beforehand, since in their eyes even if you buy a product you do not truly own it.
There's not much point in arguing over this, guys. Y'all are talking about two different things; "legality" and "morality." The two intertwine in some ways, but it's too easy for a person to subscribe completely to one while violating the other.
First, we pay a surcharge to the government on storage media (blank tapes, CDs, MP3 players, etc) that the powers that be are supposed to distribute back to the artists. Therefore there is a good argument that what we Canadians are doing is legal, eh?
Secondly, don't buy into the music industries hype that copyright infringement = theft. There is such thing as fair use and fair use of purchased music includes sharing with friends and family and strangers.
Thirdly, there is some weight to the argument that the record companies, in seeking to limit alternative distribution mechanisms, are no better than a monopoly.
Finally, copyright priveleges are a historically recent invention. Is it theft if the original material is undisturbed and I am not interfering with the copyright holders ability to distribute content. Is copyright violation actually theft.
If I steal a candy bar, the owner cannot use it or sell it. If I download a song, I have not changed the state of the original material - it is still there and salable.
www.whatacrappypresent.com - out of date but lots of fun.
There is such thing as fair use and fair use of purchased music includes sharing with friends and family and strangers.
This is decidedly not fair use under any definition of the word. You're basically saying that once you own a CD, movie, book, et. al. it's perfectly within your rights to copy said material and "share it" with anyone you so choose? No. Not fair use at all. If it was, every company would go out of business because five people bought their product and "shared" it with a million people.
-however, it is true that here in Canada we pay a tariff on all blank media, mp3 players and cd burning software collected and delivered to the recording industry of Canada and the various songwriters association. This exists specifically to compensate artists against any loss of income due to file-sharing. Note I say artists, as the labels do not benefit from the tariffs directly.
According to her, if I have a CD in my possession
and I make a copy of it, then it is completely legal
for me to do so. The tariff we pay on the blank
media, in theory, balances the lost revenue for the
artist. Distributing copies is not legal though.
If I own a CD and a friend of mine wants a copy, it
is completely legal for me to loan the CD to the friend
who then makes a copy of it to keep. But I cannot
make the copy myself and give it to my friend.
As for this case: the judge is claiming that there is
nothing illegal about taking a file that you legally
own and putting it somewhere that other people can
get at it. So, he probably does not see this as a
distribution issue. Pretty daft, if you ask me.
Charles, I think the discrepancy is between what is "Fair Use" in the US and what is "Fair Use" in Canada. The black and white of it here in the US is that Fair Use means you can make one copy of what you own for your own personal use. It doesn't say anything about making copies for friends or giving your legally purchased item to friends for them to copy. It's all the same thing here. In any case, it's about the talent, corporation, industry or publisher (or all of the above, in some cases) getting their money for what they've produced.
Not speaking directly to you here, but I find it incredibly odd this phenomena of people feeling entitled to have whatever it is they want, by whatever means they deem necessary. If they want a song, some feel it's perfectly within their rights not to pay for it because they want it. They'll go on and on and on about the "evils" of big corporations that only sound like so much justification for their actions. If they want a movie, they'll even go so far as to say "Hollywood's put out so many bad movies, they owe me the one I downloaded." I've actually heard this. Seriously.
However someone wants to parse it, or whatever terms they want to couch it in, it's still theft. Plain and simple. That the corporations or industries are slow to react to the rapidly changing face of distribution should be no reason, justification or excuse to steal by way of downloading/uploading, copying, ripping, burning or any other means that guarantees the people who worked hard and put up the money for the product they want will not to see a penny.
I was only stating what I know of the law in Canada
from my wife by osmosis (no rude jokes, please ).
The morality of it is quite another matter. I find
discussions about the morality of pirating digital
products interesting and disturbing. On the one hand,
you have the simple and straightforward argument that
it is theft. Usually pirates and their supporters
will concede this point, but they will justify piracy
in some "Robin Hood" sort of way. I am not condoning
piracy, but I don't know if I truly believe that, oh
say, Prince (to steal from another thread) has truly
earned his millions. At least one of his millions
should have gone to my fifth grade teacher.
The candy bar thing is just outdated. they didn't have media copyright imfringement, 150 years ago, because there was not media to infringe upon, per se. Now, anything can be copied, at almost no cost, from anywhere on the net. Making fifty copies is cheaper now than making a single copy would've been when those laws were written.
And the "tariff" thing? Tell me that ANY GOVERNMENT is going to track down [insert any artist here] and give them their share? It boils down to authorized theft, with money coughed up to the government.
It is in fact absolutely true because the government doesn't have to "track down" anybody. Like any other body that receives funds from the government, a yearly check issued to the bodies representing the artists, and those bodies distribute the funds. I know this to be fact as I know several song writers who benefit from this process.
Well does the government issue an amount per songwriter/owner?
Or do all of them get the exact same amount?
Would one guy who had a more propular/downloaded song get more than others who do not?
Also since the song is the writers property do they not get the choice if it is shared or not?
Or does the government own all the property?
http://www.whatashock.com "There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martydom or deliberately courting persecution..."
C.S. Lewis
I believe half the money from the tariff goes to Anne Murray, the other half goes to Celine Dion
On a serious note: the definition of fair use in Canada is different than in the US. Also, our copyright laws are different.
Technology has made other business models obsolete. Mass production and the internal combustion engine put buggy makers out of business. No-one seriously thought Henry Ford was stealing the roads.
Moores Law is putting traditional distribution mechanisms out of business. P2P is an attack on the record companies; artists are collateral damage. Once the record companies get behind a global internet distribution system at a reasonable price things will change.
BTW, most online music for pay systems are selling US rights only and not fully available outside of the US.
This message has been edited by UberSteve on Apr 1, 2004 7:53 AM
"It is in fact absolutely true because the government doesn't have to "track down" anybody. Like any other body that receives funds from the government, a yearly check issued to the bodies representing the artists, and those bodies distribute the funds. I know this to be fact as I know several song writers who benefit from this process."
"Facts". SIGH.
What about people who have their rights infringed upon who ARE not citizens of Canada, or represented by some "body"? Gimme a break, Robin. If you fill up a disc with John Byrne's artwork (or DC's or whomever) and make 49 others, because thats how many came in a pack for fifteen bucks, and "share" them, that person is getting screwed. Tell me that some magical Canadian "body" will deliver a check? Suuuuure.
"Artists" are not just musicians and movie-makers, despite what you might think. Writers and ARTISTS can have their rights equally infringed upon by the internet. This law just sounds like they're legalizing the posession of such stuff so they won't have to even try and do anything about it.
The amazing thing to me is that having a picture on the internet is "sharing" by the owner of that image; its there on the internet for everyone to view. Once you want a piece of it--a copy or a print--the OWNER is being infringed upon.
And now we're leaving up to a government institution to pay whats due the owner? Tell me yer not that naive or trusting?
> What about people who have their rights infringed upon who ARE not citizens of Canada, or represented by some "body"? Gimme a break, Robin. If you fill up a disc with John Byrne's artwork (or DC's or whomever) and make 49 others, because thats how many came in a pack for fifteen bucks, and "share" them, that person is getting screwed. Tell me that some magical Canadian "body" will deliver a check? Suuuuure.
I believe that an artist has to register to receive
royalties. Presumably, "market share" is used to
determine how to distribute the money. This is
arguably fair, but I don't know if anyone has ever
shown that people pirate stuff proportionally to
the amount that they purchase it legitimately. Also,
under Canadian law, you cannot legally distribute
the 49 copies. However, according to the new ruling,
it would seem that you can just put the stuff on a
shared drive.
My wife has read the decision and thinks that
the judge's interpretation of the law is
questionable. Basically, you can only legally
copy something to audio media (e.g. CD-R or
blank tape). Temporary copies on a hard drive
as part of the process of legitimately burning a CD-R
are probably okay. Permanent copies on a hard drive,
however, are not. Essentially, the judge has
ruled that a hard drive is equivalent to a CD-R
for storage purposes. If it is the hard drive of
a computer and the computer is used to play the music,
then this does not seem so bad to me. However,
putting the music on a shared drive is another matter.
Presumably, the reason for putting the file on a
shared drive is not for the owner to copy or listen
to it but for others to copy it. That would
change this to a distribution issue, which would
make it illegal. So, it seems to me that copying
to a shared drive should be either an illegal form of
copying OR it is an illegal form of distribution.
Oh well. I don't think the people that make the
laws have a firm grasp of technology. They are
trying to project hard copy standards to the
digital age. They should probably just start over
from much more fundamental principles. How about
a reboot of copyright law? I think JB should do
the art and story.
....the money circle finds its way home.
Just register, and you'll get whats coming to you. Of course, it might be taxed a tad, and the government will just hold your money for a year or so, gathering any interest on the gazoodles of dollars "in suspension".
I mean, its A solution, but almost as problematic as doing nothing.
I think this is one of the puzzles for the next computer gazillionaire to figure out; how to "lock" stuff so that its DLable, but also tractable. Develop that immersable kind of software and you'll be in the chips for about a cool billion.
> I mean, its A solution, but almost as problematic as doing nothing.
Agreed. It is totally problematic.
Maybe Canada should just incorporate a piracy tax into
its income and/or property taxes and dole out the
proceeds based on the reported income of registered
artists. Actually, I should never have written that,
someone might think it is a good idea.
I think the copyright exception ONLY applies to music,
so that shouldn't be a problem. As far as I know, the
judge's decision does not apply to any other media.
).
