File Swappers to RIAA: Download This!

Washington Post ^ | July 6, 2003 | Leslie Walker

[John Jorsett]

The Recording Industry Association of America's announcement on June 25 that it will start tracking down and suing users of file-sharing programs has yet to spook people, say developers of these applications.

"Forget about it, dude -- even genocidal litigation can't stop file sharers," said Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster, one of several systems that allow users to upload and download files -- many of which are unauthorized MP3 copies of songs published by the RIAA's member companies. Rosso said file-trading activity among Grokster users has increased by 10 percent in the past few days. Morpheus, another file-trading program, has seen similar growth.

Maybe MP3 downloaders are interpreting the recording industry's threat -- an escalation from its earlier strategy of targeting file-sharing developers -- as a sort of "last call" announcement. Starting June 26, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a news conference, the group would collect evidence against consumers illegally trading files of copyrighted music, with lawsuits to follow in a couple of months.

[Question_Assumptions]

For the record, there are 52 items in my "Purchased Music" folder on iTunes.

While there will always be people who justify illegal copies and free music over paying, it would help if musicians made it possible to (A) buy singles and (B) buy music affordably over the Internet. The iTunes service is incredibly easy to use, fast, friendly, and relatively inexpensive and I'm more than happy to use it. And I'm stunned that there are bands that are actually giving Apple a hard time.

[Hajman]

You do believe that people should receive compensation for their labor, do you not?

Yes, I believe services should be compensated. However, in the case of the music copy, there was no service or labor performed by the owner in the creation of the copy of the song, nor in the creation or copy of the medium involved. The song itself was created by the artist, but not the copy. Thus it falls under IP violation, but not theft violation.

-The Hajman-

[Principled]

How does that stop the swapping?

I didn't claim it would stop the swapping. You are myopic to an irritating extent.

[Sofa King]

There's a difference between taking a quote from something and copying the whole thing. The latter will usually get you an F.

[bfree]

Going after the sharers isn't about increasing sales, it's about decreasing bootlegs.

No it isn't. The RIAA continues to associate filesharing with the decreased sales of over the last few years.

[Principled]

I like it too. My sister has tons of that stuff. All my stuff is old vinyl.

I saw another poster offer this idea:

Have music stores able to sell you individual songs and put them all onto CD while at the store...for a reasonable price.

There are so many ways to make this work. Why some people call folks thieves for encouraging a business model change is beyond me.

[discostu]

How does it slow the swapping?

Your refusal to answer a single direct question shows your lack of confidence in your position.

[Hajman]

I guess every college student that uses the library for reference material and refers to the material in their college papers is stealing as well? They are taking quotes and content from copyrighted material without once ever paying for it. Better throw these students in jail!

Though that's a good argument, I don't think it'd fully apply to this situation, since in song copying, there's an copyright infringment, but in your example, fair use allows exemption of that infringment.

-The Hajman-

[Nick Danger]

What's the reaction of the sharing community?

There is no "sharing community." There are apparently tens of millions of individuals who are active users of these Kazaa-type things. As the price drops from $17 toward zero, we would expect to see a bell-shaped curve describing how many people so far have dropped off Kazaa and moved to a paying service. Somewhere on that curve is the profit-maximizing price. It's not zero, and it's not $17. I don't know where it is. Thievery has not gone to zero at that point, but we don't care: it's the profit-maximizing price, whatever it turns out to be.

The declaration of a class "File Sharers" who have the property "they steal things" and the creation of an imaginary 'sharing community' are both rhetorical devices that group huge numbers of people for the purpose of demonizing them. There is no 'community' that acts in concert, and ascribing a generalized propensity to steal to users of file-sharing programs has a high probability of being a false assertion.

I don't follow this stuff in detail, but I had the impression that iTunes was still Apple-only. We can't tell anything about how that model will affect the entire industry if only ~10% of the people can even get on it. Didn't I read that they've already sold several million songs? It's not like there's no file-sharing software for Apple, so obviously a significant number of people are choosing to pay for something they could get for free. I would expect that; my underlying belief is that most people would prefer to be honest. (Another underlying belief is that people who assume that everyone is a thief are themselves thieves.)

[Principled]

How does it slow the swapping?

An individual on this thread just told me he had 57 downloads from the Apple thing. That's how it slows.

BTW, what "single, direct question" did I refuse to answer?...or is this another instance of your projecting crap onto this board? (Remember the first- when you accused me of defending thieves?)

[Hajman]

How does it slow the swapping?

It'd slow the swapping by giving a service that more consumers would be willing to exchange money for (imagine that, changing a service to make more consumers happy, increasing potential profit, and decreasing potential loss). Basic business model.

-The Hajman-

[Cultural Jihad]

There is nothing wrong with encouraging a business model change. What is wrong is breaking the law by sharing and disributing intellectual property for which one has no right or license to.

[discostu]

That's just to try to convince people that it's actually damaging. In the end it's about stopping bootlegging. I garauntee that if you gave the RIAA a magic button that if they pushed it all bootlegging would end but sales wouldn't increase by one cent they would hire somebody to push that button over and over until it wore out.

[Principled]

Another underlying belief is that people who assume that everyone is a thief are themselves thieves.

I have the same belief.

[discostu]

There is no sharing community?! Then where do all these press announcements come from.

I think the profit maximizing spot is $17. I think that because that's been the price of a new top 40 CD since Reagan was in the White House. It's the only mass media to come down in price in constant dollars during that time period.

[bfree]

So what you are saying is that there really is NO economic damage. Very interesting admission.

[Principled]

What is wrong is breaking the law ...

I am in 100% agreement with this. My position is only that laws won't prevent or even slow sharing. Changing models, however, will.

If your goal is to profitably produce and distribute music, the obvious choice is to change models. Unless, of course, you believe that laws will outpace technology...lol.

[discostu]

Ooh one guy with 57 songs, yeah that's really slowed things down. BTW do we know if this person illegally copied songs before? If they did before have they stopped now that iTunes is up? If the answer to either of those question is no then they provide zero evidence to support your claim.

And you still are defending thieves. You're just unwilling to admit it. You use their BS rhetoric then when confronted with what you're doing you deny. Very Clintonian, an accusation you're fond of throwing around.

[visualops]

Well, to go along with that asinine comment is your Freeper homepage, chock full of copyright infringements.

[Jhoffa_]

Like, hey "man"

You need to get "with it"

File stealing is, like, "where it's at" and stuff.

You're such a "square"