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.

[Jhoffa_]

Can you show me the logical fallacy in my argument?

Sure..

1) What will you charge me with if I build a boat for my own pleasure?

2) What exemption do you claim from copyright law?

As I said, good luck in court.

You'll need it.

[Sofa King]

????

Why are you people addressing these responses to me?

[Hajman]

ROFL..

You're going to work that into your closing arguments I assume?

Good luck selling the judge and jury on that concept, Mr. Hajman.

It's not a concept. It's part and parcel of a logical argument. If you don't define your terms first, then apply them, you're argument is logically invalid. Copying the boat and copying the song are topologically the same thing (just different materials being used). If one is not theft, the other is also not theft (if your argument is consistent). Also, by the same argument, if making the boat copy for someone else isn't theft, then making the song copy for someone else isn't theft. Can you come up with a logical counterpoint to my argument, or not?

-The Hajman-

[Hajman]

1) What will you charge me with if I build a boat for my own pleasure?

I will charge you nothing (expect whatever comes from copyright infringment). If you make a copy of my song, I will charge you nothing (expect whatever comes from copyright infringment).

2) What exemption do you claim from copyright law?

None. It'd be copyright infringment, not theft. What exemption would I apply to music? The same thing. My argument is logically consistent. Your's (claiming the boat copy isn't theft, but claiming the song copy is), isn't consistent, therefore isn't valid.

-The Hajman-

[Principled]

...the infringement (or as some call it, theft) isn't against the artists, it is against the record labels

It was my belief that you posted this, and I wanted to respond to it, even though it was not addressed to me, as I felt it had a very important idea in it. Apologies

[Jhoffa_]

It's not a concept. It's part and parcel of a logical argument.

It's a falsehood.

Again, what will you charge me with for building my own boat for my own use?

?

While you, OTOH will be charged with violating the US code.

[moehoward]

YES Courney Loves essay is very good.
http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html

[Jhoffa_]

I will charge you nothing (expect whatever comes from copyright infringment).

Now, let me get this straight..

If I build a boat, for my own use, it's illegal.

That's your point, isn't it?

Now.. please go and find me the applicable portion of copyright law that you will charge me with.

That's not a problem for you, is it?

[Principled]

INteresting essay. SHe doesn't seem to happy with the industry. I'd like to know her take on an alternate delivery/distribution - ie internet

[moehoward]

If you copy a 42' Catalina from stem to stern you are infringing.
If you glue plywood together and rig a bed sheet, no one will care.

[Jhoffa_]

If you copy a 42' Catalina from stem to stern you are infringing. If you glue plywood together and rig a bed sheet, no one will care.

Infringing copyright?

And again, what will you charge me with?

[Jhoffa_]

I like the Catalina's, btw.

[moehoward]

If you build 10 and give them away you are infringing, and you may hear from Catalina's legal representation.

If you build 10 and offer them for sale you are counterfeiting and the FBI will be stopping by.

[Jhoffa_]

AND BTW..

Even if you were right (which, you aren't) it in no way legitimizes your endeavor.

It's illegal regardless.

[Jhoffa_]

I said "personal use" about a million times..

Now, again.. I am infringing copyright?

[Travis McGee]

You got it Nick!

[Question_Assumptions]

If a person went out and created a Toyota, the materials would be their own. In fact, the copy would be their own (a truck). Toyota wouldn't have had anything to do with it. The only thing that wouldn't be their own, would be the fact that it's specifically a Toyota truck (intellectual property).

An important detail is left out of your example. Without the original Toyota truck, in analogy to music copying, no one would be making them. Without the original, there is no copy. Why? Because the person making teh copy is not expending the same effort that was expended in making the original. They are simply benefitting from that effort without expending the same effort themself.

Toyota does not price its trucks based simply on the materials and labor that goes into fabricating and assembling the truck. A friend who worked for GM told me that a $20,000 GM car may have only one or two thousand dollars worth of manufacturing costs associated. So why are cars such a "rip off". Because they aren't. GM also has to recover their R&D costs, risks, advertising, and other costs from selling cars. If you were to knock off a GM car, you could do so for a few thousand dollars. Would that be stealing from GM? I think so. What you are stealing is GM's R&D. Their effort. You can call that "intellectual property" if you want but my point is that benefitting from that effort without compensating GM and without GMs permission (or Toyota, in your example) is stealing their labor just as surely as I'd be stealing a neighborhood kids labor if I didn't pay him for mowing my lawn or a locksmith's labor if I didn't pay him for opening my car. Is it theft in a physical property sense? Maybe not. Is it theft in a "taking something that doesn't belong to me without compensating the owner" sense? Yes. People are not entitled to take the labor of others without compensating them.

With resepct to used CDs, a CD is priced based on the fact that it will be played again and again and may be resold. That's why they are so expensive. If the RIAA could price songs on a per-play basis, a song might cost only 5 cents per play.

[rwfromkansas]

The fact remains that CD prices are inflated and never go down even 10 years after being released.

It is a rip-off and I won't be ripped off by those thugs.

[moehoward]

Sorry. Yes. You are. As long as it is an exact copy. Registration aside, you would more than likely never hear from anyone.

Unless you sold it as some point.

[Nick Danger]

you speak as if online distribution is a proven method of reducing piracy, which it isn't.

True, but that's a little like saying that the general principle "what goes up must come down" does not prove that if I throw this particular ball up, that it will come down. Perhaps not, but that's the way to bet.

What online distribution will do is reduce distribution cost enormously, making it possible to reduce price significantly while making the same profit. There are reasons to believe (let's not conduct Econ 102 here) that the closer we move the "legitimate sale" price to the "Kazaa price," (which is not free), the more legitimate copies will be sold and the fewer Kazaa copies will be created. Can this be proven in advance? No. Have other companies experienced increases in volume after reducing price? Please don't say no.

If distribution goes online, people who have never downloaded music before will get a taste of it- and then they might realize that they can do it for free.

This is the "everyone is at heart a thief" hypothesis, which I choose to reject based on several decades living among these humans. I find that most of them are pretty decent. That's why I say that a Kazaa copy is not free. It has a psychological cost, at least to the person who is not by nature a thief. They know they're stealing. There is a non-zero cost to them every time they download a song. They may not even admit it... but it's there. So you don't really have to go to zero to beat Kazaa. You just have to get close to a person's "guilt point" and they will switch.