Posted on 02/06/2007 9:17:22 AM PST by dbehsman
It's not really punitive. If you register a copyrighted work, the law allows you to seek either actual or statutory (specified by law) damages from the infringer. A lot of copyrighted works don't have much value, and certainly not enough to be worth a court case over them. That would leave many copyright holders with no real way to get compensation for possibly massive infringement of their works. Take free software for example, what could you sue for if not for statutory damages, since you give it away for free anyway?
My point was that some defense lawyers seem to be arguing that a $750 fine is not a just punishment for someone who took 70 cents worth of merchandise.
This is one reason why I don't agree that giving songs on p2p is theft. It's infringement, a violation of another's rights. The actual value doesn't need to play into it, except for a defense attorney trying to say that an award of the statutory damages would be unfair -- but that misses the whole point of statutory damages.
Artists who offer their work in this manner offer a license to copy and distribute by implication. I don't know exactly what laws would apply.
They could use Creative Commons licensing. Check it out at:
http://creativecommons.org/
Help me out here.
Lets say a couple of friends of mine decide we want to get a few low paying gigs serenading seniors at convalescent homes or whatever.Just for fun and to make some folks happy.
Are you saying we have to pay ASCAP a fee for our very amatuerish versions of So This Is Love and One Summer Night?
Thats twisted to me.
Copyright holders have every right to enforce their copyrights.
Downloading and uploading (the actual source of the RIAA lawsuits) is copyright infringement, though I do not believe that it is or can be technically or legally considered to be theft. I believe I saw a report where an RIAA lawyer was rebuked by a judge for using that term when the lawsuits themselves only accuse infringement (I am not an expert, but something tells me proving "theft" under current law, even the DMCA, would be another matter entirely).
There's one little problem that the RIAA has, though the law is on their side, and that's credibility.
This is the organization whose members ran a campaign called "Home taping is killing music." I'd like to see a lawyer put label execs on the stand and ask them if they engaged in copyright infringement prior to the Audio Home Recording Act. Because anyone who made a cassette copy of an album that they bought was guilty of this. Granted, the ability to distribute digital copies instantly to potentially enormous numbers of people was not yet a possibility, but it was infringement nonetheless.
Law on their side or not, I do not like hypocrites. And the more time passes, the more hollow their rhetoric about protecting artists rings. Heck, I think I saw someone post a link to Steve Albini's 13-year-old 'The Problem With Music' manifesto on this board not too long ago.
The RIAA would probably like to forget about Sarah Seabury Ward, sued for having lots & lots of downloaded music on her computer, particularly rap music, which she allegedly made available via upload. Only problem was, she was an elderly woman whose computer contained neither the infringing files, nor file-sharing software. Plus it was a Mac, and at the time, it was said that Macs were incapable of running software that would connect users to networks such as Kazaa. I don't believe that's the case anymore, but I do remember reading that at the time.
I haven't read much from the RIAA about the ability of hackers to spoof IP addresses, though. That would be inconvenient to their mission and goals.
Then there's the matter of how the labels compensate their artists financially. Oh, I know. Two wrongs don't make a right (except that in this case it's more like 18 wrongs don't make a right). But I have to assign some scorn to strong-arm legal tactics used by the RIAA when the labels they represent suffer from such poor reputations when it comes to actually paying their artists. But those reputations do indeed suffer, because the labels seem to enjoy collecting their revenue, but far prefer that activity to actually living up to their contractual obligations. Creative accounting and all that, you know. The recent lawsuit filed by Cheap Trick & the Allman Brothers comes to mind: the labels have deductions in what they have to pay artists for sold items based on issues like breakage and so forth. These deductions are being applied to digital files sold online via download through music stores such as ITunes.
Breakage?
Oh...wait a second. The Sony Rootkit? What's that?
Never mind, everyone's forgotten already. I think. Though I will never, ever again buy anything that says Sony anywhere on it, no matter what it is.
I guess it should also be mentioned that the position of the RIAA is that if someone breaks into your house and steals your CD collection, that any copies that you have made on computer equipment for your own personal use must be destroyed, and unless they are, you are engaging in...copyright infringement.
Sorry for not providing links to back all this stuff up. It's out there, so if anyone doesn't believe me, I could track anything down, lest anyone not believe any of it.
Bottom line, the RIAA is in the right, apparently, according to the DMCA, although none of this has yet to actually be decided in court, and I wouldn't hold my breath that a court won't find that a user may not necessarily be liable. We don't know. Until then, they may be on the right side of the law on this issue, but their tactics are absolutely despicable, and it's laughable that they would paint their members as victims. No, not laughable.
Disgusting.
Not long ago I posted in a thread about how to save videos on YouTube. I only did so because I found it interesting that some here had no problem with that, yet they condemned downloading as theft, and so forth. It's convenient to break laws we don't like, and slam others for breaking laws we do. I found it puzzling. For my efforts, I was called an RIAA Nazi.
I haven't forgotten that.
I don't know what ASCAP's policy is toward nursing homes. But most nursing homes are profit-making operations. They attract residents by emphasizing amenities, one of which is regular entertainment.
I don't see why they should be any different than any other commercial enterprise.
I know you're rationalizing. I already said that. But it's not analogous to prohibition. They weren't stealing someone else's liquor. They were trading in it illegally, just as people do today with drugs. But being part of an illicit transaction where both parties to the transaction are happy is not anything like one person ripping off another, which is what you're doing. But since you don't get to make music for a living, screw em.
WE have a disconnect here. Downloaders steal nothing. It is there right where the owner left it.
There is a philosophical disconnect between you and me. You see, I see this the way you would see it if copyright law required you to pay a fee every time you sang a copyrighted song in the shower. I also see your comments as the equivalent of someone telling me I am stealing for singing the song in the shower.
My response: The songwriter and industry put the song in my head. They are like the drug pusher that gives it to you free the first time, and then forces you to pay up every time you want more.
To which I say, Pfffft!
So for 10 songs 10 bucks? Nope, too much"
You think thats bad, look at this.
http://www.lommers.org/smallurl/265824
Interesting post. You write well.
Thank you for the compliment; I am happy to leave that squabble behind & move on.
Your piffle speaks for itself.
So in other words he ripped off a song whose melody was blatantly ripped off from The Charlie Brown Christmas special. Poetic justice if you ask me.
If the RIAA was serious about artists rights, they would say or do something about the out of control payola that goes on in the industry, but they don`t. Why? Because they are a corrupt organization.
The Government constantly fines the industry, the latest I believe being Attorney general Elliot Spitzer of New York fining Sony, yet it does absolutely nothing, once they pay the fine they continue with it, and the RIAA says nothing not to mention the FCC.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2005/jul/jul25a_05.html
Have you ever downloaded a photo from the Internet? If so, did you get permission from the owner of that copyrighted photo before you downloaded it?
Can't say that I have.
Nice post, but a nitpick here. This isn't a DMCA issue. The DMCA covers (among other things) the circumvention of DRM and the tools with which to do it, even if you never share even one copyrighted work. This is a regular old copyright case, the latest law applying being the NET Act.
"The indies continue to grow, and the 'majors' continue to shrink. Eventually, you'll have to rename them."
The indies are being bought by the majors every day, and if they're not owned, they're cherrypicked by the majors.
The road to success right now is sign with an indy, if you sell 300K and can fill houses nationwide, then you get bumped up to the majors - the smart ones don't.
As for the lawsuits...I have mixed feelings - yes, a download is technically stealing, but so was taping songs off the radio and taping freind's lps in high school. It was'nt a matter of proportions, as we all had stacks and stacks of cassettes. And even with all that, the industry sold millions and millions of albums. I might have taped Y&T's Black Tiger and worn the tape out - but i wanted my OWN copy, with the artwork and liner notes and everything. It was a fan thing - you bought a copy, and displayed them proudly.
But, now that I work in the industry, I know what a rip off it is for the artists, and how it's all blatant money-grabbing by the RIAA and it's members. The PMRC and blank tax wangling Al Gore did opened my eyes, as the artists did'nt get a dime from the blank tape tax, and the industry types bent over quickly for the PMRC once Sugar Daddy Gore got them their money. Feh.
The RIAA can sue all they want, but they need to be aware of what it's doing to it's reputation. If you want your product respected, respect your audience. Your lawsuits are fostering a "damn the man" attitude, and doing *nothing* to stop downloading, except maybe driving the sharing underground where you will have to work a lot harder to find them. You had it easy with Napster and Limewire, but I'm seeing new methods coming up that you have no hope to break into. (No, I won't say where)
Of all the people I know, who have iPods and such, maybe 10% of them even know were to do it, or even bother. Most songtrading is done by loaning cds or dumping libraries off hd's onto dvd or portable hd's and flash drives.
OK, I have a few questions to ask you.
Why does the industry sue people for the exact same activity that they pay for others to do?
A) The recording industry pays millions of dollars, above and below the table, every year to promote their music on the radio.If millions of people can hear the same songs for free on the radio, and see the videos for free on their televisions, and legally record both for their personal use, and the industry pays promoters and broadcasters to do this, how can they claim with a straight face that this activity will destroy them?
See:
Will Congress tackle pay-for-play?
SONY SETTLES PAYOLA INVESTIGATION
Wikipedia: Payola
You Mean Music Companies Pay To Get Songs On The Radio?B) Radio broadcasts are free for anyone to listen.
C) Radio broadcasts are legal to record for personal use.
Downloading music from the Internet is not conceptually different from the radio station - radio receiver - tape recorder process that has been available and legal for decades. Only the technology differs.
I think the RIAA can't tell their head from a hole in the ground. To be paying both promoters to get songs played for free on the radio and lawyers to sue those who put their songs on the Internet shows an uncoordinated and unmitigated greed.
"I think the RIAA can't tell their head from a hole in the ground. To be paying both promoters to get songs played for free on the radio and lawyers to sue those who put their songs on the Internet shows an uncoordinated and unmitigated greed."
Oh, they can tell, and trust me, they smirk all the way to the bank.
I laugh when the arguement is couched in the "it's for the artist" terms, because it's not, not in any way, shape or form.
Most of the time, the RIAA is suing over copyrights they "own* outright as the result of the deal the artist signed. Yes, performers and musicians sign away their rights when they sign. The smart ones don't, the stupid ones - and there are many - do.
Publishing is a different matter, as it pertains to public performance and playback. It does not cover the theoretical sales of said music, it's performance royalties, and is one of the more honest arms of the industry...somewhat.
One question I have not been able to find out the answer to, and I've asked musicians who I know for a fact the RIAA have sued people for downloading their music, is what happens to the money that is received in such cases. The RIAA doesn't tell, the label folks change the subject, and the musicians have no clue. Half the time they don't even know the terms of their contract, if they even own the copyright to their music anymore, as the labels now have digital medium clauses (that can be outright highway robbery).
The thing i keep in mind when talking about the RIAA is the story of the Girl Scouts, and how they have to pay royaties to sing "Happy Birthday" at jamborees.
The RIAA is SOOOO altruistic, it's all for the artist's.
Sure.
That's why i have mixed feelings. It's hard to defend money grubbing, payola paying, artist ripping off, greedy mofo's like the RIAA. You're defending a group of people who make the mob look like charity workers.
If it were up to them, they'd copyright every note in the musicial scale, and charge people anytime a musical note is made.
Whistle while you work? That'll be $750 in fees, please. Next!
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