Free music or stealing?

Cox News Service ^ | 12-23-2002 | Phil Kleur

[VeritatisSplendor]

A bug in FreeRepublic's posting software made the previous post hard to interpret -- paragraphs should alternate between italic and plain text all the way through.

[hunter112]

I certainly feel artists are entitled to their revenue from their craft

I do, too, but the mechanism of that revenue generation may be what changes. Rather than funnel a large amount of money through the front end of the recording industry, with numerous middlemen taking their 'cut', artists might be compensated primarily for live performances. Certainly, the possibility of being able to reach mass audiences through free distribution has given hope to a few artists who have not been sufficiently able to kiss the buns of the muckety-mucks in the recording industry.

All markets go through change, the entertainment industry is one that has seen rapid change within the last 125 years, starting with Edison's phonograph, and accelerating rapidly with broadcast means of dissemination. I'm sure that the music industry had a fit when radio became popular, I remember them having hissy fits when cassette tape recorders became cheap and widespread. Even the use of video tape recorders was legally questionable until the Supreme Court ruled it OK for personal use.

In the beginning, was the live performance by the artist. Oddly enough, technology may be returning us to that form of entertainment as the primary means of compensating a creator of pleasant aesthetic output.

[Drippy]

"Certainly, the possibility of being able to reach mass audiences through free distribution has given hope to a few artists who have not been sufficiently able to kiss the buns of the muckety-mucks in the recording industry."

I agree there is a very positive side to this,my feeling is that if an artist or group wants to make their material available for free thats great.Ones that do not want to should have the ability to limit access if they want to get paid.

[general_re]

...the encryption makes the spatial spread-spectrum analysis look normal...

[VeritatisSplendor]

Thanks for the reference. I've downloaded the paper and will read it to see if it is applicable to the scheme in the paper I referenced above.

[TheEngineer]

The people who write and perform the songs still have them to enjoy or sell to whomever wishes to buy them.

Let's see.... An artist invests his talent, effort, and probably no less than a few hundred thousand dollars to produce a CD.... But his is not the victim of theft (or more specifically a copyright violation) from the internet music pirates... because he can still enjoy listening to his new CD in his living room?

I'm sure that warms the artists hearts to know that. Real practical.

Fortunately, when the authors of our great constitution considered these issues, they created copyright law and and US patent office. In the Federalist Papers, their thought processes could be seen fairly plainly... Protection of copyrights and patents (limited monopolies) was deemed necessary to provide people/businesses with an incentive to innovate.

In the absence of such protection, where is the incentive to innovate? (Hint... There isn't any.)

[TheEngineer]

The French that sided with the Vichy adhered to the rule of law, those French that protected the Jews sided with the natural order.

Seems you've got it backwards. The people who pirate music take the easy road: Violate a copyright with a small risk (for now) of getting caught, and thereby saving hundreds or thousands of dollars. The people who don't pirate music take the more difficult path... They part with their dollars, knowing full well that they could just violate copyright and save this money. But they don't out of principle and respect for the artists (as well as respect for the law).

And the law is often nothing more than a half-assed attempt to justify the will of the tyrant.

These laws aren't anything new. Copyright law dates back to our original Constitution.

[TheEngineer]

How is violating the copyright on a CD covered under "freedom of speech"? It isn't speech at all. You're reaching. BTW... Are you talking into your CD burner?

[TheEngineer]

The first amendment doesn't allow for any restriction whatsoever on the dissemination of source code or algorithms.

So are you saying that the patent office and US copyright law (which, btw, dates back to the original constitution) are unconstitutional?

[TheEngineer]

Older copyright law and patent law most certainly does place restrictions upon the dissemination of ideas and information if those ideas and/or information are copyrighted or patented.

And violating the copyright on music CD's, videos, and software is most certainly illegal under old copyright law... It didn't become illegal because of the DMCA.

You seem to be in the unhappy position of trying to prove that our constitution is unconstitutional.