Sharing copyrighted material

[damocles]

Just an idea... How can anyone be sued for sharing / copying material that is freely available?
How about all the music and TV channels?

What if, instead of copying from a CD, I am recording and sharing mp3's recorded from radio or TV? The quality wouldn't be too different, if you know how to do it.

Even if a song or movie is copyrighted, once it has been on MTV, I believe you can copy it and share it as you please.

Shouldn't RIAA first prove that the material is copied frome one of their CD's before suing people?

I'd like to know what you think about this, especially those who know something about law.

[shawners]

first of all, no matter what format you take it from, or what you do with it, your in fact distributing copyrighted material. Their is no changing it, no denying it.. No way around it. The reason people arent being sued for videos, is cause a video is made to sale an album, shows the group, skillz, etc.. in fact its just to promote the band. Downloading music is a different thing.. YOu can make cd's.. And the need to buy them are far lower now. Their everywhere, and their being released more then the cd release date.

[Omyn]

Theres something called fair use.

If your making a TV copy or radio copy you are allowed to archive it for your own personal use.

Just dont go playing it at parties or stuff like that :]

How do you think mp3's are copied? They are copied from cd of course, and to do something like a registration code like you were saying would be almost impossible, each cd or song and when converted to mp3 would still somehow stay there without being filtered out by the conversion, would need a registration number, and the user would have to register each time they buy a cd...

Not to mention people would figure out how to hack it the same day it hits the shelf.

Also the fact that they should not be distributing the music in the first place.

Currently only the people who upload music to others are getting sued not the people downloading.

If downloading was the case, lets say the RIAA set up a bunch of computers distributing songs to people and logging their IP's, when they go to court all someone would need to say is, "why were you distributing your own property in the first place" would start a major controversy, which they probably would not want the hassle of dealing with in court.

Sharing them is illegal, you cannot DISTRIBUTE your own personal copies to others over the internet, theres no way you could possibly come up with a defense in court besides "I didnt know I was sharing them."

I have always believed in the freedom of art, I think it should be displayed and distributed everywhere and anywhere, it should not be something that the rich should only be able to appreciate, there are millions of people who cannot afford to go to the music store and buy overpriced cds filled with lesser quality filler songs.

Unfortunately we live in a world where there is a constant race to make as much as you can before you die, he with the most wins...

[KLITETOOLS]

Just an idea... How can anyone be sued for sharing / copying material that is freely available?
How about all the music and TV channels?

What if, instead of copying from a CD, I am recording and sharing mp3's recorded from radio or TV? The quality wouldn't be too different, if you know how to do it.

Even if a song or movie is copyrighted, once it has been on MTV, I believe you can copy it and share it as you please.

Shouldn't RIAA first prove that the material is copied frome one of their CD's before suing people?

I'd like to know what you think about this, especially those who know something about law.


who says once its been on mtv you can share it??? you can't share anything that has a copyright.

mtv and every body else pay or have some kind of understanding with the person who own the copyright of the materials

[Killawat]

think of it like this. Your cable/sat. bill is your licence for YOU and i guess your family to veiw the shows and make copies of it FOR YOURSELF. Why do you think it is illigal to run a cable to your neighbors house and watch some tv off of them?

[SuitablyTwisted]

Actually, if you have your neighbor's permission, and he doesn't charge you, it's legal. His cable, no different than running it to his kid's bedroom. Pisses off the cable company but oh well.

[CompuGeek]

I've seen this argument before in articles about ReplayTV (a TiVo alternative that can share videos with other ReplayTV owners).

The TV executive guys they interviewed said they wouldn't have any problem with people sharing TV shows if they left the commercials in.

The attitude was that if you don't watch the ads you're "stealing" whether you share it or not.

Maybe (a big maybe) they wouldn't sue if you shared music from the radio and shows from TV if you left in all the advertising.

[damocles]

Thanks for the input guys,
True, I never thought at it this way...
So in other words they can eat the cake and have it too. And we're only allowed to watch, but not to touch.
I'm not sure it's fair. I mean, there is an argument that once you create a thing wou should own that, but for copyright (not only art but any kind) I think there should be something like a time limit before it becomes public proprety. Otherwise the big companies will own everything (they already do actually).
If is fair that the artist or creator gets it's share of the profit, but I refuse to pay the guy who'se only merit is that he had the money to buy the copyright. Or the great great great grand son of some author.

[RACKnRAIL]

Here is some facts, if you will?

Facts (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#501)

[Afn]

Theres something called fair use. (1)

If your making a TV copy or radio copy you are allowed to archive it for your own personal use.

Just dont go playing it at parties or stuff like that (2)

How do you think mp3's are copied? They are copied from cd of course, and to do something like a registration code like you were saying would be almost impossible, each cd or song and when converted to mp3 would still somehow stay there without being filtered out by the conversion, would need a registration number, and the user would have to register each time they buy a cd...(3)

Not to mention people would figure out how to hack it the same day it hits the shelf.

Also the fact that they should not be distributing the music in the first place.

Currently only the people who upload music to others are getting sued not the people downloading.

If downloading was the case, lets say the RIAA set up a bunch of computers distributing songs to people and logging their IP's, when they go to court all someone would need to say is, "why were you distributing your own property in the first place" would start a major controversy, which they probably would not want the hassle of dealing with in court.

Sharing them is illegal, you cannot DISTRIBUTE your own personal copies to others over the internet, theres no way you could possibly come up with a defense in court besides "I didnt know I was sharing them."

I have always believed in the freedom of art, I think it should be displayed and distributed everywhere and anywhere, it should not be something that the rich should only be able to appreciate, there are millions of people who cannot afford to go to the music store and buy overpriced cds filled with lesser quality filler songs.

Unfortunately we live in a world where there is a constant race to make as much as you can before you die, he with the most wins...(4)

1. Fair Use is one area, second is if the material is in the public interest. For example, Facts can not be copywrited. Ideas can not be copyrighted.

2. Public performance was always regulated by the recording and artist industries, as a easy way to make money (A profitable business will pay a tribute to gangsters if it means less trouble. The theory is that a recording is a live performance, and you are denying a royality payment to some artist or owner of the recording. "Imoho, recordings are more promotion than performance, but then again when everything is DRM free, no money is to be made, thus you have a problem." ) In a few years players may ONLY play signed-registered-DRM files, and lock out everything else. If that happens, you create an extreme nazi-like society.

3. Registration numbers for software products drives additional sales, creates many products that are pure junk, yet you never know unless you pay the registration extortion fee. Music industry that uses registration locks for music would drive sales, give them an enforced monopoly and very, very good product feedback. perhaps this data would be sold to marketers. (a very unpleasant thought.)

4. There is a finite limit to what you can own and use. The solution to all of this is open source. How this will work for the music industry has not been worked out.

[Afn]

I've seen this argument before in articles about ReplayTV (a TiVo alternative that can share videos with other ReplayTV owners).

The TV executive guys they interviewed said they wouldn't have any problem with people sharing TV shows if they left the commercials in.

The attitude was that if you don't watch the ads you're "stealing" whether you share it or not.

Maybe (a big maybe) they wouldn't sue if you shared music from the radio and shows from TV if you left in all the advertising.

It is about control and power. Most TV shows are designed as advertising. I never understood why there were and are so many detective and crime shows on TV. I noticed that the auto makers generally always advertised on the crime drama and medical shows.

Since many people work in these types of jobs, and a crime drama or medical show would be interesting to people who work in these industries, there is a prime way to promote your product to people who have money to buy, and at the same time promote your brand to people that may make purchasing decisions at the city or county level.

When the net has (right now infact) more hours of programming than time to view, the value of advertising drops, the value of a tv show drops.

Big events have an audience, but day to day programming (i think) will have less and less of a market.

[Afn]

Thanks for the input guys,
True, I never thought at it this way...
the big companies will own everything (they already do actually).
If is fair that the artist or creator gets it's share of the profit, but I refuse to pay the guy who'se only merit is that he had the money to buy the copyright. Or the great great great grand son of some author.

The corporations are very good at 1. extending copyright terms when a property "micky mouse" for example gets close to expiring. 2. forced compliance in patents, making a small modification to a patent for example, and then getting another patent term gives unlimited monopolies to products and now processes that should be in the public domain.

We could say that intelectual property and patents is a game, and that the usefulness of the game is now in question as we enter a digital society.



"If is fair that the artist or creator gets it's share of the profit"

THAT is the problem, the system is not fair, and I have proposed a government system that forces all content to be available and small micro-payments to the authors based on access to the work that is owned, with free access for academic research.
IF the system was fair, I would have a chance at making money off of what I create. The system favors only the superplayers, the corporations that have amassed thousands of titles, thousands of hours of programming, ect.

The individual is very dis-advantaged in this mega-corporate world. You can do the work and find that you can NEVER make any money because the system favors only the super-players.

[UnholyRetaliation]

Well,heres my 11teen cents worth,it boils down to this(in my opinion only this),its all about the mighty $.thats it in a nut shell,if the RIAA got a royalty from every p2p fileshare,then none of this would be an issue.They fully support Video and Audio streaming,cuz they get a royalty from it(remember the days when u could listen to your favorite radio staition online?)well,they were not getting any $ from that so they sued.The RIAA could give a rats ass about "Artists Rights"no matter what they say.its all about MONEY.Its amazing to me that they attempt to bully the very ppl who buy thier product,only to turn around and tell that person they cant let anyone else use that product,the fact remains this..no matter wtf they try and do,,they will never stop p2p.

[Afn]

Well,heres my 11teen cents worth,it boils down to this(in my opinion only this),its all about the mighty $.thats it in a nut shell,if the RIAA got a royalty from every p2p fileshare,then none of this would be an issue. 1) They fully support Video and Audio streaming 2),cuz they get a royalty from it(remember the days when u could listen to your favorite radio staition online?)well,they were not getting any $ from that so they sued.The RIAA could give a rats ass about "Artists Rights"no matter what they say 3).its all about MONEY.Its amazing to me that they attempt to bully the very ppl who buy thier product,only to turn around and tell that person they cant let anyone else use that product,the fact remains this..no matter wtf they try and do,,they will never stop p2p.4)


1) Money is a man made system. See number 3.

2) The people who write advertising copy wanted a royality off of every streaming copy of any material streamed over the net. This is what killed traditional broadcasters from streaming in mp3 and real audio feeds of broadcasts.

It is my opinion that streaming will be used only for live events, and trading files via mp3 or flac or cd-da audio and someday mpeg2 video over the net will be the primary way to send audio and video files anywhere.

3) It is about greed and control.

4) P2P is the new way to distribute ideas. The ideas that are communicated the most "win the space".