By Marc McElroy

Is downloading music stealing? Yeah, probably, but the phenomena of file sharing, where music gets packed into easily storable digital files and shared easily without regard to the copyright holders, seems to be here to stay.

File sharing exists in that gray area with getting undercharged for your meal at a restaurant, or the story about you or your friend who moved into a house and the cable was already on: You’re getting away with something, and it’s not the rightist of things, but it’s sort of fun, and it seems a victimless crime.

The truth is there are a lot of gray areas involved.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/05162004/accent/16414.htm

"Is downloading music stealing? "

No. Any more questions?

Right--it's sharing. Nothing gray about that!

My Momma always taught me to share.

Besides that first line, it was a good article

I remember 23 years ago in our first apartment My neighbor had HBO and everytime they had it on we'd get it too. got to see a lot of first run movies that way. I don't remember the cable company coming after me and calling me a pirate.

You're lucky. The cable companies send out letters all the time threatening to sue for cable theft. Curiously enough, the settlement amount they accept is 3 thousand dollars.

A magic number of sorts......

I had a friend who got the letter from the cable company. It's a scary letter. They got her name because she bought the box from a company that later got busted and they seized the mailing list and went after the customers. I dealt with the cable company for her. They were adamant that the box had to be turned over, but she insisted that she had given the box away and didn't have it any more. In the end they accepted the 3K. It was worth it for her since she got a lot more free cable than 3K.

well in my situation I didn't do anything but turn on the tv. their wiring was screwed up. I didn't complain though

I dunno....3 thou for cable? Most of the crap on it is not worth 3 bucks.

I wouldn't be surprized that a few boardroom lawyers are dreaming up a plan to buy patents on every musical note so that everyone has to pay to play, so just walking down the street whistling a tune would be illegal (maybe for those tone deaf whistlers that would be okay).

I've previously noted that DirectTV in their suit actions against the "smart card" purchasers have gone for that three to thirty five hundred dollar settlement amount...

I have a sneaking suspicion that someone told both the RIAA and DirectTV that this 3 to 3500 hundred is a "reasonable settlement" amount.

I am troubled by this "guilty til proven innocent" thing going on.

The notion that just because you buy something that COULD be used to break the law (e.g. smart cards or cable boxes), doesn't mean it WAS used to break the law.

For example...you can use a car to break the law (hit and run, speeding, carrying illegal drugs, etc) but just owning a car does not mean that you intend to break the law with it.

Same thing with a gun.

So, it comes down to the "substantial noninfringing use" standard...or, is the primary use for the device that of breaking the law. With "smart card" technolgy, it is my understanding that there are legitimate uses for them.

One guy locally bought some of this equipment (I don't recall if it was a cable box or smart cards), and was sued...but he was always buying various electronic crap just to take it apart or modify it to do other things with it.

"For example...you can use a car to break the law (hit and run, speeding, carrying illegal drugs, etc) but just owning a car does not mean that you intend to break the law with it."

Once big oil starts going down, I can see this happening. lol

I would feel better about the term "theft of cable" if they were talking about someone with about 500 feet of CAT 6 ethernet cable in a box...

The legal term is "unauthorized reception". The acceptable vernacular is "cable theft".

"well in my situation I didn't do anything but turn on the tv. their wiring was screwed up. I didn't complain though"

That is still illegal and is commonly known as "passive cable theft".

too bad, I don't give a shit what they call it.

their wiring was screwed up so that's their problem. could care less what the law says. it's common sense. something the law doesn't always address

Almost anything you do these days could be considered some kind of theft. How about political correctness in speech? Why don't we just start locking everybody up? Or do like the British did with Australia....except send em to Mars or the moon?

The biggest misconception with filesharing is that downloading is stealing or theft, this in many ways is what the RIAA wants people to believe, because the RIAA realizes that p2p gives the indie artist the power they never had to freely promote their work. Is downloading things you dont have license to theft, most of the time, though there is the notion of fair use, however, lets not forget that a lot of non riaa affiliated artist do place their music or some of it out there for people to freely download. One of my problems with the gray areas of filesharing is the fact that the riaa recognizes that mp3's will never sound as good as a cd yet they sue people as if they had actually a cd format inside their computer which they obviously dont, since mp3 is compressed and sounds like ass for the most part, or maybe it sounds that bad cause its RIAA music =)

"Is downloading music stealing? Yeah, probably,"

I am an american.. I am 21 years of age.. and nothing worth doing in the united states is legal because it "may be dangerous".

if it is dangerous to yourself it shouldnt be a problem.. do you not have the right to govern yourself anymore?

"Date: May 18, 2004 @ 12:24 AM
The biggest misconception with filesharing is that downloading is stealing or theft, this in many ways is what the RIAA wants people to believe, because the RIAA realizes that p2p gives the indie artist the power they never had to freely promote their work. "

it gives far more power than that.. it quite literally redefines a large portion of the market, expands capacity for fair use, and, depsite their acrimony, generates demand for any work shared.

the greatest thing though is that it affects elasticity of demand and "forces" firms which would otherwise be exclusive to compete, as is truly required in a capitalist system.

"File sharing exists in that gray area with getting undercharged for your meal at a restaurant, or the story about you or your friend who moved into a house and the cable was already on: You’re getting away with something, and it’s not the rightist of things, but it’s sort of fun, and it seems a victimless crime. "

and i suppose you're "getting away" with "something" that is "not the rightest of things" when you record television or radio?

this guy's words remind me of a stool sample.. its packaged in a pretty antiseptic container, but its still *****.

here we go.. but its still crap because he's giving ever defference to the RIAA and very little to the consumer.

"electronic manufacturers made machines specifically designed to copy cassettes, even ones that would do it quickly. There was an unspoken law that as long as the user was not selling the product then it was OK, kind of. And copyright laws also have clauses for instances when it was OK to copy a tape or record. Copying music became a part of everyday American life."

"It could be said that the sharing of digital music files goes against the very capitalist structure of America. The big question is: How do you steal something that doesn’t exist?"

i have numerous problems with this statement.

First and foremost, it ignores the fundamental basis of capitalism: the customer is always right and it is the job of industry to ADAPT to changes in the marketplace.

Second, and an eventuality from the first, no business is "entitled" to profit.

Third, capitalism is based on the ability to own and govern what you buy. If you are not allowed to make a copy and give it to someone else that denies your fundamental rights to property...

*sigh* sorry about the blogging.. i just despise some of the stupidity im seeing.

"Is downloading things you dont have license to theft, most of the time, though there is the notion of fair use, however, lets not forget that a lot of non riaa affiliated artist do place their music or some of it out there for people to freely download. "

So what? Our copyright law CLEARLY provides that it doesn't matter whether or not an artist puts their music anywhere. As long as it is ONLY used for personal purposes, making copies of music it is exempted as fair use. End of story.

In case anyone has forgotten, see:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/11921

Very well put, awehr. My thoughts exactly. And thanks for the link, INeedAlover.

People need to be reminded of these things. Filesharing has been painted in a bad light in the minds of many. It has also turned into a fight over legitimacy. Keep on blogging!

"First and foremost, it ignores the fundamental basis of capitalism: the customer is always right"

LOL! That is not a "fundamental basis of capitalism". It's a quote from Marshall Field!

"i just despise some of the stupidity im seeing."

Me too!

"Second, and an eventuality from the first, no business is "entitled" to profit."

Can you please explain what this means? Who is claiming they are entitled to profit?

"If you are not allowed to make a copy and give it to someone else that denies your fundamental rights to property..."

Under your logic, a computer program that would "call home" to verify that it was not a copy would be illegal because it would violate your "fundamental rights to property".

"So what? Our copyright law CLEARLY provides that it doesn't matter whether or not an artist puts their music anywhere. As long as it is ONLY used for personal purposes, making copies of music it is exempted as fair use. End of story."

So What? If this was the case then there would be no John Doe's being sued, and mp3.com would continue to be mp3.com, but that is not the case. And you should visit the eff website and see what constitutes fair use, there are limitations to fair use, such as burning an excessive amount of copies and burdening the copyright holder. If the artist places the music for you to download then that is a completely different scenario as if you download metallica and freely share it.

downloading music is not stealing.

end of discussion.

The only reason we have John Doe's being sued is because the RIAA labels refuse to recognize this portion of the copyright law. Their continued effort to make P2P illegal is NOT founded on what our copyright law actually says.

P2P is largely used for PERSONAL USE. Those that make illegal copies of CD's and then sell them for their own profit would be foolish to do so using downloaded MP3 files that are reduced copies of the songs. In order to sell a copy to fool potential customers, they must buy a CD and copy it. How else would they be able to make perfect copies of the artwork of each CD?

The concept that P2P causes lost sales doesn't matter, as far as DOWNLOADING is concerned. It is for personal use and no infringing action can be brought when it is used for personal purposes only.