If you use BitTorrent, the terrorists have won...

[mrmitchell]

Who's stealing? Last music I acquired was via a dual-disc CD/DVD hybrid (Rob Thomas' album).

Asher, the taste police are coming for you.

cual-disc

Does the CD side play in regular old CD players?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Copying someone's work or allowing it to be copied from your source without the creator's permission deprives that person of the right to distribute their work as they see fit.

No it doesn't.

It just limits his ability to make money from said distributions. Even on this point, there is no clear evidence that downloading actually hurts music and movies revenues. In fact, some research studies indicate otherwise.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Wraith
Maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty obvious that depriving someone of something is more serious than not depriving them of it.

I'm not too concerned with depriving people from seeing movies they haven't paid to see.

Originally posted by Wraith
BTW, I would highly encourage you to read up on the history of copyright. It's very interesting.

Any layman-level books you can reccommend? I didn't take those classes in law school.

Originally posted by Wraith
Depends who you ask. Most people will say "no problem". RIAA will say "No way". They don't like people converting from one media to another, they don't want you to have a digital version unless you pay again. The way they've been attacking Fair Use, it's pretty clear they want to charge you for every time you listen to it.

And that's where I draw the line with this BS from the MPAA et al. What a load of garbage. I'm very anti piracy, transmission of music/work without the artist/creator's permission, but this is too much, even for me.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


No it doesn't.

It just limits his ability to make money from said distributions. Even on this point, there is no clear evidence that downloading actually hurts music and movies revenues. In fact, some research studies indicate otherwise.

I wasn't talking about selling music, I was talking about distributing it. there is a difference in the two, that apparently I dind't convey to you and Ludd.

I believe that artists have the right to determine how to distribute their works, be it for profit, free of charge, or through some middle ground such as streaming audio/video. whether or not piracy affects anything positively or negatively is irrelevant IMHO, to what the artist/creator/owner desires to be done with their work. If you disagree with me, then that is good for you, and thusly I bid you adieu.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Hueij
Question: I have all the original Beatles albums on vinyl, either bought myself or given as a present. So the copyright has been paid for. Is it then legal to download the cd's?

In the US it used to be under the "fair use" laws but Republicans outlawed many (most?) of the fair use arguments with the Digital Copyright Act for a New Mellenium. For example it used to legal for a person to buy a record (which break down the more you listen to them) and to try to extend the life of the record by making a taperecording of the record and then listening to the tape recording (thus extending the useful life of the record). It was considered fair use for a person who'd bought the record to use the music how he wished and even make multiple copies for his personal use; all this was legal as long as he didn't sell the copies or give them to someone else. The corporate whores of the Republican Party striped citizens of this right.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Agathon
I might actually listen to the anti-Bittorrent people if their arguments weren't so transparently an attempt to retain control of all media distribution.

**** them. They can die out like the makers of steam engines.

I don't know what the others think, but I'm just trying to say that if you believe in "normal" property, there's no way you can't believe in IP. Doing so would be inconsistent, and it smells so much like trying to justify a free ride.

[Wraith]

--"But copyright exists on the basis that IP is property."

Which is exactly the controversial part. Look at some of the patents being issued today, that essentially apply to simple mathematical operations. If patents are allowed on ideas, do we have to pay license fees to think? How do you enforce that, anyway?

--"It only means that officials do not strongly enforce these laws "

No, it means they're civil laws, not criminal laws. These are two distinct categories in US courts. Breaking a contract or license is a civil matter. Killing someone is a criminal one.

Copyright infringement falls into the former category. Theft -- actually taking something material -- falls into the latter.

--"Their idea is that copyright infringement is a form of theft;"

Which, as a matter of US law, it isn't.

--"If people put work and money into the production of IP with the idea of selling it, then they are deprived of something if they can't get paid"

Not really. Simply making something, anything, is no guarantee of selling it. If I make a car no-one wants to buy, I'm not being deprived of anything.

--"Honestly, I don't see why this definition couldn't also apply to traditional forms of property."

Only if you're willing to posit that the government owns everything, including you. Which, I grant, there are some people on this forum who would have no problem with.

--"I'm no legal expert, but don't patents expire after a certain time anyway (that is not related to the lifespan of the owner)?"

20 years, I think. But they have other problems, which I'll get to in answer to a later point.

--"Personally I've never seen record labels try to pass cultural copyrights as trade secrets or patents, but whatever."

They usually don't try to bring trade secret laws into it, since those are pretty straight forward. However, the mere act of calling it "intellectual property" is an intentional confusion. There are four categories: patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks. The four areas of law are all distinct, and the rules for one most emphatically do not apply to the others. This is why there are patent lawyers and copyright lawers, but unless someone's gaming something, there aren't any "IP" lawyers.

--"I don't know why the labor theory of value is complete bunk"

Try reading Carl Menger's "Principles of Economics" for a much more sensible theory of value.
The argue against labor theory is pretty simple. If I have flour, water, yeast, salt, and fuel, I can spend labor to make bread, increasing value. But I can also make a horrible, inedible mess, which would actually decrease the value of what I had. It isn't labor that provides value; labor is just one factor in the equation.

--"Replicating a Ferrari through reverse-engineering of patented technologies would be illegal, however rebuilding one from the ground up is perfectly fine."

Actually, you're wrong on both counts, just in different ways. Reverse-engineering is legal, so that by itself would not make the project illegal.
However, both cases would be illegal. Thanks to the patents, but not the reverse engineering. This is because you're not allowed to use a patented mechanism, even if you arrive at it completely independently.
This is a major argument against software patents, btw. Especially given how broad they are. Software patents make it essentially impossible to write a program with infringing on something somewhere, and they aren't any different from patents on math (algorithms).

--"Any layman-level books you can reccommend?"

I'll have to see what I can find.

For the nonce, here's a slew of links on copyright:

Copyright on the Internet:

http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/copynet.htm#lim

Copyright Issues and the Internet:

http://www.fidex.com/copyright%20issues.htm

General Information about Copyrights:

http://www.patents.com/copyrigh.htm

A Software Copyright Primer:

http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2000/hollander-2000-02.html

Librarian's Index to the Internet: Copyright
http://lii.org/search?query=Copyright;searchtype=subject

Patents and Copyright:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/07/05.html

--"but Republicans outlawed many (most?) of the fair use arguments with the Digital Copyright Act for a New Mellenium."

The example you give is still legal. The aren't any anti-copying technologies to be circumvented on a record, so DMCA doesn't really cover it as far as I know. Copying DRM-protected CDs is another matter.

--'I don't know what the others think, but I'm just trying to say that if you believe in "normal" property, there's no way you can't believe in IP."

Sure you can. Property is tangible. "IP" is intangible, and therefore not property.

Wraith
"Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens -- and then everybody disagrees."
-- Boris Marshalov

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I don't know what the others think, but I'm just trying to say that if you believe in "normal" property, there's no way you can't believe in IP. Doing so would be inconsistent, and it smells so much like trying to justify a free ride.

Information is not property.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by aneeshm
What do I do ?

Presumably you have access to the internet? Buy online.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
Copying someone's work or allowing it to be copied from your source without the creator's permission deprives that person of the right to distribute their work as they see fit.

They've never had that right. Once it leaves their possession, the new owner can decide what to do wiht it. It can be loaned, rented, or sold, for example. All these examples deprive the previous owner of the ability to generate aditional revenue and deprive him of his control of the original object. So distribution isn't absolute.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Oerdin




How naive and clueless. There are around 4-6 major record labels which form a distrubition oligarchy in the US. They control around 90% of all distrubutions and they don't like carrying to many bands which compete head to head with one another. That means that even if a really good band pops up they aren't likely to sign them since they don't want to much competition for the bands which they've already heavily hyped & promoted. You know the really good bands like the backstreet boys or Brtney Speers.

If you bothered to look then you'd know that nearly all the innovation and original sound comes from the underground. That's where the great artists are and that's where the best music is but you won't hear it on the radio because the few corporate owners which now own most of the stations only play top 40 since it is bland and poppy and it doesn't upset anyone. The people who keep their nose to the ground and who watch the internet are the ones who pick up on the great undiscovered bands and more and more it is releases and word of mouth on the internet which is pushing them to stardom.

Download a sense of humor.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by General Ludd




Information is not property.

Work is.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
They've never had that right. Once it leaves their possession, the new owner can decide what to do wiht it. It can be loaned, rented, or sold, for example. All these examples deprive the previous owner of the ability to generate aditional revenue and deprive him of his control of the original object. So distribution isn't absolute.

Good job for realizing that rights aren't absolute. Have a cookie.

[Agathon]

Communism says: "download your ass off".

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Work is.

NO its not.

You don't own work, you own the result of work. That said, a dentist does not come to own the teeth he worked on, nor is a plastic surgeon the owner of the breast he implanted. So work by itself does not give you ownership.

If I make a statement, that was "work" on my part, but it odes not mean I "own" in a legal sense every utterance I make.