Piracy laws
#61
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But, if I pay good money for something which I am led to believe is worthy of the expenditure, only to find I have been misled by crafty promotions and advertising then I will feel disappointed, annoyed, and unlikely to allow myself to be conned again, meaning they will ultimately lose out even when the product is worthy. By allowing free distribution of poor quality versions for public assessment, many people will find the items they like and pay for the high quality version. There are always many who are happy enough with the low quality version and thus will never put hand in pocket, but they will never change. It's far better to allow the practise, make money from potential advertising and further promotions and encourage sales through having a better relationship with the consumer, IMHO.
#62
Consider the practicalities for a moment. Put yourself in the position of someone with a teenage son or daughter, and who requires their internet connection for work. Why should your business be put at risk - any risk - just to protect the music industry?
Bear in mind also that the proposals being put forward don't even require the accuser to present proper evidence that would stand up in a civil or criminal trial - and nor is there the opportunity for the accused to present a proper defence. That prospect alone terrifies me.
How sure are you that you don't live within wireless network range of someone who might occasionally have the desire, and the technical ability, to 'borrow' your connection from time to time?
Bear in mind also that the proposals being put forward don't even require the accuser to present proper evidence that would stand up in a civil or criminal trial - and nor is there the opportunity for the accused to present a proper defence. That prospect alone terrifies me.
How sure are you that you don't live within wireless network range of someone who might occasionally have the desire, and the technical ability, to 'borrow' your connection from time to time?
With your connection I would have thought that someone using that would still have to do it in their own name, unless I have misunderstood the whole business. Maybe you can put me straight on that.
I certainly do not support the idea of charging all Net users to pay cash to the music firms. I don't download illegally and have no wish to. I object to being charged for other people's actions. The music industry should sort out its own protection at its own cost.
Les
#64
No matter how many times you say that sentence it still doesn't make it theft.
f1-fan, since its theft what did the police say to you when you pressed charges ??? errr nothing?? I suppose cause its not theft
Theft vs. Copying
The RIAA, MPAA and copyright holders describe P2P users as "pirates" - invoking images of swashbuckling pre-teens hauling up the Jolly Roger and stealing intellectual property in the dead of night. New ads announced by MPAA President Jack Valente impress the idea that "copying is stealing" and that someone who burns MP3s is no different from those who slip a CD under their shirt at the local Tower Records.
But technically, file sharing is not theft.
A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked.
So "copying" is not "stealing" but can be "infringing." That doesn't have the same sound bite quality as Valente's position.
Complicated matters further, copying is not always infringing. If the work is not copyrighted, if you have a license to make the copy, or if the work is in the public domain, you can copy at will. Also, not all "copies" are the same. Say you buy a CD and play it on your computer -- technically, you have already made a "copy" onto the PC in the process of playing it, but that's not an infringement.
Making an archive copy is okay too, as long as your retain the original. What about a transformative copy -- say, making an MP3 out of a CD? You can do that, so long as you retain the original work. If the original CD get scratched, damaged or lost, you can probably burn the MP3 back to a CD (sans the really "sucky" titles), but this is not entirely clear.
So the RIAA and MPAA's claims that all "copying" is "stealing" are much overhyped.
But so too are the claims some swappers make that, simply because I bought a particular CD at some time in the past (or really, really thought about buying it), I now have the inherent right to share it with all my friends (even the ones I have never met in Singapore, Malaysia and Eastern Europe).
Fair and Unfair Use
The RIAA and MPAA also claim that if I download a song that I don't own, it's an infringement. This too is not always the case. The law recognizes that many uses of copyrighted works -- even without the permission of the copyright holder -- are not an infringement. While there is no "right" as such to make a fair use, the making of such a use is not an infringement.
Thus, if you make copies for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, it is not an infringement of the copyright, even if the copyright holder does not want you to do so.
This isn't black and white, of course. In deciding whether a use is fair or not, courts will consider a number of factors: Did you make the copies for commercial purposes? Does the copy deprive the copyright holder of revenues? Did you copy all, or substantially all, of the work, or just a small portion? The less of the work copied, the less commercial and the less impact on the copyrighted work, the more likely it is to be considered "fair."
So when you sing "Happy Birthday" to your mom, you don't owe a royalty to Mildred and Patty Smith Hill (they own the copyright), but when it is performed in a movie, you do see a credit roll.
The problem for the RIAA and MPAA is that all they can see is that someone is copying a work -- they cannot tell the purposes for which the work is being copied. Therefore, when they sign an affidavit to get a subpoena alleging a copyright "infringement," all they really know is that a copy has been made, not that an infringement has occurred.
Infringe Groups
So your geeky brother uses your Mac Powerbook to download his songs. Are you liable? Maybe.
The law imposes four kinds of liability for infringement. The simplest is direct infringement -- meaning you or somebody under your direct control (your agent) actually infringes. A second type of infringement is contributory infringement or vicarious infringement -- you aid someone else's infringing activities, or you profit from their infringement and have the ability to control them. It is this theory that makes owners of P2P networks potentially liable.
A third category of infringement is implicated if you provide the technology to aid the infringement (e.g., the Sony Betamax case.) In that case, you are liable for the infringement others do with your technology, unless there is a "substantial non-infringing use" for your technology (e.g., time shifting TV shows.) Finally and most recently, the DMCA creates a new "circumvention" liability" -- creating or disseminating technologies that are designed to circumvent a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work.
The last type does not even require that there be an infringement -- just the dissemination of technology that could permit access to the work, even if the access is for a non-infringing purpose.
For P2P networks themselves, the law is not clear whether their activities are infringing. A Federal Circuit Court in Illinois held Aimster liable as contributing to the infringing uses of their subscribers or users, while a Federal Court in California came to the contrary conclusion with respect to Kazaa and others.
Cascading Effect
For users of P2P networks, the actual liability is likewise turbid. If you download a single copy of a copyrighted work, for your personal listening, you probably have committed an infringement (unless you fit within the fair use exception, e.g., you are copying it for criticism, or literary purposes). If you What if you download the file and it sits unplayed on your computer while others download it from you? Who is the infringer: you, them, or all of the above? Under current caselaw, probably all of you.
What if you upload a song from your CD collection to the P2P network (assuming the initial transformative copy is permitted). While you have not made an infringing copy, you have aided other uses of the P2P network in making infringing copies, and may be held liable. If you tell others how to find copyrighted works, that too could result in contributory liability. And your dumb brother using your computer? If you knew the works were there, and had the ability to prevent the copying, you run a risk that you have liability.
The law gives copyright holders a lot of power. Then can seize your computer. They can get an injunction ordering you to stop. They can get statutory damages in excess of $150,000 per copy or actual damages based upon the total number of copies that can be attributed to the P2P posting (so you can be held liable for all the subsequent downloads). You can be forced to pay their attorney's fees and costs.
They can subpoena your name, address, telephone number, and subscriber information from your ISP even without filing a lawsuit, and find out all of the music you have been downloading, and possibly the websites you have been visiting.
And, yes, you can go to jail for infringement, even if you just downloaded a single song, so long as the "value" of the copies made of the work over a six month period exceeds $1,000. So, if you assume that the individual "song" has a value of $2 (one-tenth the cost of the $20 CD), a mere 500 downloads are enough to make you liable. And these downloads don't necessarily have to come from your machine. If another person downloads the song from you, you may be responsible for the downloads that person permits.
I say, "may," because the law is not yet clear on this. Look for that to change as the war over digital music continues.
The RIAA, MPAA and copyright holders describe P2P users as "pirates" - invoking images of swashbuckling pre-teens hauling up the Jolly Roger and stealing intellectual property in the dead of night. New ads announced by MPAA President Jack Valente impress the idea that "copying is stealing" and that someone who burns MP3s is no different from those who slip a CD under their shirt at the local Tower Records.
But technically, file sharing is not theft.
A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked.
So "copying" is not "stealing" but can be "infringing." That doesn't have the same sound bite quality as Valente's position.
Complicated matters further, copying is not always infringing. If the work is not copyrighted, if you have a license to make the copy, or if the work is in the public domain, you can copy at will. Also, not all "copies" are the same. Say you buy a CD and play it on your computer -- technically, you have already made a "copy" onto the PC in the process of playing it, but that's not an infringement.
Making an archive copy is okay too, as long as your retain the original. What about a transformative copy -- say, making an MP3 out of a CD? You can do that, so long as you retain the original work. If the original CD get scratched, damaged or lost, you can probably burn the MP3 back to a CD (sans the really "sucky" titles), but this is not entirely clear.
So the RIAA and MPAA's claims that all "copying" is "stealing" are much overhyped.
But so too are the claims some swappers make that, simply because I bought a particular CD at some time in the past (or really, really thought about buying it), I now have the inherent right to share it with all my friends (even the ones I have never met in Singapore, Malaysia and Eastern Europe).
Fair and Unfair Use
The RIAA and MPAA also claim that if I download a song that I don't own, it's an infringement. This too is not always the case. The law recognizes that many uses of copyrighted works -- even without the permission of the copyright holder -- are not an infringement. While there is no "right" as such to make a fair use, the making of such a use is not an infringement.
Thus, if you make copies for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, it is not an infringement of the copyright, even if the copyright holder does not want you to do so.
This isn't black and white, of course. In deciding whether a use is fair or not, courts will consider a number of factors: Did you make the copies for commercial purposes? Does the copy deprive the copyright holder of revenues? Did you copy all, or substantially all, of the work, or just a small portion? The less of the work copied, the less commercial and the less impact on the copyrighted work, the more likely it is to be considered "fair."
So when you sing "Happy Birthday" to your mom, you don't owe a royalty to Mildred and Patty Smith Hill (they own the copyright), but when it is performed in a movie, you do see a credit roll.
The problem for the RIAA and MPAA is that all they can see is that someone is copying a work -- they cannot tell the purposes for which the work is being copied. Therefore, when they sign an affidavit to get a subpoena alleging a copyright "infringement," all they really know is that a copy has been made, not that an infringement has occurred.
Infringe Groups
So your geeky brother uses your Mac Powerbook to download his songs. Are you liable? Maybe.
The law imposes four kinds of liability for infringement. The simplest is direct infringement -- meaning you or somebody under your direct control (your agent) actually infringes. A second type of infringement is contributory infringement or vicarious infringement -- you aid someone else's infringing activities, or you profit from their infringement and have the ability to control them. It is this theory that makes owners of P2P networks potentially liable.
A third category of infringement is implicated if you provide the technology to aid the infringement (e.g., the Sony Betamax case.) In that case, you are liable for the infringement others do with your technology, unless there is a "substantial non-infringing use" for your technology (e.g., time shifting TV shows.) Finally and most recently, the DMCA creates a new "circumvention" liability" -- creating or disseminating technologies that are designed to circumvent a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work.
The last type does not even require that there be an infringement -- just the dissemination of technology that could permit access to the work, even if the access is for a non-infringing purpose.
For P2P networks themselves, the law is not clear whether their activities are infringing. A Federal Circuit Court in Illinois held Aimster liable as contributing to the infringing uses of their subscribers or users, while a Federal Court in California came to the contrary conclusion with respect to Kazaa and others.
Cascading Effect
For users of P2P networks, the actual liability is likewise turbid. If you download a single copy of a copyrighted work, for your personal listening, you probably have committed an infringement (unless you fit within the fair use exception, e.g., you are copying it for criticism, or literary purposes). If you What if you download the file and it sits unplayed on your computer while others download it from you? Who is the infringer: you, them, or all of the above? Under current caselaw, probably all of you.
What if you upload a song from your CD collection to the P2P network (assuming the initial transformative copy is permitted). While you have not made an infringing copy, you have aided other uses of the P2P network in making infringing copies, and may be held liable. If you tell others how to find copyrighted works, that too could result in contributory liability. And your dumb brother using your computer? If you knew the works were there, and had the ability to prevent the copying, you run a risk that you have liability.
The law gives copyright holders a lot of power. Then can seize your computer. They can get an injunction ordering you to stop. They can get statutory damages in excess of $150,000 per copy or actual damages based upon the total number of copies that can be attributed to the P2P posting (so you can be held liable for all the subsequent downloads). You can be forced to pay their attorney's fees and costs.
They can subpoena your name, address, telephone number, and subscriber information from your ISP even without filing a lawsuit, and find out all of the music you have been downloading, and possibly the websites you have been visiting.
And, yes, you can go to jail for infringement, even if you just downloaded a single song, so long as the "value" of the copies made of the work over a six month period exceeds $1,000. So, if you assume that the individual "song" has a value of $2 (one-tenth the cost of the $20 CD), a mere 500 downloads are enough to make you liable. And these downloads don't necessarily have to come from your machine. If another person downloads the song from you, you may be responsible for the downloads that person permits.
I say, "may," because the law is not yet clear on this. Look for that to change as the war over digital music continues.
Last edited by stevebt; 04 January 2010 at 12:42 PM.
#65
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And as they settled out of court I assume they decided they were guilty so theft it was!!!!
#68
civil theft will be where it is not a criminal offence but a civil matter as in you have to pursue cause the police aint interested. A bit like years ago OJ Simpson got off with murdering his wife but in civil court he was found guilty so had to pay damages.
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Whether I had pursued it through civil action or via the police does not detract from the fact it is still theft.
After all was OJ guilty of murder or civil murder?
#71
Think about it, all that is happening, fundamentally, is the transportation of of binary data, 0 and 1s, which in turn represent two different voltages on your hard drive. It is then assembled to video.
Nothing physically exists. Even if you burn it to a DVD, it is not classed as theft because what you have burnt is completely different to what they are selling, in the shops for example, because they use pressed disks where as a home user uses burnt copies, so its argued that they are so different, that they are not the same.
#72
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If I walk into a shop with a £50 note that I just printed and buy a few DVD's. Have I just stolen from the shopkeeper or am I just a counterfeiter. Perhaps I'm both.
#75
The analogy states you are obtaining physical goods by using deception.
Neither is true with file sharing.
Last edited by Dedrater; 04 January 2010 at 06:12 PM.
#77
Jack, mine isn't a belief its fact I think there is a lot of the country that needs to be fined/jailed if it were true!
Dedrater, file sharing is totally different to downloading an album! File sharing is the one that gets all the big fines and the reason all these piracy laws are being pushed.
Dedrater, file sharing is totally different to downloading an album! File sharing is the one that gets all the big fines and the reason all these piracy laws are being pushed.
Last edited by stevebt; 04 January 2010 at 06:34 PM.
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#82
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Thankfully I don't have kids of my own to worry about. I do, however, live within wireless network range of a school - and I can't possibly be expected to vouch for or influence the behaviour of hundreds of sixth-formers with access to computers. My network is secured using industry standard, reasonably up-to-date technology, but do you see now why I might have cause to be concerned?
It is up to you however to make sure that they are responsible enought not to download illegally using your account.
I certainly do not support the idea of charging all Net users to pay cash to the music firms. I don't download illegally and have no wish to. I object to being charged for other people's actions. The music industry should sort out its own protection at its own cost.
Unfortunately if it's made more difficult or risky to use one's own internet connection to share music, it doesn't take a genius to work out that people will simply start using connections that belong to other people. It's already the case that if you're using WEP encryption on your WLAN you might as well not bother encrypting your connection at all...
#83
#84
So at one minute your defending your defintion of theft by saying if you walked into a shop with counterfiet money then you change to buying online with a hacked code?? Which are you sticking with for theft as both are totally different types of situations? I doubt you would be able to buy stuff from the apple store with a hacked itunes card?? and if you were caught for using a hacked card I doubt anything would happen to you bar the site saying the card is invalid whereas using the money in a store is fraud and will get you a nice new home for a few months
#87
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My software was stolen in exactly the same way and the people who stole it accepted they had stolen it by paying out against my claim of theft after taking legal advice.
I cannot be clearer than that!
#88
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Lisa, for the last time I am not discussing copyright infringement and don't give a damn as to whether the law categorises downloading a movie, album or some software illegally in the same vein as lending a CD to a mate.
My software was stolen in exactly the same way and the people who stole it accepted they had stolen it by paying out against my claim of theft after taking legal advice.
I cannot be clearer than that!
My software was stolen in exactly the same way and the people who stole it accepted they had stolen it by paying out against my claim of theft after taking legal advice.
I cannot be clearer than that!
I asked the question earlier, as we were discussing downloading films/music, and you were the one who viewed it as theft.
You never answered my question so I merely asked again. I never gave an opinion about (your) software. As this thread wasn't really focusing on software 'theft'. I don't, to be fair, know if that is viewed the same way as music and films.
I didn't ask the question to be awkward, but both fall under 'copyright infringement' no matter how you might want to see it differently. And to some, both borrowing something to try before buying, or downloading for the same purpose would be much the same, and fall foul to the same laws.
It's very different doing either to distribute for profit, but that's not what we are talking about here.
No need to get arsey. It's a simple question, just answer and I'll move on.
This thread has mainly relvolved around downloading movies, and you consider it theft, I'm just trying to see where exactly you sit with this.
Last edited by Lisawrx; 04 January 2010 at 11:35 PM.
#89
The funny thing is, the American MPAA are one of the main business trying to push ridiculous laws through, when an American purchaser of DVDs etc has a legal right to to sell (original copy), exchange, rent or lend a purchased DVD, have you seen the warning notices on sold DVDs
#90
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The funny thing is, the American MPAA are one of the main business trying to push ridiculous laws through, when an American purchaser of DVDs etc has a legal right to to sell (original copy), exchange, rent or lend a purchased DVD, have you seen the warning notices on sold DVDs