Piracy is a Competitor

Then you have the instances where copyright protects the work of the little guys. Like me for instance. I am a photographer and published writer. I have caught 3 publications using my work without my consent in the last 7 years. It is times like that when I am happy copyright exists.

The fact of the matter is that as owner of the writing/photography work, I am entitled to the right for distribution. If I choose to not distribute it, then that is my right. If another company uses my work without my consent, that is copyright infringement.

Aside from the RIAA and MPAA, there are small software makers getting ripped off as well as small bands who do not want their work distibuted over the internet for free. Who fights for them? What rights do they have for protecting their work?

There are some laws that need to be rewritten thats for sure, but there also needs to be some rights given to those who own the material and very strict punishments given to those who break it. Especially for profit.

It used to be they warned you "don't download software from unknown sites because you might pick up something nasty." Now... Well, now if you go to "reputable" sites, you will get something nasty.

Greaaaat...

-tom

don't forget the sound quality of mp3's is lower then both vinyl and compact disc

Sales of these DVDs and CDs are up!
So, these clowns are bitching that sales aren't up enough? WTF Chuck?

People are spending millions(literally) on physical media... and the asshats are still bitching!
As for music, I am quite burned out on music overall, not to mention VERY little new music entices me - to buy *OR* download!

Most of the new movies suck! LMAO!
Not wasting my bandwidth on some crappy remake of an old ass movie or the "new" crap movies they're producing.

Seeing as my monthly(to date) bandwidth usage has an all time high of 26.59GB downloaded(back in June), you can tell I'm not downloading alot of anything.
There just isn't anything that is worth my time to watch or bandwidth to download! DUH!

Of course, we all know(should at least) that downloading isn't really the problem.
Street corner sales in OTHER COUNTRIES is what's hitting their pocketbooks.
Not alot they can do in those places though... so they try and tag "losses" on the casual downloader here in The States.

Wake the hell up!
This applies to the Anti-Pirate zealots that post here, and all the sheeple that believe these inflated statistics slapped out there by the xxAAs.

allofmp3.com is NOT legal. PERIOD. Anyone that thinks otherwise is severely mentally handicapped. They wouldn't have the record industry trying to shut them down if they were legal since you kind of need the record industries permission to sell LEGAL music.Just because a thief offers you choices in the stolen property they sell doesn't mean it's still not stolen.

Shit! Buying the actual DVD or CD may trash your machine!
Screw the downloads!
I'll take my chances with the downloads sooner than running a DVD or CD that tries to root my laptop!

A lot of bands don't care yet their labels do. IIRC, some bands (who didn't have the foresight to sign away some of their rights to their labels) have even had conflicts with their labels over this very issue.

IMO, the labels, and NOT bands or songwriters, are THE problem when it comes to the music industry...they know they are dinosaurs and are trying to litigate their survival.

-SC

Buying (or borrowing, or applying the five-finger discount) the DVD or CD won't trash your machine, but putting the media in certainly might.

-tom

ROFL!
Just what I want to see, one(or more) of my security apps popping up a warning window when I try to play a disc, be it a CD or DVD!

Yeah, that sounds cool, huh?

WRONG. This is a typical comment made by someone who doesn't understand how protocols like eDonkey/BitTorent work. Once you download a chunk of file, it is automatically shared with other users on the network, even if the whole file hasn't finished downloading yet. So while you have your eDonkey/BitTorrent client running, you are also distributing what you are downloading to other users. And if it is a copyrighted work that you are sharing and RIAA/MPAA nails you, they will sue you for unauthorized distribution above anything else. As far as they are concerned, they are the only ones who have the rights to distribute their music/movies, and if anyone else is caught doing it without their permission, they need to be punished.

FYI, you are pretty safe from getting if you stick to download-only kinds of services such as newsgroups.

Better that they did pop something up than that they let the nasties go about their merry way. No?

-tom

This isn’t as simple a question as it would seem on the face of it. But, I think it’s an extension of the Sony timeshifting case. Even though commercials are being removed from the show in your example, I don’t think it alters the analysis.

So, purely in terms of the copyright statute, only the studio/creator/broadcaster or whoever owns the copyright has permission to make copies of the show or enable others to make copies of the show. That being said, we know from the Supreme Court’s Sony decision that timeshifting is legal based on the defense of fair use. It’s from that point that we have to consider your question. Keep in mind that fair use can be very subjective based on the particular facts of the case and arguments can be made for both sides.

First, consider the codified fair use exception in 17 USC 107:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A [17 USC § §106 and 106A], the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.



Typically courts consider the fourth factor as being most important.

Analyzing the first factor in light of your hypothetical, we can see that the work is not of a commercial nature. You aren’t selling it and you’re not having it sold or distributed for gain. Likely there would be a finding of fair use, even though you are giving it to a friend.

The second factor asks whether it’s a kind of work that should receive the benefits of copyright protection. In this case, the answer is clearly yes. Lost is a non-fiction creative work. Likely there would not be a finding of fair use.

As for the third factor, you are timeshifting an entire season at once and then placing all the episodes together on one or more disks. This would seem to go against a finding of fair use.

Finally, and probably most importantly, is your copy affecting the potential market for the work. Things to consider include whether your copy is as good as the originals. In this case yes--and even more so--because there are no commercials in the copy you made. The whole season without commercials would seem to compete for sales by the studio of their likely future DVD pack of the season of Lost. On the other hand, you aren’t widely distributing the materials and you aren’t posting it online. Still, an argument can be made that you are causing a potential sale of a DVD set from the copyright holder to not be sold. I think you likely wouldn’t be able to get a finding of fair use.

Based on all the above, I would say that technically your example likely isn’t protected under the defense of fair use. So, legally it probably violates present copyright laws. Realistically, I don’t think the copyright owner would ever bring suit. It’s just not worth the time, effort and money.

I'm sure the video police are going to come after you if you and your friends watch Star Wars some sunday afternoon. Getting just a little but dumb now, aren't we?

Personal copies have been legal since VCR's and before with Cassettes. The industry has tried this with every new recording format and have been consistently stopped by the supreme court.

The bottom line fact is that the industry cannot possibly win, no matter what they do. The ability to copy is far too widespread. Call it what you will: piracy, theft, copyright infringement. Most people dont give a damn. they will make a copy because it is convenient and to tear up instead of the original. It's called fair use and they aren't goint to worry about it.

And, some will grab all they can and spread the wealth around. Pardon me if I feel no compassion for the industry and their endless greed.

It is, indeed - because EMUSIC REQUIRES A SUBSCRIPTION, NOT A SIMPLE MUSIC STORE.

quote:

---

Oh, and for reference, Streaming audio from the likes of Rhapsody pay out 1 cent per stream. I think the per track is something like 80% of the total (in Rhapsody's case, it's $.89/song if you're a subscriber) leaving maybe a 1/4 of that to the artist.

Besides everyone wanting their stuff for free, the real problem is broken, cumbersome DRM that the old fogey's think are "protecting" their "assets" from "theives" who would "never" pay a dime. ...I think if itunes deserves any mention, it's because they proved that people will buy anything if they think it's "cool" and that they're helping the artist (not very much!).

EMUSIC also did. Rhapsody also did. Napster is on the verge of being bought out again because not only does their software kind of suck, but many still associate them with piracy, or don't know that they still exist...

The best way out of the mess the industry has gotten into, is to fully embrace a service like eMusic, and offer more freedoms with services like Rhapsody.

If they'd outright sell a song for super cheap, with no DRM, it's BEEN FRACKING PROVEN that people love it. If the subscriptions would also do away with it, at least on the "to go" part and just say "here's your music you paid to rent, now go play it on your portable, we don't care" things would work out much better.

...I think this is a great article on EMUSIC.
»www.techdirt.com/article ··· 06.shtml

Go read it, then come back here and post. I'm sick of hearing about that penny site overseas that does no good for our economy, our talent, but makes those guys rich...

When it's all said and done, it's an internet discussion board, not your mom's honor, or your prom date...

thats what im saying!

"People are spending millions(literally) on physical media... and the asshats are still bitching!"

Their getting their pay, doubled. But the money machine is always hungry.

And these are the companies were supposed to have some kind of loyalty towards???

Honor Code? I will not share any media from one of the 5 companies that own everything on Earth? Is that the correct pledge were 'sposed to take?

In South Korea for example, theres guys that "re-create" the popular Jordan shoes, fully customized to whatever your specs are, made in their own basements. A sort of reseller, cuase once you buy one shoe, you'll have an impulse to buy again in stores. I see this as the same thing as getting my music on-line. Hi quality stuff you'd NEVER get from a major manufacturer cuase their to busy cutting corner; 2 dollars here means 12million in yearly profits if you omit the shoe laces! lol.

The music industry first needs to find a way to justify this witch hunt, otherwise it's just making the pirates wanna pirate any and everything they get their hands on.

Pay the artist a just wage...

Second, give the CONSUMER, the reason WHY YOUR EVEN IN BUSINESS MAKING MONEY FOR SONS NEW FERRARI, a quality product.

Is that so hard? As the old adage goes, throw money at the problem. Their doing that alright, but eve then they eFF that up. Throw some pennies to the artist's, I mean damn!

COngrat that you finally understood how p2p works - but what are you preaching here, I dunno... it has nothing to do with my comment.

PS: Geez, if you're an age-old usenet user - I've used usenet before internet kicked in - like me then few things can be more sarcastic and/or funny when some young enthusiastic 'expert' fella thinks he can explain p2p or file sharing or usenet for you...

LOL!
"Buy our LEGAL discs, it's safer!" Rootkit, machine crippling DRM, God knows what else... but it's legal.

Download the file... *maybe* a virus or trojan, but I have anti-virus and anti-trojan scanners/protection.

Decisions decisions...

"
Denial is not going to change copyright law nor permit Pirates to steal without punishment. Time for those in denial to buy a clue"

Why when I can DL it for free, without all that spin?

Except that DMCA wasn't stopped by any US court and it went to effect, giving legal backing for the industry parasites to be able to effectively make it impossible to create personal copies (DVD), first time in history.Good post.

Um, who are you quoting?

I didn't say that....

DITTO!

Having seen this discussion about a million times at this point I've concluded there's a semantic club that wanders the vast Interwebs simply pointing out the difference between stating someone is getting busted for downloading versus getting busted for sharing....

The rest of the discussion can make no sense provided they step in to clarify that point.

Short Answer: Yes, you are. But you need the long answer to really find out why.Not a pirate yet. Also not a pirate if you are using TIVO, or your cable company's DVR (like I do).Still not a pirate. (I do the same, but not for Lost. )I'm sure the media companies would argue that you're a pirate now, but IMHO you still aren't. In fact, I do this routinely. (It's better than keeping the shows that my 3 year old son wants to see on our DVR and winding up with no space left.)

Let me skip around a bit now:I'd argue again that you still aren't a pirate. Of course, once more, I'm sure the media companies would disagree.Either of these actions are what would make you a pirate. Not the stripping of the commercials. (I do that myself.) But the giving of copies to a friend. IMO, you can do anything you want with those recordings short of sharing it with someone else. (If they come over to watch it at your house or you go to their house, it's ok. Just no handing a copy to your friend.)

Of course, the level of piracy that this involves is so low as to be negligible. IMO, the media companies shouldn't concern themselves with this. Instead, they should focus on the outfits that stamp out 1,000 copies of DVDs and sell them on the streets for 1/10th the cost of the original.

There is always going to be some level of piracy by consumers. Consumers are used to doing various things with the media they buy. Any attempt to lock down the content 100% is going to fail. All it will do is temporarily delay the big time pirates (the ones who rip and share thousands of files) while annoying the small time pirates and users who don't pirate at all.

Again, the media companies, I'm sure, don't agree with me. They seem to think that if they can find the "magic lock" all of their content will be protected and users will only be able to use the content when the media companies approve of the usage (and possibly when the user pays the media companies a bit extra now and then).

I'm not sure the DMCA necessarily trashed fair use defenses. We'll have to see how that gets handled in court. I don't think it's been addressed yet. But, I will agree that fair use has been severely impaired, since it affects the tools needed to make legal DVD copies.

I don't think it's a secret that Pirate Bay exists. They've already been raided thanks to pressure from the U.S., survived, and actually grew larger...

The Communist Manifesto as interpreted by kamm.

But they aren't up as much as they would be if piracy were completely eliminated....

*bwahahaha*

Sorry. Thought I could say that with a straight face. I don't know how the MPAA/RIAA do it.

Seriously though, when CD sales were going down and the RIAA was complaining about it, I didn't feel sorry for them because:

1. They were coming off of a multi-year record setting trend upwards. Since when are they guaranteed to have a record setting year every year?

2. The economy was in recession. People had less money to spend. If your income dropped, would you stop buying CDs or stop buying food?

3. There were more choices for the consumers' entertainment dollar. Time was you could spend your entertainment dollars on an album or by going to a movie. (Sure there were other options, but let's simplify matters by just looking at those.) Now you can buy a CD or go to a movie, but you can also buy a DVD, buy a game, subscribe to a MMPORG, spend extra for premium cable channels, subscribe to a web-based entertainment service (e.g. NetFlix), etc. There are a lot more players competing for your entertainment dollar today than in the past. So naturally less of that entertainment dollar will go to CDs.

4. They were shipping less CDs. Yes, they actually reduced how many CDs they shipped and then complained about how they sold less CDs!

5. The CDs they shipped weren't high quality acts/songs. This is highly subjective, but I've heard it said by enough other people to figure that it was a wide group of people thinking this and not just me.

6. The CDs they did ship were high priced. This is kind of linked to #3 and #5 but different enough to be on it's own. Why pay $15 for a CD with one or two good songs when you could by a decent movie on DVD for $10? Or when you could get a month of DVD rentals at Netflix?

Of course, the RIAA ignored all of those factors and figured that it must be Internet Piracy. After all, that's the only possible reason that doesn't blame the industry execs or market forces outside their control.

If "the man" makes a reasonable action into a felony, he's asking for a good sticking-to.Wrong. DRM in popular media goes back as far as Macrovision for VCR tapes, and in the digital domain to DVDs. That's before illegal downloads. With computer software, it was more honestly called "copy protection" and also pre-dates illegal downloads in that realm.AllofMP3.com is legal where it operates, because The Man says it is. If you think it's wrong regardless, you must admit that legality is not the foundation of morality.

LOL

Don't you know this new layout of the boards and colour schemes also come with the "auto quote user thoughts" feature?