Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads

The Todal wrote:


"Derek Potter" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:vtgb221an92gm2qqdjlefu1vu5fuj1b6qd@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:39:35 +0000, JPB
<news{@}europa{.}demon{.}co{.}uk> wrote:


Copyright infringement is not theft. It is not theft. Let's be clear
about this, copyright infringement is *not* theft. (this bears
repeating!)

Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is -
apart from the obvious fact that it sounds terrible and thus gives the
Pigopoly an excuse for a Draconian clampdown? And why you think it is
not? I'll get you started, the law is different even to the extent
that theft is a crime but copyright infringement is a civil matter.
But why, in principle, is it different?


Let me help, before you are drawn completely into each others fantasy
world: you are of course wrong. Copyright infringement is indeed a
criminal matter, as well as being a civil matter, and if you are
prosecuted for uploading lots of tracks you face paying a large fine.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_7.htm#mdiv107


Has small-scale non-commercial private copying historically been a criminal
or a civil matter? Widescale uploading is (arguably!) a different animal,
as is commercial counterfeiting and fraud.

Now, why is it arguably theft? Because if a music publisher invests money
in producing and marketing a CD, it needs to recoup its outlay by selling
the CD to as many gullible fashion-conscious youngsters as it can. If they
all give copies of the tracks to each other instead of buying the music,
it is like climbing over a fence and watching a concert for free, and then
doing it again and again, every time they play the track.

Not that I am making moral judgments. I use Limewire myself.

Still not theft, whatever else illegal or otherwise it may be, for reasons
discussed elsewhere in the thread.

The criminalisation of what was not previously so, in various jurisdictions
around the world is one of the things we take issue with. I now will not
access conventional copyrighted "legal downloads" with their DRM nonsense,
and in fact am not really interested in playing the game according to the
old rules of copyright. The nice thing is that it's not necessary to just
go and blatantly break the law in the attempt to change it, because
copyleft provides a convenient way to subvert conventional copyright and
play by different rules, while remaining entirely legal under the current
framework.

Oh, and by the way - the argument you make about the music publisher
recouping their outlay used to make sense before the digital age, and
copyright perhaps made sense a hundred years ago. The economics has
changed, however, because the technical means exists for the music to be
provided by download AT ZERO COST to the publisher, with the recipients
supplying the physical media, the case, the transmission bandwidth, the
liner notes, the advertising, the whole caboodle.

So the middleman is now an optional extra, not a requirement, which is why
they have changed from being a value-added agent to a parasite desperately
trying to cling on to a revenue stream that suddenly only represents
make-work without intrinsic value. The ONLY charge that might be reasonable
for a wholly downloaded track handled entirely by the recipient might be
the author's royalty, and how much of a CD's price (or even an iTunes
track?) does that come to?

We won't pay the middleman money for make-work as well, and their greed in
continuing to demand it is what will kill copyright, because if we must
overturn copyright to put a stop to them then so be it.

--
JPB
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads
    ... Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is - ... and that copyright infringement is theft when it is not. ... theft and physical property might be, because it wouldn't make sense any ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads
    ... Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is - ... and unauthorised counterfeiting for commercial copying. ... and that copyright infringement is theft when it is not. ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads
    ... Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is - ... that theft is a crime but copyright infringement is a civil matter. ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads
    ... Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is - ... that theft is a crime but copyright infringement is a civil matter. ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: BBC tell whoppers on downloads
    ... Rather than repeating it, can you enlarge on why people think it is - ... that theft is a crime but copyright infringement is a civil matter. ... You have NOT been deprived of your goods = NOT ...
    (uk.legal)
Loading