The only real reason it's different is because the Supreme Court stymied the movie studios attempts to make taping television shows with VCRs illegal. Had the movie studios had their way, consumer VCRs would be illegal. And, as we've seen, the VCR has certainly hastened the death of the movie studios and television networks. If only they could've found a way to defeat the VCR instead of making billions of dollars off of it, I'm sure their stockholders would be far happier. Why? Because short-sightedness pays! The irony, to me anyway, is that it's the same companies that thought the VCR was going to kill their business that are going after music file sharing now.
Ever since I found out artists only get a fraction of what I pay for the CDs, I promptly stopped buying. That was 6 years ago. Before MP3 came out and before broadband. If my memory serves me right, weren't some major music labels prostitued & convicted of price-fixing sometime ago? BTW, bobrek, you do know it only takes a few clicks to record radio songs onto harddisk drive, and then batch convert them to MP3 format, right?
this is an interesting point to me...the idea that i can tape it off the radio in the very same way...i've still "captured" the song without paying for it. i'm having a hard time finding the distinction. it seems the only difference is the medium.
....so, this probably isn't the best time to ask for a raise in her allowance... Oh well, this is probably best for her anyways. One week, she's downloading a Britney Spears song, then she moves on to stealing CDs from a store...Before you know it, she'll be giving a guy on a street corner a blowjob for smack. It's a downward spiral, I tell ya...
I think the main distinction would be that the radio stations have paid a nominal fee to play the music...Im not positive on this point tho, so I am open to corrections. I still cant believe they went after a 12 yr old who probably didnt even realize that she was doing wrong. After all, to a 12 yr old, if everyone is doing it, how could it be illegal? I know that when my kids were that age, they had zero interest in the news, unless we told them about world events, they wouldnt know.
Exactly. Whats the freaking difference? Same thing goes for making a dub copy of a cassette tape your buddy has, burning CD's, and buying USED CD's, or recording a movie off of TV. What the hell is the difference? Is there a difference? Its the same concept. Im not paying for a cassette or CD because my buddy bought it and I am going to copy it, does that make me a thief?!?!?!? I didnt pay for it you know...... I only paid for the blank CD. Im going to record a VHS copy of Ghostbusters off of HBO, does that make me a criminal? I never paid for the movie Ghostbusters, yet I get to watch it over and over again because I have a VCR. Im going to buy a used CD off of EBAY for $6 rather than buy it at Best Buy for $13. Does that mean Im stealing?!?!? And am I ripping off the artist by not buying the CD brand new??? Why dont they go after the manufacturers of VCR's DVD recorders, and CD Burners you ask????? Oh wait thats right...... BECAUSE THEY WOULD LOSE!!!!!.
And what you described is perfectly legal. Anyone can tape a song from a radio and keep it for their own use. You can convert it to whatever you want
i'm pretty sure that's not true. they're given a butt load of music by the record companies to be played.
In the eyes of the law, yes that makes you a thief. This is perfectly legal. The airwaves are free. It becomes illegal if you sell it to someone or charge people to watch it. This is perfectly legal because the other person is essentially transferring his ownership of the music over to you. It becomes illegal if the other person has made a copy of the CD prior to selling it to you. Of course they would lose, DVD burners and CD burners have perfectly legal uses. Just the other day I created a DVD from a video tape I had made when we were at Disneyworld. I have made backups of my data to CD and DVD. I have created compilation CDs from music that I own.
i don't think that's right. i remember studying this stuff a bit in a criminal law seminar class i took my last year of law school. just copying a cd without a commercial intent to distribute doesn't make you a criminal, if i remember right. there's a magic number of copies you can make, if i remember right, before it becomes a criminal act.
Here is my idea: Someone should start a .com clearing house for CDs. Example: I buy a CD @ Best Buy. Make a copy of it for myself (legal), then send the original CD to this .com company for pennies on the dollar ($1.00 maybe?). This company then sells it to someone for say, $2.00. The buyer then makes a copy for himself and sends it back to the .com company. Wash Rinse Repeat People still pay only a couple of bucks for a full CD and the RIAA doesn't see a dime except from the original purchaser. Would all this not be legal (Madmax)???
I don't know if it's legal...but I like it!!! Of course, no one wants to be the sucker who bought it first and paid full price. Retail is for suckers! Honestly, I don't know much about copyright law.
Yeah, thats true! The logistics might be a little complicated. However, incentives could be put in place to make it worth while (i.e. a credit system; a person has to sell the .com 1 new CD for the privelege of buying 5 used ones back). This all has to be legal because people sell and buy used CDs all the time. EDIT: I just re-read bobrek's post, so sratch my idea (i.e. its illegal to copy before selling). There has to be a way .................................
as you should. carry on. (my goal in life is to beat you to the next seinfeld reference...that's a 24/7 job for me)
Here is an interesting web site which contains answers to a lot of the questions posed here and in other MP3 threads: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright2.html This page in particular answers questions about the difference in copying from the airwaves and from a P2P network. It also touches on the "copying a friend's CD" question: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/june03/copyright9a.html
What about doing it without computers whatsoever? Start up 2 businesses, one being a CD store, one being a used CD store that offers free disc-copying stations in-store. Have them next door to eachother with a walkthrough area between, a la Starbucks-Barnes & Noble. Customers could buy the CDs at the CD store next door, or any other CD store...who cares. Then anybody could come in, use the free disc copying stations to copy whatever CD they wanted (you have to buy your own blank discs though). But the benefit of having the tandem thing is you get a free "CD club honorary membership" through buying them at the next door shop. You buy a CD there, you get a coupon to do up to 5 used CD exchanges at the used shop. This is getting kind of hard to explain, but if you can follow me, I'm trying to work out a scheme where there are actually stores. Because if you sold $2.00 almost unused CDs through a .com, you'd have to be counting on the purchaser to send the CD back when they were done copying it. If it was all done inside one store, it would be easier to assure that you would get your partially used CD back after you sold it at such a cheap price. And it would also bolster the sales at the store next door. And the used shop/disc-copying place would be guaranteed to sell a whole bunch of blank discs. Oh, and for non-CD club members, shelf price for used CDs would be comparable to that of Wherehouse Music used CDs. And buyback would be for a lesser price.
It is still breaking the copyright law. While they're at it, have them buy a book at the Barnes and Noble, and then copy it on a copy machine and give out the copies.
No, what I mean to say is the customer keeps the copies, not the store. Like buying a book at B & N, copying it at Kinko's next door, and selling the original back to the Barnes and Noble because of some incentive program. That way the market would get more flooded with used books and prices on used would drop, so prices on new would have to drop in order to keep up.
