Community Newsletter: Q&A: Is peer-to-peer software such as LimeWire legal and safe to use?
- 3/23/07 12:14 PM
Nature?
by mattumanu - 3/17/07 7:43 AM In reply to: Legitimately sold to your neighbor while YOU get it for free by com2pc>>It is the nature of the World Wide WEB / Internet / Cyberspace...!! <<
No, it's the nature of mankind to take a good thing and turn into a bad thing. By the arguments set forth by people who want a free ride, since digital/digitized child porn only exists as a file on any given number of computers and doesn't have a PHYSICAL reality, it should be ok to have it. I mean, afterall, no ADDITIONAL children are harmed by downloading it and viewing.
Not only is the morally unjustifiable, it's philosophically naive. The file needs to exist on a physical harddrive as magnetic particles arranged in a series of zeros and ones that represent the original product (or on a flash memory as series of switches set up in the same manner). It is a physical item, period. You might not understand it, but it is.
The media I bought
by verdyp - 3/17/07 5:42 PM In reply to: Nature? by mattumanuThe media I bought and that I can't read have also existed physically somewhere. it's not because I can't read it anymore on the support media, that the media ceases to exist, so the information is still there, just inaccessible. I have not only paid for the product but first to have the possibility and right to use it.
So what I am recovering from a P2P network is not the product itself, but this right to use it. And this is exactly that immaterial thing that a licence granted me, and that I have paid for.
By itself a download is illegal. If you think it is illegal, because it is physical and made of electron, then you say that I am stealing the electrons. this is stupid, because I also pay for the electricity used to make this download stupid.
No. donwloads are not material. The legality of the download is not measured in terms of the number of electrons that go on wire! IT is only a matter of fairness of exchanges: money given (= a share of work time) against a right to use. It's one contract against another. The licence on software or music is a right to use. Period.
There's no physical product involved here (unless the paid cost includes the support media itself). With your reasons, even the paid online downloads would be illegal because it steals electrons to the original author...
More morality
by ScottDamery - 3/17/07 5:28 PM In reply to: Morality by eric90230Am I the only one who has borrowed or even been given music from a friend without purchasing it and sending royalties to the copyright owners?
Ever since I bought my first record, I have been letting friends take it to listen when they didn't have the music and I would use their records and tapes. No money exchanged hands so no one was making a monetary profit from the exchange of music however the record industry wants us to pay for each time the record makes its way to a new set of ears?
Does that mean if I play it at a party in my own house to people who don't have the cd then I need to collect a royalty or pay it myself to the record company?
The whole thing is WACK and just about money grubbers. Artist use to create and share with others and sometimes make a buck but they were always known as starving artist. Somewhere money makers got involved and made a buck but the times they are changing ...again.
distinctions
by joyce36_ca - 3/19/07 12:04 PM In reply to: More morality by ScottDamerySharing the *sound* of music via the medium of air is not the same as sharing the content itself via some other sort of medium such as a computer network. I realize the distinction is lost on those desperate to justify piracy but it remains valid nonetheless.
If I simply play music for you in my home using content I've licensed, you don't leave my home with that content. If, however, I send you a digital copy that is a different story.
Really, if you guys are going to argue the issue, think it through before posting.
On the issue of trading music......
by SteelMountaineer - 3/16/07 5:39 PM In reply to: Limewire itself is not illegal, but, (and it’s a *big* but)… by MarkFlax
I was just wondering, and not offering any opinion for or against sharing music, if it is illegal or immoral to record the music I listen to over the radio (My old cassette tape deck records from the radio) or from the digital music that I get from my cable provider (My Nakamichi Dragon tape deck is capable of recording "what u hear" from my amplifier - the same as my boom box). I personally don't think it's immoral to record "what u hear" over the airwaves or cable, but wonder how this compares, in everyone's opinion, to sharing music files over the internet.
Thanks for your thoughts. You can e-mail me directly with responses at SteelMountaineer@steelersfan.net.
Jim
Thats taken care of...
by snerk - 3/17/07 12:27 AM In reply to: On the issue of trading music...... by SteelMountaineerThe cost of recording devices include a nominal fee to cover the royalties of recorded media.
There was no issue in the 60's & 70's
by Starflite115 - 3/16/07 9:47 PM In reply to: Limewire itself is not illegal, but, (and it’s a *big* but)… by MarkFlax
I recored all of the songs that I desired for free off the radio. You could even call the radio station and they would play all your request. All recording for free. When you purchase a CD doesn't it become your property? Then why can't I loan it to my friend or he/she loans me theirs? I believe it's all about greed. The insurance companies poor mouth when a disaster hits. Then the following year they report making $5.4 billion dollars? The oil companies fixing prices, no more gas wars like in the late 60's and 70's. I guess the big boys own congress. Now the big record labels are telling us what to do with our CD's? All of the stores have the latest CD's, seems like sales are going good or they wouldn't buy them. Nobody stays in business to loose money!
"SEEMS like sales are going good"
by David Eaton Productions - 3/17/07 8:15 AM In reply to: There was no issue in the 60's & 70's by Starflite115How can you say that when Tower Records and Wherehouse Records, two of the best retail shops, have gone out of business?
I was traveling to Houston last year and needed a record. I wasn't able to find a record store within 20 miles.
Are the recording industry Execs the cause of P2P sharing?
by alarmlv - 3/17/07 12:30 PM In reply to: "SEEMS like sales are going good" by David Eaton ProductionsPerhaps while their ***** were merging with the armor-all'd leather high back chairs up in their crystal cathedrals of reality isolation, they did'nt notice that he consumer no longer wants to spend $20 on a plastic donut that might only have 2 or 3 good songs on it, much less have to drive & get it. It absolutely incenses them that the power to shape & create the methods of music production and sales is rapidly slipping out of their hands. Instead of being market savvy & figuring out how to create a win-win situation for everyone, they choose to maintain their "father knows Best" attitude & uses the RIAA as thugs to enforce "business as usual". Maybe when their done being overly consumed by their own self importance they'll notice the hundreds of thousands "peasant consumers" marching towards their buildings with lighted torches in hand. Understand Mr. Executive that the power lies with the people now, You are merely roadkill on the highway of evolution. You have 2 choices: Get with the program or get gone.
Records now online
by verdyp - 3/17/07 6:00 PM In reply to: "SEEMS like sales are going good" by David Eaton ProductionsYou can't find those record sellers, only because they have decided that it was more profitable for them to perform online sales (so they have fired their personal, and now make much more cumfortable margins by just paying a few guys to sell their products worldwide without having to manage stored everywhere).
Really, if those stores are disappearing, it's not because of P2P, but because of the Internet. Also because their products can also be made profitable by many other ways, with derived products.
Look at the explosion of sales of musical phone rings: why are so many people stupid to pay so much for a very short extract of poor quality on their phones? Isn't it new money generated for the music records?
There are better products than CDs. Remember that vinyl records have almost disappeared (except for very high quality products used by professionals). Remember that tapes have disappeared. CDs are disappearing in favor of DVD.
Soon, broadcast radios will disappear too, in favor of Internet radios. Analog broadcast TV is disappearing in favor of digital broadcast TV, and later this will also disappear in favor of Internet TV too. Preprogrammed channels will disappear in favor of personalized interactive pay TV.
All things happear, go, transform themselves, and disappear... but the creation remains and adapts to the new medias; this is just happening more frequently now than in the past (where technological evolutions took several generations), so the businesses need to adapt faster or will suffer a lot.
In reality, there has never been so many people (hundred of millions!) living from arts and creation than today. The reaction of music labels and cinema studios is stupid: they don't want to change their business model and are accusing the customers, but refuse to see how much the technological changes have changed the way the market works now. Only their allsic markets are turning into niches if they don't adapt. But artists and creators can find their way without them.
Some pretty good points, however...
by David Eaton Productions - 3/18/07 12:00 AM In reply to: Records now online by verdypverdyp, you and alarmlv make some excellent points. The record labels have quite slow to react to the new opportunities that the digital age has provided, as they have not been quite sure where they fit in. From a “stick it to The Man” perspective, it is kind of fun to finally have some power over them!
And yes, media tends to change through the years - whether records to cassettes to cd's; or broadcast tv to cable to digital to interactive PAY tv (notice that you didn’t say ‘interactive FREE tv.’) Time marches on and you can’t stop technology.
But here is the BIG difference in the latest step to P2P - this is the first time the ‘improved technology’ has removed the income stream! When our favorite albums were available on CD, we bought new copies. Record Companies LOVED that, but forget the greedy record corporations for a moment. With P2P, the pay that Artists and Producers depend on (from record sales) no longer exists. The people being robbed from free downloading are the Artist and Producer (both are paid on record S ALES, regardless of whether they are their own record label, or signed to someone else) How long would you do your job if you were not going to get paid?
You state that retail stores have often closed in favor of online versions that are more profitable. You are suggesting that the CD sales are merely transferring to online outlets. If that is the case, the sold cd’s will still show up as "sales" on sales reports. In 2005-2006, CD and download sales DROPPED over 6%. This has been a trend since the beginning of P2P. See the RIAA report below:
http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2006midYrStats.pdf
Recent news reports claim legal downloads as only 10% of all downloads.
Ring tones are a great source of income for those who get their music heard enough to create fans. Many new sites are making that process easier for young acts, and the Internet is invaluable tool that is to be celebrated. I do not think the revenue from ring tones is anywhere near enough to compensate for all the income lost to free downloading. If you know otherwise, I’m happy to listen.
You state that “here has never been so many people (hundred of millions!) living from arts and creation than today.” I do believe that more people are releasing music than ever before, with great help from the Internet and affordable home recording gear. But, ‘hundreds of millions making a living?’ Every musician that I have produced over the last 10 years has a day job. You might want to run the numbers on that one again.
In essence, your point seems to be that the traditional record company business model is over, and we are all the better for it. There is some truth in that. However, P2P users need to be educated to the fact that when they do not pay for the music, it is the same as taking the fruit from a tree but never giving it any water. It will do fine for a while, but over time, it will stop producing.
bewae of statistics
by verdyp - 3/18/07 12:45 AM In reply to: Some pretty good points, however... by David Eaton ProductionsYou say:
"You are suggesting that the CD sales are merely transferring to online outlets. If that is the case, the sold cd’s will still show up as "sales" on sales reports. In 2005-2006, CD and download sales DROPPED over 6%. This has been a trend since the beginning of P2P. See the RIAA report below:"
In reality, this statistic is not measuring all the many titles that major companies have kept for themselves and refuse to market. With much less titles available now, despite these titles were available some time ago, they have organized the penury of titles.
Look at the statistics of titles effectively most downloaded on P2P networks. People go there to find the best titles that have disappeared from markets.
And it is true that most CD shops that have disappeared are those independant shops that were forced to buy the catalog of majors at prohibitive prices.
And now that independant shops have nearly disappeared (due to anticompetitive practices), the exclusive distribution shops are closing or severely reducing their size and number of titles only to distribute the latest productions of majors. Open a printed titles catalog in a shop and try to ask to the vendor if you can get a copy of some excellent work produced by other studios or producers. They will say that the title is unavailable to them, or that the product is out of production. These products cannot even be found in online shops.
We are then only given the same limited offer with lots of crap titles sold with the CDs. But majors have enormous catalogs of titles that they do not provide now. Listen at those artists that have been fired by majors, and that have to initiate suites to their majors just to get back their own works and author's rights! Or those that are prosecuted by their past producers, because they have restarted to produce their own work, but their past contract still requires them to give exclusive distribution rights for years!
Majors are even forbidding artists that they have fired to continue to work independantly: majors will immediately prosecute the smaller labels created by independant artists. Artists have the right to work but only if they work alone (they can't sign with any other producer, and are forbiddent to sing their own past titles with which they have been known: artists have to pay their past labels!) I call this stituation slavery.
But majors are also abusing customers by forcing them to buy the same product multiple times, and by adding technical fences against their right of making and using personal backups.
I take an example: Virgin Records, who own artists, and the shops that distribute them, is closing its shops in favor of their own exclusive online shops, but the titles available online are much less rich than what was available in their street shops. They are even MORE expensive than past CDs if you want to get the same right to private backups. And if you want to play those music titles, you have to use a PC, with required Internet Explorer and required Windows MEdia Player, and required online activation only with the PC where you'll be allowed to create a CD backup.
But, the same Virgin Records is also limiting the kind of CD writer that works with Media Player. And the CD backup that is created only offers very poor quality (effectively: 48kbps simulated stereo, instead of full 44.1kHZ*16bit*2 on standard CDA). Their online sale shop says that you can create as many backup as needed, but in fact, they do not maintain a personal portfolio of the licences you have bought: the bought titles can only be retreived online within a limited time of 1 or 2 months, after that time, you can no longer activate your MP3 download which is encrypted with DRM and can't be transfered anywhere.
You cannot transfer the download on any MP3 player that is not certifred by Microsoft, but even certified players do not work. When asked at their online support, they just propose to try downloading the same title again, with the same activation algorithm that requires the same bous activation component that rejects all transfers to CDs or MP3 players.
In such situation, which I have experienced on all other online shops, you have no other option than keeping your proof of purchase, but then downloading a working copy from a P2P network; note that the licence sold by Virgin permits unlimited number of transfers (so there's no limitation on the number of private copies you can keep for personal usage). I will download those titles without any hesitation from P2P, because:
* they have better quality when burnt to a CD
* they work on my PC
* they work on my MP3 player
* I can play it in my car
* I can play it somewhere else than on my home PC with its crappy sound
* I have the right to do that, I paid a licence and can prove it.
* I keep my proof of purchase scrupulously (the email with the download link, and the reference of the payment with my bank accounting.)
Consequence: I can still buy titles online, but I don't use those protected downloads that don't work and have poor quality (something that is not said by those merchants that lie about the quality because they use the term "Buy CD", which implies equivalent quality to CD). I download those titles from P2P, it is my backup solution each time a vendor restricts my rights more than what I have paid for, and what the law provides me, given that the copy I will get will be on a support for which I have also paid the backup tax.
bad reasoning
by joyce36_ca - 3/19/07 12:07 PM In reply to: There was no issue in the 60's & 70's by Starflite115See my other reply on this subject. Your reasoning is flawed. Recording off the air for personal use has been deemed legal (and as another poster correctly stated, there have been provisions for royalties made in some cases). While the CD is your property, the *content* on it is not. It is copyrighted... something it seems many people just flat are not even trying to udnerstand.
MARK!! You have >The STARVING ARTIST SYNDROME
by com2pc - 3/16/07 10:34 PM In reply to: Limewire itself is not illegal, but, (and it’s a *big* but)… by MarkFlax
AGAIN I SAY 20th Century FOX DOES NOT OWN or have any RIGHTS to any DIGIAL File on MY OR YOUR, NOR anyone else's P C!! A N D They are NOT LOSING any Money , they simply continue to get RICHER. It is My opinion and it is OPINION ONLY, that Once a file becomes DIGITAL on ANYONES P C .. It can No Longer be considered the sole intellectual Copyrighted material of ANY O N E ! And Once it becomes watered down Further by existing on hundreds of thousands of P C's It becomes the PROPERTY of all those Who possess it. Think of it This way... You have a Penny ( hopefully a few) In Your pocket.. they are minted by and according to the UNITED States Govt. belong to them!!! At the same time WHILE They are in YOUR pocket.....????? They belong to you and you have the right to spend them!! OR Share them with whomever You please!!!!! What is On YOUR P C Belongs to YOU Mark! What is on My P C belongs to ME!! If we Happen to choose to be on LIMWIRE and happen to share digital files?? Feel free to help Yourself! No one at 20th Century Fox will miss a meal!!
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