07-21-2009, 01:26 PM
(07-17-2009, 01:57 AM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote: I think the real question is whether it is stealing at all.Exactly!!!
I've said it before, but according to law stealing means taking property, making it unavailable to the original owner. This is a crime. Copying music or works protected by copyrights is a violation of copyright... Not a crime but a civil offense. And this is in the worst case scenario. Because there is a whole load of exceptions to this being an offense.
The original copyright laws were formed in France. England and later the US copied these laws. They were built around books. And it was carefully balanced to make sure that intellectual property was in the hands of the producers of the works. And that there could be no monopoly ever on copyrighted works. The point was to allow culture to be profitable without restricting it.
Right now. The vast majority of recently produced human culture is owned by a handful of companies...
Since copying their intellectual property is not a criminal offense, they cannot sue for legal punishment. They can only sue for damages. Damages are directly proportional to what the owner lost by the action of the offender. At least they're supposed to be. Being forced to pay millions for copying 24 songs from the internet is in itself criminal, it is cruel and unusual punishment. However they would like people to believe that this is perfectly normal behavior. That their multibillion dollar industry is suffering greatly at the hands of pirates. Which isn't true. They want us to believe that we cannot put their music in our home movies. They want us to believe we cannot make funny remixes of movies, and they want us to believe basically that we're only allowed to watch the movie or listen to the music. A right incidentally that in some DRM schemes they can take away at any moment.
Quote:Whether rock stars deserve to be paid that much is a whole 'nother issue! It's an indication of the skewed values of society that rock stars, actors, sports stars, etc. are paid disproportionately high amounts of $$. But I don't think it's really their fault as it is just a reflection of society.They should be paid, obviously. If we value their work they should receive the benefits for it. However, most of them don't get paid now. Most need full time day jobs to get access to their daily bread.
You buy albums from your favorite artist who happens to be a newbie but that you really like. So all your money goes to... The label's pet stars... Not to your artist. However we never hear about this part of the equation. It's always US that's stealing... Not them...
Human culture is free. It is a human birth right, it should not be owned by someone who just wants to extract money from it without adding any other benefit. We're not at that point yet but the last 10 years we've moved rapidly towards the point where singing a song you have no rights to can get you arrested... Even if it's just humming in an elevator full of colleagues.
Forgive my emotional outburst. It's like Rage against the Machine said "Believing all the lies that they're telling you, buying all the products that they're selling you." I'm bound by the laws of my country but not to just mindlessly believe that this is right or that it has more to do with justice than greed.