Has anybody else heard about this?

1) what is the net economic effect of this use? If it is that the band/songwriter gets more exposure, and is more in demand for another song writting gig or another concert, or more songs are being covered in bars paying royalties back to the ip holders, then they are probably making a lot more than they are losing, so the copying is helping them, not hurting them.

I agree with your point that much of the exposure is positive rather than negative. :)
2) If the net is in fact negative, which I am not ready to concede, to what extent is this a harm to the creative artists rather than a harm to the IP holder -- which are almost never the same. Frankly, I don't ever want to ever harm the artists, but in my view, the quicker we get these non-production, non-necessasry ancient media companies out from between artists and consumers, the quicker the artists will actually get a fair shake.

I agree that the creative artist should be protected. I also agree that some of the "in between" agencies are currently less than lovely. :) But I believe that there is a valid and necessary role for promoters, advertisers, publishers etc. They also deserve respect and consideration provided they do their job well. Unfortunately, many aspects of the music industry have now become the preserve of "accountancy driven" management styles. I'd like to see that die. :twisted: But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. All industries need a range of skills to make them work effectively.

3) Even if the net economic effect is negative and the harm is entirely shouldered by the artists, can we please drop the idea that copyright infringement is theft. Please. It's not. It's copyright infringment. No "property" changes hands in these cases. Making unlicensed use of electrons is not taking something material from one person's domain of exclusive use and transfering it illegally to another person. The IP holder may not have gotten every penny they're entitled to from licenses, but they had nothing of value taken from them that they have lost the use of. It's not theft.

Sorry, but I profoundly disagree with that. :(

It's the standard justification applied by copiers and pirates. "Oh, they didn't really lose anything. And I wouldn't have bought it anyway...."

"Copyright infringement" is a nice soft term for what is also called "Theft of Intellectual Property". The issue of a visible item is a red herring. Stealing an idea is still stealing even if you can't see the idea. The rightful owner has indeed had something of value taken from them. (I know, I've had it done to me!).

The principle of Theft of Intellectual Property applies to all sorts of endeavours, from scientific research, industrial R&D, authorship of written material, software code, industrial and graphic design, and a number of other areas.

If creators choose to allow free access to their work (The Grateful Dead encouraging fans to record concerts and share the music springs to mind) then that's great. But if they don't, then I think they are entitled to some protection, and they are aso entitled to be the ones who decide what is theft or unfair use of their output.

Of course, in real life, most people make decisions based on convenience to themselves, not along ethical lines. So many folks will keep on helping themselves without thought for the legal or moral owner, and will find ways of convincing themselves that they're helping make something popular, not doing any harm, just looking, not really taking anything, etc. :(

Including me in some instances of course. Not trying to sound like a saint here. :wink: Just pushing for a fair crack of the whip for people who have invested either time, money or talent into invisible "goods". :)

I believe that the real debate shouldn't be about how far we should all be allowed to rip others off, or whether record companies are even bigger swine than we are. It should be about how we can find a workable way of replacing an old fashioned and unwieldy system with one that gives a better deal to people whose output is creative rather than physically manufactured.

Cheers, Chris

"Copyright infringement" is a nice soft term for what is also called "Theft of Intellectual Property". The issue of a visible item is a red herring. Stealing an idea is still stealing even if you can't see the idea. The rightful owner has indeed had something of value taken from them. (I know, I've had it done to me!).

Um, no actually. Legal terms are very precise things as well as being very fluid. Laws are changing all the time as legislatures pass new laws and abolish old laws. Also judges are constantly interpreting the laws as created by legislatures. Infringement is a misuse, not a theft. Copyright infringement is the misuse of a copyright. Theft, legally speaking, is a criminal taking of the property or services of another without consent. That theft can be 'petty' -small or grand - large. And the argument continues. You'll remember that Sony wanted to kill Betamax way back in 1984 when the Supreme Court said sorry, betamax/vhs are legal. Sony said that the Betamax allowed for theft of tv programs and the court disagreed. Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting (an AOL Time Warner company) said that those who skip television commercials are 'thieves' Does that make it so? I don't think so and neither does the court. If AOL, RIAA or Sony say I'm a thief because I skip commercials, tape programs, copy the CD's I've bought does that make it so? I rather think not.

3) Even if the net economic effect is negative and the harm is entirely shouldered by the artists, can we please drop the idea that copyright infringement is theft. Please. It's not. It's copyright infringment. No "property" changes hands in these cases. Making unlicensed use of electrons is not taking something material from one person's domain of exclusive use and transfering it illegally to another person. The IP holder may not have gotten every penny they're entitled to from licenses, but they had nothing of value taken from them that they have lost the use of. It's not theft.

Sorry, but I profoundly disagree with that. :(

It's the standard justification applied by copiers and pirates. "Oh, they didn't really lose anything. And I wouldn't have bought it anyway...."

Sorry, but you need to read what I said again. You're paraphrase does not accurately reflect what I said.
"Copyright infringement" is a nice soft term for what is also called "Theft of Intellectual Property".

Yes. And it's hyperbolic language for those who are currently riding the wave of copyright, patent and other "IP" legislation into million dollar nest eggs while producing nothing. There are entire companies out there that do nothing but buy up patents and copyrights and then sit back and wait for some infringing idea to come along so they can sue for damages.

It's an amazingly profitable way to leech off of society but there's little we can do to curb it as long as we continue to discuss the issue it terms like "theft."

Copyright is specifically mentioned in the US Constitution. It's not mentioned along with property crimes. It is a grant of monopoly. It is not a property issue.

The conflagration of license and property is a legal quagmire from which there is no escape. As long as tje public allows the discourse to be carried out on those terms, the public will lose -- and the public is harmed when there is no more public domain (a situation we are currently in in a very real way with regard to copyright and which we are fast approaching with patents).
The issue of a visible item is a red herring.

No. It's not. Theft is a property crime. Violating a license is a contract crime. They are not the same thing.
Stealing an idea is still stealing even if you can't see the idea. The rightful owner has indeed had something of value taken from them. (I know, I've had it done to me!).

Actually, ideas are not copyrightable and used to not be patentable. Expressions of ideas are.

That distinction is very much material to the discussion and should not be forgotten.
The principle of Theft of Intellectual Property applies to all sorts of endeavours, from scientific research, industrial R&D, authorship of written material, software code, industrial and graphic design, and a number of other areas.

Yes. Which is why copyright attaches the moment and idea is put into a concrete form. But here again, copyright brings license rights, not property rights.
If creators choose to allow free access to their work (The Grateful Dead encouraging fans to record concerts and share the music springs to mind) then that's great. But if they don't, then I think they are entitled to some protection, and they are aso entitled to be the ones who decide what is theft or unfair use of their output.

I have not argued that there should not be copyright. However, protection in perpituity is not "some protection" it is wholesale privation of the public domain.
So many folks will keep on helping themselves without thought for the legal or moral owner, and will find ways of convincing themselves that they're helping make something popular, not doing any harm, just looking, not really taking anything, etc. :(

The question of harm is one that hasn't been well answered in many areas. However, there is real harm in privation of the public domain. The fact that the culture of an entire generation will never enter the public trust is a harm, regardless of if the powers that be recognize that or not.

My point is that it is not a property crime. It is a violation of a license contract. It is a contract crime.
I believe that the real debate shouldn't be about how far we should all be allowed to rip others off, or whether record companies are even bigger swine than we are. It should be about how we can find a workable way of replacing an old fashioned and unwieldy system with one that gives a better deal to people whose output is creative rather than physically manufactured.

I'll meet you half-way here. The real debate should be about public good. The PURPOSE of copyright and patent law is to enrich the public by enticing artists and others to create works which, after a limited time enter the public domain and thus enrich the culture. Oddly enough, the history of that little clause in the Constitution was in a direct reaction against the printer guilds of England who held licenses on nearly all forms of expression and who basically owned the written culture because of those grants.

In forgetting that past, we've recreated it.

:D

Nice debate. 8)

I accept the corrections on law and terminology made by Gadlaw (I was hoping you'd pitch in) and by KP. :) But whatever the words we use, I believe that we all know perfectly well that pirating music and software amounts to pinching something. Whether it's a theft, a violation or just a rip off, there does seem to be agreement that it's a crime of some kind. :(

I shall continue to pay for what I think is fair and reasonable. I won't be side-tracked by telling myself that it's OK because some of the parties involved in the industries are themselves somewhat deficient in the ethics department. The old "two wrongs don't make a right" thing. :) And I'm sure many others will continue to rip off whatever they can.

But beware - one day me an' de boys wil be round to collect, on the basis that we've been propping up your naughty habits all these years... :twisted: :twisted:
The fact that the culture of an entire generation will never enter the public trust is a harm, regardless of if the powers that be recognize that or not.

Personally, far from being harmful or tragic, I would see it as a cultural blessing if the entire contents of the current pop charts were suppressed for all eternity. Some of this stuff could potentially be poisoning our planet for millennnia to come. What's the half-life of a Rap song? :twisted: :P

Anyway, what suggestions do we all have for a better, fairer system??

We mostly seem to respect the idea of creative people being able to get fair reward for their work and their ideas. But we also seem to want it on the cheap from a personal perspective.

Where's the balancing point and how do we practically set it?

(Send $20 in a plain brown envelope and I'll licence you to view MY ideas on the subject.... :wink: )

Cheers, Chris
Self Declared Saint of Software and Music Purchase (well, quite often anyway...)

I liked Greybeard's idea. Boycott buying music for a month, get them to lower prices on CD's. I remember they tried that here on long island, except with Gas... "Don't buy Gas this day" -Why not? "Because we'll stick it to the gas companies, and then the next day, we'll buy twice as much as usual" :lol: Ok, it didn't work in that case, cause gas is a necesisty, but buying CD's ain't. If you could get the whole world to agree to do this for a certain period, it'd be great...Either way, someone has to show the musc industry who is boss. I think the super stars should, ya know? Guys like Clapton, The Who, Sir Paul, Elton john, U2, The Stones, heck, even the big pop artists like Britney and whoever. They are really in a posistion to change the way things are done...

:D

I shall continue to pay for what I think is fair and reasonable. I won't be side-tracked by telling myself that it's OK because some of the parties involved in the industries are themselves somewhat deficient in the ethics department. The old "two wrongs don't make a right" thing. :) And I'm sure many others will continue to rip off whatever they can.

To be clear, I'm in no way advocating breaking the law. I'm merely pointing out why I think it's a bad law.
We mostly seem to respect the idea of creative people being able to get fair reward for their work and their ideas. But we also seem to want it on the cheap from a personal perspective.

Where's the balancing point and how do we practically set it?

To me the price point of CD's, music, movies, etc., is an entirely specious question. The price will be whatever the publishers decide they want and the consumers decide they'll pay. To me it is a far more serious question of when and how do works enter the public domain. That question is far more important from a cultural perspective.

Sure we all want to be paid for our efforts, and we all should be paid for our efforts. But do people honestly think that AA Milne's grand-daughter should be owed $150 million in royalties because her grandfather wrote a book for his son? Winnie The Pooh was published October 14th, 1926. That is 40 years before I was born. It's copyright will not expire under current law until well after I'm dead.

The US Constitution grants the legislature the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

How "limited times" became "in perpituity for the author and their progeny out for 4 generations" is an interesting read into the history of the coporate take-over of the world.

Hell fire, the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday," first published in 1893 as "Good Morning To All," is still in effect under U.S. copyright law and belongs to AOL/Time/Warner.

That's why you have waiters come out clapping and doing cheers for brithdays. The restaurants don't want to have to pay royalties to AOL/TimeWarner for singing "Happy Birthday" to diners.

This is truly wrong. As has been said, it's not protecting authors' intellectual property, it's establishing a monopoly in perpetuity and impoverishing our culture.
:x

"But beware - one day me an' de boys wil be round to collect, on the basis that we've been propping up your naughty habits all these years... "

i trust you'll give us a heads up before you come to serve the warrent?

i trust you'll give us a heads up before you come to serve the warrent?

:D

I believe that a horse's head is traditional... :twisted:

Some good points above. :D

But to get back to where we started:

1. Should people be effectively ripping off sheet music by downloading free TABs instead of buying it legally?

2. Should people be ripping off whole performances by downloading MP3s through file sharing instead of paying for them?

I believe that the answer is no is both cases. No matter what you call it, or how you justify it, it seems like stealing to me. I download both so that I can evaluate whether I want to take it further or not. If I like what I hear I pay for it by buying the CD or a song sheet/book. Seems simple, fair and honest to me.

Frankly, I'm disappointed that nobody seems to have given this straightforward view any support. I'm not talking about automatic obedience to US copyright laws or the Constitution. Something like 95% of the world doesn't live in the USA, and it seems that those that do apparently aren't that concerned about the laws anyway. What I'm talking about is basic ethics, and the fact that ripping stuff off seems to have become the norm. :(

I'd certainly applaud good reforms in the way that music is protected, priced and promoted. But I'd like to see such reforms provide a fair and simple way of delivery that both encourages the user to pay a reasonable price and also strengthens the rights of the creators.

I'd like to see more respect and reward for what musicians and song writers produce. And part of this is that I'm personally prepared to pay for what I use and enjoy. Sure, a tiny minority may make absurd amounts of money but the average working musician or writer does not.

I think that too many of us are being distracted by stories that big companies are indulging in practices we don't like, or bending rules to suit themelves. Or we tell ourselves that the artist already made heaps anyway and won't miss our contribution. This somehow gets used as a justification to act in an even less admirable manner by not paying for anything at all. To me this seems like abandoning our own ethics, or simply not bothering to develop or apply any in the first place. :(

If musicians and would be musicians like those who visit GN won't take a lead in suporting the rights of song-writers and performers - by paying for what we use - then who will?

Yes, I've stolen work like this in the past (beats chest and wails.....) although I've mostly paid my way. But I've now made a decision not to casually pinch stuff because it's easy to do so.

Some will say "More fool you!", but it seems right to me. Please at least consider paying for the next song you want rather than ripping it off. :D

Cheers, Chris

Chris_C:

Is it against the law, yes.

Is it straightforwards "ripping off the artists?" No.

If I download a Tab to a Django Reinhardt tune, for example, it's very unclear to me how I am in anyway hurting the guy. He's been dead since 1953.

Oh, and for a point of clarification. In my state, if I were to steal a CD -- you know, actually deprive someone of a sale by taking the item being sold -- which is a real and measurable harm -- I'd be punishable by a maximum of a fine of $300. It is a petty misdemeanor that will in no way effect my ability to be employed by anyone.

If I infringe the copyright of that same song by downloading an MP3, which is far less clearly a measurable harm, I'm liable for a fine of up to $250,000 and 3 years in jail, plus civil penalties. This is a felony, which means I'd probably no longer be employed by the financial company that employes me.

When you say that I'd like to see more respect and reward for what musicians and song writers produce. You echo my own feelings on the matter. That can't happen so long as copyright law remains viewed as an "intellectual property" issue. For in this context, the artist's creative work can be "owned" by someone other than the artist. And most often is.

Guys like Clapton, The Who, Sir Paul, Elton john, U2, The Stones, heck, even the big pop artists like Britney and whoever. They are really in a posistion to change the way things are done...

The trouble is that the system got these guys where they are now, so they'll be the last ones to get interested in doing anything to change that system.

Too many vested interests in maintaining the status quo, and other old rockers.

Best,

A :-)

Most tabs are done by university students purely on academic basis (visit olga.net for more)So there is no wrong in people using them.

i don't know why sony-bmg and maybe riaa or any other musical society is cringing about this whole issue.

i don't know why sony-bmg and maybe riaa or any other musical society is cringing about this whole issue.

it's not because they are trying to protect any artists interests, maybe it's $$$$$$$$$$$?

i don't know why sony-bmg and maybe riaa or any other musical society is cringing about this whole issue.

it's not because they are trying to protect any artists interests, maybe it's $$$$$$$$$$$?

I'll give you an amen on that one brother, AMEN!