Shoplifting vs. Downloading

[LNielsen76]

I have been following the comments of the webmaster on RIAA issues as well as fines and incarceration times associated with those issues. Is it just me or are there others who agree that it is just ridiculous to impose fines and sentences that are astronomically greater for downloading and sharing music/movies than those associated with shoplifting from your local retailer!? Now, I am not condoning theft from our local retailers just because offenders will get a $500 dollar fine instead of a $150,000-250,000 fine or 100 hours community service in place of a 3 year sentence. Nevertheless, I think the Record companies and Movie industry would rather see it happening. WHY? Because the retailer takes the loss in place of themselves.

Am I the only one who thinks this way? I certainly would not want to monopolize or brain wash the thought process of any kids who might read this post with my propaganda! Correct me if I am wrong.

[Kedirekin]

The industry isn't going after the people that download. They're going after the people that share songs.

From their point of view, the person sharing the songs isn't a shop lifter. Their more like a traditional pirate, making copies and distributing them en-mass. Of course the paradigm breaks because the person sharing isn't making the copies themselves, and there's no profit. But I think that does explain why the industry feels justified with these huge fines and jail times.

For myself, I think it's all ludicrous. The intent to do crime just isn't there, especially considering that there's no profit. Unfortunately I fear the courts might decide to throw the book at a few of the poor schmucks the RIAA is suing.

From the industry's point of view, I doubt they think they have anything to loose - everyone already hates them as much as is possible. But I do hope this back fires on them.

I'm kind of hoping for a ground swell of a boycott; a really big one where not only do people stop buying from the labels, but refuse even to listen to any music from the labels (and if this hurts some artists, so be it).

Perhaps the industry would then wake up and realize that we customers can get by without the labels a lot better than the labels can get by without customers.

[Angelus]

Like what Doom9 had on the news for today, where there's a bill in the U.S. that prob will pass saying that any1 sharing/downloading any movie before it is released could be sent to jail for 3 years and fined up to $250,000. On Zdnet.com one of the users had a good comparison...If a man beats his wife, he'll get 30 days in prison for domestic abuse. But by clicking a couple buttons on the keyboard, you can get 3 years in prison and make new friends with Bubba. It seems that the severity of the crimes is skewed tremendously. And granted that the U.S. prison system is way TOO overcrowded now, how can they throw hundreds or thousands of ppl in jail for sharing files?

Angelus

[Doom9]

from a mere physical standpoint the two acts cannot be compared. In the case of shoplifting you are effectively creating a void in the shop's inventory, so they have a very real, quantifiable loss of money, which we don't have in case of copyright infringement.
Be it software, music or film industry, they'd like you to believe that everyone who makes an illegitimate copy (let's forget about the fact that they consider every copy to be illegal) would actually be willing and capable to pay the rightful price. Tell that to someone living in a 2nd or 3rd world country. They might have enough money to pay for Internet, or buy a pirate copy in a local market, but not enough for the real deal. And even if the money is around, you'd probably not get software X or get CD Y if you had to pay for it (maybe because the program/CD isn't worth the money they charge).
But that doesn't make it right, so we have a moral dilemma on our hands.

Now, copyright law was created to encourage people who create something of cultural value (there was no software when copyright law was created), so write a book for instance. With your work protected against unauthorized distribution, the author should get a fair recompensation for his/her efforts. The same idea also goes for copyright for modern things like software. However, in no way did the creators of that law want to create a vehicle to preserve an industry structure, or create a pay per use society. Thus, there were always some limits to the exclusive rights granted to an author of a copyrighted work. Those exclusions pertain to copying parts of a work for your own use, academic use, etc. So let's sum up: to further cultural creation.
However, nowadays those laws are extended with stuff like the DMCA which do not serve that goal anymore. In fact, now we're gearing up towards a creator-exclusive legislation, where all excemptions to the exclusive author rights are abolished (for instance, with CSS an academic institution is no longer allowed to use a part of a video for whatever purpose, which is clearly against the spirit in which copyright law was created), and which serves uniquely to preserve indistries as they are. Music and Movie industry have a distribution monopoly which they want to preserve at all cost. Even more, movie studios were actually forced out from a certain part of the distribution chain (they used to own studios until that practice was declared illegal a long while back) and they've never quite grown over this and still try to control the distribution chain as much as possible. A good example for this drive to control is the DIVX format. With that pay-per-use format they got the holy grail of control. Finally, they were able to know what products were consumed, where, how many times, where and when. Unless the DIVX masterserver okayed it, home movies could not be watched anymore. We know that any recordable medium has always been a problem for the content providers. The music industry was opposed to tapes, recordable CDs, MiniDisc and MP3. It turned out that tapes and CDs were not such bad business for them after all. The movie industry and TV stations were opposed to video cassette recorders and tried to ban them from the market (without success as we know). However, years later they were making more money from VHS sales than from theater tickets. And DVD was not uniquely welcomed, in fact several studios (let's point fingers: Disney (studio now indoctrinating children against P2P tools), Fox and Paramount) were pushing towards the full control (or big brother) DIVX scheme and their DVD offerings were either lackluster or inexistend (Fox was DIVX exclusive for a while, and the last to commit to any digital format). DIVX went belly up in 1999. 4 years later, DVD is definitely the hottest a/v format ever and studios are selling DVDs like crazy.
However, the DIVX scheme might have been scrapped, but the plan for total control remained. Now look at the digital music offering. The music industry was completely opposed to any online distribution and only recently have there been serious online music offerings. However, those, with the help of RIAA and MPAA paid off parlament members, are once again pushing for the total control scheme. What good is downloadable music if you can only play it on your PC. What if it crashes (my primary PC has been broken for 4 weeks now and the replacement hardware is slow to arrive), or you replace a part, or want to listen to the music somewhere else? With CDs and tapes you could simply make a copy for your car, your portable MD player or walkman, your cabin in the mountains, your secondary stereo and whatnot. But no, DRM chains music to your hardware. You can consider yourself lucky if you're even allowed to put music on a portable digital player (of course this only works with a limited number of brands, and while you may be able to connect those players to a PC or another device forget about transferring music), let alone burn something on a CD.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic (I wanted to write a long article about how copyright law is being twisted and no longer serves the goals towards which they were created for a long time, guess I just couldn't hold it in).

I'm wondering though, are there any limits to fines for shoplifting? Fines for copyright infringement have been outrageous ever since I can remember, but maybe that's why the industry is now trying to push the envelope. But if they want to equal shoplifting with downloading, then they should indeed push for similar fines as well or they come off as unreasonable (I guess we all agree they are unreasonable). In terms of damages, sharing can potentially cause more damage, but the flat fee damanges the industry wants is outrageous and blown out of proportions. According to the law, the plaintiff actually has to proove the damages to claim recompensation. Since this isn't exactly easy, the industry is even trying to push for legislation where the burden of proof is no longer up to the plaintiff, but to the accused, which completely goes against the bases of our legal system.

Now, this might be OT a bit again but I do have some examples of models that do work. For software, we know that the software industry is doing rather well despite piracy (but in that area the loss numbers are just as overblown.. not everybody can afford thousands of dollars of software). I know from my school, that collaborators could get licenses for popular software for a price where piracy simply didn't pay anymore. The once those people enter professional life, they will be more inclined to buy because they've a) done it before, and b) can afford it now. Some software manufacturers also have different products, some of which are free for personal and academic use. I think that mode is great. You don't force the poor schmuck to pay money he might not have, but as soon as you start making money with the product you are required to pay (nothing wrong with that, is there?). I believe this to be a very fair model that actually encourages people to buy software in the end. As a student I'm not likely to buy a $1000 software development package for a semester project, but if I use the same tool in professional life, I'll ask my superiors for it and unless I'm being unreasonable I'll get a paid license.
As for the music industry, the SCMS system is a reasonable copy protection imho, that serves both the industry and the user. SCMS allows you to make digital copies from a CD, but you cannot make copies of a copy. As long as you keep your original safely stored away you will not have any problems, and since only one generation of copies is possible, music cannot be simply spread around the globe. Since the system was rather reasonable, there was no big opposition to it, even though I think SCMS busters (yes, circumvention was possible even then) were considered illegal and could not be sold.
Imho, the idea of SCMS should serve as a base for future copy protection systems. I'm not sure if it can be done in the same way, but it's worth some consideration, is it not? But the industry rather dreams up more big brotherish DRM schemes to establish the pay per use society (there were concerns voiced that the DMCA would create a pay per use society and of course the industry assured that this was never going to happen.. look where we are now).

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Doom9
from a mere physical standpoint the two acts cannot be compared. In the case of shoplifting you are effectively creating a void in the shop's inventory, so they have a very real, quantifiable loss of money, which we don't have in case of copyright infringement.

@Doom9,

I've read your enlightening (as usual) article and even though you have strong arguments to show that the record/movie industry is not following the right actions to solve the problem, I cannot agree with your statement above.

When someone buys pirated software, pirated movies, pirated books and the like, he is effectively giving money to somebody who, in turn, will not pay back to the creator of the piece.

The pirate is stealing the creator's income.

The buyer knows that, and that makes him an accomplice in a felony.

IMHO, It is not different from shoplifting or plain street robbery.

[int 21h]

The real problem is not in the P2P users. Its just that industry likes to publicize their litigation of P2P users. The criminal litigation is stuff you usually dont read about on the front page of the Times (but its certainly going on).

The real problem and cause of the concern is a very large chunk of the material that is pirated in other countries on large scales (i.e. games, pressed dvds, etc.) are pressed directly from a piracy group's release. Walk down a back alley in HK and you can pick up a Dreamcast game from Kalisto, a PC game from Deviance, a PS2 game from Echelon, and a pressed DVD from CTP or Replica. Now these groups are certainly not intending to supply the piracy industry in these countries (in most cases, however there are exceptions), but it is a side effect of the globalization the internet has brought us. The second collateral effect is P2P. You can ask anyone that is in the 'scene'. Supplying P2P users is the last thing they want to do, its an unintended side effect. So what do you do the curb the problem?

Its a two pronged attack really. You lobby the government to go after the big fish, the US citizens that are suppliers of hardware, software, and cash that keep the piracy groups running. And then the little fish, the ones the government can't or won't persue, you drag through civil litigation.

In my opinion, this will never end in the US because government is run by big business.

[Doom9]

I've read your enlightening (as usual) article and even though you have strong arguments to show that the record/movie industry is not following the right actions to solve the problem, I cannot agree with your statement above.

When someone buys pirated software, pirated movies, pirated books and the like, he is effectively giving money to somebody who, in turn, will not pay back to the creator of the piece.

The laws we're talking about say nothing about the pirate who sells stuff. I'm all for taking down those people who enrich themselves at the cost of others. But, the guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa isn't getting anything in return, which makes it somewhat different. And, if you go to a country like Malaysia, there's a simply reason why most CDs and DVDs are pirated. The legit product is just too expensive for the average citizen. So you can go after the pirate organizations all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the consumers would need lower prices to be able to afford a legit copy (and keep in mind that we're not talking about rich first world countries here.. in my country you cannot use this argument as an excuse, because we are generally able to afford CDs and DVDs).

BTW, I found this thereg article that says that merely fiddling with your camcorder (you don't have to record anything) in a movie theater can get you locked away for up to 5 years. The bill concerns the "use or attempt to use" and regardless of whether you had the intention or did in fact publish what you recorded. So this is definitely "guilty till proven innocent" at work. Camcorder in the theater = dirty pirate and you're going away. So make sure you drop off your new camera before you go see the latest movie. Here's the link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33988.html

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Doom9
The laws we're talking about say nothing about the pirate who sells stuff. I'm all for taking down those people who enrich themselves at the cost of others. But, the guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa isn't getting anything in return, which makes it somewhat different.

Most P2Ps reward you for uploading, giving you more priority and such so you can download more. Certainly, this guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa, I agree, is somewhat different. But how much different, really?

Does fair use allow you to make an unlimited number of copies for "your friends"? By doing that, aren't you also taking away money from the creator's pocket?

It's not a kid's interchange of baseball cards. You are not actually losing that file who somebody downloaded from you, are you? You’re just doing copies (or let others do them, more precisely) of copyrighted material.

If you don’t want to break the law, you should not share your legit copies of songs/movies from your personal library but what then? You can’t get sh*t.

There is only one way to get good download priority with P2P without breaking the law on this respect: download and share fully available material, AKA porn. You let your disk fill with crap and then you can download what you really need easy as a walk in the park.

But then you become a downloader of things you’ve not paid for, again putting your hand in the creator’s pocket.

And, if you go to a country like Malaysia, there's a simply reason why most CDs and DVDs are pirated. The legit product is just too expensive for the average citizen.

The same happens with generic versions of high-tech pharmacy products. If you apply the same logic to armed robbery you might as well justify stealing because you’re hungry, and paid murder because of an insurance policy, or anything imaginable.

I know the reality of third world countries. In my country, for instance, software, book and movie piracy is an emergent industry, and the government does not show strength and decision against that because there is high unemployment and most street sellers “would be stealing should they not have a way of make an honest living”.

You know I’m a writer. My income comes from the books I sell. To a new writer, the best thing that can happen to him is get pirated, so his work gets widespread at low cost, then get famous and charge for TV shows, lectures and that kind of stuff, which pays a lot better than book selling. You can even get a position in the government as an “intellectual” if you are on the right side of the fence.

But that does not change the fact that the editors, the designers and the presses to produce a book need the money to live also. The double standard that some governments apply is very interesting indeed, particularly provided that it does not resist any analysis whatsoever.

So you can go after the pirate organizations all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the consumers would need lower prices to be able to afford a legit copy.

I don’t get this point. Are DVDs produced in some countries more expensive than others? The actual costs are barely the same, so somebody must be applying a huge unreasonable mark up. As “the market works”, you can always buy your legit movie on the net, cheaper if it exists.

If it’s a customs problem, I mean if the local government is too greedy and has high import taxes, then the problem those citizens must resolve first if to fix the government, not thinking of buying pirated material because legit is too expensive. Actually, the copyright defense institutions might better give the battle to greedy governments.

But interesting things happen when you make the economy grounds “relative”:

I had this neighbor who runs a supermarket at a gas station. He always complained about his staff stealing chocolates, cigarettes, and even money from the store. His employees where literally shoplifting from him.

However, he used to have the latest releases of movies even before they were on the market. Very poor quality VCD encodes obtained by P2P. I asked him once if he did not think he was doing the same.

He told me a story about a poor old man who came to his business monthly. The guy only had one arm, and he was touched by that. He said he used to buy the movies from him “in order to help”.

I asked: If you want to help him, why don’t you just give him some money? Why do you only do it if he gives you a stolen piece in return? Why do you like to do charity with other people’s money?

He had difficulty at first noticing that he was doing exactly as his employees who stole from him. But after a while he got it.

Then his answer was even more curious indeed. He said “You know, everybody does it. I’ve learned to assume that employee theft is part of the business.”

What he does, because of this “fact of business”, is to charge more to customers who buy the stuff, so he can “compensate” the losses and remain even. At last, what he is doing is to let his employees rob from his customers. I wonder if that business strategy works in the long term.

You see, shoplifting, P2P and piracy end up related in ways you might not imagine.

[Doobie]

Doom9 said it. If thoplift a CD from Best Buy, Best Buy is out what they paid for the CD. They are not out what their sticker price is. If you download something, no one is out anything.

The only constitutional purpose of copyright law is to enrich the public by encouraging content creation. Copyright law absolutly is not based on the idea of ownership.

If you make music, you have no natural right to have anyone pay to listen to it. If you don't like that, then don't make music. However, if you want to rent a concert hall, you have every right to charge people to come in and listen to you.

[N_F]

Originally posted by r6d2
You know I’m a writer. My income comes from the books I sell.

Just curious, what do you write?

[r6d2]

Originally posted by Doobie
If you download something, no one is out anything.

No harm is done, eh?

The only constitutional purpose of copyright law is to enrich the public by encouraging content creation.

I wonder if not being able to get paid for what you do encourages content creation.

If you make music, you have no natural right to have anyone pay to listen to it. If you don't like that, then don't make music.

If I understand you correctly, your logic applies to every profession or occupation, or you have something personal against musicians?

Susbtitute "music" with "houses" and "listen to it" with "live on them", and tell me if your statement makes any sense.

Actually, it is a very funny statement. Look what happens when you substitute "music" with "love" and "listen to it" with "screw you". You have hereby abolished the oldest profession in history of mankind.

However, if you want to rent a concert hall, you have every right to charge people to come in and listen to you.

According to your interesting logic, if I rent a concert hall for 2 cents, or even get it for free, do I still have the right to charge for people coming in to listen?

Does it have to do with costs, as in the Ford era? Or does it have to do with the value a good represents to the people who want it?

If the song you're illegally downloading represents no value to you, why do you download it? Rationale of economics say that it's because the cost of doing it is lower than the value you get.

If the song sucks, you'll probably delete it because the cost of keeping it is higher than the valuable disk space it uses.

But if you keep it, you are at least willing to pay 1-MB of disk space per minute. Wouldn't you feel better if you had paid something to the creator, instead of the hard disk manufacturer? Wouldn't you like the creator feel encouraged to create more?

Or you'd rather say to him "if you don't like that I get your songs without paying you, don't make music"?

Would you keep the money for yourself because you managed to get it for "free"? Or as you said before "no one is out anything"?

Originally posted by N_F
Just curious, what do you write?

I write guides for the Doom9 Forums

Literature in general. I also wrote a book about consumer rights.

[syzygytec]

One point comes to mind for me, I one read an article, that as a copy for backup purpose is legal, it has to be a exact copy, this pertained to copy protected PC games, although far as I know, most of the games have such stiff copyprotection nowadays that it is not hardly possible to do a 1:1 copy that will work with external support via software, I may be off base, I'm certainly not "in the loop" on such matters, but the point being it was not within the bounds of a legit backup if the backup did not reproduce the original exactly. I wonders if that applies to re-authored DVD backups?
Anyway, yeah it's all about control. I don't think people are losing as much money as they say they are, hell the economy sucks anyway. I would always buy a CD over a downloaded mp3 album if it's something I want. As mentioned, people buy what they want and can afford, being possible to get such things free from P2P, from my persective isn't going to change what I would buy in any way, if anything, it might provide a preview that might make a sale of a CD I would have never even gave a listen to and that's the damn truth! fact actually!
AS far as DRM , Paladin ect. that crap is just overkill communism, I wish they would take total control of us, then publish some real figures and put thier foot in thier mouths when they are forced to show that their control made little differnece on their bottom line. At least this would be my guess.

I think every record company should make thier entire catalog available online at one dollar a song, provided they ripped them the right way using EAC and Lame I would even buy, I think they would make a killing. Well enough rant from this newbie moron

[mf]

Originally posted by r6d2
If I understand you correctly, your logic applies to every profession or occupation, or you have something personal against musicians?

Susbtitute "music" with "houses" and "listen to it" with "live on them", and tell me if your statement makes any sense.

What is it with your kind of people that you cannot differentiate between material things (houses, candy in a store), and "ethereal" (i'll just call it that cause I can't find a better word to suit the meaning) things (music, knowledge, digital content)? Material things cannot be copied. If you take one, someone loses one. ethereal things can be copied, recorded, multiplied into the millions, without anyone ever losing anything. The "loss in the creator's pocket" is simply in your head. You THINK you lose money, while in reality you would never have gotten money. There are a lot of people (more rather than less) who are only freeloading because they can. They would never actually buy anything like price-overblown software. In a world where they are not able to freeload ethereal things, they will simply live without all those things. These people (from my experience) are more likely to be a majority than a minority.
About creativity: if an individual pirates a copy of 3D Studio MAX, he is able to create wonderful things. The price tag ($1,095.00) is too high for him to ever have bought it. Well, tough luck; if he couldn't pirate it, he couldn't get it. Creative content wouldn't have been made. Even more so for products like Adobe Photoshop, where most of the web's tutorials, beginner guides, etc, come from pirated copies. The people that have image editing as their profession and actually own a legal copy through their company are a minority here. Let's not even consider the "try and buy" approach to pirating, where somebody might be interested in something, but there is no trial version (only limited or none at all), and doesn't want to spend a fortune just to know if he likes to do that which the software package allows (think image editing or something). The same goes for mp3 and DVD-rip downloading, but in that case the CD/DVD is actually higher quality (-> more reason to buy).
You CAN NOT compare ethereal pirating to shoplifting. Never. It requires a totally different way of thinking, and even challenges justice as it is defined in our laws. Think about it.

[Doom9]

Most P2Ps reward you for uploading, giving you more priority and such so you can download more. Certainly, this guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa, I agree, is somewhat different. But how much different, really?

Such mechanisms are based on one of the oldest human traits: trade. You get something so you give something in return. It is also about fairness and tries to prevent freeloading (many studies on P2P show that freeloading is a problem, so P2P tool creaters came up with ways to counteract the problem). You give something to get something.. that is entirely different from stealing where you only take.

Does fair use allow you to make an unlimited number of copies for "your friends"? By doing that, aren't you also taking away money from the creator's pocket?

Fair use doesn't cover uploading to P2P. Fair use clearly only refers to a closed friend circle. Some judges see that as your blood only, where others see it more relaxed, yet if anybody can access it, it's clearly not within your friend circle anymore. But, you are still not taking anything. I have yet to see a hand of a P2P user reach into a musicians pocket and take out his wallet (well, it is possible that this has happened but then it wasn't about an mp3 but about a wallet and the law has a punishment for that).

again putting your hand in the creator’s pocket.

mf put it more eloquently than I could (there is still a language barrier after all). There is a difference between material things and etherial things. Don't ever tell an engineer (I am one) something that goes against the laws of physics or he'll eat you alive. I haven't used a single P2P tool since Napster but you can be damned sure that you'll never see my hand into a musicians pocket taking out money.

The same happens with generic versions of high-tech pharmacy products. If you apply the same logic to armed robbery you might as well justify stealing because you’re hungry, and paid murder because of an insurance policy, or anything imaginable.

Did I say it was okay to sell pirated goods? I sure as hell didn't. I just gave a reason why it happens. The content industry is too blind to see anything but the effect. They see their product copied. They cry out, pay people off to get tougher laws (against the principles of democracy.. we should have togher laws against lobbyists, putting anybody in for 5 years for taking money from the RIAA/MPAA then passing a law that serves them.. that imho is just as criminal as selling pirated goods). But they are painfully oblivious to the cause. You cannot solve the problem with tougher laws and enforcement. Drugs is probably the best example.. look how painfully the no tolerance policy of certain countries is failing. You have to take a look at the global picture and try to do something about the cause, not only the effect. As the French guy in Matrix 2 said: Cause and Effect. Cause will still lead to effect even if you try to combat the effect.

I don’t get this point. Are DVDs produced in some countries more expensive than others? The actual costs are barely the same, so somebody must be applying a huge unreasonable mark up. As “the market works”, you can always buy your legit movie on the net, cheaper if it exists.

Actually, you are mistaken here. Region codes and laws pushed by the people you're trying to defend make it impossible for many to buy a product elsewhere. It's funny, we have the big corporations pushing for access to a global market without barriers, but because we don't have the same wages everyhwere they sell their product at different prices, then cry bloody murder if the consumer is smart enough to buy it somewhere where it's cheaper. Industries and countries are actively hampering customer rights in that area, while when it comes to them having access to the markets, it can't get liberal enough. Take region codes for example: totally against the idea of a global market, and with the help of paid off politicians they have managed to pass laws in many countries that make it illegal to sell DVDs from other regions.. in many cases even DVDs produced in neighboring countries. Movie and Music industry is dividing the global market into slices that they either keep for themselves or sell to other companies and keep those slices separated by technological measures and laws.

Last but not least, have you ever read a copyright law? Nowhere does it mention any financial recompensation for your work. Copyright law was created to encourage content creation and nothing else. It grants the creator certain exclusive rights so that his work is not ripped off. Those rights establish the groundwork that can be used for financial recompensation, but this is not a god or law given right. You won't get paid for content creation! You can get paid if you desire so, but that is up to every content creator. I don't get paid for my website content, do I? Yet you cannot simply copy my content because copyright law says I get so say who can use it and in what ways. Now imagine, someone rips off my guides and puts them on a page with which he makes money thanks to ads (or maybe it's a closed site with an entry fee). You say he's stealing from me. I say that's not the case. He is enriching himself through my creations, but he is not stealing from me. At the end of the month my account balance is the same regardless of this ripoff. But if he came over to my house and took some DVDs, then he would be stealing from me. Now this very real case actually happened, but was resolved without any lawyer involvement. Yet, should such a thing come to trial, I could claim damages because he made money off my creations. Copyright law says that I have to grand the use of my content (and that's usually done in a form of a license contract), and since I didn't, I'm eligible to parts or all of his gains plus other recompensation. Yet, this isn't a case of stealing, it's a case of making money of my work and that is both physically and legally different. The guy won't be sentenced for stealing. Now imagine the same case but without the guy making any money (this has also happened). According to the content industry the guy is once again stealing but I don't see my account balance changing and my DVD collection is still intact. And while I could still sue, I couldn't claim the same amount of damages and it would be up to me to proove damages to the court (in both cases actually.. only that with making money it's a lot easier to make my case) to get a recompensation (and if you follow US law proposals you'll see that the content industry wants to shift the burden of proof to the accused). In both cases, something isn't right but nobody has a hand in my pocket.

[mf]

Originally posted by Doom9
mf put it more eloquently than I could (there is still a language barrier after all). There is a difference between material things and etherial things.

English is still my second language (Dutch is my first), but even through that barrier you manage to use a word (eloquent) that I have to look up in the dictionary . That also caused me to look up etherial (as I was looking up words anyway, so I might as well look that one up too, to be sure), and found out it's actually ethereal (which I should and could've known, I've actually always said "ethereal" before so I don't know where that spelling error even came from).

[Kedirekin]

You know, this conversation of material versus non-material (concrete versus ethereal) shines some light on this subject for me.

If I could put my refrigerator up on P2P, how would people react to others obtaining a copy of my refrigerator?

I'm sure the refrigerator manufaturers and resalers would react much the same way the music and movie industry is right now; people are copying refrigerators, so they aren't buying them and it's destroying our profits - it isn't fair. More, they'd want to have control of the new refrigerator copying technology to cut down on their production and distribution cost - probably without any decrease in prices (sound familiar).

But how would 3rd parties (you and I and everyone else) react to the industry's stance? I feel sure that the general reaction to the industry would be 'tough'. A new technology exists to make copies of refrigerators. I'm sure most people would agree there's no reason we shouldn't be allowed to use it. I'm also sure most people wouldn't want the industry to have sole legal control of the new technology (DRM = Digital Refrigerator Management ).

On the other hand, most people would agree that we don't want refrigerator manufacturers (or at least the designers) to cease to exist. That would eliminate innovation (I can remember a time when refrigerators didn't have ice cube dispensers in the door).

What do you think? Comments welcome.

[fccHandler]

Digital music still needs a storage medium for its bits, so I wouldn't really agree that it's "ethereal" (though certainly more so than a refrigerator).

[mf]

Originally posted by fccHandler
Digital music still needs a storage medium for its bits, so I wouldn't really agree that it's "ethereal" (though certainly more so than a refrigerator).

If I write ones and zeroes on a piece of paper, I materially have paper with ink on top, but if I actually put some kind of message in these ones and zeroes I have created ethereal content, while materially it would be equal to me writing the same amount of ones and zeroes on paper, but sorting them by putting the zeroes at the top and the ones at the bottom (which would cause the message to be lost). Of course that still leaves the possibility to call myself an artist and sell it as a piece of art, which is when I've rebranded it as something of ethereal value again.

[fccHandler]

By that reasoning, the refrigerator is also ethereal. In theory I can purchase the materials to build my own copy of Kedirekin's refrigerator, and maybe even build a machine to help automate the process of creating my replica. The question then becomes, does the refrigerator manufacturer suffer because I chose to copy Kedirekin's refrigerator, instead of buying the same model in a store?

[mf]

Originally posted by fccHandler
By that reasoning, the refrigerator is also ethereal. In theory I can purchase the materials to build my own copy of Kedirekin's refrigerator, and maybe even build a machine to help automate the process of creating my replica. The question then becomes, does the refrigerator manufacturer suffer because I chose to copy Kedirekin's refrigerator, instead of buying the same model in a store?

Here you are talking about refrigerator designs, for which we have laws. Those of patents and consumer confusion. If a product looks very alike the original creator can sue because the imitation confuses the buyer into thinking it is buying a brand. For the technical part of the refrigerator (new high-tech fast icecube maker?) there are patents. Of course, for personal use, you are exempt, because of fair use rights!