Student Ordered to Pay RIAA $675,000

Chiplg said:
People keep comparing this to stealing a CD from a store. It is more like stealing a CD from a store and making free copies to anyone who hands him a blank CD-R.
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im not attempting to advocate piracy, or even condone it necessarily by saying this, but it isnt "like" stealing at all, because it isnt stealing.
 
__hollywood|meow said:
im not attempting to advocate piracy, or even condone it necessarily by saying this, but it isnt "like" stealing at all, because it isnt stealing.
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Call it whatever makes you happy. Money is owed for the copy.

Here are some questions to consider.

1. Is taking a book without paying for it theft?
2. Is photocopying a book and giving the copy to someone theft?
3. Is scanning a book and giving a PDF to someone theft?
4. Is buying an ebook, making copies, and distributing them theft?

In every single instance someone ended up with the book, or a physical or digital copy of the book without paying for it.

Ok, example one is a measurable loss and noone should reasonably argue that it is not theft.

In examples two through four, the book remains with the legal owner, and a "copy" is given to another person who did not pay the copyright holder. Did the copyright holder experience a loss? You better belive there was a loss. If it is worth having a copy of, it is worth paying for. Why should someone get a copy of my work without paying me for it? What was the point of me writting it in the first place? If it is not worth paying for, then that person does not deserve a copy.

Here is the standard copyright statement. Some form of this is in most books, and many other publications, including web sites. This is a portion of the language I use on my works.

"All rights reserved. No portion of the contents of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author."

What part of that is hard to understand? How does that statement being on a PDF, or a website make it any less valid?

There is a copyright statement for [H]. Would there be no loss to KB Networks, Inc. if people copied whatever they wanted and used it as they saw fit? There are terms for this site that allow content to be copied, but it must not be more than 20 words, or 1 paragraph, and it must be attributed to www.HardOCP.com. Terms and Conditions for [H]
Is there no loss if someone copies 2 paragraphs instead of 1? Is it OK to only slightly break the terms and conditions? Does it really matter if entire pages of this site are copied and archived for personal use? After all, it's just personal use. It's not like the person copying the site is going to make money off of the content. That's not really stealing from KB Networks, Inc. is it? I have a hard time thinking Kyle would say that's OK.

Don't get me wrong. The fine for the theft of that music was not reasonable, but it was theft.
 
Actually theft/larceny involves taking and carrying away of personal property with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

What we are talking about is copyright infringement. Infringement doesn't involve taking anything, it is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.

The problem is that unlike retail theft, which involves a significant physical act that includes the risk of physical a confrontation, being caught red handed, ect, getting shot by the shop owner who happens to have a magnum under the counter, the act of infringement takes place in the home and in cyberspace and there is no physical deterrent. So people who would never in their life commit an act of theft will wind up committing acts of infringement. They do it because:

1. they can't conceive of the consequences/ are not sufficiently deterred (getting caught by the store owner is not an issue)
2. the infringement itself is a "digital" act and so it is more easily rationalized by the infringing party,
3. it is commonplace in the culture, "everybody is doing it"

This is one way of getting people's attention.
 
Blackstone said:
Actually theft/larceny involves taking and carrying away of personal property with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

What we are talking about is copyright infringement. Infringement doesn't involve taking anything, it is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.

The problem is that unlike retail theft, which involves a significant physical act that includes the risk of physical a confrontation, being caught red handed, ect, getting shot by the shop owner who happens to have a magnum under the counter, the act of infringement takes place in the home and in cyberspace and there is no physical deterrent. So people who would never in their life commit an act of theft will wind up committing acts of infringement. They do it because:

1. they can't conceive of the consequences/ are not sufficiently deterred (getting caught by the store owner is not an issue)
2. the infringement itself is a "digital" act and so it is more easily rationalized by the infringing party,
3. it is commonplace in the culture, "everybody is doing it"

This is one way of getting people's attention.
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Excellent post. That pretty much sums it up.
 
Blackstone said:
Actually theft/larceny involves taking and carrying away of personal property with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

What we are talking about is copyright infringement. Infringement doesn't involve taking anything, it is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.

The problem is that unlike retail theft, which involves a significant physical act that includes the risk of physical a confrontation, being caught red handed, ect, getting shot by the shop owner who happens to have a magnum under the counter, the act of infringement takes place in the home and in cyberspace and there is no physical deterrent. So people who would never in their life commit an act of theft will wind up committing acts of infringement. They do it because:

1. they can't conceive of the consequences/ are not sufficiently deterred (getting caught by the store owner is not an issue)
2. the infringement itself is a "digital" act and so it is more easily rationalized by the infringing party,
3. it is commonplace in the culture, "everybody is doing it"

This is one way of getting people's attention.
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How many FYE stores in the malls are packing heat? Two?

People are not defending this guy because he's not guilty and is being prosecuted with false evidence. No we're pissed because 22k per song when the fair market value per song is 1 dollar is outrageous or approximately 22,000 times the actual value of the item. Unless they can prove that he shared one song approximately 22,000 times then this falls under cruel and usual punishment protected by that tattered piece of paper the constitution. Which I know we forgot about following 8 year of Bush.

Have no fear this is what the Ha-vad professor wants, he's going to challenge the damages because they are excessive.
 
osrk said:
How many FYE stores in the malls are packing heat? Two?

People are not defending this guy because he's not guilty and is being prosecuted with false evidence. No we're pissed because 22k per song when the fair market value per song is 1 dollar is outrageous or approximately 22,000 times the actual value of the item. Unless they can prove that he shared one song approximately 22,000 times then this falls under cruel and usual punishment protected by that tattered piece of paper the constitution. Which I know we forgot about following 8 year of Bush.

Have no fear this is what the Ha-vad professor wants, he's going to challenge the damages because they are excessive.
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It isn't a question of fair market value per song. The 22k per song is not about compensation for loss. The damages that were awarded in the Tenenbaum case are statutory damages, not actual damages/lost profits/revenue, ect. Statutory damages are the result of public policy as codified by Congress--our elected representatives. What should be considered is that copyright law has been debated The most important policies is probably deterrence and the value our society places on the right to reproduce one's intellectual property.

Article I, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes copyright legislation: "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."

So in fact this is not necessarily a case of a greedy corporation cracking down and fleecing the population. It is more a case of an infringer learning the hard way the extent to which our society values the Arts and authors.

It is on some level irrational that we identify so readily with the infringer, when we are in fact a community that is based on the "Progress of Science and the Arts" (technology, games, media). If you are a music lover, gamer, or a consumer of any kind of media, your interests were, indirectly, protected by this highly publicized decision.

That is not to say I don't sympathize with the infringer to some degree. But, the point is, as enthusiasts we all have a dog in this fight, and it isn't Joel Tennenbaum.
 
Trepidati0n said:
No, drinking and driving is NEVER accident. NEVER. You made a choice to drink then drive. If you drink and drive...you are a fucking moron beyond reason.
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Agreed, there are no such things as accidents.. EVERYTHING happens for a reason... nothing is an accident.. there is always a chain of events no matter how long that lead up to an incident occurring whether it be a car wreck or a lawsuit.

I believe that the record industry companies and riaa/mpaa should not exist.. All they are out for is to rip artists off and stifle artist innovation. I am also firmly against copyright and patents, both exist to stifle innovation and limit competition.
 
Sorry I usually edit my posts from grammar/syntax and typos after the fact but I can't edit in this particular forum so the above reads like it was written by someone in the 5th grade. But you get the point.
 
Blackstone said:
It isn't a question of fair market value per song. The 22k per song is not about compensation for loss. The damages that were awarded in the Tenenbaum case are statutory damages, not actual damages/lost profits/revenue, ect. Statutory damages are the result of public policy as codified by Congress--our elected representatives. What should be considered is that copyright law has been debated The most important policies is probably deterrence and the value our society places on the right to reproduce one's intellectual property.

Article I, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes copyright legislation: "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."

So in fact this is not necessarily a case of a greedy corporation cracking down and fleecing the population. It is more a case of an infringer learning the hard way the extent to which our society values the Arts and authors.

It is on some level irrational that we identify so readily with the infringer, when we are in fact a community that is based on the "Progress of Science and the Arts" (technology, games, media). If you are a music lover, gamer, or a consumer of any kind of media, your interests were, indirectly, protected by this highly publicized decision.

That is not to say I don't sympathize with the infringer to some degree. But, the point is, as enthusiasts we all have a dog in this fight, and it isn't Joel Tennenbaum.

Sorry I usually edit my posts from grammar/syntax and typos after the fact but I can't edit in this particular forum so the above reads like it was written by someone in the 5th grade. But you get the point.
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Eh while he might not be my dog I'll still pull for him. I'm interested to see what comes about from their challenge on the damages, this may end up in the supreme court.

Ya it sucks we can't edit our posts, oh well.
 
I should add that the damages may very well be excessive by Constitutional standards, however. That could be the outcome. That is sort of a separate legal question. I know there are Supreme Court decisions that set rules about when punitive damages are too high (more than 10x actual damages, ect) but since these are statutory damages the statute allows anywhere between $750 per work infringed to $150,000, I am not sure how this will go.
 
I think these sort of fines for downloading songs are ridiculous. Funny thing is, it's done very little to stop piracy. I remember back in around 1995, finding pirated material on the internet was somewhat of a challenge to non technical-minded folks, as sharing was mostly limited to IRC channels full of bots and higher up in the food chain, private FTP sites. While those have never went away the landscape changed drastically with the emergence of P2P services like Kazaa. Soon after that the RIAA started going sue happy, but what has it done? Torrent sites with terabytes of material have cropped up all over the net now and most uploads are screened so there's little worry over getting a virus, especially on the slightly more private ones. If TPB went down and ceased operation tomorrow, it would only be a small blow in the grand scheme of things.

I think ultimately, the best way to combat piracy is to focus on providing a higher level of service to consumers. Apple has sort of done this with iTunes but it has a long way to go. For instance, I'd like to see options to download music I've purchased in different formats without having to convert it myself.

That said, I feel piracy is never going to go away, it'll only grow (unfortunately). But by providing a higher level of service, consumers will go the extra mile to purchase their songs or whatever instead of simply pirating them.
 
oh and blackstone it doesnt matter that the damages were statutory, because its NOT simply some infringer "learning their lesson". its unconstitutionally exorbitant.
 
Blackstone said:
Article I, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes copyright legislation: "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."
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I'm glad you brought this up; do you really believe that the artists would not have produced the songs, knowing that this individual would have downloaded the songs?

Copyright's purpose is to benefit society, not secure some non-existent natural right for the copyright holder. When thousands of individuals are being extorted for thousands of dollars, and select individuals are being successfully sued for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars without any discernible increase in useful output in arts and science, then we should be questioning whether copyright law in its current form is optimally promoting useful arts and science.
 
I always love these arguments esp. the differences between copyright infringement and theft, damages and awards, proof and burdens etc etc. It's almost like people think that the law works on common sense, it cares about them and everyone is equal under it. Hilarious.

Want some free entertainment? Out of work? Here is a good way to kill some time: Go to your local courthouse the bigger city the better and sit in the back. Checkout family, divorce, civil and criminal court. Take some notes. Now do some research on the outcomes and compare them to what the law actually says should happen according to precedent. Stand back and be amazed.
 
Talking isn't going to take you anywhere. You want change? Take action. Stop whining and do something about it.
 
auspexd said:
I always love these arguments esp. the differences between copyright infringement and theft, damages and awards, proof and burdens etc etc. It's almost like people think that the law works on common sense, it cares about them and everyone is equal under it. Hilarious.

Want some free entertainment? Out of work? Here is a good way to kill some time: Go to your local courthouse the bigger city the better and sit in the back. Checkout family, divorce, civil and criminal court. Take some notes. Now do some research on the outcomes and compare them to what the law actually says should happen according to precedent. Stand back and be amazed.
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Again, I sympathize with Tennenbaum, I'm just trying to highlight some of the theories underlying the other side of the case.

Obviously the law in theory and the law in practice are two different things. You are certainly right about that, especially in the areas you mentioned. You never know what judges and juries will do. That said, at some point in the process, be it in the higher courts or in Congress when the laws are passed, the underlying policies have to be examined.

My point was just that 1) the law and society has a legitimate interest in not just compensation, but also deterrence. The fact that we are even talking about this shows how powerful the deterrent effect may be, if not to you, then at least somebody out there. It isn't something that can be easily measured, but it is there.

2) The Constitutional challenge here might be complicated by the fact that the damages (or the acceptable range of damages) were selected by Congress and fixed in the copyright statute.

Personally, I think illegal downloading hurts consumers, artists, everyone. Ask any successful but relatively obscure in the grand scheme of things jazz recording artist how hard it is to make a living these days because of this.
 
Blackstone said:
Again, I sympathize with Tennenbaum, I'm just trying to highlight some of the theories underlying the other side of the case.

Obviously the law in theory and the law in practice are two different things.
My point was just that 1) the law and society has a legitimate interest in not just compensation, but also deterrence.

Personally, I think illegal downloading hurts consumers, artists, everyone. Ask any successful but relatively obscure in the grand scheme of things jazz recording artist how hard it is to make a living these days because of this.
Snipped for brevity
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Why do you sympathize with Tennenbaum? I don't. He was stupid, got caught and now he is going to be used as an example. The only sympathy I have for him is the fact that he is probably too damn oblivious to know that he is being used by all sides to advance their various agendas.

You have just compensation and deterrence backwards. Just compensation only exists as an illusion to satisfy the status quo and really only serves as the figurehead to deterrence and the power of state. See: Robert Jackson, "With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him." Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice or Cardinal Richelieu if you prefer, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

Personally, I think media companies hurt artists more by shoving the next big thing[TM] down the willing gullet of pop culture. It used to be that the music/talent came first and then they crafted an image around it: Today it is the opposite. You want to know why jazz musicians can't make a living? The same reason they couldn't make a living at it in the 40's, 50's and 60's. If you want to read some truly despicable history read some books about the start of the modern record company. That is one of the reasons jazz is so grounded in live improv because companies didn't and still don't care about music they can't package into a nice little bow and sell it to you as a lifestyle.

Now if you excuse me I have to finish grading these papers. Hmmm... where DID I put that best of nickelback cd again??
 
qb4ever said:
Agreed, there are no such things as accidents.. EVERYTHING happens for a reason... nothing is an accident.. there is always a chain of events no matter how long that lead up to an incident occurring whether it be a car wreck or a lawsuit.

I believe that the record industry companies and riaa/mpaa should not exist.. All they are out for is to rip artists off and stifle artist innovation. I am also firmly against copyright and patents, both exist to stifle innovation and limit competition.
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Fatalist much?
 
I am so tired of all the retards thinking this case is about downloading.

1) He was targeted by the RIAA because he had 800 songs he distributed to others from 1999-2007.

"Tenenbaum said he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs by Nirvana, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and other artists. The recording industry focused on only 30 songs in the case."

2) He was found guilty of willful infringement hence the high damages.

"After Tenenbaum admitted Thursday he is liable for damages for 30 songs at issue in the case, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner ruled that the jury must consider only whether his copyright infringement was willful and how much in damages to award four recording labels that sued him over the illegal file-sharing."

If you retards can't even bother to read a short article before making a comment, you don't deserve to be able to have your comments heard.

If you think $1 for a song allows you to give it to everybody in the world. You are plain stupid. $1 gets you the right to use it for personal use, not to give it to everybody under the sun.
 
auspexd said:
Why do you sympathize with Tennenbaum? I don't. He was stupid, got caught and now he is going to be used as an example. The only sympathy I have for him is the fact that he is probably too damn oblivious to know that he is being used by all sides to advance their various agendas.

You have just compensation and deterrence backwards. Just compensation only exists as an illusion to satisfy the status quo and really only serves as the figurehead to deterrence and the power of state. See: Robert Jackson, "With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him." Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice or Cardinal Richelieu if you prefer, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

Personally, I think media companies hurt artists more by shoving the next big thing[TM] down the willing gullet of pop culture. It used to be that the music/talent came first and then they crafted an image around it: Today it is the opposite. You want to know why jazz musicians can't make a living? The same reason they couldn't make a living at it in the 40's, 50's and 60's. If you want to read some truly despicable history read some books about the start of the modern record company. That is one of the reasons jazz is so grounded in live improv because companies didn't and still don't care about music they can't package into a nice little bow and sell it to you as a lifestyle.

Now if you excuse me I have to finish grading these papers. Hmmm... where DID I put that best of nickelback cd again??
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I only sympathize with him to the extent that he was doing something that has become commonplace and accepted in the culture and got singled out. I suspect at colleges and universities these days it is more common to infringe than to purchase. When everyone is drinking from the poisoned well, the few people that aren't will start to look sick to the rest. I've had people look at me like I am crazy because I actually purchase my music and games.

What you are saying about jazz is true, but take for example a crossover artist like guitarists Larry Coryell or John McLaughlin. There are a lot of talented jazz/fusion artists like them that enjoyed success as recording artists from the 1960s through present day selling high quality, well recorded and produced copies of their art. Some even became wealthy. Today, even if one achieves sufficient recognition to support a career in less mainstream music, a significant portion of the audience will simply pirate the music. For some artists that is the difference between some commercial viability and none. The sad thing is that I know some real music enthusiasts that openly admit to illegally downloading hundreds of recordings, including relatively obscure recordings that probably would not have ever been made had peer to peer technology existed at the time they were produced. It is in my opinion, a very sad state of affairs because it deters the next generation of artists from pursuing their art, from anyone ever publishing it, and from us ever hearing it.
 
SecondSpin and Half.com (preferred) are all you need. You can get a ton of music for $5 per CD. Just pay attention to feedback and product descriptions. I've noticed that sellers will sell for dirt simply because the jewel case is damaged. Who cares about jewel cases.
 
Blackstone said:
It isn't a question of fair market value per song. The 22k per song is not about compensation for loss. The damages that were awarded in the Tenenbaum case are statutory damages, not actual damages/lost profits/revenue, ect. Statutory damages are the result of public policy as codified by Congress--our elected representatives. What should be considered is that copyright law has been debated The most important policies is probably deterrence and the value our society places on the right to reproduce one's intellectual property.

Article I, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes copyright legislation: "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."

So in fact this is not necessarily a case of a greedy corporation cracking down and fleecing the population. It is more a case of an infringer learning the hard way the extent to which our society values the Arts and authors.

It is on some level irrational that we identify so readily with the infringer, when we are in fact a community that is based on the "Progress of Science and the Arts" (technology, games, media). If you are a music lover, gamer, or a consumer of any kind of media, your interests were, indirectly, protected by this highly publicized decision.

That is not to say I don't sympathize with the infringer to some degree. But, the point is, as enthusiasts we all have a dog in this fight, and it isn't Joel Tennenbaum.
Click to expand...

I'll note that the US Constitution focuses on 'limited Times'. Given the constant extensions of copyright by large corporations, at present pretty well nothing has entered the public domain since the mid 1920s that was initially copywritten. This is absurd, especially when you consider that the original copyright law meant that works could only be copywritten for a max of 28 years.

This isn't to say that the songs that Joel was sharing were out of copyright (I don't think that they were), but it means that even were he sharing an old disney commercial from the 50s he'd be in violation. That's absolutely absurd. It's because of such absurdities that Joel and his lawyers had to argue fair use - Congress has established law that directly works against both the intentions of the American constitution and the (apparent) will of an entire generation of American citizens.
 
dandirk said:
It's NOT the 1 song you have on your HDD that costs 20k... Its the 100s or 1000s of people you gave that 1 song to, that costs 20k.

I agree though these penalties seem out of wack, they seem to be more inline with company mass distribution and not tailored to the consumer offense.
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I don't think many people downloading this stuff leave their computers sending the stuff they download, off to others... why would they?

The penalties are moronic... downloading a song and not distributing it, is equal to about $1 on amazon. Charge $2 a song for punitive damages and be done with it.
 
CIC2009B said:
My compliments on such an original and classy retort Sir! I am underwhelmed.

Sorry to disappoint you, but we don't have any relationship with the music industry.
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Lol... "we" don't? As in, you're a company being paid by the RIAA? ;)
 
jterp7 said:
hasn't it already been proven that a dl does not equal a lost sale?
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People I know demonstrate this to me all the time. They like to see if something's of actual use to them even for a few minutes before shelling out non-refundable cash for it.
 
GJSNeptune said:
SecondSpin and Half.com (preferred) are all you need. You can get a ton of music for $5 per CD. Just pay attention to feedback and product descriptions. I've noticed that sellers will sell for dirt simply because the jewel case is damaged. Who cares about jewel cases.
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Aye... oh and by the way, for the people who can't understand...

piracy-is-not-theft.jpg
 
GoldenTiger said:
Aye... oh and by the way, for the people who can't understand...

piracy-is-not-theft.jpg
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That illustration always cause me to roll my eyes.

Theft is also the taking of something when you're supposed to pay for it.

But yeah yeah yeah wait for it.. the copyright infringement defenders are going to go on a diatribe about how it's not theft.. I've heard it all, don't bother.
 
Chiplg said:
Call it whatever makes you happy. Money is owed for the copy.

Don't get me wrong. The fine for the theft of that music was not reasonable, but it was theft.
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IT WASN'T THEFT.

Blackstone said:
Actually theft/larceny involves taking and carrying away of personal property with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

What we are talking about is copyright infringement. Infringement doesn't involve taking anything, it is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.

The problem is that unlike retail theft, which involves a significant physical act that includes the risk of physical a confrontation, being caught red handed, ect, getting shot by the shop owner who happens to have a magnum under the counter, the act of infringement takes place in the home and in cyberspace and there is no physical deterrent. So people who would never in their life commit an act of theft will wind up committing acts of infringement. They do it because:

1. they can't conceive of the consequences/ are not sufficiently deterred (getting caught by the store owner is not an issue)
2. the infringement itself is a "digital" act and so it is more easily rationalized by the infringing party,
3. it is commonplace in the culture, "everybody is doing it"

This is one way of getting people's attention.
Click to expand...
I think you misrepresent the situation in the last paragraph. People simply don't think about it being wrong when they download songs. They aren't rationalizing anything, nor are they breathing a sigh of relief at the fact they don't have to face confrontation during the act. Those thoughts simply do not occur because in order to even have those thoughts while using P2P, you must first introduce the cognitive dissonance that enables these ridiculous analogies of physical property to even be applied virtual "goods". It isn't deprivation. It isn't theft. It isn't even tangibledamage in the slightest. Someone could queue a computer to download every single available piece of infringing material in existence and nothing is actually affected. In essence, there is nothing more wrong with downloading songs on P2P than there is with your computer caching music that is streaming from Pandora or YouTube.

The ONLY reason there even exists a notion that someone is allowed any control of things that can be copied infinitely at no loss to the original is that We, as a society, allowed the creators of works a certain amount of control for these things for a limited period of time. The ONLY reason that is justified is because We, as a society, acknowledge that there must be some sort of incentive for creators to produce these works so that society can be enriched by them and future works. Thus, Copyright was created to serve these ends. Copyright exists to benefit society first and foremost, and the creator's benefits were merely a means to that end. A carrot on a stick, if you will.

However, Copyright was never meant to enable creators to profit from the monopoly of a work indefinitely. Over time, Copyright has been abused and perverted and consistently and repeatedly strengthened by companies efforts to allow themselves to wield complete and utter control of copyrights forever and there seems to be no end to the insanity. That is why some countries have simply legalized all personal use P2P to curtail the madness and the harm it is causing their citizens. Madness such as the way punishments meant for commercial pirates and Corporate infringers are now being applied to students and housewives.

Unfortunately, people here in America are far to focused on the fact that the current day "law" allows this kind of absurd unjustness to continue and use that fact to mitigate these outrages rather than put the focus and effort on the fact that Copyright has grown completely out of control for what it was meant for.

Mitigation that can be seen by the quoted below:
Blackstone said:
It isn't a question of fair market value per song. The 22k per song is not about compensation for loss. The damages that were awarded in the Tenenbaum case are statutory damages, not actual damages/lost profits/revenue, ect. Statutory damages are the result of public policy as codified by Congress--our elected representatives. What should be considered is that copyright law has been debated The most important policies is probably deterrence and the value our society places on the right to reproduce one's intellectual property.

Article I, Section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution authorizes copyright legislation: "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."

So in fact this is not necessarily a case of a greedy corporation cracking down and fleecing the population. It is more a case of an infringer learning the hard way the extent to which our society values the Arts and authors.

It is on some level irrational that we identify so readily with the infringer, when we are in fact a community that is based on the "Progress of Science and the Arts" (technology, games, media). If you are a music lover, gamer, or a consumer of any kind of media, your interests were, indirectly, protected by this highly publicized decision.

That is not to say I don't sympathize with the infringer to some degree. But, the point is, as enthusiasts we all have a dog in this fight, and it isn't Joel Tennenbaum.
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The very idea that these verdicts are progressing anything but corporate agenda is laughable.


jimmyb said:
I'm glad you brought this up; do you really believe that the artists would not have produced the songs, knowing that this individual would have downloaded the songs?

Copyright's purpose is to benefit society, not secure some non-existent natural right for the copyright holder. When thousands of individuals are being extorted for thousands of dollars, and select individuals are being successfully sued for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars without any discernible increase in useful output in arts and science, then we should be questioning whether copyright law in its current form is optimally promoting useful arts and science.
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Thank you! We are so far beyond the point of diminishing returns that any attempts to justify this nonsense is completely and utterly ridiculous.

auspexd said:
Why do you sympathize with Tennenbaum? I don't. He was stupid, got caught and now he is going to be used as an example. The only sympathy I have for him is the fact that he is probably too damn oblivious to know that he is being used by all sides to advance their various agendas.

You have just compensation and deterrence backwards. Just compensation only exists as an illusion to satisfy the status quo and really only serves as the figurehead to deterrence and the power of state. See: Robert Jackson, "With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him." Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice or Cardinal Richelieu if you prefer, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

Personally, I think media companies hurt artists more by shoving the next big thing[TM] down the willing gullet of pop culture. It used to be that the music/talent came first and then they crafted an image around it: Today it is the opposite. You want to know why jazz musicians can't make a living? The same reason they couldn't make a living at it in the 40's, 50's and 60's. If you want to read some truly despicable history read some books about the start of the modern record company. That is one of the reasons jazz is so grounded in live improv because companies didn't and still don't care about music they can't package into a nice little bow and sell it to you as a lifestyle.

Now if you excuse me I have to finish grading these papers. Hmmm... where DID I put that best of nickelback cd again??
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Minus your elitist rant in the first line, this post needs to be quoted.
 
Azhar said:
That illustration always cause me to roll my eyes.

Theft is also the taking of something when you're supposed to pay for it.

But yeah yeah yeah wait for it.. the copyright infringement defenders are going to go on a diatribe about how it's not theft.. I've heard it all, don't bother.
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Here's your diatribe: Theft involves deprivation of property.
 
Kristofff said:
The ONLY reason there even exists a notion that someone is allowed any control of things that can be copied infinitely at no loss to the original is that We, as a society, allowed the creators of works a certain amount of control for these things for a limited period of time. The ONLY reason that is justified is because We, as a society, acknowledge that there must be some sort of incentive for creators to produce these works so that society can be enriched by them and future works. Thus, Copyright was created to serve these ends. Copyright exists to benefit society first and foremost, and the creator's benefits were merely a means to that end. A carrot on a stick, if you will.

However, Copyright was never meant to enable creators to profit from the monopoly of a work indefinitely. Over time, Copyright has been abused and perverted and consistently and repeatedly strengthened by companies efforts to allow themselves to wield complete and utter control of copyrights forever and there seems to be no end to the insanity. That is why some countries have simply legalized all personal use P2P to curtail the madness and the harm it is causing their citizens. Madness such as the way punishments meant for commercial pirates and Corporate infringers are now being applied to students and housewives.

Mitigation that can be seen by the quoted below:
The very idea that these verdicts are progressing anything but corporate agenda is laughable.
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I didn't want to get in on this one, but this is a BIG thank you. +2
 
Kristofff said:
IT WASN'T THEFT.

I think you misrepresent the situation in the last paragraph. People simply don't think about it being wrong when they download songs. They aren't rationalizing anything, nor are they breathing a sigh of relief at the fact they don't have to face confrontation during the act. Those thoughts simply do not occur because in order to even have those thoughts while using P2P, you must first introduce the cognitive dissonance that enables these ridiculous analogies of physical property to even be applied virtual "goods". It isn't deprivation. It isn't theft. It isn't even tangibledamage in the slightest. Someone could queue a computer to download every single available piece of infringing material in existence and nothing is actually affected. In essence, there is nothing more wrong with downloading songs on P2P than there is with your computer caching music that is streaming from Pandora or YouTube.
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You are right. It isn't deprivation or theft. Sigh. It is copyright infringement. I'm sorry but it is going to take more than your say so to convince me that no actual damage (this is the applicable concept, not "tangible damage" which is meaningless) is done to copyright holders during a P2P transfer. Congress and the courts recognize that there is damage that results from infringement. Whether that damage is tangible is irrelevant. The question is whether there is damage, period. Nothing is affected? Hardly. It doesn't matter if every uploaded copy represents a lost sale or not. Who is to say what sales would be like if the music was not available on P2P for free? The law leaves it to the jury to decide the volume of those damages because they are difficult if not impossible to ascertain. Ignorance of the law or the penalties is no defense.

You don't have to successfully analogize to tangible property to argue that intellectual property is entitled to protection. Infringement does not have to be as "wrong" an act as physical theft/larceny for the public to have a legitimate interest in prohibiting it. I fail to see any argument here as to why you should be entitled to download or distribute someone else's work without paying for it other than the fact that you don't want to pay for it and think it should be free for all.
 
Kristofff said:
IT WASN'T THEFT.


I think you misrepresent the situation in the last paragraph. People simply don't think about it being wrong when they download songs. They aren't rationalizing anything, nor are they breathing a sigh of relief at the fact they don't have to face confrontation during the act. Those thoughts simply do not occur because in order to even have those thoughts while using P2P, you must first introduce the cognitive dissonance that enables these ridiculous analogies of physical property to even be applied virtual "goods". It isn't deprivation. It isn't theft. It isn't even tangibledamage in the slightest. Someone could queue a computer to download every single available piece of infringing material in existence and nothing is actually affected. In essence, there is nothing more wrong with downloading songs on P2P than there is with your computer caching music that is streaming from Pandora or YouTube.

The ONLY reason there even exists a notion that someone is allowed any control of things that can be copied infinitely at no loss to the original is that We, as a society, allowed the creators of works a certain amount of control for these things for a limited period of time. The ONLY reason that is justified is because We, as a society, acknowledge that there must be some sort of incentive for creators to produce these works so that society can be enriched by them and future works. Thus, Copyright was created to serve these ends. Copyright exists to benefit society first and foremost, and the creator's benefits were merely a means to that end. A carrot on a stick, if you will.

However, Copyright was never meant to enable creators to profit from the monopoly of a work indefinitely. Over time, Copyright has been abused and perverted and consistently and repeatedly strengthened by companies efforts to allow themselves to wield complete and utter control of copyrights forever and there seems to be no end to the insanity. That is why some countries have simply legalized all personal use P2P to curtail the madness and the harm it is causing their citizens. Madness such as the way punishments meant for commercial pirates and Corporate infringers are now being applied to students and housewives.

Unfortunately, people here in America are far to focused on the fact that the current day "law" allows this kind of absurd unjustness to continue and use that fact to mitigate these outrages rather than put the focus and effort on the fact that Copyright has grown completely out of control for what it was meant for.

Mitigation that can be seen by the quoted below:
The very idea that these verdicts are progressing anything but corporate agenda is laughable.



Thank you! We are so far beyond the point of diminishing returns that any attempts to justify this nonsense is completely and utterly ridiculous.



Minus your elitist rant in the first line, this post needs to be quoted.
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Now I know you're an idiot.......that person took songs and made them available to other people without proper mayment to the owners- that IS theft.

How about you get some common sense and use it........
 
Blackstone said:
You don't have to successfully analogize to tangible property to argue that intellectual property is entitled to protection. Infringement does not have to be as "wrong" an act as physical theft/larceny for the public to have a legitimate interest in prohibiting it. I fail to see any argument here as to why you should be entitled to download or distribute someone else's work without paying for it other than the fact that you don't want to pay for it and think it should be free for all.
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You seem to be genuinely interested in having a real conversation, and not just blurt out the "it's theft!!!" line, so I'll reply.

The question of copyright is how to maximize the benefit to society. Clearly, society benefits from the increased production resulting from copyright, but at the same time we are hurt by the restrictions imposed in and of themselves.

You say are are unable to see "any argument here as to why you should be entitled to download or distribute someone else's work without paying for it". Here is one:

It is possible to argue that the optimal balance in promoting the production of art and science versus imposing restrictions on the general public, would be prohibiting commercial reproduction while allowing for individual reproduction. Combine this with a belief in one's obligation to civil disobedience (ala Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, Rosa Parks and many others), and you see very clearly a rationalization for downloading songs that isn't just not wanting to pay for it.

And depending on what country you live in you might not even require the civil disobedience, because personal use is protected under fair use laws.
 
bonsai said:
Except that over the past 5 years illegal downloading has skyrocketed, and music sales have plummeted.
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And I suppose piracy is the only factor you're considering? Again, downloading doesn't necessitate a lost sale, and you can't slap a correlation on it. People generally don't buy music blindly (deafly?). It's one of the best ways to discover new artists. It's up to the people who want to support those artists to do just that.
 
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