What is Piracy?
On Tuesday, politicians threatened to enact new laws if universities don’t do more to prevent their students from unlawfully swapping music, movies and other copyrighted files on campus networks. Whether you go to CCA, or the Little Sisters of the Poor, members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Science and Technology Committee said college administrators must seriously consider using not only educational campaigns but also technological filters to reduce illicit file swapping among students.
“Illegal file sharing isn’t just about royalty fees,” committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said at the hearing, which lasted a little more than an hour. “It clogs campus networks and interferes with the educational and research mission of universities.” full article
Do people really understand what “illegal” piracy is? Does anyone even know what the reach of piracy law is? I know many, many people who download everything under the sun, but is all of this illegal to do? Seriously. I have no firggin’ clue. I searched all over and the answers I got were from the one sided institutions of the government, music, movie, and software industries that clog up Google because they have more money than you, or I do to get to the top of the search engine.
Can you download anything you want? Is it only piracy if you “share” it? Isn’t the internet and p2p about the same as listening to the radio and recording a song from that? Recording a movie off HBO, or from the video store? You become the end user by obtaining copy-written material from a publicly accessible forum. Distributing it on the other hand is illegal, or is just recording a copy for yourself illegal too? Sure you can make an argument for it being illegal just to get a copy of it, but are you the one breaking the law? I’ve always stood behind the idea that you were not. I still do. Am I wrong?
Fire away. Bring numbers because I sure as hell didn’t. Find the concert revenue numbers too before you talk about “lost” CD sales. Are people really buying the entire The Divinyls CD to get the song “I Touch Myself”? Doubt anyone is buying that song anyways, but really if your CD sucks then I don’t want it for one song. Hopefully you make it onto a movie soundtrack or “Greatest Hits of the 90’s CD” because you aren’t ever getting 20 bucks from me for one song.
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Filed under: Computers and Internet by JMH
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Dude, I totally agree with you about file sharing! To me, as long as you’re not burning the stuff onto DVDs or CDs and re-selling for a profit, I don’t see the harm. Like you said, it’s no different than recording songs off the radio (I did that all the time when I was a kid), checking a book out from the library, recording a tv show to watch later, etc. etc.
I wrote a post last week. It’s a bit keyword-y, but you can still get my drift
http://www.firepitblog.com/2007/05/29/my-take-on-file-sharing/
I think it’s OK to share files, maybe because I am not the creator? lol
lol…I guess.
A lot of the more successful musicians support file sharing and they should. They get hosed on CD sales because they make jack on their cut where as they make their money from concerts. With the availability of their music to more people they get more concert goers and make more money as it is.
I agree. But I bought the Divinyls CD because of the song “I Touch Myself”. Is that a bad thing?
The Congressman is just using Pirating as the excuse to over come another unacceptable behavior that is network connection abuse.
Pirating is being used just like terrorist as a catch phrase to label all things bad. Don’t like it? must be pirating, terrorism or some other socially unacceptable stuff. See its easy, wehn I was a kid we had devil worship and communism people blamed things on they did not understand, those stopped working so now we have a few replacement items.
I agree. Homeland security has helped the invasion into our lives become more acceptable. The internet is a good way to do that and using the word “Piracy” does many of the same things the catch all “Terrorism” does.
Good movie I watched yesterday about McCarthy and his campaign against “card-carrying” Commies. Called Good Night, and Good Luck.
It is mostly about Edward R. Murrow and how he reported and stood up against McCarthy’s ridiculous claims. It’s a couple years old and on DVD. George Clooney directed it. Robert Downey Jr. is in it. Apparently he found time between rehabs to make a movie.
File sharing is such a hard argument that it’s rather hard to find someone who sees it from both sides. I completely agree with what you’re saying, to download one song is not going to do much damage. Frankly, aside from it being much easier thanks to the internet, I do not see a big difference between burning DVDs/CDs and copying records and video tapes.
If you aren’t distributing it or charging others than you are not
doing much damage.
We also have to take into account inflation. With so many cinemas charging upwards of $10 to see one terrible movie, it’s no wonder people look to bittorrent or p2p networks. I also would like to see relevant numbers related to just how much movie studios and music producers lose because of downloading.
On the other hand, it is very easy to deny pirating’s effect when speaking of large, multi-million dollar companies. It’s harder to believe that downloading doesn’t make a difference when dealing with small independents. Supporting your favourite indie band by buying their CD makes more of a difference to the artist than downloading the latest Metallica album.
As the laws on file sharing is not respected by a large percentage of Internet users, the law is automatically void. If it’s not, people will soon start to question other laws.
Though I am a big fan of file sharing, I dont think it is a good thing to be allowed to continue piracy. I think Piracy is as it name suggests, something you do with commercial intentions and that should be stopped.