The RIAA are idiots, apparently

Okay, I am not a lawyer, so I do not know what's the definition of stealing; hoewver, after a bit of googling I found this page
(the municipal code of some city in Colorado)

so apparently theft implies depriving the rightful owner of the object under consideration. So then copying music is not quite theft.

Also from the Wikipedia

Make of this what you will.

Found some more info (the internet is a wonderful thing ) apparently there is a Supreme Court case - Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) - where this Dowling, being covicted of theft in a lower court for dealing in copied music, appealed to the Supreme on the basis that he did not stole anything, and the Supreme ruled for him. This ruling is generally regarded as an acknowledgement that copyright infringement is not theft.

You can read the Supreme Court decision here

[ January 08, 2006, 04:06: Message edited by: khaavern ]

 

Really, thinking hard about it, what they're losing isn;t their music, but your custom. What they lament is a loss of a customer, so in effect you are stealing yourself...
Downloading music is kidnap?

I'll pose a situation here (a true one, too!)

I downloaded a couple of songs, on the advice of a friend, about three years ago. The band was not popular in the UK, and I would never have heard of them otherwise. I liked these songs, and bought an album(the only one stocked in HMV). I know have about 5 albums, all bought and paid for.

So, my downloading earned the band (Or whoever, lets not start this argument again) about £75

How much would 3 tracks have cost? 30p on Napster?

I've got a quote from a famous musician somewhere saying he doesn't mind downloading because it spreads his music about, and for everyone who downloads, another will buy. I've a sneaking suspicion it was Chris Martin, but I'm not sure. It definatley wasn't Metallica...

 

Congratulations, then; you've got his permission. But only his permission; he can't speak for all artists.

Good for you, but did you really have to download them? You could have listened to your friend's songs (assuming he/she had a legal copy), or listened in a record store that permitted it (after which you would have already been in the perfect place to buy an album or two).

 

This whole "copyright" thing is absolute BS. I spent 5 years in college as literature/journalism major. I copied all kinds of documents, books, articles and the like for papers and stories (almost all of it copyrighted). And no one batted an eye about how many copies of anything I could make. Sure, its all for academics, but all this stuff about one "copy for this device" and "one copy for that use" is all corporate nonsense. It's all about corporate greed.

 

@dmc: Well, you can't escape looking from the perspective of the person committing theft because you always need some kind of mens rea (in continental systems, it has different definitions but it comes down to intending the act (or culpably neglecting duty), not being excused and similar cirumstances), but what I meant was that you can't commit theft if you just acquire something but only if you take something away, i.e. inflict a loss (erm... except you could still technically steal a dump of waste that you should normally be paid for disposing of, but let's not be too picky ). Otherwise, it's undue enrichment at most, so not even a tort. Of course, if we have EULAs, we don't need torts because contract breach suffices... Then again, lawmakers surely can criminalise whatever kind of unlawful gain they want, and as it's also up to them to decide what's unlawful gain, the whole discussion is sort of pointless in practice... But it still looks just weird to consider copying theft. Perhaps a virtual form of theft of benefits, now that I think about it, but it still doesn't really fit. It is a violation of property rights as defined by the law but so is damaging or destroying an item and that isn't considered theft.

Another point is that, under certain laws, such as the Polish one, you can at least theoretically get a harsher punishment for copying games than for stealing them from shops (it's debatable if Polish item value thresholds for theft apply to software or music piracy as well and the price of a game in the shop is below that). Besides, software or music companies tend to estimate their losses higher than the value of the product you didn't buy even with interest calculated for the whole time you've been using it. If you let a friend copy a $100 program, you would end up being informed that you inflictted a loss of several hundred dollar each, not $100 jointly, not even $100 + interest. It's not just Poland, it's like that everywhere, I think. And I don't like it.

Couldn't agree more. I'm deeply skeptical of adhesion contracts in all aspects of life. First they are creating a market, then they are messing with it and pushing on you some quasi-legal regulations through EULAs and the like, lobbying in the parliament/government circles, as well. Ultimately, they just simply screw you all the way as they see fit to such an extent as they can get away with.

 

I've said it before (in this thread or a similar one) and I'll say it again: some laws are stupid. But they're still the law; break them at your own risk. A prime example is one from the Simpsons, requiring all men to wear hats outside during daylight hours, or another one requiring all ducks to wear pants. Sure, they're idiotic and borderline retarded, but they would still be the law, and a man outside without a hat during the day would be rightfully arrested and jailed for being even stupider than the law.

What really gets me is people breaking laws that require no effort whatsoever to obey. Do you have to hear music or you'll die? I don't think so! So just lay off the music purchasing, organize a boycott, push some legislation, whatever. But deliberately breaking a law (repeatedly, even) when it's completely unnecessary is quite literally asking for trouble, and dumber than a fencepost IMHO. I'm done here.

 

That's a valid concern, I think. Plus, the law does deserve some special respect other than appreciating the rules that seem resonable and that you or I agree with. But it's a different thing when laws start regulating a pretty complex social or mercantile situation that isn't easily sorted out by just laying down a rule.

I still wonder why they don't require you to turn the music down completely when talking on the phone or having a video-conversation on a communicator or to use headphones when you can be heard by people.

Or the gratuitous advertisement you owe to companies for just mentioning the name. Even if you mention the company's name only, you're still expected to write miles of "is a trademark of" babble. Let alone if you use a product name. Look on the stuff that Tal has to put at the bottom of the SP sites. What other purpose does it serve than gratuitous advertisement? So what, if people don't write all that crap, are they supposed to lose a lawsuit (or even trial) for using a name? Come on, come on...

Recently, doing the news for SP, I've noticed "receives BioWare merchandise" as a description of an award. Not a game. Not even a product. Merchandise. Same way, in dev interviews, there are no settings and worlds. There are franchises. Or properties.

I want to be a game player, not a customer. I want to buy a game, not purchase a limited non-exclusive non-transferrable licence. I want to play a game based on a nice book or series of books, not on franchise. I want to enjoy a book and game setting, not a property. Even if I'm tree semesters away from LLM myself. And when I hear "franchise", I want to puke.

By the way, any more thoughts on the original idea of RIAA going after people who don't even own a computer?

[ January 08, 2006, 19:35: Message edited by: chevalier ]