8 ms·

Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"

28 points by timwiseman 16y ago

btilly 16y ago
I knew that this was the position the administration would have once chose Joe Biden as VP. Frankly I'm amazed that they haven't attempted more to date with copyright enforcement. See http://www.betanews.com/article/Where-does-Joe-Biden-stand-on-technology-issues/1219872202 http://www.betanews.com/article/Where-does-Joe-Biden-stand-o... for a quick overview of Biden's background on copyright issues.
- daten 16y ago
  Biden was one of the few Senators I knew by name before he was VP. I was also concerned about how his views on copyright would affect the stance of the current Administration. Here's more on the history of Biden's pro-copyright campaign. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html
- protomyth 16y ago
  I always wondered how his views on copyrights jived with his plagiarism.
username3 16y ago
> No one walking out of a Walmart with a stack of Richard Marx discs under his arm would be subject to such penalties. Penalties are higher because piracy is easier to get away with?
- tptacek 16y ago
  What does how easy something is to get away with have to do with anything? Technology makes certain kinds of securities fraud massively easier to get away with. Should we decriminalize them now?
  - paulgb 16y ago
    I can't speak for username3, but the way I read his/her comment suggested the opposite. If a crime is very easy to get away with (like piracy), the penalties have to be higher to discourage people from doing it.
- wmf 16y ago
  It's a bad analogy to begin with. The RIAA is suing people for distributing music, not downloading it. Theoretically, these defendants could have distributed hundreds of copies of each song (although it's more likely they distributed zero copies).
  - wildjim 16y ago
    Worse, the arguments seem to be based on "potential" rather than "fact". It seems to me non-"internet" piracy cases are largely based on hard evidence, and when they try to include evidence for "potential to do" it's also based on some other hard-evidence, e.g. a large-scale CD-copying machine, a pallet of 100,000 blanks. If you'd been convicted before for the same offence, then you're more likely to get more jail-time for repeat offending, i.e. a predilection for continuing that proven behaviour, but the punishment meted-out for copyright offences seems massively, unbelievably out-of-scale. Probably because they're often compensation paid to the copyright owner, rather than punishment for breaking the law.
holychiz 16y ago
ok, yes, but that is not the main point of the debate, though. What are the proper ways to deter and punish the crime? Up til now, the main weapon wielding by RIAA is to sue petty theft with gigantic financial penalties, which most people don't have the means to defend themselves against. It gets so bad that law firms are now basically blackmail people into submission, eg. "the Hurt Locker" case. This only infuriates others and aggravate the problems.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Qz 16y ago
I keep telling myself, this has to be better than if we'd elected McCain -- right?
- NateLawson 16y ago
  Big business is a huge influencer of both major US parties. With Dems, you get unions and Hollywood. With Reps, you get oil and industrial agriculture.
- presidentender 16y ago
  Lesser of two evils! Woo hoo!
- leviathant 16y ago
  Back in 1999, there were a lot of people who took the position of "Doesn't matter if it's Gore or Bush, they're both just as bad." I'm pretty sure no one who had that sentiment before still holds that notion. It's a lot better than if we elected McCain/Palin, yes.
  - jambo 16y ago
    While I'm no fan of George W. Bush, it's hard to hypothesize about a past that never happened. So while not many people have that sentiment today, that's only because we picked one and didn't get to see what the other would've done.
    - leviathant 16y ago
      While sometimes it's hard to hypothesize, there are other times when you've done enough research on the topic to make a very astute guess. I imagine that, by now, you've read The Onion's absurdly prescient "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'" from January 17, 2001 -- http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nigh... Maybe I have different ideals than the original poster that I replied to, but I feel confident in saying that yes, we are better off not having elected McCain/Palin.
daten 16y ago
From the article: Locke then lamented the fate of songwriters. "Recently, I've had a chance to read letters from award winning writers and artists whose livelihoods have been destroyed by music piracy. One letter that stuck out for me was a guy who said the songwriting royalties he had depended on to 'be a golden parachute to fund his retirement had turned out to be a lead balloon.' This just isn't right." I don't believe the assumption that every download is a lost sale is remotely true. It's also possible that many downloads led to increased sales or that the downloader already owned a copy of or access to the media and was just getting it in digital form for convenience. If I download the mp3 copy of a CD I own a physical copy of, am I a criminal? Did I steal from the artist?
- masklinn 16y ago
  > I don't believe the assumption that every download is a lost sale is remotely true. They don't either.
  - daten 16y ago
    I assumed the quoted song-writer does. I'm not sure how else he justifies not being able to retire from his work. He doesn't seam to be suggesting the quality of his work is to blame. I know quality and personal interest is the reason I don't purchase (or pirate) most popular American music.
- redrobot5050 16y ago
  According to the DMCA, yes, you are, unless you KNOW you are downloading it from an authorized party. IANAL, for the record sake, but that's how most P2P has been bastardized by the law and you can't use the "I already own the CD" defense if sued.
- byoung2 16y ago
  If I download the mp3 copy of a CD I own a physical copy of, am I a criminal? Did I steal from the artist? To the first question, I would say that you are guilty of copyright infringement. Compare it to buying a bootleg DVD of a DVD that you already own that was scratched and is now unplayable, or sneaking in to watch the re-release of Avatar now that you own it on Blu-Ray. To the second, no you haven't stolen anything from the artist, since the artist (well, really the record label) still has the original item.
ThomPete 16y ago
It's funny how the word Piracy is used. One has to wonder what kind of pirates we are talking about. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" type of pirates did loot ships, but what they stole where often goods produced by slavery and itself stolen from the colonies. Piracy or as I prefer to call it – copying is the result of a disconnect between price and cost. When you steal you take something away from others so it's not there anymore, but copying isn't stealing it's copying by using an internet connection you pay for yourself, onto a computer you have paid for yourself. In other words the only one who have any real cost is the one who copies. There is absolutely nothing that states that it's fair for musicians or other artist to make millions by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost. And now that we are on the subject of newspeak anyway. If you produce an album with the purpose of selling it, you aren't really an artist anymore, you are a businessman and your product is a commodity. Deal!
- kscaldef 16y ago
  There is absolutely nothing that states that it's fair for musicians or other artist to make millions by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost. Is it fair for software developers to make money by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost?
  - bediger 16y ago
    > Is it fair for software developers to make money by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost? Well, what about simple Econ 101? In a competitive market, prices tend towards the marginal cost of production. Wow! Someone just invented a technology that allows the duplication and distribution of recorded music to happen at almost zero cost! Is it fair for the people whose livelihoods are changed by this new tech to lobby/pay for laws to maintain the price of their good at pre-new-tech levels? Is if fair for that new technology to be legally limited by highly unpopular, and un-democratically-created laws? Is it fair for me to be deprived of the use of that new technology for un-infringing uses? And yes, I've taken advantage of the new technology to mass produce and distribute some of my own software are near zero-cost: http://www.stratigery.com/acl.html http://www.stratigery.com/acl.html Have a copy, for free!
flash2024 16y ago
Printing money to give to bankers is also flat, unadulterated theft.
- jbooth 16y ago
  Pop quiz: Which administration passed TARP?
  - pchristensen 16y ago
    <spoiler> The Bush Administration, before Obama was elected. </spoiler>
  - hga 16y ago
    Bonus question: Which Senator who became a President voted for it? (Cheet sheet: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213 http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...)
    - jbooth 16y ago
      Sigh. Lots of senators voted for it, because at that point in time, with everything falling down around our ears, it was the safest move, flaws and all. That particular situation was actually bad enough that a majority of Congress forgot about partisan silliness for a second. Unbelievable, I know. Last I knew, the overwhelming majority of the money had been paid back. Anyways, score 1 point for you, you can take that one right on to Fox News.
byoung2 16y ago
I hate it when people equate piracy with theft...it's copyright infringement, not theft. If someone breaks into my car and steals my iPod, that's theft. I, the original owner, no longer possess the item. If instead the "thief" breaks into my car and copies all of the music from my iPod (let's say that all of the songs are recordings of my band to make things simple) and posts it on several torrent trackers, that's piracy (copyright infringement). I still have the originals, so no harm, no foul. In fact, I might be glad that someone is doing some free marketing for my band (or I might choose to cry about the billions in lost sales). I'd argue that piracy has done more to help the music industry than it has to hurt it. Back when people bought music on $17 CD's, they only bought a handful per year. And once you lost a CD or it got scratched, you stopped listening to it. You could also only carry 6 at a time in your CD changer. With illegal MP3 downloads (and later, legal ones), people could suddenly carry thousands of songs in their pockets, and they never get lost or scratched. Back in college, since music was now "free", my friends and I expanded our musical tastes beyond gangsta rap to include rock, country, trance, techno, classical, and jazz. With a new world of music open to us, we started going to local jazz clubs, raves, and concerts (which put more money in the record labels' pockets than CD sales ever did). I went to 2 Rage Against the Machine concerts in one weekend, even though I've never paid for one of their albums. Just the other day I listened to the first MP3 I ever downloaded (August, 1998, Eagle-Eye Cherry - Save Tonight). I backed up all of my old MP3's on CD-R back in the day, and they've been passed from desktop to laptop to XBox to iPod to phone ever since. Since all of these songs are always instantly available to me, these artists are still within reach, even the one-hit-wonders from yesteryear. If I hadn't downloaded Fastball's "Outta My Head" back in 1998, I would never have gone to see them perform at the Viper Room in 2008 (it was the illegal download of a B-side that made me appreciate them more than hearing "The Way" on the radio).
- NateLawson 16y ago
  The problem is there have not been big enough studies into the effects of piracy. It's very difficult to control for the various factors such as the overall economy, purchasing reasons, packaging and ease of use, etc. Anecdotally, it appears to vary widely from person-to-person, year, type of content, etc. But I find it interesting that technology-minded people tend to emphasize the positive aspects without any real evidence that on the whole they outweigh the negative. You've never bought $1 DVDs on the corner, but it's very common for others.
steveklabnik 16y ago
Oh well, this is unfortunately expected. I'm not sure we'll ever see reasonable progress on this issue anytime soon.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
Piracy is not stealing, not a serious crime, it is a different thing, and with untruth statements like this you are doing a bad favor to the industry. I'm an author myself,and I see that as "the Prohibition in the United States". Exaggeration to this problem could backfire. Copyright has been extended so much that is a flagrant abuse +70years from authors dead when it was 25 years from creation like a invention patent means a lot of people could seriously object to it, and win. Is drawing Mickie Mouse a crime just because the corporations lobbied for it? 95% of the US population do and will pirate in their lives. Criminalization of piracy and sex means anybody could go to jail(it is so easy to put pirate cds in your enemy home and call police). This population vote Obama and they could make him jobless on the blink of an eye. No matter what Obama says, if 90% of the people think something should be permitted(like drawing Mickie or copying a Beatles song they have payed four times) in a democracy, that is Law. If the president oppose, he can go home.
motters 16y ago
The more draconian they try to get the more people of modest means will have little option but to adopt Creative Commons media and FOSS. Home taping is killing music!
kyro 16y ago
I fully agree, and have yet to hear a solid argument in support of music piracy. Expanding your musical tastes and/or free marketing for the band are typically two very weak arguments, with the latter always unsubstantiated. If I copy your product and disseminate it to those clearly interested in it, I've definitely taken away some of your potential profits. You can argue that there are those whose interest didn't really compel them to purchase the product in the first place, so you're getting free marketing there in the hopes that they'll purchase future products, but let's be very realistic here, most pirates aren't spending more money on music because of their free access to music; they'll just occasionally donate to their favorite band. Of course, that's also a very unsubstantiated claim, but being human tells me that if I can get something for free with relative ease and little to no consequence, there's no reason to pay for it.
- wildjim 16y ago
  I have yet to hear a solid argument for 75-year "ownership" of a copyright. I also view the ability to sell the copyrights themselves (patents, etc, etc) to a third-party as very distasteful -- as opposed to allowing someone to use your copyrighted item(s) for compensation -- as it seems very against the spirit of the law to give up your original right as the author.
lobo-tuerto 16y ago
It would be interesting if they mentioned the proportion/amount of money that goes to songwriters/artists per song. If they want that lead balloon to be a golden parachute, they can make it, just rising the percentage of the royalties they pay to the artist.
petercooper 16y ago
I've seen citations that the common law requires the property to be "tangible" for theft or larceny to have occurred. In the legal, British definition, however, this is not required. Calling piracy "theft" doesn't require considering whether piracy results in lost sales. Instead, does piracy involve dishonest appropriation of someone else's property (virtual or otherwise)? Yes, usually. But, importantly, does piracy involve permanently depriving that person of that same property? If merely taking a photo, recording sound, or copying some files, clearly not. To me it seems that if theft were legally defined as merely the dishonest appropriation of someone else's property without their consent, piracy is theft. If as is typical, though, theft requires depriving the owner of that same property, piracy is clearly not theft. I'm no lawyer, so what's the legal definition of theft in the US? In the UK, "permanent deprivation" is required and so piracy is certainly not "theft."
jrockway 16y ago
This is what's great about the Internet: Obama's opinion on how people use it doesn't matter. "Piracy is bad." OK, good luck shutting down that warez server in North Korea.
davidmurphy 16y ago
Personally, I agree that piracy is wrong. Users pirated software at my first startup company. It wasn't cool.
Adam503 16y ago
Too bad Obama is only inclined to look forward as opposed to looking backward.

28 points by timwiseman 16y ago

I knew that this was the position the administration would have once chose Joe Biden as VP. Frankly I'm amazed that they haven't attempted more to date with copyright enforcement. See http://www.betanews.com/article/Where-does-Joe-Biden-stand-on-technology-issues/1219872202 http://www.betanews.com/article/Where-does-Joe-Biden-stand-o... for a quick overview of Biden's background on copyright issues.

daten 16y ago
Biden was one of the few Senators I knew by name before he was VP. I was also concerned about how his views on copyright would affect the stance of the current Administration. Here's more on the history of Biden's pro-copyright campaign. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html
protomyth 16y ago
I always wondered how his views on copyrights jived with his plagiarism.

username3 16y ago

> No one walking out of a Walmart with a stack of Richard Marx discs under his arm would be subject to such penalties. Penalties are higher because piracy is easier to get away with?

tptacek 16y ago
What does how easy something is to get away with have to do with anything? Technology makes certain kinds of securities fraud massively easier to get away with. Should we decriminalize them now?
- paulgb 16y ago
  I can't speak for username3, but the way I read his/her comment suggested the opposite. If a crime is very easy to get away with (like piracy), the penalties have to be higher to discourage people from doing it.
wmf 16y ago
It's a bad analogy to begin with. The RIAA is suing people for distributing music, not downloading it. Theoretically, these defendants could have distributed hundreds of copies of each song (although it's more likely they distributed zero copies).
- wildjim 16y ago
  Worse, the arguments seem to be based on "potential" rather than "fact". It seems to me non-"internet" piracy cases are largely based on hard evidence, and when they try to include evidence for "potential to do" it's also based on some other hard-evidence, e.g. a large-scale CD-copying machine, a pallet of 100,000 blanks. If you'd been convicted before for the same offence, then you're more likely to get more jail-time for repeat offending, i.e. a predilection for continuing that proven behaviour, but the punishment meted-out for copyright offences seems massively, unbelievably out-of-scale. Probably because they're often compensation paid to the copyright owner, rather than punishment for breaking the law.

holychiz 16y ago

ok, yes, but that is not the main point of the debate, though. What are the proper ways to deter and punish the crime? Up til now, the main weapon wielding by RIAA is to sue petty theft with gigantic financial penalties, which most people don't have the means to defend themselves against. It gets so bad that law firms are now basically blackmail people into submission, eg. "the Hurt Locker" case. This only infuriates others and aggravate the problems.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Qz 16y ago

I keep telling myself, this has to be better than if we'd elected McCain -- right?

NateLawson 16y ago
Big business is a huge influencer of both major US parties. With Dems, you get unions and Hollywood. With Reps, you get oil and industrial agriculture.
presidentender 16y ago
Lesser of two evils! Woo hoo!
leviathant 16y ago
Back in 1999, there were a lot of people who took the position of "Doesn't matter if it's Gore or Bush, they're both just as bad." I'm pretty sure no one who had that sentiment before still holds that notion. It's a lot better than if we elected McCain/Palin, yes.
- jambo 16y ago
  While I'm no fan of George W. Bush, it's hard to hypothesize about a past that never happened. So while not many people have that sentiment today, that's only because we picked one and didn't get to see what the other would've done.
  - leviathant 16y ago
    While sometimes it's hard to hypothesize, there are other times when you've done enough research on the topic to make a very astute guess. I imagine that, by now, you've read The Onion's absurdly prescient "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'" from January 17, 2001 -- http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nigh... Maybe I have different ideals than the original poster that I replied to, but I feel confident in saying that yes, we are better off not having elected McCain/Palin.

daten 16y ago

From the article: Locke then lamented the fate of songwriters. "Recently, I've had a chance to read letters from award winning writers and artists whose livelihoods have been destroyed by music piracy. One letter that stuck out for me was a guy who said the songwriting royalties he had depended on to 'be a golden parachute to fund his retirement had turned out to be a lead balloon.' This just isn't right." I don't believe the assumption that every download is a lost sale is remotely true. It's also possible that many downloads led to increased sales or that the downloader already owned a copy of or access to the media and was just getting it in digital form for convenience. If I download the mp3 copy of a CD I own a physical copy of, am I a criminal? Did I steal from the artist?

masklinn 16y ago
> I don't believe the assumption that every download is a lost sale is remotely true. They don't either.
- daten 16y ago
  I assumed the quoted song-writer does. I'm not sure how else he justifies not being able to retire from his work. He doesn't seam to be suggesting the quality of his work is to blame. I know quality and personal interest is the reason I don't purchase (or pirate) most popular American music.
redrobot5050 16y ago
According to the DMCA, yes, you are, unless you KNOW you are downloading it from an authorized party. IANAL, for the record sake, but that's how most P2P has been bastardized by the law and you can't use the "I already own the CD" defense if sued.
byoung2 16y ago
If I download the mp3 copy of a CD I own a physical copy of, am I a criminal? Did I steal from the artist? To the first question, I would say that you are guilty of copyright infringement. Compare it to buying a bootleg DVD of a DVD that you already own that was scratched and is now unplayable, or sneaking in to watch the re-release of Avatar now that you own it on Blu-Ray. To the second, no you haven't stolen anything from the artist, since the artist (well, really the record label) still has the original item.

ThomPete 16y ago

It's funny how the word Piracy is used. One has to wonder what kind of pirates we are talking about. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" type of pirates did loot ships, but what they stole where often goods produced by slavery and itself stolen from the colonies. Piracy or as I prefer to call it – copying is the result of a disconnect between price and cost. When you steal you take something away from others so it's not there anymore, but copying isn't stealing it's copying by using an internet connection you pay for yourself, onto a computer you have paid for yourself. In other words the only one who have any real cost is the one who copies. There is absolutely nothing that states that it's fair for musicians or other artist to make millions by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost. And now that we are on the subject of newspeak anyway. If you produce an album with the purpose of selling it, you aren't really an artist anymore, you are a businessman and your product is a commodity. Deal!

kscaldef 16y ago
There is absolutely nothing that states that it's fair for musicians or other artist to make millions by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost. Is it fair for software developers to make money by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost?
- bediger 16y ago
  > Is it fair for software developers to make money by mass producing and distributing at almost zero cost? Well, what about simple Econ 101? In a competitive market, prices tend towards the marginal cost of production. Wow! Someone just invented a technology that allows the duplication and distribution of recorded music to happen at almost zero cost! Is it fair for the people whose livelihoods are changed by this new tech to lobby/pay for laws to maintain the price of their good at pre-new-tech levels? Is if fair for that new technology to be legally limited by highly unpopular, and un-democratically-created laws? Is it fair for me to be deprived of the use of that new technology for un-infringing uses? And yes, I've taken advantage of the new technology to mass produce and distribute some of my own software are near zero-cost: http://www.stratigery.com/acl.html http://www.stratigery.com/acl.html Have a copy, for free!

flash2024 16y ago

Printing money to give to bankers is also flat, unadulterated theft.

jbooth 16y ago
Pop quiz: Which administration passed TARP?
- pchristensen 16y ago
  <spoiler> The Bush Administration, before Obama was elected. </spoiler>
- hga 16y ago
  Bonus question: Which Senator who became a President voted for it? (Cheet sheet: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00213 http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...)
  - jbooth 16y ago
    Sigh. Lots of senators voted for it, because at that point in time, with everything falling down around our ears, it was the safest move, flaws and all. That particular situation was actually bad enough that a majority of Congress forgot about partisan silliness for a second. Unbelievable, I know. Last I knew, the overwhelming majority of the money had been paid back. Anyways, score 1 point for you, you can take that one right on to Fox News.

byoung2 16y ago

I hate it when people equate piracy with theft...it's copyright infringement, not theft. If someone breaks into my car and steals my iPod, that's theft. I, the original owner, no longer possess the item. If instead the "thief" breaks into my car and copies all of the music from my iPod (let's say that all of the songs are recordings of my band to make things simple) and posts it on several torrent trackers, that's piracy (copyright infringement). I still have the originals, so no harm, no foul. In fact, I might be glad that someone is doing some free marketing for my band (or I might choose to cry about the billions in lost sales). I'd argue that piracy has done more to help the music industry than it has to hurt it. Back when people bought music on $17 CD's, they only bought a handful per year. And once you lost a CD or it got scratched, you stopped listening to it. You could also only carry 6 at a time in your CD changer. With illegal MP3 downloads (and later, legal ones), people could suddenly carry thousands of songs in their pockets, and they never get lost or scratched. Back in college, since music was now "free", my friends and I expanded our musical tastes beyond gangsta rap to include rock, country, trance, techno, classical, and jazz. With a new world of music open to us, we started going to local jazz clubs, raves, and concerts (which put more money in the record labels' pockets than CD sales ever did). I went to 2 Rage Against the Machine concerts in one weekend, even though I've never paid for one of their albums. Just the other day I listened to the first MP3 I ever downloaded (August, 1998, Eagle-Eye Cherry - Save Tonight). I backed up all of my old MP3's on CD-R back in the day, and they've been passed from desktop to laptop to XBox to iPod to phone ever since. Since all of these songs are always instantly available to me, these artists are still within reach, even the one-hit-wonders from yesteryear. If I hadn't downloaded Fastball's "Outta My Head" back in 1998, I would never have gone to see them perform at the Viper Room in 2008 (it was the illegal download of a B-side that made me appreciate them more than hearing "The Way" on the radio).

NateLawson 16y ago
The problem is there have not been big enough studies into the effects of piracy. It's very difficult to control for the various factors such as the overall economy, purchasing reasons, packaging and ease of use, etc. Anecdotally, it appears to vary widely from person-to-person, year, type of content, etc. But I find it interesting that technology-minded people tend to emphasize the positive aspects without any real evidence that on the whole they outweigh the negative. You've never bought $1 DVDs on the corner, but it's very common for others.

steveklabnik 16y ago

Oh well, this is unfortunately expected. I'm not sure we'll ever see reasonable progress on this issue anytime soon.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago

Piracy is not stealing, not a serious crime, it is a different thing, and with untruth statements like this you are doing a bad favor to the industry. I'm an author myself,and I see that as "the Prohibition in the United States". Exaggeration to this problem could backfire. Copyright has been extended so much that is a flagrant abuse +70years from authors dead when it was 25 years from creation like a invention patent means a lot of people could seriously object to it, and win. Is drawing Mickie Mouse a crime just because the corporations lobbied for it? 95% of the US population do and will pirate in their lives. Criminalization of piracy and sex means anybody could go to jail(it is so easy to put pirate cds in your enemy home and call police). This population vote Obama and they could make him jobless on the blink of an eye. No matter what Obama says, if 90% of the people think something should be permitted(like drawing Mickie or copying a Beatles song they have payed four times) in a democracy, that is Law. If the president oppose, he can go home.

motters 16y ago

The more draconian they try to get the more people of modest means will have little option but to adopt Creative Commons media and FOSS. Home taping is killing music!

kyro 16y ago

I fully agree, and have yet to hear a solid argument in support of music piracy. Expanding your musical tastes and/or free marketing for the band are typically two very weak arguments, with the latter always unsubstantiated. If I copy your product and disseminate it to those clearly interested in it, I've definitely taken away some of your potential profits. You can argue that there are those whose interest didn't really compel them to purchase the product in the first place, so you're getting free marketing there in the hopes that they'll purchase future products, but let's be very realistic here, most pirates aren't spending more money on music because of their free access to music; they'll just occasionally donate to their favorite band. Of course, that's also a very unsubstantiated claim, but being human tells me that if I can get something for free with relative ease and little to no consequence, there's no reason to pay for it.

wildjim 16y ago
I have yet to hear a solid argument for 75-year "ownership" of a copyright. I also view the ability to sell the copyrights themselves (patents, etc, etc) to a third-party as very distasteful -- as opposed to allowing someone to use your copyrighted item(s) for compensation -- as it seems very against the spirit of the law to give up your original right as the author.

lobo-tuerto 16y ago

It would be interesting if they mentioned the proportion/amount of money that goes to songwriters/artists per song. If they want that lead balloon to be a golden parachute, they can make it, just rising the percentage of the royalties they pay to the artist.

petercooper 16y ago

I've seen citations that the common law requires the property to be "tangible" for theft or larceny to have occurred. In the legal, British definition, however, this is not required. Calling piracy "theft" doesn't require considering whether piracy results in lost sales. Instead, does piracy involve dishonest appropriation of someone else's property (virtual or otherwise)? Yes, usually. But, importantly, does piracy involve permanently depriving that person of that same property? If merely taking a photo, recording sound, or copying some files, clearly not. To me it seems that if theft were legally defined as merely the dishonest appropriation of someone else's property without their consent, piracy is theft. If as is typical, though, theft requires depriving the owner of that same property, piracy is clearly not theft. I'm no lawyer, so what's the legal definition of theft in the US? In the UK, "permanent deprivation" is required and so piracy is certainly not "theft."

jrockway 16y ago

This is what's great about the Internet: Obama's opinion on how people use it doesn't matter. "Piracy is bad." OK, good luck shutting down that warez server in North Korea.

davidmurphy 16y ago

Personally, I agree that piracy is wrong. Users pirated software at my first startup company. It wasn't cool.

Adam503 16y ago

Too bad Obama is only inclined to look forward as opposed to looking backward.