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Re: Downloading debate
Kelvin wrote:
>If you're talking about burning a copy from another cd, that's perfectly
>legal. That would fall under the same law that says its legal to make a tape
>of a song or album for yourself or a friend, as long as no money is made and
>as long as the copy is made from the original.
That's illegal. Giving it to the friend, that is. You can make a copy
for yourself for backup purposes, in case one copy is damaged, but you
can't give a copy to your friend.
Here's a question that occured to me: in the past, singles would get played
on the radio for free. You could tape them off the radio (although I expect
that was illegal, too). How is downloading free MP3s any different than that?
(This is still within the context that the owner has approved the release of
said MP3.)
Jeff wrote:
> I also thought it was interesting that so few actual RECORDING ARTISTS
> seemed to be on the anti-sharing bandwagon.
That's because they have nothing to lose. Most major label artists (until you
get enough clout to fight the system), as I understand it, don't actually own
their music; in order to get the label to front the promotion and production
costs, they sign away ownership of the music. So, from the artist's
perspective, music-sharing increases name-recognition and furthers their
careers. It's the labels that see it as lost income. Independent artists, who
theoretically have more to lose, gain so much more from the publicity than they
lose from piracy that they tend to support it. Ani DiFranco, as I recall, has
a little note on her records saying that copying individual tracks for
mix tapes is fine, but whole albums aren't cool.
Gotta go,
--
Don Smith Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/
"just because you're fighting evil doesn't make you good" - Rabbi Dobrusin
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