stealing music, and the future of copyright

Stop repeating yourself and offer something new or be ignored. It's obvious to everybody but you that there is a major difference bewteen repeating a joke or singing a song and stealing the copyrighted media. No one cares if you repeat a Robin Williams joke. But it is illegal to copy a Robin Williams CD or DVD. You have a right to tell any joke for free. You do not have a right to distribute Robin Williams telling a joke. Is that so hard to understand?

No it ain't and you know it. Come up with a new argument, you have now reachee the stage where you are no longer arguing a position but just trying to tire me out to get in you childish last post. Knock yourself out.

Basic ignorance about the music industry is your problem, perhaps. You imagine that writing a song, developing a band, and recording it are fun things that musicians do and not hard work at all! Furthermore they have no need to make a living off their work. How positively foolish!

 

Really? So . . . how do the artists and producers get compensated? Your notion that they do it because they love it and don't need to earn a living from it is blatant hogwash. So these artists must be supported by the state since the music is owned by everybody. This is a communist system that was in place in the Soviet Union and still is in place in China and North Korea.

So, you are staunch advocate of capitalism and free trade . . . except where intellectual property is concerned. Then you become a communist--free music for the Peoples Democratic Republic. What say ye, Tovarich?

 

I refuse to beleieve that you don't understand the difference between singing and stealing a recording of someone else singing. I believe you don't understand copyright laws, trademarks and patents. I've had to work with them all my career. Make note of what a copyright is and what fair use is.:

"Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the right to copy" an original creation.

Copyright may subsist in a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms or "works". These include poems, theses, plays, and other literary works, movies, choreographic works (dances, ballets, etc.), musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts of live and other performances, and, in some jurisdictions, industrial designs. Designs or industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions. Copyright is one of the laws covered by the umbrella term intellectual property.

"Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. It is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. "

Try this:

1. A composer owns the rights to a song he composes. If a musician records or performs the song, then he owes royalties to the composer.
2. A musician owns the rights to his performance of the songs. If a record company records a studio performance and sells it, then they owe royalties to the musicians.
3. A record company owns the rights to distribute the recordings, collect the sales income, and distribute the royalties. If a consumer buys the album, he has paid his royalties to all concerned.
4. A consumer owns the recording he buys. He can make legitimate backup copies. He can make legitimate personal copies on other media. He can listen to the music and so can anybody, as long as it is not commerical in nature. He cannot distribute copies. He can resell the original recording, but NOT the copies, which cannot be retained. These are fair uses.
5. A music pirate owns nothing, has paid nothing, and cheats all of the developers of the recording, the musicians, and the composers.

You keep saying that musicians can earn money from gigs instead. They do already and they have to pay royalties to the composers each and ever time they perform it for pay, whether in the studio or before an audience. It comes out of your admission price. That's what ASCAP does. Radio stations have to pay royalties for playing "free" music for you. Advertisers actually pay for it. Disco's and bars who play music must pay ASCAP fees as well. You cover it by buying drinks. Just think, a penny from that pint of Guinness goes to the musicians who you are listening to at the bar.

Nothing is free, martin.

Not exactly. Intellectual property has limits on exclusivity. Depending on the media, copyrights can last for 17 years and can be renewed for another 17. Sometimes they last for the life of the author and his dependents. In time they become public domain. Then you can distribute them all you want, because nobody owns the rights anymore.

You can publish your own edition of Moby Dick and you don't owe Herman Melville a damn thing. But if you steal a copy of Imagine, then you owe Yoko Ono a dollar. You should walk over and pay her.