-273: 10 September 2003

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10 September 2003 - 9:50 am

I have a question about all this file-sharing nonsense. If I own the CD that a track came from, am I still violating copyright law by downloading the track off of kazaa or whatever program people use for that these days? Also, if I listen to the track once and delete it, am I violating their copyright? Fair use should give me access to it at least once, I'd think. So, if the answer to these two questions if that I'm not violating the copyright by doing either of those things, there seems to be a pretty big burden of proof on the RIAA if they go after people who only download songs.

Which brings me to the 12-year-old girl the RIAA sued (and then quickly settled with when they realized how dumb they looked) earlier this week. All the articles I read indicated that she was primarily a downloader and her mom was quoted as saying that they usually just listened to a song and deleted them. If that is the case, why would the RIAA target them? And if that isn't the case, why didn't any of the news outlets call her on it? My suspicion is that the reporters went into this story with the angle they wanted to pursue already selected. They let that drive their story rather than letting ther facts drive the story.

Posted by on 10 September 2003 at 9:50 AM

Comments

When I saw that story about the little girl being sued it really made me disgusted. This whole suing individuals thing is making me very angry, and it makes the RIAA look like a bunch of petty 4 year olds.

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that fair use allows you to have copies of the music. I have always understood it that if I download a song that I own, it is all good. But then again, I don't know that for sure.

Posted by Nathan on 10 September 2003 - 10:33 AM

Suing the 12-year-old does seem like a PR nightmare. but they've already decided that the best way to make more money is to sue their clients, so how much worse can things get for them? The RIAA's spokesperson said "We don't have any personal information on any of the individuals." I doubt that that is true. Since the whole goal of this campaign is to scare people away from file-swapping, they wanted to show that no one was exempt from their lawsuits. What they foolishly didn't anticipate is how the media would react to this.

On a slightly different note, its interesting that the record labels decided that the best way to increase sales was to sue their clients. Most traditional businesses react to declining sales by lowering prices, but it took the labels three years to figure out that that's what they should do. Instead they managed to build up all these negative feelings toward themselves through their strong-arm tactics.

I could go on and on about this topic, and perhaps I will later, but right now I need to get back to work.

Posted by david on 10 September 2003 - 10:44 AM

They're lowering prices too (at least Uni, the rest probably to follow).

What I'm wondering is why they jump to the conclusion that it's the file-sharing P2P software that's resulting in reduced demand? Doesn't anyone else think that really cheap CD burning hardware and blank discs is a huge contributor to this?

I know I haven't used P2P since shortly after Napster's demise, but I have a bunch of CDs that are burned from friends' purchased copies.

Posted by Adam on 11 September 2003 - 9:59 PM

I've assumed for a while that while file-sharing is partially to blame for the drop in sales (obviously, there must be some people who would otherwise buy CDs that aren't because they can get them online), there are other factors at work here. I have a friend at home who uses the public library as his own personal music service. He submits a request for the library to buy a CD. Apparently they don't get too many requests, because his are always filled. Then he checks out the CD and burns a copy of it. He told me recently that he hasn't needed to buy a CD in two years. To be honest, I don't know why there aren't more people who use public libraries like this. And more than once I've borrowed friends CDs and burned myself a copy.

My gut feeling about all of this is that sales have declined for all of the following reasons. The emphasis on radio singles has clearly hurt album sales. (The fact that "Now That's What I Call Music, Vol. X" is always in the top ten of the Billboard charts is a good indication of singles popularity.) The fact that so many labels are now driven by their bottom line and are unwilling to take chances on bands with different sounds is probably another factor. (The story about how Wilco was cut from their label when they produced an album that deviated too much from what the execs were expecting to hear is a good indication of this.) And the final factor is, as I mentioned in a post a few days ago, he fact that the recently announced price drop is actually the first in the history of compact disks. The record companies illegally conspired to keep the price of CDs high, and I can't imagine that that policy didn't hurt sales in the long run.

Posted by david on 12 September 2003 - 6:02 PM

My understanding of this is as follows. If you have an unecrypted CD or DVD, then if you own it you can "back it up", say on magnetic media, and you're not violating anything. But it should be the case that only one copy is ever in use, so that if you loaned your backup to a friend, I think that violates the copyright.

To make matters worse, if it's encrypted, it's apparently against the DMCA to break that encryption even if you're only making a backup of something you already own.

But there's some kind of escape clause that if you're breaking the encryption to study the encryption, but not to make a copy, then that's OK because it's research on the encryption.

Yeeeesh. It's so simple a 12-year-old can understand it.

Posted by rkc on 13 September 2003 - 9:59 AM

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My understanding of this is as follows. If you have an unecrypted CD or DVD, then if you own it you can "back it up", say on magnetic media, and you're not violating anything. But it should be the case that only one copy is ever in use, so that if you loaned your backup to a friend, I think that violates the copyright. To make matters worse, if it's encrypted, it's apparently against the DMCA to break that encryption even if you're only making a backup of something you already own. But there's some kind of escape clause that if you're breaking the encryption to study the encryption, but not to make a copy, then that's OK because it's research on the encryption. Yeeeesh. It's so simple a 12-year-old can understand it. I've assumed for a while that while file-sharing is partially to blame for the drop in sales (obviously, there must be some people who would otherwise buy CDs that aren't because they can get them online), there are other factors at work here. I have a friend at home who uses the public library as his own personal music service. He submits a request for the library to buy a CD. Apparently they don't get too many requests, because his are always filled. Then he checks out the CD and burns a copy of it. He told me recently that he hasn't needed to buy a CD in two years. To be honest, I don't know why there aren't more people who use public libraries like this. And more than once I've borrowed friends CDs and burned myself a copy. My gut feeling about all of this is that sales have declined for all of the following reasons. The emphasis on radio singles has clearly hurt album sales. (The fact that "Now That's What I Call Music, Vol. X" is always in the top ten of the Billboard charts is a good indication of singles popularity.) The fact that so many labels are now driven by their bottom line and are unwilling to take chances on bands with different sounds is probably another factor. (The story about how Wilco was cut from their label when they produced an album that deviated too much from what the execs were expecting to hear is a good indication of this.) And the final factor is, as I mentioned in a post a few days ago, he fact that the recently announced price drop is actually the first in the history of compact disks. The record companies illegally conspired to keep the price of CDs high, and I can't imagine that that policy didn't hurt sales in the long run. They're lowering prices too (at least Uni, the rest probably to follow). What I'm wondering is why they jump to the conclusion that it's the file-sharing P2P software that's resulting in reduced demand? Doesn't anyone else think that really cheap CD burning hardware and blank discs is a huge contributor to this? I know I haven't used P2P since shortly after Napster's demise, but I have a bunch of CDs that are burned from friends' purchased copies. Suing the 12-year-old does seem like a PR nightmare. but they've already decided that the best way to make more money is to sue their clients, so how much worse can things get for them? The RIAA's spokesperson said "We don't have any personal information on any of the individuals." I doubt that that is true. Since the whole goal of this campaign is to scare people away from file-swapping, they wanted to show that no one was exempt from their lawsuits. What they foolishly didn't anticipate is how the media would react to this. On a slightly different note, its interesting that the record labels decided that the best way to increase sales was to sue their clients. Most traditional businesses react to declining sales by lowering prices, but it took the labels three years to figure out that that's what they should do. Instead they managed to build up all these negative feelings toward themselves through their strong-arm tactics. I could go on and on about this topic, and perhaps I will later, but right now I need to get back to work. When I saw that story about the little girl being sued it really made me disgusted. This whole suing individuals thing is making me very angry, and it makes the RIAA look like a bunch of petty 4 year olds. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that fair use allows you to have copies of the music. I have always understood it that if I download a song that I own, it is all good. But then again, I don't know that for sure.
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