Why online piracy isn't theft

user237428934 · Mar 31, 2012

jippiejee said:
The rest is free really.

The behavior and talking of people like you is water on the mills of the ACTA lobby.

jippiejee · Mar 31, 2012

But reality.

FrankS · Mar 31, 2012

Time to cool our jets, maybe?

Snacks · Mar 31, 2012

jippiejee said:
If only everything was this black and white. When it comes to music, I just don't know beforehand whether I like an unknown band or not when friends wrote about it. Before we had Spotify, downloading a torrent cd rip was the great way of finding new music to like or dislike. Bands I otherwise would never have heard of and would have ignored for the rest of their existence, I now could pre-listen. Bonus if they came to my town for a concert. I'd book tickets then, buy a cd there and a t-shirt. Bands not recognizing the marketing value of the interwebs and chasing the freeloaders will be missing out much more in the end. The web is for linking and sharing, your product should be more than that. A great print for example, of something that was widely shared as jpeg on the web.

As others have said, it is about choice. You still gain something. When you listen to the radio, or hear a song in a bar, that has been paid for and provided to you. Professional artists and musicians are not there to provide material for your interest in the hope that you might pay for them.
It is not as if there has been no outreach. Official Youtube channels with advertising provide the kind of opportunity to hear new music that you mention. Amazon and other sites allow you to play samples of tracks.

FrankS · Mar 31, 2012

Jippijee, it really is about choice. Some people willingly pay to have their skin and body parts pierced with metal pins and such. Now, if someone who chose not to do so had this forced upon them, it would be assault. Pretty simple.

Chris, relax my friend. You'll give yourself a heart attack or stroke.

jippiejee · Mar 31, 2012

Just stop imagining you can control this. I have 100 colleagues exchanging usb sticks with stuff they discovered and really enjoyed. Sharing is a human cultural activity. All that can be shared on a usb stick is no longer 'your product'. It's everyone's. Like it or not. Make great prints.

seakayaker1 · Mar 31, 2012

Sharing something is when you have consent from the owner.

Sharing something without consent of the owner is theft.

Plain and simple.

Bill Clark · Mar 31, 2012

Hi Roger!

I'm not a lawyer however I have dealt with this issue just to make sure I don't do something where I need to pay for a license first!

Thanks for your question. I love the articles you have written in Shutterbug, tho I haven't read any for a while. Maybe I missed them! If I did sorry.

I have purchased music that has license to use on the web, presentations and videos & DVD's for clients.

Here is an example of improper usage:

A senior photographer has a client bring in a couple of favorite CD's. Photographer prepares a DVD purchased by the client of photos from a session. Is it OK to copy a song from the clients CD to a DVD that the photographer produced and sold to the client? Be careful!

What do you think?

If a photographer wants to buy a license to use a certain song to use on their website, where do they go? The artist? The label who makes the CD?

What do you think?

This copyright law issue needs to be looked at because of the internet.

Sure nice having your participation here!

huntjump · Mar 31, 2012

Jippiejee, artists have always had to sell their work..simply to survive. You make it seem like copyright laws are stifling creativity and innovation. WIthout it, the artist simply could not survive and would have not incentive to be creative and work hard if they were constantly ripped off or "stolen" from. Besides, art is shared easier with the internet, but it shouldn't allow theft to happen easier either. Plus copyright laws aren't absolute and overly broad. You can sample artists for tracks, an example of where some sharing can still protect the original artist.

jippiejee, how do you survive as an artist without being able to make a living from it? Do you make your livelihood from your art?

Cheers,

Adam

dbarnes · Mar 31, 2012

"Just stop imagining you can control this."

Jippiejee has a point. The genie is out of the bottle. That's what makes this all so tense. There are what, 10,000 (or pick your own number) people consuming artistic works for every one person creating them? Creating quality work is still hard and consuming it has gotten WAY simpler. The asymmetry is striking. Not everybody uploads and downloads the work of creators against the creators' wishes, but way more "share" than create. So the landscape of being an artist in digital media has been transformed.

But the law is still the law. Rights are still rights. Laws may change, but for now, sharers shouldn't be surprised when copyright holders defend their rights aggressively. That means Big Media and small fry, too. (Has anyone else here actually filed copyright paperwork with their government? I have. In the US, it's cheap and easy.)

Maybe a lot of sharers see copyright infringement as something like jaywalking? Kind of wrong, pretty much illegal, but REALLY, nobody seems to get hurt and nobody gets ticketed! Except sometimes they do. I'm going to completely guess and say that a typical jaywalking fine is $30. In the US, copyright infringement can cost you $30,000. Or $150,000, if you did it, beyond a reasonable doubt, intentionally. ("No sir, I accidentally downloaded each and every one of these 2TB of movies here on my PC.") Sometimes those fines are sought hamhandedly and backfire, and sometimes not.

So I guess we all choose where to take our chances. Meanwhile, the idea that digital creative works belong to the world and not to their creators may take a generation or two to percolate through society. Personally, if I were a musician who made all my money selling T-shirts, I'd start a T-shirt business, copyright a few designs and dispense with the hard work of writing and performing songs.

Andersju and Jamie123 and Jippiejee, I suspect that being RFF members gives us more in common than we have in differences. Have a nice day.

ps Now let's talk about 3D printers! Who'll be first to print out an M9? ;-)

Jamie123 · Mar 31, 2012

FrankS said:
Just because they don't buy it, doesn't make it okay then. I'm the same way with speed limits on roads and highways. I think thay many/most speed limits are way too low, to the point of being stupid. But I accept the consequences of my actions and pay my tickets.

There's the problem, though. You can judge all you want and call every downloader a thief but that doesn't really solve the problem. What does help solve the problem is if you can convince a large enough number of people that what they're doing is wrong. Sure, there will always be people who just don't care but if it was only them doing it it wouldn't be much of a problem. The problem is that seemingly decent people don't understand that what they're doing causes others harm.

As for your attitude towards speed limits, I think this is quite troubling. Speeding endangers the lives of others and your attitude is reckless. The ticket you get when they catch you speeding is supposed to teach you a lesson and discourage you from doing it again. It's not meant as a fee you pay so you can go over the speed limit.
Besides, you say you 'accept the consequences of your actions and pay the ticket'. Well, duh. You really don't have a choice, do you. And I'm sure you only pay the fine when you get caught.
By the very same line of reasoning you have presented in regards to speeding a copyright infringer can simply say he disregards copyright laws because he finds them stupid. And he will face the consequenced should he ever get caught.

Al Patterson · Mar 31, 2012

Roger Hicks said:
It does? Why? Has the internet poisoned their brains so that they cannot think clearly?

Cheers,

R.

This thread is proof that muddled thinking lives in abundance on the Net. Theives in denial abound....

pakeha · Mar 31, 2012

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
You can keep repeating it, but it just makes you look less intelligent with each post. How dare you tell me, a professional photographer, what my 'product' is?? You don't have a damned clue. Time to shut up.

Why do you insist on taking any discussion as a personal affront to your profession. No doubt when you made this `personal choice' the internet was alive? So you had all the info in front of you yet anyone would think you were the first `starving artist'.It is , no you are becoming a clich`e.
Your subject matter from what i have seen is often free and you kinda champion the downtrodden/decay in society..so tell us, when you make a sale do you donate any proceeds to your subject matter?

You also have an absolute inability to see from another cultures perspective, why don`t you become part of the minority, get a passport for you and son and have a look around.Look at the positive though,there is much more to the world than fiscal/legal doctrine as prescribed by your culture. You obviously love your son and he is such an important part of your life, don`t just feed him the `big bad world' negativity.

andersju · Mar 31, 2012

andersju said:
Now, if you really do think that all unauthorized use of copyrighted material is theft, why don't the mods here at RFF start removing posts with links to YouTube videos and start warning users? At least in the obvious cases, of which there are many. The linked videos are very often uploaded without unauthorization, and by linking to them you're helping these criminals and promoting piracy, no? Or are you not? Do you not think it's theft? If so, why?

A lot of "copyright infringement = theft & wrong" people seem to have no problem browsing and sharing YouTube videos. I don't see how that is consistent with their views. I'm genuinely curious about this.

Chriscrawfordphoto · Mar 31, 2012

pakeha said:
Why do you insist on taking any discussion as a personal affront to your profession. No doubt when you made this `personal choice' the internet was alive? So you had all the info in front of you yet anyone would think you were the first `starving artist'.It is , no you are becoming a clich`e.
Your subject matter from what i have seen is often free and you kinda champion the downtrodden/decay in society..so tell us, when you make a sale do you donate any proceeds to your subject matter?

You also have an absolute inability to see from another cultures perspective, why don`t you become part of the minority, get a passport for you and son and have a look around.Look at the positive though,there is much more to the world than fiscal/legal doctrine as prescribed by your culture. You obviously love your son and he is such an important part of your life, don`t just feed him the `big bad world' negativity.

If your culture condones the theft, dishonesty, and ignorance that so many here stand for, I want nothing whatever to do with it. As it is, I can speak three languages (English, Russian, and Castillian). I'm Hispanic, so already live with two cultural traditions. Both of which respect the right of artists to earn a living from their work and absolutely condemn thieves and moral relativists. I think I'll stick with being a Hispano Americano, muchas gracias.

Chriscrawfordphoto · Mar 31, 2012

huntjump said:
jippiejee, how do you survive as an artist without being able to make a living from it? Do you make your livelihood from your art?

Cheers,

Adam

He is probably not a professional artist. He probably has a good job in another field, and just doesn't give a damn about anyone else. His attitude is one I see often. "I have a decent living doing what I do, but you have no right to a decent living doing what you do. I've got mine, so screw you."

Its a repugnant attitude, but depressingly common today.

igi · Mar 31, 2012

andersju said:
Nobody commented on this and I'm still curious. Here are some links to get you started. Just a fraction of all YouTube links on RFF. Obviously I haven't verified all of them but by the looks of it I'd guess that all or nearly all link to videos uploaded without authorization from the copyright owner:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74899 youtube clips of Gary Winogrand at work...
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32323 Bresson Vid On YouTube
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1016198&postcount=4 Andre Kertesz
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1574752&postcount=9 Bruce Gilden's Leica
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1683051&postcount=12 hcb quote
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1522603&postcount=17 Slate: Slow Photography
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1539466&postcount=21 Is street shooting easy?
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1067003&postcount=8 Ansel Adams and 35mm
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100241 Found on Youtube
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1548179&postcount=25 documentary movies
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55926 Garry Winogrand documentary
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96228 90 min Documentary on W Eugene Smith
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110069 William Klein contact sheet video
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92326 Sebastião Salgado Documentary, Omnibus.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98785 Robert Frank and The Stones - Rocks Off
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74970 Andre Kertesz - video -

Thievery going on here. RFF is helping piracy. I'm sure sure the world would have been a better place had these threads never seen the light of day. Because it's theft, right? ...right?

Yeah, and RFF'ers is thanking the one who "shared" these links.

We better arrest these thread starters.

flip · Mar 31, 2012

I find that discussions on this topic tend to blur notions of what is and what should be.

I worked for years as a computer engineer. Intellectual property theft is a crime under copyright law. I'm sure this helped ensure my employment. {My own personal notions of what should be are more in line with those of the FSF.}

File-sharing facilitators are a different category. I think they're a bit more like the convenience store clerk who leaves the register unlocked when they attended to another task. Should the till be robbed, their culpability in the crime depends on how well their complicity can be proven. Certainly, it's something cops look into and something the court should look into in file sharing cases as well.

The legal battle is moot anyhow: technology has always beat legality, historically. The real winners are the lawyers. For the rest of us, it comes to making life decisions that take into account these unkind realities.

rxmd · Mar 31, 2012

flip said:
I worked for years as a computer engineer. Intellectual property theft is a crime under copyright law.

Actually it's not. Copyright infringement is.

mwoenv · Mar 31, 2012

No surprise coming from the NY Times as at the beginning of 2011 the Authors Guild sued the NYT for their plans to purge databases of freelance works unless the authors agreed to give up their rights without compensation.

Everyone loves to make money off others' work without paying for it. Now that it's digital, some try to justify it by changing the terminology but profiting without compensating the creator is theft.

Why online piracy isn't theft

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