File sharing in La La land
p2p news / p2pnet: “It may be a crime to swap digital music over the Internet, but there is no law against doing it through the Postal Service.”
That’s the Boston Globe talking about a new music service, and it’s yet another example of inaccurate reporting in a mainstream media print and electronic ‘news’ outlet.
Generally speaking, it isn’t a crime to swap digital music online, although the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel are doing their level best to make it seem like one as they try to victimize their own customers into buying ‘product,’ as they call their over-priced, low-fi offerings.
But reporters persist in swallowing and then regurgitating ‘press’ statements from Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal as though they represent accurate data from reliable sources.
In its bitter war against its own customers, the Big Four Organized Music cartel claims anyone who “illegally” downloads copyrighted music is a thief and a criminal, although nothing has been stolen, no one has been deprived of anything they once owned, and no money changes hands.
Nor have the labels, or anyone else, ever been able to demonstrate that a file shared equals a sale lost.
File sharing isn’t a criminal matter, efforts by the cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to elevate it to that level, aided by the lamescream media, notwithstanding. It’s a civil one. And what’s at issue isn’t if someone’s broken a law – it’s whether or not he or she has infringed a copyright.
Around 60 million people have shared files with each other in the US. And according to the latest figures from Big Champagne, in January this year, some 6,986,980 people were simultaneously logged onto the p2p networks at any give moment. In February, the number was 6,978,098.
Against that, the RIAA has sent subpoenas to around 19,000 people, young children included, events the corporate press often incorrectly report as prosecutions or law suits.
The Boston Globe story, meanwhile, centres on La La, a start-up which hopes to make its mark and its fortune by getting people to swap their music via snail-mail.
Also See:
Boston Globe – Music swapping the old-fashioned way, May 7, 2006
inaccurate reporting – Warner Music in trouble, May 6, 2006
May 8th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
The title needs to be changed. I thought it was mostly about La La.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I don’t believe the fair use doctrine (a dead horse since the DMCA anyway) can be interpreted to make trading copyright materials via the mail “legal”. It’s not the mode of transmission that the copyright “owners” are in a huff about, it’s the alleged infringing use. Technically it is not legal to give copies of CDs to your friends, no matter what the format or how they get there. You can copy music for your own personal use, such as a copy for your car, or making mp3s to use with a portable player, but you are not supposed to sell or give copies away.
And just to make things interesting, if the manufacturer includes ANY form of copy protection or DRM on the original CD then ANY attempt to curcumvent the copy protection (trying to make copies) violates the DMCA and in the process completely subverts and makes null and void any and all fair use rights that involve copying.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Hopefully what they are doing is mailing the ORIGINAL disc to another person. This would, I would think, be regarded as a “gift”, although if you keep mailing them around it would be the gift that keeps on giving.
I keep reading that the net isn’t anonymous. Fair enough. But this is. And I don’t see what the record companies can really do about it; it’s sort of like taping off the radio. There is no trail to follow, and, on the face of it, nothing illegal is being done. It will be interesting to see how all this pans out.
May 9th, 2006 at 12:47 am
Yeah I read a few months ago that it is against the sites rule to trade copies of CDs – you have to send the original – which makes it legal under the first sale doctrine – its perfectly legal to sell or gift a CD to someone else, otherwise we couldn’t buy CDs as presents for our relatives at Christmas/birthdays, and second hand record shops would be illegal.
I think the problem they will have will be spoof pages. Each person that wants to trade CDs sets up a page on the site – I can see the RIAA setting up heaps and heaps of fake sites to ensure nobody gets the trade they were after.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
Oh, so they are talking about trading the original CDs. That is totally different, and you are correct, perfectly legal. Interesting.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
I have a friend who works for the enemy as a copyright lawyer. We
have had several drunken discussions about copywrong and copying
and such.
He seemed to think that making a mixtape (or CD nowadaze) and
giving it to a friend, ie. sneakernet was OK, but p2p filesharing was
definitely not.
Needless to say, after admitting some copying was OK, it wasn’t a convincing argument on his part that the technological ease of p2p file
sharing was what makes it unethical/illegal/unauthorized etc.
Come to think of it, that BMW drivin beeatch shoulda paid for all the
drinks!