Comments on: File sharing in La La land

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 11 May 2006 03:39:22 +0000

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!

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 10 May 2006 22:27:38 +0000

Oh, so they are talking about trading the original CDs. That is totally different, and you are correct, perfectly legal. Interesting.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 09 May 2006 05:47:15 +0000

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.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 09 May 2006 02:08:06 +0000

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.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 08 May 2006 22:05:39 +0000

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.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 08 May 2006 20:44:16 +0000

The title needs to be changed. I thought it was mostly about La La.