Confessions of a Book Pirate

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

Really you would be "stealing" from yourself though, doesn't make much sense to me.

[thename]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

Really you would be "stealing" from yourself though, doesn't make much sense to me.

No, in their view you're stealing from them. You are enabling yourself to play the music in 2 places at once which (in the golden days, pre-"piracy") would require buying another copy i.e., you are "stealing just one copy."

[asjogren]

"Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song."

EVERY ONE of the songs on my MP3 players came from CDs that I bought (and still own), or, downloaded music purchases from Amazon.

If the Music Industry continues to push this position and PREVAILS, then I will become an active pirate. Their revenue stream from ME will diminish. Create a rule that the majority disagree with and then no one will respect any of the rules. Like Prohibition.

The Music Industry and the Book Industry exist because Government granted rights. These industries NEED Government. And Government is "we the people". It is in our interest to grant these industres rights. However, these industries are pushing their "rights" to absurdities. A backlash is not in their interests.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

Really you would be "stealing" from yourself though, doesn't make much sense to me.

Sense? You expect sense out of the MAFIAA? You want an example of sense? Let's look at US Commercial Radio...

When a song is played on a radio station, a royalty fee is paid to a rights conglomerate, such as ASCAP/BMI, or others. To pay for this expense, as well as power, equipment, personnel, ect, the radio station sell other advertisement space to other companies to pay for these expenses.

With me so far?

Now, people who listen to the radio station may like the songs and want to buy some of them. Why? Because they heard them on the radio and liked them.

So, radio is acting as advertising for the songs. Are the rightsholders paying for this advertising, just like a soda or chips company? Of course not! They get PAID to have their advertising done for them! Does the radio station make any money out of the sales of the songs? NO!

So the rights holders get paid to advertise the products they sell! THIS is logic?

No place but America.....

[netseeker]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

So the rights holders get paid to advertise the products they sell! THIS is logic?

No place but America.....

Same here in almost all european countries unfortunately.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by netseeker

Same here in almost all european countries unfortunately.

Copy Cats!

[Xanthe]

Just joined this forum today, so I'm coming into this discussion late, but I thought that the original article under discussion was interesting.

I'm not someone who gets all verklempt over the thought of filesharing books. I sort of look at it as a public library on a world-wide basis; someone bought the original and is sharing it with whomever is interested in reading it.

I agree with the argument that the people who just download books via torrents and Usenet aren't going to be buying them anyway, so they are not taking sales away from anyone. But I would bet that the majority of people who do download books, from an informal survey of people I know online, also buy massive amounts of print books, and their downloading of books hasn't really changed their buying habits. In many cases it's increased them, because they subsequently decide that they want the ebook in print form, or they want other books written by the same author that are not available in ebook form.

Also, the availability of the books also serves as an introduction to the author and can, in fact, increase their readership, or in another situation bring a forgotten author back into public notice. So even though on one hand the author might lose some sales, they are gaining others from people who are just learning about them via a non-traditional means.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Sense? You expect sense out of the MAFIAA? You want an example of sense? Let's look at US Commercial Radio...

When a song is played on a radio station, a royalty fee is paid to a rights conglomerate, such as ASCAP/BMI, or others. To pay for this expense, as well as power, equipment, personnel, ect, the radio station sell other advertisement space to other companies to pay for these expenses.

With me so far?

Now, people who listen to the radio station may like the songs and want to buy some of them. Why? Because they heard them on the radio and liked them.

So, radio is acting as advertising for the songs. Are the rightsholders paying for this advertising, just like a soda or chips company? Of course not! They get PAID to have their advertising done for them! Does the radio station make any money out of the sales of the songs? NO!

So the rights holders get paid to advertise the products they sell! THIS is logic?

No place but America.....

As an aside though, there is a massive class action claim against the Canadian music industry for NOT paying royalty for hundreds of thousands of songs to writers and artists. The penalties are reputed to have a potential total of billions of dollars if the "standard" penalty for copyright violation of 20K per song is applied.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...al-pirates.ars

We all knew the MAFIAA was hypocritical and this confirms that.

I do hope the publishing industry takes their snout out of the feeding trough long enough for them to see the light as the music/movie industry flounders in constant failures of their own making. Hopefully the end users will win and DRM/GR is dropped.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by llreader

In Spain we pay a tax on hard drives, flash memory, etc. to pay for piracy, but it is still illegal to copy, How does that make sense?

Last time I bothered to pay attention, the excuse was that the tax was applied to compensate for "personal copies", which are legal, not for piracy.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Last time I bothered to pay attention, the excuse was that the tax was applied to compensate for "personal copies", which are legal, not for piracy.

Ok, I should look up the logic behind it, but if they are legal, why do we have to pay for them?

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by llreader

Ok, I should look up the logic behind it, but if they are legal, why do we have to pay for them?

Because your government like many governments are involved in legal collusion. The word Bastard comes to mind.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by asjogren

If "normal" social activities - like showing a DVD in one's home with visitors are illegal - then there will be total disrespect for the law.

"Will be"? Nearly all the people I met in my life know that the law is to be worked around, not to be respected, because it's made by people listening to the highest bidder. It's like that for at least 30 years now, and I expect much longer, at least here.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

"Will be"? Nearly all the people I met in my life know that the law is to be worked around, not to be respected, because it's made by people listening to the highest bidder. It's like that for at least 30 years now, and I expect much longer, at least here.

Well, yeah, but that's got more to do with country, history, and differing approaches to social control in the FSB compared to the Industrial North-West.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by Guns4Hire

Because your government like many governments are involved in legal collusion. The word Bastard comes to mind.

Not my government, man, I'm American (not that that is any better). I can't vote here. But it is for personal copies - I just skimmed over the part that says "en el ambito privado", maybe I figured it was other than commercial use, but it really means any copies you make for yourself (I think). It is even worse than I thought at first.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by llreader

Ok, I should look up the logic behind it, but if they are legal, why do we have to pay for them?

There are many legal things you have to pay for

Have a look at this Wikipedia article (in Spanish).