In Switzerland Downloading Copyrighted Materials for personal Use is Legal

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Quexos

That has been proven wrong with the music industry. Of all, the hardest hit by piracy if I'm not mistaken. Well it seems there has never been so much music and bands and concerts . . .

You really think more people are listening to live music than in the big band era? It was common back then for people to go dancing to live music at least weekly.

In classical music, at least, there is less and less recording, and orchestras are hurting. There may be cultural reasons why some kind of music is healthier than others at any given time. But, overall, music revenue, in the internet era, is way down.

Also heavily hit by the availability of free electronic content are newspapers. Newspapers may be a better indication of where publishing is going than music, because they both involve reading.

It's true that news gathering organizations are giving away their content, rather than having it involuntarily taken from them without payment.

It's also true that giving away your possessions has the same economic effect as someone taking them against your will. I still call the latter stealing.

Originally Posted by Belfaborac

A 2009 study funded by Virgin Media again found that pirates buy more music than non-pirates . . .

I think it quite possible, even probable, that the average dollar store shoplifter spends more money on legitimate dollar store purchases than the average person.

And I think it quite possible, even probable, that jewel thieves spend more money on legitimate jewelry store purchases than the average person.

All this shows is that thieves buy stuff they are interested in, and aren't thieves all the time. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are thieves. If they weren't thieves, they would, on average, buy more.

No one is perfect. Most people may have been thieves at some point in their lives. But it's wrong, and we should discourage it.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

a delicate balancing is needed to protect the public and authors. It's always been a compromise.

What delicate balance or compromise? You are advocating sticking it to authors and just taking their stuff. All this has nothing to do with the "rights of the public". Those are just silly excuses, you are too cheap to pay, don't want to use free alternatives, and don't give a damn about those who worked for you. And since you have a reasonable expectation of getting away with it you even seem proud of that fact.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

What delicate balance or compromise? You are advocating sticking it to authors and just taking their stuff. All this has nothing to do with the "rights of the public". Those are just silly excuses, you are too cheap to pay, don't want to use free alternatives, and don't give a damn about those who worked for you. And since you have a reasonable expectation of getting away with it you even seem proud of that fact.

Can you quote where I advocated "sticking it to authors and just taking their stuff"? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. What I have advocated for is reasonable laws and fair compromise which, from the beginning, has been the basis of copyright law.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

You are advocating sticking it to authors and just taking their stuff. All this has nothing to do with the "rights of the public".

Well according to the Swiss laws we're discussing in this thread (and to which I am subject), it is actually the right of the public.

The Swiss government, in her infinite wisdom (grin) has decided that the damage for content creators on average will probably be negligible. It seems that even though the entertainment industry has tried to lobby the government, they have not done so successfully, or at least they have not been able to convince the Swiss officials that the astronomical losses they generally fling around can be substantiated.

From my personal perspective, I indeed don't see why it would hurt authors (who we care about most, here). I tend to spend around $1000 on books in an average year. That's shared between new paper, used paper books and electronic books. Since I work within a community that does not speak German natively, English books are being circulated among colleagues constantly. Generally, that's paper books, but since several of us have more than one eReader, electronic books circulate as well by simple exchange of eReaders. If instead of borrowing my eReader to a colleague, I refer him to a downloadable copy I do not quite see the big difference.

The only authors that will get hurt (and actually are being hurt due to the current exchange of paper books) are those authors that write books I do not enjoy. If I enjoy a book, I am likely to purchase other books written by that particular author. A recent example is Bill Bryson -- a collegue bought the hardback version of A Short History of Nearly Everything. After a couple of people read and enjoyed it, we currently have two paper and one electronic version of At Home.

So, for those trying to tell my that downloading a book is unlawful and unethical I can say that, 'No' it is not unlawful here and ethically I can live with it very well.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

How were his reading habits before the kindle, and what makes you think that he will stop buying books?

He bought about 10 paper books per month = ca. € 150 per month.
Because he said so. His argument ("after only 10 books I have my ROI") wasn't about an initial download of 10 books and stopping then. His argument was about maybe not having to buy books ever again.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by carld

If people aren't saying that content piracy isn't bad (even though lots of people here do), then why keep bringing up the irrelevant argument that it isn't theft? It's just intentionally arguing over a definition in order to muddy the waters and derail the discussion.

It wasn't the people who say content piracy isn't bad who brought up irrelevant argument about theft.

Originally Posted by carld

Edit: I know full well how the dictionary and criminal code defines theft. What I don't know is why some people are so insistent that the legal definition is what matters in this case, and why making that distinction is so important when it's tangential at best.

Because pretending it is anything other than copyright infringement always leads to 10 pages of oh yes it is oh no it isn't crap to wade through. It's pointless and it's counter productive. Even if you almost managed to change someone's mind with mental images of fields full of starving writers covered in flies, as soon as you bring up the theft word you lose them again.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Maybe we can go the extra step and refer copyright infringement as "murder"

Already been done

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/...ammed-critics/

"It sounds like legalized murder to me," said one senior music veteran.

[italianReader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So nothing. That is authorized copying, and is perfectly OK. Giving a copy to somebody else is unauthorized copying, which is not OK.

I suppose copyright tell us nothing about receiving (or getting) the copy. That's the point.

[Ninjalawyer]

There's a fun example here about the results (in the U.S.) about what happens when you don't balance the rights of content producers against that of the public.

Essentially, the US government, with no notice or warning, seized a blog’s domain (and put a page up on the domain indicating that the blog was associated with piracy). The government never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the blog's lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just releasing the domain to the blogger and pretending nothing happened.

The blog had nothing to do with piracy, but did have a similar domain name to sites that did and was caught up in an ICE sweep. It's actually a very interesting case as the government was permitted to get multiple extensions from court without having to serve notice on the defendant's lawyers.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by italianReader

I suppose copyright tell us nothing about receiving (or getting) the copy. That's the point.

Copyright law (in the UK, at least) makes both giving and receiving unauthorised content an offence.

[carld]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

It wasn't the people who say content piracy isn't bad who brought up irrelevant argument about theft.

Well of course they don't bring it up ... I mean *duh*. They don't want to admit that piracy is the same thing as theft, because then they'd have to admit that it's wrong.

It's still just hiding behind the dictionary. "See, I'm not doing anything wrong. The dictionary says it isn't stealing." Even though everyone knows full well that it is. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you, and depriving the owner of something. That's stealing to any right thinking person regardless of how it's defined in the criminal code.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by carld

Well of course they don't bring it up ... I mean *duh*. They don't want to admit that piracy is the same thing as theft, because then they'd have to admit that it's wrong.

It's still just hiding behind the dictionary. "See, I'm not doing anything wrong. The dictionary says it isn't stealing." Even though everyone knows full well that it is. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you, and depriving the owner of something. That's stealing to any right thinking person regardless of how it's defined in the criminal code.

It has been pointed out to you by several people on several occasions that this is not accurate. Do you believe that if you repeat it enough it will become true?

[thebestjeter]

Originally Posted by carld

Well of course they don't bring it up ... I mean *duh*. They don't want to admit that piracy is the same thing as theft, because then they'd have to admit that it's wrong.

I think no one has to admit something that cannot withstand the minimum analysis.

[carld]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

It has been pointed out to you by several people on several occasions that this is not accurate. Do you believe that if you repeat it enough it will become true?

And I've repeatedly said that piracy doesn't fit the legal or dictionary definition of theft. That doesn't mean that in the real world that you're not stealing from the content creator when you download his work without paying for it.

[carld]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

It has been pointed out to you by several people on several occasions that this is not accurate. Do you believe that if you repeat it enough it will become true?

I'll repeat it as long as it take for pro-piracy people to admit that what's going on is stealing, because it is.