"stealing" music

[brad]

have you ever tried to print out stuff? i have and i ended up throwing it away.

actually the biggest 'threat' would be reading each section on the computer, but still i think sales would go up, partly because reading on the computer (extended sections anyway) really sucks.

[adios]

For instance I hate reading online editions of newspapers. I'd much rather get the actual paper and read it. I realize not everyone is like that but it's relevant I believe. My step daughter shares music a lot and burns a lot of personalized music CD's. It's not hard but a little time consumming. I'd certainly pay something for more convenience now that I think about it.

[brad]

in the final analysis i think its a societal question, because i dont think theres any inherent or natural right or wrong to whether

1) musicians should make money off of live performances only (and commercial stuff like using their stuff in movies,tv, commercials, etc.) , and their recorded stuff being 'public domain' and free (which disseminates their stuff so that they can make money off of live performances),

and

2) the current system.

-----------
also as an aside, software is 'licensed', not sold, but said software is sold with absolutely no liability whatsoever for whatever damages or unintended consequences the software may cause the 'end user'.

[John Ho]

That might be true. If so publishers will realize this and begin distributing their books over the internet.

My point is it should up to the individual company to decide whether it wants to market their books, cds, whatever that way. No one else's. If it's such bad business to want to hold on to their intellectual property than someone who is confident enough to believe it will increase sales will blow them out of the water with their superior marketing. People are taking that choice away from legit businesses.

[brad]

not true.

its a complete fiction (legal fiction) to speak of intellectual property anyway. its purely how society wants to decide to do stuff. theres no inherent right.

people could always copy a book by hand and have a copy. now with high techology and personal capability of mass copying society may have to relook at how it wants to handle it. thats all. its a practical matter. when you have to resort to physical force to defend an amorphous concept you should rethink. information is not matter because sometimes your info is worth more if you share it, etc.

if its a choice between making everyone a criminal and going to a new system i dont see the point of not changing other than protecting established businesses.

[John Ho]

I think intellectual property is, in general, more valuable than physical property. Man's progress is defined by the innovations he/she creates. Meaning ideas. If you take away his ability to have some sort of ownership or benefit from those ideas you are stifling innovation. Please note I'm not saying the crap the record industry puts out advances mankind...but once you start down the path of ignoring people's rights to their ideas you're screwed.

It doesn't serve society any purpose to allow distribution of music for free when the creators want to sell it. Others are free to distribute their music for free to generate free publicity for live concerts, cds, and so forth. All I'm saying is that is a choice the creators should be able to make. As far as I know, they currently have laws which allow for copyrighted movies to move into the public domain after a certain number of years. That's a good idea for music. Let the innovators make their profits and after a reasonable time it's free game.

If there's no inherent right to the ideas you create what do you take away next? The rights of people/companies who patent inventions?

Can a fellow employee make a copy of your personal diary you keep at your desk and distribute them on the internet? If there's no concept of intellectual property then no crime has been committed.

The point is not to protect existing businesses. Businesses and industries come and go. I couldn't care less about them. But the right to profit from your own intellectual creations needs to remain intact. You can argue that record companies screw the artists..that may or may not be true. But a contract is signed and anyone knows if you are 18 and sign a contract you better be ready to fulfill it. Plus the artists quickly forget how much money the company spends to market their music and all the money the companies spend on "talent" that turns out to be commercially unsuccessful. A lot of artists seem to think the companies need to weather all the risk (meaning if I'm a bust the company loses money but if I'm a smash hit I should make all the money.) That would be like getting staked and complaining because you have to give up your 50% when you win.

[Kevin J]

That's why I said this was probably a bad example. I agree it's inconcenient to read stuff that's printed out or online, etc. But music is different. You can download it, put it on a CD, and listen to it the same as if you had bought the CD in a store. So if there was some way to clone a book online and have your computer spit out an exact copy as if you had actually purchased it (like you can with music), I doubt sales would increase. Although interest in the author might. IMO-

[ComeOn]

>>Can a fellow employee make a copy of your personal diary you keep at your desk and distribute them on the internet? If there's no concept of intellectual property then no crime has been committed.

John, there's a big difference between a personal diary and anything that's produced for the sole purpose of public consumption.

I personally have very mixed feelings on this issue. On the one side, I agree that people should be able to profit on their ideas and creations. On the other hand, I look at CD's and see usually at most one or two songs I like and the rest I don't really want. Having to buy the whole CD to get two songs, to me is like wanting to buy a video game, but they won't sell me the one I want without four others I don't want. So in that sense, I feel that the music industry put themselves in this position, now it's up to them to adapt.

Marketing is supposed to be about meeting the consumers' wants, not coercing the consumer into buying something they don't want.

[John Ho]

Yeah but the question is whether the idea of "intellectual property" has any validity. If your diary is not your "intellectual property" then you do not have a right to defend against it's use by others.

Also, there is a downside to releasing something for public consumption. If, for example, I wrote what I knew to be a great novel which would be well received and make me famous I would NOT release it for publication unless I knew I was going to make a LOT of money off it. I don't really want all the hassles that go with being famous...but if I were to be paid big bucks that would be a reasonable compromise.

If I decide to sell the novel and suddenly my life is chaotic - phone calls from journalists, crazy fans asking me about my book, and a mob of people wherever I went I would be really pissed if all the money I was supposed to be making disappeared because some ahole decided to scan it and let any yahoo with Kazaa download it for free. Now I'm the victim.

[brad]

'Yeah but the question is whether the idea of "intellectual property" has any validity. '

well for example what does mosaic law (the bible) say about it?

what about software industry nonliability issue?

can a law be good if it makes most people ciminals?

is it a good idea for .gov to use force for every petty thing?