File sharing: Legality and applicability

[El Greco]

The Internet is full of file sharing applications. You don't have to know the alleys and the paths of Internet like the back of your hand anymore in order to find anything you want. The latest releases of music, movies, applications, games etc. are readily available for download, sometimes even before they hit the stores. Many questions spring from this situation:

1) How can the authorities or the companies decisively stop the illegal activities ? Can anyone in his right mind expect that the situation is reversible ?
2) What could the long-term implications for music, video and software industry be ? Their profits don't seem to go down, so could file sharing serve as a way of improving quality/ lowering prices ?
3) If people practically "legalize" file sharing, what is the meaning of keeping it illegal ? And anyway, what have been the results of keeping music copies illegal for decades ? Wasn't it a moot prohibition ?
4) Why do many companies contribute to all this by knowingly implementing weak protection schemes ? Perhaps availability and fame are more important to them than protection ?

 

[ceptimus]

The companies should lower the cost of the items they sell. If a software company or music CD supplier reduces their selling price by 50%, then they reduce the amount of money 'pirated' by 50% also.

But wait! It gets better - if the cost is only half as much, more people will buy the goods anyway, instead of bothering with the pirated versions, so the money value of the pirated goods may reduce by much more than 50%, and the company selling the product may end up making just as much, or more money, by selling an increased volume of goods, at the lower price.

Photocopiers have been around for years, and cameras for years before that, but when was the last time you photocopied or photographed a book, rather than buy your own copy? I realize this is not really a fair comparison, as it is much less hassle to clone a CD than to photocopy a book. My point though is that with paperback books selling at $10 or less, not even pirates can be bothered to copy them.

 

[Powa]

The problem with music CDs is that you usually only want two or three songs on a CD and yet have to pay for the remaining crap. This was ideal for music companies and they made oodles of money that way. Music CDs as they are now are on the way out. Online purchase of individual songs is the way to go. That means lover revenue for the music companies and the artists, but hey, they were selling us loads of crap for far too long, and now we're wiser and also have means to get songs for free (albeit illegaly). So they'd better kiss our a**es and beg us to buy anything at all.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I guess the whole music thing wasn't so much of a problem back when artists put out albums that had lots of good songs, rather than only two or three. Or maybe people's musical tastes have become more sophisticated. Yeah, that must be it.

Ceptimus said:
The companies should lower the cost of the items they sell. If a software company or music CD supplier reduces their selling price by 50%, then they reduce the amount of money 'pirated' by 50% also.

If they would just make the albums free, then they wouldn't lose any money at all! I'm sure they'd make up for it in volume, though.

~~ Paul

 

[DrMatt]

The companies should lower the cost of the items they sell. If a software company or music CD supplier reduces their selling price by 50%, then they reduce the amount of money 'pirated' by 50% also.

But wait! It gets better - if the cost is only half as much, more people will buy the goods anyway, instead of bothering with the pirated versions, so the money value of the pirated goods may reduce by much more than 50%, and the company selling the product may end up making just as much, or more money, by selling an increased volume of goods, at the lower price.

Oh, if only things were that easy. Then we could give EVERYTHING away FOR FREE and make up the revenue on VOLUME!

Photocopiers have been around for years, and cameras for years before that, but when was the last time you photocopied or photographed a book, rather than buy your own copy? I realize this is not really a fair comparison, as it is much less hassle to clone a CD than to photocopy a book. My point though is that with paperback books selling at $10 or less, not even pirates can be bothered to copy them.

Personally, I've met people who have bought cheap ($400) Chinese bootlegs of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ($1200), just to have a copy for themselves. I always just went to the library. Now Grove is a subscription service.

Personally, I've spent well into my 40's living in rental property and barely getting by while working a day job in order to bring to the market two market-quality CDs (see my home page for details). I'm not very impressed by the looting mentality which I see repeated endlessly here and elsewhere on the net.

El Greco originally asked about consequences. Here's the consequences I think are likely to come about:

1. The burying of quality music in reams of amateurism--a further aggravation of the usual state of things.
2. The inability of major publishing and record companies to use big-earner projects to subsidize more varied, prestigious but narrow-niche fair like jazz, classical music, Alternative rock, and "oldies" (anything over ten years old). A consequent narrowing of the range of available commercial-quality recordings, a gap not filled by improved quality of amateur hardware because even pro hardware sounds amateurish in amateur hands.
3. The foundering and failure of publishing and recording companies, which are bought out by technology providers (can you say AOL-Time-Warner?).
4. The transference of "centralized power" from recording and publishing companies to technology companies (instead of Sony Classics owning the content, you'll have to pay Sony Electronics for the hardware while content creators get cut out of the deal altogether).
5. And finally--a blossoming of creators who refuse to be recorded anywhere ever, whose wares can only be sampled in person--by customers who pass through a TSA-like security system.
   [/list=1]
   
   That's my short brainstorm of ideas on where this is leading.
   
   I expect to be roundly flamed for saying these things, but frankly, I'd rather tell 'em like I see 'em and get flamed for it than pretend it ain't so.

 

[Hand Bent Spoon]

It should be noted here that file sharing in and of itself is not illegal. Only the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material is what is being called into question.

It should also be noted that file sharing has not been shown to have a negative impact on album sales. Study: File-Sharing No Threat (This study agrees with an earlier AT&T Labs/Forrester Research study on the topic).

And to all you artists out there, remember that you only gain fans if people can actually hear/read or work. Restrict your work too much and it will be appreciated by no one except yourself. You will either be dragged kicking and screaming into the future, or you will be left in the past with no audience at all.

 

[andycal]

Of course, this whole argument is based on only one area of the market, that of the software (be it music, video or programs).

Look at it from the hardware vendors point of view. Would we really have such a massive take up of DVD hardware if it weren't for the cheap availability of DVD's? Why do most hardware vendors ship region-free kit?

Why are DVD's and VCR's only $/£59 from Wall-mart/Tesco/Asda? And why are there bucketloads of manufacturers?

Look at computers in general, the Spectrum was one of the first really powerful computers that made the mass market, and then bought on lots of piracy. I used to copy a load of games, but I'd buy a few also. I only bought a Spectrum because I knew I could get the software for cheap or free from a friend. This was true for many people, hence Sinclair sold tons of them. By selling so many, more people developed for them, and the software industry boomed.

Same for the Amiga. Atari ST, PC. The PC sells in volume because software is easily available.

Why are Ipods selling so much? Have that many people really got 20gig of legal MP3's??!! Of course not, and if it wasn't for Kazaa, Gnutella and obviously Napster, people wouldn't buy them.

What corporate America giveth, corportate America can taketh away (or sue your butt for owning).

 

[Z]

What kills me is this notion that file sharing violates copyrights. For decades, we used to share copies of cassettes, records on cassette, even 8-tracks. No one jumped down anyone's throat, because we weren't making a profit or claiming it was our own music to gain a profit. There was a company in Florida that specialized in lots of locally made goods - but it gave away cassette duplicates of popular records. Never once got in trouble, because GIVING away copies a) earned no profit and b) did not create a significant impact on the music industry. In fact, Arista Records often sent them albums for duplication to help promote Arista artists!

Now, enter the Internet. Suddenly copyright laws are being re-interpreted, and in spite of the fact that file-sharing actually BOOSTED sales of albums initially, the corporations are going lawsuit-crazy... thereby spending more money for nothing. The only drop in their sales have been the results of customers who are disgusted and disillusioned with corporations for taking such a stance against file-sharing. I know, for my own part, I have vowed to pay $0 for music from major corporations taking part in these lawsuits until such time as they stop this witch-hunt. I still support local musicians and companies, many of whom promote artists by releasing one or two tracks directly to the file-share community. I don't feel in the least bit guilty or bad... I have tons of music at my fingertips but I also have several hundred CDs from before the Napster scandal.

I feel very similarly about software, too. Why in the world does software need to cost hundreds of dollars, and why should I have to buy one copy for each computer I want to use it on? When did this trend begin? Especially when the software is so often flawed upon release, that almost anything you buy nowadays has auto-updaters or a steady flow of patches available? I do pay money for software - usually after it drops below $20 and is available in the bargain bins. But I remember a time when programmers shared their goods freely because it was part of the principle of the thing. Now, it's all about the almighty dollar, making a fast buck. So companies churn out unfinished and poorly-tested software for hundreds of dollars. Well, not my dollars. If it's not fully functioning, requires patches and updates, and isn't a virus protector, then don't expect me to pay full price. I'll buy a copy off of eBay from someone in Taiwan or snag a download off of BearShare or KaZaaLite before I bring some corporate suit $400 closer to buying his third Jaguar.

I'm less viral about movies, in general because there are very few DVD-quality downloads out there and because it takes just too long to download them. But only the very best films get my theater dollars - otherwise, I wait until Sam's Club has the DVD for $12-18, or I borrow it from the library. Am I cheap? Probably, to a degree - I still buy Lego rather than MegaBloks, shell out pretty good cash for Cable DSL rather than AOL (although I'm miffed that all the Free ISPs are gone), and payed full price for GTA: Vice City for the PC - I just like to think I pay the value of a thing rather than the price set by corporate mongers.

It's all moot anyway - as long as two computers are hooked up somewhere in the world, file sharing will continue unabated. The software is too easy to get, too widely spread, and simple enough to make anew should something stop the older versions. And there will always be people willing to share what they bought. After all, you don't think all those songs on the Internet were somehow stolen initially, do you? Someone somewhere paid the obligatory cash for the song - what they do with it then is up to them, as long as they don't profit from it or claim it as their own. That's how I understood the copyright laws.

 

[EGarrett]

As I've said...the genie is out of the bottle in terms of file-sharing technology. Almost all new music will inevitably be freely available via the internet.

So companies will have to change the way they make money off of their music.

My prediction is that they will use the model for television programming that is freely available...embedded advertisements. Sometime down the line you might be downloading that new pop single...and in the middle of the song under the chorus you hear "Beef...it's what's for dinner!" or some other jingle.

If TiVO-type technology continues to spread I can see the same thing happening to television. Advertisements will bounce across parts of the screen (like pop-up or overlay ads on web pages) during shows.

 

[Rat]

I don't thing anyone can seriously claim they have any legal right to download music free, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to claim any moral right.

When I was very young, and therefore had no money, I'd be able to buy very little music, so I'd tape friends' stuff, and they'd tape mine. I'd still buy stuff when I could afford it.

The situation has hardly changed for me now. I buy as much music as I can reasonably afford, which is a fair amount. I have a huge collection of music. If more companies still sold quality vinyl (not the mm-thick stuff they've sold since the eighties) I'd possibly have more. I'll buy CDs if I have to, and more likely Audio DVDs, but I've never liked them, and I've never liked having to pay well over the odds for what I consider (whether rightly or wrongly is irrelevant here) to be inferior.

I've had tons of stuff from Kazaalite and Soulseek. Much of it has been stuff I'd never heard before, and have since bought. A huge amount of it is stuff I've been trying damn hard to track down to buy for years but is no longer available. I tried for ten years to get a copy of Neil Young's On The Beach, which was never released on CD (till last year) so became very rare, and could never find one. It is one of my favourite albums of all time, yet was not available at any price anywhere I looked. I eventually got a vinyl copy second-hand, and then downloaded it (the vinyl still sounds better). Yet I still bought the CD when it was finally released.

Nobody has suffered poverty because of my actions. I buy what I can, when I can, when it's available. If I did not download, the only obvious difference would be that I had less music to listen to. I do not claim, and cannot, that I have any right, legal or moral, to download stuff for nowt, but I feel – strongly – that it has not harmed any musicians, and has benefitted some whom I would not otherwise have heard of.

I realize that not everyone is not as saintly and conscientious as me, but as pointed out above, various studies have shown that the music industry have not suffered financially from filesharing, whatever way you look at the data.

The only person who could suffer for this is me, if the BPA sue me for thousands of pounds, at which point the lovely music industry cartel, fighting for the poor musicians, will heroically make themselves richer, the musicians themselves will be no better off, and I will never again be able to afford to buy music. Who then is the winner? And who are the losers?

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[epepke]

I guess the whole music thing wasn't so much of a problem back when artists put out albums that had lots of good songs, rather than only two or three.

I realize that this is input to the Sarcast-O-Meter, but there was a time when singles and albums were different things. The singles were called 45's and were discs of vinyl with big holes in the center. Popular groups with the song format, when the songs became hits, always[/p] put out singles of their songs, and people bought them individually. They were much cheaper than albums.

Some groups preferred to make productions that were not just a collection of songs but had a coherent theme. These people put out albums. There was even a special word for this kind of concept in rock: "album rock." Albums were distinguished from singles in another way. While singles were often distributed in simple white or brown sleves, albums often had elaborate cover art, often connected in some way with the contents.

Of course, there existed albums that were just a collections of songs, but it was a lower proportion than it is now. But mostly, when you bought a recording of "Beethoven's Ninth," "The Individualism of Gil Evans," "The Dark Side of the Moon," "Remain in Light," or "Freak Out," it was an evening of entertainment, which provided stuff to listen to, stuff to look at, and stuff to read. People who wanted songs bought the much cheaper 45s. Back in the mid-1970s, when albums were typically six or seven dollars, singles generally went for around 50 cents to a dollar. The marketing was clear: 45s for teenie boppers; albums for the more mature. There was even a time when popular music was primarily only available on 45s and 78s (the latter having been a preferred format for jukeboxes), while classical music and jazz and showtunes were readily available on albums.

Now, I think, albums are to a much larger extent just ways to put one or two songs into a box and sell it for $25.00. Sure, there's cover art, but there's a reason that people prefer 17-inch monitors over 6-inch monitors, and you'd better have a magnifying glass for the squinny little text in the booklet. As a result, I think, there has been a teenie-bopperization of music.

 

[Brian]

I believe this is closely related.
I think the biggest change in entertainment we're going to see as a result of new technology is in network TV. Before too long (20 years?) Tivo type devices will be as common as VCRs. Nobody will watch commercials ever again. I don't know how the industry will respond. Will they add more product placement to their shows? Run commercials in a side bar? Will all TV stations be a service that is paid for?
How about TV costs 5 cents per half hour(times how many million viewers?)? And the show that is being watched gets a cut.
Now to swing this a little more back on topic.
Assume downloading music is an inescapable fact, as it seems to be. Selling songs for a buck a shot on the internet will reward good songs and good songwriters. I suppose the word should be "popular" instead of "good". Now if a band writes one great radio hit and 11 filler songs, they'll only profit from the good song. This seems fair to me.
Instead of:
12 songs=$16*1 million CD's sold
it'd be
1 song download=$1*1 million downloads

Imagine if you had to buy 11 rotten eggs to get one edible one at the supermarket.

 

[epepke]

I believe this is closely related.
I think the biggest change in entertainment we're going to see as a result of new technology is in network TV. Before too long (20 years?) Tivo type devices will be as common as VCRs. Nobody will watch commercials ever again. I don't know how the industry will respond. Will they add more product placement to their shows?

Well, with radio and to a certain extent with television, advertisers didn't used to buy commercials; they sponsored entire shows and made their advertising an integral part of the show. Consider Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the Bell Telephone Hour, and Fibber McGee and Molly, which was sponsored by Johnson's Wax and always had a commercial built into the script.

Another way of getting people to watch commercials is by making them enjoyable to watch. In England, movie theaters show fifteen minutes of commercials before a movie. Some people don't like it, but I generally find it charming. The US has had a few series of commercials, like the original ones where the Energizer Bunny went through parodies of other commercials, but they've been running that bunny schtick too long and need to come up with something new.

People are also always going to watch commercials on live sporting events, or at least, if not watch, they're going to be on while they're in the kitchen getting more chips and salsa.

 

[BillHoyt]

As I've said...the genie is out of the bottle in terms of file-sharing technology. Almost all new music will inevitably be freely available via the internet.

So companies will have to change the way they make money off of their music.

My prediction is that they will use the model for television programming that is freely available...embedded advertisements. Sometime down the line you might be downloading that new pop single...and in the middle of the song under the chorus you hear "Beef...it's what's for dinner!" or some other jingle.

If TiVO-type technology continues to spread I can see the same thing happening to television. Advertisements will bounce across parts of the screen (like pop-up or overlay ads on web pages) during shows.

And this scenario is good how?

The "genie out of the bottle" argument can equally be applied to knock-off goods. Hey, they can do it because it is so easy. Rolex will just have to find a new way to make money off watches. How about hologram-ad projecting watches?

The technology to intercept phone calls also exists. Should phone-in service companies just "have to change the way they make money" because a competitor can camp out on their phone lines and re-direct calls to themselves?

Anybody can go to the patent office and see how new, innovative technology is done. Should the inventors "have to change the way they make money" because it is so easy for a competitor to duplicate the invention?

Does anybody see the flaws in this "it is easy, it is inevitable, therefore you'll just have to adjust" argument?

 

[epepke]

And this scenario is good how?

Could be a good point. Bad examples.

The "genie out of the bottle" argument can equally be applied to knock-off goods. Hey, they can do it because it is so easy. Rolex will just have to find a new way to make money off watches. How about hologram-ad projecting watches?

Knock-off goods have been available for many years now. Rolex makes money because people who want Rolexes buy a real Rolex.

b]The technology to intercept phone calls also exists. Should phone-in service companies just "have to change the way they make money" because a competitor can camp out on their phone lines and re-direct calls to themselves?[/b]

Land lines are controlled by property rights. As for wireless, check the PATRIOT act and see how this works.

Anybody can go to the patent office and see how new, innovative technology is done. Should the inventors "have to change the way they make money" because it is so easy for a competitor to duplicate the invention?

Actually, this is a good point, although probably not in the way you intended it. Patents are a quid pro quo exchange. A patent applicant is granted exclusively for a period of time. In return for this, the patent holder has to disclose how it's done.

In contrast, the DMCA is so ridiculous that I have to resort to the style of The Boomer Bible to describe it.

1) Publishing a work means that one has control of it,
2) Forever.
3) Which is to say, one's lifetime plus 70 years,
4) Although it's a bit hard to control your work when you're dead,
5) But the rights apply to your heirs or to whomever you have sold your rights to,
6) Forever
7) Which is to say, for 70 years,
8) Which used to be 50 years,
9) Which changed when Disney figured out that they would lose the rights to sell copies of "Steamboat Willie"
10) Which matters
11) Somehow
12) Because if they can't sell copies of "Steamboat Willie," what can they sell?
13) And so forth and so on
14) Anyway,
15) They can also make it impossible to copy "Steamboat Willie"
16) Using a bunch of prime numbers and such
17) Which probably doesn't matter much,
18) Except that it's a violation of Federal Law even to think about trying to break the encryption,
19) And is probably Terrorism or something,
20) For some reason.

 

[BillHoyt]

Knock-off goods have been available for many years now. Rolex makes money because people who want Rolexes buy a real Rolex.

So has the ultimate knock-off good, counterfeit currency. Do you endorse that? If not, why not? Your Rolex claim is specious. Rolex makes money despite the knock-offs. So do other goods manufacturers. Are you unaware of manufacturer's associations created to try to stop the flow of knock-offs? Are you unaware of the losses each manufacturer incurs because of knock-off goods?

Land lines are controlled by property rights. As for wireless, check the PATRIOT act and see how this works.

I'm not talking about wire-tapping. I'm addressing the "technology exists, therefore..." argument.

Actually, this is a good point, although probably not in the way you intended it. Patents are a quid pro quo exchange. A patent applicant is granted exclusively for a period of time. In return for this, the patent holder has to disclose how it's done.

And why is the patent holder granted exclusivity?

 

[EGarrett]

At no point did I make a value judgement on what I was predicting. I don't think it would be good...ads embedded in songs or during TV shows would actually be very irritating IMO.

Technology exists to steal, cheaply reproduce or bootleg pretty much everything.

The question is, how good are the knockoffs and how widely used is the bootlegging or reproduction.

Knockoff Rolexes are nothing like the real thing. Bootleg movies are usually filmed with a camcorder inside a theater and both look and sound like crap. Thus both businesses are under 'control' because they don't offer the same benefit as the original product.

Music file-sharing is basically rampant compared to other forms of bootlegging...it's also cheaper (you don't pay at all for a Kazaa song compared to several dollars for a bootleg movie). The quality can also be indistinguishable from the actual product.

Add that to the fact that file-sharing continues to grow every day, and the downloading craze has ALREADY forced music companies to drop CD prices... and you have a problem that could logically require music companies to alter their business model in the coming years.

That's why I said you might see embedded advertisements. File-sharing is bootlegging on a level that's free and of a higher quality than any kind of bootleg before...thus causing it to potentially alter an industry.

 

[Zombified]

MP3 files (and other formats) are convenient for their own sakes - people with CD collections are ripping their collections so they can listen to music on their computers, with MP3 portables, etc. I have a bunch of CDs I've never actually listened to, I've just ripped them and added them to my collection. So I think part of the equation is just the convenience of a compressed, portable digital format (and with metadata as well).

If that's true, then it ought to be possible to make a legal business selling digital music files, so long as there's at least some protection from your products become too freely available.

Sure enough, along comes iTunes and other services like it. Now, we'll see over the long run how much profit they can make. But I think it demonstrates that people want the convenience of being able to download music files and use them on a variety of digital devices is as much a motivation as getting free stuff, and people would still be willing to pay to get that convenience.

 

[Z]

Not to mention, Zomb, the fact that people (like me) don't really want to hear 8-12 tracks by the same artist in a row all the time - and CD-jukeboxes are pretty hard to get at any quality. So instead - rip'em and hit 'random' - automatic radio station filled with music you WANT to hear, nicely mixed.

Alas, alas, but it's ILLEGAL to rip your CDs onto your computer!! O Woe! O Agony!!

... but why?

For example, a CD-Rom I recently picked up had a lengthy bit of legaleze on it that included this statement:

1. GRANT OF LICENSE: W--- L--- and D--- hereby grant you the right to use the material contained on the enclosed CD-ROM and/or other physical media (all of said material is hereafter referred to as The Software) on a single computer... You may not use The Software on more than one computer or computer terminal at the same time...

And so forth.

So, what they're suggesting that, if I have the CD-ROM in my computer, reading one file on it, and my wife comes in and wants to read another file on it (we used a shared CD/DVD/RW drive on our home network), well, TOO BAD - IT'S ILLEGAL.

But why, exactly? What the heck is so EVIL about us using it together? They don't seem to have a problem with both of us reading it on the same computer, so what's the big deal?

Obviously, this is targetted more toward file-sharing and illegal duplication, but it seems that once lawyers get a wild hair, even me and the missus won't be safe. Well, that's sort of what started happening with music files. Sure, they're attacking the big uploader/downloaders - but they also nailed a 12-year old girl for a few thou, and went after an elderly gent who burned his collection to the computer for ease of use, never once uploading a single file (but a 'friend' reported him, and he got busted).

It's insanity - basic rules that are meant to protect a company or individual's business interests get clawed at by corporate lawyers and twisted until anyone and everyone falls under the axe. It's an age-old situation, and I abhor it.

 

[Iconoclast]

For example, a CD-Rom I recently picked up had a lengthy bit of legaleze on it that included this statement:

"1. GRANT OF LICENSE: W--- L--- and D--- hereby grant you the right to use the material contained on the enclosed CD-ROM and/or other physical media (all of said material is hereafter referred to as The Software) on a single computer... You may not use The Software on more than one computer or computer terminal at the same time..."

If the above quote of the licence agreement is accurate, and there are no other clauses that restrict use further, then you shouldn't be complaining. That agreement says you can install the software on as many machines as you like as long as you only use one of the installations at a time. In other words, the software company has given you more rights to the software than the minimum required by copyright law.

Here's a question: Since you obviously don't like the terms of the licence agreement, why didn't you just return the software to the place of purchase for a refund?