Elizabeth -
At the risk of sounding rude - and though I appreciate aspects of your point of view - I find some of what you say inaccurate, and some naive.
It isn't okay to copy material that is copyrighted.
From my readings, I don't think that's legally accurate. Until last week I hadn't heard about the Home Audio Recording Act, but it was always my understanding that copying materials you have purchased for personal non-commercial use is ok. What I've read about the act over the past few weeks suggests that distribution to others in a non-commercial manner is also ok (though I have not read the act itself and am relying solely on published accounts).
At any rate, it's clear that some copying of copyrighted materials is in fact legal.
Why have copyrights in the first place if they can't provide some protection to those who own them?
Here I think the key issue is to not allow someone to *make money* off the copyrighted material of others. This purpose certainly strikes me as fair and desirable.
The issue under debate with Napster is non-commercial copying and distribution of copyrighted material, with the central question being, "Where do we draw the line?" At what point does non-commercial copying violate copyright law? When the recipient of the copy is no longer someone known to you? When 10 people have received copies from you? 100? 10,000? Is it ok to sing a copyrighted song to a few friends? To a room full of non-paying people? Over a megaphone? To half a million?
Would it be okay with you if other companies took SNDK's copyrighted IP and used it without compensating the company? How is this any different from someone taking a copyrighted song and distributing it all over the internet for copying?
Again, this is a very different issue. In the first case the company is generating revenue off someone else's IP, in the second, they aren't. I'm not passing judgment on whether non-commercial copying should be legal or not, but the two issues are very clearly different.
As for the position of the artists, I'm with Steve - after reading how the industry works, it's a) clear to me that the music distributors are an oligopoly that needs to (and will be) broken, and b) not so clear that the vast majority of artists wouldn't be better off with a more direct form of distribution and a better chance of owning the music they create. I had no idea what leeches the record companies were.
MP3 will flourish, but only after some form of protection is afforded the artists whose music is being downloaded. I think the public would be willing to pay a dollar or two for a downloaded song, and I think the artist deserves to be paid for their work. How would you like to have something you've produced and worked hard on, passed around on the internet for free?
Here's where I think naive comes in. Regardless of fairness, regardless of legality, MP3 IS flourishing.
Wishing it is not so will not make it not so.
Andre |
