If Downloading A Song Is Just Like Stealing A CD, Why Won't The RIAA Allow Reselling MP3s?
from the either-it-is-or-it-isn't dept
When you hear RIAA defenders insist that an unauthorized download is "just like stealing a CD" or something along those lines, it's worth noting even they don't really mean it. After all, if a digital file really was no different than a physical goods purchase, then you'd be able to do other things with it -- such as resell it. And yet, as you read through Eliot Van Buskirk's article about new online services trying to create marketplaces for people to sell their "used" MP3s, you'll see the scenario is quite different. After all, it's perfectly legal to sell your used CDs, but now when it comes to selling used MP3s you need a record label's permission? Why? Well, because even the record labels seem to inherently know that a CD is quite different from a download. So when the RIAA claims they're the same, what they really mean is "only the stuff we like is the same."
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Why didn't I think of that?
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Re: Why didn't I think of that?
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Re: Re: Why didn't I think of that?
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Obvious answer again...
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didn't someone get sued for this?
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Re:
Nah, they'd probably go after -you- for "making it available."
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re:
Quote of the month!
I'm still laughing.
As for the topic: uh, yeah.
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Re:
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I think it would be more like "only the stuff we can cash in on is the same."
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Off topic
Now, if I upload it to you, have I violated a copyright? Do they "own" the specific series of 1s and 0s?
I'm just curious how much (or little) control they have over rearranging bits on my hard drive.
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Re: Off topic
This has been used for many years by many people to get around those useless restrictions and blockades, but you probably already knew this.
Say if a site requires a ".doc" file and all you have is .pdf, just add .doc after the .pdf and so on.
Getting around all these effective restrictions is soooo hard :p
"Remember, Sharing is Caring"
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It would be the glowing hot rod shoved right through the heart of their position on 'digital music'. :)
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well....
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There is no way to tell the copy from the original. So you "buy" and MP3, and then "sell" it to a marketplace - except you keep a copy. Then from that copy, you make a copy and sell it to ANOTHER marketplace, and you do this for each of the potential market places.
Ding! Your MP3 purchase is now profitable, as you have resold it 10 times.
That's why.
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Re:
Which is exactly why the recording industry is in error when they claim that digital music downloads = CDs.
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Re:
Sure, it is easier in many cases to deny people rights in order to make things simple for corporations (or governments), but that way lie problems....
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Re: Pretty Simple Bullshit
You still havent’t explained why such resales shouldn’t be allowed. All you’ve done is point out facts that everybody already knows. How does it follow from those facts that resales shouldn’t be allowed? After all, it has long been the position of Big Content that all such copies, if they are unauthorized, should be counted as lost sales for the purposes of copyright-infringement suits. So why can’t they also be counted as legitimate sales?
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Heavily used AutoDESK CAD platform for sale...
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This issue was already resolved
The only remaining issue is whether the retailer who sold you the digital copy can contractually prevent you from reselling the content. First sale is only a defense to IP infringements, not breach of contract. That leaves consumers (or the sites trying to facilitate these resales) to argue misuse and some of the property law doctrines.
Regardless, it is theoretically legal that you could set up music player software where it stores all songs in the cloud -- some on your computer and some on other computers. Whenever you requested to play a song, if it isn't in your library, it would download it from another computer -- but also delete it from the remote computer. So long as the copy count across the entire network stayed the same (as opposed to normal p2p where the old copy is not deleted), you'd have very good legal arguments that you're not infringing.
And yes, I'm an IP attorney.
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Re: This issue was already resolved
Hmm. Well didn't the case about "stamped CDs" take on some of this, by noting that you couldn't contractually remove certain aspects of copyright law -- including first sale? Trying to remember the specifics so I may be wrong...
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Re: Re: This issue was already resolved
In that case, the court said that no agreement was formed because of the way the discs were mailed out. When you buy an mp3 online, you have to go through the long winded ToS to make that purchase. The question is whether those terms can prevent you from permanently selling or giving away the file by contract law (not copyright law).
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Re: This issue was already resolved
+1 xD FTW!
Let's make a OneSwarm fork that does that!
(OneInstanceSwarm?)
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I just thought of that.
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Indeed
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Snap a photo of them and say "who does this belong to? You, because it's a picture of you, or me because I took it?"
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Re:
It's stupid to try and sell it for the same price as a CD then.
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Oh Dear
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Re: Oh Dear
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Re: Re: Oh Dear
That was a joke.
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Watunes, The New Music Industry!
Watunes offers services for the entire independent music community, whether you already have digital representation or are just getting started in the digital world. We make it easy to distribute your content to digital outlets, promote your content using our innovative marketing systems, and manage your catalog and sales using our first-class technology.
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Earl "the Pearl" Monroe link:
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Sammie Houston
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Sneak Preview: http://tinyurl.com/dh3mum
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watunes.aspx
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different look on MP3's
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The RIAA is fucking stupid
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Chris
Columbia Law '07
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Re:
Actually, no, it's not.
The difference between a CD and an mp3 is that when you resell an mp3, it means that you're making a copy of it and selling that.
Yes. That's true. But the same thing is true when you download an MP3. That's why it's not stealing.
Which is the point I made in the article exactly. So, you just proved that I was right, not wrong.
CDs aren't easily reproducible-- So the RIAA is right when they say that stealing an mp3 is like stealing a CD.
Whoa. Cognitive dissonance at work. Your previous sentence contradicted your very sentence.
Functionally, you're stealing a hard copy of the music-- which you can then resell.
Heh. Chris. Time to give back your law degree. Or maybe look up the Dowling ruling in the Supreme Court. *Stealing* involves taking something so that the original owner no longer has it. As you yourself pointed out, an MP3 is just a copy. That's not stealing. It *may* be infringing. But not stealing.
If mp3s were also not easily reproducible you'd be able to resell those too. This becomes more intuitive when you look at iPods-- it's not illegal to put songs on an iPod then resell that because you're selling away your hard copy of the music-- or at least selling the soft copy in a way that renders it difficult to reproduce.
Wow is that logic twisted. So because something is abundant, you can't resell it? That's backwards.
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Re:
Saying that stealing an mp3 is like stealing a cd is ludicrous. both on the cd and on the computer, the audio file is still software, or soft copies. It is only the disc that is actually hardware, or a hard copy. VHS, 8-track, cassette, vinyl, didn't rely on software, and were in fact hard copies (as you had to analog copy all of them). CDs can be fully digitally stripped, copied, et cetera, and it makes them an entirely different media.
This is like the whole danger mouse thing, with the blank CD-R. By selling a hard CD with no software (in this case, mp3 or audio), they are effectively circumventing this issue, and legally. Also, don't forget that backup copies of your music are legal, and you don't have to be the one storing them for it to be so (until a court decides otherwise, as this is your property when you purchase it, correct?)
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On Property Rights
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Re: On Property Rights
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Trading CDs, DVDs, Video Games and Books
Swapster lets users trade CDs, DVDs, Video Games and Books -- and it's free!
I think the difference with digital media vs physical media is that you can't easily replicate physical media, and there is certainly a cost associated with it even if you did. Digital media is simply sent over the Internet for next to nothing.
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Not a great argument
No one is going to say that an MP3 is exactly the same as a CD, and the RIAA does not say that there is complete similarity between the two. They state that they are the same in as much as they both are copyrighted works. Nice try, but that argument does not hold up to logic or the law.
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Re: Not a great argument
Actually, it holds an awful lot of water.
The way that it is the same as a cd is because it is a copyrighted piece of material.
Uh, that doesn't explain how it's the same at all. Yes, they are both covered by copyright. But in many other ways they are entirely different.
The reason you can resell that cd is because you can authenticate its origins.
Ah. Can you point me to the section in title 17 where "you can authenticate its origins" is required?
I'm waiting.
There is no way to find out if that MP3 is the original licensed piece or an illegal copy. For that reason you CAN NOT resell it.
Again, the law actually disagrees with you entirely. But okay. Let's play your game.
If we assume that there is no way you can resell it because there is no way to authenticate its origins, then the same must apply to downloading. After all, based on your own logic, since you can't authenticate the origins, there's no way to prove its unauthorized, and thus infringement.
That's a lot of water my argument is holding.
No one is going to say that an MP3 is exactly the same as a CD, and the RIAA does not say that there is complete similarity between the two.
Actually, that's not true.
From the RIAA's own "copyright faq": "no different than walking into a music store, stuffing a CD into your pocket, and walking out without paying for it."
Oops.
Nice try, but that argument does not hold up to logic or the law.
Thanks for playing.
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Don't agree at all.
Selling copies of CD's is not legal.
Now if I sell you an MP3 and I send it to you online then the mp3 is not taken off my computer and placed onto yours. You just get a copy of it. Hence, law-breaking.
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Re: Don't agree at all.
Selling copies of CD's is not legal.
Now if I sell you an MP3 and I send it to you online then the mp3 is not taken off my computer and placed onto yours. You just get a copy of it. Hence, law-breaking.
Sure, but if that's true, then downloading the music is also "just getting a copy" which is different than "stealing."
That's the point I was making.
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Selling an MP3
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I will
Let's get the ball rolling people. Hit me up if you're interested via my websites contact page and we'll make some market places and link them all together or something.
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This is what you sound like to me:
MP3s are easy to clone, so it's illegal.
CDs are hard to clone, so it's legal.
Counterfeiting a one dollar bill is easy, so it's illegal.
Counterfeiting a twenty dollar bill is hard, so it's legal.
The legality of reselling an item shouldn't be established by its difficulty to reproduce. Either they should both legal to resell, or neither should be legal to resell.
On another note, Nathan made a comment I found interesting.
"Selling copies of CD's is not legal."
What about making a copy of a CD for yourself and selling the original? Is making a copy of a CD you own illegal? Am I legally obligated to transfer all copies of a CD along with the resold original?
Do recording industries record and mix each CD individually? Hell no. They make copies.
Why are they allowed to make copies and sell them if everyone else is not?
Music is invented, not owned. Copyrights are for D*cks.
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1) Pirates kill and steal
2) No killing or stealing in involved when someone downloads
3) Downloading is EXACTLY THE SAME as copying and keeping a copy locally
4) Therefore, those who download are NOT pirates
The act of illegal downloading is most precisely described as making a copy then saving it locally while ignoring copy-prohibitive licensing. Nowhere is stealing involved. Nowhere is piracy involved.
But what really gets me is how the RIAA could have effectively
1) Lobbied (and possibly paid off politicians) to implement such harsh downloading laws the likes of which are more monitarily severe than those of rape or murder
2) So thoroughly bastardized the whole idea behind intellectual rights that it has effectively become sheer propaganda the severity of which is comparable to that of the nazis
3) Caused so many to agree so thoroughly without real reason
4) Gotten away with it to the point that it has become LAW
HOW TF DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!?!?!
But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Since the law protects the intellectual rights of every artist, whosoever creates a piece can also use THEIR OWN CUSTOM LICENSE for it. That means that the artists can effectively bypass the RIAA altogether. You can even make it illegal for someone to copy-protect your music! So really, the power is in the hands of the artists. So by using laws the RIAA helped to get created, the ARTISTS can turn the RIAA's own greed against them.
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Law of Conservation?
1) When you buy a CD, what are you purchasing:
a) the right to listen to the music on this CD?
b) the hardware on which the music is stored?
c) the collection of bytes which compose each individual track?
d) the collection of bytes which collectively compose the entire CD?
e) other: EXPLAIN
2) When you buy an MP3, what are you purchasing:
a) the right to listen to the music you have downloaded?
b) the software file on which the music is stored?
c) the collection of bytes which compose each individual note which make up the song?
d) the collection of bytes which collectively compose the entire song?
e) other: EXPLAIN
(FOR ADDED ANALOGY)
3) When you purchase a VHS tape, are you purchasing:
a) The right to watch the movie you've purchased on the tape?
b) the hardware on which the video is stored?
c) the collection of frames which make up a scene in the movie?
d) the collection of frames which make up the entirety of the movie?
e) other: EXPLAIN
(I recognize that this pair of questions is distinctly different from the first two by basis of the fact that you cannot redeem your ticket to a movie at any time you desire, or multiple times. I still request an answer.)
4) When you purchase a movie ticket, are you purchasing:
a) The right to watch the movie you bought a ticket to?
b) The experience of watching the movie in a movie theatre?
c) The frames which you are watching which compose a scene in the movie?
d) The frames which you are watching which compose the entire movie?
e) other: EXPLAIN.
I genuinely want an answer to these questions, as I feel it would enlighten me as to the nature of purchasing rights. e-mail is badpath866.survey@gmail.com.
Go.
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ridiculous
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riaa sucks
but seriously it is not illegal if the file has no license.
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It Ain't About the Law
When you download an mp3, you're effectively taking someone else's work for free. That person poured their time and effort into that work. What do you pay for when you hire a builder to build your house? You pay for their expertise and time. Their labor is only a very small part of what you pay. It should be the same with music artists. You want their music, you pay! Don't 'borrow it forever' from your friend, who has another copy of it anyway. Don't download it for free either.
The only problem is, when we buy music, we pay most of our money to the recording studio. There has to be a way to get most of the money to the person who made the music, and a tip to the person who put it together, not the other way around.
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