Teens Don't Think CD Copying is a Crime 704
An anonymous reader writes "An article in the Orlando Sentinel reports on a poll done by the LA Times and Bloomberg. The informal study looked at teenager attitudes towards copying media. Only 31 percent said they thought it was illegal to copy a CD borrowed from a friend who had purchased it. Attitudes about ill-gotten media were less clear, and the article admits than even the legal system is slightly fuzzy on this issue." From the article: "Among teens aged 12 to 17 who were polled, 69 percent said they thought it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21 percent said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music for free. Similarly, 58 percent thought it was legal to copy a friend's purchased DVD or videotape, but only 19 percent thought copying was legal if the movie wasn't purchased. Those figures are a big problem for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, both of which have spent millions of dollars to deter copying of any kind. The music industry now considers so-called 'schoolyard' piracy -- copies of physical discs given to friends and classmates -- a greater threat than illegal peer-to-peer downloading, according to the RIAA."
Greater Threat? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, because, at least for p2p, they have their sueing and scare-tactics. The RIAA didn't get their claws on CD-burning technology early enough to prevent its use for pirating music, so they see it as a greater threat.
Is it wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bwahaha! (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't value other people's effort (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me stake out a position here:
I think that most people who are happy to freely duplicate copyrighted works have never been in the position of selling anything of their own.
I think that people who sell their own materials (be it books, music, software etc.) are more likely to be aware of the effort that creators put into their creations. Such people are more likely to identify with fellow creators. They are thus less willing to duplicate material without fair recompense because they know how wretched they feel when they see copies being made of their own materials.
These beliefs lead me to make the following testable proposition: A person who starts selling their own original materials will be less willing to duplicate the copyrighted works of other people.
I welcome informed discussion. Of course, this is Slashdot, so I expect the signal-to-noise ratio to be woeful!
AussieScribe
Re:Your education tax dollars... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is it wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
Should any entity or company be able to restrict what you are allowed to write down, or remember? No again. So record the spoken ones and zeros to cd.
Any restriction on such activity is clearly immoral, and the other side hasn't a leg to stand on.
Re:What's funny (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Its True (Score:2, Interesting)
actually it is not wrong , on the contrary, where i live it is good to share information and aid friends. by making copy of information i ease it spread and harm noone. Biz models that work on artificial scarcity are evil in their nature. We already have enough problems with natural scarcity of material resources why wold we bring in yet artificial scarcity ?
Re:You want to know what is a crime? (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to care about being legal. I spent a lot of time reading about copyright law and following cases and history. I concluded that copyright infringement is a crime. It is illegal to do what I do very often. I just don't care anymore. I honestly do not care whethere SONY/BMG or Universal miss out on my 16$, I don't care if my generation thinking that way costs them their whole goddamn business. Copyrights were instated to promote the progress of the sciences and the arts, not gaurantee a multibillion dollar industry its profits. Some people I know cry about it, but I know in MY heart that music will still be made.
And I think these kids, some of them, are starting to get it. Maybe now they are just enjoying free stuff, but they are setting the standard. We want instant distribution, we want to share our culture, and we want it now. If the record labels can't fill the demand, someone will, and lots of people will make money off of it. Perhaps together we can profit from this tragedy.
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but since everyone in my family makes their livings in the production of one form or another of things that can (and do) get ripped off, it's a very familiar topic.
But more importantly, I'm just sick to death of kids who spend $30/week on overpriced coffee, and while drinking it with their friends bitch about how their favorite performers have the gall to have their life's work sold for a dollar or less per song. I've seen my work ripped off (in ways that do not magically contribute to a larger audience for me that will eventually somehow contribute to my bottom line - that recurring notion is really BS in most circumstances), and have seen the same things happen to other writers, artists, etc. that are close to me. Of course you want more people to enjoy your creative work - but you also have to wake up to the fact that if you're a professional who spends your entire waking life producing that work, it has to pay the bills. No one owes creative people a living - that is, no one except the people who choose that artist to be their entertainer when that artist has set a price for that experience.
Re:They don't value other people's effort (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it's reasonable to expect that someone should be compensated for work they performed. So if an artist goes into a recording studio and plays his music then he should be compensated for giving a performance. However, when someone plays a song on a CD then artist isn't doing anything. The ones who deserve compensation for playing a CD are the ones who made the CD (which may include the artist). I think the problem is that the RIAA wants to consider the music and the disc to be the same thing, so you have to buy the disc to have the music, and nobody can have the music without buying the disc.
What complicates the whole issue is that it's hard to form morals about something that is not ultimately essential to life. Imagine, for a moment, that there was a device which allowed us to duplicate food as easily and as rapidly as we copy files on a computer. Suddenly, food would no longer be a concern for anyone because there would be an unlimited supply. But how would this effect farmers and other professionals who earned a living providing food? Should a farmer be compensated for each ear of corn that gets duplicated by the machine? But why should anyone have to pay for food when there's an unlimited amount of it? Is money even necessary in a situation like this?
With music copying, things are different. Music does not provide sustenance or nutrition, and it's not a vital part of life. In fact, musicians (and other artists) need to receive compensation for their art so that they can buy food and live. The kicker, I think, is that in order to obtain this non-essential product, people have to spend the same money that they would otherwise use to buy food.
I think the solution is to eliminate the little green pieces of paper and just say to the artist, "Give this person an apple. They deserve it!"
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you should consider lobbying for alternate methods of compensation that lets you get paid anyway.
There have been various suggestions ranging from direct payments to authors for every incarnation of a copy actually sold (ie, bypassing the entire publishing structure and levying a point-of-sale fee instead), to pure taxation and payment per copy schemes. All of which would get a far higher percentage of the money spent on creative content to the actual authors.
Consider how much money the *AA's claim is being lost to illicit copying, compared to how much money is actually spent on, and intended for arts that _never reaches the artists_.
But what about the underlying feeling (Score:4, Interesting)
Record companies should GIVE product away! (Score:5, Interesting)
You can get CDs pressed in China for as little as $0.25 in quantities of 10K. Even cheaper, approaching $0.10 in sufficient volume. Domestic record companies already own the means of production, so I'm sure their cost would approach $0.10 per CD if not actually be sharply lower.
My business plan called for giving these CDs away, primarily at live shows but this could also be accomplished via other channels. CDs given away are intended to be nothing more than loss leaders, contain maybe six tracks, with advertisements and "hidden extras" such as Bios also included and, most importantly, prominently contained URLs leading people to iTunes.
Now it gets profitable.
iTunes pays 70% of the selling price to the distributor / band / whomver owns the music.
Give away some tracks on CD, get people interested and then reap massive margins from electronic distribution rights. The average customer on iTunes purchases SIXTY tracks (Smith, 2005). The average customer will more than pay for that CD. Just the average; we're not talking about the higher volume, rabid fans either.
I did a market analysis and we projected annual growth rates in excess of 60% from the iTunes distribution channel.
So I think record companies have it half ass backwards. Give the fucking sound away, and they'll make more money in the long run.
----
References
Smith, T., 'Apple Touts iTunes customer total', [online], Available from: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/08/apple_rev
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now how much does the music industry steal?
Did you know, for example, that if you sell a thousand copied of an album through the music industry, you will make pennies, whereas if you sell that many yourself, you will make much much more?
Here's a quick example. A friend of my uncle's got his song played on a national radio station here in Britain as a record of the week. He then sold ten thousand copies of his self-produced CD. If he had a record deal, he would have earned about two-hundred pounds for that. But he didn't have a record deal. He had the CDs pressed and printed by a local professional reproduction service for about two pounds each. He sold each album for ten pounds. Eight pounds profit per CD multiplied by Ten thousand CDs is? He bought a new house with that.
I realise this is a rare event, but it needn't be. And it goes to prove just how unnecessary the music industry really is. I do believe in paying for music. But if I had a choice, I'd rather pay the artist than the middle manager, the T-shirt guy and the tour promoter.
Re:Pitiful that is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Your education tax dollars... (Score:1, Interesting)
If the industry can't sustain itself without turning us into a police state, then I say let it collapse. Somehow I doubt that musical culture would suffer. What makes the music industry workers more entitled to a job than elevator operators, wainwrights, or telephone operators?
Re:Of COURSE it's not theft (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the purpose of copyright is to prevent the unauthorized reproduction or performance of copyrighted work, or make derivative works. That is the definition and the purpose.
I don't endorse copyright infringement or stealing. Once the legal courts of the land make laws and distinctions, we as citizens need to abide by them, but equating violation of an original copyright owner's exclusive rights to the crime of theft is incorrect.
In short, right is right and wrong is wrong, and copyright infringement and theft are both wrong. However, they are NOT the same thing, no matter how hard you try and bend the english language.
Wait 'til these kids become jurors... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd really like to see FIJA (Fully Informed Jury Amendment) implemented so that these kids could just use their common sense to effectively nullify the efforts of despicable organizations such as RIAA and MPAA in court. These kids seem to understand the idea of "No harm, no foul."
Strictly an observation... (Score:2, Interesting)
Teens are right.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The music industry is making teens addicted to music though advertising. Maby it is not good music, maby teens can not afford it, but they got to have it. When you claim to own culture and insist on advertising it, you are inviting to copyright infringement. Apocalypse is near.
Music, movies and litterature is NOT a product. It is culture, and as a society we are dependent on it. Stealing from a drugdealer is not so bad, is it?
He was glad I downloaded his music (Score:3, Interesting)
His response?
"Good!"
Re:Cut. Try another scene. (Score:3, Interesting)
>on a CD that someone rips instead of actually buying. It
>doesn't get any simpler than that.
Nor does he get any if I borrow it to listen or if he gives me it when he no longer wants it or if I go over to his house to listen to it
Nor does the artist usually get any money from commercial sales of CDs.
People have been pointing out for some time that, unless an album sells about 1.5 million copies, the musicians usually receive no royalties at all. All the money goes to "expenses", such as the execs' salaries and bonuses, RIIA dues, etc.
If you make a copy instead of buying your own, you might be taking money out of the pocket of the recording industry execs, but you're not hurting the artists. Unless it's one of a handful of top hits, those artists don't get any money from the sales.
What you should ask yourself is why all those artists keep producing, when they aren't the ones who profit from it. People keep telling us that we need these extreme copyright laws to encourage the artists. If this were true, and the artists aren't getting any royalties, they should all stop producing, right? Why don't they?
Something's not quite right with these arguments.