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Music

Journal Lendrick's Journal: On sharing and stealing 4

Journal by Lendrick

In a recent interview (Slashdot story here) with RIAA president Cary Sherman, Mr. Sherman inadvertantly made a very good point. In response to a question about the impact of file sharing on CD sales, he explains:

I wish you were right that CD sales haven't been impacted by filesharing. (I hate that term, by the way. To me, "sharing" means we each get a little less. If I share my pie, I only get to eat half. If I share my car, I can't use it when the other person has it. "Filesharing" however means we each get the whole thing, and noboby gives up anything! That's not sharing, it's publishing!)

On the same vein, I'd like to point out that I hate the terms 'stealing' and 'piracy'. Much like sharing, it's generally assumed that if you steal something from someone, they don't have it anymore.

I heard a funny little analogy at one point. Using the term 'piracy' as it's used today, pirates would have boarded merchant ships, made exact copies of all their cargo, left everything intact, and been on their way. Of course, the merchant's cargo loses a tiny bit of its value because now they can no longer sell it to the pirates, but the cargo is still there and totally saleable elsewhere.

So I submit to you this:

Should it be illegal to share copies of music with people who haven't purchased it? Of course.

Should downloading music you don't own be considered 'stealing'? Absolutely not. It's a lesser crime, simple as that.

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On sharing and stealing More

On sharing and stealing

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  • What about IP theft? If you steal my idea (such as by plagarism), is it not a serious crime?
    • What about IP theft? If you steal my idea (such as by plagarism), is it not a serious crime?

      Absoultely.

      Plagiarism is the act of taking credit for someone else's work. If I download an MP3 off of the internet, it's not as if I'm trying to convince anyone that I authored it.
      • Right, well, my point was that it's definitely "stealing", even though I've still got the property I started with (in reference to your comment about the term "stealing".
        • My point is that run-of-the-mill unauthorized copying and plagiarism are two different things. Someone who plagiarizes a work publicly takes credit for that work.

          On the other hand, if I download a Beatles mp3, I'm not trying to convince other people that wrote the song myself.

          (Having had some of my own work plagiarized, I am painfully aware of this difference... If people want to copy and repost my work, they're welcome to do so as long as they credit me. However, I find it offensive if someone claims authorship of my writing.)

          Anyway, I'm not saying that copying music for your friends isn't wrong--I'm just saying that it's not as serious as the word "stealing" would make it out to be.

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