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I’m not sure if this story is true or not - I haven’t been able to find any reference to it online. This morning on the way to work I was listening to the radio, and they said that the RCMP had announced they would no longer be pursuing Canadians suspected of (illegally) downloading songs if it is for personal use. Paraphrasing, they said that “it is too easy to copy music these days, and policing this stuff is not part of their duty”.
They aren’t endorsing the activity, but they seem to be taking the stance that they have more important crimes to investigate, which I definitely agree with. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% believe that artists should be paid for their creation, but I think the federal police have more important stuff to do, and the current state of affairs regarding all of this file-sharing is a symptom of a problem in the industry, not the population.
Posted by Aaron on November 8, 2007, 2:26 pm permalink top | general
I do NOT agree with you about the fact that this is not a problem in the population. However, I agree that the federal police has more important stuff to do.
What I think is that it is a question of education: as parents teach their kid not to steal, they should teach them not to illegally copy music. This is a kind of stealing! Unfortunately we live in a world where money is everything and I believe that parents are glad not to have to spend money for there kid’s music… On top of that, arts is something abstract and I believe that most of the people just don’t give it as much of a value as they would give to an object even if the people who created it spent exactly the same amount of time working on it…
Actually, I think that we are all responsible to teach our kids the value of arts and work and that buying a song instead of copying it is a question of respect of both the artist and his work. In that sense I think that this IS a problem in the population.
I don’t mean to imply that those who are stealing music aren’t doing anything wrong. I just believe that some (most?) people resort to downloading music because they are unable to find a legally downloadable version that is not crippled with DRM or tied to a single listening device (I’m looking at you, Apple).
To be fair, this has started to change over the past month as new online stores are providing unlocked mp3s which can be backed-up, stored and played on any device. But there is still a lot of progress to be made (especially in the Movie and Television industries).
Question: If I download an album off iTunes and pay the $9.99 fee (or whatever price they charge). Those electronic copies are mine. Am I legally allowed to then share those with other people? The property is mine, no longer theirs. And If so, what’s the difference with buying an album then copying it for free for other people??
Just a question I never see answered in any of these conversations…
I’m no copyright expert, but I don’t think there is any difference.
Technically they are both illegal since (and again, I may be mistaken) you haven’t really purchased ownership of the songs - just a license to listen to it.
In the same manner that photocopying the entire contents of a book and handing out the copies for free is illegal, so is handing out free copies of music.
Creating copies for personal back-up, or to be able to play on your own different devices (iPod, Zune, PC, burn to CD for your car, etc) should not be restricted in the way it is today. It’s just impossible for them to know if the copy you are making is for your own backup, or for your friend George down the street.
You know it was because the RCMP all have illegal music in their mp3 players. They totally rock out with their fancy shmancy gadgets on top of those horses. They just don’t want to arrest themselves.
Yeah, me so smart.
“The property is mine, no longer theirs.”
Let’s take an example: if you buy a software, there is a license which limits the use of the software: you can install it only on 1 PC for example, reverse engineer it, etc… because it is not really your property, you’re just allowed to use it. It is the same thing for music: you are allowed to listen to it but not to make copy for all your friends, etc…