At 1:41 PM -0400 7/11/10, Blake Richardson wrote:
From: John Howell <[email protected]>
If there IS a single problem, it's obviously the one we've all been
aware of all the time: the progress of technology has made new
crimes not only possible but really, really EASY!
Copyright infringement is generally not a crime. There are criminal
penalties in the Copyright Statute, but they only apply in instances where
someone is clearly making a business of infringing-- the folks who steal
digital prints from studios, mass-press DVDs of films and sell them, for
example.
So it is not a crime except when it is? I have a little bit of a
problem tracking with that reasoning. But I suspect that you're
taking a very narrow and limited definition of "crime" into account,
whereas mine was rather broader as meaning "anything that is against
the law." What is yours? By your reasoning, OJ was not convicted of
a "crime"--in fact he was acquitted of it. So what was it that he
was subsequently convicted of? One thing I DO know is that it wasn't
copyright infringement! That the penalty was financial and not jail
time is irrelevant.
What we're talking about here (sharing mp3s on LimeWire, trading sheet music
on PianoFiles, etc.) is civil infringement. It's not even theft in the legal
sense. The Supreme Court has definitively ruled that copyright infringement
is infringement, not stealing or theft. Two entirely different things.
Citation, please. I'd be interested in reading that opinion. (The
court's, not yours!) And I fail to understand the distinction you
seem to draw between criminal and civil law. Silly me; I never
attended law school!
But two wrongs still don't make a right, never have, never will.
So you believe that Rosa Parks should have just given up her seat?
I already spoke to that. Rosa and the other demonstrators who
followed were willing to face the consequences of their actions in
order to highlight the unfairness of the laws. File sharers are not.
But neither than nor pets has anything to do with the copyright
discussion.
> I also have to point out the confusion that comes from using the term
"the artist's rights."
All sorts of scary stuff is happening in Europe under the umbrella of
"artists' rights". There's a proposal (don't know whether it's made it into
law yet) to give sculptors and painters the right of first refusal on sales
of their work. Under such a system, if you're lucky enough to buy a painting
from the next Picasso, early on in his career when he's unknown, and get the
painting for cheap, only to have it appreciate years later into the millions
due to the artist's fame, you can't sell it and recoup that investment
unless the artist lets you. He can buy it back from you at the price for
which he originally sold it. Fantastic, huh?
Hmmm. That wouldn't be "first refusal" in any sense of the term that
I've seen used. But that's just picking at nits, so please forgive
me. Artists ALREADY have "first refusal" rights: they can sell, or
they can not sell. And your use of the term in a new context gives
us not one or two but now a third possible meaning of "artists"
without clarifying which meaning you prefer.
But if we can't even agree on what is illegal (which may be a better
term than "criminal" since you seem to dislike that term), I doubt
that we will agree on such things as property rights vs.
"intellectual" rights (or whatever they're called in European
copyright laws). The fact is that U.S. law is different in this
regard. And that comes from the fact that laws are never required to
be fair, judicious, reasonable, or even intelligent. They are, after
all, man-made.
All the best,
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[email protected])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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