From: John Howell <[email protected]> Reply-To: <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:33:51 -0400 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Finale] OT: Copyright and downloadable music
At 1:41 PM -0400 7/11/10, Blake Richardson wrote: > > 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? It's a rare case where the elements of criminal copyright infringement are met. As I said, what we're talking about here (copying sheet music for personal use, trading it, etc.) doesn't even come close. > But I suspect that you're taking a very narrow and limited definition > of "crime" into account I'm using the definition as it's understood at law. It's a legal term with a specific legal meaning. > What is yours? Any action which is a violation of a penal statute and/or which can result in the incarceration of the violator. > So what was it that he > was subsequently convicted of? OJ was never convicted of anything (at least not regarding the murder of his ex-wife). He was acquitted of the criminal charges and then subsequently found liable in a civil trial for monetary damages based on wrongful death. He was, of course, criminally convicted years later in Las Vegas in an entirely unrelated matter. > That the penalty was financial and not jail time is irrelevant. It's very relevant. People incur legal penalties in civil trials all the time, for numerous reasons. That doesn't mean they committed a crime or did something illegal. It may be nothing more than a breach of contract, failure to pay rent, whatever. But none of this has anything more to do with copyright than pets do. > And I fail to understand the distinction you > seem to draw between criminal and civil law. It's actually a huge distinction. Everything from penalties to discovery, to court procedure and restrictions on government action, to the burden of proof is distinctly different. > Silly me; I never attended law school! I did. Passed the bar, too. > > 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. Some file sharers are. The owners of the Pirate Bay have taken a principled stand in Sweden and have been willing to face the legal consequences. Their movement has spawned an actual political party (the Pirate Party) whose candidates have won office. Nevertheless, your original statement that "two wrongs don't make a right" in this context would seem to apply even to those willing to risk the consequences for their actions. You're still labeling their actions wrong in the first place. > 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) Civil copyright infringement (which is what we're talking about here) isn't even illegal, as that term is commonly understood. It's not something you can call the police over. It's a civil dispute between two parties, like breach of contract or tortious interference with business practices or defamation. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
