I stumbled across this article today. I encourage you to read it. Here are my thoughts on the downloading of music, movies and software.
Copyright law gives exclusive rights to copy material whether it be a book, a song, a movie or any other medium that one might want a copy of. Right now I want to clearly state that I am in no way endorsing anyone engaging in illegal practices of any kind. I have found plenty of legal alternatives to getting music and movies for next to nothing and will update this article periodically as I come across new avenues for you to find legal ways to add content to your personal media library.
With that out of the way let us discuss the philosophy of copying and sharing culture. What I want to examine here is whether or not it is in the best interest of society as a whole to actually have copyright laws. Again the laws already exist and I suggest following them. The real question is what led to the creation of the copyright concept or the idea that only specific entities should have the right to copy cultural information. If you agree with me, great, if not tell me why. You never know you may change my mind. I will not be going into great detail only providing a very brief overview and adding my rhetoric.
The right to copy was never something to be questioned until the invention of the printing press. Prior to that copies were hand made. But with this new invention came the ability to to copy in mass. With this came the ability to make copies of anything. The first real copyright was handed down by a king in england and was primarily used to as a form of censorship. There was only one group known as the Stationers' Company allowed to make copies of books. Did I say censorship, of course I did. Back in that time (mid 1600's) there was the Protestant Reformation, which of course was opposed by the king. If they could not legally copy their rhetoric they could not distribute it to the masses. This early version of copyright provided a monopoly over the ability to copy. The Stationers' Company had guild members that were required to submit any text they were going to copy. Later copyright laws were reformed giving public use copyright laws. As time has moved on copyright has become less about censorship and protecting an author of media and has become about making money.
Did you realize if discover how to beat encryption that is meant to keep you from copying something you can be charged under the DCMA and thrown in jail. There is actually an interesting article about how cryptography research is impacted by this. It's only a small portion of the page located about half way down.
We have established that copyright laws exist and that we should not recommend that anyone break those laws but what do we really think of the idea of copyright. In my humble opinion copyright does little to protect authors and does everything to create money for publishers of media in any form covered under copyright law. Copyright is the right to copy not the right to make millions. The reason that the MPAA, the RIAA and other such groups world wide push so hard to make copyright infringement a criminal offense is due to the fact that it cuts into their profits. No one has the right to make a profit, you have the right to try but not a right to the money itself.
I see copyright as an infringement upon capitalism. I may of lost a few of you but true capitalism is nothing more than business anarchy or make a buck any way you can with no laws to stop you. Therefore copyright is profitright or the right to gain profit and that the distribution of culture for free is a crime. A profit must be made and the holders of the right to copy culture are the only ones that may distribute culture. I understand copyrighting books. Reading a book is really the only way to get the information unless you take the time to put it into Word or a pdf file and distributing it electronically. If I write down something from a book and put it in my blog without the permission of the owner of the copyright I can be charged with a crime and prosecuted in civil and/or criminal court. I did not make any money off publishing the information but the author and the publisher also did not make any money and only those that pay for information have the right to the information under current copyright laws. That's right I am saying that under current copyright laws the only people that have a right to information is the ones that pay for it. So essentially information and culture has become a privilege that we pay for, not something we have a right to. Of course there is this illusion that the internet is free. That you are reading this free of charge, well you are not. You pay your ISP. You pay for the privilege of entering into to cyberspace and discovering the world. So following that logic if you are paying for access to the web and access to download then you just build in a download plan with the ISP and you can download whatever you want. The ISP takes that money and equally distributes it to the holders of the copyrights and they in turn equally distribute it to the authors. That's way too easy.
Point blank copyright is profit right. The copyright war is a fight over the right to make a profit. No one has the right to make a profit only the right to pursue happiness. Here is the 2 movies that got me thinking about this subject.
Steal This Film
Steal This Film II
Culture should be freely shared among all people and at this rate it will never be shared freely among all people. Culture will continue to have a price tag. If you can not pay the price then you do not deserve the privilege of sharing in culture. This is where we are going unless things change. I obey the law but it does not mean I agree with it. Feel free to disagree with me on any of the above points. I only ask that you do it in the form of a intelligent argument instead of calling me an idiot, I already know I am an idiot.
Lastly here is a great post with tons of links for finding free or cheap legal media.
Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
