Ian Morris

Ian Morris loves televisions so much he's been banned from wedding chapels in Las Vegas for trying to marry them. When he's not romancing technology, he can be found watching American TV. Ian likes roast potatoes, but he doesn't like digital rights management.

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Wednesday 9 July 2008, 5:34pm

Is downloading music worse than bullying innocent people?

I've recently seen two things on the BBC Web site about music piracy. The first was a blog piece written by a chap called Darren Waters who claims he stopped downloading because it became clear to him that he was "breaking the law". He was talking about the recent letters Virgin has sent out at the behest of the BPI to people suspected of downloading music.

The second was a video clip of a student accused of downloading music, including a song by Amy Winehouse. He was of course outraged, specifically at the idea he listened to Amy Winehouse, but also at the fact that he was a copyright 'thief'. He claimed that no one in his house would download that sort of stuff, and that it must have been someone using his connection from outside.

There's no real excuse for having an unsecured Wi-Fi connection, but I do have sympathy, because there is no requirement under law to lock your Wi-Fi -- and surely you can't be held accountable for what someone else does on your connection. But none of that matters to the music industry, which just wants to hunt down everyone who has ever downloaded a free MP3.

So the question is, why are Virgin, other ISPs and the government taking music downloading so seriously? When you download a track from the Internet, you aren't depriving someone of their product, which is the traditional definition of theft. In his piece, Waters claims downloading is like nicking a car, and driving around the block in it. His commenters are much more level-headed and suggest it's more like making a perfect copy of the car, without damaging it, and then driving around. Sure, it's going to annoy the motor industry, but you aren't depriving them of the ability to sell cars -- perhaps they need to address how they do business in a world where free cars are possible.

Sure, it's a complicated issue, but I really don't think it should be called 'theft' or 'piracy', because it doesn't involve stealing anything. Or ships.

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Comments on this post

I am not sure it's a complicated issue. If you mail me a copy of a ripped CD should the postman check the contents and stop delivering mail to my address? The fact is that information and communication is a world away from what we had 10-20 years ago. Think what will be possible in another 10 years. Technology and ideas that don't change become obsolete. Today any information that is stored (or can be fully captured) in a digital format should be regarded as public domain. A few things may go the way of the dodo in the next decade the postman and record labels may end up on that list.

Posted by GR on Wed 9 July, 2008 11:17 PM

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everytime i hear somebody from the music industry bleat on about how artists are losing out because of illegal downloads it makes me chuckle to myself. Not just because i'm evil. The artist sees about £1 of the money spent on a cd (if they're lucky). record companies caused me years of anguish with songs like Agadoo and The Birdie Song, i won't miss them when they finally go bankrupt.

Posted by oimikey on Sun 13 July, 2008 8:41 PM

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Whether you think the music industry is bad or not isn't the point, it is theft simple as that. Ok the car industry example. We all want sports cars and strive to afford one but realistically most of us can't. Now if i could go to my local car park and copy a sports car, just how many people would bother spending the money to buy one. Overnight the sports car companies would go out of business. So would you have stolen money from the owners of them companies, just in the same way you would have if you had stolen a TV from your local store? People work hard to make the music whether its studio's find the telant or the artists in writing the music. Why should they not be allowed to profit from their own hard work, just like we all do by working an honest days work, which i for one are certainly not doing for free.

Posted by Stephen on Mon 14 July, 2008 10:53 AM

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The thing is, it's not really theft, is it. If you copy music you are, at worst, breaking their copyright, which has its own set of punishments. It isn't a theft, because you aren't depriving anyone of their property, nor are you preventing them from exploiting it for financial gain. In the example of copying a car, you're right, if it was that easy to copy a car then the business model would collapse, but that's because the car industry would be trying to sell something that was rendered worthless by a new technology. Moving on, the car industry would have to change the way it did business, so perhaps instead of selling pre-built cars, it would sell designs for cars which were customised to each person. Or it would make machines designed for copying cars. Everyone agrees, artists should be compensated for their work, but perhaps the future isn't in selling songs, but in other revenue streams.

Posted by Ian Morris on Mon 14 July, 2008 4:00 PM

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I agree with Ian it is absolutely not theft...but if the car industry started selling designs instead of cars aren't we into the DRM argument all over again!

Posted by GR on Tue 15 July, 2008 9:59 PM

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I agree with a lot of the above comments. If i happened to have a copied car, and very much enjoyed using it, I would want to support the manufacturer with money, but on my terms. If i dislike a product, why should I pay for it, when i havnt deprived anybody of it in the first place? I guess this model is similar to the one radiohead used. It rewards music that acquires actual fans rather than anything driven by popularity etc

Posted by John on Wed 16 July, 2008 11:31 AM

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"Sure, it's a complicated issue, but I really don't think it should be called 'theft' or 'piracy', because it doesn't involve stealing anything." Do you get paid anything for writing articles for cnet? Is your writing worth anything or are your ideas worth anything? I notice it says "Copyright © 1995-2008 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved." at the bottom of the page here. By your argument would it be ok if I copied all the articles and reviews from cnet and posted them on my web site with my own ads? or without ads? Should writers be able to make a living by writing? Should composers be able to make a living by writing music? If you don't understand the concept of intellectual property and copyrights, trademarks, and patents you should probably look it up on wikipedia or something. It would be great if all musicians, composers, authors, writers, artists, inventors, and other creative working people could make a living through other means but many don't have anything to sell except their ideas and creations.

Posted by Anonymous on Thu 7 August, 2008 10:40 AM

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Anon, I take your point, and what you describe actually happens quite a bit in this industry. There are lots of sites that take our content and make their own web pages, with adverts, in the manner you describe. If you hunt around Google, you'll find them. But making money from someone else's work is different to enjoying something for free. We provide the content on cnet.co.uk for free, it's funded by adverts and we attract advertisers because we have a fairly large audience. What you're talking about, is more akin to people who download music and then sell it on market stalls or online auction sites. I have no problem with those people being prosecuted because they are profiting from someone else's hard work and clearly taking money that should be going to the content creator. Artists should be compensated for their work, but sending letters and suing people isn't the way about it, instead, record labels should be thinking about how they can make money out of selling music online, cheaply and without DRM, which ruins the experience.

Posted by Ian Morris on Mon 18 August, 2008 10:48 AM

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If I buy A music cd,then give it to a family member, i then request said member of the family to email me a track (MP3) has the law been broken?????

Posted by John on Sun 8 February, 2009 8:35 PM

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