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I’ve been quite enjoying Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. One section that really caught my eye was where he compares the penalties for ‘stealing.’

[W]hen I take a CD from Tower Records, the maximum fine that
might be imposed on me, under California law, at least, is $1,000. According
to the RIAA, by contrast, if I download a ten-song CD, I’m liable
for $1,500,000 in damages.

This makes just shake my head in disgust. I suppose it comes down to who believes they are getting the short end of the stick. If I steal a CD from HMV, HMV gets screwed, as they are out a CD, and they are the ones that lose money. They’ve already bought the CD from the distribution house, which has already bought the CD from the record label, so therefore the record label has already made money. If somebody robs every HMV in the country, the record label doesn’t care. In fact, they would be laughing since HMV would have to rebuy a large amount of media, giving the the record company more media.

With P2P file sharing however, the record companies believe they are the ones getting stolen from. And they have a point, but they seem to treat it as if somebody is stealing the master copy of a CD, thereby robbing them of the ability to ever sell that CD. This is completely not the case. First of all, the person who makes the CD or song initially available is the really the person at fault, if we want to talk like that. By downloading it, I’m only taking advantage of something already available. This may still be wrong on other levels but we aren’t discussing that. Think of this: if person A steal a loaf of bread from Safeway, eats a piece, and then leaves the loaf of bread on a table for all to see, and then person B goes up and eats a piece. Who is at fault? Person B simply because they ate a piece of bread that was out and about? I think not.

I think the main problem is when you download a song or CD, you’re not getting anything tangible. This creates the impression that you’re not doing anything wrong, and gives the record company a reason to claim an exorbitant amount of damage fees.  This is an inherent problem with record (and other) companies who feel like they can never make enough money.

le sigh

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About the author... Daniel Huckstep is a software engineer(ing student) at the University of Alberta. He enjoys all aspects of computers and their software, reptiles, guitar and music creation, reading, and macaroni salad.

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Posted by darkhelmet under Philosophy |