An item in which the author talks about Napster, VMA's, Metallica and the RIAA...

Sep 8 03:48 UTC 2000

Did you catch the MTV VMA's tonight?  Lars did some kind of
Anti-Napster commercial.  In the skit, there's a kid downloading a
Metallica MP3 with Napster, and Lars walks into his bedroom.  The kid
tells Lars that he's not stealing, he's "sharing", so Lars starts
slapping Napster stickers on all of his stuff and hauling it away.
At the end, the kid is left with nothing, and Lars slaps a Napster
sticker on his girlfriend's ass, and leaves with her.

The tagline was something along the lines of "Napster: Sharing isn't
so great when it's your stuff."

...

I think this sketch would've been more realistic if the Napster
sticker instantaneously duplicated whatever it was attached to, so
that both the borrower and the lender had a copy.

...

I also think that OpenNap and Gnutella need more press, so that the
RIAA doesn't have anyone to sue.

...

I also also think that Lars should go fuck himself.  I wish I was a
Metallica fan, so that I could destroy everything Metallica that I
own, and send it all back to them in a nice little package with a 
Napster sticker on the front of it.

response 2 of 126:

Sep 8 11:56 UTC 2000

It's idiotic to say that all the kid was doing was making a copy of 
something Lars has his own copy of anyway so what's the big deal.  What 
the kid was stealing was Lars's royalties -- you know, his income, his 
livelihood, his means of support.  You could -- and in fact, I do -- 
say "So what?"  But from Lars's standpoint I imagine this is pretty 
serious stuff.

response 4 of 126:

Sep 8 12:26 UTC 2000

I didn't say that, and I wouldn't care if Lars were starving to death.  
Nevertheless, stealing from a gazillionaire who made his money selling 
shitty music to kids who don't know any better is still stealing.  You 
do understand that, don't you?

response 6 of 126:

Sep 8 12:34 UTC 2000

You mean a CD you bought?  With money?  [snicker]

Look, if you think it's okay to steal from Lars, just say so.  I think 
it's not just okay, it's praiseworthy.  

response 8 of 126:

Sep 8 12:55 UTC 2000

Hey, if you think all of that makes it okay for you to steal from Lars, 
go for it, d00d.  I won't lift a finger to stop you.

response 10 of 126:

Sep 8 13:19 UTC 2000

Now, see, there you guys go with the rationalizations again.  You're 
only stealing a little bit from Lars, you're just screwing the 
distribution company, you're doing this, you're doing that.  

Look, if you have to convince yourself that you're not "really" 
stealing before you steal, then you have serious conscience issues.  If 
you don't work through those, you're going to be wasting way too much 
energy devising these bullshit rationalizations.  Just admit you're 
stealing, AND DO IT!  Stop being wusses, fer chrissake.

response 12 of 126:

Sep 8 14:14 UTC 2000

So making a "tape" for someone when you create a mix is stealing?  I'm trying
to get where this is truly a theft issue?  I am getting a song from someone
else.  Same as making a mix tape or a mix cd with your burner, correct?

response 14 of 126:

Sep 8 15:27 UTC 2000

        Sharing isn't cool when it's your stuff, but there's a bit of
difference between somone stealing your computer and someone stealing a
banana.

response 16 of 126:

Sep 8 16:04 UTC 2000

If you're looking for an analogy, it would be someone buying a CD, 
making five million copies of it, and placing them all in a big box in 
Times Square with a sign saying "Take one."

response 18 of 126:

Sep 8 17:08 UTC 2000

We hear that claim often -- if everyone steals, there would be no 
incentive to create new work.  In music, at least, history tells us 
that is not so.  There was no effective copyright system in the era
which gave us Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and all the great musicians
of the past.   Pirate editions were common; in opera, rival prouduction
companies might send scribes into theatres to try to note down the 
music for a particularly hot show.   

Music predates copyright; if copyright were to end tomorrow, there would
still be music next week.

response 20 of 126:

Sep 8 17:15 UTC 2000

Is it stealing to listen to music on the radio?  How about if you record 
what you hear on the radio?  Is that stealing if you record the 
commercials, too?  Is it stealing if you erase the commercials?

Are you stealing when you rent a videotape?

With software -- if you go over to a friend's computer and use his 
software, is that stealing (from the software company)?  If my whole 
family uses a copy of a program I bought and installed on the computer, 
are the rest of them stealing it?  If I buy one copy of a program, and 
install it on two computers, but I'm the only one who uses it (because 
the kids like to play games on the main computer), have I stolen a copy? 
If I install a program on my laptop, and it is never installed on 
another computer, but the laptop gets passed around to 24 people who all 
use it at separate times for an hour per day, did 23 of us steal it?  
What if I installed 24 separate copies on the laptop, so each of us can 
use a separate environment, did I need to buy 24 copies in order not to 
be stealing?

Copyright law in the electronic age is not straightforward.  I am not 
convinced that software, video and music "piracy" are unethical.  The 
word "piracy" is a marketing term, not one that is concerned with 
ethics.

response 22 of 126:

Sep 8 17:41 UTC 2000

In each case, it depends upon the terms of the license you implicitly
agree to when you purchase the product. For example, you cannot *own*
most software - you can only buy a license to use it. At the other
extreme, the radio station has purchased a license to play the music,
but that does not give the listener a license to make a copy. That
infringement can only be detected, of course, if the listener distributes
(or sells) copies and gets caught. There are many ways in which these
licenses can be infringed without much chance of getting caught. They
are infrinements nevertheless, and honest people would not do it.

Re #18: you are quite right. Copyright law, and patent law too, were
developed when the industrial revolution made it possible to mass produce
items. Since an idea or a work only occurs once, it was easy for others
to just take the idea or work and make copies. This could give the
inventor or author very little return for their invention or work,
*which stifled innovation and creation*. Therefore laws were created
to give the inventor or author exclusive rights for a limited period
of time, but enough for the inventor or author to obtain a return on
their effort if they continued to be diligent. 

Many inventors and authors are persons whose motivations lie primarily, or
initially, in the creative act itself. But others also need to support
themselves. "Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and all the great musicians
 of the past" were in this category, and many *suffered financially* while
pursuing their drive to create. Mozart was a classic example, who died
pennyless, and whose body was dumped in a pauper's grave. Is that a
civilized way to "recognize" creative people? Patents and copyrights are
better.

(Many of those great musicians, by the way, survived by having *patrons*,
wealthy and powerful individuals that wanted what the musicians could
create. This is not a good system if society wants more of such creativity

response 24 of 126:

Sep 8 20:37 UTC 2000

Exactly my argument against keeping the notion of "intellectual property" in
our laws. It makes trouble with powers-that-be way too easy to get into, if
persued seriously. It was at least tolerable when you had to have an expensive
printing press, or else go through some other effort and expense, in order
to "steal" the protected material. But now the concept steps on more toes than
its benefits are worth.