JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum Music Piracy

I am not tying to LEGITIMIZE it. I am trying to reassess it.I agree with PART of what you are saying. YOU SAID "You CAN play every CD & Download ya buy for a fair-sized Audience of..perhaps..Friends &/or Family Members. (& the Creator of that Music/Owner of that Copyright HOPES some of them, too, might just BUY a copy..too!) But the minute you play it for a (say) Dance Hall Crowd..with PAYING Customers...EXPECT to get a Visit from the Kind Folks at BMI or ASCAP whose JOB it IS to enforce your Paying For "Fair Use" of that Creation."

That is what i have been saying share all you want but don't charge.

I also don' download or copy music, but i do SHARE music with my freinds. I usually do it when they are PRESENT so no copy, but I am not sure that it would be WRONG morally for me to send someone a copy of an MP3 for them to check it out and see if they like it. I can see BOTH sides.

as far as making a copy and giving it to someone, that's when it gets weird. BECAUSE of todays technology that's what you do any time you "LET SOMEONE LISTEN" over the technology we use today. my argument is IF it is legal to oplay someone a song in the next room by turning up the volume on YOUR stereo then it should be legal to USE a telephone or walkie talkie to do it over a greater distance, and if that IS legal then you shiuld be able to do the same thing over the internet.

that's just MY opinion.

I think the bigger question is still HOW can someone claim to OWN a combination of words. AGAIN given the resources I could set up a randon word generator that would spit out EVERY combination of words up to a certain lenght. then I could go copyright it, and i would OWN ALL POSSIBLE SONGS within that given length. the very IDEA of ownership of a combination of words, (no matter HOW skillfully assembled) strikes me as odd.

I realize it is an unpopular concept, ESPECAILLY HERE! but I think people tend to get an artificialk sense of VALUE. we call ourselves ARTIST because we combine words, and we want people to pay us every time ANYONE sings plays listens, etc.

I appreciate the great concversation this is bringing. I don't pretend to know the answers, I just am saying the "answers" that we have now aren't right for the questions.

best wishes to you too!