lisarea

Yessir, this does get hairy. Existing copyright laws seem to imply license. That is, the provision for making backup copies would imply so.

However (and this is an invention of the 90s), the DMCA allows very restrictive licensing of physical media, which, if applied consistently by copyright holders, could effectively outlaw reverse engineering. Clearly, they want it both ways, so that I own neither the media itself or the license to use the content. And like I said, technological measures such as copy protection for CDs and Macrovision and region coding on videos, apply new regulations to our legal rights by making it almost impossible to make legal copies of licensed media.

Well, to hell with that. I practice my own justice and ethics rather than trying to sort out exactly how the law would be applied in each case.

As such, regardless of the law, I have decided that I am allowed to download the Brian Eno collection if I choose to. And I would have no qualms about using pirated Microsoft software, for example, as I have paid for several Windows licenses that I never intended to use (the "Windows tax").

I'll admit that I'm a little pissed off about the whole thing, and as such, don't have a huge ethical problem with the idea of stealing outright from these media robber barons, either. I wouldn't feel guilty about stealing Hilary Rosen's car, not because the RIAA has actually stiffed me personally for the equivalent dollar amount, but because she deserves to be stolen from.

Glory

You do not have unlimited rights to do whatever you want with it. You do not have the right to make money from its use. For instance, though it is almost never enforced for practical reasons, business establishments which play music in order to induce customers to do business with them are technically breaking the law. Stores which play music for their customers are considered, by the letter of the law, to be making money from the exhibition of the music. That's a no no.

Glory

Tom Sawyer

The way I see it, the big music companies are an evil oligarchy that are ruining the industry for everyone but themselves. By buying the CDs and giving these people the money instead of downloading MP3s, you're perpetuating this monopolistic system which hurts everyone but those on the very top. So really, the only ethical thing to do is to keep downloading for free until their hold on the marketplace is broken and a more equitable system can be put into place.

See, you can morally rationalize anything if you just put some effort into it.

tronvillain

Like Writer@Large, I do not consider you either stupid or wrong, but I am not deleting my mp3s.

Jolimont

Screw the label companies. I support artists by attending concerts, but I rarely buy a CD nowadays. Over the years I've bought hundreds of CDs which I've ripped on my home server. I started ripping my CDs because they always get scratched in the car, and I had so many I couldn't keep track of them any more. The obvious solution was to rip them and burn my own CDs for the car. I have a nice library on my computer, songs are easy to find and to organize. I don't see anything unethical about that. I know the labels would love it if I ran out an bought a new copy of the CD every time my kids do a number of the media, but it ain't going to happen.

Are services like Kazaa unethical? Possibly. I'd rather not think about it!

galiel

I hope you don't. That way, you can remain blissfully ignorant of the Altnet peer-2-peer software that Kazaa secretly installs on your computer, without your permission or even your knowledge. It links your computer into a vast grid-computing network which allows the creator of the trojan sofware, Brilliant Digital Entertainment, to use idle cycles on your computer, along with hundreds of thousands if not millions of others, to form a giant virtual super-computer whose use it sells to the military and to large corporations for number-crunching. By the way, uninstalling Kazaa won't help.

Oh, and please do not think about this enough that you bother to do a Google search on "kazaa altnet" and read all about it.

Personally, I view it as a form of poetic justice.

tronvillain

Well, there is always <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,51916,00.html" target="_blank">Kazaa Lite</a>.

Pseudonymph

exactly....nice shot tron.

Or theres always ad-aware and the sirenspeaky ability to edit DLL files and such...

Queen of Swords

I bought an Enya CD once - A Day without Rain. It was only after I bought it that I realized the version sold in the States did not have the song "The First of Autumn" (as opposed to the version sold in Japan). The First of Autumn was played on her website and I loved it. I used to open her site and have the song playing over and over while I wrote.

So I downloaded the MP3 of "The First of Autumn". I was just wondering if anyone would consider this wrong. Not that I'm going to delete that or anything else I have, just curious.

galiel

Widespread among mp3 downloaders, along with the ability to hack Perl scripts, write one's own TCP/IP stack and a disturbing tendency to dream in Assembler.