Viewing copyright as ownership is a very limiting view. In that context, the value of the song ‘Yesterday’ is the same as any other song in Paul McCartney’s catalogue. I own them – that’s their only value. But if you think of copyright as a means of distribution, the value of ‘Yesterday’ (one of the most covered songs in history) is much bigger than any other song he’s written. IMO one of the benfits of P2P is that the job of distribution is being done by the enthusiasts to whom a piece of music is valuable; the more obscure it gets the less likely it is that a major media company has digitised it. The problem that still isn’t being properly addressed by those owners is how to monetise the activity.

There’s also the cultural benefit we get from the free distribution of music. There are academic studies and research that shows culture suffers with extended copyright – viz the current push by the UK music industry to extend it to 75 years. If 18 years is good enough for patents, why isn’t 50 years good enough for cultural IP?

In what he said, existing strategies are not off putting enough to the music industry and people fail to realise the massive effect of illegal copyrighting, both for and against, any science fiction writer can come up with a dimwitted idea that might actually work. On the other hand, musical artists that have had their music ripped off but have become more widespread because of the illegal activities then they are going to be laughing all the way to the bank and faster because of this, who really are the artists that suffer the most from illegal copyrighting, is there a certain category that you can classify the whole ‘orderly-mess’ and spin offs under from this?

Nate

Madonna may have her cds copied and resold by the mafia in Russia but if her management want to collect their “lost earnings” all they have to do (in my simplistic opinion) is tour the territory and get some proper local manufacturing and distribution that competes with the mafia lot.

Pirating will always exist but to be honest if you are into pirating music you will only ever want to spend time and effort on the cream of the crop, you want a fast turn around and you want to get rid of your illegal product as fast as possible. To this end I don’t think pirating really effects anyone other than a few acts and even then, it may only be in areas where a clear profit can be made at a low risk. Isn’t this just an indictaion of how and where said acts should sort out proper manufacturing and distribution so the market for illegal copies is not so lucrative? Illegal copying will always triumph where existing effective strategy has failed. Instead of going after people with the law, perhaps a strategic review is called for?

Instead of telling us all how illegal copying is really bad and people threatening to write letters to the university…..when are we going to hear the positive side about how illegal copying is helping to sustain the music business in areas that existing strategies haven’t reached yet and in ways that some members of the so called “industry” seem unaware of??

illegal action is not always a bad thing, sometimes it can do good things for everyone too. this is why I suspect that one day, this copyright law will have to change as it will benefit us all financially in the end.

If your paying for a licence to listen to the track then there should be a scheme to replace the worn out media at cost as you have already paid once for the licence to listen in my opinion.

The music industry cannot have it both ways either we purchase the music or we purchase a listening licence.

But, to comment on another point;

//One commentator remarked that since he’s not allowed to duplicate his CDs for backup purposes, he’d like to know who was going to replace them if they got scratched.//

I wonder, why is it that a consumer feels that he has a right to have his worn-down products replaced? If you buy an LP, and it gets scratched beyond the point where you like to listen to it anymore, noone but you is going to replace it. Heck, even if you buy a tshirt, and you grow out of it or wear it down in ordinairy use, you throw it away and buy a new one. You certainly don’t expect the original manufacturer to replace it for you.

In fact, I think that the law that allows us (lucky Danes) to take backups is a courtesy act. Probably a necessary one, and one that stops a lot of unnecessary breaking of a non-working law, and the ridiculous lawsuits that could come from it, but still, treating your own goods properly is a consumer responsibility.