Lessig And RIAA Answer NewsHour Questions 888
Zeta writes "The answers are finally in! Stanford's Lawrence Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim have responded to all the tough questions on copyrighted music, many from Slashdot readers, for the online part of the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Take a look - some of the responses may surprise you." We ran the original call for questions a few weeks back.
The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Riaa Guy
I'd let anyone make a perfect copy of my car and drive away with it if they'd like, I still have my car.
NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2002, unit sales were down about 11 percent.
In 2001, unit sales were down about 10 percent.
In 2000, unit sales were down seven percent. "
No, you jackass! Your sales are down for other reasons.. not illegal downloading.
1) Only so many bands can look and sound identical, before people need only buy ONE album and pretend it is five different bands.
2) Music sucks.
3) CD's are overpriced for what you get.. when Rush used to put out albums, five or six songs were GOOD and the rest were OKAY.. now your pablum barfing force fed musicians are wont to put out one hit, on a record that Im payign 16 dollars for.
4) see #2
5) ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID!
Thank you.
Maeryk
What's the Difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical.
So...why do they say copying music files is "stealing"? Nobody loses any physical property, nothing of monetary value, but yet "copying" is equal to "stealing" in their minds...
From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Yeah, and from an ethical perspective suing a student for creating a search engine and letting him go for merely all he's worth is just dandy.
Fair Use (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this guy's saying that we should let everything stand for a few years, and then all of a sudden companies are going to make things _less_ restrictive? No offense, but I'm not holding my breath. I wouldn't trust the major labels to do that for a second, much less years. If we let it go until then, the DMCA/UCITA-type laws will be firmly entrenched and fair use will have disappeared entirely in digital media. Anyone else want to wait for that to happen?
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
Different animal of sorts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, oh why does this continue (Score:5, Insightful)
1) they may not have been that talented in the first place, and/or
2) it's hard to be that inspired when you got 5 million bucks in your pocket.
Ever seen 5 million bucks? Most people, one they get that kinda money, go one of 2 ways:
1) they get super-greedy, and try to just make super-popular records, which flops hard at some point.
2) they just say "ok, i'm done" and that's it. The RIAA needs to realize that people are gonna listen to the music one way or another if 1) you can't hear it on the radio, and 2) the band's new stuff blows, or 3) if they want to hear something to see if the band's new record blows, which it most likely does. STILL, did Eminem go platinum? Yes. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING IF THE MATERIAL IS ALL THAT GOOD/POPULAR! People really don't want the hassle of the internet, unless the material is hard to find elsewhere, i.e. at stores, or if they are unsure of the quality of the material, etc. DUH.
copy protection = few cd purchases (Score:2, Insightful)
This is really a moot point anyway, because as many people have said before, music sucks.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally could care less if "big music" goes belly up. Would that mean people would stop making music? Clearly, the answer is no.
God forbid the music industry's demise lead to Americans thinking for themselves, and actually having to discriminate in determining which music they like, instead of being force-fed by these soulless plutocrats.
Re:And it continues...As the Apple turns. (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean like Apple iTunes, and what Microsoft's coming up with?
who gives a fuck about the riaa the music scene (Score:5, Insightful)
-blo
The RIAA, the DMCA, and property (Score:3, Insightful)
Every time the DMCA was brought up the RIAA guy said it was just fine because it promotes innovation, rental models, blah blah blah. And that there's that copyright office exemption thing that comes up every few years.
Of course, what he didn't mention is
1) The exemption doesn't do a damn thing for devices. Sure, you can break the copy protection mechanism... just don't build a device to do it.
2) The RIAA will lobby $trenuously against any proposed exemption which affects them.
Anyone else notice that when you surf the net for music files, you're messing with their intellectual property -- but when THEY surf the net looking for music files (and finding stuff which doesn't belong to them) it's not about property?
Treated like other property? (Score:5, Insightful)
Matt Oppenheim (from the RIAA): Intellectual property should not be treated any differently than other property. Unless you buy it, you should not copy it for your own use.
Umm, the whole point of intellectual property is that it is treated differently than other property. If you buy something, absent copyright or patent law, you can copy it.
If intellectual property shouldn't be treated any differently from other property, why can't I take it apart and examine it without violating the DMCA? If they are to be treated the same, why can't I charge an admission fee to show it to my friends? After all, I could do that with my brand new Porshe, right?
The RIAA Agrees: *It's Not Stealing* (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA rep shot their entire propoganda campaign in the foot with this gem:
So, according to this guy, "sharing" only takes place when the lender doesn't have the shared book/CD/whatever available for their use. If the lender retains a copy, or the original, then it's not, "sharing," but, "copying."
However, the RIAA -- and, to be fair, just about every other intellectual "property" advocate -- often refer to unsanctioned copying as, "stealing."
Except... Wait a minute. Isn't stealing where you take a thing from someone such that, as the RIAA guys said, "the owner no longer has it?" Indeed, isn't the primary distinction between lending and stealing the consent of the owner?
So if, because the owner retains a copy, it's therefore not sharing, then how can they possibly make the argument in the same breath that's it is stealing?
Answer: They can't. They're trying to have it both ways. It's not stealing, it's copying, a distinct activity.
There's little question that it's illegal -- the lobbying dollars of the RIAA and like organizations have ensured this. Whether or not it's ethical is a question that is still being discussed, and is by no means a closed subject.
Schwab
Intangible IP not the same as physical property (Score:5, Insightful)
The marginal cost of production for music, movies, software, and other intangible property is almost zero, and it's about time people took this into account before coming up with absurdly misleading analogies.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:2, Insightful)
(Un)Fair Use Limitations (Score:1, Insightful)
And when I buy it, I should be able to copy it for my own personal use, in the device of my choosing, and not encounter crippling technologies that prevent me from doing so.
IP treated same as Other Property? (Score:2, Insightful)
I pay property tax.
Re:What's the Difference? (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the maybe. If no copy is made, and it isn't worth it to actually buy it, they don't make any money either.
They are trying to make it out like CD's are like food or toilet paper, but really it's their own fault they have a flawed business model. Sorry, folks, the end has come. They have enough cash to keep kicking and screaming for a while, but I think the film industry is a little bigger on the money side, and they are all into that pretty heavily also.
I'll never shed a tear. I've turned my back. Sorry to all the artists, but you're just going to have to work harder and sell tour tickets and tshirts like everyone else. The scam is over.
Re:Intangible IP not the same as physical property (Score:2, Insightful)
Matt Oppenheim "Yay special interests!" (Score:5, Insightful)
He should have just said:
"While lobbying for insane copyright extensions, suing kids, and whining about not milking that extra billion from teenagers over the last three years is generally not in the best interests of the public at large, it sure is helping us flog the last few drops out of a dying cow for benefit of the interested
And left me some time to read Lessig's well
thought out, poignant, and meaningful answers.
Re:Searching for violations... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
They wish... (Score:5, Insightful)
From Matt Oppenheim's comments:
On the Internet however, it is extremely easy to download and the audio quality is near CD. Millions of people now mistakenly believe it is legal. The RIAA, among others, has been trying to educate people that downloading recordings from unauthorized services on the Internet is, in fact, illegal.
Millions mistakenly believe it's legal? Do they really believe this, or is it just a good line? The truth is that pretty much everybody knows that downloading copyrighted music is illegal, and pretty much everybody figures it falls into somewhat the same category as driving five miles per hour over the posted speed limit, except that maybe speeding is a little worse, since it can actually hurt someone.
The RIAA isn't trying to convince people it's illegal; they're trying to scare people that they're going to go to jail or be hit with fines that are completely out of proportion to the offense.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's for a natural market to find out on its own.
Appropriate. (Score:3, Insightful)
Appropriate term. At least their own unique expression of art is slowly dying while they wait to have the chance for an audience. Not that this is the RIAA's fault totally - as any good conglomeration of companies, they merely react to perceptions about public interest, and perceptions about expectation of income. They have no place for promoting art in general, or offering a forum for untested or less-than-totally-popular art.
It's just sad that this indirectly puts them as such odds against any art that is not generating income for them.
Ryan Fenton
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Difference in Lines of Thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawrence Lessig:
"The DMCA is an embarrassment to copyright law. Copyright law has always been about balance -- about the balance between restrictions and access.
The Constitution expresses that balance: it requires that copyrights be for "limited Times;" the First Amendment requires that copyright yields to "fair use." "
Matt Oppenheim:
"If you are attempting to distribute recordings that you own the rights to and the RIAA is in any way preventing you from doing so, you should contact us immediately."
Note how Lawrence Lessig focuses on balance, while Matt Oppenheim focuses on saying what consumers are allowed to do. (Lessig does not explicitly refer to people at "citizens," but Oppenheim does at least once refer to individuals as "consumers.") This shows their respective trains of thinking quite well.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you jackass! Your sales are down for other reasons.. not illegal downloading
This (and the other responses to your post) is typical slashdottery double standards. Normally intelligent people bristle (rightly) with rage when their rights are taken away. And then (wrongly) go on to make very unintelligent statements that appear to be sheer propaganda to defend their position.
Even if all you say is true for you (quite possibly it is, what do I know), do you really believe that no-one else in the world is spending less on CDs? Do you really think that some cash-strapped 12 year old, who now has access to $1 ripped copies of the music he wants, is going to keep on begging his parents for $15 to buy a legit copy ? Of course not. Of course he will be contributing to reduced sales.
It is an absolute no-brainer that illegal piracy and downloading is cutting into the industry's sales. No matter how unpalatable that truth is to us.
Before I am modded into oblivion, I am not arguing with any of the following:
- CDs are way over-priced
- It sucks that the artist gets so little on every sale
- The RIAA are pricks and deserve everything coming to them (heh, that should make me safe !)
- Downloading free music rocks !
My only point is that is irrational to claim that illegal downloading does not impact on sales. It is blindingly obvious that some people will buy less music if they can get the same thing free or very cheap. And for sure there is not a counter-balancing volume of people out there who are buying more because of illegal copying.So lets not use untruths to make the industry change their position - it won't work. It plays into their hands.
Use hard facts instead. Unless music becomes cheaper, illegal copying will go on, and will get worse. Citizens will start to see it as their duty to put up illegal P2P nodes. Even now, we are revolting ! So wake the fuck up, RIAA !
Re:"Intellectual Property" (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL
The propaganda term "Intellectual Property" is a creative fiction designed to confuse two separate types of limited control granted by government.
1. Patents - A limited monopoly over the commercial implementation and distribution of a novel concept IN A PRODUCT. Patents represent a trade-off to encourage open distribution of the concept after the limited term of the patent. Note that a patent doesn't prevent someone from using a concept for their own use.
2. Copyright - A time limited monopoly over the commercial distribution of an authored work. The term is limited and this is traded by the government to encourage the creation of a large public domain. Note that this is intended to prevent PUBLISHERS from making money off of other publishers works.
Note that in both cases the primary motivation is creation of goods for the public.
The fiction is that it isn't property at all... it's a time limited grant of monopoly, and it's meant to expire. Property is a durable item, not a lease.
</ANTIPROPAGANDA>
Don't they get it? (Score:3, Insightful)
to lost opportunities as a result of file sharing,
they are down due to the fact that CD TECHNOLOGY
HAS BEEN SURPASSED by magnetic media.
News flash: LP sales are down every year since
1990. You know why? Because CDs replaced them.
Well guess what? CDs are now yesterday's
technology... I can't fathom spending money to
buy a physical medium that's more difficult to
transport, less durable, skips, can't record,
etc. etc. etc. The combination of computer
digital media management plus affordable
portable digital music players have made CDs
OBSOLETE.
Jeesh. Wake up RIAA.
-Pez
Re:Same ol arguments, but this one is very stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference between Lessig and Oppenheim (Score:3, Insightful)
-R
Re:Decide (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what's missing here. There is no "goes into the public domain." People are individually and unilaterally repealing copyright law, because it's not a fair law anymore. The people who make something never have to share it. That's not fair, because so much of what the creators do is stolen from the public domain (like all of Disney's plots), and just about every jazz riff.
If you're interested in the law, go read Bastiat's _The Law_. It will explain how a law is seen to be fair.
-russ
Re:"Amen" directed at question, not Lessig's answe (Score:2, Insightful)
Debates between two intelligent people like this are a relatively straightforward way of determining which argument holds up and which one was contrived for the sole purpose of masking another intent.
Oh, so I OWN the media! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality).
Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version, you cannot download somebody else's copy of a recording.
If they were licensing the song/or whatever to me, they shouldn't care where I got it, as long as I have a license. This says to me that they are selling me the copy, to do with as I see fit.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Everything you described sounds fine to me. You should enjoy your John Denver 8 Track, and feel free to copy it to other media. The only issue would be if you decided you wanted to download somebody else's copy of John Denver's Greatest Hits (which was likely from a CD, and a much higher audio quality). "
Dumbass! The John Denver fan asked him if it was a "license" or just a physical copy, he indicated it was a license and then proceeded to contradict himself! He proved that the RIAA wants to have their cake and eat it too; i.e. the product is only a license, until your copy breaks or wears out in which case you'll just have to buy a new one at full price.
The guy also says, "Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music to millions of strangers simultaneously." This is of course wrong, since MP3s use lossy compression and are in that manner comparable to consumer analog formats.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Stealing in the physical world is easy to understand - the owner loses the artefact that was stolen from them. When copying data, the owner does not lose the original data, but loses *potential* income (it is not in advance known whether the person who made a copy would have purchased the data from the author at all).
It will become much more of an issue if (or when) we will have the ability to create exact copies of physical objects. If you've ever seen Star Trek, do you ever wonder why they have abandoned money? I say it's because they have that same ability - they can easily generate copies of nearly any [non-living] matter. If the RIAA succeeds in banning digital copying now, will somebody try and achieve the same goal to prevent people in some 3rd world country from getting free bread?? (which reminds me, i've been meaning to copyright what is now Vanilla Coke - a drink that is easily created by mixing equal portions of Coke "classic" and cream soda... as
As for his comment that the recording industry's income decreased in the last few years: it happens, dork! Look at the Silicon Valley! Do you think it's easy to find a job nowadays?? And here I thought it wasn't easy to get money without a job or resorting to stealing...
P.S. sorry about a rant
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:3, Insightful)
the point is if everybody will be copying cars for free, who'll spen lots of $$ for producing them?
Rich people.
Re:RIAA Wake-up Call: Change how you do business! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, copyright infringment is illegal. Fine. But in 5 short years P2P services have gone from brand new to being used by double-digit percentages of the entire population of this country. A hundred million people may not be right, but you can't simply tell them they're wrong and throw the lot of them in prison. If a law is being ignored by nearly everyone, it says more about the law than the people breaking it.
Oppenheim = lying nazi (Score:3, Insightful)
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it.
The question is, would he then support a virtual library of music, which purchases music/etc at bulk price and so many copies of it, and if it has 3 copies of song X, it allows 3 people to listen to song X from it's server at a time? The answer, I think, will be no, which would make him a fucking hypocrite.
when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music
Nope, wrong. There's nothign that says the individual who downloaded a song for free would have blown away several bucks to get that song on a CD. So his statement is incorrect.
AMEN!!, [in response to Lessig's statement that although the sharing of copyrighted files is illegal under current law, technology can not be made illegal if it has substantial noninfringing uses]
I must admit, I was at first pleased upon reading this response from Oppenheim. However, if Oppenheim -- who is representing the RIAA -- really believed that, then the RIAA wouldn't be trying to stop P2P developers and shut down P2P networks, or destroy these networks by flooding them with crap.
There are quite a few ways that these technologies can incorporate safeguards to prevent copyright infringement.
What Oppenheim conveniently leaves out is that it is almost inherent that any technology that filter's out infringing use will also filter out non-infringing use. Computer's cannot determine whether or not something is infringing copyright. Sometimes judges can't even determine that. Any technology which very efficiently prevents copyright violations on P2P networks will very severely eliminate legitimate uses.
The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation.
Intent is irrelevant. It already has stiffled innovation and free speech.
All that aside, the DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision has specific provisions built into it that exempts true scientific research.
Which obviously weren't good enough. See Felton.
every three years, the United States Copyright Office reviews whether specific exemptions need to be added to the DMCA to address this issue.
In case Oppenheimer doesn't know, the scientific community doesn't operate on a 3-year basis. There is extremely rapid turnover in the scientific community. Current knowledge today will be old knowledge a week from now. 3 years is a long time to slow down science.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make...Many copy-protection technologies include on a CD a second copy of the album in compressed form ready for transfer to an owner's computer
Never-the-less, the DMCA allows copyright holders to effectively circumvent fair use. It allows them to prevent something from ever being public domain (in addition to their bribery of Congress to retroactively extend copyright laws...fucking crooks). Simply allowing such an atrocity is inexecuseable.
irresponsible copyright holder makes a mistake, the DMCA has a process built into it for counter-notifications to be made in which an individual can dispute a take down notice.
This is Oppenheimer's response to the cease&desist questions. For the most part, I found his response here reasonable, but this is a half-truthed statement.
The DMCA may have such a process in it, but that's irrelevant. ISP's will automatically take down the sites of anyone accused of infringement, and they have to counter-claim etc to revoke that (because ISP's aren't liable if they do such). This is a bad
Has anyone pointed out that .... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think discretionary income that people would normaly use to buy music is getting spread out in the music industry. Due mainly to the quick easy access to new artist.
It wasn't too long ago that RIAA would beg radio stations to play their artists of choice (top 40 anybody). Heck, they probably still do beg and pay kickbacks too. Remember when that was a scandal? They weren't too concerned about copying back then.
But radio airtime is a finite period to a finite audiance. While P2P sharing of music is a infinite period to an infinite audiance. (I use infinite quite loose here) I'm sure that back then, as it is now, it was cheaper to promote a big artist to concentrate in a few products rather then promote alot of artists across the board.
Now, with the P2P method of distributing music, I theorize that peoples tastes are diverging because of the easy access to non-mainstream music or even just older music. THey have more choice now and they are taking it. While tastes are diverging, the RIAA and the Industry still hasn't "got it". They still use thier old models in trying to promote a few stars. Look at the all the recent flops and huge contract dumps in the past few years.
They cannot control the tastes of music listeners anymore and their tastes are diverging. Making it more and more expensive for the Industry deliver. It will get worse before it gets better (read somebody in the industry comes in with new ideas). They are still trying to sell 10 million records of one artist, while what they really need to be doing is concentrating a couple of hundred thousand records each from a bunch of artists.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough. However it is not the only factor involved in the sales decline. It isn't even the largest of many factors in all likelyhood. Yet the industry continually fights tooth and nail to make it look like the only possible reason under the sun this could be happening, despite the entire economy being in the shitter.
for sure there is not a counter-balancing volume of people out there who are buying more because of illegal copying.
Seemingly intelligent, huh? This is a downright false statement. Every study done to date that wasn't sponsored by the music industry showed that in areas with high internet penetration (say, college campuses) music sales were markedly higher after the influx of music sharing than before and far healthier than elsewhere. I would probably grant you that more individual people don't buy since they have the mp3s than do buy, but there is a rift in the types that creates a very lopsidded equation. The types of 'fans' who are satisfied with mp3s and a burned copy are much less likely to buy any given album in the first place, and less likely to spend as much on music across the board. I.E. They have 50 bucks to spend this month, w/o p2p they were gonna spend 20 on cds bust since they downloaded some of the stuff they only spend 10. The other end is people like me (or how I used to be). I was gonna spend 50 bucks that month. Before p2p 30 of it was going to be music. But since I discovered 3 new bands I liked over p2p I went and spent 60 bucks and all on music.
That's the way it usually shakes down in my personally experience. Yeah, less people use it to sample and find new stuff than just rip whatever they heard on the radio and keep it. But those that do sample tend to be very into music. I was dream customer for the RIAA before all this crap hit the fan. Between myself and my wife we have well over 1200 store bought CDs (and no illegal mp3s, thank you very much). My half of this was amassed in less than a decade. That's more than a cd a week. Since this debacle started I've both steered away from RIAA affiliated music in general and p2p as a whole. I've bought 3 CDs in the past 8 months. Right or wrong legally, can you really say the RIAA is winning this battle or fighting the good fight?
Re:Intangible IP not the same as physical property (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Then perhaps you should let Artisan know they wasted $300 Million dollars making the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Want more examples? Perhaps it is you who should look into things before commenting.
Re:Intangible IP not the same as physical property (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sick and tired of people comparing the sharing of music and movies as the same shoplifting or stealing a car.
You're right, it's much more like trespassing. If I come sleep in your bed while you're at work, as long as I make the bed and clean the sheets before I leave, you haven't suffered any actual financial loss. You've only suffered an opportunity loss, if indeed someone would have been willing to rent that room from you.
Copying CDs (Score:5, Insightful)
When you buy a CD, you should feel free to copy it for your own use.
- Matt Oppenheim, RIAA
I'd love to, except that some nefarious individual seems to have "copy protected" some of my CDs.
Re:Would you be able to sell your car? (Score:5, Insightful)
So by that logic, the inventor of the automobile stole the livelihood of all the buggy makers, horseshoe making blacksmiths, and so forth.
This is the logic of those that think that just because they found something useful to do and are making money off it now, everyone else therefore has an obligation to avoid doing anything that will make what they're doing less useful, and therefore less lucrative, in the future. It's the logic of entitlement, of protectionism, of the Luddites and all their kin.
The record companies once performed a valuable service. They got paid for it. When technology changes so that service isn't so valuable anymore, they should adapt and change so they continue to offer value and earn money. Instead, they try to turn back the progress of technology via legislation. They seem to believe that, having once provided value, they are now entitled to be paid in perpetuity, without earning it.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Unless you buy it, you should not copy it for your own use."
This is such crap. What if i make it? What if its free. Millions of exceptions can be found. What if i see artwork and try to copy it at home? Is the fact that digital copies are perfect and other artwork wont copy as well really the deciding factor if its legal? Also what about public-domain works? Unless i buy them it's unethical to copy them?
Matt Oppenheim (RIAA):
"The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation. Indeed, it is intended to spur it on by creating and protecting business markets for new technologies."
So the intent of a law or technology is what decides if its moral/legal? What about the intent of P2P? I have yet to hear one P2P creator publicize their network for "breaking laws" or "copyright infringements".
I think that Matt Oppenheim is making really bad arguement points. Almost every point he makes can be broken down as untrue or not based on reality.
They RIAA hasn't lost any money from me... (Score:2, Insightful)
1.If I like the song (and others on the album), I'll go and buy it. Thus, they've suffered no lost
2. I don't like the song very much after all or the rest of the album is bad. I'm not going to buy it. My actions don't result in a loss because I don't buy CDs based on one song on the radio to begin with.
3. I have zero intention or have zero ability to purchase the album. Maybe it's a joke song. Maybe its a crappy song I'm downloading to irritate my roomate. Maybe it is something out of print or not offered by any retailers I have access too. There was never an anticipation of the RIAA getting any profit from me, so my download has no net effect.
Now I don't exactly think this arguemnt will stand up in court or anything. The RIAA has purchased enough laws to prosecute anybody they want. But the fact of the matter, which is made very clear by the RIAA goon's statement, is that the RIAA just doesn't get it. They've stifled the public's ability to get a variety of music for so long and now the dam has burst and they're drowning. People like to hear music. It makes us happy, sad, romantic, nostalgic, etc. But when you charge people inflated prices for little discs, raise concert prices above the $100 mark, homogonize the radio, and protest at the slightest attempt at competition, people are bound to turn on you at some point. The fact that they still haven't figured that out is a testament to how screwed up the industry is.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize that the RIAA rep is getting paid to represent his employers, but we ended up with non-responsive answers like this:
As a technical matter, it is illegal to download a recording from another that is not yours. As a practical matter, there is no reason to do it. It is easier these days to rip a recording from a CD than to download it. And, when you rip the CD, you do not open up your computer to all of the spyware and other viruses that are part and parcel of most illegal P2P services.
I'm glad that Oppenheim is so concerned about the tremendous amount of spyware out there (which is, strangely enough, not present in some p2p software [shareaza.com]. I'm so glad that he's making sure we don't waste time downloading tracks that we could just rip ourselves, notwithstanding that the CD is out in the car, or that our CD-ROM just exploded, or that the CD is rife with copy protection measures that someone else was able to bypass while not under the thumb of the DMCA.
He didn't provide any references or explanation as to why his answer - that you can't download a track for which you already own the license on the same physical source medium - was purportedly factual. In fact, I'd speculate that he's flat-out wrong.
Re:Would you be able to sell your car? (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, it's a bad analogy since not everyone can make a car, and cars cost a lot to produce instead of being easily replicable.
Anyone can sing or play an instrument. Even if you sing poorly odds are that you can improve with some training.
If we dump the RIAA and its megacorp labels, and instead we sit back and let the Internet's enormous potential do its magic, the end result would be the same.
I think that if a musician is truly great and people love what he does they would have no problem sending him a dollar through paypal.
Multiply this by the billions of Internet users worldwide and what you get is that it suddenly becomes feasible to make a living as an artist without needing any major labels.
Added bonus, you get less exposure to annoyingly talentless manufactured pop stars that never make it to their second CD, and more exposure to the kind of music that you love.
Of course it doesnt have to be entirely voluntary. Highly successful singers could very well demand a fee before letting ppl listen to their new album.
Getting absurd (Score:2, Insightful)
Poorly applied logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." That copying is neither legal nor ethical
and then From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music...
Yet using the same logic, reading a book checked out from the library would be just as unethical since you are "taking money out of the pockets..."
Those companies (including Pressplay, Rhapsody, Listen, etc.) are delivering to consumers high quality music online in a format and form that consumers have demanded.
Actually, a quick look at the subscription numbers of those services shows quite well how that is simply not true. Consumers have not demanded a crippled product that disallows most of the abilities they want.
The goal of copy protection in CDs is not to prevent individuals from making copies that they want to make for personal use, but rather to prevent individuals from distributing the recordings or making copies they don't have a right to make.
Yet it seems they have not discovered the magic way of discerning between those two, so will happily prevent both.
The record industry has been hit very hard in the last few years as a result of illegal downloading and piracy.
In 2002, unit sales were down about 11 percent.
In 2001, unit sales were down about 10 percent.
In 2000, unit sales were down seven percent.
During that same period, illegal Internet downloading has skyrocketed. On the FastTrack network alone, there are about 900 million files being distributed at any given moment. The majority of those files are music files. Polls confirm that those individuals who are downloading illegally online are buying less. That illegal downloading is decreasing sales is probably not a surprise to anyone.
Such a common, simple, wrong assumption at work here. A decrease in sales and an increase in music downloading have *not* been shown to be related. The economy as a whole has been hit very hard in the last few years. In fact, studies [boycott-riaa.com] have suggested this effect can explain nearly all of the riaa members' decreased sales. It is handy to have a scape-goat, but as usual, the scape-goat is likely not the problem at all.
In any event, are you suggesting that a royalty dispute between an artist and a label is justification for stealing from both of them? Would you feel free to shoplift a CD from a record store based on that logic?
Hm, I wonder, is it ok to steal from a thief. You could just as easily frame it as 'how dare you steal my stolen goods!'
Given the increased cost to produce and distribute copyrighted works, Congress has tried to keep pace with what it has believed is necessary to continue to incentivize creators and publishers
Increased cost? That seems to be backwards, progress has decreased the barrier not increased it. As for the second clause, bullshit. Congress has bowed to corporate lobbying. You can't honestly say with a straight face that any person needs life+70years' worth of fiduciary recovery as incentive.
Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version, you cannot download somebody else's copy of a recording
Again, apples and oranges. Stealing a DVD is depriving ownership of an object, Copying a song is depriving no one of ownership.
-Ted
Re:Would you be able to sell your car? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are a car dealer, you're done for
Exactly, yet if you are an original car maker, then you are still in business.
-Ted
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:1, Insightful)
They keep telling us this: (Score:3, Insightful)
Definition of 'theft' vs specious analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
The music industry loves to draw the analogy between stealing tangible products (shoplifting a CD, etc.) and making copies of intangible products that leave the original untouched, and of course they use the term "theft" to describe making those copies. For those who would mindlessly nod their heads and mumble about how correct this analogy must be, a simple definition [reference.com] of "theft" puts the lie to it:
(emphasis mine)
I'm not saying that making copies is not a violation of our woefully-imbalanced copyright laws, because in many cases it is a violation of the law (i.e., when no permission from the copyright owner exists, whether on an individual or advance license basis). But the "shoplifting" analogy should immediately result in derisive laughter until the person presenting it is silenced and never brings it up again.
Just my humble opinion, of course. :-)
I'd like to propose another reason (Score:4, Insightful)
People keep saying "all the bands suck" but this is clearly not true, because all these bands have hits that you've heard and liked at some point. They just can't sustain that creative energy.. they hit a configuration of art and artists that work for one song, or maybe one album, and based on that they are enslaved into a contract and forced to churn out crap for the rest of their lives.
Bands, like any creative labor, need to try different material to keep the quality of work high. They can even go back to their original stuff after a while, but to keep that engine turning they need to prime it with other sources of creative energy.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the issue (and I'm sorry I missed the original call for questions, otherwise I would have submitted it) is this:
The RIAA has continually asserted that there is observed correlation between the rise of P2P and a drop in CD sales, and concluded that there is a causal relationship. However, the same years have also seen a drop in the economy, plus a huge rise in sales of newer kinds of media (e.g. DVDs (especially music DVDs) and broadband internet). My question would have been: Is there any hard evidence which shows that the drop in CD sales is substantially due to piracy?
I agree that the original poster put this badly. My point is that the burden of evidence on is on the RIAA to show that piracy is at least partly responsible for the drop in CD sales. There are so many other things that could be responsible that it's not obvious to me.
Enough with "IP" already! (Score:2, Insightful)
Property is physical. It can be destroyed. It can be damaged. If stolen, the rightful owner no longer possesses that property. These rules do not apply to ideas. If someone has an idea, and someone else gets the same idea, the latter has not deprived the former of their thought.
We are (were?) on the precipice of a new era -- the end, or moderation, of scarcity -- information, education, knowlege, and culture all widely shareable, across great distances, cheaper than any other time in history.
What have we done with with our newfound resources? We've created artificial scarecity! We've invented whole new concepts, laws, and systems to contain the ethereal, replacing it with tired Machiavellian rules.
Perfect digital copies? Yeah, right. (Score:1, Insightful)
Rubbish. Hardly anyone shares FLACs, WAVs or SHNs of commercial recordings - they're mostly MP3s, which are hardly "perfect digital copies".
"Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying.""
This definition of "sharing" is utterly flawed.
For one, sharing is not as simple as this guy is tring to claim.
Sure, sharing can be lending your friend a car.
But sharing is giving a recipe to a friend to copy. Or music for that matter
Re:They wish... (Score:2, Insightful)
"And, when you rip the CD, you do not open up your computer to all of the spyware and other viruses that are part and parcel of most illegal P2P services."
When will the RIAA learn that P2P is *NOT* illegal?? It can be used illegally, but the technology itself is legit. They should read this [zdnet.com.au] article.
I must agree with the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:0, Insightful)
Imagine, for a moment, if the idea of the free, perfect copy applied to the physical world. Imagine that there existed a box which costs a few thousand dollars, that can make a flawless copy of any physical object you hook it up to. Imagine the untold bounty and wealth that humanity could experience if such a thing were real! Is keeping a few auto manufacturers, home appliance makers, etc. in business really a good reason for restricting the use of such a thing? Of course not! It would be ridiculous.
Sadly we can only duplicate digital works. But is keeping a few aging digital media companies in business really a good reason for restricting the untold bounty and wealth of media that computers and the internet bring?
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:1, Insightful)
Dumbass, indeed.
The John Denver fan asked him if it was a "license" or just a physical copy, he indicated it was a license and then proceeded to contradict himself!
No. The John Denver fan asked if it was legal and okay to do X, Y, and Z, and the RIAA spokesman said it was. Then the John Denver fan asked if it was okay to do A (make a copy of somebody else's copy of the album) and the RIAA spokesman said that it is not. No contradiction there. Making copies for personal use--that is, use by YOURSELF--is fine. Making copies for other people, or allowing other people to make copies, or making a copy of somebody else's recording for yourself, is not okay.
It's okay that you didn't understand this. You're trying to think in broad terms (licensed versus owned), and the situation is not that simple. This is not where the dumbass thing comes in.
This is of course wrong, since MP3s use lossy compression and are in that manner comparable to consumer analog formats.
Here's where the dumbass thing comes in. Make an MP3 from a CD. Is it a perfect copy? No, not precisely. It's very good, better than any analog copy could be, but it's not perfect.
Now copy that MP3. Is that a perfect copy of the original? No. But is it a perfect copy of the first-generation MP3? Yes. Yes, it is.
P2P networks are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of NEAR-PERFECT digital copies of original recordings to millions of strangers simultaneously.
All clear now?
I guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the Gatling Gun was meant to end wars quicker, not make the murder of huge numbers of people fast and efficient.
So what with intentions; It sure as hell IS stifling innovation, no matter what you say (See kid who wrote search tool, lost life's savings to RIAA). That it (supposedly) isn't meant to stifle innovation, but can, doesn't matter to large corporations that are so consumed by moneylust that they will do anything to turn a profit.
Re:NEWSFLASH Riaa wigs STill CLUELESS (Score:5, Insightful)
There are also the group who would have never bought the music in the first place... this group is now downloading music... umm no loss here.
Then there is the group who loves music and will buy cd's, this group is going to support the artists they love, they are going to find more artists they love because of filesharing and will purchase more music.
There there is another group (that I'm part of) that takes the second group a step further. Who never used to listen to much music at all and certainly never purchased cd's... but who because of filesharing has discovered some great music and has now purchased several cd's in response.
Between all these groups of people (and other's I haven't thought of in 30 seconds or less) yes I absolutely think it's reasonable to think P2P is a scapegoat and not the real reason the recording industry is losing money.
The REAL problem is that the recording industry hasn't really embraced technology. They view it only as a means of increasing profits and protecting their interests. What about using technology to provide more and better content to consumers and increase their sales as a side effect? Currently content is damn near infinite, why not release dvd's full of music in brick and morter stores for what their charging for cd's right now? The price difference for me to do this is about 60 cents. I suspect the price difference for them is less, not more. I'd be much more likely to pay $20 if ALL the artists previous releases were included.
As for online music, give it to me cheap, you want a pay per download scerio, great, how about a nickel a song? They've said it themselves, online distribution allows the making of infinite perfect digitial copies... so I want the reduced costs passed directly to me and I want the PERFECT digital copies.
And artists... how about making getting "signed" a web-form that gives the artist 20% of sales, the artist can upload his music, he gets 20%, he gets carried on a major label's site, he gets his music out there, and if he gets popular THEN they support him by bringing him in for expensive recording and such.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no fundamental right to be able to earn a living by making music. People used to be able to. But if technology is now destroying that ability, so be it! Nobody these days makes a living manufacturing vacuum tubes or writing letters for people who never learned to read.
Unlike physical property, "intellectual" property is a total fiction of law. If technology makes that fiction untenable, perhaps it should be rethought. If rethinking it destroys the lifestyle of people who are relying on music to feed themselves, well, shit happens. Lots of people have to change their lives, change how they make a living, all the time for much less important reasons.
Why I have no problems downloading music.... (Score:1, Insightful)
The RIAA guy is an idiot.Copy the good stuff.-"W" (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no fundamental right to be able to earn a living by making music. "
I'm glad you said this. Now you and your fellow geeks please keep it in mind as your jobs are shipped to india [correction:vietnam], and you're on the bread line. Shhh.
"Unlike physical property[1], "intellectual" property is a total fiction of law."
If you want to get technical society is a fiction of law. Remember not all laws come in books.
[1] Actually some Indian tribes would disagree with you about the idea of a person owning the land.
You could "own" what you produced, or what others agreed to exchange with you.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously, when you pirate, you deprive the artist of due profit. No one seriously disputes that, to paraphrase Lessig. However, there's been no real discussion of how or why intellectual property is the same or should be treated as the same as physical property.
This position appears to be the position by default; the RIAA-types argue that this is clearly property, how is it different? In reality, from a philosophical, practical, and legal standpoint, IP is simply not the same as physical property and, unless a very good argument to the contrary is presented, should not be treated as the same.
This is perhaps the most irksome lapse in the RIAA's argument, to me. The similarities are there, but there are differences, too.
There is a very good reason for copy protection, as outlined in the Constitution. You'd let anyone make a perfect copy of your car if you weren't trying to sell it; if you were, it'd benefit your business to limit the number of copies floating around so people have to buy it from you. Had you designed the car, you'd want credit for it.
The point that the RIAA misses, though, (or tries to paper over with rhetoric) is that intellctual property is not physical property; the effects and implications of IP theft are quite different and quite complex. To merely say, "Well, it's theft" is to completely miss any real, valuable discussion of the situation and its implications.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:5, Insightful)
What if you were singing in the street? What if you were singing in the park?
The fact is that it's illegal for you to sing an artists song. If anybody heard you singing that is a performance and you owe the record company money. Sure if you are singing in the shower the police would have to break in but if you are singing in the street they don't have to.
You can make all kinds of speculations about whether they would arrest you or not but that does not change the fact that what you are doing is illegal. I remember a time when the cops would never arrest you for smoking a joint, in fact one time a friend of mine got pulled over with a bag of dope and a bong the cops just confiscated his stash and let him go. These days the cops would throw you in jail and confiscate your car. The laws that are not being enforced to day could be enforced with a zero tolerance in the future.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
The RIAA guy understood it perfectly and did what was the best for RIAA, he gave a vague answer that reinforced RIAA position that you can do only what RIAA legally allows you to do.
Trying to follow his reasoning: Dynamic range (Score:2, Insightful)
no he has a license to the CONTENT of the 8 track edition.
He has a license to the content of the 8-track version, which includes all the noise of the 8-track version. He does not have a license to the extra bits of dynamic range included on the CD version.
And if you bought T2 on VHS, you should be entitled to reencode it and record it on DVD
Exactly. You have a license to the content of your VHS tape, but you don't have a license to the extra bits of dynamic range included on the DVD version.
The RIAA representative's position may look like cow manure to some readers, but I think I know where he's coming from.
This is obvious but still... (Score:3, Insightful)
You probbably also noticed that tiny distinction that Lessig made:
But that's probably obvious... (It was so blatantly obvious, lieing directly under my nose, that I for once couldn't think of it :)
RIAA is a bunch of venture capitalists (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately for the RIAA, producing music is not that hard and no longer requires millions of dollars in equipment.
You mean recording music has become easy and relatively inexpensive. This is correct.
But before a song can be recorded, it has to be written first. Writing original music without accidentally stepping on somebody else's copyright (e.g. "My Sweet Lord" by Harrison) seems nearly impossible, and I can mathematically prove it if you want.
Given that the RIAA contributes virtually zero to the music production process
The RIAA is an association of record labels, and I think of record labels as venture capitalists who invest in recording artists (advance) in hope of gaining a return (label's share of royalties). Just as with traditional VCs, many of a label's investments fail to recoup.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you. If musicians (with business sense) ran the business, consumer costs would probably be limited to equipment, maintinence, delivery and related costs, with enough profit margins to keep up with technology. This way the musicians can concentrate on making their music and fans still have easy access to it.
Do not make yourself sound stupid by insisting that expensive equipent and studios are needed to make good music. They are not.
A little close there. While none of that is needed for the music part of it, high quality equipiment is needed to make good *recordings* of music. Recordings, whatever format or legal grounds, are great ways of letting people hear new things.
Veering off to left field...
As a musician, I see no need to make money from my work. It would help, and I'd probably be able to focus on it more if money came back from it, but it is nowhere near nessecary. IMO, real artists are willing to do whatever it takes to make their creations. Work two jobs for studio time, eat nothing but ramen noodles for a month to buy a new instrument, still creating new works in their free time. whatever. Music first, money later.
Scratch that, it applies to every creative endeavour I've seen. Art first, money later.
The News Hour shows its stuff -- again (Score:2, Insightful)
It is ironic that, in order to get a thorough and relatively unbiased presentation of the day's stories, one turns to a program partially funded by the US govt. Say what you will about whether there ought to be public television or not, a point which is obviously controversial. Whatever one's philosophical analysis says, at least PBS (and NPR, too) provide a valuable service in presenting news in greater depth (and with less dumbing-down) than can be found in any commercial enterprise.
Re:What's the Difference? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like the automobile destroyed the buggy industry, or refrigeration totally obliterated the ice harvesting industry right? Any yet no-one is complaining about that today are they? Things change, deal with it.
And that's not even considering that it's not the same. By your reasoning consumer demand for music and film would vanish overnight if RIAA doesn't have their way completely and utterly? That will not even be remotely true.
Demand for music in particular will always exist. It is a part of being human. All societies (and tribes) on earth now and in the past have always had music, and that will continue. In your case to the tune of trillions of dollars no doubt.
Now, N'Sync or whatever the boy-band of the week is called these days may not survive, but that is no cause for concern on the whole. (Most would even say good riddance).
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hydrogen fuel cells allow us to do what you talk about right now. Essentially they'd run on air itself, the energy produced from the air turning into water and back into air again provides almost unlimited energy.
We also have thermonuclear fusion, which provides almost unlimited energy as well, but its not as safe or easy to use in its current form. We also have organic energy sources, which provide energy.
The problem is not energy, the problem is will, our big businesses dont think its profitable for them to build tons of robots and give us cheap energy.
The world would change if we developed robots and had them do harvesting and other jobs, suddenly free food, water, etc could be provided. This wont happen at least not in Capitalist countries, perhaps it will happen in China.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the same argument the RI** uses: if no one thought they could get rich, they wouldn't bother making music/movies. That's demonstrably crap. There have been musicians and entertainers as long as there have been humans. Why would that change, just because we got rid of the outdated, bloated overlords of entertainment? It's not the artists these guys are afraid of losing. It's the executives.
Re:Intangible IP not the same as physical property (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, IP is most certainly physical property as it is the expression of an idea fixed in a tangible medium. You cannot express that exact same idea in the exact same way nor may you derive your work from mine and maintain any close similarities. WOrks may inspire but this is a completely different concept apparently only creators of works like myself seem to understand.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the US there is. It's in the Constitution.
No, it's not. It's an unfortunate and political renomenclature for what is collectively known as copyrights and patents, which as I mentioned above are provided for in the Constitution. To be sure, there are people who are looking to redefine the terms so that intellectual works are protected as strongly as physical property, and they're at odds with the Constitution and will ultimately fail if the system works, but your assertion that there is no right to make a living from creative works is on its face wrong as a point of law. People are not entitled to make a living producing things that other people don't want to buy (e.g. vacuum tubes) but they are entitled to a limited (in time and in terms) monopoly on their creative works.
Technology that makes it possible to duplicate and distribute those works cheaply does not invalidate that protection, it just makes breaking copyright laws easier. I'm generally not one for making the kind of specious analogies employed by the RIAA, but I think in this case your extremist position warrants one: Machine guns make it easier to kill people, does that mean the law against murder is obsolete? The idea that technology erases accountability to the law is absurd.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
In the US there is. It's in the Constitution.
Can you point it out to those of us who couln't see it? The only thing I saw that even remotely resembles a reference to music is congres's right to make laws promoting "useful arts" - and that doesn't say anything about a musicians right to earn a living by making music.
People are not entitled to make a living producing things that other people don't want to buy (e.g. vacuum tubes) but they are entitled to a limited (in time and in terms) monopoly on their creative works.
Yes, they're allowed a limited monopoly - but that monopoly doesn't guarantee the right to make money from it.
Your statement is somewhat contradictory, as you first say that they don't have a right to make a living from something if nobody wants to buy it, then you imply that they do.
A monopoly doesn't guarantee the right to earn a living from something if nobody wants to buy it.
Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no contradiction. You aren't entitled to make a living, you are guaranteed a right to control, within certain limitatons, the reproduction of your creative works. By virtue of this protection, artists (to use a generic for all creators of intangible works) are guaranteed that they will be the primary beneficiaries (assuming they don't sell their rights to a record label or the like) of their work's reproduction.
Making a living from creative works requires that the right to copy them is retained. You don't have to make a living from creative work, you may give it away for free if you choose to do so, but as the creator you are given the right to make that choice. When someone else copies and redistributes your work without your permission, then they are violating that right and, likely, any opportunity you might have to profit from your work.
Let's say The Really Shitty Garage Band releases a homebrew CD and tries to sell it for $20/copy. Noone likes it and noone buys it and The Really Shitty Garage Band does not make a living from it. The Really Awesome Garage Band releases a homebrew CD and sells it for $5/copy. People love it and The Really Awesome Garage Band makes a decent living from their music. A perceived value in the creative work has created a market, and the creators have profited from it. Good for them. What copyrights do is ensure that if you produce something people want, that you will be compensated for it if that is what you desire and they think it is valuable enough to pay for. If one person buys the CD and releases it on the Internet without the band's permission, then that person has undermined the bands market, and potentially destroyed their opportunity to make the greenbacks that will finance their future work.
What is so unfathomable here? The Constitution's authors recognized that creative works are vital to society and promoting them by guaranteeing benefits to their creators to encourage their work benefits all of society in the long run. Now, the copyright industry is getting way out of line with their attempts to perpetuate eternal copyrights, because that undoes the social benefit of a vital public domain, but that is another topic altogether...