Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Wed, 03 May 2000, James Rogers <jetan[_at_]ionet.net> wrote:
>
> Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

Funny!

> I'm a bit curious as to how you guys feel about the Napster and
> MP3 suits in the most _general_ sense. Clearly these are just
> the beginnings of an all out assault on copyright on the most
> basic, conceptual level [...]
>
> We all recall the videotape decision, in which the court virtually
> rewrote the statute in order to permit a widespread use in the
> face of existing copyright law.

I donno. The end of the copyright world gets predicted a lot -- from assaults by photocopiers, music tape duplicators, scanners, email... and maybe each has eroded the core sense that making a copy is "wrong" when it's so easy. But even if you are right that the courts (and Congress) change the law to conform with technical reality, the basic ideas of copyright haven't changed. The weight of history is great, and in ways that probably are good, cause the law to change slowly.

> I am of the opinion that Napster represents a very clear violation
> of the copyright statute

I donno. At least for those of us who've bought the LP, cassette and CD, not having to pay a 4th time for a recording in a different medium ought not to be illegal, even if the 4th copy (or 3rd or 2nd) is made by and obtained from someone else. That's at least part of what Napster is for -- a substantial part. Does that mean the whole operation should be shut down?

> My position is (I think) that the court, soon or late, is going to
> have to adopt a new model for copyright

or a technical solution, which for at least 10 years has been some speculated form of incremental charge -- play a song online get charged a penny, download a song get charged 50 cents -- all calculated automatically online. There's been serious technical and other efforts done to create and test such an idea -- maybe others here can tell us the status of them. We'll probably have our bank ATM cards embedded in our teeth, and the mere proximity to copyright protected material will debit us automatically -- before "a radical new model" is adopted.

• Charles

Charles Kramer
<tilyou1[_at_]aol.com> Received on Thu May 04 2000 - 17:01:46 GMT