If they had stolen a car, what would your response to them being put in jail have been?

In NYC, when I am on the subway, I see guys selling pirated movies without regard to who did the movie (as in company size, etc) to the public for about 2 or 3 bucks. Are they stealing or doing anything criminally wrong? what if they were selling Gucci rip offs? What about if they were selling stolen Gucci bag? Is that stealing?

It's incredibly easy to be "liberal" and present what you think is a problem, but what's your solution to the artists, companies, and people who make their livelihood on this? How do you explain to them that their property rights aren't property rights because you feel its your personal mission to toss out the baby with the bath water.

Also, if you are going to talk on these issues, it really does mean you should understand the legal and business issues and their ramifications of the issues you are discussing.

This discussion is a little like talking to fundamentalists about why I believe under the equal protection clause gay marriage should be treated as equal under the law only to have them tell me that they think its wrong because the Bible says so.

I am asking some pretty simple questions. I have a documentary film maker that I maybe helping obtain private financing for a documentary about the political shifts occuring in Latin America. What would you have me tell the investors? Sorry, but you don't have a property right here?

OT, but related: there is a great doc on the subject of gays and what the Bible says and doesn't say coming out of Sundance or Slamdance- I can't remember which. What would you have me tell them about their property- the film they created?

Finally, by the way, in order to have a great discussion, people would have had to first answer my question about the links I provided relating to cases like NAPSTER which the EFF supported, and for which claim about their support, I was called dishonest by Matt.

Hip hop is an extremely organic genre and a lot of it centers around collaboration between artists- much more so than in any other genre. A great deal of hip hop culture is based around mixtapes, and artists will often collaborate with each other on mixtapes, circumventing their labels entirely (their labels and RIAA hate it because they don't get a cut).

Artists typically get a very, very small percentage of profits from their labels and mixtapes are a way for them to bypass the labels altogether, while not using official studio equipment, producers or on the studio's time. They are essentially recording new music on their own, or remixing their old music and adding to it. The labels have no right to want a cut from this.

Mixtapes are also produced in very small limited quantities, and the revenue gained from their sale is quite small from the label's point of view. They often become collector's items.

Mixtapes will often come out in between albums, and feature early versions of songs that later appear on the official albums. Mixtapes are not piracy at all, since the artists and producers work together to create the music and give permission to sell it. Often times, mixtapes are also an opportunity for up-and-coming artists to collaborate with better-known artists and get their name out there that way.

Just to give an example, almost every hip hop artist got their start with mixtapes and only later got signed to a label. Once they get signed, the labels want them to stop creating mixtapes on their own and only make music through the label. Kanye West has for example come out with only two official studio albums, both of which went 3x platinum, and will drop his third in late 2007. West has been featured on almost 20 mixtapes however.

It's also becoming more and more common for artists to offer free downloads of their mixtapes on their official websites.

First they come for the mix tapes...

for people like Bruh: nobody cares. Sing your RIAA swan song all you want. Nobody likes them, they have no support among the people. The public abandoned the recording industry when they started suing 12 year old girls.

You want to know what pisses people off? That they use the police as their own personal army. It angers people beyond measure when the police are only concerned about the security of those who are already safe. There are REAL crimes that hurt REAL people the police could be pursuing. But no, the RIAA has to squeeze every penny out of every person it can. You talk about Car theft, fine. Let's talk abotu car theft. If someone stole my car how many resources would the police expend to get it back? Would they mount up in full riot gear, gunz blazing, so that I could get my car back? NO. They wouldn't do anything more than take a report. But these greedy rich executives think that the police should march around, taking orders from them.

I'm a human being. I matter. My safety matters. The RIAA is an organization of corporations. They are not human beings. They aren't even real, they are legal constructs. Yet someone, Bruh, you think they are more important than I am. You only worry about the law as it pertains to corporations. God Forbid anyone make a copy of a CD they have. The world might end. But you could care less how many people get raped, murdered or stolen from. People like you make good, honest people sick. It's just a shame you're too far gone to feel any of that sickness yourself

 One more thing, Bruh. It's astounding you think the biggest threat to intellectual property is an attack on copyright laws. Not the endless proliferation and extension thereof. Not the way corporations try to stifle debate with copyright law. Not ridiculous mickey mouse laws that extend copyrights beyond an individuals death. You want to know why theres a concerted effort to weaken copyright law? Because you people have gone too far. We're sick of it. Be glad if we let you keep anything when this is done. People like you have to be taught a lesson: Go to far, and you reap the anger and frustration you've sown. When copyrights originally intended to last 15 years are extended for hundreds of years, then don't be shocked if people attack the very notion of a copyright in the first place. You brought this on yourselves.

Copyright is a labor law. People who stupidly parrot the "RIAA is bad" line are, in effect, calling for a return to the good old days when publishers controlled the market and artists were on the street asking for change.

The over-reach of the RIAA is not an argument for the exploitation of artists.

Fly over, your posts are clueless and they make no sense. I don't see how letting random individual people with no real power do bad things is worse than letting one central organization with far too much money and power do bad things.

Your post just doesn't make any sense beyond an attempt to carry water for the Recording Industry. One centralized bad actor with infinite resources will always be capable of more harm than several bad actors with extremely limited resources. That won't go far with many people. Like I said, nobody really supports their tactics, their stunt with the whole suing small children thing pretty much burried any hope they had for a public outcry against piracy.

the overreach of the RIAA is an argument for punishing those who support them, and for punishing them. They have the made to understand that they don't get to call the shots. Nothing you've written has adressed a single point I made. It simply argues that they don't matter because somehow we have to support the RIAA. I suppose that makes perfect sense for a hack, but not for a reasonable person.

 Flyover, Bruh, what do you hope to accomplish here exactly? I mean, you're not going to be winning any rucruits to your insane "WE MUST BOW DOWN TO THE RIAA" Stance. This isn't an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. these people have gone too far. Until they cease their endless expansion of copyright law, then any who stands against them stands for freedom. Anyone who stands for them stands for servitude. We can talk about piracy AFTER they surrender on the issue of eternal copyrights. After they repeal the digital millenial rights act. Until then, I'm not open to listening to anything they or you have to say. Neither will any other reasonable or just person. You have gone too far, and you have to made to understand that our sytem of government is meant to serve people, not corporations.

I think the Copyright Wars are an important issue for the Netroots, and I applaud MyDD for bringing it up.

If even one political party stands forthright against the insanity, we'll get action. But the RIAA and MPAA are Democratic-leading lobbies, and it's Democrats like Howard Berman who are among the first to carry their water.

This should be the divide between what I call "anti-thesis" Democrats (you'd call 'em Clintonites) and true Netroots supporters. The Netroots understands this issue in its 21st century context, and comes to the right conclusions.

We either support open source and Internet values or we put the law on the side of an economic model that is failing. That's the choice we face.