The lines between stealing and sharing are blurred. In regards to shared music files, many-especially those profiting from the recording industry-are claiming that sharing digital copies of music is identical to theft. The Recording Industry Association of America has filed multiple suits against file sharers.
Rapper LL Cool J, who is against file sharing, used this comparison before a Senate subcommittee, as reported by Fox News: “My question is, if a contractor builds a building, should people be allowed to move into the building for free?”
Mr. Cool J-as he was addressed by at least one of the senators-gave an odd analogy. As a rule, contractors are paid for the act of building the structure. They only get paid once for it, no matter who uses it. Whether people move in for free depends only the owner’s wishes, not the contractor’s.
Perhaps J meant something similar to what Lars Ullrich of Metallica said. “This is really no different than theft. Grab a Metallica CD off the shelf and walk out of the store with it, it’s really no different,” he said, as quoted by John Stossel of ABC News.
Both J and Ullrich are wrong. While some file sharing is undoubtedly a violation of copyright law, it does not amount to theft. Theft is a malignant activity that denies the original owner of a property’s function.
To begin with Ullrich’s comparison, when a song is downloaded, a new copy is created. No one is denied or loses anything, whereas when a CD is stolen, the store no longer has it and can neither sell nor play it.
Intellectual property is not physical property. It should not be treated as such. Unlimited copies can be made allowing for an infinite supply. While authors and singers should be compensated for their works, its unreasonable to expect that they be compensated the same for every copy when neither labor nor creativity is needed for the copy.
In “MP3s Are Not the Devil” on “The Ornery American” Web site, writer Orson Scott Card of Ender’s Game fame says, “Copyright … creates the legal fiction that a piece of writing or composing … is property and can only be sold by those who have been licensed to do so by the copyright holder.” Thus, sharing of such property is not theft but a violation of an artificial legal concept.
Not that copyright law is necessarily bad. It can ensure that the singers and authors who create works are justly compensated. However, it often grants the work to a corporate entity.
So the “creative” or “artistic” works are published not because they are creative or artistic, but because they further the interests of their owners-never creative, never artistic exist-only-for-profit corporations. The artists often see little to no profits on their works, especially when compared to the corporate profits.
So who exactly is being stolen from? The songs are not necessarily owned by the creator. Instead, a third party, the recording industry, holds the rights.
Often, these third parties aren’t interested in the welfare of the artist. Card continues, “… it’s pretty hilarious to hear record company executives and movie studio executives get all righteous about copyright. They’ve been manipulating copyright laws for years, and all the manipulations were designed to steal everything they could from the actual creators of the work.”
Card is correct. Not surprisingly, it is the RIAA, not the artists themselves, that is filing suit. While some artists, such as Ullrich and J, agree with the RIAA, many, including Chuck D of Public Enemy, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and Courtney Love, favor file sharing. File sharing doesn’t harm artists so much as the distribution industry, simply because the industry is not needed as a middle man. With the middle man gone, songs become cheaper and artists make higher profits.
Ultimately, the problem lies with the archaic nature of the recording industry, (with online file distribution, its current form is obsolete). Now a dinosaur, it is attempting to convince people that sharing is theft. File sharing continues, some of it legal and some of it not. However, it is never theft.
Nathan Alday is senior aerospace engineering major. He can be reached at [email protected].