A reader from another country writes:
This is another of those music copying questions. There was an old recording of a book on LP in the 1970’s (I think). As far as I know, the record is no longer for sale. You can buy second hand versions at some cost over the internet, but they seem to be very limited in number.
Anyway, a man has put mp3’s of his old LP on the internet. He’s not selling them and says he’ll remove the files if they’re ever re-released by the record company. In this situation, is it licit to download these files, with the knowledge that the quality is poor and that no-one is being deprived of their fair wages from it? A person I know has made a CD of the mp3 files for me and I would like to hear them, but I don’t want to steal!
Not wanting to steal is the right attitude to have! Kudos!
Unfortunately, I don’t know what the law in your country (which shall remain nameless) would say about whether or not this is stealing.
Let me therefore prescind from the legal question to look at the moral question. As we covered in The Moral Question, the sin of theft is "usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner" (CCC 2408).
Let’s ask, therefore, whether it would be against the reasonable will of the owner to object to you downloading these .mp3s:
- Since the work is not in print at the moment, you have no way of purchasing it in such a way that the copyright holder(s) would receive compensation. Even buying the book from a used book service or the records from a used record shop would not get them a royalty. Therefore, they therefore could not reasonably object to your downloading them on the grounds that you are presently depriving them of a royalty.
- They could, however, reasonably object that by downloading them you would be undercutting the market for them should they decide to put them back in print at some point in the future. If you already have a copy, you don’t need to buy a new one, and so they could miss a royalty from you that they would otherwise get at some future date. This is a reasonable objection.
- You can meet this objection by making a commitment (a real, solid commitment, that is, not a phoney-baloney one) to buy the product should it be put on the market again (assuming that you’re not destitute and they’re not charging outrageous sums for it).
- You can strengthen this by committing to making a good faith effort to buy the product if it is ever re-issued in any form (e.g., if it comes out as a book but not an audiobook then you buy the book so that they get their royalties).
- It seems to me that, if you really make a firm commitment to make a good faith effort to buy the product so they can get their royalties that their objection to the undercutting-the-market argument becomes unreasonable, at least in your case. (It would not be unreasonable in the case of many people who might make phoney-baloney commitments to buy the product if it is reissued). In such a case, your action in downloading the files would not appear to be the sin of theft.
What the civil law may say about the matter, I couldn’t tell you, but in terms of the moral law that the action would not count as the sin of theft if done under the conditions just named.
I don’t know whether the law would actually have to say that such actions were stealing in order for them to be prohibited. The law could simply prohibit them, as is apparently the case in the U.S.
Now imagine the case of a man who once owned this LP, but later lost it and now wants to hear it again. He bought it the first time — does he now have a perpetual license to the work? I would have to say that he does!
Suppose a Star-Trek type replicator was invented. Just by looking at a statue, it can reproduce it perfectly and at almost no cost. Isn’t this an example of new means of production making stuff cheaper? It doesn’t seem like theft in any real sense. Wouldn’t this apply to MP3 reproduction of music?
It seems like musicians in this day and age should look to provide services that cannot be so easily reproduced by artificial means to make money, such as live concerts, just like they had centuries earlier.
I could be way off base.
John– I strongly disagree with you on that one. See, I’m a composer by training, although I currently do essentially no composing due to the demands of my young but fairly large family. I can tell you this- you can’t produce new works of music by copying some MP3 files. You need someone who is sufficiently motivated to spend the enormous amounts of time necessary to actually write decent music. Some people may simply compose music for the sheer love of the craft. Most people, however, do not have access to that kind of a trust fund 🙂 and need something by way of tangible compensation for their time. And the time required, btw, is usually quite substantial. Despite what you see in the movies, most composers cannot simply sit down at the piano and pour forth a masterpiece from the depths of the soul. It can take anywhere from one to ten or more hours to write one minute’s worth of music, depending on the complexity of the piece. So if you value the work of an artist in any medium, please provide them the compensation they are entitled to.
But what if the man’s LP/CD/etc had been stolen, rather than lost, dcs? Wouldn’t theft & loss be basicaly equivalent? If the item (in this case a CD) is still in one’s posession, then it’s “yours” to copy for archival purposes & personal use, such as use in one’s car to prevent loss of the original. Replacement due to loss or theft is a different matter. It should be purchased again. Just as with any other item such as TV, car, etc.
And would a perpetual license extend to newer versions of the same product? Say an LP or VHS version of an album or movie was originally owned & now the consumer would like to *upgrade* to the CD, SACD, MP3 or DVD so he/she burn a copy from a friend. Is that fair in light of the significant increase of quality the new version would/could have over the old one. Not to mention the inclusion of extra tracks/scenes, documentary footage, etc, the new copy might have that the old one does not.
For example, there’s a new version of Hoosiers just out on DVD containing significantly more material than the original DVD release, including a remastered image & soundtrack. If I’d purchased the original release & lost it, should I have the right to ownership of the new version or just the original? Just to the movie or the extras, too? What it I’d owned a VHS version? Would I have a perpetual license to any future DVD?
We may think that we own a movie or CD or book but, really, we just own a copy of it. As such, the rights we have in our use of that copy are limited because the mere fact of ownership of the copy doesn’t include rights or access to the actual intellectual property, it’s exhibition, or distribution.
Margaret– What did composers do before the age of electronically reproduced music?
Suppose a Star-Trek type replicator was invented. Just by looking at a statue, it can reproduce it perfectly and at almost no cost. Isn’t this an example of new means of production making stuff cheaper? It doesn’t seem like theft in any real sense.
In which case I’d say that a reasonable fee would be due the patent-holder, if the object replicated was patented, just like the copyright holder is due a reasonable sum even if they don’t have to provide a physical copy of the work (e.g., in the case of iTunes purchases).
Under our current economic arrangements, that is. If the replicator were invented, it would radically change the way economics worked since you’d be able to produce anything you wanted out of thin air with only a small cost in energy. What the end result would be, who can say?
It seems like musicians in this day and age should look to provide services that cannot be so easily reproduced by artificial means to make money, such as live concerts, just like they had centuries earlier.
Before the phonograph you could only get music at a live concert of some sort. Live concerts in a world where recordings of the music were freely available for all would be much less economical, since you could get a perfect copy for nothing as opposed to having to buy tickets, travel (if you didn’t live in a major market), etc. The pre-phonograph world and the free-music-for-all world that some seek to create aren’t really analogous.
My conclusions are similar to Jimmy’s — I own very little downloaded music and have committed to buying the songs that I’ve recorded when I can find them. Please let me know if you see a copy of the Barry Sisters singing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” for sale anywhere.
I’ve sometimes wondered about the licitness of downloading music for free that I already own copies of. I’ve burned a lot of LPs to CD, but this doesn’t always work out so well. Certain LPs, for some reason or another, come out sounding like they’re coming out of a Coke can when I play the CD recordings of them. In such cases, downloading would be a nice alternative.
Publius– The situation need not be entirely the same as ages past. In fact, with widespread dissemination of music, it is actually easier to get large numbers of people to a concert nowadays.
I realize that musicians may have to work a little harder for their money, but lets live in reality folks.
The laborer is worthy of his hire, Publius.
Bearing in mind that the statue maker, the painter, the writer, etc. do not have the concert option.
I’m no musician, but as a sci-fi and fantasy author, illegal copying and distribution strikes me very close to the heart. What Gene says is right–you own only a copy of the work, and have no rights whatsoever to the work itself. In fact, copies often come with restrictions on how they can be used–you can’t show your private copy of a movie in a theater.
If someone takes a book (say, the latest Terry Brooks novel), scans it into a computer, and posts it online, they commit theft for two reasons: First, they deny Brooks monentary compensation from those who might have bought the book if they hadn’t found it online, and second, they violate his copyright, which includes the right to control how, when, and where the work is published and distributed. Authors sign contracts which grant the publisher certain rights to publish the work in certain ways–but, if the author only agreed to print publication in the USA in the contract, it would be illegal for the publisher or anyone else to distribute it as an audiobook in China.
Just a little rant–overall, I think Jimmy is right on the money about music.
BTW, check out my work by clicking my link–I don’t have any major sales yet, though.
I would like to own copies of two DVD movies: “Toy Story 1&2” and “The Muppet Movie.”
But the Mouse is holding Buzz Lightyear and Kermit the Frog hostage, having bought up their rights.
I can find these used for $70 (Toy Story 1&2) and $45 (Muppet Movie), prices much higher than new. I can also get them from China for about $1 each (and give the remaining $113 to Operation Rice Bowl). Or I can wait until some day Disney re-releases them.
What should I do?
I actually have downloaded songs from albums that I had already purchased in the form of vinyl LPs, eight track tapes AND cassettes. That’s “and”, not “or”. I had already purchased each of these recordings at least THREE TIMES, and had begun to ask myself “how many times do I have to BUY these things??”
“But the Mouse is holding Buzz Lightyear and Kermit the Frog hostage, having bought up their rights.
I can find these used for $70 (Toy Story 1&2) and $45 (Muppet Movie), prices much higher than new. I can also get them from China for about $1 each (and give the remaining $113 to Operation Rice Bowl). Or I can wait until some day Disney re-releases them.
What should I do?”
IMHO–pay their prices. Disney has the right to do what they want to with their intellectual property.
Paying for them used won’t get Disney it’s royalty.
Applying the logic Jimmy sketched out, one might get them from China with a firm commitment to buy them as soon as they’re re-released.
On the other hand, Toy Story 1 and 2 are at this moment available relatively inexpensively from Amazon HERE.
Disney may have bought up the rights to the Muppets, but the _Toy Story_ movies have always been theirs. Pixar made them under contract with Disney.
I think some people are confusing violations of somewhat arbitrary copyright laws and theft. If you don’t want your data (secrets, music, text, pixels, etc.) copied or distributed freely, you’d never make it public in ANY fashion in absence of these copyright laws.
If you charged a person $3 for a cookie recipe, you cannot consider stealing if the person tells everyone this secret. It may be a violation of some arbitrary “copyright” law, but it is not stealing.
Please keep the concepts separate.
The laborer is worthy of his hire, Dav-O.
If you make use of the fruits of someone else’s labor without paying him, it is not the violation of some arbitrary “copyright law” but of natural law, which the positive copyright law was devised to protect.