a *sort of* solution to our broadband problem...

Sandman30s said:
What is the difference between: (a) downloading an mp3 album for free (b) walking into Musica and taking the same cd album for free?
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The first *might* under certain circumstances be copyright infringement ( if for example you redistribute it ). The second is theft. That is the law.
 
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How can the cops confiscate an mp3 cd? What if I payed for and downloaded the the mp3 from some site like Itunes? Must I keep the receipt with me then?
 
Sandman30s said:
12. (1) Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work — (a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the work;

I don't know about your lawyer or his interpretation of this, but the keywords are 'fair dealing'. If an artist's work is unfairly placed in a public place for free download, it is unfair to the artist for it to be downloaded cos he would be losing sales. The same thing would go for a book - if you spent years writing a book, and someone got hold of your electronic source, and placed it on download.com for all and sundry to download - would it be financially FAIR to you??
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What about libraries? :P
 
Also my interpretation of 27.(1), and more specifically (f)
distributes for any other purposes to such an extent that the owner of the copyright is prejudiciallyaffected,articles which he knows to be infringing copies of the work, shall be guilty of an offence.
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is that it is only illegal if you distribute what you have, so uploading in any way would be a criminal offense. It says nothing about downloading.
 
Highflyer_GP said:
Also my interpretation of 27.(1), and more specifically (f)
is that it is only illegal if you distribute what you have, so uploading in any way would be a criminal offense. It says nothing about downloading.
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Yes, uploading is a different matter.
 
Sandman30s said:
Piracy is a criminal offence.
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You have been bamboozled and blinded, in fact 0wned, by the propaganda of the MPAA, RIAA, RISA, BSA, and the record labels. You even think of it as "piracy", which it is not! Don't let these people fool you - you have rights!
 
rwenzori said:
You have been bamboozled and blinded, in fact 0wned, by the propaganda of the MPAA, RIAA, RISA, BSA, and the record labels. You even think of it as "piracy", which it is not! Don't let these people fool you - you have rights!
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Ya, they certainly do a good job of it as well...
 
to highflyer - cached images are not willfully downloaded, unlike mp3's which you willfully downloaded to keep and enjoy, and did not pay for. Same with libraries - you are borrowing the book, not possessing it? As for receipts - yes I personally know a person who has had to produce his original cd's at a station later on, or face 50 grand per song or x years in prison - something so ridiculous that the guy had to go out and buy a whole lot of cd's. And my wife and I had a 1-minute discussion about this, so the rest is kinda what I'm filling in. Yes I could be wrong etc. but what I am trying to get to is this...

I have written a book which I am currently proofreading and looking for an agent/publisher etc. How do you think I will feel if my electronic copy is circulated around the net for everyone to download and read at their leisure? What about sales? The amount of piracy as a result could make or break a career. Same with up and coming artists who have the same concerns. They demo their work on mp3.com and expect people who enjoy their work to pay for it! Would a doctor or lawyer give his services for free! Why should an artist be biased?
 
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Highflyer_GP said:
Also my interpretation of 27.(1), and more specifically (f)
is that it is only illegal if you distribute what you have, so uploading in any way would be a criminal offense. It says nothing about downloading.
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For someone to upload, there must be someone on the other side to download, so you could argue that the downloader is an accessory to the crime.
 
Sandman30s said:
to highflyer - cached images are not willfully downloaded, unlike mp3's which you willfully downloaded to keep and enjoy, and did not pay for. Same with libraries - you are borrowing the book, not possessing it? As for receipts - yes I personally know a person who has had to produce his original cd's at a station later on, or face 50 grand per song or x years in prison - something so ridiculous that the guy had to go out and buy a whole lot of cd's. And my wife and I had a 1-minute discussion about this, so the rest is kinda what I'm filling in. Yes I could be wrong etc. but what I am trying to get to is this...

I have written a book which I am currently proofreading and looking for an agent/publisher etc. How do you think I will feel if my electronic copy is circulated around the net for everyone to download and read at their leisure? What about sales? The amount of piracy as a result could make or break a career. Same with up and coming artists who have the same concerns. They demo their work on mp3.com and expect people who enjoy their work to pay for it! Would a doctor or lawyer give his services for free! Why should an artist be biased?
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Do you know how much it costs to make a CD? Surely not R150+. Bring down the prices, or else piracy will prevail, one way or another.
 
Sandman30s said:
I have written a book which I am currently proofreading and looking for an agent/publisher etc. How do you think I will feel if my electronic copy is circulated around the net for everyone to download and read at their leisure? What about sales? The amount of piracy as a result could make or break a career.
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Well, to try to keep this reasonable, let me bore you with some of my experiences.

For a period of a couple of years I made my living writing shareware and selling it on the internet. After the programs had acquired a bit of a reputation, illegal serial numbers started appearing on the net. I was, of course, concerned. But what happened was that the software started taking a big jump in sales, as it was reaching a far wider audience. Sometime later the serial numbers were included in one of the big serial lists ( distributed with a lookup program ). Sales again took a boost. So one chewed on one's concern and outrage, and accepted the incoming dollars.

I cannot find the reference at short notice, but this was one of the fundamental conclusions of one of the studies of P2P - that it helped the majority of artists, but did prejudice the real supersellers.

What you term piracy can actually help you!
 
hj2k_x said:
That is not the way the law sees it.
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Problem is that what the law says (or what we think is says) and how it is interpreted is sometimes very different. I wouldn't want to be the one testing the interpretation in a court ;)
 
Sandman30s said:
As for receipts - yes I personally know a person who has had to produce his original cd's at a station later on, or face 50 grand per song or x years in prison - something so ridiculous that the guy had to go out and buy a whole lot of cd's.
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Eish! I'd better keep my terabyte-plus of mp3's well hidden! LOL!
:D
 
qinglung said:
Problem is that what the law says (or what we think is says) and how it is interpreted is sometimes very different. I wouldn't want to be the one testing the interpretation in a court ;)
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This is true. Statutory Interpretation is a key legal aspect. However, I do not see this issue reaching a South African court anytime soon, if at all.
 
qinglung said:
For someone to upload, there must be someone on the other side to download, so you could argue that the downloader is an accessory to the crime.
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That's assuming you're making use of a peer-peer connection. There are other protocols one could use to upload - smtp, ftp, etc.

Also depends on the uploader's location - he could be in Sweden and it could be downloaded in SA. There's nothing we can do in SA about him because he's bound by Swedish law. So according to SA law you're not committing a crime by downloading from him, because you're not playing any part in the redistribution of the material on SA soil. If however you upload any part of it on SA soil, you'd be committing a crime. Anyway that's my interpretation of it so I'm open to correction.

Sandman: we're not debating morality, we're debating legality. I understand your frustration however that's what the law says. Is it moral to be charged for shooting a burglar in your home? No, but the law states that you will be if it's not in self-defense.

Anyway I think the thread has totally been derailed. The point from earlier is that there are many other ways that one could consume data - it's unfair to paint everyone with the same brush and label them pirates if you don't know how they're utilizing their data.
 
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qinglung said:
I wouldn't want to be the one testing the interpretation in a court ;)
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The music companies would be fools to test SA copyright law about private MP3s in court - they could lose, and establish a precedent they didn't like!!!
 
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