quote:
Originally posted by Hadrian Aventine:
Here is al that I know. I think getting and keep programs and not paying for is illegal. Downloading demos and keeping the demos are legal.
Same applies to music.
I never listened to techno or rock or anything until I went to MP3.com by accident and d/l a song. Now I take maybe a day or two each month to go song hunting on these services to figure out what CD I'm going to buy next from the mall.
However, I do not tolerate taking the music, burning a CD out of it, and not paying for the songs unless the songs are public domain.
I am always torn by this sort of debate. As an artist of a differnet sort (fiction) I have to fall on the strict legal side and say that downloading music from Napster is wrong (as a frex). But as a consumer, I feel that sampling the music with intent to possibly purchase is not wrong ethically, if illegal technically.
However, I have to say that ethically _and_ legally, it's wrong to _offer_ the files for distribution unless you are the original artist/writer/whatever.
I have a story coming out in September on a site called Speculon (
www.speculon.com). They paid me for the right to publish the story on their site, and as such they can offer the story for distribution. I also know how they publish the stories, and pretty much anyone who knows how to hit ^C^V can copy the story and post it on their own site. This would be patently illegal, and definitely unethical.
But would it be unethical for someone on another site to offer the first several paragraphs of my story, up to the hook? Illegal, technically yes--more than a paragraph or so would be hard to justify under the Fair Use Act. But immoral and unethical? Did they post a link to the original publication and their link is generating more hits to my story? Well, then it's hard to say it's wrong.
And that's where the debate starts to boil down. No matter what point is made that downloading or uploading the material is unethical, there comes a point where the original artist is going to concede that, yeah, it's OK to upload a chunk as long as there's some way to find the original. And then someone who sees this done takes it a step further, and Posts more than should be, or the entire work, or without a link...
And then it goes out of control.
As an artist, there are a dozen ways to feel. Be puritanical about it--as Lars Ulrich, Harlan Ellison, and Paramount Pictures, among others, have done--and try to stop every instance of anything approaching piracy. This, unfortunately, breeds bad blood, as evidenced by the backlash against Paramount that came from Star Trek fansites, or the "Napster Bad" cartoon series published by Camp Chaos. (Harlan Ellison's already hated by enough people that I'm sure the backlash didn't affect him).
Or, be really laid-back about it, as many artists have done--some to the point of simply putting all their material right onto the net. This sounds all warm and fuzzy, but I think all of those artists admit that it cuts into profits a bit.
Software companies, like Shrapnel, have the same choices. Trust their customers, like Shrapnel has, which makes it harder to stop pirates--or place every protection under the sun on the CD. In the latter case though, let's face it, eventually the protection will be cracked. And then the executables show up on warez sites all the same. Open source? Sure, and watch _all_ your profits disappear.
Perhaps the fact that we're still debating hte whole thing is a good sign. There's a whole lot of grey area. Those who uphold strict morals still can; those who are heavily soiled with black can continue screwing over "the man" while under continual threat of being sued or jailed.
And in the meantime, we can hope that artists, companies, and consumers are out there somewhere determining where the happy medium lies.
And I'll continue to be torn, but try my best to be ethical, until the medium is found.
(Whew, that was long. And probably rambling, but I'm not going back to recheck it
And hey, I'm a corporal now! Woo!)
LL