Pirated? Music

[Wampa]

I am going to go on a long trip this summer, and I wanted to have some music for long airplane flights train and car rides. I really don’t want to buy music, and my sister proposed an idea. I go to the library, checkout all the music that I want, transfer it from the DVDs to my phone. Would that count as pirated music?

OP, it’s illegal. There are a lot of opinions that been given in this thread, many of which seem logical, but are not based on how copyright law actually works. As someone with a law degree who has written about intellectual property issues for several years, trust me that it’s illegal. In addition to the article that Jon S posted, see also: Copying library CDs is piracy. I can find you many more sources if you like.

We could debate all day whether or not U.S. copyright law should work this way, or whether it’s a sin (and how serious), but as of now, it is definitely illegal.

I had the same crisis, and somebody explained it to me this way. Since it is the library’s music, meant to be loaned out and free to the public, it’s perfectly fine to rip songs from their CDs.

The problem arises when you try to claim it as your own, and/or re-sell it, or do something with it that only the **true **owner of it can do. So, as long as it’s for your own private use, and you don’t plan on re-selling it for a profit or saying you wrote the songs and whatnot, you’re fine. (I even talked to a guy who works at our State House, and he agreed with this. )

The idea that it’s only illegal if you profit from it is a generally-held fallacy. I think the majority of the public thinks that, but that’s not how copyright law works. The reason is because by taking a copy instead of buying it, you have deprived the artist of one sale. As someone who has worked with small-time bands on small music labels, I have seen the crushing blow that rampart Internet copying imparts on them (Internet copying is often rationalized on the same theory of “I’m not re-selling, I’m just taking one copy for myself”).

 

[twf]

Honestly this reads like an argument that there is a “loophole” to justify behavior that isn’t correct as long as we don’t go to the trouble of finding out if it really is bad behavior.

The fact is WE ALL know that stealing intellectual property is wrong no matter what the form. Not knowing copyright laws has really nothing to do with it because any reasonable person knows this song, movie or book is supposed to be purchased or borrowed under acceptable norms.

To just simply take what you want because it is easily available is no different than shoplifting goods from a store. It really doesn’t matter if it is a felony or a misdemeanor as we have stolen what is not ours.

Is it less of a mortal sin if we steal a pair of $20 jeans than if we steal a $5,000 necklace? Is it less of a mortal sin if we steal for conglomerate retailer than if we steal from an individual?

You can’t legalize sin but you are responsible for recognizing what is sin, being accountable for it and making amends.

Of course stealing a $20 pair of jeans from a store is FAR less grave than stealing a $5000 necklace heirloom from a friend…: not even remotely comparable. Both are sinful, but not comparable. The Church teaches that the gravity of theft depends, in part, on the harm done to the one stolen from. That’s why in my earlier post, while agreeing that pirating music is sinful, I said that it is not equivalent to shop lifting as you are not depriving anyone of a physical object that cannot be replaced. Stealing $5 from a millionaire who doesn’t even notice the theft is probably a venial sin. Stealing a starving man’s last loaf of bread is a very, very grave sin. Any priest in the confessional would tell you the same thing

 

[Tim_D]

… see also: Copying library CDs is piracy.

I doubt that it is possible to find a worse statement of authority to appeal to than the one you linked.

 

[Jon_S_1]

I doubt that it is possible to find a worse statement of authority to appeal to than the one you linked.

Don’t like that, how about these.

avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-cd-that-is-borrowed-from-a-l-540944.html

lisnews.org/copying_library_cd_you_just_broke_law

riaa.com/resources-learning/about-piracy/

There are dozens more.

 

[Tim_D]

Don’t like that, how about these.

avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-copy-a-cd-that-is-borrowed-from-a-l-540944.html

lisnews.org/copying_library_cd_you_just_broke_law

riaa.com/resources-learning/about-piracy/

There are dozens more.

Yeah,…a site with a bunch of intellectual property rights lawyers, a librarian website and the record industry. I didn’t even need to click on the link to see which side they fell on. Swing and a miss!!!

 

[Jon_S_1]

Yeah,…a site with a bunch of intellectual property rights lawyers, a librarian website and the record industry. I didn’t even need to click on the link to see which side they fell on. Swing and a miss!!!

Oh…ok…got it…you will only listen to guys that agree with your opinion…If I put a link to a napster article or kazaa article you would be all over it Got it.

Why don’t you call up the US attorney, or copyright office, give them your name address phone number…describe your piracy and let them know that they are wrong…

Keep stealing other people’s things…it will eventually come back to you…

 

[WT1]

Of course stealing a $20 pair of jeans from a store is FAR less grave than stealing a $5000 necklace heirloom from a friend…: not even remotely comparable. Both are sinful, but not comparable. The Church teaches that the gravity of theft depends, in part, on the harm done to the one stolen from. That’s why in my earlier post, while agreeing that pirating music is sinful, I said that it is not equivalent to shop lifting as you are not depriving anyone of a physical object that cannot be replaced. Stealing $5 from a millionaire who doesn’t even notice the theft is probably a venial sin. Stealing a starving man’s last loaf of bread is a very, very grave sin. Any priest in the confessional would tell you the same thing

Please show me where the church teaches the gravity of the sin depends on the harm to others? I was under the distinct impression that the gravity of sin was dependent on the blemish to the soul. You can have victimless crimes for example lusting after someone’s wife but not acting on it. It’s still a grave matter and just as bad as sleeping with a prostitute.

Keeping track of sins with “point system” is a deception that can lead people to push the boundaries. If you steal $20 or $5,000 and you know it’s wrong the stain of sin is the same.

 

[WT1]

Yeah,…a site with a bunch of intellectual property rights lawyers, a librarian website and the record industry. I didn’t even need to click on the link to see which side they fell on. Swing and a miss!!!

So it’s your position that piracy isn’t wrong unless you sell the material?

 

[twf]

Please show me where the church teaches the gravity of the sin depends on the harm to others? I was under the distinct impression that the gravity of sin was dependent on the blemish to the soul. You can have victimless crimes for example lusting after someone’s wife but not acting on it. It’s still a grave matter and just as bad as sleeping with a prostitute.

Keeping track of sins with “point system” is a deception that can lead people to push the boundaries. If you steal $20 or $5,000 and you know it’s wrong the stain of sin is the same.

St Thomas Aquinas comes to mind. There are degrees of disorder. Some sins are graver than others- this is Catholicism 101. We’re not fundamentalist protestants who claim all sins are equal. Looking at a woman lustfully can be grave matter but it is not as disordered as hiring a prostitute. Some of your statements are contrary to common sense… Equating a $20 theft with a $5000 theft. While all unrepentant mortal sins do lead to damnation, the penalties are not the same. The Council of Florence teaches us that there are various degrees of punishment in hell. In this life, and in purgatory, there are various degrees of temporal punishment for mortal sins we do repent of. Some acts are more disordered than others.
CCC 1858 is a good starting point: scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1858.htm

It does matter. Telling a young man who is struggling with guilt from a momentary lustful glance that his failing is just as serious as a man who hires a prositute is not only misrepresenting Church teaching but could do grave harm to his psyche.

 

[Tim_D]

Oh…ok…got it…you will only listen to guys that agree with your opinion…If I put a link to a napster article or kazaa article you would be all over it Got it.

Why don’t you call up the US attorney, or copyright office, give them your name address phone number…describe your piracy and let them know that they are wrong…

Keep stealing other people’s things…it will eventually come back to you…

The links you posted are akin to asking Cheech and Chong if marijuana should be legal for “medicinal” purposes. Of course they are going to give you a predetermined answer.

 

[Tim_D]

So it’s your position that piracy isn’t wrong unless you sell the material?

My position is that the classic definition of “piracy” involved making money off of other people’s work of which you do not control the rights. It is only with the advent of the home computer and the ability to make a digital copy that this new broadening of the definition has come into play.

I persoanlly see the issue as the same as loaning a book, movie, cd, dvd or anything else to a friend. In both cases, someone is consuming media without financially compensating the copyright holder. How is it any different to make the decision to check out a book for free from the library instead of buying it from Amazon? If one must take a hard line on copying, then one must also take a hardline on libraries that provide books, newspapers, magazines, cos, dvds and a host of other items without charge to the customer and without any financial recompense to the copy right holder.

Ultimately, I think it is all small potatoes. Making a copy of something that you remember as a kid is hardly a serious action.

 

[Wampa]

I wil just pay for Spotify premium for a month. That will be way cheaper than buying hundreds of songs from iTunes.

I totally missed your follow-up post when I made my reply. It looks like you’ve found the perfect solution for your situation: legal, ethical, and inexpensive. Nicely done!

 

[WT1]

My position is that the classic definition of “piracy” involved making money off of other people’s work of which you do not control the rights. It is only with the advent of the home computer and the ability to make a digital copy that this new broadening of the definition has come into play.

I persoanlly see the issue as the same as loaning a book, movie, cd, dvd or anything else to a friend. In both cases, someone is consuming media without financially compensating the copyright holder. How is it any different to make the decision to check out a book for free from the library instead of buying it from Amazon? If one must take a hard line on copying, then one must also take a hardline on libraries that provide books, newspapers, magazines, cos, dvds and a host of other items without charge to the customer and without any financial recompense to the copy right holder.

Ultimately, I think it is all small potatoes. Making a copy of something that you remember as a kid is hardly a serious action.

Seems like you are just trying to justify a behavior that is wrong for your own benefit but it is for you to decide.

 

[WT1]

St Thomas Aquinas comes to mind. There are degrees of disorder. Some sins are graver than others- this is Catholicism 101. We’re not fundamentalist protestants who claim all sins are equal. Looking at a woman lustfully can be grave matter but it is not as disordered as hiring a prostitute. Some of your statements are contrary to common sense… Equating a $20 theft with a $5000 theft. While all unrepentant mortal sins do lead to damnation, the penalties are not the same. The Council of Florence teaches us that there are various degrees of punishment in hell. In this life, and in purgatory, there are various degrees of temporal punishment for mortal sins we do repent of. Some acts are more disordered than others.
CCC 1858 is a good starting point: scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1858.htm

It does matter. Telling a young man who is struggling with guilt from a momentary lustful glance that his failing is just as serious as a man who hires a prositute is not only misrepresenting Church teaching but could do grave harm to his psyche.

I don’t disagree that murder is greater than death and would say 2 murders are greater than one. I also would add that crimes against children or leading others to sin are graver offenses.

However I don’t buy into subcategories of potential sins. If theft is in your heart and the intent to is to enrich yourself at the cost of another than the sin is equal no matter the amount. What is worse a 5k theft which you regret or three $20 thefts which you attempt to justify?

Sin leaves a stain and we should be aware of the consequences of sin and not try to justify it in our minds.

 

[Tim_D]

Seems like you are just trying to justify a behavior that is wrong for your own benefit but it is for you to decide.

Actually, I think that I have demonstrated that I do not personally believe that the subject matter rises to any degree of consequence. Perhaps it is the small strain of libertarian in me but I take the position of whose business is it what I do in my home with equipment that I have legally bought, own and operate? Who is the RIAA to tell me that I can’t make a copy of a CD for my sister for which I have bought and own? No one ever wants to address the fact that loaning a book to someone presents the same problem. Why is that? Could it be that so many are not willing to conclude that it is unethical to loan books with recompensing the author, editor and publisher?

I wonder if some posters here are righteous enough to present themselves at their local constabulary whenever they break the speed limit, fail to come to a complete stop or blow through a yellow light that turned red half way through? How far does your sense of right and wrong stretch?

 

[Tim_D]

Keep stealing other people’s things…it will eventually come back to you…

No one has yet to demonstrate exactly what is being “stolen” (I’m tired of presenting the fact that in law, there is no crime of “stealing;” it is considered “theft,” which is defined as taking something that belongs to another or depriving their use thereof).

How can one be said to have committed “theft” when they copy a CD that they legally bought and own? What has been taken?

 

[Jon_S_1]

No one has yet to demonstrate exactly what is being “stolen” (I’m tired of presenting the fact that in law, there is no crime of “stealing;” it is considered “theft,” which is defined as taking something that belongs to another or depriving their use thereof).

How can one be said to have committed “theft” when they copy a CD that they legally bought and own? What has been taken?

You’ve moved the goal posts.

If you buy and own it, then make a copy if you like.

This discussion was about people choosing to circumvent purchasing by making a copy of someone else’s (the library’s).

It is different than material objects. I can borrow my friends car, but that doesn’t make two cars. If you duplicate your friends CD then you make a single object into two and you have stolen (committed theft) for the value of the CD that your friend otherwise would have had to purchase.

 

[Mintaka]

Wow, this thread has been full of wrong information.

First off, there was once a court case specifically about tape recording music off the radio and onto personal cassettes. The judge decided that it was okay. This was later referenced in cases about whether it was okay to videotape TV shows for personal use, or as “time shifting.” This also was deemed okay under US law.

So yes, it’s okay to make digital copies for personal use also. (Although this can be changed by accepting licenses.) Personal use falls somewhere between “only one copy” and “I copied it off for a hundred other people,” but hasn’t been fully defined.

“Fair use” and “personal use” means it’s usually okay to make extensive photocopies or digital scans of books, up to or including the whole book, if it’s for academic study. (You guys know about Hathi.org, right?) It’s okay to make small quotes without paying for them, and to make larger unpaid quotes in things like book reviews or academic papers. That doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to work off copies of every textbook you use throughout the school year, though.

Now, there has been a certain amount of shift in civil law, mostly because a lot of corporations are sue-happy and the rest of us don’t retain lawyers. Many digital media files come with licenses purporting to forbid ownership of the physical file, and thus prohibiting all sorts of “fair use” and “personal use”. Music is often licensed in this way, in an attempt to prevent all the traditional fair uses and personal uses. There have often been attempted expansions of copyright, and attempts to continue charging for copyright when the actual work has fallen into the public domain, or was never outside it. (That’s stealing and fraud, if you like.) There is a writer’s family which has attempted to forbid academics to quote his books or letters, for example. There are even writers who think libraries should be banned from loaning out books, and that used bookstores should be outlawed.

Catholics are supposed to be law-abiding citizens, if possible. However, it is difficult now for any US citizen to know what the law really is. Under traditional interpretations of US copyright, it would be totally okay to copy a library CD if one owned a library card. (And indeed, the price of blank CDs, like that of blank cassette tapes and videotapes, includes a small fee that is paid out to the songwriter associations and music industry. This money never actually gets to artists, of course, but it is the consumer who is paying and yet is supposedly stealing.)

However, it is the traditional version of the law that usually wins out in the end, so it’s probably safer to assume that lending libraries are still legal and that copying library CDs is okay too. It would be more iffy to attempt to copy library ebook or digital audiobook files. (Although some library ebooks and audiobooks can be temporarily burned on CD, for about two weeks. Then you have to throw the CDs away, which is a waste. There are usually library-provided apps of some sort for temporarily downloading library files onto phones.)

 

[exnihilo]

So if you took out a book and hand wrote a copy for your own house? Morally bad?

This is an excellent question. It seems many would have to say the Catholic Church is the biggest thief of all time with its centuries of copying of books, even if by hand. I’m not an attorney but it seems to me she would also be guilty under RICO.

It is also worth noting there is a religious exemption granted under copyright law. But if violating copyright is theft such an exemption hardly seems warranted and certainly wouldn’t stop theft from being theft.

 

[xNoOnex]

Here’s an interesting question. It isn’t related to music, but it is a copyright issue…

John loved a particular computer game. It’s an older game and one he considers a classic. He used to play it all the time with his friends and it served to draw them closer together over the years. The official servers for the game have long been taken down, but John is tech savvy, set’s up his own server and plays the game. John and all his friends legally purchased the game, long ago. It is no longer being supported by the publisher. Is he committing a sin, doing what he’s doing?

Since he is breaking copyright law. At least, according to the lawyers of the game’s publisher - even though they are not losing a dime on what they are doing.

Another example.

Chuck has a huge collection of original Nintendo games, in storage. He’s currently living in a small apartment, so he doesn’t have room for them. So, since he legally owns the games, he decides to download a ROM since he doesn’t have access to something that would allow him to rip his old cartridges on his own. He has a legal right, however, to own a archival copy for his own use provided he doesn’t try to sell it… And he has no intent to. He just wants to play some Mega Man. Is he committing a sin, doing what he’s doing?

Because he’s breaking copyright law. And like the previous case, no one is losing money.

Point is, our current copyright laws are very outdated and various companies have used loopholes to be exploitive to consumers. And a lot of these companies are trying to strike down fair use… Our legal right, by the way, since the internet is something our current laws haven’t taken into consideration.