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Share with Friends, Not Strangers
Posted by Ernest Miller on Wednesday, October 01 @ 12:40:13 EDT File Sharing
Lawrence Solum, professor of law at the University of San Diego and author of the Legal Theory Blog, was last cited on LawMeme for his debate with Prof. Eugene Volokh on the justifications for intellectual property law (Does IP Make Sense? and Solum and Volokh Discuss IP). Now, he addresses in some depth one of LawMeme's recent features regarding copynorms (Copynorms and Nesson's Koan). I completely agree with his conclusion and think that it tracks nicely with my and Joan Feigenbaum's old paper (Taking the Copy Out of Copyright [PDF]):
So here is a modest proposal for the RIAA. Go with the flow! Use the norms, don’t fight them. What does that mean in practical terms? When the RIAA sends the message, “copying is theft,” they are fighting the norms. No one believes that copying is the moral equivalent of theft, because everyone thinks that private, noncommercial copying is just fine. Even the RIAA seems to have thought that when they agreed to the provisions of the Audio Home Recording Act that permit noncommercial analog copying. And the fact that copynorms diverge from norms about theft is rooted in the underlying economic reality--consumption of intellectual property is nonrivalrous, whereas consumption of tangible property is rivalrous.
So here is an alternative message that the RIAA could try:
Share with your friends, not with strangers!
 
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New best friends ... (Score: 1)
by Seth_Finkelstein on Wednesday, October 01 @ 16:25:12 EDT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://sethf.com/
Except on the Internet, everyone is your close personal friend when it comes to file-sharing ... Seth Finkelstein [sethf.com]


[ Reply to This ]


Re: Share with Friends, Not Strangers (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, October 04 @ 02:57:45 EDT
Or more realistically, the RIAA could just say "Don't share music with strangers!" I don't think we can expect them to explicitly encourage copyright violations by sharing with friends, but it does make sense for them to focus their message on the aspect where people might be most open to accepting it.

And what they also need is a catchy slogan which gets across the message that file sharing using current software is not a private act, that it really does involve sharing with thousands or even millions of strangers. Remember that one they used to have with AIDS, something like how you're having sex with thousands of strangers when you have sex with just one? How did it go? Could it work for file sharing?


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Even Jack Valenti makes the distinction! (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Sunday, October 05 @ 20:09:44 EDT
In an NYT article about the elimination of DVD copies of movies being given to Oscar screeners there are the following quotes:

"Of course I trust the academy members," Mr. Valenti said, "but they give them to friends."

In effect, though, he is saying that the movie industry cannot follow its own rules. Even Mr. Valenti admitted he has shared screeners in the past. "I gave some away to my children and friends, too," he said. Sharing screening DVD's, he added, "is a normal piece of the human condition."

Wow. So Valenti admits to what, under his definition, is piracy. Of course he says it is ok because he only gave them to family and friends.

I didn't think much of this idea until I read that.


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