Actually, it's not illegal for someone to encourage you to do illegal things. The precedent is referred to as the ``Brandenburg Test'' (from Brandenburg v. Ohio) and says that "the advocacy of the use of force or law violation" cannot be forbidden or punished unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." (cite)

Which is not to say that it's not, at the very least, odd that Gateway would sponsor that sort of activity.

Edit: BTW, about all of this stuff, IANAL.

Hmm, I definitely have a copy of the poster from their website as .pdf - a vector pdf and not a low-res bitmap rendering. If anyone wants it, it's ~410k. I suspect they they don't mind people printing up their own posters - why would they have provided a .pdf otherwise? (especially if they don't sell them anymore, though I bought a few)

Hugo

Not strictly true; people working there were being paid and considering that reports indicate BMG might buy out the rest of napster for something like $90m (this is from memory, but it was multiple millions) I would say that *they were* being paid - they knew that they were building a brand which would be worth something to them in the future.

Yes, noone was making money out of the actual swapping, but they were out of the service.

Hugo

"Both are reproductions of copyrighted material using your own personal equipment and expertise."

When an artist does an album for a record label, it is more than just the artists equipment and expertise that goes into the record. The studio has paid good money to get an unreproducible sound out of expensive studio equipment, producers, sound engineers, etc. When you buy the right to enjoy this recording put together by all of these people who have invested themselves into making this record, you are buying the fruits of their labor. When you freely distribute this unreproducible recording without paying for it, you are taking money away from all that these people that have worked so hard.

Its true that mostly you are hurting the record company directly, but this will eventually hurt the artist and others involved; if you can't see that you are short sighted. If albums stop selling, studios stop getting used and soon go out of business. Producers stop being in demand and can no longer bring their expertise to help musicians refine their sound.

You can say all day that playing on your guitar is a reproduction of a recording, but unless you have the right effects, a personal coach telling you how to play the song perfectly, someone with equipment and expertise to mix your sound perfectly, you cannot reproduce what you are listening to. Even if you could, you would be standing on the shoulders of the producer and writer who arranged and wrote the music in the first place.

Your opinion is yours, and I am glad we live in a country that allows you to speak freely. That having been said, I am glad that same country also values the intellectual work of musicians, programmers, etc. You see, otherwise there wouldn't be professional musicians, professional programmers, or professional anything having to do with creating value by thinking. You can say that this value is artificial, but existents none the less (which a good thing). There are other countries where intellect is not valued and they do not have the things we do.

I am a musician who is working on an album (privately funded) and when I am finished I will probably release mp3's available for free download because music is a labor of love for me. This, however, is my right to determine as the person funding the CD. If I decided to charge for the music (which I will do at local shows and for people that just want to support me), that is easily justifiable because of the time and effort I put in. It is sad that you would think so little of my efforts that you would say that all of my hard work and time I spent creating my album is worthless (which is exactly what you say by acquiring it and distributing it without paying for it if you don't have the funder's permission) because you could reproduce it in some way.

I respect those who have talents I do not posses and place great value their work. I appreciate the talent it takes to paint a picture, to act in a movie, or design a building. No matter how good photography gets, I would never walk into a museum (or poster store for that matter) and start taking pictures of someone else’s creation without paying for it, even if I could reproduce it electronically in a way that you couldn't tell the difference from the original.

I wish you could see how disrespectful your attitude is toward those who create music and how much you belittle their talent. I know I can't change your mind, but I just had to vent a little. I think I've gotten it all off my chest .

-Jeff

Hey Hugo, I'd love to get that .pdf from you. If you'd like I'll also put it up for download for a while so you don't have to keep mailing it out.

Thanks.

[email protected]

I agree that the owners of the intellectual property need to be compensated, and that when you buy a CD you don't "own" the music in the CD, but rather the right to listen to it as you please. However, I bet that most of us in this forum have been ripped off by the record companies because we end up paying up to three or four times for the right to the same thing, just because of change in medium.

Let me explain, I have a factory recorded tape collection of about 100 tapes, a collection of about 200 vinyl albums, and about 250 CDs. All three of the above collections overlapp. So, there's roughly 80 creative works (albums) that I have had to purchase three separate times to obtain a single right. Similarly about 50 of them that I've had to purchase twice. I still have tons of tapes and vinyl albums that I would like on CD and eventually will re-purchase. If actual manufacture of a CD is worth less than a buck, then I should be able to turn in my vinyl plus a buck and get a CD in return. Otherwise, I'm being ripped off! So, a little trading of ripped music for non-comercial purposes is harmless, and definitely does not make me feel guilty. I'm still at a loss since only about 10% of the music I have in mp3 format comes from stuff I did not purchase. The other 90% I have purchase an average of 2.3 times!.

No matter how good photography gets, I would never walk into a museum (or poster store for that matter) and start taking pictures of someone else’s creation without paying for it,

Y'know, that raises an interesting point.

Would it be ethical or legal for me to visit a museum and photograph a one-of-a-kind picture (like "Mona Lisa") with the intent of making an 8x10 or maybe a 16x20 print from it and hanging it up in my bedroom? Obviously I cannot purchase the original even if I wanted to and had the means to do so. And just as obviously my reproduction of it is only somewhat like the original -- a different size, printed on photo paper and not oil-on-canvas, the character of the reproduction is quite different from the original, but nonetheless similar enough to be enjoyaable.

When you consider that there are probably literally thousands (if not millions) of different reproductions of that painting already floating around, what are the ethics of my taking my own photograph of the original?

tanstaafl.

ethics aside, the legal situation is that the images are copyrighted and owned my the museum. they would have a legal right to sue for damages if you were to use unlicensed copies of their images.

like a xerox copy of a book, it may not be the same quality of the original, but it's clearly a copyright violation.

--dan.

> ethics aside, the legal situation is that the images are copyrighted and owned my the museum.

Copyrights have a time limit; 70 years after the death of the creator. The Mona Lisa has no copyrights anymore.

Many museums forbid photography equipment, at least in New York and San Francisco. They allow drawing instruments and paper pad however.

Calvin

I wouldn't mind a copy. Can you post this up somewhere or provide a link?

Calvin

Here's the vector pdf of the poster. Thank you Hugo!

I think this is acutally because flahes will cause damage to the paintings over time, not because they don't want you to photograph the paintings.

Here's a poster that was in response to the first one.

And the PDF

The flashes also cause considerable annoyance to other people viewing the artwork. You would probably get away with a digital camera without flash.

Rob

Hi.

This brings us to the issue of cover bands. While playing music on your guitar in your home is one thing going out and playing for a crowd and charging them money is another and I really am not familiar with the laws governing this.

Bands do this every weekend all over the country, yet nobody minds.

This isn't exactly true. Those cover bands (or the clubs they play at) are paying roylaties to the original artist (or some organization that pays the artists/copyright holders).

By the way, I'm in the process of writing the book of The. The only word in it is 'the'. It will soon be copyrighted, and anyone who wishes to use my intellectual property will have to compensate me for it.

This is a non-argument: You can't copyright a basic word of any language (but you can get a trademark for it under certain circumstances). To copyright something, it has to be non-trivial and either scientific or artistic. First, "the" is trivial. Second, "the" is neither scientific nor artistic. You might be able to copyright a specific, artistic representation of the word, like a calligraphic writing of it. If you did that, nobody would be allowed to use exactly that representation without your permission (that's how certain typefaces got copyrighted). Nobody could stop another "artist" to do a different painting of that word though.

cu,
sven

Hehe, first of all, When I mentioned printing the picture, it WAS a joke. (Simply due to the REALLY inadequate resolution, I'd LOVE to see that one printed as a 3'x4' poster - centimeter tall sqares of color).
However, printing it on your own IS illegal. (As long as you don't have permission from the author). In fact, when the www first became popular, there was much anxiety among graphic designers that their artwork would be "stolen" and used on other websites that did not pay them for it's use. And it happened quite a lot. Ever what the Digimark plugin in Photoshop was used for? After time, it was just given up on, as it was easy to defeat, and kinda pointless anyway. As to music, my personal view is that as long as I own the original, I'll do with it as I damn well please. As long as it's just for ME. I don't share my music really, and I typically rip my own MP3's, with the exception of a select few (I'm not perfect). However, there are many times when I've use somebody else's copy of an MP3 because mine was crap (cd was scratched and full of pops when ripped). Do I feel bad about that? Not in the least. Do I feel bad about the tracks I have that I DON'T actually own? I probably should, but again, nope. Metallica would have a hard time making me believe they're really feeling the pinch moneywise.

But on the other hand, see the attachment. (Courtesy of Despair.com)

In reply to:

---

You would probably get away with a digital camera without flash.

---

Theoretically, but if you try to sneak a quick pic without a flash of the original "Star Spangled Banner" flag, and the 117 year old guard slips out of his coma for just long enough to see it, and you try to explain to him that non flash photography cannot possibly damage anything, and in your anger at his failure to listen even a little bit or to stop reaching for your camera you mumble for him to go F himself and walk away, you will be most unceremoniously ejected from the Smithsonian.

Not that I'm bitter.

you try to explain to him that non flash photography cannot possibly damage anything

Ah, but you could have stolen the flag's soul..

Rob