I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about piracy in the digital age, its historical roots, and avenues for dealing with it in the future, and it’s all very distressing. It’s all background to help me develop a short documentary video project I’m working on for a seminar on modern-day notions of copyright. My idea was to show students talking nonchalantly about stealing multimedia and explaining how they copy, share, and create media, and how modern law doesn’t mesh with what they’re trying to do. I didn’t realize how easy it would be to find a hook.

Let me explain. Did you know that, right this very second, no one is 100% sure that you’re legally entitled to copy a music CD you bought to your computer, much less your iPod? Mind you, you’ve only bought a LICENSE to LISTEN to the music contained on that CD, and own little more than the media it’s printed on, but traditional notions of Fair Use seem to defend your right to copy it for personal use. But then you have stories like this from the Washington Post where the RIAA argues against any modicum of common sense and a huge body of case law. To quote from RIAA’s site (emphasis mine):

There’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as: 

• The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
• The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying

Contrast this with a quote I found using Wikipedia which comes from oral arguments in a Supreme Court Case:

“And let me clarify something I think is unclear from the amicus briefs. The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward”  Don Verrilli, representing MGM in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.

If you read those two quotes, you can already see the problem. When you can’t agree what the problem is, you can’t decide how to fix it. When laws, policies, beliefs, and contracts don’t agree, you have chaos, which is where copyright law is right now. And students are getting caught in the crossfire.

Part of my job as a Senior Technician is to serve as a beacon of legality in the college community and provide a modicum of input into the University’s copyright and digital rights policies. I hold my torch high as I feed the iPod ecosystem and buy/download songs from iTunes. But I don’t like enough music to really steal any. I’ve always been more of a singles kind of guy, so I buy singles when I want to, pay the whopping 99 cents, and move on. They’re usually free, anyway, because I have so much iTunes credit, given to me by people who are sure I can use it. So yes, I think it’s fair to say that 99.5% of my music is legal and licensed to me in some fashion. I’d like to think I very much practice what I preach. But music isn’t the only problem…

That’s just a taste of what I’m going to be dealing with for this project. But hopefully I’ll pepper my blog with other interesting topics in-between updates.

Until next time: take care, leave feedback, and buy music. - D