[Dark_Angers]

Originally Posted by IGOTJOINTS4YA

Dark Angers, you still do not understand the copyright laws still, when you create new music or media, you invented something, a copyright is like a patent on that material, and the coping of that material is theft of that patent issued issued to that material.

If I copied the windshield wiper and starting giving them away, the person that own that patent on the windshield wiper could sue me because they created that tool.

Clearly you don't under stand copyright law. Please read up on it.

technically, file sharing is not theft.

A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked.

So "copying" is not "stealing" but can be "infringing." That doesn't have the same sound bite quality as Valente's position.

Complicated matters further, copying is not always infringing. If the work is not copyrighted, if you have a license to make the copy, or if the work is in the public domain, you can copy at will. Also, not all "copies" are the same. Say you buy a CD and play it on your computer -- technically, you have already made a "copy" onto the PC in the process of playing it, but that's not an infringement.

Making an archive copy is okay too, as long as your retain the original. What about a transformative copy -- say, making an MP3 out of a CD? You can do that, so long as you retain the original work. If the original CD get scratched, damaged or lost, you can probably burn the MP3 back to a CD (sans the really "sucky" titles), but this is not entirely clear.

So the RIAA and MPAA's claims that all "copying" is "stealing" are much overhyped.

But so too are the claims some swappers make that, simply because I bought a particular CD at some time in the past (or really, really thought about buying it), I now have the inherent right to share it with all my friends (even the ones I have never met in Singapore, Malaysia and Eastern Europe).

Fair and Unfair Use
The RIAA and MPAA also claim that if I download a song that I don't own, it's an infringement. This too is not always the case. The law recognizes that many uses of copyrighted works -- even without the permission of the copyright holder -- are not an infringement. While there is no "right" as such to make a fair use, the making of such a use is not an infringement.

Thus, if you make copies for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, it is not an infringement of the copyright, even if the copyright holder does not want you to do so.

This isn't black and white, of course. In deciding whether a use is fair or not, courts will consider a number of factors: Did you make the copies for commercial purposes? Does the copy deprive the copyright holder of revenues? Did you copy all, or substantially all, of the work, or just a small portion? The less of the work copied, the less commercial and the less impact on the copyrighted work, the more likely it is to be considered "fair."

So when you sing "Happy Birthday" to your mom, you don't owe a royalty to Mildred and Patty Smith Hill (they own the copyright), but when it is performed in a movie, you do see a credit roll.

http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/175

So I say it again COPYING IS NOT STEALING AND IS NOT THEFT!!!