[Empeg-forsale] Re: For Sale: 96GB Empeg Mark2 Smoke Lens w/ Tuner Mod

[Sven Mueller]

Hi.

If everybody changed their own oil, JiffyLube would be out of business.

Even though I do not know JiffyLube, I suppose it is some sort of service that changes oil on vehicles. This is the problem:
Music is a sort of product that you are unable to produce yourself, you are only able to copy it. Even if I might see a point in saying that you simply provide the service of copying the music, and thus you don't harm the musicians directly, that still doesn't give you the right to do that. For two reasons:
First, law (at least in Germany, and I assume law in the US is similar) only allows copying for _your_ private use. According to german law, this means that you might copy someone elses (sic!) music, and keep that copy. You might also copy your music for your own purposes (including your family members using of the copy). Copying your music and giving the copy to a friend is already in the grey area. Strictly spoken, it is illegal, but there is a way around that: You are allowed to lend your music to a friend, and you are also allowed to help a friend copy your music for him, so you could say "here, I lend this CD to you. Now give it to me, asking me to copy it for you, and I can legally do so." BUT: You are not allowed to make a copy of a copy, except for your own personal use (which does not include your family in this case). Due to common law interpretations (by judges), Up to three or four copies is almost always legal, making more than 6-7 copies most certainly is illegal.
There is a good reason behind this: You are not only harming the music industry, but also the musicians that get a lot of their payment through that very industry, let alone their marketing services etc.
I wouldn't mind if you just harmed the industry (Warner, Sony Music etc.), but I DO mind that you harm the musicians. Sure, most of them have more money than they need, but they earned that money by providing enjoyable music to all of us. That is the main point: If most people where sharing your opinion on copying, noone would become a musician anymore, because it simply wouldn't pay.

In buying the music, you (or the friend you copied it from) agreed on the rules under which the music was sold, and those rules are set by law, like it or not. If you don't like it: Don't buy. If you buy, follow the rules. That also applies to whoever buys some music: You buy, so you have follow the rules.

And regarding copy protection:
It is my honest opinion that no software (which, in a wider sense includes music, literature etc.) should be copy protected (well, it should actually be called "copy disabled" or something), and that any media that is suitable for copying and any machine used for copying (CD-Writers, Printers, Copy machines,...) should be sold with some additional tax applied, which is distributed among the programmers/artists based on original value, number of copies sold etc. And that any user should have the right to make backup copies of the software he owns, and should also have the right to copy any software he lends from someone else. Still, whoever made the original version should have the right to deny any of those copying rights, except the rights to make personal backup copies and copies needed for the intended use (like making a "copy" of software in the RAM of a computer is needed to run that software). Intended use means the use the author/artist had in mind, because the owner of a software might have intended copying it, while the author wanted it to be run on a computer.

Enough of that, I think I made my opinion clear.

cu,
sven