Re: Law, Ethics and at last some common sense

[azm@igloo.Scum.COM (Antony Meadley)]

In article <8906212143.AA03834@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Love-Hounds@GAFFA.MIT.EDU writes:
>Really-From: "Andy Gough, x4-2906, CH2-59" <AGOUGH%FAB6@sc.intel.com>

>Here's a scenario for you:  Let's say you have a machine that can make
>copies of Mercedes-Benz automobiles.  So you buy a Mercedes-Benz and
>make copies for 100 people.  Would that be OK?  Have you stolen anything
>from Mercedes-Benz?

Yes, that would be fine. It would not be illegal, either.  That is
exactly the situation with hundreds of kit cars and replicas, such as
Lamboughini Countach's, etc.  Exactly what point were you trying to
make ?


>>So how am I, with my lowly tape trading non-profit exercise, going to
>>steal money from those artists?
>
>$1.00 a song for each song you copy is stolen from the artists.

I am in the position of acting as US distributor for CDs by some English
musicians.  Of their back-catalog of 15 albums, only 1 is available
for distribution in the US. If people were to make tape copies of
_this_ material then the group and myself would not take kindly to
it.  However, if someone managed to get a copy of some of the other
material and distribute it ( with no profit ) then we would not
object as we will not be releasing it over here ourselves and there-
fore we would NOT actually be losing any profit from this "pirateing".

I see this as being similar to the situation with the Bush tapes.
If Ms Bush (God, as Doug would say) was intending to release these
items herself, then I would say that it was "wrong" for IED to
do the taping.  However, as Kate Bush does _not_ intend to release
them anyway, I cannot see how it can be suggested that she (or EMI)
are losing money.  This is especially true when you consider that 
the people who are buying this tape are doing so in _addition_ to
buying all her other (EMI) material, and not _instead_ of it.

Hope this makes sense to all the "legal hotheads" out there.

Ant in Chicago.