Solo4114
Master Member
I think you misunderstand the basic lay of the land with respect to copyright law. Most of the time, the people getting nailed for infringement are getting nailed legitimately.
I haven't heard of any recent copyright cases that came down to anything other than either a challenge to the underlying facts (e.g., "I didn't pirate your music. I bought those albums legally!") or a claim of "fair use." The thing is -- and this is something that almost nobody outside of lawyers think about -- fair use is what's known as an "affirmative defense." If you argue fair use, what you're basically saying is "Yes, I infringed your legitimately copyrighted work. But it was ok that I did so because [insert argument here]."
When you raise an affirmative defense, the burden of proof shifts to you proving that your defense is legitimate. So, you'd argue something like "Yes, I showed the entirety of Star Wars to my 10th grade English class..." (the admission) "...but it was ok for me to do so because it was for educational purposes, we were studying storytelling structure, and the copy that I used was a legally paid for copy." You'd have to prove all of that, if you made that argument.
Most of the arguments that people come up with on internet forums about copyright are based on an underlying ignorance of the law, or operate from a sense of some kind of personal ownership that they don't actually have. Copyright law is pretty specific and, at least in terms of the basics, pretty straightforward. The rightsholder holds all the cards. Their ownership of the work is almost never in dispute, so all they have to do is show that you copied, displayed, performed, made a derivative work, or exercised other exclusive rights reserved to the rightsholder, and you're hosed.
I agree that there's "creep" in intellectual property law, but it tends to occur more in the sense of what is and isn't afforded protection as being a derivative work, or where trademarks end. I don't think we have too many issues with IP rights vs. private property rights, though. Most of the time, what we have is ignorance of the nuances of the law, rather than the law actually shifting all that much against the public. In fact, I'd actually expect that over the next 20 years, you'll see far FEWER instances of conflict over private property rights vs. IP rights, because people will be buying physical media containing licensed IP less and less (and will be streaming or paying for a subscription for it more and more), thereby removing the sense of personal ownership. (e.g. "It's my movie. I paid for it." No, you paid for the disc, which you own. Paramount owns the movie ON the disc.)
All that aside, if someone makes the choice to engage in an act of civil disobedience, that's their choice. If someone wanted to download a bootleg of the OOT as some kind of protest against Disney's continued refusal to release a restored version, hey, that's their choice. All I'm saying is, no amount of moral debate will change the legalities of it. Go ahead and fight the power all you want there, Chuck D, but do so with the full understanding and acceptance that you're breaking the law.
:lol
