Excellent arguments. I enjoyed reading every word.

Copyright infringement is illegal, but I could argue that the majority of my music files or not 100% duplicates of the original.
At least have my files have been shortend or just plain sound like an 8-track. When Puff Daddy remixed 15 out of the 16 songs on his album all he did was change a couple beats, words, etc.. He did not make a 100% exact copy: Therefore avoiding copyright infrigement.

Suppose I only download files that are 99.9% original would I be infringing on copyrights???

You Can Argue Anything you Want
 

You can argue anything you want in fact, people do it all the time. However, this does not change the fundamental elements of the discussion which are, the content producers get to decide the rules not the consumers.

I love America it's a great country with many freedom such as being free to do as your told and not ask any questions. That's probably my personal favorite.

U.S. Court Case


In April 2003, a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against file-sharing services Grokster and StreamCast Networks, which makes the Morpheus P-to-P software, saying that they cannot be held culpable for illegal file trading done over their networks.

Plaintiffs in that case, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the National Music Publisher's Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America, appealed the ruling to a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the case in early February.

The decision of that panel may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that is expected to have repercussions on the entertainment and technology industries, as well as on a related case brought by the plaintiffs against Sharman.

The judge will hear the case on February 20, Sharman says. In the meantime, the recording industry is unable to gain access to any documents seized under the order, the company says.

Sharman Networks, the owner and distributor of the Kazaa peer-to-peer network

So in a nut shell, we're still busted.

File swappers are generally anonymous on peer-to-peer networks, identified only by an Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned by their ISP. But names and addresses of subscribers can be determined by reviewing ISP records, which can connect IP addresses to individual accounts.

fellows,, i was thinking if you download a song,,and then sell the song for profit that is boot-legging,,,and is illegal... but to download a song for your personal use(not for sale)would not be stealing,, what if i went to the store and bought a new cd ,, and then decided to make a copy of the cd just incase my store bought disk got broken or damaged,,, have i broken any laws of stealing or copy rights,, is making a back-up copy of a cd that i bought that much different than downloading a cd that somone else bought,, and if the record company does"t want their disk to be copied or downloaded why dont they just make the cd"s so that they are unable to be copied,,only played ????

semantic Rationalization
 

My recommendation is that you read this entire thread as this argument has already been made and concluded. You should also read this thread

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=21176

Semantic rationalization are used often by people who wish to twist issues by trying to argue something from some strange an irrelevant angle. This is not to suggest that people do it on purpose however, some do. It just reflects a person ability to reason effectively.

hey lee,,

i did some-what agree with your views of copy rights,, sombody,, somwhere,,owns these songs that people are sharing,, i was wondering what your opinion is on this,,, back years ago sombody invented the old 10 foot satelite dish,,people bought them and found that they could pick up every channel in the sky,,,so premiem channels (hbo,showtime,and such) did not start suing people,,they scambled there signals,, so people invented black market descamblers ,, but in todays time even those are about usless because they scramble their signal so fast and often,,and can even send a signal that will burn the descrambler,,, the people with these old dishes were just getting what was availble to them as long as it was availble,, todays times sombody invented the computer and file sharing,,,people bought it and found they could share music,,what is your opinion on that if the record companies feel they are getting ripped off then make your cd"s where they can be played but not copied or shared i"m sure they have this technolgy,,, people who are doing this sharing are just doing what is availble to them,, i mean,, why pay for county water if you have a well ??? from what i have read ,,,you seem to be a person of good since and knowledge,, i was hoping to get your opinion on the record company suing people for just doing what is availible,, v/s doing like hbo,showtime making their product only availible to those who pay for the service ???

hey lee,,,

you seem to know so much more than me about is file sharing legal or not ,, from what i have read you seem to have really done some homework on this subject,, question for you ,, i bought a service called k-lite,, k-lite advertised that they are a file sharing site of music,movies,and more that is 100% legal,, they advertise you dont have to worry about getting caught ,,going to court,,they say they are legal,,,so i bought a years subscription with the idea that if sombody does end up suing me i could say that i paid for this site that was suposed to be legal,, go after them ,,not me,, have you ever heard of legal file sharing sites,,or do you think i got fooled into buying a false advertisment ?? and if you think it is false,, that i got fooled,,do you think the company suing me will be more interested in going after k-lite or just targeting me ??

My opinion --
 

Most of my opinions can be stated quite simply:

Don't share copyrighted material on the public Internet!

The record companies should have started by suing individuals. Copyright infringment is not a technological problem. The root cause of copyright infringment lies squarely on the sholders of the infringers. There is a remedy for those who didn't intend to infringe on someone elses work. It's call a cease and desist order = warning don't do this anymore. You have an opportunity to stop doing what your doing after this its open season.

I completely agree with the actions of MPAA, RIAA and BayTSG. When it comes to taking actions against pirates. However I completely disagree with them when they go after the technology that facilitates file sharing. File Sharing is not a bad thing.
File Sharing is not illegal.