Copyright Law and Sharing Computer Data

**ScottieR** · 05-31-2005, 01:05 AM

ok correct me if I'm wrong here please, but I'm confused about how people can be sued for sharing computer data? Like if they were passing it off as their own and selling it, thats a different story, but how can simply sharing it at no profit be illegal? Like with a music cd for example someone must have bought that original copy from a store, and then put it on his/her computer and shared that memory with someone that they knew. You see once the transaction for the music cd takes place that cd and its memory become property of the person who bought it right? but copywrite law currently states that no it doesn't mean that, ownership of the memory of the cd still lies with the record label. This is a violation of consumer rights, they are paying for the cd and its memory but do not get ownership of the memory. Now if someone were to lets say listen to the cd so much that they memorize the songs on the cd and sing them to a friend and through that singing of the songs that said friend memorizes the songs that he/she likes, would that be illeagal? Cause thats what copywrite laws currently state. That data on the cd is just like the memory in the human mind, other than being oranic as compared to artifical. But if someone can't share their property through memory on a computer shouldn't laws be mad about memorizing a song and singing it to another person, or letting someone else listen to your cd should be illeagal too because they could possibly memorize it also. The same thing goes with books that people have read and remembered, apparentley copywrite law states that you cannot memorize that book because if you share you memory with a friend, that friend might not buy that book because he/she already knows the story. Like I just find these copywrite laws on file sharing ridiculous and unjust to the consumers that live in jurisdictions that enforce these unjust laws. It also reenforces that fact that democracy doesn't work because big business controls the corrupt government officals through party endorcements and other such kick backs.

**aaron** · 05-31-2005, 01:20 AM

If you share your memories of a book with somebody, you're not making a copy of it. But if you recite the book onto a tape, or sing a copyrighted song on a television show, you can run afoul of copyright laws.

Copyright, in its simplest terms, is the right to control the making of copies. You buy a copy of a work, but that doesn't give you the right to replicate the work and distribute your own copies to others. That right is reserved to the copyright holder.