Friday, February 1, 2008

Copyright infringement is not theft

It has been said many times before, but it can never be said enough: copyright infringement is not theft. These are different concepts, covered by different laws. Apparently, there are still ignorant people who claim they are the same thing. It is not news. The problem is that some of these people are allowed to talk in public. A few days ago, U2's manager Paul McGuinness gave a speech at the MIDEM music industry convention in Cannes, which has been posted on U2's Web site. In that speech, McGuinness pathetically shows that he is one of these numerous music industry professionals who just want things to stay the same. But more than that, he shows that he doesn't even understand the basic difference between copyright infringement and theft:

"(...) it is terrible that a direct effect of piracy and thievery has been the destruction of so many careers."

"(...) I'm not talking just of their tolerance of copyright theft."

"(...) I suggest we shift the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief (...)"

Thievery? Copyright theft? File thief? It is painfully obvious that McGuinness doesn't know what he's talking about. U2 should be ashamed to allow such messages to appear on their Web site.

Oh, and by the way, did you know copyright infringement is not theft?

2 comments:

Vladimir Slepnev said...

Olivier, huge thanks for releasing your wonderful detailed shots of Notre Dame under a CC license! I've started to use them, with attribution of course, in my non-profit for building virtual reality from photos.

Olivier Bruchez said...

> Olivier, huge thanks for releasing your wonderful detailed shots of Notre Dame under a CC license!

No problem, it's neither copyright infringement nor theft... :-)

Nice project, by the way!