RE: [Marxism] Re: Eli and downloading

["Jose G. Perez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eli continues his sanctimonious campaign of PREACHING to working people
about the evils of downloading by comparing downloading to stealing cars
and comparing the relative moral merits of the music monopoly mafia with
"Wal-Mart, or Safeway, or GM, or Merck, etc., etc." He finds "laughable"
the idea that the record companies should be a special target of working
people's repudiation.

Eli seems to think I'm bashing him unfairly by accusing him of
moralistic preaching. He says his point is that "stealing" from the
bourgeoisie --whether by taking a car or by downloading-- is not at all
progressive. MY point is that calling downloading and file sharing
stealing or piracy or looting IS moralistic preaching. 

Moreover, in the specific case of downloading, this is something that no
one YET has tried to seriously claim is stealing (seriously=by filing a
lawsuit). And even sharing --uploading-- has not been tested in court
for reasons that I explain in another post although lawsuits have been
filed about offering songs for download. 

Eli refuses to believe that people have a fair-use right, enshrined in
law, recognized even by the bourgeois Supreme Court and the bourgeois
Congress, to make dubs of audio recordings for personal use. He
*insists* on classifying it as "stealing" when working people exercise
their rights , merely because this particular group of capitalists
insists that listening to their music without paying them for a specific
license to do so is theft. It simply ain't so. I quoted the text of the
law, it is as plain as can be. Eli can go back and look up the supreme
court decision on the Betamax case, and the earlier court rulings when
copyright cartels tried to get cassette tape recorders outlawed and even
earlier, when they tried to prevent radio stations from playing music. 

WHY the law is the way it is has to do with bourgeois ideology about
copyright and how that interacted with the interests of different
capitalist sectors. I go into that in some detail as it is playing out
today in another post.

People REALLY DO have these rights, what the copyright cartels are
trying to do is to TAKE THEM AWAY and create a pay-by-the-note music
rental business model. 

MOST of what "content" companies say about the restrictions on the use
of their products is bullshit. Look at a DVD or recorded video, at the
fine print. It says something to the effect that this product is not
licensed for sale abroad and so on and so forth. That's bullshit. The
product isn't licensed, it is SOLD. In the case of copyrighted
materials, there is in particular a "first sale" doctrine in common and
statute law that says the copyright owner gets to control the first sale
and that is it. The music industry has gotten a couple of restrictions
written into the law (you can't rent CD's like you can books or movies),
and there is a general restriction on public performance. 

That's one of the swindles the movie mafia pulled in creating the DVD
format. Under the guise of "combating piracy," the created these
regional codes so that a DVD bought in Europe won't play in U.S.
machines. There is absolutely nothing in U.S. copyright law that
authorizes such a thing, yet there it is. The idea, of course, was to
protect the movie company's release schedules. 

In fact, the staggered release of movies is one of the MAIN drivers of
video piracy. You create this massive marketing campaign, which
inevitably spills out all over the world, and THEN refuse to show the
movie or sell the video to people in China or Peru or Taiwan. People are
supposed to wait until it is convenient for the movie company's cash
flow to release it. For all their talk about "globalization," no one is
more clueless about it than these media monopolies.

Most of these things that these companies CLAIM are horse shit, like
shrink wrap "licenses" and "click through" licenses. They've even put
licenses on web sites, pretending that there is some sort of contract,
"by visiting this website you agree ... blah blah blah." No, it ain't
so, no I don't agree, and in general, you can't get a legal contract
when there is no exchange of value, no consideration; so-called
contracts of adhesion are generally invalid; the terms of purchase-sale
contracts are governed by common law and statute law, not some license;
and you even have clowns like Microsoft trying to "bind" you to some
condition when in fact you aren't in a contractual relationship with
them AT ALL, you bought the software from a store, that's who your
contract is with, not Microsoft.

And Eli thinks only the special high holy priesthood of bourgeois
lawyers is entitled to have an opinion on this or discuss the matter.
His prostration before bourgeois respectability is so complete it is
ludicrous.

Second, it is clear that Eli is little acquainted with the recording
industry or its reputation. It is one of the most notorious bunch of
thieves under capitalism. Just one tiny example: the Kingsmen, of Louie
Louie fame. How much money in royalties did they receive from the record
companies after three and a half decades?

If you guessed zero, then you would be correct. The Kingsmen assigned
the copyrights to the record companies in exchange for royalties. But
guess what? The Music Monopoly Mafia got themselves an exception written
into law that you can only collect the last four years. That means that
most artists find it simply not worth their while to sue for royalties,
especially a group that was together for a few years, had a hit or two,
then whose members went their separate ways.

THAT'S WHY so many of the hits from the 50's, 60's and 70's aren't on
the music monopoly mafia authorized downloading services. That's why all
the greatest hits collections, Dick Clark compilations, etc. etc.,
always feature the same songs. The music mafia screwed the artists in
the original contracts and screwed them again by failing to live up to
those contracts. In many cases, nobody even knows exactly what the terms
of the contracts is or where the actual document can be found, it was 17
acquisitions ago.

Now, the question is, is it legitimate and politically useful for the
working class movement to target a specific group or layer of
capitalists, or a company or industry that has made itself a particular
target for the wrath of working people? Should we identify with such
sentiments, solidarize with those who promote them, and seek to get
people to draw more general conclusions from them?

I think the answer is clearly and unambiguously yes. Eli thinks record
companies should be let off the hook, there are many much more deserving
villains around. It is not a question of which group of capitalists is
most reprehensible, and it may be that by some abstract, objective
standard lots of other capitalists "deserve" to be in line before the
record companies for a special thumping.

But we don't determine that. How capitalist companies and their products
interact with the day-to-day lives of working people is way, way beyond
our control. All we can do is to take advantage and seek to base
ourselves on the anger, resentment, and understanding that does exist in
the working class. 

José


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