So it hasn’t been too long that the new Itunes home-sharing feature has came out and I’ve been waiting for weeks to see if there are any lawsuits against it. For those of you who do not know, Itunes now lets you share music with those that use your router (sounds awesome right?). I can’t help but wonder what makes this different from limewire services. I can take my brother’s music for no charge making the initial dollar he spent stretch to several copies of music. Unfortunately, this new feature also restricts the number of times a song can be copied (the limit is 5). I may be way off base here but with all the problems file-sharing programs have encountered I’m curious how Itunes is getting around this (mac products rule the world, perhaps?). Does anyone know anything further about this? I did some research on NYTimes but couldn’t find anything, I really feel like this is something we should keep an eye on. I am very happy about Itunes push towards sharing though!
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In this course we will focus on a seemingly esoteric legal subject that is now located at the heart of many social, cultural, economic, and political conflicts: copyright law. While initially codified as a state granted monopoly designed to to encourage publishers and established authors to invest in culture, copyright law has now extended into every part of our day to day life and interaction with media. Moreover, the law is obviously and increasingly dangerously out of touch with digital culture. But what is really at stake in the copyright battles? Does our law reward profit, control, or culture? Should culture be owned? Does it even make sense to call it "intellectual property"?
In our efforts to better understand these issues, we will read both primary and secondary materials, covering subjects ranging from the birth of copyright to contemporary justifications for copyright reform, analyze relevant and interesting documentary films, and enjoy guest lectures from a range of established speakers.
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In this course we will focus on a seemingly esoteric legal subject that is now located at the heart of many social, cultural, economic, and political conflicts: copyright law. While initially codified as a state granted monopoly designed to to encourage publishers and established authors to invest in culture, copyright law has now extended into every part of our day to day life and interaction with media. Moreover, the law is obviously and increasingly dangerously out of touch with digital culture. But what is really at stake in the copyright battles? Does our law reward profit, control, or culture? Should culture be owned? Does it even make sense to call it "intellectual property"?
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I may be wrong, but I think the distinction between Limewire and the new iTunes sharing situation is that you can only play a song from someone else’s library on your router while that person’s computer is turned on and their iTunes is open. There’s no “save” or “download” feature…so essentially, it’s the same as putting that person’s computer in your room. As soon as they turn their computer off, you don’t get access to their music anymore. Maybe you already knew that and I’m way off base?
I read on an Apple Blog (http://theappleblog.com/2009/09/11/itunes-9-at-home-with-home-sharing/) that you can actually import music from one computer to another via this new feature. Also you can automatically add any new “purchased” music from computers on the same network. The cap of five computers for purchased music prevents the infinite number of downloads that can come from syncing music libraries, which is an important difference from Limewire and similar services.
So essentially you and four friends can get on the same network and pay 20 cents apiece per song rather than the whole dollar which can perhaps clear the guilty conscience of stealing music off of services such as Limewire! I think with this new service allows some sort of monetary return on music produced because people may(with a LARGE emphasis on may) be more willing to pay for downloaded music if they get multiple downloads.
With this said, it is interesting to consider this small payment of songs on iTunes in terms of Free Culture perspectives. The dollar fee on iTunes is referred to as “micropayments” according to Miriam Nisbet in “The Tyranny of Copyright?” Even though we pay this dollar we still don’t have complete freedom to make as many copies as we want. This new digital age is interesting to see in relation to the CD generation when a CD could be easily given from friend to friend and downloaded an unlimited number of time. Caps on digital purchased music have prevented this infinite cycle of music downloading.
I agree that it will definitely be interesting to see the future of what this means for digital file sharing.
This is the first I really have heard of this new apple feature, but honestly I don’t feel as if it is going to make any difference in my filesharing/downloading practices, just as I dont really use the itunes store much to begin with.