There is no right to copy music
Last December, a Washington Post editorial suggested that the RIAA was going after individuals for copying music from legally-purchased CDs to their computers. This story made big news, but it turned out to be completely false. The RIAA was going after individuals who were distributing music online, not people who were just making copies of their music. The Washington Post issued a correction to the editorial, but the story didn’t die there. Despite the facts proving the story wrong, there are some that still think the RIAA believes that they think every individual who rips his CD collection to his personal iPod is a thief and a potential target for a lawsuit.
What is the basis for this belief? Well, one of the things behind it seem to be the fact that the RIAA hasn’t come out and said that an individual has a right to make copies of music – even for personal use. As stated on one of their sites:
Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:
- The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
- The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
A writer at Wired who has written many posts on this issue had the following evaluation of the quote above:
Taken apart, what does it mean? Ripping MP3s is unauthorized. Under copyright law, anything unauthorized is infringing, unless the Fair Use doctrine defends the action as “non-infringing.” But the RIAA doesn’t believe that Fair Use covers MP3 ripping. So when they say unauthorized, they mean “infringing.” But that infringement won’t “usually” bother them until you start distributing.
So, since the RIAA won’t say that ripping mp3s is a right, they are saying that it’s not a right. And that must mean that they think it should be illegal. Therefore, the RIAA is totally against mp3 ripping (and presumably, only doesn’t go after iPod users because of the negative press it would generate).
I think that this type of logic isn’t fair because it takes some things out of context, but it raises a good question. Is copying music for your own personal use a right? Or in other words, do you have a right to make copies of music you purchase, regardless of what the creator of that music thinks? I’ve thought about it for a while, and I’ve come up with my answer: No. There is no right to copy someone else’s music.
But why?
In Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff wrote (page 356):
All such claims involve a contradiction: if my right to life entails a right to your labor or its product, you cannot have a right to liberty or property. If my unearned claim is not satisfied, my “right” is violated; if it is satisfied—as a matter of right, regardless of your choice—then your right to life is violated; you become a rightless creature, who functions by my or society’s permission. Free milk for part of the population, as one political theorist puts the point, means slave labor for the rest. The “right to enslave,” Ayn Rand observes, is a contradiction in terms; it means the right to infringe rights.
Even if you disagree with Ayn Rand’s view of rights, I don’t think there is any getting away from a fact in the quote above: Two people can’t have a right to the same thing. For example, if I have a right to the money I earn from my job AND my neighbor’s kid has a right to an education that is partially paid with my money, we can’t both be right. Either I get my money, or the neighbor’s kid does. To pick one option necessarily negates the other.
The rights of two individuals cannot conflict, otherwise they wouldn’t be rights.
When it comes to music, I believe that the music artist who creates the music has the right to that music. To have a right to your music means the ability to control its distribution and to guarantee that you are properly attributed. It is because of this that I think there cannot be a right to copy an artist’s music. To have a right to copy their music, independent of the terms in which you obtained their music, necessarily negates their right to control their property.
I like illustrations, so here’s a quick example (from my trusty GTD pad):
Here is an artist who wants to sell his music and a buyer. The artist is putting a condition on the sale, forbidding the buyer to make any copies. In this case, the buyer would have no right to copy that music, even to his iPod. He made an agreement with the artist not to do so. To say that the buyer has a right to make a copy of that music (regardless of the agreement he just made with the artist) is to say that the artist has no right to make that type of agreement when selling his own property.
Context is essential
To honestly answer the question “Do I have a right to copy my music?” a proper context has to be established. What music are you talking about? Were there any stipulations on the purchase? Is the copying for your or another person? If you’re just copying your own CD in a private folder on your own computer to listen for yourself, the answer is probably yes. If you’re copying your CD into a P2P folder in order to distribute the music to other P2P users (similar to the Jammie Thomas or the Thomas Howell case), then the answer is definitely no. It all depends on each particular situation.
But if the “Do I have a right to copy my music?” is meant to be asked without any context, as if the right existed regardless of the wishes of the artist, copyright law, or the conditions on the sale of the music, then the answer is absolutely no. There is no such right to copy music.
Why aren’t others saying this?
Well, some have. Or at least, there have been a lot of people who have backed off of the RIAA on this issue when it was shown that the Washington Post’s story was wrong. Still, I’ve read a lot of the criticism expressed against the RIAA on other sites on this question, especially on Wired, p2pnet, and the Recording Industry vs The People, and I don’t think it is warranted. The RIAA is in a lose-lose situation when asked to answer the question without establishing some context. If the RIAA won’t say copying music is a right, critics will supply a situation in which copying music is ok (like copying a CD to your iPod) and say that the RIAA is against that. And if the RIAA says that copying music is a right, critics will supply a situation in which copying music is wrong (like P2P file “sharers”) and try to use the RIAA’s words against them.
In general, most of the criticism I’ve seen directed at the RIAA has been like this. It looks really bad, but once you look deeper you’ll find a fact or two missing. And if you consider concepts like individual rights and intellectual property, you might not think the RIAA was wrong at all. It’s a shame, too, because there are valid reasons to disagree with the RIAA. But not this time.
Update 1/31/2008: Corrected typo.
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Rock on! I basically agree, and hadn’t thought before about the “context” point, that is, you can’t logically say “everyone has the right to copy any music” and “no one has the right to copy any music,” and the lack of such extremes has lead people to turn arguments in their favor.