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If I would have thought Lindy could have gotten in trouble, I never would have done it …
It’s confession time. I should be a wanted man — a nefarious collector of pirated music, an individual who sought out and copied songs without paying anyone for the privilege, and, considering the way things played out for Jammie Thomas, I wouldn’t be breathing a word of it if I wasn’t pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out, wasn’t certain that the evidence has been decades in the landfill and my supplier passed on a dozen years ago — so the law can’t get him either.
Jammie’s fate at the hands of a Duluth jury and a high-powered record company lawyer ought to give a shudder to anyone who ever owned a double cassette deck. The grand poobahs of pop music are on the prowl, looking to pin their next quarter-million dollar suit on some poor sucker with a recording machine, a collection of tunes and no valid sales receipt.
There, but for the grace of, go Lindy Shannon and I.
But there, in the late night of 1967, it never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong.
Call me the original downloader if you like. With a battery-powered reel-to-reel recorder from Wards, I was stealing Columbia Records blind, or so today’s record industry lawyers would have you think. But when I flipped on my bedside clock radio, the music was free, and collecting my tunes on reels of recording tape fit my 15-year-old’s income far better than the buck-apiece singles on the shelf down at the Ben Franklin store. It’s not stealing if they’re giving it away, or so I thought.
To the record companies’ way of thinking, Lindy Shannon was my partner in crime — sending the Beatles, the Byrds, the Stones and Tommy Roe through the clear night air through the radio and into the square plastic microphone set on a Kleenex box six inches from the speaker. Judging from the judgment against Jammie, if 40 years and the Angel of Death hadn’t intervened, both Lindy and WKBH would be in big trouble.
Y’see, Thomas was convicted, not of selling the tunes residing on her computer hard drive nor of helping herself to them without paying their rightful owner. Her quarter million dollar crime was making it possible for other people to copy them to their computer and, presumably, listen to and enjoy them.
Lindy Shannon and WKBH made it possible for me to copy “Sergeant Pepper,” listen to and enjoy it. The only difference is download speed.
That’s the essential truth of it. As far as the record company is concerned, there’s no real difference between a radio broadcast, a disc borrowed from your buddy’s record collection or your local public library and mp3 files on a file-sharing hard drive somewhere in suburban Philadelphia. They’re all free for the listening and, given the necessary gizmos, they can all be recorded. And they all are.
But is it right? The lawyers working for the corporations that stuck it to Jammie Thomas would say no, but I’m not so sure. Now understand, it’s not that I don’t appreciate copyright. Heck, if it wasn’t for copyright and the protections it gives me and the folks who sign my paychecks, I might have to go out and get a real job. Copyright is intended to protect the right of writers, musicians and artists to profit from their work. There’s clearly no question when someone makes a copy of a song, a book or even a newspaper column then sells it as if it were their own work they’re stealing. But beyond that clear line, rights and wrongs begin to fade into one another.
Consider — have you bought a legitimate recording of every tune you can hum? And is there someone you ought to be sending a check to every time you hum it? Have you bought your own copy of every book you’ve read? What about used books? I have a foot and a half stack of Stephen King novels acquired third- or fourth-hand, and I know Mr. King never got a penny of the dime apiece I paid for them. And what of the woman who checks out the audio book from the library, makes a copy to accompany her on a cross country trip and tosses it in the trash after the final chapter plays out? Or what of the guy who taped Ken Burns’ latest epic rather than sending the 20 bucks to his local PBS station? What about the store that sold the double cassette deck — with the special fast dub feature?
What about me and Lindy Shannon? That’s the $222,000 question.
Contact Jerome Christenson at 453-3522 or jchristenson@winonadailynews.com.
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the good old days wrote on Oct 16, 2007 7:41 AM: