This Needs to Stop! (PETITION)

[bookworm]

It is still costing the company money in the sense that they are not receiving the money that they would if you bought it instead of getting it unethically for free.

But what we’re saying is you wouldn’t have bought it anyway. If you don’t think a particular album is worth your money you won’t buy it regardless of whether this site is in operation or not. Either way you won’t be paying FOTF anything, ergo either way they don’t lose anything.

if I knew there was a legitimate way of listening to almost any episode for free, I would use it. Not only would I use it, I wold most likely not buy any of the available episodes, because, why buy when you can easily access the episodes free?

Apparently my previous posts were misunderstood, because I already explained that…
From a practical standpoint, ethics aside, you wouldn’t. As you say, you can listen for free. There’s absolutely no incentive to pay anything. Except that you know it’s wrong not to, if the episodes are something you would be willing to pay for.
Top understands what I’m saying (probably because he kind of said it first) it can be used as a kind of preview service to make sure you’d be satisfied buying a particular album.
But actually, that doesn’t relate to the comment you made because you said “legitimate way” so… there wouldn’t be any debate on doing that.

The episodes would not be heard without FAIO.

That’s a rather inaccurate statement. As we’ve already agreed, FAIO uploads no content. So with or without them the episodes are still available on the internet through whoever does the uploading.

This site is promoting the illegal activity. If a drug dealer were arrested for his crimes, would you defend him saying, "Don't put the drug dealer in jail, put the growers in jail for creating it!" Of course not.

Um… the analogy you gave is contrary to the argument you’re making.
First, the site is absolutely not “promoting” illegal activity, it’s just perhaps making it possible.
But that aside, this makes it the grower. The site makes the episodes available, but the user is the dealer, the one that makes the decision to download, which is where the crime would be. And by your own argument we prosecute the dealer, not he grower.

I personally am not saying they're evil or something. What I am saying, is that they are allowing their members/guests (since you don't have to have an account) to tread on thin ice without realizing it.

That may be, but that isn’t something to form a petition over because there’s nothing wrong (technically) with that. The site can’t be held responsible for their users’ actions if they choose to misuse the site’s resources. As you said, they inform users how to keep the use legal. If users choose to go against that, it’s not the site’s problem.

It's just like how people used to see baseball games. The people that didn't buy tickets, they looked through knotholes in the fence. More people saw the game, but the people on the teams, agents, or whoever lost money because of those who didn't pay to get in.

Actually, in that scenario FAIO would be the fence. Do you blame the fence owner for not covering the holes? I don’t think so. I think you blame the observers. That’s the same thing I said a few paragraphs up, if anything is being done wrong, it’s by the users not the site.

[Leonard Meltsner]

This site is promoting the illegal activity. If a drug dealer were arrested for his crimes, would you defend him saying, "Don't put the drug dealer in jail, put the growers in jail for creating it!" Of course not.

Um… the analogy you gave is contrary to the argument you’re making.
First, the site is absolutely not “promoting” illegal activity, it’s just perhaps making it possible.
But that aside, this makes it the grower. The site makes the episodes available, but the user is the dealer, the one that makes the decision to download, which is where the crime would be. And by your own argument we prosecute the dealer, not he grower.

AE's argument wasn't that the grower shouldn't go to jail, but that both dealer AND grower should go to jail. FAIO and the user are both responsible for those downloads!

[AlexMitchell]

Both are not illegal. It's perfectly legal to copy music (and I'm sure anything else you hear) off the radio according to the "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992." You can read more about it here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/AHRA.html.

Okay, this makes me feel better! But I think Faio is a little different from recording the radio, because (if I remember correctly, I don't know the site well) Faio posts episodes previously aired on Whit's End Radio, but since then taken down from that site/player. The intent is different.

[odysseyfan1]

Both are not illegal. It's perfectly legal to copy music (and I'm sure anything else you hear) off the radio according to the "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992." You can read more about it here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/AHRA.html.

Okay, this makes me feel better! But I think Faio is a little different from recording the radio, because (if I remember correctly, I don't know the site well) Faio posts episodes previously aired on Whit's End Radio, but since then taken down from that site/player. The intent is different.

Yeah, FAIO is different from recording the radio. That page I gave you said that the legal recording devices don't include computers, so, FAIO wouldn't count.

-- 08 Aug 2011 12:40 pm --

Actually, in that scenario FAIO would be the fence. Do you blame the fence owner for not covering the holes? I don’t think so. I think you blame the observers. That’s the same thing I said a few paragraphs up, if anything is being done wrong, it’s by the users not the site.

But why should Focus take all their episodes down from their servers? It's convenient (I'm assuming) to keep them online so they can just link to them from their media player. I think Focus should just get an HTML blocker so people can't find the episodes. It's free, and I've used it on my blog. Then FAIO couldn't find the episodes (at least not as easily.)




Quote tags fixed. -snubs

[Catspaw]

It is still costing the company money in the sense that they are not receiving the money that they would if you bought it instead of getting it unethically for free.

But what we’re saying is you wouldn’t have bought it anyway. If you don’t think a particular album is worth your money you won’t buy it regardless of whether this site is in operation or not. Either way you won’t be paying FOTF anything, ergo either way they don’t lose anything.

I honestly find that to be a lame argument. I've heard it before for different things, but I just don't buy it. It's okay to break the law or engage in unethical behaviour if what you get isn't very good? Really? If you wouldn't buy it, then why do you need to hear it? Either pay for, find a way to listen to it legitimately for free, or ignore it. Those are your ethical options. Listening implies interest. You either need to be interested enough to buy it, interested enough to listen on the radio or on the official site, or not interested enough to bother listening at all. I think it's a cop-out to say that it's okay to listen unethically because you don't think it's good enough to pay for. Somebody can choose not to listen and have a clean conscience if that's the case.

Recording on the radio is different in the sense that you cannot record all the episodes off the radio at the same time with no cost to you. If you're recording off the radio, you are getting, at the most, one episode per day, but probably only one per week. You have to pay for tapes, so you are either regularly recording over them, or paying for a lot of tapes. As somebody already pointed out, it is legal to tape stuff for your own personal use from the radio. That's a totally different situation than a site that offers you almost every episode at any time you want, with the only requirement being space on your computer, which most of us have plenty of. I don't think that these two things are a reasonable comparison.

[Cbriggs45]

i say good luck to stopping piracy.. the music and movie industry cant make a dent.

being it a cop out and in effect you will stomp your online foot and claim something most be done..

i point you to the fact that these piracy groups are better at hiding then the long arm of the law can find. the f.b.i has enough to deal with then morons in europe asia and such then to take the hours and weeks to secure international help.

piracy is one of the oldest forms of work.. its not going anywhere. i point to economic logic, where there is a demand there is a supplier.

i am not for nor against piracy. i find these debates fun, because no amount of law have ever stopped pirates from collecting booty.

[bookworm]

It's okay to break the law or engage in unethical behaviour if what you get isn't very good?

No of course not. I wasn’t condoning unethical behavior. If you’re downloading from the site then of course it’s wrong whether they’re ‘good’ episodes or not. I meant as far as using the site properly, to stream episodes, I don’t see how it can harm FOTF when whether you do it or not FOTF loses nothing.

It's perfectly legal to copy music (and I'm sure anything else you hear) off the radio according to the "Audio Home Recording Act of 1992." You can read more about it here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/AHRA.html.

That act is rather perplexing.

the copyright holders waive the right to claim copyright infringement against consumers using audio recording devices in their homes for noncommercial use. The royalty requirements do not apply to computers as they are not considered digital audio recording devices.

So the only difference that makes recording episodes from the radio legal and recording episodes from the internet illegal is that they classify computers separate from cassette recorders? What if you listen to the radio on your computer? That introduces a huge gray area. It should be updated to stay relevant with modern technology.

The actual act of recording is not the issue they have, it’s the method by which the recording is done. Cassettes are legal, computers aren’t. To understand how absurd this is, consider this scenario.
Someone wants to record a radio station they stream on their computer. They turn the computer speakers up so it can be recorded by a cassette machine. This would be perfectly legal. However, they decide to make it easier, and just record the stream on the computer since it’s already playing the station. Now this is suddenly illegal because their recording device has changed, even though what they are recording is the exact same thing.

[Catspaw]

It's okay to break the law or engage in unethical behaviour if what you get isn't very good?

No of course not. I wasn’t condoning unethical behavior. If you’re downloading from the site then of course it’s wrong whether they’re ‘good’ episodes or not. I meant as far as using the site properly, to stream episodes, I don’t see how it can harm FOTF when whether you do it or not FOTF loses nothing.

Okay, I see what you mean with streaming the episode. I still don't like the potential for abuse with the site and would prefer that it not be used, but if you're streaming, not downloading, I have less of an issue with it. Thanks for explaining.

[Sean Regan]

Wow, what a ruckus over nothing.

It's amazing how much folks complain about freeloaders without bothering to think through issues. You're worse than democrats.

Just to put this in perspective, here is what you have:

Group A: Fans who buy Odyssey episodes
Group B: Fans who listen (either on radio or online) and don't buy episodes
Group C: Fans who listen, and after listening decide to buy episodes

The first group is great. Without them, no money. No money, no more episodes. They are the bread and butter of companies like FotF.

The second group is the biggest problem. They take the free stuff without paying for it. They're like the folks who constantly use the penny jar at stores without ever putting in any of their own, so to speak. Frankly, there is not much you can do about them. They're not taking money away from the company because they have no intention of spending money on the show to begin with. They can listen to episodes free on the radio as it is as well as the ones that FotF puts online. Trying to stop them is, at the end of the day, kind of pointless. If AiO is shut down to them, they will go leech on something else.

The third group are the ones you need to think about. These are the folks who happen to see it online and listen and end up deciding to support it as a result.

You may not be crazy about the fact that people can go listen and even download stuff for free, but it is now a part of our world and it is not going away any time soon. It's like Prohibition. That didn't work either, and despite being set up by well-meaning folks, was a really dumb idea. You can't simply take away the desire of some people to get something for nothing. Shutting down outlets is really kind of a waste of time. Particularly when, if you actually read what was posted earlier - the quotes from the webmaster of the site - they're not acting either illegally or with wrong motives. A lot of times people remember hearing these shows from when they were younger, they go looking for an old episode, find it on a site like this, and end up on FotF's website buying sets. At the end of the day, they're either going to buy it or they aren't. FAIO already posts info reminding people the importance of supporting FotF by buying the shows.

Stealing a car, or book or cd out of a store actually takes money away from both the seller and the store. Reading a book online for free or downloading a free mp3 from a website is taking someone's intellectual material without compensating them for using it. But what so many of you seem incapable of understanding is that of the folks who use free stuff this way, 33% already own the shows, 33% will not buy the shows in any case, and 33% may, after listening end up coughing up some cash to buy more. In any case, FotF loses nothing except in the final 1% of instances where someone was thinking, "Oh, I think I'll go buy some Odyssey cds...oh wait, they've got them for free on this site!"

If you seriously believe that more than a couple out of every hundred ever would have paid to listen to it in the first place, you are mistaken. And out of that hundred, there's a couple more who might not have paid initially but after sampling it, they decide to pay for it.

Comparing this kind of freeloading to stealing a cd or a Bible (as someone suggested above) is, quite frankly, somewhat laughable - In the first place, some Bibles are in the public domain and freely available in digital format. Second, almost any version can be found online at places such as www.biblegateway.com - This would be more akin to going down to Barnes and Noble every day and reading various books without buying them. Still not an exact parallel, but you get the idea: Less than ethical, sure. Watching a ball game online or "through holes in the fence" to avoid paying for it? Again, same story: 9 times out of 10, these folks are the ones who would not have paid in the first place. So you're losing nothing. And those kind of people will always exist.

[Sapphire]

I remember when I first learned about Free AIO. I was excited about it at first. Then I felt weird because I know that almost nothing is free these days. So, I stopped going to the site. Then I was researching something about free music on the internet. Then I realized that almost anything that is free online, is illegal. So, that's my little story. Anyway, I'm just saying that I'm for this cause to stop Free AIO. I signed the petition. So, if there's anything else I can do, please let me know.

[AIO Psyche]

You're worse than democrats.

I take offense to that.

[bookworm]

Okay, I see what you mean with streaming the episode. I still don't like the potential for abuse with the site and would prefer that it not be used, but if you're streaming, not downloading, I have less of an issue with it.

Yes, there is potential, but that’s hardly a reason to call for the site’s removal. Saying they’re doing something wrong because there’s the chance someone might do something unethical doesn’t hold up.
By that argument we must also insist that whitsend.org be shut down because they make episodes available to be downloaded by unscrupulous users. And they don’t even have a warning like FAIO does.

[Steve]

Yes, AIO Wiki and the Scoop should probably go too! They have links to episodes available for free download and to the FOTF media player. Well, thank you guys for shutting down every single Odyssey website! And since this will put Odyssey out of business, let's take this site down too!

[Peachey Keen]

bookworm and steve, you guys are really acting ridiculous. I'm sorry but you are.

For one thing, FotF runs WhitsEnd.org. They allow episodes to be streamed from there. People wouldn't be happy if they stopped. Yes, the embed code can be used to find the MP3 link, but that's only if you know where to look. It's one thing when the people making AIO unintentionally allow downloads. It's another when people who aren't with Focus link to those downloads and ilegal uploads.

As for shutting down the Scoop and AIO Wiki? Hogwash!! The Scoop just links to the page with the official player. AIO Wiki does play the episodes direct from Focus' server, but Reddo said, if you had read more in the forums, that he made sure you couldn't download from AIO Wiki's audio player by blocking the HTML.

Just make sure of your facts before suggesting outrageous things.

[bookworm]

I am not suggesting anything that is in the least outrageous. It wasn’t even my suggestion, it was yours. I’m simply following through with your logic. FAIO is wrong because they stream episodes, which could be downloaded illegally. So does whitsend.org. So why is there a problem with one and not the other?

Edit:

And I did make sure of my facts. I downloaded an episode from each site to verify it can be done. (Then deleted them of course.)

[Bob]

You have to pay for tapes, so you are either regularly recording over them, or paying for a lot of tapes.

The problem is, though, is that this is money that still isn't going to Focus on the Family. What is it to them if you spend money or not, if they're not getting any part of it either way? I don't see how the cost, or lack thereof, resolves the issue of compensating FotF for their work -- if recording episodes for personal use is fine, it's fine regardless of whether you do it for free or not. Likewise...

If you're recording off the radio, you are getting, at the most, one episode per day, but probably only one per week.

And:

That's a totally different situation than a site that offers you almost every episode at any time you want

So it's okay to not compensate FotF for their episodes, just as long as it takes a long time to get them?

That logic mandates that recording any episode of Odyssey, even from a place like FreeAIO, is okay -- just so long as you only do, say, one a day, meaning it will take about two years before you have free access to every AIO episode.

In the end, I don't think you can fairly distinguish between cassettes and radio and online material... the only difference between the two mediums is that one is hard and the other is easy; one is expensive and the other one isn't, but why does it matter to FotF how expensive or hard it might be for people that aren't going to be giving them money either way?

Either recording episodes for free is fine or it's not; I don't see how the medium should make much of a difference, unless there's some massive difference in quality with recording cassettes versus recording electronically, and I'm not sure that there is one -- at least, not enough of one to justify changing the legality.

If I was in charge of FotF and wanted to crack down on this, I would reduce the online radio play rotation to, say, three or four eps out of every album, plus three or four of the new episodes that come up in the season. Then lower the cost of every episode that doesn't show up in the rotation by about 33% or 50% of what it is now, and make a price adjustment to the albums -- which makes them, I think, about 10 bucks each (4 free episodes, 8 half-off eps are about a buck each, slap on a little more money to make it round).

This way, nobody can ever get all of the eps just by recording them, but it doesn't cost nearly as much money to buy the episodes and the albums to fill in your collection. You have a fair selection of episodes to listen to if you're not going to buy them -- more than you have now -- but they'll get older after a while because you have to wait for new seasons to get new content. Everyone wins, except for the people who record every episode, or who have the patience to wait for an episode they like to come up in the two-year-long radio rotation.

[Catspaw]

Okay, I see what you mean with streaming the episode. I still don't like the potential for abuse with the site and would prefer that it not be used, but if you're streaming, not downloading, I have less of an issue with it.

Yes, there is potential, but that’s hardly a reason to call for the site’s removal. Saying they’re doing something wrong because there’s the chance someone might do something unethical doesn’t hold up.
By that argument we must also insist that whitsend.org be shut down because they make episodes available to be downloaded by unscrupulous users. And they don’t even have a warning like FAIO does.

I never called for the site's removal that I recall, but I do think that their site is really on the ethical edge, since they make it really easy to do something like download tons of episodes. Adding a little note saying that it's good to support FOTF and then making it really easy to help people avoid supporting FOTF doesn't send a consistent message, and I'm guessing that a lot more people, whether thinking about it or not, go with the easy path of taking what is available without reading or worrying about the little blurb saying that it's good to support FOTF.



I own every album, many of them on both tapes and CDs. I totally support buying AIO. I stated that I think that very few people literally could not find a way to legitimately own or listen to AIO. I have no home-recorded episodes of my own. However, I do still see a difference between recording from your radio station every week (which is a very slow way to get episodes and requires some effort) and having every episode immediately available in an easily transferable form. I don't think that recording off the radio is the best way to get episodes. I do think that what FAIO makes available is a lot more troublesome, however.

[Leonard Meltsner]

I think that another important difference between the whitsend.org/AIOWiki player and FAIO is that whit send.org has only a few episodes, which are constantly changed. AIOWiki has those same eps, plus the ones which Focus has already said may be streamed and downloaded freely. FAIO has hundreds of episodes which are up 24/7. Just a side note.

[AlexMitchell]

You may not be crazy about the fact that people can go listen and even download stuff for free, but it is now a part of our world and it is not going away any time soon. It's like Prohibition. That didn't work either, and despite being set up by well-meaning folks, was a really dumb idea. You can't simply take away the desire of some people to get something for nothing. Shutting down outlets is really kind of a waste of time. Particularly when, if you actually read what was posted earlier - the quotes from the webmaster of the site - they're not acting either illegally or with wrong motives. A lot of times people remember hearing these shows from when they were younger, they go looking for an old episode, find it on a site like this, and end up on FotF's website buying sets. At the end of the day, they're either going to buy it or they aren't. FAIO already posts info reminding people the importance of supporting FotF by buying the shows.

First, I disagree that people listening to Faio will always go buy episodes. If you're short of cash, you can just go to this site and listen to an episode when you feel like it. I am usually the type who goes and buys later, but since I've heard all the episodes before, I don't have much of an excuse.

But, I think we face a bigger issue. Should Christians go along with the whole "you can't patch all the leaks, so why bother" mentality, or should we try to be an example to the rest of the world by not giving in? The rules don't always make sense, and I think no one has figured out how to competently protect a person's copyright in the digital age yet. But does that mean we shouldn't follow the rules?

[Sean Regan]

First, I disagree that people listening to Faio will always go buy episodes. If you're short of cash, you can just go to this site and listen to an episode when you feel like it. I am usually the type who goes and buys later, but since I've heard all the episodes before, I don't have much of an excuse.

But, I think we face a bigger issue. Should Christians go along with the whole "you can't patch all the leaks, so why bother" mentality, or should we try to be an example to the rest of the world by not giving in? The rules don't always make sense, and I think no one has figured out how to competently protect a person's copyright in the digital age yet. But does that mean we shouldn't follow the rules?

First, show me where I said that people listening to FAIO will always go buy episodes. I did a fairly lengthy analysis of (imo) the different groups of people who might listen to AIO. If you're going to respond, please actually respond to what I said, not what you want to pretend I said. Strawman argumentation is not helpful to conversation.

Second, again you're mischaracterizing the discussion. If we're going to talk idealism, we can ask whether it's wrong for Christians to go a few mph over the speed limit or listen(/download) files they did not purchase. FAIO is FotF's issue. If FotF has a problem with them, they are more than capable of sending them a cease and desist letter. TOO sending a petition is frankly quite juvenile.

Again, this isn't about whether we should follow the rules. The issue of the discussion is sending a petition to a site that cannot be shown to have acted illegally in order to suggest that they stop linking to streaming episodes of AIO. Should they be doing that? That ball is in their court (and FotF's, for that matter). It is neither our responsibility nor our task to assume a watchdog mentality of attacking borderline unethical sites.

My basic point above was that some of these people after listening might well buy more episodes. Others are listening simply because it is free and would never have purchased it in any case.. I think you will find that relatively few of these people were ones who would have purchased the episodes but decided not to because they found them free. Petitioning to close a site that is merely streaming episodes (borderline unethical) is not our responsibility. This issue of audio rights has been around for years and will not be going away any time soon. Our responsibility is to make sure we're not doing anything wrong ourselves.