This is not what copyright is for.
And even if the argument if flawed, the concept underlying it is solid: what something was "originally meant for" is not the same as what something was actually usef for, or found eventually useful for....
It's not an abuse based on its actual, de facto, purpose: to sustain profitable back catalogue sales and aid the entertainment industry.
So whether the "original purpose" is important is the whole point in determining abuse or not...
I'm sure that, if you are serious about the discussion, we can easily agree that both are not equivalent or comparable.
Not exactly. When the grandparent (metalliqaz) wrote "This is not what copyright is for", I felt like they were the one confusing/conflating the "spirit of the law"(about copyright) with what copyright is actually used for, and intented to be used for, by the parties passing copyright laws and benefiting from them.
Copyright might not have been "for this", in some original "spirit of the law" sense, but it very much is for this in the de facto, 70 years plus running, sense.
So, I'm saying that there's an expressed spirit of the law and an operating (de facto) spirit of the law. Or, if you will, what the law hypocritically pays lip service to, and what the law is actually drafted and passed to achieve.
Those laws might have started back in the day with the intention (spirit) to promote the arts and protect creators etc, but for nearly a century they have been extended with the intention of making the entertainment business more profitable and protecting a multi-trillion US industry.
That's the actual spirit those laws are drafted, proposed, passed, and enforced for 70+ years now...
Few (if any) in the lawmaking and in the industry cares for the original "spirit of the law", the original wording is just left there as a historical artifact, to justify a different (and even opposing) application of the copyright law.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, U.S. Constitution. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec...
(Clearly, US application.)
Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be Enacted ...
Statute of Anne (England, 1701). http://www.copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRepres...
The countries of the Union, being equally animated by the desire to protect, in as effective and uniform a manner as possible, the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works,...
Berne Convention https://wipolex.wipo.int/en/text/283698
Courts may, and do, invalidate law (or interpretation) inconsistent with Constitutional mandate or legislative intent.
The most recognizable feature of today's internet is the web, which wasn't part of ARPANET.
You could say the internet is a descendant of ARPANET, but it's not the same thing.