P2P - What is legal and what is not?

I wondered if anybody knows what the exact law is because many people seem to be confused. There is a common view that its perfectly legal to download MP3 files but its not legal to share them.

I persoanly think it must be illegal download copyrighted material because you are downloading the waveform and surely when an artist copyrights work they are copyrighting both the interlectual property and the physical medium.

This is not a discussion about what is what or wrong or wether these laws can be enforced, I just simply want to know if anybody knows the law so I can settle an argument on another forum were people seem to think downloading MP3s is legal and the law can't touch them unless they have huge file sharing servers.

Thanks.

 

Downloading MP3's is illegal, you haven't brought the music.

Also remember with many P2P clients even if you don't allow file sharing it will share the file that you are downloading.

 

. . do not collect £200.

as previously stated this looks a good place to start as if you have paid for it and are using it within the terms of sale then you should be ok. I suggest that you explore these popular (non legal) sites for a general view of what is happening in this fast moving area of of law Slashdot News for nerds, stuff that matters , The Inquirer & The Register. You could always hunt for more hardcode legal sites but these three tend to have a good mix of what is true, what is speculation and what is just unalloyed wish fulfillment.

Auric

 

Its not for me as I don't use P2P anyway. I was arguing against it. I only use it at rare times when the song I wanted I can't buy from any record shops or I just want to hear stuff before I buy it.

I have download about 10 MP3 files at the most in the last 12 months.

 

If P2P isn't illegal it bloody well ought to be. MP3s sound shite!!!

Bob

 

I agree, mp3's do sound shite. In these days of broadband internet there's no need for sharing to be of lossy format sound files, something like SHN or FLAC files would be better as these are non-lossy formats. That said, since most people don't seem to be able to hear the difference between mp3 and CD, it'd be pretty pointless.

As for the legality of downloading mp3s is concerned, if you download them from an artists site then I can't see there would be a problem with you sharing them, provided they were put there for free download. If, however, they were sourced from a pay-site such as iTunes then I guess you're not meant to share them around. If they are rips from CDs shared through Kazaa, Napster etc. then that clearly is illegal.

A friend of mine is a huge Tom Robinson fan, and apparently TR has been "reissuing" some of his deleted albums as mp3s for download through his homepage, even providing artwork etc.

 

Not strictly P2P but a diffrent type of license

Several sites and artists already allow people to copy music & software using the Creative Commons or CopyLeft type agreements. Wired also carried a link about the whole idea of publishing under a GPL like agreement Wired News: Record Label Sings New Tune a few months ago, you may find it worth a read.

Auric

 

Pfffft bit of a sweeping statement there !

It depend on the rip quality

 

I got 10000 MP3's
£5000 of music making software e.g. VST's.
400 films...
100's of games....

I don't care what is legal and what is not. I just download. I am a serial compulsive P2P downloader/

 

The law on copyright is quite simple; copying of a recorded work without permission is illegal, even if it is only for personal use and it will never be copied again. Copyright under the Berne Convention is automatic (no need to apply) - no need even to indicate that it's the subject of copright (although this is always advisable). Now the industry will not come after you for single copying, because it simply isn't worthwhile. It doesn't like it, but it tolerates it. In any case, if it had been really serious about preventing copying, it would have sought to prevent the means of unlicensed copying from becoming available to the public (cassette and video recorders, and now DVD and MP3 recorders), but it never did.

The problem with the advent of the Internet is the possibility of file sharing and therefore that that one copy becames available to a wider audience, becoming in effect many thousands of copies and therefore a potentially serious drop in sales. However, the genie is now out of the bottle, and as Michael has said before, it behooves the industry to handle the thing constructively, rather than do King Canute impersonations.

 

Oi Check ya PM!

 

when they come knocking on your door

you could always quote Forget the spin, taping is not killing music - www.smh.com.au and see how far it gets you.

Auric

 

Of course the article in the good old SMH conveniently overlooks one fundamental fact - if nobody recorded and everybody bought, the record sales would be at a super-record high. This is what bothers the record industry - not the fact that it's doing badly, but that it could be doing so much better. But then, in the business world of today, profits are all, and in that regard, the recording industry is no different than any other.

The undisputable fact remains; as the law currently stands, recording music without permission is a violation of copyright and therefore illegal. Now this could be another case of the law being an ass, copyright law designed 300 years ago (the Statute of Anne is the world's first true copyright law) when printing was all that there was to worry about, being forced to cope with rapid technological changes of which the original draftsman could never have conceived. Moreover, downloading for your own personal use will probably never be the subject of a lawsuit (how do the companies sue every person in the country?).

Personally, I think that, as there's no way the industry will be able to close Pandora's box, it should embrace the new technologies and seek to turn them to its advantage, rather than try desperate last stands.

 

Tomes you are right about people thinking the the law is an ass but it is still the law and can be enforced no matter what P2P users or others think or wish.

I think your posting

when coupled with a good few RIAA prosicution cases being either flawed or not proven does tend to make the law look an ass in the eyes of many which may well lead into the "well I'll just copy/rip/download on or two *cough* for my own use" attude.

The whole question of copyright enforcement has been playedout in courts from Norway to Australia and is no nearer a resolution than it was this time last year. The arrival of itunes and Walmart top 100 downloads to name but two business models for supplying cheap music ( usd 88 cents?) will I think make many inroads into the lost generation who have acquired music for nothing or for next to nothing over the last few years. It is thought that the saviour of the recording industry is the mainly middleaged man who will happely visit a big high street music retail outlet and spend upwards of UKP50 once or twice a week in an attempt to relive lost youth, display spending power or prehaps replace existing music with new, exciting or diffrent formats.

Anyway have alook at this debate at Slashdot | CD-Rs and MP3s Not Hurting Record Sales and you will see that copyright enforcement is not too near the top of the list when people think of music.


Auric

 

Never a truer word spoken! Of course, when it suits us to do something, we get all indignant about some petifogging law getting in the way. How dare it? I'd love to know whether all the red-hot downloaders/file swappers would think the same way if they were suddenly placed in the position of the recording industry executives, expected to deliver fat profits and "improve shareholder value". Would they be quite so keen to give away their major investment in intellectual property?

 

pigopolist?

The Register US radio host attacks 'blood sucking slobs' in the music biz and the 12yo.

Auric

 

Those that live by the sword. . . .

The Register Bogus FBI warning file contains malware

Auric

 

Is this true or just a scare story to stop downloaders?

Wired News: Kazaa Delivers More Than Tunes

Auric

 

Interesting discussion.

If the some people think they could buy the intellectual rights to every single piece of music in recorded form and wish to charge us for it then firstly let them convince the law courts around the world before they start moralising.

What about this analogy. They are an elderly generation of radio listeners who never think about paying for any form of subscription fee every time they turn the radio on. If suddenly one conglomerate start claiming it has just acquired the rights to start charging for this luxury what do you think their appropriate response should be?

 

The analogy is not a good one, Wolfgang. Radio stations acquire the right to broadcast from the copyright owners and they have no right suddenly to start charging. Remember that their broadcasting licences are granted by the government, so they're limited in what they can do by the terms of the licence.

The only way to charge is to have a subscription service, where subscribers acquire something like a decoder to be able to see/hear broadcasts. We have a television channel here in Switzerland, TeleClub, that works on this basis. We can receive it, and we see the first couple of minutes of a film, but then it goes funny, because we're not members and don't have the decoder.

The simple fact is that somebody does own the intellectual rights to pretty well every recording - copyright subsists in recorded works to the end of the sixtieth year from the copyright author's death. There is no longer copyright in the recordings of Caruso, made in the early 1900s, but there is in the recordings of Herbert von Karajan. It's not really a question of morals but of legal fact. Should copyright be like this? Should differences be made for private recording? I work in the field of intellectual property, and I can see both sides of the argument, and have sympathies for both sides - I spend a lot of time watching for people infringing our patents and seeing that we infringe nobody else's, so I understand completely the copyright holders' views - but I'm no nearer a satisfactory answer than anyone else!