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Other Topics => Completely Off-Topic => Topic started by: jlmusicchick on June 27, 2003, 07:41:41 am
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i was watching MTV News yesterday and they said that starting next thursday users of Kazaa with "a substantial amount" of songs downloaded could get lawsuits filed against them. I couldn't hear the entire thing but they said that there's a law against file sharing and such.
Just thought i'd let you guys know. I went through and deleted over 200 of my songs. One idea though is just to burn your songs onto a cd, and then listen to the cd. that's what i spent all last night doing.
:)
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i was watching MTV News yesterday and they said that starting next thursday users of Kazaa with "a substantial amount" of songs downloaded could get lawsuits filed against them. I couldn't hear the entire thing but they said that there's a law against file sharing and such.
It actually started yesturday...It was on CNN.
Just thought i'd let you guys know. I went through and deleted over 200 of my songs. One idea though is just to burn your songs onto a cd, and then listen to the cd. that's what i spent all last night doing.
200 songs is an awful lot... 8O no wonder they're sueing...
of course if they sue you, I am sure you could counter-sue for something like invasion of privacy or something...because KaZaa does say no spyware...
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they wont erase my files, will they?
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they wont erase my files, will they?
no, but that is probably the least of your troubles if they sue ya...
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Substantial means in the THOUSANDS.
And they are gonna go after the people HOSTING files, not the ones downloading them. They can't tell how many you have downloaded because the software doesn't work that way.
So don't host a bunch of illegal music files and it's not a problem.
They can't erase anything from your PC, BTW. They can't touch your PC. Unless they send the PoPo to your house.
---Andrew
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If someone wanted to be technical, sharing songs and downloading songs isn't necessarily illegal. Downloading songs may be illegal if you do not have permission to download them. But, I remember one time I was on a trip with a group and someone broke into another one of our rooms. The person destroyed all his CDs. When we got home, I burned him all the CDs he lost off of Napster. That is perfectly legal. It's called fair use. ;) Sharing songs isn't necessarily illegal. Heck, what kept Hotline up for years and years? Besides those agreements to log on to the server, the software was offered for "backup reasons." LOL. It's downloading songs you don't have the right to use.
Also, while it may be illegal to download a song off the p2p networks if you don't own the album, copying a CD for a friend is perfectly legal under the Home Recording Act of 1993. Heck, audio CD-R blanks have a tax on them for this. If the record industry is going to tax you for this stuff, that could be impiled as a licence to copy whatever you want. :razz:
IANAL, as always.....
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On Jlo's cd she has this block on it that makes it so you can copy the CD from the "real" CD but once it is recorded to the blank CD you can't burn that. Funny huh?
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If someone wanted to be technical, sharing songs and downloading songs isn't necessarily illegal. Downloading songs may be illegal if you do not have permission to download them. But, I remember one time I was on a trip with a group and someone broke into another one of our rooms. The person destroyed all his CDs. When we got home, I burned him all the CDs he lost off of Napster. That is perfectly legal. It's called fair use. ;) Sharing songs isn't necessarily illegal. Heck, what kept Hotline up for years and years? Besides those agreements to log on to the server, the software was offered for "backup reasons." LOL. It's downloading songs you don't have the right to use.
Also, while it may be illegal to download a song off the p2p networks if you don't own the album, copying a CD for a friend is perfectly legal under the Home Recording Act of 1993. Heck, audio CD-R blanks have a tax on them for this. If the record industry is going to tax you for this stuff, that could be impiled as a licence to copy whatever you want. :razz:
IANAL, as always.....
You could not possible be more wrong.
Copying a CD for a friend is only legal if the friend owns a limited copyright for that CD already. Even then it's iffy. THis does NOT CLASSIFY AS FAIR USE. Fair use says its ok to make a backup for your OWN collection. Not someone elses. Fair use is just a standard of equity, and it doesn't give you the right to willy nilly copy CD's for people.
Sharing songs IS illegal. Even if NO ONE EVER DOWNLOADS THEM. This has been established and upheald in SEVERAL courts. Someone doesn't have to download the song it to be illegal. If you make it AVAILABLE for download, it is illegal. It's solicitation of copyrighted materials.
You are WRONG about the downloading songs off of a central server that you have license for. Do you remember the MP3.com experiment that got shut down? Where you could upload YOUR own mp3's to their central server and then download them from your OWN secure logon to listen to at other locations? Yeah, that was ruled illegal and got shut down.
Jesus Christ Will. Did you research this topic at ALL? I dont know if you make a true statement in the ENTIRE post!
Blank audio CD's do NOT have a tax on them. They have a royalty payment. BIG difference. And the royalty is for the MEDIA, not on the material. This means that it could NOT be implied as a license in ANY way to do anything except record onto the media. Distributing is an entirely different issue.
The home recording act DOES NOT allow you to make a copy for a friend! Where did you get THIS idea?!?
I have 3 friends who have finished their 2nd year of law and 4 friends who are PRACTICING lawyers, including two who are state attourneys. We have been over this discussion, and I can assure you, you are VERY wrong and are due for a real wakeup call soon.
im dissapointed, you usually research your topics before you spout off. So that even when I disagree you atleast have a good argument. This one is just WRONG.
---Andrew
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On Jlo's cd she has this block on it that makes it so you can copy the CD from the "real" CD but once it is recorded to the blank CD you can't burn that. Funny huh?
Smart, if you ask me.
---Andrew
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On Jlo's cd she has this block on it that makes it so you can copy the CD from the "real" CD but once it is recorded to the blank CD you can't burn that. Funny huh?
Smart, if you ask me.
---Andrew
yeah i have a lot of CDs like that...
..uhhh, i mean........a lot of artists do that :wink:
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hmm.... i guess i will have no problem with that law suit
hehehe. who would bother and come here to sri lanka and look for me?
and by the way, i only download files and when theyre finished i remove them from the shared folder to another folder. so they are nomore available for other users. hee hee hee :D
hmmm....im not so sure bout the lawsuit thing though
*calls a lawyer agency*
lol
Sascha. dont let the news bring you down folks, there are too many users to sue them all. believe me.
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man, i do the same thing with my d/l'd mp3 files... how selfish we are...
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of course if they sue you, I am sure you could counter-sue for something like invasion of privacy or something...because KaZaa does say no spyware...
Oh Joey... that's not quite true... Kazaa is one huge mutiple function piece of spy/adware. Grab a copy of "Ad Aware" and "Spybot - Search & Destroy" and see how many entries come up for Kazaa alone.
There's an alternative out now called "Kazaa Lite" where someone has gone in and blown through the source code to remove all the spyware and adware out of kazaa. I've been running it for awhile now and it looks rather nice. I would reccommend it to those of you who use kazaa regularly.
and I leave about 1800 files up for folks to grab from... I could care less... it will bankrupt the music industry to continue to file these frivilous lawsuits... they need to learn about the technology and adapt to it... not fight against it... and if they come after me I'll counter sue on their practice on artificially inflating the cost of CDs over the last 10-12 years... then investigate their business practices with their own artists... and then quiestion why Apple is so successful with their pay for play service... BRING IT ON!!! ;)
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I have about 200 songs on my computer, does that count for anything? Because i doubt they could really sue me for that.
Oh and i remember reading about that law suit about the inflation of CD prices in this american teen magazine i once got, its not as if the music industry isn't totally corrupt already.
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and if they come after me I'll counter sue on their practice on artificially inflating the cost of CDs over the last 10-12 years... then investigate their business practices with their own artists... and then quiestion why Apple is so successful with their pay for play service... BRING IT ON!!! ;)
Um. They already got sued for inflating prices. And they settled. So if you bought any CD's in the last 15 years you are entitled to some cash from it. I dont remember all the details but search the net and you'll find what im talking about.
The music business as we know it is going away. Soon all artists will be selling their stuff direct to their customers off the net and without the middlemen soaking up all the profits, artists will still make a ton of cash.
But that doesn't make it ok to steal music off the internet
*scowls at Jason*
If you like artist, support him/her/them.
---Andrew
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There's an alternative out now called "Kazaa Lite" where someone has gone in and blown through the source code to remove all the spyware and adware out of kazaa. I've been running it for awhile now and it looks rather nice. I would reccommend it to those of you who use kazaa regularly.
Thanks for the advice..i'll have to try it! Is it any faster than regular Kazaa? I have dial-up and I had to download Kazoom to it to make it go faster....though it didn't help a whole lot.
It's a good idea not to have too many Kazaa songs on your computers anyway, law suit or no law suit...Kazaa takes up quite a bit of space, and if you have an older computer (like my moms) then it can seriously mess up your hard drive.
Another alternative to Kazaa is Grokster....one of my friends uses it...I don't know if it's any better than Kazaa though, she didn't say....
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*scowls at Jason*
*scowls back*
...just for fun ;) and yes, i absolutely agree with you... of course i do... you know i like to spout off just cause...
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Fair use says its ok to make a backup for your OWN collection. Not someone elses. Fair use is just a standard of equity, and it doesn't give you the right to willy nilly copy CD's for people.
I never said their copy was a "backup." I don't have the text of the HRA right now, but I remember quite clearly that friends could make copies for friends. I'm sorry I don't have the time to come up with a good reference for you right now.
Sharing songs IS illegal. Even if NO ONE EVER DOWNLOADS THEM. This has been established and upheald in SEVERAL courts. Someone doesn't have to download the song it to be illegal. If you make it AVAILABLE for download, it is illegal. It's solicitation of copyrighted materials.
I think you are right on this one. My mind was elsewhere when I made that assertation.
You are WRONG about the downloading songs off of a central server that you have license for. Do you remember the MP3.com experiment that got shut down? Where you could upload YOUR own mp3's to their central server and then download them from your OWN secure logon to listen to at other locations? Yeah, that was ruled illegal and got shut down.
That ruling was hella bogus. BTW, you don't know the facts in this case. You never uploaded your music to them. The program checksummed the CD and then authorized you to download various mp3s at different bitrates of the songs on the CD. Though it didn't make much of a difference to the user, the legal implications are quite different.
Blank audio CD's do NOT have a tax on them. They have a royalty payment. BIG difference. And the royalty is for the MEDIA, not on the material. This means that it could NOT be implied as a license in ANY way to do anything except record onto the media. Distributing is an entirely different issue.
Why is there a royalty paid to the record industry then? Do they necessarly own what I burn onto my CD blank? No. The royalty is there because they assume that people will burn their songs onto the CD and at least they want some money out of the deal. And even you would agree that burning CD's with songs from CD's you own is legal without any additional payments to the copyright holders.
The home recording act DOES NOT allow you to make a copy for a friend! Where did you get THIS idea?!?
When I read the act awhile back, there was something in there about it. I'll get a reference for you.
you are VERY wrong and are due for a real wakeup call soon.
I don't generally download music off of the p2p networks. And I don't share.
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Ehh... it's the AHRA of 1992. And I just reread it. I'm thinking of another law.
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Maybe this is silly, but what if you can show evidence that you're keeping your backups at another person's house in case your originals are lost in a fire at your own house? (You could probably be advised, however, that you could always get a fireproof safe or a storage building if that were the case.)
But yes, backups have always been legal. Copying an LP to tape to spare wear and tear on your vinyl is a common process. I have backups of many of my Beatles and other CDs. Some CDs I have are compilations from several other CDs I own. They're all legal. But now what about this: I have downloaded MP3s of whole albums I own on cassette so as to make a CD backup copy of the tape. Is this a little iffy?
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I never said their copy was a "backup." I don't have the text of the HRA right now, but I remember quite clearly that friends could make copies for friends. I'm sorry I don't have the time to come up with a good reference for you right now.
Just for verification purposes, I asked a buddy of mine who works for a major law firm about this, and he said quite clearly that under NO circumstances could you make a copy of a CD that your friend DOES NOT own the rights to. This is text book copyright infringement. You CAN play a CD for your friend, or at a party. But you can't GIVE him a copy without giving up your OWN limited license to the music. You only get 1 license.
That ruling was hella bogus. BTW, you don't know the facts in this case. You never uploaded your music to them. The program checksummed the CD and then authorized you to download various mp3s at different bitrates of the songs on the CD. Though it didn't make much of a difference to the user, the legal implications are quite different.
Ok... you're right on this one. You never actually uploaded. My memory was just shoody. But either way, it's still the same point. Although, im not sure how running a checksum is gonna verify the CD.... since most CD's have a CD ID on them anyways, that would seem to be the best way. But whatever.
Regardless of how bogus YOU or I think it is, the courts ruled that Mp3.com couldn't allow users to stream (which is a type of download) copyrighted material off a central server even if he or she had license to the music already. Hence, the courts have rulled it illegal and you can't do it. Hence, my main point holds up.
Why is there a royalty paid to the record industry then? Do they necessarly own what I burn onto my CD blank? No. The royalty is there because they assume that people will burn their songs onto the CD and at least they want some money out of the deal. And even you would agree that burning CD's with songs from CD's you own is legal without any additional payments to the copyright holders.
They don't own what you burn to the CD. The royalty is on the right to use a media format that the government has decided is a protected right of the music industry. I would assume it's an equity issue, but as I haven't read up on WHY the gov't ruled this way, I can't say for sure. All I can say for sure is that the MEDIA has a royalty on it, but that means nothing for anything burned to the CD. You are paying for the right to burn SOMETHING to the CD, but you still have to have rights to that "something" as well.
---Andrew
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Maybe this is silly, but what if you can show evidence that you're keeping your backups at another person's house in case your originals are lost in a fire at your own house? (You could probably be advised, however, that you could always get a fireproof safe or a storage building if that were the case.)
But yes, backups have always been legal. Copying an LP to tape to spare wear and tear on your vinyl is a common process. I have backups of many of my Beatles and other CDs. Some CDs I have are compilations from several other CDs I own. They're all legal. But now what about this: I have downloaded MP3s of whole albums I own on cassette so as to make a CD backup copy of the tape. Is this a little iffy?
Yes, you could store backups in a remote location. Just make sure your friend doesn't listen to them, and I would also keep some sort of record indicating what is happening.
In all reality, this isn't a concern because the record companies will never find out about it. We are just talking about what is technically legal and illegal.
As for the downloading of Mp3's of TAPES you own... this is up for debate. Obviously it would be legal for you to convert the tapes to Mp3's then to CD's manually... and how are they gonna prove you didn't get those Mp3's by converting from your tape? I'd have to consult one of my buddies to get a clear answer on this one... but im assuming the answer would be "go ahead and do it, cause no record label is gonna waste a lot of money trying to stop you." In other words, it MIGHT be technically illegal, but you could get away with it.
---Andrew
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my brother just deleted KaZaA off of our computer because of what he read about this...
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well, at least he kept the downloaded songs on the computer
;-)
:roll: i didnt really use kazaa a lot anyway :|
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my brother just deleted KaZaA off of our computer because of what he read about this...
:-\
well, at least he kept the downloaded songs on the computer
;-)
:roll: i didnt really use kazaa a lot anyway :|
okay, but wouldn't they be more interested in the songs you have instead of the program you have?
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okay, but wouldn't they be more interested in the songs you have instead of the program you have?
They could never tell what songs you have if you don't have the program installed, or if you have the program installed and you don't share.
Besides, a few mp3s on your HD mean nothing. You could have a legal right to them. I have about 2 GB of mp3s/Oggs/AAC's that are perfectly legit. Even if they knew that I did have them (which they don't, btw), there is no way they could prove that they are illegal.
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okay, but wouldn't they be more interested in the songs you have instead of the program you have?
They could never tell what songs you have if you don't have the program installed, or if you have the program installed and you don't share.
Besides, a few mp3s on your HD mean nothing. You could have a legal right to them. I have about 2 GB of mp3s/Oggs/AAC's that are perfectly legit. Even if they knew that I did have them (which they don't, btw), there is no way they could prove that they are illegal.
Technially, if they had reason to suspect you, then YOU would have to prove they were LEGAL.
Not the other way around. Since its a situation where unless you have a license for them, it's illegal. Kinda like driving a car. If a cop pulls you over, you have to show him your drivers license.
But they have to have a reason to "pull you over" in the first place.
---Andrew