If you live in the United States and you are wondering what your rights are with music and the wonderful world of copyrights; you may wish to pay a visit to an educational site put up by the Recording Academy called What's the Download?
In case you didn't know, like myself, the Recording Academy is that group that among other things is responsible for the Grammy Awards. Established in 1957, The Recording Academy is an organization of musicians, producers, engineers and recording professionals: "Dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its makers." Well, nothing wrong with that! If you are interested, here is a link to a one page history of this organization. After reading that, you will have a firm grasp of their position in the world of musical content. Below is a small example of some questions answered on their educational What's the Download webpage.
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It is generally legal to burn or download a CD you bought onto your own MP3 player. Downloading your friend's CD is a different story. It is illegal to download music onto any digital playback devices you own if you have not purchased the music. Burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player won't usually raise concerns so long as the copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own and the copy is just for your personal use. Giving away the copy or lending it to others for copying is not a personal use and is not legal. If I download a song from an unsigned band or artist, am I breaking the law? The artists still hold a copyright on their songs, even if they are not signed to a major label. The difference is, the unsigned band likely does not have to clear with a label or publisher whether they can make their material available online for free. So, if the unsigned band gives their fans permission to download their songs without charge, it is perfectly legal because they are the copyright holders. This does not mean, however, that they have waived their copyrights forever, it just means that they are giving away free copies as long as they choose to do so. It also does not change the rules as to what you are able to do with that material under copyright law, unless the band specifically states otherwise.
Yes. This is illegal because we do not have permission to reproduce, distribute or publicly perform the music to our friends when we buy a CD. We only have permission to listen to that CD and/or otherwise use it for our personal purposes. I don't use peer-2-peer No, this is not legal. Just because |
That is just a few of the pertinent questions asked and answered on the page. If you would like to read more, then please visit this link. For those of our friends that live outside the United States, the laws there can be very different. But, you are welcome to pay a visit to our Euro-Copyrights.org site for information on how you are affected by copyright issues.
Finally, all of those that would like to pose or debate other questions or want to learn more about P2P issues, please feel free to visit the Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum right here at Club CD Freaks.
Source: Recording Academy
