What's legal when listening to your own music?

[scruffy]

In Canada for example it is legal to burn copies of music to CD and give it to friends as I understand it (though I could very well be wrong).

I am not a lawyer, this is just my interpretation from taking a brief (but very interesting) introductory course on Internet law in Canada:

Actually, you can't give your friends copies.

You can make a copy for your private use, and you can give or lend your friend the original without having to destroy or stop using copies you've made for private use.

And, your friend can make copies of the original you lent her, for her private use, then give you back the original. Similarly, it's fine to make copies of CDs you borrow from the library.

Basically it's not the copying, it's the use you make of the copy. As soon as you're distributing the copy, whether commercially or not, you run into copyright law.

Interestingly, a judge recently found that it's also not illegal to put copies on a publicly shared folder in a P2P application. She compared it to libraries having photocopiers in a room full of copyrighted books - nothing wrong with that, it's the person making the copies who may or may not be doing something illegal (depends how many pages, and what they're going to use it for - but the Can-Copy act is way off topic). So, the person who may be violating copyright is the one downloading the file - they're the one making the copy, so it's up to them to do so in a legal manner.

I don't know what an example of a legal download would be in such a case. I would guess that one example might be if you own a song on vinyl, for example. It might then be legal to download a copy, as that's the most convenient way of getting an mp3, rather than hooking up your record player (if you even own one) to the computer, and so on.

That decision might well be appealed though

[Ceroc Addict]

I know! Let's start our own Mac OS X.com band! I'll be on the drums, ceroc addict can be the singer, Fryke can clang the tambourine and mephisto can keep tabs on where we stand legally.

If you'd ever heard me sing, you'd know that that idea wasn't going to fly.

I'll just be a groupie and dance along to the music.

Kap

[aicul]

Here is a judgement made yesterday in France concerning a teacher that had copied over 10'000 tracks and was distributing them through internet (no mention if for financial gain).

The french courts decided as follows:

1. No prison sentence
2. 10'000 Euro fine to be paid to music owners
3. 3'000 Euro fine (only if he is caught at it again)

This is an interesting case as it does not "kill" the guilty party but sets a very comfortable juris-prudence through which music owners will now aggressively attack pirates in France.

[Krevinek]

DMCA and what you are and are not allowed to do is a different discussion however. (Also a grey area, though leaning in the other direction.)

DMCA pertains more to DVDs than CDs.

Uh, almost. DMCA pertains to circumventing DRM. DRM has been implemented on many media formats, and all of it covered. DVDs just have 'DRM' support required by the standard, so it is more common.

However, IIRC, a court case in the US ended awhile back where the judge stated that the DMCA cannot be used to infringe on the fair use rights of the buyer (in this case, space shifting from a protected CD to their MP3 player), and ruled in favor of the defendant. Which is why they include WMA files on protected CDs now, to get around that ruling. ("Your honor, a space shifted copy was provided on the media, so there was no need to circumvent the protection")

How successful the change will be in their eyes will be found out when it gets tested in court again.

[Mephisto]

Uh, almost. DMCA pertains to circumventing DRM. DRM has been implemented on many media formats, and all of it covered. DVDs just have 'DRM' support required by the standard, so it is more common.

However, IIRC, a court case in the US ended awhile back where the judge stated that the DMCA cannot be used to infringe on the fair use rights of the buyer <SNIP/>

Correct DMCA covers any DRM protected media. However, by the CD specification, if a media uses DRM it would no longer be compliant. There was a snit about this 4-5 months ago and the effected discs had to remove the CD compliance label from the packaging. Granted the difference is a technicality but as of this moment most DVDs have some form of DRM, most musical discs do not. This is why I argue that it pertains more to DVDs than CDs, not that the act itself is limited.

As far as fair use, there is a clause in the DMCA that specifically states the the DMCA does not otherwise restrict any use of the media that would fall under Fair Use. (section 1201(c) of the DMCA if you are interested.) It is a circular argument though in that we are again back to what constitutes fair use. So while fair use allows space shifting, DMCA does not allow encryption to do the space shifting in the first place. It is a gordian knot in the form of legal statute and case.

<RANT>
My personal philosophy is that if you are doing space shifting for personal use and not putting it up on P2P or passing out copies to friends then the law is irrelevant. By not sharing the files you have no visibility to the corporate world, who are the only ones who would be concerned with such things. Further it is generally held that space shifting is a legitimate practice under fair use. It is only when people abuse these rights by sharing it online that it becomes an issue.

If there was not such widespread copying and distribution of copyrighted movies, music, and code (software) then the DMCA would never have come to pass. It is through our own actions that this was created. Some would call P2P civil disobedience, combating the evils of the RIAA, MPAA, SPCA, PTA, etc... I call it looting (referencing "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand).
</RANT>

[scruffy]

Someone made an interesting point recently, and I can't remember who right now. The idea was - organizations like the BSA, the MPAA, the RIAA, etc. are actually good in the long run. The reason is simply, if they weren't using copyright laws to beat up on their own customers, the laws would never get fixed. Everyone would say "yeah, the copyright laws we have now suck, but it doesn't really affect me - I just ignore the law, and no one comes after me."

Now though, with organizations coming after people for trivial violations of copyright, there is much more chance that people will actually do the work to get the laws fixed.

The argument the person made was with regard to the BSA and how they're actually good for open source software, but I think the argument can be extended to this case.

[Mephisto]

Now though, with organizations coming after people for trivial violations of copyright, there is much more chance that people will actually do the work to get the laws fixed.

Not that I disagree entirely, but what case has been posed that is trivial? I have seen reports of a number of cases where the defendant is almost positively not the guilty party, but none where the level of offense would be considered trivial.

Copyright law is broken IMHO, but mostly in length not intent. DMCA is entirely broken though. There is a reason for the law, but the implimentation is flawed.

Regardless of how you interpret it, a copyright holder should have the right to decide how material they created, or paid to have created, is distributed. It is not the right of some guy with $20 and a high speed internet connection to pass out copies to hundreds of other people. The music and movie industry may need to adapt but it does not exonorate the actions of P2P users. If you think they charge too much for music, don't buy it. Do not steal it either though.

[ablack6596]

The real problem is people just downloading things they like. People need to realise that if they want the things they like to continue to be made they need to support them. I try everything before I buy it, but if I like it I do buy it. I download the first season of 24, and then I bought the DVD's and haven't missed an episode since then.