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| quote: | | It's pretty much a grey area - posted by swamper |
Sorry mate, but without the express permission of the copyrighted material owner, and this extends beyond music / mp3's, any storage of (both online, offline and archived), duplication or distribution of is illegal. While the performer (DJ) or venue has a licence to broadcast/play in public copyrighted material, which they pay for, it does not extend to allowing further copying and distribution.
While I agree with your argument, most people will have material that they normally would not have purchased or ever heard, the law is pretty much well black and white in this area.
DJ's may well want as much air play as possible of live sets but this is down to most DJ's are writers or producers and they are plugging their own material in their sets. It's the song writers and record companies loosing money and it's the record companies that are shutting down web sites and taking legal action against distributors and this is backed by the original artists. Let's face it, if Armin wanted free distribution of Yet Another Day he'd release it through a free mp3 distribution service not on copyrighted CD or vinyl.
A point of interest for UK TA's the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been extended in 2002 and gives the police powers to seize any equipment believed to be used in the storage, duplication and distribution of copyrighted material. Also the prison sentence for Copyright, Designs and Patents infrigment has been increased.
Ignorance is no defence in law neither is poor legal advice from people who do not know but are speaking from personal opinion.
Sorry for rattling on, I don't work for a record company but knowing copyright, designs, patents, trademarks, data protection, regulation of investigatory powers, human rights etc. is part of my job.
| quote: | | but hell everyone does it!! so there is no way one earth i am gonna stop!! |
My advice would be to seek information for the country you're in as to your liabilities, (fines, imprisonment etc.) for copyright infrigment. Then it's up to you.
The next step for organisations like th RIAA is to crack down on the person using the peer-to-peer software to distribute and copy not the software writer. Think about it, the police never prosecute the manfacturer of the gun... just the person who pulls the trigger.
Last edited by stella on Dec-12-2002 at 23:44
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