Music downloads, how legal is legal enough?

Former_MSE_Archna

Poll Title: Poll Started 22 May 2006. Downloading a single music track is 79p, an album around £7. Yet Russian website allofmp3.com is 2p and 60p for the same. Whether it's legal is a grey area, it's legal in russia but breaks the laws here, the artists don't get any cut of the revenue. Which of the following is nearest your view (and don't worry your vote isn't tracked!).

A. It's disgraceful. It steals the artists work.
B. I'm tempted. Cheap's good, but I'm worried about the legality.
C. Yippee. Sounds great to me.
D. Already there. I've used it before.

Vote here or click reply to discuss.

dell_2

I'm surprised to see this poll.

I'm sure many people are already aware of this site (amongst others) - but by questioning our moral stance on their business model, are we not inadvertently promoting their site - and therefore promoting copyright theft in the UK?

Is this poll going to be mentioned in the Money Tip E-mail? (as is the norm) - I hope not, as whilst many of the sites users I'm sure are aware of "these" types of site - I'd imagine the vast majority of the recipients of the money tip are not.

meher

Dell, I respect your view on this and agree with you too - you know how I enjoy in exploring morality on every blessed matter

To consider the legality (Russian law), I guess there is a major flaw in that the interpretation of law is not too clear to apply to digital form as it is not tangible - so I gather from their website, now that I looked into it.

But in considering morality I like to look at the huge stores as HMV and Virgin and ask them - do they care for the music or their profit, perhaps if they catered to marketting requirements as opposed to their controlling the market, surely piracy and dowloading of software and music would be curtailed.

Having said that we'd have to discuss further to make complete sense and it'd have to include recording companies, the artists who are not willing to take risks and their contract with the recording companies who take the risk on themselves and the royalties offered - for a different thread perhaps

dell_2

To clarify....

I think that the name of the Russian site ought to be removed from the Poll question.

I suspect you did what many people will do - add www. to the sites name or google for it.

500,000 people get the tip, does the site really want to be seen "promoting" their service?

Gareth1_2

well now im totally confused, i thought we where not allowed to discuss this under site rules

dell_2

there is also a thread relating to this subject on the "this site" board

safari_2

When someone presents some solid evidence to me that it is illegal to use allofmp3.com in the UK, then I'll stop using it.

MSE_Martin

Hi folks, with regards to putting the site in the poll.

Yes you're correct there's a general ban on discussing illegal file sharing or even grey file sharing in the forums.

This weekend three major newspapers carried stories about allofmp3.com - including the Sunday Times including it in a price comparison! I took the decision that by putting it in the controlled environment of the poll, in a non-recommending way is not an issue.

It's important to remember I am legally the publisher of the forums. I take a decision not to allow uncontrolled discussion of illegal file sharing on the site as we don't have the resources to monitor it. That is different to a poll, carefully written by me, in a non-recommending way, taking into account the legalities, on a specific site - not a range of different sites, based on research.

This is an issue many MoneySavers come across and sampling the opinion is very information. I'm intrigued by the initial vote, which shows only 20% of people are objecting to using it.

Martin

cowbutt

MSE_Archna wrote:

Poll Title: Poll Started 22 May 2006. Downloading a single music track is 79p, an album around £7. Yet Russian website allofmp3.com is 2p and 60p for the same. Whether it's legal is a grey area, it's legal in russia but breaks the laws here, the artists don't get any cut of the revenue.

Firstly, it should go without saying that if allofmp3.com was run from the UK, it would be illegal, since the mechanism by which it's legal in Russia is not duplicated here, and our music rights organisations (MCPS et al) would not offer the same licenses that their Russian equivalent (ROMS) does to allofmp3.

That said, though, I'm not sure it is illegal for a UK citizen to use. Quoting the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988, Chapter II, Part 22:

"The copyright in a work is infringed by a person who, without the licence of the copyright owner, imports into the United Kingdom, otherwise than for his private and domestic use, an article which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of the work."

In other words, even if allofmp3.com is making infringing copies and the UK customer knew this might be the case, importing the same for private and domestic use would not seem to be itself infringing.

I should note, though, that I am not a lawyer. I doubt, though, that MSE Archna is either. :-)

Further, it would seem that artists can get a cut, if they register with ROMS. That many choose not to do so can hardly be seen to be allofmp3.com's fault. In fact, it is suspected that they do not for fear of setting a precedent for cheap digital sales and making any future legal action (e.g. when Russia tightens its copyright laws to be more in line with those in the West) more difficult.

With all of the above in mind, I believe the only open-and-shut question is whether using allofmp3.com is ethical. This, of course, will be down to the individual to decide for him or herself. I buy a lot of cheap second-hand CDs (i.e. sales from which the artist gains nothing) in order to sample new artists economically. Some of these, I may only listen to once or twice before deciding that I don't like them after all. Personally, I see little difference between that practice, and buying a bunch of cheap MP3s and listening to them only a few times. I see no problem in keeping the MP3s hanging around, though, on the offchance that one day I might listen to them whilst in the right mood and suddenly decide I do like them. Whenever I do discover a new artist I like, I generally end up buying every work that's commercially available, and often a few concert tickets too.

JPS

I'd vote option E. Why pay 2p and 60p when I can get it all totally free...not that I do of course;)

littld

This isn't just about cost.

AllOfMP3 provides download MP3s of a high quality which don't get screwed up by bug-ridden security keys (which are bound to stop working over coming years).

As for legality, we keep being told we have to accept cheap imports from China, which affect our manufacturing industry. Daily we hear about another service moved to India which affects our service industries. We can't stop it, because we are part of WTO and believe in free trade.

Well I believe in free trade with Russia. Nuff sed.