What are your questions on downloading & copying music legally?

Aguazul

It is hard to see how you're going to get anything but a twisted interpretation of the law out of the BPI. Would you trust a shop to tell you your buyer's rights? Or a bank to tell you about how to reclaim fees? Or your electricity company to tell you whether there is any point in switching to another provider? NO!!

So better ask an independently-minded lawyer all the same questions, otherwise this exercise will only serve to reinforce the lies that the music industry wishes everyone to believe. The law is a lot more woolly than people think.

[I was part of a small group who campaigned against copy-protected (i.e. intentionally damaged) CDs about 5 years ago, before it all blew up in the face of Sony ... not that we didn't try to warn them. So I know very well how twisted the music industry can be ... e.g. the artist's "advance" is viewed internally as a loan, which they then do their best to spend on behalf of the artist on marketing, etc, so the artist sees none of it. The music industry is crooked in so many ways it is impossible to begin to describe. So trust the words of their representatives at your peril!]

urquhartfay

dobspoon wrote: »

I've got a stack of records in the attic, weighing down the ceiling and generally warping their way out of usefulness. I don't have any way of playing them.

Would it not be fair, especially given the high price I paid for those records in the Eighties, for me to have a file version of all those records which I don't have to obtain via some complex and time-consuming piece of kit hooked up to my PC?

I can't say I'd feel too strongly in the wrong about downloading these albums given that I've already paid more than 79p per song without allowing for inflation...

oh yes, please answer this question, in my case it refers to tons of cassettes!

second question: as kids we used to make music "mixes," i.e. a cassette/ c.d. of our favourite songs from different albums that we owned, and give them to each other. so i received, say, a cd with 15 songs, and i might have a few of them on albums i own but most of the tracks i don't have on albums i own. so is it illegal for me to have that cd? and was it illegal for the person to give it to me? or is there a limit to how many tracks you can gift to another person in that way?

thanks!

buzzablinio

urquhartfay wrote: »

oh yes, please answer this question, in my case it refers to tons of cassettes!

second question: as kids we used to make music "mixes," i.e. a cassette/ c.d. of our favourite songs from different albums that we owned, and give them to each other. so i received, say, a cd with 15 songs, and i might have a few of them on albums i own but most of the tracks i don't have on albums i own. so is it illegal for me to have that cd? and was it illegal for the person to give it to me? or is there a limit to how many tracks you can gift to another person in that way?

thanks!

In the eyes of the music industry, you are no better than some machine gun toting Somalian pirate! But ... back on planet earth, you are doing one of the most sociable things going, sharing music with friends and potentially introducing them to new music.

Excellent point about the LPs and Cassettes ... what about the CDs that we bought first time round when they were as much as £14. The same CDs that the music industry decided weren't actually very good and needed remastering and putting out again, and the very same CDs that they decided, actually, there are a load of tracks we missed off first and 2nd time around so they reissue the reissue. We are just a heard of dumb cows ready to be milked as far as the industry is concerned.

I think illegal downloading will (in my little utopian bubble) force the industry out into the spotlight where their OTT pricing and marketing tricks can be exposed, and yes, all of us that bought crappy warped LPs and stretched cassettes can claim at the very least lossless files of the same albums....yeah...I know ...never happen. Still roll on the next new format they can rip us all off with :mad:

jimbo49

you are still trying to condone the actions of the BPI, sugarcoma101. no one can be watched or watch 24/7. not everyone has or wants an iplayer. not everyone wants to use itunes or be ripped off by them. the punishment i'm talking about is stopping people from using the internet when there are so many tasks that are done over an internet connection and more companies doing their business in that way only. all i'm saying is be fair with people and there is a good chance they will be fair with you. treat them like c**p and they will have no respect for you, doing the exact opposite to what you want them to do. i fail to see the sense in insisting of going down the 'fear' route when there is a much better alternative that would have the desired effect for all

1drunkbrit

If I own an album on vinyl, can I download a copy of the album on MP3 from torrents etc or do i have to buy the album a second time?

The_Grandmaster

On the internet, there are sites which offer music copied from vinyls from the early 1900s and possibly earlier. Therefore the question is:

When do copywrite laws end for music and thus becomes legal to download?
Is it 50 years or so after the performer's death unless redistributed? Can the laws around this be clarified please?

charleyhellfire

If downloading MP3s 'illegally' was the same as pinching a Mars bar from a shop, then surely 'the crime' would be a criminal offence and not a civil offence....wouldn't it?

The truth is: downloading music, films, games, TV programmes, e-books...are not criminal offences - they are CIVIL offences.

And obviously you work for the industry in some capacity, probably a secretary to one of the old wet-lipped bosses of a record label, whose been listening in to one of his telephone conversations...

sussexg_2

my son watches tv programmes & films online and listens to music, but doesn't hit the downlaod button, he just clicks the watch/listen button. but once when we got stuck in a huge traffic hold up, he got his laptop out and watched a whole film he had previously watched online, he said it was stored in his temporary internet files. i've checked this out with him and he explains that the film buffers to your computer ahead of you actually watching it and so, surely, is technically downloading. is this illegal and will it change under the digital economy bill that has or is about to become law

willherb

I agree that the price per track is very ufair considering that other countries pay a lot less than us.

My main problem is is that if you want to buy an album in the UK of someone who is a star in another country but doesn't get "airtime" in the UK such as Kid Rock who I happen to like how do you know from the one hit that they have that you will like a whole album as there is no way of hearing his music. I have bought all his albums but his live one was crap. If I had bought it from the web I can't get a refund where as I can if I buy it from a shop although that is A. Very difficult and B. Time consuming. If there was a way of listening to an album which the music industry could create so you could listen to an album without saving it or copying it this would be massivly benificial because you could tell if you liked it without the industry feeling like it has lost anything through downloading. I personally copy my CD's onto my MP3 player but need to have the CD because owning the CD makes me feel like I own the album while downloading it doesn't have that feel of ownership.

Find a way of listening to music without it being downloading illegally will in my opinion benifit the music industry be allowing people the ability to know what they hear they will like but also open their eyes to other singers/groups who they may not have ever thought of listening to which in turn would create more money as more people would buy stuff they never knew they liked or excisted.

willherb

PS I am assuming that it is legal to copy my music to my mp3 player isn't it?