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Idiots guide to downloading music???

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  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    If you own any CDs, you can copy them onto itunes and then put them onto your ipod.

    Not legally. Even if you own a CD, if you want to listen to that music on your iPod you need to buy it again in the appropriate format. And if you're going to break the law, you may as well just download the music illegally!

    There are rumours every few years that the law will be changed "soon"... but it hasn't happened yet.

    http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/article.html?in_article_id=500206&in_page_id=5
  • asbokid
    asbokid Posts: 2,008 Forumite
    I'm surprised that the Daily Mail doesn't know the difference between "illegal" and "unlawful".

    Or perhaps the Daily Mail does know the difference but has decided (as a service to the music industry) to frighten its readership

    Only criminal acts are "illegal".

    Civil offences, such as copyright infringement, are simply "unlawful".

    http://www.bobw.co.uk/Uploads/CMS/Files/433/pdf%20Civil%20vs%20criminal%20cases%20table.pdf
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    asbokid wrote: »
    I'm surprised that the Daily Mail doesn't know the difference between "illegal" and "unlawful".

    Only criminal acts are "illegal".

    Civil offences, such as copyright infringement, are simply "unlawful".

    Are you sure? I'm almost certain that they are synonyms. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, illegal means "against the law; not allowed by law", while unlawful means "not allowed by law".

    Are you thinking of the distinction between criminal law (which is imposed by the state in response to threats to the safety and welfare of the public) and civil law (which can be enforced by private parties)?
  • birkee
    birkee Posts: 1,933 Forumite
    Nooooooo, you don't download the software....you simply enter the youtube video link and it gives you a .mp3 file to download which is purely a music file. No viruses, no dodgy software, just a simple mp3 file i guarantee :)
    http://www.vidtomp3.com/

    Yes, you download an Mp3 file, but what else might it contain?
    You can conceal virus's and trojans within PDF files (common at the moment I believe.) and image files for instance.

    As for copying YouTube files.... Perhaps it's like the TV transmissions. You can record programmes for watching later,but it is illegal to make a permanent copy. (You'll have to research where the difference lies in those two definitions.)

    So my guess is, that much of what is available on YT may be watchable, but shouldn't be recorded due to copyright laws. Then again, I think there's a lot of stuff on YT which shouldn't be there anyway, because it was loaded illegally.
  • Shrimply
    Shrimply Posts: 869 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I think, after putting legal and moral issues to one side, there are far better, faster and safer ways of getting video and audio off of youtube than to let some other site convert them for you - which frankly seems a kinda round about, and as discussed more risky method.
  • RussJK
    RussJK Posts: 2,359 Forumite
    esuhl wrote: »
    Are you sure? I'm almost certain that they are synonyms. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, illegal means "against the law; not allowed by law", while unlawful means "not allowed by law".

    No he's correct. Obviously both words essentially mean the same thing, but there is the distinction he describes in their usage. Generally you describe an act as "unlawful" if there is no likelihood that criminal charges be brought, i.e. that it'll come under tort or contract law.

    The OED doesn't make the distinction clear either, so we'd have to look in a legal dictionary.

    Having done about two minutes reading on googling and in the free legal dictionary, it seems the distinction might be based on whether something is expressly forbidden by law (so a criminal act to break it) or whether it merely isn't authorised by law.

    When you're breaking the law, it's 'illegal'. When you're not following the law, it's 'unlawful' but not necessarily illegal. An unlawful contract isn't necessarily criminal, but just one that has no 'legal effect'. I'm not a lawyer, so this is the end of my part in the discussion.
  • penrhyn
    penrhyn Posts: 15,215 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    May not have a manual if bought second hand ;)
    I've got an evil monkey in my wardrobe.:eek:
    That gum you like is coming back in style.
  • esuhl wrote: »
    Not legally. Even if you own a CD, if you want to listen to that music on your iPod you need to buy it again in the appropriate format. And if you're going to break the law, you may as well just download the music illegally!

    There are rumours every few years that the law will be changed "soon"... but it hasn't happened yet.

    http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/article.html?in_article_id=500206&in_page_id=5

    Technically yes, but on a spectrum of legal to illegal, copying CDs you've purchased is far better than stealing music off the internet...
  • Dave_C_2
    Dave_C_2 Posts: 1,827 Forumite
    esuhl wrote: »
    Not legally. Even if you own a CD, if you want to listen to that music on your iPod you need to buy it again in the appropriate format.

    No-one has ever been prosecuted for this. Indeed most of my CDs pre-date ipods and the concept of format shifting.

    Basically you are quite safe copying your CDs to your ipod. It's impractical for them to try and sue millions of people!

    Dave
  • asbokid
    asbokid Posts: 2,008 Forumite
    edited 25 April 2011 at 2:47PM
    Shrimply wrote: »
    I think, after putting legal and moral issues to one side, there are far better, faster and safer ways of getting video and audio off of youtube than to let some other site convert them for you - which frankly seems a kinda round about, and as discussed more risky method.
    For Linux, and for Windows, too, there's a simple little Python script called youtube-dl. See http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/

    The script sucks off both the video and audio channels and is very easy to use.

    The sound quality of youtube videos is, by design, fairly poor.
    asbokid@wwscrubs:~$ youtube-dl [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JglWZ-wC3Vk[/URL]
    [youtube] Setting language
    [youtube] JglWZ-wC3Vk: Downloading video webpage
    [youtube] JglWZ-wC3Vk: Downloading video info webpage
    [youtube] JglWZ-wC3Vk: Extracting video information
    [download] Destination: JglWZ-wC3Vk.flv
    [download] 100.0% of 38.25M at  154.19k/s ETA 00:00
    
    asbokid@wwscrubs:~$ ffmpeg -i JglWZ-wC3Vk.flv 
      Duration: 00:05:54.44, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 918 kb/s
        Stream #0.0: Video: h264, yuv420p, 854x480 [PAR 1:1 DAR 427:240], 820 kb/s, 25 tbr, 1k tbn, 50 tbc
    [B]    Stream #0.1: Audio: aac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 98 kb/s[/B]
    
    That is very poor audio quality.
    A standard audio CD has a (constant) bitrate of 1411 kb/s.
    However, a lossless encoding format such as FLAC supports up to 32 quantisation levels and a theoretically limitless audio bitrate.
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