Yes you can. The Copyright Act of 1976 couple with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act make it quite clear. The artist owns the intellectual property unless they created it under commission or they sell the rights. Most artists sell their rights to the labels. How is that hard to envision? How is jacking somebody's musical expression different than jacking a car? Is it different just because you can't download a car? So if the theft is easy, it's ok? Not really. They are going after specifically targeted persons. they have discovered that 10% of the users provide 90% of the content. It is the 10% they intend to go after.
Musicians are now in a state where they will make more money from their shows instead of depending on cd sales as much. True fans will always buy the bands that they love. So the album industry won't dissappear, but they do need to recreate it.
Dr.-- I don't have to buy CDs and nobody forces me to buy CDs. I pretty much stopped a few years ago. What I'm doing is converting a mostly analog music collection to digital using file sharing programs. The reason I'm doing this is because LPs scratch and get pops, cassettes become brittle or get eaten, even CDs scratch easily. Because of the medium, I have lost content. In acquiring digital copies, I no longer lose content. If a CD scratches, I make a new one. What I said is relevent. I now have the music I paid for in a format I can use for the forseeable future. Ref-- The Digital Millenium Copyright Act also explicitly says: "[n]othing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use..." I would argue that what I am doing falls under fair use, even though it is not a copy made from my album, but from someone else's CD.
Wrong... http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include - (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors _____ Doesn't sound like a fair use to me.
Ref-- Maybe my brain is pummeling itself trying to make sense of legal language, but I don't see where any of this makes me wrong. Besides, I'm also using this for research to better understand the differences in audio quality between LPs and MP3s. Also, Fair Use is determined on a case by case basis. I'm not aware of any case that bears directly on what I'm doing... replacing a legally acquired analog library with a digital one from other sources for private use. Do you know of any?
I don't know of any off the top of my head. I can tell you that there is no exception for digital replacement in the Copyright Act of 1976. Even if there were, you would still be committing contributory infringment since, under the DMCA, you'd be causing hundreds of copies to be made via server relay stations and the like.
they can take my internet connection, file sharing programs and cd burner when they pry them all away from my cold, dead hands!
You see, the funny thing is, when I saw this thread title, It reminded me of a song I had been tryin to remember to download, "Burning For You" by Kreo...... It's a club song. But seriously though on this topic, I think it's a good idea and I'd buy a couple, cuz it already cost's me 99 cents to buy a ringtone for my phone, so why don't I just buy the song?? It'd be a much easier sell though if it was 50-75 cents.
