Byte Me-Who We Are-Who We Aren't-Copyright 101-Top 10 MP3 Myths-The Penalty Box-E-Mail Bag-Byting Back-SOUNDBYTING Home -
-E-Mail Bag SOUNDBYTING
-

You ask about copying music on the Web. We respond. Sometimes it's a friendly little chat. Here goes:

Why are MP3 files illegal? I thought it was legal to copy material (as long as it wasn't redistributed for profit).

Well, that depends. The law does allow people to copy a CD onto a cassette tape for their own personal, noncommercial use. What the law doesn't allow is for people to copy their CDs into an infinitely reproducible digital format, like MP3. As a matter of fact, Congress recently passed the Net Act, which makes it a crime to make unauthorized digital reproductions of copyrighted material. In any event, MP3 files are illegal to upload or download, whether or not you're trying to distribute them for profit.

Am I breaking any laws if I record the CD onto my hard drive, as long as I don't try to sell or trade the recording?

Don't you have any better uses for all that space on your hard drive? Technically, it is breaking the law to record a CD onto a computer hard drive. Although if you really do keep it there for your own personal use, it's not likely that anyone will find out and prosecute you. But back to the key point, what is most certainly breaking the law is to make that copyrighted song available by posting it on the Web, regardless of whether you sell it or trade it for something else.

People record cassette tapes with a mix of their favorite songs from their CD collections, why are MP3s different?

The thing about MP3s that are posted on Web sites is that they are being so widely copied and distributed without permission from the artists and labels who made and own the recordings. That's a lot different than putting a few of your favorite songs on a single cassette to play in your car. With MP3s, it's more like recording THOUSANDS of cassettes and sending them all over the world. It's copyright infringement in a big, big way.

What's so wrong with MP3s? Yes, I can totally see your point that they are too perfect a reproduction to just let slide, but really! How many people even know about them?

How many people know about MP3s is totally beside the point. The point is that the only people who have a right to make any reproduction of a sound recording, perfect or not, are the people who own its copyright.

I recently obtained a bootleg tape of a concert and am intending to convert some songs into MP3 files and upload them to my site. Would that be illegal?

You bet it's illegal. Starting with the "bootleg tape" itself. Chances are it was recorded without approval from the artists in the concert, which makes it illegal under the Federal Bootleg Statute. And just because you or someone you know snuck a tape deck into the hall, that doesn't give you or anybody else the right to reproduce and distribute the unauthorized taping. The songs and the performances remains under copyright. So uploading or downloading copies is every bit as much of an infringement as with sound files from a recorded CD.

These MP3s were made by people that do not copyright them. And as I know, what is prohibited is copying of software or music records -- there is no word about music files, which are not even copyrighted.

You're dreaming on this one. Remember, there are TWO copyrights in a sound recording: the composition and the sound recording (recorded performance). Neither copyright is wiped away because a recording is in a file format rather than on vinyl or a CD. Whoever put that recording in a computer file in the first place violated the copyright and so does everyone else who uploads or downloads it.

Don't you think that anyone willing to spend hours downloading audio files is a big enough fan to buy the real album when it comes out? No harm is done when a few extremely devoted fans get an advanced hearing of the music.

The problem is, we're talking about a principle here, one that devoted fans ought to understand: that it's the artist who has the right to control their own creative work. As Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis put it, "The band takes such pride in the packaging and presentation of its music that for an album to come out in a way that isn't as they intended just isn't fair. And it isn't fair to the fans who don't happen to have computers."

What about clips of songs? Are they all right? Is there any time limit, say 30 seconds or something?

Not a bad question. After all, there is such a thing as "fair use" in copyright law that allows people to reproduce short excerpts of copyrighted material. For example, you can cite quotations from copyrighted books and articles in a term paper. The law even allows you to make jokes out of copyrighted material. For example, in one "landmark" court case, MAD magazine was allowed to set its own lyrics to copyrighted melodies of popular songs. That's because it was parody, and no one was going to mistake the original for the joke version.

But the fact is that you may need permission to reproduce even the shortest clip from a copyrighted recording. Whether it's Janis Joplin's song in a "Mercedes-Benz" commercial or Toyota using Sly Stone's "Everyday People," the advertisers had to pay to use even brief cuts from songs that go all the way back to the 1960s.

So while it may seem that the "fair use" exception is pretty flexible, the principle is clear: You can't take the "value" of a song without permission and sometimes that value is found in even a three-second clip.


Byte Me | Who We Are | Who We Aren't | Copyright 101 | Top 10 MP3 Myths | The Penalty Box | E-Mail Bag | Byting Back | SOUNDBYTING Home