Originally posted by: IndieSnob
Originally posted by: yukichigai
Originally posted by: IndieSnob
Sorry, you're still absolutely wrong. Again the law, or according to what's being enforced by the RIAA is the only LEGAL way to make a backup of what you currently own is FROM YOUR OWN MEDIUM, not from another source. Here's a link to proof of this:
Text
Here's a quote of what it says about said thing:
<blah blah blah, RIAA f%$#s us all sideways>
Great, they changed the rules in the middle of the game. What asshats.
See what chafes me is that they're making something illegal that shouldn't be. Of course now there are a number of free rippers out there that work great, so there's not much excuse not to make your own backups. But damn.
Is there anything in there about getting your CDs stolen? I'm assuming I can still have the backups I made since, well, that's what backups are for: the eventuality that your copy is no longer useable.
Oh, do they just say this is the case or do they furnish links to the laws? 'cause not that I don't trust the RIAA to tell the truth, but I don't trust the RIAA to tell the truth.
First off, the laws were never changed. It's never been legal to download backups of anything online.
Copyright law has always stated that you have the right to make archival backup, as long as the EULA states you can (Microsoft and a few other companies DO NOT allow this), but with music backsups you are ok. The stipulation of having an archival backup's are these:
#1: Only one copy is allowed, you may not make multiple copies.
#2: If the original is stolen, destroyed (fire, accident, etc.) you are still allowed to have your backup.
#3: If you in anyway sell your original, whether audio cd, dvd, software, you MUST destroy the backup, as you are no longer the legal owner of said item.
I wouldn't worry about having your own backups around, if they were stolen. They're not going to search house to house for burned cd's. The way to getting caught is downloading the music. Even if your music has been stolen, you still have no legal rights to download the,.
You arent quite right on this. And the linked site above is also not entirely correct.
These lawsuits haven't done jack squat to determine legal precidence (sp? I'm tired) This is VERY similar to DTV's lawsuits in the sense that its a mass group of lawyers and paralegals sending out TONS of lawsuits threatening huge fines. It boils down to a numbers game, if even a small percentage of the people pay up they at least break even, if they scare even a small percentage of people into not doing P2P, they succeed. They dont care what the law really is, they just care about the effects of this campaign.
They have NOT established that a online source for a backup is illegal. The reason this is grey area (and the reason why alot of sites like the aforementioned one claim its illegal) is because the Internet wasnt around when Fair Use was fleshed out. So its not specifically provided for, but nobody has gone the distance in proving for a fact that it is or is not a legal source of backups. Partially because of instances of remote storage. If I have a webserver/ftp online somewhere that I use to store backups of certain documents, then saying that "downloading MP3's from the internet is illegal" means that regardless of the fact that I own the server in question (or lease space, or otherwise secured rights to the storage point) it is illegal for me to download them over the internet, and in order to retrieve my backups I would have to physically go extract them from the hosting providers location. Not likely to happen. P2P makes it even harder to discern because if I own the CD and host a own the CD, me downloading the songs from host A doesnt affect the property rights one iota.....that would be like me and host A swapping CD's, absolutely nothing illegal. Swapping the backups of the product you own for someone elses backup of the same thing you own does not infract upon the law at all.
What screws things up is when host B comes along, who doesnt own the CD, and downloads the backups from host A. Then host A is in violation because they didnt properly secury the property of the distributor (in this case the recording label). So while host B is most definitely in violation of the law, host A most likely is also, because its not different from making a physcal backup, setting it in a public place, and then when someone walks off with it making another, setting it in the same spot, and someone else walks off with it, and making another etc. etc. etc.
Meanwhile I am not in trouble because I didnt provide a copy of these backups. If I choose to do so, according to the cases currently tried in the courts, it is my responsibility to verify that each and every person that takes a copy, allready had rights to a backup copy AND, and this part isnt so much proven yet because it nevers gets this far, that those individuals only have ONE backup copy.
Technically speaking, a legal MP3 on your hard drive becomes an infractions of copyright law if/when you copy it and dont mov it from one folder to another.
Technically speaking they can make your life enough of a nightmare without being "right".
So from all accounted standpoints, the only way to really be safe from the RIAA is to not buy their music and not use P2P of any form for anything....even if you download trailers over kazaa, if someone renames a Top40 mp3 to "Spiderman 2 trailer" and you download it, even though its not against the law because you didnt know what you were getting, the RIAA could still sue you.
But it has not been decided yet whether or not online sources of backups of music you allready own are in fact illegal. But hosting backups online is either illegal, or too prohibitive a burden to be viable.