qstn for nanode

[lazy_cod3R]

I saw your webpage a while back and you have one hell of a juciy mp3 collection there.

my question is, is it illegal for you to do that ? to have all those mp3's sharable to people even if you do have it password protected ?
im asking because i was thinking of doing somthing similar but i just want to know the implications.

BTW sorry if this isnt linked to programming, i just though that since you are a java programmer you visits this forum more then the others.

anyway, thanks in advanced

[bwkaz]

As far as I understand the laws, you can do pretty much anything with music you own. You can serve it up (most people put either passwords or mandatory notices saying "YOU CAN'T DOWNLOAD ANYTHING YOU DON'T OWN!!!", but we all know how many people just click through that stuff), you can make copies for yourself, and I believe you can even download it from someone who has an illegal copy.

However, I am not a lawyer, so this may be incorrect. The way I understand fair use is you can do pretty much anything personal with it, and pretty much anything that doesn't get you a profit and doesn't deny the creator(s) profit. Making MP3s from CDs is fair use, and I believe that downloading MP3s that you have a CD to is also legal, regardless of where it came from -- the idea being you don't want to put the time or energy into ripping it yourself. I think.

I believe serving it up is fair use, as long as to the best of your knowledge, no one is using it that can't.

[lazy_cod3R]

Ok thats good, i may want to read a bit more on this specific issue about copyright but there is a dam helluva lot of stuff to go through and most of the stuff is what i dont want.

but in short what your saying is if its mine i can do what i want with it aslong as im not making profit, thats all fine, the only issues is that you said deny the creaters profit, i belive that serving up mp3's would be denying creators profit, these are just some of the little things i want to read up on.

Basiclly what i want to do is have a little private file server with friends so we can share our different songs, i might ripp some of the songs myself or i may just put up mp3's i have downlaoded from elsewhere.

See one of the things you said sounded good, if its yours you can do what you want with it, i guess that includes putting it up on a machine which is on the net 24/7 in a public sharable directory then ;)

i may read up on this more and if anyone has info on where i can get info on this it would be good.

but thanks for your help anyway...

[nanode]

Hey lazy_cod3R:

Sorry to miss your post - I've been working too much :(

I don't know the legal specifics, but from my website it's physically impossible (unless I got rooted) for a user to download my tunes without password. Honestly I do give out the password rather freely, and it's just there to cover my butt.

I fully expect advocates on either side of this issue to interpret the legality differently.

My thinking is:

I'm not making money
The music isn't freely available to the public
It wouldn't be practical for a record company/artist/lawyer to pursue what I'm doing

Feel free to disagree, just my $0.02