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02007-03-07 | Copyright, Internet, Music | 2 comments

shelina_p comments:
You know unless they are making money off of the music they put up, there is really nothing you can do, they will make new blogs and put them up for download again and again. You really don’t have a case at all, you can go ahead and waste your time getting them shut down, but it will solve nothing. And they can’t be sued UNLESS like I said they are actually charging money for doing all that.

First of all, I didn’t have them shut down. I simply wrote them an email asking to remove my albums and received a very nice reply after which my albums were removed from the site. Apparently the people running the site then decided that they should make visitors sign-in to enter. I assume the site is still there, is still sharing files, but no longer my albums.

You are very wrong, Shelina. It is irrelevant whether you sell the music files or give them away.

Wikipedia:
Although file sharing is a legal technology with legal uses, many users use it to download and upload copyrighted materials without permission, which can be copyright infringement if done without authorization for improper purposes. This has led to attacks against file sharing in general from many copyright owners.

The music in question doesn’t belong to me in the strict sense. While I own the writing and half the publishing I don’t own the copyright for the masters. That is owned by Sony Music or EMI depending on the album. They did not give permission for the uploads, therefore the downloads are illegal.

Let me put it this way. It is fair use to photocopy one page of a book and share that with friends, or quote it on a blog, but it is not OK to scan a whole book and give it away to anyone and everyone.

2 Comments

  1. Jay R

    I saw the original blogspot site. It looked to me that they were pretty enthusiastic about World music and looking to share that enthusiasm via the blog. It didn’t seem to be a “pirate” effort- just the expression of a fan. Keep in mind that someone who wants to share his or her enthusiasm about music doesn’t have very much to work with- the written word doesn’t do justice to even the smallest low-bit-rate clip. And people have a strong drive to share art with others when that art makes them happy. Perhaps those who have a stake in recordings would do well to create tools for people to share their personal enthusiasm- just as some TV and movie stakeholders are doing by placing their videos on YouTube and encouraging people to embed them in their blogs.

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