What is the legal position with mp3s on your h/d?

Eza · Post by **Eza** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:54 am

http://www.mcps.co.uk/anti-piracy/

it's strange, i always assumed you could copy your cds to mp3, store them on your h/d for playing out on your laptop or whatever.

according to the Performing Rights Society where you obtain a licence to play music, it states you can play from the original cd but if you copy to your h/d to save your collection (or carting it about) it's infringing copyright and is not covered.

any ideas how you get round this. is it a major issue that someone would report you? seems a bit OTT, especially is this day and age.

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:42 am

it depends the country you are living . but most of the time you need a licence to record any audio materials.

bod · Post by **bod** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:05 pm

i guess it also depends on where they came from. if you bought them, then its cool, but if they are aquired from P2P or such like, then i guess it falls under the copyright thing.

anyway, its not just mp3's, any copied audio recording is illegal in theory, mp3 is just a format after all.

Eza · Post by **Eza** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:23 pm

sorry, it's UK law.

they're not acquired from p2p, they're bought on cd. but for mixing purposes (traktor, live, etc) i transfer them to mp3 on my laptop hard drive.

but according to PRS, that is an infringement of copyright and illegal.

i may have missed something important that's why i'vve asked if anyone knows the deal with this.

cope · Post by **cope** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:05 pm

Eza wrote:sorry, it's UK law.

they're not acquired from p2p, they're bought on cd. but for mixing purposes (traktor, live, etc) i transfer them to mp3 on my laptop hard drive.

but according to PRS, that is an infringement of copyright and illegal.

i may have missed something important that's why i'vve asked if anyone knows the deal with this.

Under norwegian law, you are allowed to make a personal copy of any music you own, in any format you'd like. You are also allowed to give a copy to your friends / family!

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 1:14 pm

I don't think you've missed anything. In UK law any copying of audio files is considered a copyright infringement. While "time shifting" (e.g. recording radio programmes so you can listen to them at a more convenient time) is allowed, "media shifting" (e.g. copying CDs so you can listen to them on your laptop) is not.

There is apparently an SG5 licence costing around £500 (presumably per year) from PRS/MCPS that will allow you to copy your CDs to WAVs/MP3s for DJing from your laptop.

However, I understand that if the PRS/MCPS catch you playing WAVs/MP3s without such a license, but you can prove you own the original CDs, they won't take any further action (or at least that apparently used to be the case).

I wonder if copying CDs that you own so that you can play them on your laptop would be considered "fair dealing" (an exclusion under UK copyright law). Unfortunately "fair dealing" doesn't seem to be defined anywhere, so it would probably need a case to be tried to define it by precedent. Any volunteers? No, I thought not...

If you purchase MP3s from an online service and play them out as MP3s, you ought to be OK. Such services do say that you can only use the files for "personal, non-commercial use" but BeatPort qualifies this by saying you can do anything with them you could do with a CD (and that CDs typically have similar small print).

However, if you convert such MP3s to WAVs for use in Live, you're probably back to square one, as that would in all likelihood be considered copying... (although BeatPort *do* specifically allow this).