peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin) (11/04/84)
Regarding the comments below, I believe Andy is incorrect.
The current copyright law allows any copying of audio material for
non-commerical use -- even if you make 20 cassettes of a record and send
them to all your friends for Christmas. What is illegal is *commercial*
use -- you may not charge for such a copy. The courts have pretty
consistently held to this interpretation of the law. Over the past few
years the music publishing industry has lobbied strongly to get the law
changed, but so far they have not succeeded. Last year, their efforts
to do so were the subject of a lively discussion in this newsgroup.
{philabs,cmcl2!rocky2}!cubsvax!peters Dr. Peter S. Shenkin
Dept of Biol. Sci.; Columbia Univ.; New York, N. Y. 10027; 212-280-5517
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>>From <696@ihuxa.UUCP> :
>
> "i'm in the market for both a vcr and a new tape deck ... i
> would be using a tape deck to copy a friend's extensive compact
> disc collection ..."
>
>>From <2972@teklabs.UUCP> :
>
> "I have yet to record any of my friend Jimmy's CD stuff, but it
> is on the schedule."
>
>Remember that CDs are copyrighted; to copy someone else's CD for your
>use is to commit theft. You're taking intellectual property without
>providing compensation, and reducing the return to the artist and
>his/her motivation to continue to make recordings.
>
>I believe that you can legally copy your own CDs for your own use, as
>this falls under the "back-up copies" clause. There are some who
>disagree with this interpretation.
>
>In an industry which is so sensitive to copyright violations with
>computer software, I'm surprised that multiple people seem to feel no
>qualms about ripping off music.
>
> -- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!orca!andrew) [UUCP]
> (orca!andrew.tektronix@rand-relay) [ARPA]
>
>ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (11/09/84)
Peter Shenkin claims that non-commercial copying of copyrighted material is legal. I'm afraid I must disagree. A number of years ago, Computing Surveys wrote a long article about the then-new copyright law. To give an idea of how stringent the law is, it gave the following example: The chorus director of a church bought copies of a book of hymns for use by his chorus. While rehearsing for a performance, he realized that the arrangements in this book were not well suited for his particular singers, so he re-arranged one of the hymns and used this re-arrangement in the performance. Subsequently, he sent a letter to the publisher of the book telling them that he had done this new arrangement and offering to give it to them in case they wanted to publish it in a subsequent edition of the book. The publisher responded by suing him for copyright infringement. They won. The illegal activity in this case was in making a new arrangement of the copyrighted music in the book. An arrangement or translation is considered a copy. It did not matter that no commercial use was made of the copy. It did not matter that no photocopies were made of the book. It did not matter that the chorus director offered to GIVE this copy to the original copyright holder. All that mattered was that a copy was made of copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder.
peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin) (11/14/84)
I believe that what I have said has aways been true of recorded
material -- at least as far as making copies of record to cassettes.
Perhaps also it makes a difference if the use is personal, rather
than public.
Copyright law -- like most law -- tends to be arcane, and what pertains
to books may not pertain to sound recordings, or computer programs.
Of course, the other question is what the law SHOULD be -- the ethical
basis.
{philabs,cmcl2!rocky2}!cubsvax!peters Dr. Peter S. Shenkin
Dept of Biol. Sci.; Columbia Univ.; New York, N. Y. 10027; 212-280-5517ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (11/16/84)
> I believe that what I have said has aways been true of recorded > material -- at least as far as making copies of record to cassettes. > Perhaps also it makes a difference if the use is personal, rather > than public. > You aren't even allowed to play your original copies of records in public, let alone the cassettes, lest Mr. Ascap come and throw you in jail. -Ron