Q&A: Why is it illegal to download copyrighted MP3s yet legal to acquire them other ways?
Question by bryceguy72: Why is it illegal to download copyrighted MP3s yet legal to acquire them other ways?
If a song plays on TV, you can record it with a Digital Video Recorder. That’s what DVRs are for… they are for recording movies and music, copyrighted or not. Repeat: You are allowed to record COPYRIGHTED intellectual property such as videos and music for personal use. When you record something off the air, you are making an UNLICENSED COPY. This is perfectly legal as long as it’s for personal use.
But instead of recording with a DVR, I can just route the video signal to my computer and record the music video directly to my hard drive. How is that any different? In both cases, I’m making a digital copy of the music.
So if I DVR a song from MTV, it’s legal. If I record with my hard drive, that’s also legal. But if I download that song from the internet, suddenly it’s illegal. But look… the end result is the same: In both cases, I have an unlicensed copy of a song I didn’t pay for.
It gets even worse: YouTube has tons of legal music videos put there by the music companies that make them. With a bare-bones Safari browser (no plug-ins or additional software), you can save any video to your computer for viewing off-line. Is that illegal? And you can upload the music video to your iPod. Is that illegal?
Yeah yeah, I know… I should support the artist and pay for the songs, but this question is not about what we should be doing. This question is about what is legal and illegal. Seems silly that downloading a copyrighted MP3 song for free from the internet is illegal… but downloading it from YouTube or recording it with a DVR is prefectly legal.
In both cases, you’re making an unlicensed digital copy of a copyrighted work and you’re not paying for it. Why is one way legal but the other not? Does illegal necessarily mean immoral or unethical? Seems like this is a very grey area.
Best answer:
Answer by Neil
No, you’re misunderstanding. What’s perfectly legal (and it took a court ruling) is recording for time shift, to watch when you want rather than at the time the TV station decides to air it. They DIDN’T say it was fair use to make a copy for the purpose of keeping it indefinitely and playing it repeatedly. (Yes, we both know people do that, but that’s not what was ruled on.)
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