Does the recording have to come from your own album, or can you download a copy from LimeWire, which provides access to a whole world of legal and illegal content? After all, you have paid for the right to hear the song does it matter where your specific copy comes from?

Suppose you have a vinyl record and you want to hear it on your iPod. Essentially, the ruling said that people could record copyrighted material for personal, noncommercial use.īut that’s where it gets tricky. Universal City Studios, known as the Betamax case. But what is fair to do without the copyright holder’s permission? The legal precedent that lets people transfer CDs to their iPods was established in Sony Corporation of America v. The legal concept regarding copying is called fair use. People can take advantage of these gaps with little fear of a lawsuit, but they will have to keep abreast of legal developments to make sure they remain on the right side of the line. Because the law tends to lag behind the technological advances, there are gray areas where free music, while not clearly legal, is not clearly illegal. Such uncertainty may work in the favor of fans of free music. “They are cashing our checks, and that is all we feel like we can do for now,” he said.

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