Yes, but you should do so with earphones. Doing otherwise would constitute a public performance.
You jest, but every year I have to pay the Performing Rights Society in the UK a licence fee (of around £25 per person - about US$50pp) because I and my 3 employees occasionally like to stream internet radio or listen to our own CDs whilst at our workstations. Since this is being done at work, it is legally considered a 'public performance.' It's great, isn't it: The radio stations pay a licence fee to broadcast and I have to pay a licence fee to listen. Even better (worse) is that I buy a CD, including the royalty fee, and pay a royalty again to listen to it. Sheesh.
However, it gets worse: If, on our telephone 'on hold' system, I play music that *I* have written and performed myself and which I can *prove* that I own all the copyrights and intellectual property rights over, I would *still* have to pay the PRS a fee for the right to do so and I wouldn't see a penny piece of that back as my royalty, because it all goes to the big music companies. What a mad world :idontthinkso:
I worked in Music Stores for years. Went to a meeting at BMG in Beverly Hills, where they sat around like fat cats saying the public would always need the brick and mortar stores. This was the beginning of the new tech years and they sat on their duffs while the world passed by.
Now the only way they can make money is from a**hole lawsuits like this.
I have no pity for them, they screwed everybody they could with CD pricing, which was fixed from the beginning. Costs less than burning vinyl.
Let's not forget all the artists they screwed along the way too.
Goodbye Record industry, we don't need or want ya!
Update: This Engadget article states that the lawsuits don't involve ripping, but good old fashioned downloading. Still, even if the Washington Post didn't get it completely right, the quotes from Sony "Rootkit" BMG makes it pretty clear how they feel about consumers, so please, continue to rant, complain, etc. :way to go:
I think we should be more concerned about how the Post got that news so wrong, simply to justify their non-news reporting of the state of the music industry.
And as an e-book author, and knowing that the print industry is carefully studying the music industry to try to figure out how to deal with the similar legal ramifications of e-books, watching the music industry meltdown is disheartening at best. The courts have spent too long looking the other way, and simply choosing not to prosecute bad laws. Now that the RIAA is taking advantage of those old, bad laws, the courts are looking the other way again, and not stepping in to rein in the madness.
This not to say that Thomas or Howell are right in file sharing, because they are not. This is to say that the laws need to keep in step with the times, and these do not.
__________________ Steven Lyle Jordan: Original SF so good, Fox would never put in on the air.
A critical case ... is Elektra v. Barker. In that case, Tenise Barker, a 29-year-old nursing student in the Bronx, moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint for lack of specificity, and on the ground that merely "making available" does not constitute a copyright infringement. In opposing Ms. Barker's motion, the RIAA argued that "making available" is indeed a copyright infringement. - RIAA entry
Hmmm...by that logic, public libraries infringe on copyrights every time they loan out a music CD. I wonder if any public library system makes its records (documentation, not vinyl) publicly available as to how many times CDs are loaned out, in total, over any given length of time. If the RIAA won this case, they could easily go after libraries (and by extension, local governments) for each and every instance of a music CD being loaned out.
Now, libraries in my area typically loan out CDs for three weeks at a time. For simplicity's sake, we'll ignore the facts that a CD can be returned before its due date, or can also be renewed. Based on that, a given CD could be loaned out just over 17 times in the course of a year. In the Wikipedia article, it mentions that the RIAA's actual damages per song (according to one lawsuit) would be about 70 cents - the "prevailing wholesale price of a download". Obviously, in the case of libraries loaning out CDs, they could get around this, using the following argument:
- Loaning a CD, even from a public library, is "making available" each song on that disc for sharing, copying, et al.
- Each time a CD is loaned out constitutes a separate instance of "making available".
- The borrower could make an indefinite number of copies of each song, potentially making copies from copies in perpetuity, however for this argument we'll limit the liability of the library to ten copies per song, per loan period.
- An average CD may contain somewhere around 10 songs, so (again for simplicity) we'll just say 10 songs per disc.
- As previously mentioned, with three week loan periods, a CD can be loaned 17 times per year.
See where this is going?
10 copies per song x 10 songs per disc = 100 song-copies per loan period.
100 song-copies x 17 loan-periods per year = 1700 liable infringements per disc, per year.
1700 infringements x 70 cents damages per infringement = $1190 per CD, per year.
How many CDs does YOUR local library have in relatively heavy circulation?
Now...admittedly, the above example seems pretty unlikely NOW...but what happens when the RIAA sees smaller record labels and distributors drop off their membership rolls, a few at a time, and they start getting desperate for funds? Where will they stop? Libraries? Car stereo manufacturers that include standard audio inputs? Auto makers for building vehicles with passenger seats, allowing more than one individual to LISTEN to a song at once? Any ISP which doesn't actively block users' access to known filesharing sites/programs/torrents? (hello, net neutrality...oh, sorry...different rant there. )
I think the next few years will see an almost exponential increase in lawsuits from the RIAA, until they're only being supported by two or three major labels (and few, if any minor ones). At which point they'll begin to fade into obscurity.
Ten years from now, the RIAA will be virtually defunct, consisting only of Metallica, who will suffer in denial, right up until they see the foreclosure notice on the door of the RIAA main office.
The music industry is dead!
Long live local music scenes!
Hmmm...by that logic, public libraries infringe on copyrights every time they loan out a music CD.
Not really. In point of fact, libraries don't "loan out CDs" as if they just bought it at the local store and are now giving it away. They pay an additional fee to cover the potential of multiple listeners, and they are granted by copyright licence the right to loan out the CD. Therefore, they are breaking no laws.
However, if you borrow a CD at your library (and if you do, you will probably have your attention brought to the fact that it is illegal to copy or redistribute that CD), and you make copies, you are violating copyright restrictions (even if you do not redistribute your copy). Also, if you did not return the CD, for whatever reason, you would likely be held liable for that copy and charged for it, to cover the costs required for the library to replace it (and possibly a fine besides).
__________________ Steven Lyle Jordan: Original SF so good, Fox would never put in on the air.
Well, I thought they might have SOME kind of permission like that, but still...the whole point was to show how absurd the RIAA's logic can be. Incidentally, though, I've NEVER had a library employee point out anything about it being illegal to copy music CDs (though of course, I've NEVER done such a thing with borrowed CDs :roll: ). They've never said anything verbally, handed out any pamphlets, pointed to any sign...there's no sign posted near the CDs themselves, nothing on the library doors. In fact, the only place I've EVER seen anything mentioned about it being illegal is on the CDs themselves (and not even all of those), which would be on those same CDs, whether they were from a library or not.
Now...all that said, the libraries could STILL get sued by the RIAA, for not attempting to do anything to prevent or discourage copying. Hell, they've used that tactic against filesharing software makers, whose primary purpose is to allow users to share files however they want. They aren't even providing the material themselves, whereas the libraries ARE! And I'm sure, there's probably some stipulation in the license/permit/whatever that libraries get, indemnifying them against lawsuits by the RIAA for anything other than copying the CDs right there in the library. Again, my point is just to show the RIAA's outrageous logic (or lack thereof).
**edit**
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Also, if you did not return the CD, for whatever reason, you would likely be held liable for that copy and charged for it, to cover the costs required for the library to replace it (and possibly a fine besides).
Not exactly sure what you mean by "held liable". If you're talking about being held liable for potential copies, then not likely. If you mean having to pay for the CD itself, then of course. Most libraries around here, when it comes to lost or otherwise "unreturned" materials, they usually drop any fees or fines incurred, and just charge you for the cost of the item.
However, they make a point of charging what the original MSRP price of the item, as of whenever it first came out, rather than what they actually paid for it. Nowadays, that's not a HUGE issue, as most CDs would be MSRP priced no higher than $20 and typically sold for $15 or less...DVDs MSRP'd at $30, typically selling for $20 on initial release, and $5-10 a few years later. But 15 years ago, if a video had come out ten years prior, and was currently selling for $15-20, when it originally came out, it might have been $100-150. Guess which price they'd have charged. (okay, okay...off topic, I know...still...)
Re: RIAA Goes After People For Ripping Legally Purchased CDs
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