Legal Statement
Share Responsibly
File sharing is not illegal so long as you abide by all relevant
copyright laws. Sharing copyrighted material without the permission
to do so is illegal. Click here for important information from the US Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) about the risk and use of P2P software.
allmusicdownloads.com does not condone piracy or breaking copyright
laws. The MP3 sharing tools available on through our members area
are powerful search tools & we recommend that you use your
discretion when downloading music and movie files.
See News.com Article: Federal
Judge Rules: File-swapping tools are legal
Original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical,
artistic, and certain intellectual compositions are protected
by copyright law. If a person publicly performs, reproduces, distributes
copies, or displays works without consent of the copyright owner
could be in violation of the law. Go to http://www.copyright.gov/ and learn more about U.S. copyright law. Purchasing a membership
in allmusicdownloads.com does not give you license to download
or upload copyright material. allmusicdownloads.com implores
you to respect copyright laws and share responsibly.
How can I stay legal?
Stay legal and avoid breaking the law. Quick steps to stay legal:
- Make sure there are no potentially infringing files in your
shared folders - meaning only files that are in the public domain,
for which you have permission to share or are available under
pro-sharing licenses.
- Remove potentially misleading files names that might be confused
with the name of an RIAA artist or song (e.g. "Usher"
or "Madonna") from your shared folder.
- Disable the "sharing" or "uploading" features
on your search program to prevent other users on the network
from getting copies of files on your computer. Music companies
are focused on finding people who share thousands of files on
their computers with the rest of the community. If you don't
share - you reduce the risk.
File sharing has been a hot topic in several
countries around the world. Below are samples of court decisions
from the United States of America, Canada, and the Netherlands.
USA Court Decision
Decentralized File-sharing Tools Ruled Legal
Streamcast and Grokster have won a major court decision in Los
Angeles, shifting the tides of the on-line P2P legal war. Federal
court Judge Stephen Wilson has dismissed much of the studios'
claims in their lawsuits against them, stating that Morpheus and
Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took
place using their software.
See News.com Article: Federal
Judge Rules: File-swapping tools are legal
The ruling stated loud and clear that innovating decentralized
peer-to-peer Gnutella-like software is perfectly legal, and shouldn't
be deemed illegal in the courts. The courts compared the technology
with the innovation of the original Sony videocasette recorder
(VCR).
Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
stated the case is far from over, but that the case sends a "strong
message to the technology community that the court understands
the risk to innovation" the case could represent
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA) offered no comment, but
are of course issuing an appeal to the ruling already. Published
By Mike Darrah - April 25, 2003
Canadian Court Decision
Canada's Federal Court has ruled against a motion which would
have allowed the music industry to begin suing individuals who
make music available on-line. He said that downloading a song
or making files available in shared directories does not constitute
copyright infringement under the current Canadian law.
"Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled Wednesday that the
Canadian Recording Industry Association did not prove there was
copyright infringement by 29 so-called music uploaders. Without
the names, CRIA can't begin filing lawsuits against the alleged
high-volume music traders, identified only as John and Jane Does.
It also reaffirms what the Copyright Board of Canada has already
ruled -- downloading music in this country is not illegal. Von
Finckenstein said that downloading a song or making files available
in shared directories, like those on Kazaa, does not constitute
copyright infringement under the current Canadian law. "No
evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed
or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings," he wrote
in his 28-page ruling. "They merely placed personal copies
into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer
users via a P2P service."
With all of the usual cavets about appeals, this decision makes
it practically impossible to prosecute file sharers in Canada.
von Finkenstein has gone well beyond the idea that downloading
is legal in Canada. By expressly mentioning "merely placing
personal copies into their shared directories" does not constitute
distribution he has blown a huge hole in the arguments which swirled
around the whole question of the legality of uploading in Canada.
(Published April 1, 2004 http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=04/04/01/0411227&mode=thread)
European Court Decision
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has thrown out an appeal
by music industry lobbyists who wanted the popular Kazaa file-sharing
software to be ruled illegal.
The victory for Kazaa, which follows similar US rulings in favour
of peer-to-peer (P2P) software firms Grokster and Morpheus, is
a huge blow to the music industry. It has fought a long battle
to close down file-sharing networks and criminalise the software
that makes file swapping illegal.
The Dutch decision means that the developers of the software
cannot be held responsible for how individuals use it.
(Dinah Greek, vnunet.com 19 Dec 2003, http://www.pcw.co.uk/news/1151673) |
