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.
free-music-downloads.cc 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 free-music-downloads.cc does not
give you license to download or upload copyright
material. free-music-downloads.cc 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)
