The dawn of a new era in music copyright law...
The huge growth of the internet, coupled with ever increasing speeds and bandwidths has made ever more important the issue of laws for downloading music. Downloads are fast, cheap or even free (though sometimes illegally) and save you the hassle of leaving your house to go to a music store. Unfortunately, if you are unlucky and are one of those taking their music from sites that are not legal distributors, then you might find yourself facing charges of copyright infringement.
The laws for downloading music are simple; if you don't hold the copyright for the piece, or a license allowing you to distribute it then you are not allowed to do so. Copyright is the right to make copies, and belongs generally to the artist or to his production company.
The biggest breaker of laws for downloading music are peer to peer (p2p) networks. No licensing exists and most will warn you that you should not use their network to download illegal files. Yet these networks are more than aware that the majority of their users are there to bypass or break the laws for downloading music.
There are also some web sites that offer music downloads, be it on an individual band or artist or a selection of music from a particular genre; they are likely to all be breaking the laws for downloading music. These are unfortunately not the worse of the sites, morally speaking.
Some sites charge subscription fees before letting you access the site. This leads the user to a false sense of security, believing that the site is legitimate and that thus they are abiding by the laws for downloading music. On the contrary, many of these sites are lacking the license that gives them the right to legally distribute the music, and are thus in violation of the laws for downloading music and the user thus may face future trouble because of copyright infringement.
You are also breaking the laws for downloading music if you legally purchase music online, but then burn multiple copies to give to your friends. The laws for downloading music would generally allow you to burn a copy only for personal use, and for back up, but not to give them away.
There are sites that let you take music without breaking the laws for downloading music. They would either be licensed to distribute the music or else are holding only royalty free music that is ok, according to the laws for downloading music, to be given away as long as you hold a royalty free license.
Such sites might carry more unusual music, such as British Alternative Rock, or perhaps Ambient music, for free or for much lower prices than you would pay at other sites but that still abide by the laws for downloading music.
With the vast number of ways that now exist for pirating music, and the ease of doing so with digital tracks, it is easy to even unknowingly break the laws for downloading music-but facing the consequences might not be so easy.
Looking for something else? Try these topics: crowd sounds, restaurant music, presentation music, slideshow music, copyright free music, elevator music, background music
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