a question on legality

[DBR_ONIX]

Going back a bit..
If you put, say, 30 seconds of a song in, and the person who woulnd't have listened to the track normaly, turns out to like the song.. Theres a higher chance of them buying the CD, than if they never heard it because the person who made the mission didn't put it in..
It's like a advert that you don't have to pay anyone for..
And as you've not used the whole of the song, it's unlikely someones gonna, erm, unpbo the mission and listen to 1/4 of a song..

And contrdicting myself, , technicly converting a CD to mp3 without permission (Or any other format..) is illegal.. I'm almost 100% sure..
Which is a little weird considering the ammount of MP3 players aroudn these days

- Ben

[General Barron]

And contrdicting myself, , technicly converting a CD to mp3 without permission (Or any other format..) is illegal.. I'm almost 100% sure..
Which is a little weird considering the ammount of MP3 players aroudn these days

No, I don't think that is correct. It is legal to convert it to some other format, and listen to that on your computer/ipod/whatever, as long as you don't distribute the music to others. Distribution is the key word, I believe. So as long as you paid for it, you can do whatever you want with the song.... as long as you don't distribute it to other people. Kinda like it is legal to make a burnt backup-copy of software (well, this really only happened back with floppy discs), but it is illegal to give that burnt copy to someone else.

[DBR_ONIX]

So what happens if you let someone else listen to it? or via a speaker..?

I still serverly doubt a record company/artist will complain though, unless your making a LOT of money from it (Well, relative to how much most misison take )
- Ben

[Kuro]

Playing it is no problem. The key word is really distributing.  This means if you air it, put it on your website, give your friends burned versions. And you are in trouble.

But concerning OFP. For most countries it is okay to use 30 sec. And by the way most lawyers are busy chasing the P2P, edonkey, emule... users so they can do not worry about playing OFP. In the worst chase you will get a "nice" letter from the record company including a high penalty as motivation if you not change your mission.  Then you delete/ replace the music.

Greetings
Kuro

[Tyger]

so, Kuro,
are you giving us flat our permission until the consequences below happen, or are you saying the moderators will "look the other way" if we use these files in our missions?

Cheers, Tyger

[djackl]

Playing it is no problem. The key word is really distributing.  This means if you air it, put it on your website, give your friends burned versions. And you are in trouble.

Surely though, since in fact these mission files can be de-pboed, then it is relatively easy to construe making a mission of this type as a method of actually 'distributing' the music? Because once the file is depboed then the music is there for you to listen to outside of the mission isnt it?

[Nemesis6]

Well, I don't think the author's goons will ever be playing OFP, so I wouldn't worry. But I've wondered about this, too... and, to tell you the truth, I ignored it. But I haven't released any missions.... yet! *rubs hands in an evil manner*

[KTottE]

We will not look the other way when you are discussing and actually promoting carrying out something illegal, I.E using copyright protected music in your missions.

As for missions submitted to the missions depot I can't say. Hopefully the reviewers will halt missions that have obvious copyright protected songs in them, if we prevent copyright protected material coming onto OFPEC we don't have to worry about pulling it down if/when someone calls us on it.

We do have quite a few resources on OFPEC however, and even if we impose new routines with the new submissions it's going to be heaps of work going through the existing stuff.

My recommendation: Talk to the artist and ask for permission, or get hold of copyright free music.

[Tyger]

a wise decision at the least, KTottE, and many artists will be kind, if you can get a hold of them.  

[Kaliyuga]

§ 1101. Unauthorized fixation and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos

 This is the statute that relates to this issue.

(a) Unauthorized Acts. â€" Anyone who, without the consent of the performer or performers involved

(1) fixes the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance in a copy or phonorecord, or reproduces copies or phonorecords of such a performance from an unauthorized fixation,

(2) transmits or otherwise communicates to the public the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance, or

(3) distributes or offers to distribute, sells or offers to sell, rents or offers to rent, or traffics in any copy or phonorecord fixed as described in paragraph (1), regardless of whether the fixations occurred in the United States,

shall be subject to the remedies provided in sections 502 through 505, to the same extent as an infringer of copyright.

(b) Definition. â€" As used in this section, the term "traffic in" means transport, transfer, or otherwise dispose of, to another, as consideration for anything of value, or make or obtain control of with intent to transport, transfer, or dispose of.

(c)...

(d) State Law Not Preempted. â€" Nothing in this section may be construed to annul or limit any rights or remedies under the common law or statutes of any State.



 If you really want to know all about copyright you can read all the statutes here:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

 I had to read them all for a music business class a while back..
:cheers:

[KTottE]

Technically, since the OFPEC server is in Sweden, swedish law applies. But it also forbids distributing copyrighted material so it's a moot point .

[KJAM]

Heres a Question IF a person who has made music files, Allows a website to host his music available to anyone (i.e you dont have to log into the site to get access) would using this in a mission be a breach of copyright, i am int he process of contactiong the maker, which has do be done via a middleman [insert long explanation here] but i would like to know

[C0LDSt33L]

I would imagine you would need written permission from the maker to distrubute his stuff unless his site says that you are able to use it how you like.

[Triggerhappy]

i have an idea...
to stop people from unpbo-ing a mission and taking the song, you could split the song into 2 or more sound files that will play one right after the other
it would probably be fairly easy for someone who knows what they are doing to make a program that would do this for you as well...
but that would be a significant barrier for those who arent familiar with sound editing

and of course you should still ask the creator of the music for permission and credit them and all that

there's my 2 cents

[bored_onion]

see it as downloading music without permission is illegal in the first place, you aren't doing much more by allowing everyone else to download it through your mission, are you?