Music piracy

podge018

Has anybody in Ireland ever been charged with illegally downloading music?

axer

podge018 wrote: »

Has anybody in Ireland ever been charged with illegally downloading music?

I don't know of any cases in the world where someone has been charged with illegally downloading music except when they are redistributing it.

podge018

Cheers, thanks.

seamus

In this country at least, downloading music isn't in itself specifically illegal. It's only illegal if you listen to the downloaded content (or otherwise "publish" it). This is why the comapnies involved go for those who are redistributing music to others in breach of copyright.

RobbieMc

http://www.cnet.com.au/software/music/0,239025669,339282601,00.htm

Well read this then.
Yes peole have been caught and brought to court. this poor woman was in the news a few weeks ago

Rob

axer

RobbieMc wrote: »

http://www.cnet.com.au/software/music/0,239025669,339282601,00.htm

Well read this then.
Yes peole have been caught and brought to court. this poor woman was in the news a few weeks ago

Rob

Well you have either not read the OP's post or the article as the OP is talking about DOWNLOADING music - not sharing or re-distributing music.

grumpytrousers

the illegality in ireland isn't the downloading, per se, rather it's the distribution of copyrighted works that aren't yours to distribute, and so that catches some/all the file sharing utilities. If I fire up Bit Torrent and try and get a hold of the new Springsteen album and it's spread into, say 5000 itty bitty chunks, as soon as my the first chunk has landed on my harddrive, and while it's not yet listenable to, it's now available, (and this is how torrents work, right?), for somebody else who needs that chunk to upload from me.

Bang. At that point, i'm making something that ain't mine available for distribution, and I'm breaking the law.

I'm not so sure about the likes of limewire. Part of me always wondered that if you emptied out the directory into which stuff downloads by default such that you're NEVER in a position to share with anybody, that you'd be technically off the radar, but perhaps those who know more about those kind of utilities might have more insight.

to the OP i'd say, just 'cos somebody hasn't been done for illegal downloading yet doesn't mean it won't happen. A cursory look at the state of the music industry today speaks volumes. Due to their own folly, and the advancement of other forms of entertainment, the amount of disposable income the music industry takes in is plumetting; they need their scapegoat and 'pirates' will do.

the morals and ethics of illegal downloading are for a different forum. Be careful - the chances are that if the music industry, the RIAA, whoever the hell decided to have a pop at somebody here, the legal team they'd get together would be pretty impressive...

Pines

I hate to be a party pooper, but ...

Downloading a piece of copyright music when you have no permission (i.e. haven't paid for it and it's not public domain) is illegal, even if you don't ever redistribute or make it available for redistribution. The Copyright & Related Rights Act 2000 prohibits unauthorized copying of a work, and section 39 clarifies —
(1) References in this Part to copying shall be construed as including references to all or any of the following, namely:

(a) in relation to any work—

(i) storing the work in any medium,

(ii) the making of copies which are transient or incidental to some other use of the work;

So even if you only streamed and played a song live, you would be making a transient or incidental copy in your computer's memory, and that would be an infringing act.

Doesn't mean you'll be prosecuted (copying without redistribution is not normally an offence, but you could be pursued for damages and delivery up of a copied library of music, if the owner thought it worthwhile).

Tom Young

Where is the charge accruing?

Our man in Havana

How do services such as rapidshare etc fare in the eyes of the law?

DublinDilbert

From memory the people last year who got the letters from IMRO saying that legal proceedings would be taken, were not for downloading but for having copyright music available for download by others...

It looks like IMRO had some sort of script that would go out and see what IP-adresses had bit-torrent ports open, then see what files were available for download...

I did think that it was a weak case legally, just cause they had a list of files available on a PC for download, it doesn't mean its copy righted material... they were inferring that based on the ID3 tags on the files being shared that i appeared to be copyrighted material...

jonny68

Well ive been using Slsk for years now and have downloaded thousands upon thousands of MP3's & albums,etc and not a problem, then again i don't download any cheesy pop or much rock it's primarily dance music or chill out,they are probably just targeting people who download commerical pop and rock music whereas i more often than not go for underground type of material.

Krieg

Has anybody in Ireland ever been charged with illegally downloading music?

Short answer : No
Nobody in Ireland has been arrested for downloading (yet)

But, I distinctly remember about 2+years ago, some school kids got caught. They uploaded a few gigabytes of music and movies (Cant remember where this was). They used FTP server to distribute the material.
Not sure how exactly they got caught, but they ended up in court before the judge and were fined something like 2K each.

So If you were an Irish citzen concerned about being caught for downloading - Don't Be . However If you wanted to upload material, then I would suggest you be careful about it and use proxies etc. Especially if you were making money from it.

Also, as some extra info. Those who download torrents are much more easily caught then those who use the likes of say.. Rapidshare

How do services such as rapidshare etc fare in the eyes of the law?

I love how rapidshare use the grey side of the law so beautifully
Everyone knows that 99% of the material on RS is warez, but they can still put on a pretty face and say "We are against piracy *bla* *bla* *bla*, Look! we employ a person to search around for copyrighted material on RS and delete them, we are a file host, Not a piracy org! *Snigger*"

97i9y3941

personally i think if some people admit to it in chatrooms or bring their comps into get repaired and leaving the evidence on their comps they deserve to get caught,its carelessness at the highest

Tom Young

There were 29 summons issued by the Kelly J from the commercial court in 2005/2006 to disclose music rights infringers.

- By the way most of them were against corporate undertakings which was rather embarrassing for the companies and staff in question.

Currently there is a case listed for January 2009 which is Music Rights v eircom limited. Where the 'donkey' music rights holders are pleading the same old krud which was pleaded in a case called Sabam v Tiscali SpA or 'Scarlett'.

A brief summary is that Sabam claimed, as is the case with the music rights holder in the currently set-down case in Ireland, that software called Audible Magic can block 100% of music downloads from Telecom/ISP networks. Recently the judge in the Scarlett case ruled that Sabam had mislead the court and that Audible Magic was not in fact the only software in the world capable of blocking and indeed software may not be able to control various NAT traversal packages and the like.

TJ has written a lot about it: www.tjmcinyre.com

Tom

maidhc

There have been a number of settlements between individuals and "IRMA", I know of one which involved very ordinary people. The Gardai have bigger fish to fry than worry about the Music Industry's business model, so no one has ever been charged with anything.

Following people who "make available" music was done due to the fact it is easier to gather evidence of it. It is just as illegal to download it.

Anthony Lynch

In my Community Centre we had a radio in the Kitchen for people who were serving tea to listen to. One day a guy from IRMA walked in and told us that as we were a public building and ''That you are playing for an audience, and if you want to continue you must pay an annual subscription fee of €2,000, remove the radio or face court proceedings.'' So if someone walks in to the kitchen for a few minutes, to ask for some tea etc, it counts as ''playing for an audience''!

More to the point, I sometimes download music, but then if I like the tracks I buy the album as a CD or on iTunes. I don't think I do anything wrong! In fact it's in the recording industries to interest interest consumers like me in their music.

I think that ''IRMA'' is a little to heavy handed, as well as the RIAA. I believe that if you show that you have purchased a CD or DVD of the song or film that you downloaded, after the fact, it shouldn't be illegal.

BTW, apparently watching clips from TV shows or music videos on YouTube is illegal. If you think about it most of the things I do on the internet today are illegal!

Any takers on my form of morality?

Tom Young

Anthony Lynch wrote: »

In my Community Centre we had a radio in the Kitchen for people who were serving tea to listen to. One day a guy from IRMA walked in and told us that as we were a public building and ''That you are playing for an audience, and if you want to continue you must pay an annual subscription fee of €2,000, remove the radio or face court proceedings.'' So if someone walks in to the kitchen for a few minutes, to ask for some tea etc, it counts as ''playing for an audience''!

More to the point, I sometimes download music, but then if I like the tracks I buy the album as a CD or on iTunes. I don't think I do anything wrong! In fact it's in the recording industries to interest interest consumers like me in their music.

I think that ''IRMA'' is a little to heavy handed, as well as the RIAA. I believe that if you show that you have purchased a CD or DVD of the song or film that you downloaded, after the fact, it shouldn't be illegal.

BTW, apparently watching clips from TV shows or music videos on YouTube is illegal. If you think about it most of the things I do on the internet today are illegal!

Any takers on my form of morality?

A kitchen is not a public place;

Paying via iTunes is not in breach of the law;

You might think that, but the statute and Acts (same thing) say otherwise. So it is illegal, unless you can prove otherwise (hearsay included!!!); and

If you think you are really committing Copyright fraud or theft, you should, without hesitation, go directly to your local Garda Station and report same.

Be insistant that you have committed a crime [you are unlikely to be taken seriously], and indeed remember that also if you happen to have some 'dodgy box' (recently malfunctioning Blackbox you got from an unknown mate in your living room to report that too). You might be lucky and get away with a minor custodial sentence.

Tom

PS: Morality -
Pay for what you get.
Be prosecuted for what you steal.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Ignorantia juris non excusat

Nick_oliveri

Hmm the same could be said for most unpaid(for) images that are signatures or avatars on boards.ie. Wont someone please think of the photographers?

Tom Young

Yeah, that's like that latest crap from the BBC or UK Govt saying a content filter for the Internet will work! Give me a break.

If you're a photographer, be selective. Sell your pics for cash. Otherwise, there's always McDonalds. X-Factor etc.

Nick_oliveri

My sarcasm is not working.And you seem to be drunk :pac:.
I think the whole things a sham, abd tbh it seems that its only there to help the big corporations. See my thread in humanities (shameless bumpage)

Anthony Lynch

Tom Young wrote: »

A kitchen is not a public place;

Paying via iTunes is not in breach of the law;

You might think that, but the statute and Acts (same thing) say otherwise. So it is illegal, unless you can prove otherwise (hearsay included!!!); and

If you think you are really committing Copyright fraud or theft, you should, without hesitation, go directly to your local Garda Station and report same.

Be insistant that you have committed a crime [you are unlikely to be taken seriously], and indeed remember that also if you happen to have some 'dodgy box' (recently malfunctioning Blackbox you got from an unknown mate in your living room to report that too). You might be lucky and get away with a minor custodial sentence.

Tom

PS: Morality -
Pay for what you get.
Be prosecuted for what you steal.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Ignorantia juris non excusat

Perhaps I didn't make my self clear on one point: what I don't think is wrong is sampling (ie. downloading) tracks from an album on-line, and then buying the album on iTunes or CD afterwards.

Interesting enough, I yesterday checked my music collection on my computer and there are only two songs which I didn't actually buy at some point, and those were soundtracks for films in the sixties! James Bond actually! I downloaded them on the legal site.

Ignorantia juris non excusat

Intersting point, what if the site mislead you into thinking it was a legal site? It would be interesting to find out if there was any record of a site doing that.

Does anyone know the legalities of that?

PS. I know this doesn't exactly abide by the point of this tread, but it is a copyright law question: What is the legal status of sites like watch-movies.net (which interestingly enough stopped working for me!) or 66stage.com?

Fighting Irish

RobbieMc wrote: »

http://www.cnet.com.au/software/music/0,239025669,339282601,00.htm

Well read this then.
Yes peole have been caught and brought to court. this poor woman was in the news a few weeks ago

Rob

she was stupid