Multimedia Legal Questions??

[presbp]

I have a couple multimedia legal questions

1) I have heard that playing or doing anything with mp3s in Linux is illegal. Is this true??

2) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a program like Audacity to edit a song you have purchased as long as you don't redistribute it in anyway? Like for instance if I want to make a video and I edit a song I have purchased and place it along w/ the video is that legal?

3) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a song you have purchased and put it in with a video you made and post it on a website such as youtube or google?

Why are all these media copyrights and stuff like that so vague.. are they just TRYING to get people in trouble?

[IYY]

1) I have heard that playing or doing anything with mp3s in Linux is illegal. Is this true??

It's not exactly true. In countries other than the US, it certainly is not true, and you can legally play and encode MP3s and even DVDs. I am not sure about the exact legal status in the US (playing DVDs is illegal over there, though). However, I can guarantee that you will not get into any trouble if you enable MP3 playback on your machine, no matter where you live.


2) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a program like Audacity to edit a song you have purchased as long as you don't redistribute it in anyway? Like for instance if I want to make a video and I edit a song I have purchased and place it along w/ the video is that legal?

If you put it on the web, it's technically illegal, even though sites like YouTube seem to do little about it. If you only do it for fun at home, it's legal.


3) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a song you have purchased and put it in with a video you made and post it on a website such as youtube or google?

Technically, no, it's not legal.


Why are all these media copyrights and stuff like that so vague.. are they just TRYING to get people in trouble?

They're trying to get people to stop being creative with music and act like quiet little consumers. It's much easier for the music companies if music is a product rather than art.

[az]

I have a couple multimedia legal questions

1) I have heard that playing or doing anything with mp3s in Linux is illegal. Is this true??

2) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a program like Audacity to edit a song you have purchased as long as you don't redistribute it in anyway? Like for instance if I want to make a video and I edit a song I have purchased and place it along w/ the video is that legal?

3) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a song you have purchased and put it in with a video you made and post it on a website such as youtube or google?

Why are all these media copyrights and stuff like that so vague.. are they just TRYING to get people in trouble?


1- AFAIK, the mp3 codec is patented and there are royalties to pay to use it, but you are entitled to download and install the mp3 codec for free if you use it for personal, non-commercial uses.
2- That is fine. The rights reserved by copyright do not cover that. If that were the case, playing the song backwards would also be illegal.

[MissionImpossible]

1- AFAIK, the mp3 codec is patented and there are royalties to pay to use it, but you are entitled to download and install the mp3 codec for free if you use it for personal, non-commercial uses.
2- That is fine. The rights reserved by copyright do not cover that. If that were the case, playing the song backwards would also be illegal.


The following info and links might provide some further clarification:


Fedora Releases Feature - CodecBuddy (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureCodecBuddy)


Summary

Fedora does not, and will not, ship Free but patent encumbered or non-free codecs in its distribution. However, that does not change the fact that some Fedora users still want to be able to use these types of files on their machine.

Fedora 8 is going to offer a solution to users via codeina.

codeina is now available in Rawhide. Installing it is enough to get Totem to launch codeina when an unsupported codec is being used, or the container is unknown.

[....]

There are repositories out there which offer this support right now, but as a United States based organization, it might be illegal for us to even give the name of these repositories because of potential contributory infringement claims. So, unless you are a savvy user who knows how to find this software (and also doesn't mind installing software that might be illegal in your geographical location), you are left with a large usability hole in your Fedora installation.

This feature is an attempt to fix that usability hole in a legal way, while not including any non-free code in Fedora itself.

-----------

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EasyCodecInstallation



From openSUSE-Community (http://opensuse-community.org/Multimedia)

Multimedia
There are several multimedia formats that cannot be included on the openSUSE CDs because they're proprietary, patented, Restricted Formats). Some of these include MP3, DiVX, playing of Encrypted DVDs, etc. In many cases you can use free and open-source implementations instead. Below we'll go through a few of these:
------------------

From openSUSE: Restricted Format (http://en.opensuse.org/Restricted_Formats)s [Good legal info at this page!]

Warning
Do not add external links to software packages that contain illegal software. Since openSUSE is sponsored by Novell, this means "illegal" in any jurisdiction that Novell carries on business.

Legal restrictions prevent various packages and formats openSUSE users frequently request to be included in openSUSE from being distributed. This page is intended to be an explanation as to the reasons and issues that surround these packages and formats that prevent their inclusion and/or distribution by openSUSE.

openSUSE supports the use of Free/Libre Open Source Software. The retail version of SUSE may include additional packages that have been licensed by Novell for distribution.

The software that may not be distributed by openSUSE is the following:

* Proprietary software
* Patent-encumbered software
* Any software that violates the laws governing software distribution in any jurisdiction Novell conducts business in.

Some proprietary software and drivers may be available from their respective owners and licensed vendors.

http://en.opensuse.org/Restricted_Formats

[Kvark]

1) I have heard that playing or doing anything with mp3s in Linux is illegal. Is this true??
MP3 is patented in the US so it is illegal in the US to provide a product with MP3 support without paying patent royalties but it is legal to download such a product for personal use without paying royalties so normal users have nothing to worry about. Some distros pay the royalties while some supply the codecs out of the box without paying and hope the patent holders won't bother suing them, they've been lucky so far. Formats that are patented in the US are entirely legal in other countries unless they are patented there too but in most of the world it's impossible to patent mathematical concepts such as computer software algorithms.

Cracking DRM such as for example cracking the encryption on DVDs with DeCSS to play them on Linux is illegal in countries with DMCA like anti circumvention laws but legal in countries that still enjoy fair use rights.

2) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a program like Audacity to edit a song you have purchased as long as you don't redistribute it in anyway? Like for instance if I want to make a video and I edit a song I have purchased and place it along w/ the video is that legal?
Copyright only restricts redistribution and public display so that is legal as long as you keep it to yourself or maybe at the most show to a few friends (a few, not a whole bunch of party guests) at your place.

3) Does anyone know if it is legal to use a song you have purchased and put it in with a video you made and post it on a website such as youtube or google?
That is illegal. You'd have to either find a song that has been released under a license that allows you to do that or ask the copyright holder for permission.

[Dimitriid]

You forget to mention that last one as being illegal IN THE US only too, in my country for example there is no crime being committed for copyrighted material EVER if there is not "commercial speculation" which in our legal terms translates as actual money. So nothing I copy ( even hard copies of movies ) and redistribute for free all I want is breaking any laws unless its proven that I am
obtaining money from it.

I can copy, modify and redistribute any song and any piece of software all I want and I am not breaking any laws. Downloading and obtaining copyrighted software without paying for example, is completely legal.

[pedrotuga]

IYY, what do you mean by "playing DVDs is illegal over there"? I think you might have forget a word or so, I've never been in the US, but what would they have DVDs on the shlfs for if they couldn't be played back.

I don't really get the discussion about mp3. Ok, its a proprietary format. I don't think that means that it is illegal to use it. At the most it would be ilegal to use it as part of a comercial product without paying a fee. But, illegal to use... i don't think that would even be in countries with a truly democratic constitution ( not one that only claims to be )

The whole patent thing it's a concept that will have to be drooped. Those who don't like it will have to deal with it, or otherwise go down to the river and talk to the fish or so.
It's just ridiculous. If i decide to patent an format that looks like mp3 but it adds an extra byte in the end of each file and call it mp30, can I patent it or make it public domain? If not, where should we draw the line where a patent is really broken?
What about the ASCII code? is it patented? if not, maybe i should patent it and get royalties for each key you type. Once again, ridiculous.

Those who all their lives were used to get money by doing nothing just because that was possible will have to start producing/working like everybody else. With the technology development it's becoming impossible to make a concept public and still getting money forever because of it. That's past.

[Steveway]

It's just ridiculous. If i decide to patent an format that looks like mp3 but it adds an extra byte in the end of each file and call it mp30, can I patent it or make it public domain? If not, where should we draw the line where a patent is really broken?

No you can't because you would use patented technologies.

[ssam]

you can leagally use the fluendo mp3 codec in the US https://shop.fluendo.com/ it is in the repos as gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3