Legalities of a Company Sponsored MP3 Repository?

An anonymous reader asks: "At our company numerous people store MP3s on their local hard drives. Because we don't allow MP3's through email, and peer-to-peer file sharing programs, practically all of the MP3s are ripped from CD in the office. What is the liability for the company if it were to allow employees to place all ripped MP3s in a central location, that any employee could access? There would be practically no way to distribute the MP3s outside of the company, and it seems that this would be a legitimate practice that shouldn't open the company to liability (equivalent to providing the CD to a coworker). I'm wondering because I'd like to use this as a morale-booster at our company. I'm worried about the company being liable in some way as it would be company-supported. Does anyone have any feedback or experience with this?"

Comments

After extensive research...

[GeorgeH]

I think that this article answers your question pretty well. $1 million is a pretty hefty fee just to centralize your mp3s. See also this and this. Also, I understand that there may or may be things on the Internet outside the domain ".slashdot.org" but I have yet to verify these claims.

(note: you can find all these articles by typing "RIAA" into the search box at the bottom of this page)

The company is liable

[rw2]

The question is whether there is a law being broken, not whether the company is liable. If the company provides this as a service and a law is being broken, it is liable.

Re:The company is liable

[digerata]

And in other news... 1 + 1 = 2.

Sheesh, the lack of common sense this in this question is startling.

Everything will be dreamy....

[heldlikesound]

until somebody gets pissed after they get laid off or fired and proceed to report you to whatever that Corporate Crime hotline is. Sounds dumb, but I'm sure it could happen. By the way, it's a great idea.

Sorry

[Ender Ryan]

A year or two ago a company got seriously slapped around for doing exactly this. I don't remember the details, but the company was severely damaged because of it.

Kinda ridiculous, no?

Re:Sorry

[hawkbug]

I still have a problem with this theory - you're equating software with music. It *is* possible for more than one person to listen to a CD at a time. For example, I could sit in one cube and play a CD at loud enough volume for the person in the next cube to hear the music as well. Am I violating copy rights in this case? Certainly not. So even if 2 people were listening to the same mp3 at the same time, I don't see how that's different.

Re:Sorry

[Copperhead]

Actually, you may still get the RIAA slapping you for playing your music for more than one person. They could expect you to pay fees as it is a "performance of copyrighted works.

Here is the testimony of the head of the National Restaurant Association before the House Judiciary Committee complaining about the practice.

Re:Sorry

[dh003i]

Then why don't they do that?

Because in the modern era, we have technology that can allow customization. Not everyone likes the same music. If the purpose is to increase moral, you're not going to do that by playing classical music over the PA when many in the company hate classical (unwashed swinely masses).

As I understand this scheme, it would not allow for the distribution of copyrighted music. It is completely internalized within the company. Furthermore, I believe this guy is thinking of setting up a streaming system, which is not distributing copyrighted music. it's really little different than the company making an internal set of radio stations, except the employees can choose exactly what's playing on their station.

Btw, if one individual in the corporation does manage to distribute that music (despite the fact that it's streaming, which means the only way to do this would be to record direct-sound-output), then that person, not the corporation, would be liable. If I write a virus on a corporate computer and put it on the net from a corporate computer, the corporation isn't liable -- I am.

The corporation could remove all liability in these matters by having people sign a contract saying they won't do such before using the service, or, alternatively, by removing direct-sound-output recording programs and capabilities from their computers.

Re:Sorry

[Twirlip of the Mists]

OK, well how about streaming from a music repository???

As far as I know, streaming would be fine. I can't think of any legal problems that would arise from streaming, as long as great care is taken to make sure that the streams are not accessible from outside the company.

Re:Sorry

[ip_vjl]

I don't see how that's different.

It's not how YOU see the situation that matters. It is how the COURTS would see the situation. For that, you need to look at precedent and consult an attorney.

You: Your honor, l33tD00d_74 on slashdot said it would be ok to do it.

Judge: Oh, in that case ... case dismissed.

My thought is:

[Unknown Poltroon]

1: All cds stored on the server must be phsically surrenederd and stored at the company so that only one copy can be used at once.
2:Only one person can be playing any song file at once.
This satisfies all the fair use clauses, i believe, and you will STILL have you asses sued off.

Re:What I do

[bofkentucky]

Troll or you work in the coolest place on the planet, they let you put random hardware in your machine?

Some legal issues

[zhar]

First off, I work for a fine arts academy, where we recently converted all of the old records, tapes and cd's we had in our music library (750,000+ albums) into mp3's encoded at 320kbps. Some of the legal issues we ran into were had to do with students copying the mp3's onto their local machines, in essence making illegal duplicates. Because the library only paid for one copy, and must pay a nominal set fee for every copy they make of the music, we either had to come up with a way to keep track of how many copies were out going and bill the respective student's expense account accordingly, or make it so that we only kept one copy and all the students had to share it.

We went with the one copy system using a web interface and streaming the music because it gave us the best accountability, and we were able to keep track of all the music's statistics using a SQL database. Because our music contract states that we cannot remove the actual music from the library, we located the 2 servers underneath the circulation desk, solving that little problem. Because of our VLANing and general setup, only non-wireless trusted clients can connect. This means that the students can log in from their dorms and listen to their music, with out having to trek a 3/4 mile across campus in the snow.

Re:Some legal issues

[maxume]

No you didn't.

Assuming 30 minutes an album, which probably isn't going to be long, that's 22.5 Million minutes of music. At 320kbps, thats 19.2 Mb per minute, which is roughly 2.4 MB per minute. That's 54 Million megabytes of compessed music. Which is, depending on your math, between 52 and 54 terabytes, right?

I'll allow that you may have recently finished converting your collection, but I imagine it must have taken a while, and was not all done recently.

Solution.

[3-State Bit]

Easy.

1. You have a pile of CDs.
   
   
2. Anyone who wants to listen to CDs on work time must donate a CD to the pile.
   
   
3. The pile sits in front of a Personal Stereo Bank. This is a bank of personal CD players. It has 25 different headphone jacks each connected to one of 25 different CD drives. Basically, it's as though 25 portable CD players were glued together. (There is no cross-functionality between the 25 CD players.)
   
   
4. The Personal Stereo Bank is in your case an Ethernet Stereo Bank, which is just a fancy digital version of the Personal Stereo Bank. This version
   
   1. Allows people to listen to their CDs on Ethernet Headphones (next item),
      
   2. has only one CD player instead of 25, and digitizes CDs in advance, so that you don't actually have to put in the physical CD to play it.
      
   Note: The CD must still physically be in the stockpile in front of the Ethernet Stereo Bank, or you are stealing music you do not have a license to play. Fair Use implicitly gives you a license to play your own prepared copy of a music on any medium, as long as you own the original physical medium. It does NOT give you the right to distribute copies. Therefore, there is no distribution of copies -- there is only the stockpile of CDs, and an Ethernet Stereo Bank allowing one single person at a time to listen to a given CD. While that personal is listening to that CD (has borrowed it from the stockpile), no one else may use it.
   
   Note also: The Ethernet Stereo Bank is NOT a jukebox -- you are not using it as part of a public performance. Rather, it is a bunch of CD players all collected in a single piece of hardware. Each CD player only has one headphone jack, to which only a single person may listen at a time.
   
   
5. The Ethernet Stereo Bank doesn't just have 25 eighth-inch stereo output jacks all in a row -- rather, it has 25 Ethernet Headphone Jacks to each of which a single Ethernet Headphone may be connected at a time.
   
   
6. Each employee's computer acts as a pair of Ethernet Headphones, by connecting to an Ethernet Headphone Jack on the Ethernet Stereo Bank. Each employee may then play a single CD on her Ethernet Headphone at a time, and only when that CD is in the stockpile and available for borrowing (i.e. not being played by someone else).
   
   An employee may not play her CD loudly enough for other people to hear -- she only has the right to use the CD for private listening.
   
   
7. Each employee may have a Remote CD Changer installed on her computer, which allows her to select an available CD to listen to from the stockpile without physically having to walk over to the Ethernet Stereo Bank. It also has the advanced feature of being able to queue CDs until they are available.

Thus, we have a system whereby each employee can add a couple of CDs to a communal pile and listen to CDs from the pile one at a time. We have an electronic solution for this that saves the employee the trouble of having to get up, walk over the stockpile, take the CD back to her computer, and return it when she is done. We are breaking no law that a CD pool itself does not break.

Questions? Comments?

Hell, I'll even contract the solution for you if you want. (Code the Ethernet Stereo Bank, as well as graphical, cross-platform Ethernet Headphone and Remote CD changer client software.)

Just e-mail r v i r a g h @ y a h o o . c o m if you're interested -- but you should be able to do all of the above yourself, it's very, very simple. The trickiest part is adhering precisely to the conceptual framework outlined above, especially when it comes to the language presented in the user interfaces. Otherwise, you're legally liable.

Note: I am not a lawyer.

Boost Morale?

[craigeyb]

Boost Morale? That's laughable. Just do what every other company does: buy a longer whip!