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What is Proof of Music Ownership?
scottsk asks: "What is proof of music ownership? I can't find a good answer anywhere. Let's assume some random person is hauled into court allegedly for having music that he has not legitimately bought. What must that person produce to prove the music was purchased legitimately? Is producing an original commercially sold CD with the music acceptable, or is some further proof of purchase needed (cash register receipt, cancelled check, etc.)? What if a person has digitized a commercial cassette, like digitizing a photo? Must the person carry the cassette around forever, or is just the cassette insert sufficient? (What about an LP record that has been digitized?)" Now, what happens if you've lost all of your property in a fire, but still had an off-site digital backup of your legally purchased music somewhere? Does the loss of the original property invalidate the legality of the backups?
...is that we really don't own anything.
This is not the greatest
IANAL (but cpt kangarooski is), but it would seem to me that once you purchase a work it is yours. You have made backups for just the reason that happened ... the originals were lost.
If you're talking about the RIAA busting down your door and asking you to prove that you have a legally purchased copy of any of those CD-Rs with "their IP" on them, then I think you can be safe knowing they have to prove that it is more likely than not that those are the result of infringement.
> What is proof of music ownership?
Copyright registration in your name.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Honestly, I think that the RIAA would try to put a some spin on it (like that you're not allowed to use backups from another person's license or some shit). I don't think this would stop them.
Anyways, to answer the rest of your question: I'd guess you'd need the reciept; how else are they to know that you're the one who bought the cassette or that you didn't buy it after you were charged?
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This is why the RIAA isn't invading people's homes and going through their CDs and hard drives. Yet. They'd *like* to say that you are only entitled to one copy of each work you purchase, and if it's destroyed you'd need to buy another copy. But they're already raising tons of consumer discontent and if they push it much farther they risk a huge backlash.
The question is flawed. The music companies aren't suing anyone for possession. They are suing them for providing copies to others.
It's legal in the US to record music from the radio, to rip it from your CDs, to record it on a cassette tape from another cassette tape or CD or LP, to download it from the Internet (but not to upload it, and of course P2P filesharing technology makes everyone a redistributor), to stick a microphone out your window and record it from your neighbours stereo...
So, given that, the burden of proof is on the RIAA. And they know it, why do you think they go to such efforts to catch people actually using P2P software to get their music fix?
First Response:
Criminal court? He doesn't have to prove shit, innocent until proven guilty, right?
Civil court? The accuser still needs a preponderance of evidence. Just about anything from physical media, to a receipt, to testimony by a friend that he saw the guy make the purchase ought to be enough reduce the accuser to less than a preponderance.
Second Response:
If this is about one of the MAFIAA's "sue 'em all and let God sort it out" lawsuits then chances are it doesn't matter if he has legal ownership or not. Those suits are about distribution and not simply possesion of a copy.
No way I'm going to double-check and go dig through USC Title 17 on a Friday night while under the influence of tequila, but I don't think it's illegal to receive an unauthorized copy, just to make the copy or to distribute the copy. Feel free to dig through the spaghetti code on the other end of that link to find something that says otherwise.
PS, all typos and poor logic are the sole property of Padron's Resposada.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
(I am not a lawyer, etc.) There's no express right to make a backup of an audio recording, but leaving that aside, what's the point of a backup except to prolong access to the recording beyond the life of the original media? From the legal perspective, it's silly to even make a backup if one loses the right to use it in the event the original media is destroyed.
Now, the question of theft of the original media is slightly more interesting. A thief obtains no legal title to stolen goods, so if ones original media were stolen, one might retain constructive possession of the originals. That constructive possession would, if we assume the backups were themselves legal, permit the continued use of the backup media.
I wonder whether there's any precedent as to what would happen if the originals were later destroyed by the thief - would the use right terminate? If we assume that destruction of the originals in a house fire would terminate the right to use the backups, then I imagine no use right would be retained if the would-be thief hadn't stolen them but destroyed them and left the pieces in the possession of the owner. Wacky.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
John Fogarty, who was sued by Saul Zaentz for allegedly plagiarizing himself , might be an even better example.
What happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"?
Why do -I- have to prove the mp3 in my mp3 player is legal? Why can't my word suffice? Shouldn't RIAA have to prove I obtained it illegally?
They say I got it from p2p. I say I ripped it off a legal CD I misplaced later. Until they -prove- I actually downloaded it from p2p I should be innocent, shouldn't I?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
You own the music like you own a book. It's only since companies like Microsoft have started asserting that you paid $XXX for nothing other than the right to click on a 'Yeah, I sell you my soul' button and it's only the clicking of the button (and subsequent agreement) that gives you any right to the software on the CD that you ostensibly paid for ... (god what a run-on sentence) that people have been able to swallow the idea that they don't really own the music that they 'buy' at the store.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
You'd never be brought to court for illegally possessing music, you'd be brought to court for illegally distributing music. And it's quite easy for them to show that you don't have a copyright, as typically only a limited number of these exist for any given song.
When jackbooted thugs start yanking the iPods of folks walking down the street and demanding to know where the listener obtained the song, then we'll have this problem. Until then, you're only sued for unlawful distribution.
A&M Records v. Napster, 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir. 2001).
CoStar Group v. LoopNet, 373 F.3d 544, 551 (4th Cir. 2004).
BMG Music v. Gonzalez, 430 F.3d 888, 889 (7th Cir. 2005)
I guess it depends on how you define `seriously', because I see people arguing otherwise all the time.
Actually, I think it depends on how I define 'people,' because I have yet to see anyone who knows anything about US copyright law argue otherwise. Plenty of knowledgable people, including myself, will argue that it shouldn't be illegal, but everyone will accept that it is at least prima facie illegal.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.