"(1) IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
'(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
'(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
`(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
Subsection C is what the original news article was refering to, but they completely failed to note the legal implications of B.
If your mp3 directory has more than 100 songs (figuring $10 retail for each) and you copy it, for any reason (say into RAM so it can be played, a CD for backup, new harddrive for upgrade, etc), even just once you will have broken this law in that you have reproduced, by electronic means, 1, or possibly more, copies in a 180 day time period that have a total retail value greater than $1000.
Slashdot Mirror
"(1) IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
'(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
'(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
`(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
Subsection C is what the original news article was refering to, but they completely failed to note the legal implications of B.
If your mp3 directory has more than 100 songs (figuring $10 retail for each) and you copy it, for any reason (say into RAM so it can be played, a CD for backup, new harddrive for upgrade, etc), even just once you will have broken this law in that you have reproduced, by electronic means, 1, or possibly more, copies in a 180 day time period that have a total retail value greater than $1000.
--Yopes