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Home Page : Infocenter : Are MP3s legal? Are MP3s legal? 
MPEG-1 Layer 3 is an open standard that defines the layout of a MP3 compressed file. This standard was invented and patented by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft fuer integrierte Schaltungen from Erlangen, Germany.
As long as the use of the format is non commercial - it is free of charge.
» Private use / Giving MP3s away At least in Germany the law is this: As long as you copy CDs and MP3s for friends and for private purpose you are completely legal and safe. Trading of music with copyrights or giving them away to strangers on the other hand is illegal. A part of which is giving the public access to copyright protected music (e.g. via WWW or FTP) or exchange music via exchange programs (e.g.former Napster, Audiogalaxy, Imesh etc) What comes into the discussion now is: Who commits the crime - the one downloading an already copied and compressed track - or the one who copied and offered it? An unsolved question of national law...but somebody will be held responsible here. » Who has an eye on music offered through the Internet? In Germany it is the "GEMA" that charges fees for songs played in public (e.g on the radio, at public parties etc.) and divides the money among artists. GEMA will certainly jump at anyone who offers copyright protected music openly on the WWW or via FTP and does it on german servers. Such cases have occurred and the GEMA lawyer's first letter came with bills up to EUR 250. As european and world law is getting more and more alike, it is likely you have an agency like GEMA in your country - so learn more about it and watch out. » Aren't there promotional tracks free of charge? Yes there are ! Many newcomers and upcoming bands use the Internet as their medium to get more publicity and promotion. But even megastars do this once in a while. There are a lot of websites specialized in featuring those free tracks. Here at MPeX.net we bringing to you a fine variety of promos in the Music download section. |
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