Illegal downloading

[ukulele_al]

All you hear about is people getting MP3s from file sharing sites, and I know that's illegal.

But I have a friend who rips songs from internet radio. His soundcard has software that records "What U Hear," meaning anything that comes through the sound card. It's easy to get any song that's playing.

Is this illegal? When a song appears on internet radio, does that cut it loose from its copyright and intellectual property conditions?

I wonder how many other people are doing this and do those who want to crack down on "internet piracy" know about it.

[GaryG]

I'm sure it's illegal, just like taping traditional radio broadcasts is. Copyright infringment etc.

The powers-that-be probably see it as a balance thing; yes, some people nick tunes by recording them like this (not as simple as p2ping) but then again it's all publicity for their artists so...

I'm more 'troubled' by how easy it is to leech stuff from some of the download stores. Someone recently showed me how to get full tunes from a store (only 64kbps but ok for casual listening) using easily available software (no, I'm not going to share the info so don't ask...) Glaring security holes don't exactly encourage responsible downloading habits.

.g

[deastman]

I believe that recording an internet radio broadcast is legal. At least in the USA, that should fall under the "timeshifting" allowance originally intended for recording TV shows and watching them later. I think the main distinction between mp3 file sharing and recording a broadcast is that with a radio broadcast, you cannot seek out and download a specific song, and the station's playlist is not made public. On the other hand, recording an internet radio broadcast and then sharing it with a few million of your closest friends on Morpheus is not such a good idea...