Post #25 Music Piracy

I checked out the RIAA website (Recording Industry Association of America) and looked at the legal music sites. There were about 60 websites that offer music that is legal to download. Next I clicked on the list of rules to follow and what the law says. This website was helpful, www.campusdownloading.com (faq). It was helpful in figuring out what's legal and what isn't. Here is what is said about peer-to-peer (p2p) downloading: "We are not against P2P services. We are against people who steal and illegally distribute copyrighted music that doesn’t belong to them. The music industry has been a major beneficiary of new technology (from wax cylinders to vinyl to LPs to CDs), and the current technological developments are no exception. But let's face it, even great technology can be abused. And that's what the industry is confronting right now. We have to figure out how to take advantage of the great new delivery systems that the Internet offers, without being seriously damaged by uncontrolled piracy. P2P in particular can really be a fabulous technology - but right now it's doing far more harm than good. (So surveys show.)"

I looked at RIAA- Piracy Online and on the Street.
Represents the recod industry and not everyone agrees with the RIAA
www.Boycott-riaa.com opposed the RIAA
www.eff.org (Electronic Frontier Foundation) tells you "how-not-to-get-sued-for-file-sharing."
Enforcement: The Wikipedia article on this topic has a disclaimer that the site's "neutrality is disputed."

DRM - digital rights management - also a Wikipedia entry
Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices.
EFF disagrees with the use of DRM.

Copyright and Libraries: General Rules
Music - Follow the RIAA interpretation
Movies: Follow the guidelines of the library's public performance license.
Copyrighted printed works can not be reproduced in their entirety
Have permission to use artwork for posters, handouts, and bookmarks.
When creating online content make sure to have persmission to use other peoples work and to give credit. Follow the Creative Commons guidelines.

More on burning a song to CD later.

Sound #24 The Sound of Music

I went to these websites and looked around at the choices they offered: Napster, iTunes, Yahoo!, and Rhapsody, as well as Amazon.com. These are all pay sites that offer a great variety of music for a price.

I have already downloaded books to my MP3 player using the Overdrive Console from the HCPL digital books site. Today I downloaded a song from music.download.com. The song is an easy listening song titled "Quiet Path" by Ben Travis. I had to look at several songs before I found one that had a "free download" notice on it. I thought I was doing something wrong because I couldn't find a place on the page to download a song. It turns out that all of the songs I clicked on were not free. The "download to MP3" only shows up on the free songs.

While I was looking around on Music.downloads.com, I was surprised by the number of music categories that were listed. I finally found free downloads in the Easy Listening genre. I also found that there are new movie pictures on this site. I looked at the new "Mummy III" movie and was disappointed that Rachel Weis will not be in the movie. I hope they didn't kill her off.

I liked the Pandora site. It is radio online only. I created "Joe Walsh" radio. I also went to KUHF and KILT online.

I thought downloading the music from the website was much easier than doing it in Overdrive. It took all of 5 minutes. When I first started using Overdrive it took me over 90 minutes to figure out how to download a book, and that was after training at Central. A patron told me it was easier now, so I'll have to try it again. I've had Jim doing it for me. He uses his MP3 all the time, much more than I use mine.