iPod free music - am I deluded?

[trinni]

Help! My son has an iPod nano and I'm a bit clueless about getting music onto it for him.

We do use i tunes and a friend puts bits and pieces on a memory stick for us but...is there any free music to be had?

I used to use lime wire but alas, no more.

"is there any free music to be had?"

The reason why Limewire was full of "free" music was because most of it was stolen.

There are a lot of us who help out on this technical forum with our time and advice and the chances are good that a lot of them, like me, depend on selling what we make to earn our living. So how do you think we feel when people so openly discuss stealing what we do?

There are plenty of places to download music, games or software from but if it's something that you'd usually have to buy in a shop then the chances are very high that it's illegal and is hurting the people who worked very hard to make it.

I'm sure that you wouldn't set the example to your son that it's OK to steal from shops or other businesses so please don't set him the example that it's OK to steal from people like me.

If you've got questions about how your iPod works or what you can put on it then please ask away and you'll get loads of help.

A technophobe I might be - a thief I am not, nor do I wish to teach my son that stealing is acceptable.

I was introduced to limewire as a sharing/community but actually have not used it for several years - I did not reallise it was illegal. Why was it so easily accessible to so many if that was the case?

In the same way that many book downloads are free (i don't understand why that is either) I wondered whether the same might be for music?

I'm sorry I asked and your response BP could have been a little less accusatory.

I use Amazon. It's not free but it's cheap. Also Tesco downloads.

Itunes has free podcasts but not free music.

File sharing is not illegal. It is legal to use it to share homemade videos, music and games. It becomes illegal when you use it to download things which would otherwise have to be paid for or for TV show which would otherwise not be available as yet in the uk and is paid for via advertising.

You can use itunes to rip music from CDs you already own and load onto your ipod.

You can get free music to listen to via the PC on sites like Spotify and of course YouTube, but you cannot legally download free music from signed artists.

Thank you DooinMeCleanin for a much more informative reply.

I have realised what I can do - rather than what I cannnot

"In the same way that many book downloads are free (i don't understand why that is either) I wondered whether the same might be for music"

All sorts of things, such as books, are available through file sharing sites but that doesn't make them legal or right.

However once things reach a certain age, so old books and old music, they can be freely distributed and shared. Books are far more common to be of that age, and also more common to still be of interest, so "classic" books can be downloaded from many places for free.

"I'm sorry I asked and your response BP could have been a little less accusatory."

Sorry but this is a real issue for me, imagine how you would feel coming across people discussing totally casually how to steal from you or how to dodge out of paying you for something. How would you react to an online discussion between some people planning to break into your house or ruin you business? It's really not a nice feeling.

BP please! I didn't casually discuss how to steal - I naively asked the question; do you think I'm insane?

DooinMeCleanin has explained perfectly adequately the position re; free music downloads, without making me feel like a criminal thank you.

Blimey this has got a bit out of hand.

I used to tape the top 40 when I was younger, never even crossed my mind it was stealing.

If a concert was on the tv is it illegal to record it?

As sometimes the dvd is for sale as well.

'Why was it so easily accessible to so many if that was the case?

In the same way that many book downloads are free (i don't understand why that is either) I wondered whether the same might be for music?'

Unless these free downloads are on a reputable site, such as Amazon, which does do some free downloads (some limited period author promotions, some out of copyright books) there's a chance that they are also pirate copies.

If you illegally download one of my books it means I lose the royalty. It also means I might not earn out my advance, which means a publisher mightn't buy my next book. UK authors earn, on average, £8,000 a year from fiction. I earn a little bit more than that but would generally earn more cleaning than I do from writing.

'If a concert was on the tv is it illegal to record it?

As sometimes the dvd is for sale as well.'

Yes, and if you buy the official DVD the artist will get a royalty. If you illegally download, they don't.

So you are depriving them of earnings. Perhaps you think they're all rich. That may be true. But once the precedent is set it's very hard for less-well-off creatives to explain to people why illegally downloading their work means that they lose money.

So is recording something off the tv..........illegally downloading.?

It's not illegal to record things shown on TV, obviously, there are DVD recorders and Sky + etc. All perfectly legal. It would be illegal to loan, copy or distribute what you have recorded from TV. I think most people would overlook you lending your sister a copy of last nights Eastenders, though

Things like that are generally paid for by advertising (which would be recorded along with the show anyway) or are things which have already been released onto DVD many months ago if not longer and have slipped out of the charts.

It is also legal to make copies of CDs and DVDs you own for your own personal use. I do this with the dc's DVDs, they get the copy I keep the original to prevent it getting damaged or lost. It would be illegal if I copied the discs for others who would have otherwise had to buy it.

Copyright theft is major issue for new recording artists, game developers etc and for the general public as they make up for their losses by raising the prices for the rest of us.

I believe it was until very recently illegal in this country to record things off the telly or rip a CD to your computer/ipod. Few of us would regard that as theft, but the law is an ass. I'm not even sure the law has changed, such things may still be illegal.

Goodness me, I have opened up a can of worms!

This is the bit I find hard to digest:
"It is also legal to make copies of CDs and DVDs you own for your own personal use. I do this with the dc's DVDs, they get the copy I keep the original to prevent it getting damaged or lost. It would be illegal if I copied the discs for others who would have otherwise had to buy it."

How about, for example, my sister were to travel in my car and listen to a cd I had copied? Is this ilegal; should I insist she wear ear plugs?

It's just too open to abuse and the law as it stands, needs to be much more clearly defined, if idiots like me are to understand the finer points!

It's quite simlpe if you look at it this way: Is this something I would normally have to pay for either by cash or by viewing adverts? If the answer is yes, then chances are it's copyright theft.

Copying CD's/DVDs is trickier, but most companies now allow you to make copies for personal use or transferring to your own PC or ipod. Just don't sell them on or loan them out. Even loaning original copies is illegal, unless you are a company liscenced to do so.

It is very complicated but mainly you'll only be charged for downloading content from file sharing sites or making copies of things to pass onto third parties.

...and then there's the music library. Do they seriously believe that people hire cd's, take them home, listen nicely and return them?

Of course not - people record them don't they? Again, this is something I would never considered to be illegal. Why have music libraries, isn't it just asking for trouble?

It's just all far too ambiguous for me.

I think we all know what really happens and unless you are making a multi million pound business out of it I do not think anyone is really interested.

I feel if it is really a great problem someone would of invented a ''thing'' that could be added to cd's and dvd's so it would block them from being copied.

trinni.......i hope you found what you were looking for

And as for books I lend my friends books all the time and they me.

We buy one book and share it between 6 or 7 of us. Is that illegal?

No, you bought your book legally and that is fine and the author will have earned a royalty. Just don't buy them off bloody Amazon marketplace, as authors get no royalties. Normal Amazon is fine, though, and so is the library. We get a small royalty for each loan, a couple of pennies, but it all helps.

But obviously the more times new books are bought the better. :)

I buy all my books of Amazon marketplace.............why would'nt I when I buy them for a penny and pay a couple pound postage.

Or go to waterstones and pay £7.99 for the same book.

"Goodness me, I have opened up a can of worms!"

This is good, most people really aren't aware that things like getting "free" music, games or books is actually a bad thing to be doing that causes a lot of genuine hurt and distress to the creators.

Silly adverts on DVDs or in the cinema isn't going to stop this, talking about it will and everybody wins.

"Why have music libraries, isn't it just asking for trouble?"

Just because something can be used for illegal activities doesn't mean that the thing itself should be banned.

"unless you are making a multi million pound business out of it I do not think anyone is really interested."

It's not people making money that are the problem, it's just people doing it.

These days one person can buy a CD, copy it and pop it up on a file sharing site. A dozen people download an absolutely perfect copy of that file to their machines and then share it themselves to another dozen people, who again get a 100% perfect copy and then share it again. All that from one CD and non ones making any money from it, least of all the people who worked hard to make it. The "reach" of copies that start from a single source is potentially unlimited.

That ability to spread perfect copies exponentially on from one single source is why all of this is such a great problem. Back in the days of passing tapes around in school that just couldn't happen. Each copy of a tape got progressively poorer in quality, you could only physically pass it on to a few people and people had limited pocket money with which to buy tapes. The "reach" of copies that started from a single source was very limited.

"We buy one book and share it between 6 or 7 of us. Is that illegal?"

I believe so...

There's certainly still only one copy of that book that one person has at a time. Compare that again to electronic copies where many people can simultaneously "own" the thing and each of them in turn can pass it on to many other people.

nikon1968 "We buy one book and share it between 6 or 7 of us. Is that illegal?"

badgerspaws "I believe so..."

I believe badgerspaws misread that. I would be surprised if anyone believes it is illegal to lend a paper book that you have bought to your friends, any more than it is illegal for libraries to lend them out. The key is in the word copyright. It is the act of copying that is controlled by law.

"I believe badgerspaws misread that."

Well spotted and my apologies for the mistake, I did misread that as asking "is that legal?".

'I buy all my books of Amazon marketplace.............why would'nt I when I buy them for a penny and pay a couple pound postage.'

That's fine. But just bear in mind that if everyone bought from Amazon Marketplace, even more authors would simply give up writing. Or that their publishers would drop them because they weren't earning enough. Sure, the established best-sellers can survive, but those of us in the mid-lists, or those who write more quirky or more literary books. can't survive not earning royalties. Already the fiction lists of many publishers have contracted.

Some authors will move to e-format only, and you will only be able to read their future books if you have a Kindle or iPad. Some will simply give up. It becomes unaffordable to write, even if, as I do, you do other work to supplement your earnings.

Or at least borrow the books for free from the library and let us earn 6p a loan, rather than nothing.

I'm going to say that again: if you buy an author's book from Amazon Marketplace, even if it is advertised as new, that author will earn ZERO pence. If it's advertised as new, it was probably a review copy, which the publisher's marketing department sent to a reviewer who didn't want to review it.