Bringing Yourself Up to Speed with AAC, MP3, and Digital Audio - When You Can Copy Copyrighted Material Legally, and Why

(Page 11 of 16 )

Copyright law is sweeping. Basically, it says you need permission from the copyright holder to copy any copyrighted work. But there are various specific exceptions and some gray areas, some of which directly affect copying audio CDs and creating AAC files or MP3 files from them. The following sections run through the key elements in the puzzle.

Time-Shifting and Place-Shifting

The Betamax Decision of 1984, sometimes also called the “Sony Decision” because Sony created the Betamax video form, allows you to time-shift or place-shift a copyrighted work. This decision, handed down by the Supreme Court, established that home taping of broadcasts doesn’t infringe copyright.

You’re allowed to copy a copyrighted broadcast work to time-shift it for personal use so you can experience it later. For example, you may record a radio show so you can listen to it the next day. Similarly, you may place-shift a copyrighted work for personal use so you can listen to it somewhere else on different equipment. For example, you may create MP3 files from a copyrighted CD so you can listen to them on your iPod while skiing.

What Personal Use Allows You to Do

The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) of 1992 includes a provision called personal use that allows you to use what the AHRA terms a “digital audio recording device” to copy a copyrighted work onto a different medium so you can listen to it. For example, you can transfer a CD to a MiniDisc so you can listen to it on your MiniDisc player.

Personal use seems to cover ripping and extracting CDs perfectly—except that the AHRA considers computers “multipurpose devices” rather than “digital audio recording devices.” The digital audio recording devices the AHRA covers were digital tapes, such as DAT, and Digital Compact Cassettes (DCCs, a short-lived competitor to DAT).

This is chapter three of How to Do Everything with Your iPod & iPod Mini, by Guy Hart-Davis (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, ISBN 0072254521, 2004). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.

Next: Fair Use and Why It Doesn’t Apply to MP3 >>
 

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