What are the copyright issues with Audacity?
Audacity is released under the terms of the GPL v2 license.
See: http://audacityteam.org/about/license
and for the full terms of the license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Copyright in relation to audio that is recorded in Audacity has nothing to do with Audacity. All original work is automatically covered by Copyright law regardless of what equipment is used to record it. It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that they comply with the copyright and any other intellectual property laws that apply in their country. Users should not use Audacity for making illegal (pirate) copies.
This is Swayseeker: Thanks Steve. I compose music and convert WAV files to mp3. Can I do this and sell my mp3s (conertedto mp3 by Audacity) to people in all countries?
As it says in the first link of my previous reply:
http://audacityteam.org/about/license
License
Audacity is free software. You may use it for any personal, commercial or educational purpose, including installing it on as many different computers as you wish
This is Swayseeker: Hullo Steve. I have read it a few times and as I am in South Africa (not Canada, etc) it seems I may certainly use Audacity AND LAME. Having used them in South Africa to convert from WAV to mp3, it seems I may sell the converted mp3s anywhere4 (even having used LAME for the conversion).
You should consult your lawyer in South Africa to be sure. South Africa has a patents system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_patent_system.
Also see http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Lame_Installation#Legal_issues if you have not already seen it.
Gale