Audacity Forum

This I'm sure has been questioned many of times, but oh well.

Is using audacity to record music from myspace, youtube, etc, legal?

<<<Is using audacity to record music from myspace, youtube, etc, legal?>>>

No, of course not. However, few people get excited about it until you start to use somebody else's music for your profit -- or in some other way go public with it. Then you might get to talk to the lawyers.

Many people have gotten in hot water by creating YouTube movie spoofs and had the bad form to use the original sound track. Naughty, naughty. In one famous (business publication) case, the corporate types had to decide whether or not to squash the poster like a fat bug, or ride it for the viral movie publicity which was substantial. They decided to ride it.

If you want to listen to the work while jogging on the beach, that's one thing, but keep it to yourself.

Koz

Each website should have it's terms and conditions readily available for users to read.

In the case of YouTube, their terms specifically grant license for viewing streaming content from their servers. They do not grant license for downloading, recording or otherwise saving the content for viewing later. However, if you save or record content for personal use only then in some countries this may be legal under laws relating to "Fair Use", but I am not a legal expert. If it is legal in your country, then it is probably still in breach of YouTube's Terms of Service:

5.1 L wrote:you agree not to access Content or any reason other than your personal, non-commercial use solely as intended through and permitted by the normal functionality of the Service, and solely for Streaming. "Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of the material by YouTube via the Internet to a user operated Internet enabled device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be downloaded (either permanently or temporarily), copied, stored, or redistributed by the user.

I doubt that it would be legal anywhere to use downloaded YouTube content for commercial use.

YouTube Terms: http://www.youtube.com/t/terms

Thank you for your replies.

And if i used audacity to record songs, etc And played it in my car, would that be wrong?

iMomentum wrote:if i used audacity to record songs...would that be wrong?

That would appear to be directly in contravention on paragraph 5.1 L of YouTube's Terms of Service (see previous post) but I don't think that you will burn in Hell because of it. I would guess that YouTube are primarily concerned with covering their own backs from prosecution. They cannot afford to be seen to be aiding and abetting copyright piracy.

If the music has been uploaded to YouTube with the consent of the copyright owner then on both legal and moral grounds I think that you should be pretty safe provided that you have recorded it for personal and not commercial use. If someone uploads their own work to YouTube then I think it's a pretty good guess that they want people to listen to it. However they will probably also want to keep their legal rights when it comes to commercial use, broadcasting and so on.

If you see "The Beatles - The Beatles (Stereo Box Set 16CD & DVD) (2009 Digital Remaster)" on YouTube, then the chances are that it has been uploaded without the consent of either the copyright or publishing rights owners and will be an illegal upload that YouTube will remove as soon as they find out. In most countries it would not be legal to download or record it because it has been published illegally.

As a side note - The UK Copyright on "Love Me Do" expires later this year.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert - these are just my personal opinions)

Agreeing with Steve here: is using Audacity to record them for playing in your car legal? Not so much. Wrong? Who's to say?

The big elephant in the room when it comes to intellectual property (as evidenced by what suits actually make it consistently to court) are - as mentioned - cases where someone tries to make money from someone else's work. But recording something from YT for playing in your car? Not so much.