Is downloading copyrighted music for private use legal in Canada? In 2003, the Copyright Board of Canada released this opinion. They held that downloading a music file for private use was okay, no matter the source: There is no requirement in Part VIII that the source copy be a non-infringing copy. Hence, it is not relevant whether the source of the track is a pre-owned recording, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet. However, they didn't really answer the question about whether the destination medium mattered: It is, however, for the courts of civil jurisdiction to ultimately determine whether or not there is an infringement of copyright for private copies made onto a specific medium, Is this still controlling? Was it affected by the Copyright Modernization Act? Has any court clarified whether certain destination media are outside of the private copying exception?
I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer. I would interpret the Copyright Board's interpretation in relation to tariffs when musical works copied for private use only, as the document's scope does not appear to extend beyond that. However, in BMG Canada Inc. v. John Doe, [2004] 3 FCR 241, a consortium of record industry corporations attempted to request confidential ISP account holder information. Essentially, the plaintiffs failed to bring adequate evidence to prove the magnitude of copyright infringement; additionally, it is specifically stated at [24-5] that: Subsection 80(1) [as am. by S.C. 1997, c. 24, s.50] of the Copyright Act provides as follows: 80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of (a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording, ... onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer's performance, or the sound recording. Although the Copyright Modernization Act, did, in fact, introduce a number of amendments, Subsection 80 still reads as it does when the BMG case was decided. Since this case, I can find no court that has found this ruling to be invalid, and no cases which have considered and not applied this subsection. There is also Subsection 29.22 (1) (which applies to all works): 29.22 (1) It is not an infringement of copyright for an individual to reproduce a work or other subject-matter or any substantial part of a work or other subject-matter if (a) the copy of the work or other subject-matter from which the reproduction is made is not an infringing copy; (b) the individual legally obtained the copy of the work or other subject-matter from which the reproduction is made, other than by borrowing it or renting it, and owns or is authorized to use the medium or device on which it is reproduced; (c) the individual, in order to make the reproduction, did not circumvent, as defined in section 41, a technological protection measure, as defined in that section, or cause one to be circumvented; (d) the individual does not give the reproduction away; and (e) the reproduction is used only for the individual’s private purposes. Subsection 80(1) creates a special exemption purely for musical works, and so the less restrictive conditions there should be found to apply to them instead. On the basis of the case above, and my consideration of the Copyright Act, I would find that reproduction of a musical work does not constitute copyright infringement, pursuant and subject to s 80(1) of the Act.
Copyright requires originality Your infinity hard drive appears to be a machine designed to violate copyright by immediately copying anything presented to it. Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin were creating original melodies. These do not have copyright until they are fixed in a tangible medium. That's what the hard drive is for. This is insurance against them being sued if they release a song and someone claims it violates that person's copyright - they can produce in court the melody with a date stamp of 2015 (or whatever). GitHub or similar would be even better evidence. In this context there is a specific allegation that melody X infringes copyright. Riehl &amp; Rubin can then go to their records (including metadata) and say no, here is melody X version 1 through n and they all predate your release so we didn’t violate your copyright.
You can't own a database; you might, however, own (have) the copyright to a database if you created it or the creator transferred that right to you. You can also possess a copy of a database: the question is whether it is legal. "Leaked" implies that it is taken without permission, so you might be in violation of copyright law by possessing a copy. The only databases that would escape copyright protection would be those US government works, things put in the public domain, and things publically licensed to allow copying. Plus, any database whose content fails to exhibit a modicum of creativity (Feist). A database might be inherently illegal (at least in your hands), so it would depend on what the content is. The first thing that comes to mind is a database from a child-porn website, which contains numerous illegal images: see section 110 of Title 18. "Leaked" information might involve violation of 18 USC 1030 (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), which prohibits unauthorized hacking. It does not directly prohibit being in possession of a hacked database: but you might still be prosecuted as an accessory after the fact. (That is one of those ad libitum areas of the law where there's no way to know for sure what is and is not "okay"). If they do prosecute you, you might rely on Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, where because it was a matter of "public interest", propagation of illegally obtained material was held to be protected by the First Amendment. Also there is the case of the Pentagon Papers. At the federal level, there are no controls over storing credit card information so if you get a copy of the Target or Home Depot hacked database, there's no federal law against that (if we discount "accessory after the fact"), but there are circumstances in Minnesota where retaining such information could be illegal.
&quot;Personal use only&quot; does not excuse copyright infringement under US law. The uploader does not hold copyright, and neither gives nor denies permission to copy his creation. The law does not require a copyright holder to deny permission, it requires the user to actually obtain permission. So no matter how you slice it (even as fair use) it is infringement for you to copy that video.
The comment is incorrect; creating a derivative work without permission is still disallowed, even for private use. In US copyright law 17USC 106 defines the exclusive rights that the copyright holder has, the right &quot;to do and to authorize&quot;. The second of these is: (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; Note that the right is the right to &quot;prepare&quot; a derivative work, not the right to &quot;distribute&quot; or &quot;sell&quot; the work. US copyright law defines a derivative work in 17 USC 101 which reads: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. The laws of other countries are similar to US law on this point. Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Berne Copyright Convention provides that: (3) Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work. However, it should be noted that if a person creates a derivative work in private, and never shows it to anyone else, the copyright owner would never learn of it, and so could never sue for infringement. But if it were shown or described to anyone, and the owner did learn, then he owner could in theory sue. Whether the owner would choose to sue over a derivative work never circulated is a different matter. The real effect of this law is that when an infringing derivative work is distributed and the owner wants to sue, the owner need not prove distribution. Proving creation of the derivative work is enough. The quoted comment asks about whether such a rule is &quot;unconstitutional or something&quot; and says that &quot;You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own stuff in your own home.&quot; The US constitution does not grant any such broad right. There are lots of things one might do in own's own home that are illegal: building a bomb for example. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, sometimes called the Copyright Clause or the IP clause, grants Congress the power: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. See the LII page &quot;Intellectual Property Clause&quot; and the page Nature and Scope of the Right Secured for Copyright where it is written that: Congress was within its powers in giving to authors the exclusive right to dramatize any of their works. Even as applied to pantomime dramatization by means of silent motion pictures, the act was sustained against the objection that it extended the copyright to ideas rather than to the words in which they were clothed. {Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55 (1911). For other problems arising because of technological and electronic advancement, see, e.g., Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., 392 U.S. 390 (1968); Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984).} See also the Wikipedia article &quot;Copyright Clause&quot;.
I know that classical music is public domain, so no-one can claim that they own classical music. That's not quite right, at least not under US law. First off, "classical music" is a style, and music in that style is not automatically in the public domain. The rule for if music is in the public domain depends on when it was written, not what style it's in. For instance, music written in the US after 1926 is likely to still be copyrighted. Second, that's about copyright in the composition. A recorded performance has its own copyright, separate from the copyright the composer has in the composition. Even if Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is public domain, a performance of it by the New York Philharmonic involves creative interpretation and belongs to the orchestra (assuming it was recorded). So unless the recording you used was public domain, it still is subject to copyright. In the US, copyright for recordings after 1972 mirrors normal copyright law; copyright for recordings before 1972 is complicated. Third, Youtube's system involves some amount of automation. It is possible that the Content ID claim involves an automated system incorrectly thinking your recording was a copyrighted one. That's why you can dispute a Content ID flag and ask the copyright holder to review it manually.
Hypothetically speaking, if a program doesn't come with a EULA, does that mean someone in possession of it (who isn't the owner) would be breaking the law if they used it? If the copy on the stick was lawfully made with permission of the copyright holder, then you can lawfully use the software. Someone who lawfully comes into possession of a lawfully made copy of the software (that was not a backup) has the right to use that software in the ordinary way. For example if someone found a USB stick lying on the ground and it had software on it but no EULA, could they use the software? Maybe, but it would be hard for them to know whether they could or not. It might be a backup. It might be an unlawful copy. There was a case where a person found a CD in the trash that was clearly an original. The package had a shrink wrap agreement, but he found the CD without the package. The court held that he had every right to use the software on the CD (since it was a lawfully-made copy and not a backup) and was not bound by the EULA (since he hadn't opened the package). But he was very fortunate in being able to demonstrate these facts.
Almost all works recorded in some fixed way that are not a couple of hundred years old or created by a government agency are protected by copyright. In the absence of an exception to the general rule, copying a work that is protected by copyright is copyright infringement, which can be a basis for the copyright owner to sue the infringer. This can also be a basis for criminal liability is certain additional elements are proved and a prosecutor proves a case of copyright infringement in a criminal case. But, there are some important exceptions to this general rule of what constitutes legally sanctionable copyright infringement. The most important exceptions to the general rule have the character of affirmative defenses. In order words, if someone sued for copyright infringement and the person sued admits that they copied the copyright protected work, they can use these exceptions to avoid having legal liability. One of the exceptions is the permission from the copyright owner to use the copyright work. This can be either in the form of affirmatively given permission to use the copyrighted work in a particular way (called an &quot;express license&quot; to use the copyrighted work), or in the form of permission to use the copyrighted work that can be inferred from context (called an &quot;implied license&quot; to use the copyrighted work). Another of the main exceptions is &quot;fair use&quot;. If the way a copy of a copyrighted work is used constitutes fair use, the person using the copyrighted work without an express or implied license to do so it not liable for copyright infringement. Of course, while you don't need more than one exception to the general rule to avoid liability for copyright infringement, you can have more than one. For example, you can use copyrighted work in a way that would constitute &quot;fair use&quot; and not give rise to liability for that reason if you were sued, even if you can't be sued anyway because you already have been given permission by the owner of the copyright to use the copyright in the way that you did. It isn't a case of a contradiction. It is a case of a general rule that has exceptions.